NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: This isn't actually my own intro, but Spizania's. While this nation is 'new' to the forae, I'm actually The C'tan, and here to provide OpFor for this thread. It'll be sort of open later, at Spizania's tolerance. Now, on with the show...]

The Grand Archon glowered at the holographic display, as though his malice could have some tangible effect on the system displayed before him. It had come their way by simple chance, but he had no intention of letting it live unmolested. With startlingly beautiful violet eyes, he stared. Twelve major inhabited worlds, with a diffuse population, apparently in a state of near blissful ignorance.

Billions of cattle waited for him.

It would require a little subterfuge and planning to harvest the place correctly. The Grand Archon however, had not come to be ruler of his vast following by being a poor planner.

Already, his ships moved towards the system. It would take months for the main fleet, the ten-mile flagship of which he sat in the depths of, to arrive, having already made a transition to the nearest system with a web-gate capable of transiting a starship, two parsecs away.

The fleet towed a sizeable one with them, linked by a short tunnel to the kabal’s city of Makharan, which, along with smaller ones aboard the ships themselves had made the decades long journey between stars tolerable.

Kasraedan Mors, Grand Archon of the Flayed Skull Kabal, finally glanced down from the display toward the vassal kowtowing his way across the black metal mesh that made up the floor. He had paid no heed until now, because his security, a personal guard of Incubi ‘Immortals’ ten thousand strong, had allowed this messenger into his presence.

“Speak” Kasraedan commanded.

“Dread Lord,” the vassal said, carefully keeping his voice steady – Kasraedan had slain messengers in the past for stammering their reports, “our advance guard report they have gained resolution on the outer fringes of the system. They have detected a listening post in their path.”

Kasraedan considered for a moment, inhaling a heady cloud of mildly sedative drugs, looking down at the naked – all who entered his presence but his incubi were naked, so that no weapons could be concealed on or in them. Kasraedan was a suspicious being, after all, there was no lack of ambition in his race.

“This may work to our advantage. Order the advance guard to decrease speed to intercept this target in five weeks. That will give the natives time to repair the base, and reinforce it.”

“Lord… I do not understand…” the drachon risked much by speaking out, but Kasraedan was known to also kill his followers for timidity in not asking the right questions.

“I wish to draw as much as possible of the native forces into a decisive engagement as early as I can in the campaign. In order to control the planets that the advance guard will be visiting as thoroughly as possible, I wish to simultaneously engage the defending fleet with our own main force, as we begin to harvest the cities. This will create greater fear in the local population; even if we are defeated in space, it will seem to the local inhabitants that their battle was completely useless. It will also confuse the defenders; they may jump to wild conclusions, inferring an ability to teleport over light minutes of distance…” Kasraedan did like to talk, especially when making himself seem clever, “and will certainly have their resources stretched, though I anticipate high casualties, which is why I am dispatching the poorer cabals in the first assault. If they succeed, very good, if they do not, it is no loss.

“Convey my will to the advance guard. Tell them I want prisoners. It has been a while since we have had a new spectacle in the arena, and that will give us a chance to see what these humans are made of.”


Five weeks later, the spike-shaped vessels of the Dark Eldar, falling through space, intercepted the listening post. They didn’t know its name or designation, and didn’t care to. To their minds, it was merely the first target.

Each of them was ‘escort class’ about the only standard designation that could be applied to the ships was their overall displacement category, for they were generally built according to ad-hoc designs, and re-built over many times to extend their operational lives, and the whims of whoever was the current owner.

They drifted, hidden behind dark fields, absorbing holographic walls that confused the exact location of the ship within them, and dampened sensor profiles. The ships also all possessed sophisticated vessel-identification emulation rigs known as ‘mimic engines’ however, these were currently idling, along with the engines, most of the weapons, and everything else on the dozen craft that could be switch off.

When they fell into range; about the same time as they were likely to be detected, they would begin to teleport onto the station. And they had something for that; each of the ships contained about twenty of what were called Mandrakes. They were a strange hybridized genetic anomaly. No one knew how they had come to be, but they were possessed of a toughened – though hardly bulletproof – skin with chameleonic properties that let it blend into its background, much more effective in darkness, of course. They were hunters, dedicated killers that cared nothing for even other eldar. To have so many at one’s command was unprecedented, and although Kasraedan had almost a thousand recruited for the campaign, they were still rare and precious. They would be released, should they survive – indeed, every casualty to the two hundred and forty mandrakes assigned to boarding the station would perhaps save thousands of people in the long run.

The Mandrakes viewed Dark Eldar as Dark Eldar viewed their ‘prey,’ they stalked the city and slew those they chose, without even the anemic pretense of civility most Dark Eldar offered one another in every day life.

Each of the mandrakes carried a barbed combat knife, and a version of the standard Dark Eldar weapon, a splinter pistol. Splinter pistols were essentially gravitic coilguns, which functioned by tearing parts of a coloured glass-like crystal away, and propelling them down the barrel at speed. When these slivers sank into the skin, they rapidly broke down into a wide variety of cruel poisons, the most common of which were designed to cause temporary blindness, loss of motor control, and excruciating pain.

Prisoners were valuable, both, as in this case, for Kasraedan’s cause, and for the slow pleasure of the Mandrakes in their lairs.


Kasraedan opened the vile tabernacle that sat in his inhalation room, in the bridge tower of the flagship, and stared from a face that was his second, at the contents.

The face was called a Vexanthrope, a psychic construct that made almost all people see it as their closest loved ones, at least at first, Kasraedan, and of course, most of his senior underlings, saw it as their own. He had activated it and bonded with it by slowly flensing his own face down to the bone, without any protection from the pain, of course, and pressing the vile thing in, letting it grow together.

He stared at the doll, an agonized looking parody of a craftworld farseer, which transferred some of the properties of such an individual to its bearer.

He inhaled a hallucinogenic mist that clung to the room he shared only with his masked guards and the prostrate, tatooed Wych Drachite who served as Kasraedan’s personal champion and favorite possession.

He could see events unfolding through his mind’s eye. Of the two hundred and forty mandrakes, a number would be harmed by the nanosecond’s passage through the warp, limbs and bodies twisted beyond recognition. They would live, the lucky ones requiring replacement limbs, the unlucky would become things of tooth and claw, merely fodder for the flesh-crafters to turn into grotesques, if they survived. He expected most of the more badly deformed to simply go to ground on the mon-keigh space station, rather than return to their kin and be used so roughly. Better to lurk, and prey on cattle, after all…

CIC of the Battlestar Valkyrie - On Patrol route, returning to Listening post S1 for resupply

"All Hands, Set Condition Throughout the ship, Jump Prep Underway" echoed throughout the corridors and compartments of the mighty missile battlestar as she prepared for the last jump in the series of fifteen she undertook to various uninhabited star systems surrounding the colonies, she had departed the fleet marshalling and fuel processing yard at Straphine's Star nearly three months ago, and now she was preparing to return to the Listening Post codenamed Sierra-1 before making the final jump back to the Scorpion Fleet Yards in the home system, where many of her crew would be disembarqueing for extended shore leave while the ship underwent a refit.

The jump was meant to be entirely routine, which was why the commander of the ship, a woman by the name of Lucy McLellan, was holding a cup of coffee and had broken protocoll by having a sandwich on the plot table, which she was munching down on to the bemused looks of the CIC crew, well it was the Captains Perogative.......

"Jump in ten seconds, nine, eight, seven" sounded throughout the PA system as the officer of the watch inserted the launch key and began the jump count, his voice sounding casual, this was a routine patrol mission after all.
"Six, Four, Three, Two, One...... Jumping"
The clock reached zero and the ship stretched in a rather odd way, suddenly it looked as if the other side of the plot table was fifteen feet away, and then the ship jumped, and the view slipped back to normal, with the jump clock flashing "0:00:00" on the DRADIS console.

"Officer of the watch, query the station for docking information, and pass my compliments to Commodore Collins" stated the Commander as she finished her sandwhich and handed the plate to an orderly who swiftly left the bridge.

"Commander, im recieving no response from the station on normal frequencies, no chatter with its CAP either", this was from the Communications Officer, a 2nd Class Petty Officer on her first tour, her hazel eyes still slightly wide with awe at the scale of the ship onwhich she was serving, and the Valkyrie was small for a "full" battlestar, only one step above the light battlestar heavy escorts.
"Very odd, scan all Colonial Military Frequency Ranges" said the ships XO, an old colonel who was a decorated vetteran of the last war with the Cylon menace, and was on his last tour before he was demobbed and could return to his family, now including grandchildren on the floating cities on his home world of Aquaria, having served in the service since he had lied about his age and joined at 17, he was regarded something of "one of the boys", one of the reasons he had never been promoted above the rank of colonel, even though his seniority and command skills should have earned him a flag rank and a battlestar all his own, at the very least.

"Only one colonial signal, it registers at 441Mhz, its pretty weak, but appears to be the automated distress signal for the Black Box Recorder, which means..."
"Which means that the station has been compromised and has taken heavy damage, which no internal biological heat sources", the XO cut her off, his eyes suddenly showing some of the fear that had nodoubt gripped him nearly fourty years ago during the Cylon War.
"Query the black box, real time audio replay mode"
"Yes ma'am" responded the communications officer, as she pressed a few keys on her control panel, a few seconds later a cackly voice came over the channel.

"Intermittent DRADIS Contacts bearing 230 Carrum 21"
"Speedy Coyote, this is Seirra-Wun-Actual, come to heading 230 Carumm 0-2-1 and proceed to investigate intermittant DRADIS contacts on that heading, range now 171 decimal 25"
"Boarding Alarm, Boarding Alarm, Sections 21-23, weapons fire reported section 19-Alpha and now 24-Charlie"
"Dispatch Security to sections 19 and 24, close all bulkheads, sound intruder alert and arm yourselves"
"Security Bulkheads ineffective, heavy gunfire reported in all sections rimwards of eighteen charlie on the main corridor"
"Enemy units have breached to fifteen charlie, securing secondary blast doors, sentry guns operational"
"Sentry guns engaged, estimated allied casualties 85%, enemy casualties estiamted to be on the order of five targets"
"Sentry guns have expended nearly half of there ammunition, twenty two targets estimated downed"
"Sentry guns have expended all ammunition, blast door weakening, we have only a few minutes left, only the gods can save us now..........."

The transmission cut off and returned to the static of background space, then the Officer of the Watch called out "Multiple Intermittent DRADIS contacts, bearing 230... Carrum 21......", he looked up from his console, shocked, his face now as white as snow.
The commanders reaction was swift, "Set Condition 1, bring us about, full sublight speed, commence jump prep....."
Within two minutes the ship had jumped back to the Colonies, to spread the news as far and as widely as it could, they left the dead of Output Sierra-1 to sleep, for now atleast, amongst the ruins of the station where they had lived.... and they had died.

Kasraedan strode through the thirty-foot high corridors of the flagship, followed by his retinue, including the slave-drachite Ilthlé. One of the things Kasraedan had done to his city upon seizing control of it, was bring the wych cults ‘into line’ which of course, meant slaughtering them initially, and carefully keeping the survivors in line in the feudalistic hierarchy he had instituted later.

There was a simple reason for the success of that initiative, he had ensured that there were enough slaves in the city that every Eldar with a grievance and a gun was satisfied. In all, there were about seven hundred million Eldar in the city. Of these, about four and a half hundred million were slaves, with about fifty million of those being wyches, personal bodyguards of the less prosperous, and the like. The rest of the non-Eldar population was largely human, of the remaining two thousand five hundred and forty million, two and a half billion were humans, most of whom had been brn into slavery in the city of the Dark Eldar. Both Eldar, humans, and other species were bred as slaves. If anything, since the rise of Kasraedan, the lot of slaves had become worse, as he had legally banned their customary ‘social mobility,’ in the name of efficiency. Now, if Eldar Slaves killed their masters, they were directly and bloodily put to death (at best), rather than allowed to roam the streets and seek a better place in society. Humans at least, while being treated much worse, had a way ‘out’ – endless slaves required endless supervision and training, and most Eldar were either too decadent to do so, or domestic servants of those who were too lazy to do so. In this manner, ‘talented’ humans could even be freed, and come to own slave-Eldar.

Such was the way of anarchies. Eventually, someone would amass the strength to impose their own decisions on the majority; and that someone was Kasraedan. And then, you had a despotism.

The humans before him appeared to be both terrified and yet much less dispirited than those who preformed the labour of the Eldar at home. Much less tame, it seemed. Glancing at one of the guards, he pointed out one of the more ‘choice’ human females shackled in the holding pen, in a grubby, tough looking flight suit. “That one. Have her dressed, perfumed, and drugged, and sent to my rooms in a cage…” he said, and took another look around, “no children?”

“No, Dread Lord.”

“Hum. Very well, pick the first ones out and send them out to the arena…”

The lucky members of the crew had died on the station itself. The rest would largely be slain humiliatingly by the wych-cults of the ship, perhaps even by Ilthlé herself, or her incubus imitating succubae-court. The unluckiest; well, the Eldar regarded torture as a spectator sport, too…


The archon’s box was high above the arena. The arena bulged out likc a blister from the hull of the ship, under a glass dome that could be partially retracted to slay those within if they would not fight. Two tiers of viewing galleries sat atop the low level of the slave’s quarters, around the sandy floor. The slaves waiting to be chewed up by the arena could see their predecessors fighting wyches, variously armed with nothing at all, or unfamiliar weapons. If wasn’t sport, by most standards, but merely slaughter. The wyches – including Ilthlé, eventually – made it their sport to slowly debilitate the captives, before letting them perish.

The designer of the ship had thought it would make the slaves destined to die more fearful to know what awaited them through glass walls.

It was, in its way, a spectacle, and every Eldar in the fleet who could slip their duties was there, crowding the seats. It would wet the appetite for glories to come when the fleet reached the main system ahead of them.


Meanwhile, it would soon be time for the vanguard to strike again. Each of the twelve vessels had, after taking the surviving slaves, and the Mandrakes who would return, back from the station, made a concerted engine-burn to change their drift to carry them deeper into the system. Each would rendevous with one of the local mon-keigh planets, passing within a hundred thousand kilometres of each and teleporting the Mandrakes down. There were over nine hundred left, leaving roughly eighty per world. The ships would teleport them, each of them with sizeable blackened twists of psycho-plastic wraithbone strapped to their backs.

Some would doubtless fail. There was a degree of randomness in teleport operations like these. The ships were aiming to deposit each mandrake in the areas of the planets in the deep watches of the night, where it was (locally) after midnight. However, even so, some were bound to appear in populated, wakeful areas, and some portion – as before – would suffer the ravages of the warp, and explode, or be twisted out of recognition, or re-emerge possessed, or any of sundry awful fates that might leave something to be investigated.

The others would do their best to disperse, using their skills to avoid detection and place their wraith-gates as advantageously as possible, preparing the way by putting the sickened wraithbone in sewers, deserted factories, basements of deserted (be it caused by normal circumstances, or by the mandrakes themselves) domestic homes, empty fuel tanks, and other quiet places they could find. They were charged by their liege with guarding these hundreds of nascent gates but the Dark Eldar weren’t known for their discipline

Even in places like Aquaria, the mandrakes would be teleported down, aimed (vaguely) at the largest cities, increasing the risk of discovery.

Of course, such teleporting would soon expose the ships, which was why they had accelerated to different speeds, in order that they could do so simultaneously. Although the vanguard ships would try to slip away, they were minimally occupied at this stage, and largely by those being punished by their cabals acting as skeleton crews. It was expected that all twelve would be rapidly destroyed.


But at the same time, the Colonials would have another problem to concern them. The fleet of the Dark Eldar numbered around a thousand ships, in all, many of them miles long. And this vast globe of craft was a mere twenty or so hours from detection. They would have a day or so to hunt the Mandrakes, and then, it would be them who were hunted.

On twelve worlds, the Colonial citizens were blissfully ignorant of the nightmare that was to come, enjoying their last night of peace.

It was a common enough sight at first glance, a man and a woman lay in bed, curled up against each other, low whispering between the two, and an occasional giggle, or soft caress. Two people very much in love, and happy, if they had been human, they might have worn rings to signify their union, all told a common theme. A closer look through would reveal strange sights, stacked carefully in the corner of the room was the Runic Armour of a Farseer, and a closer look of the woman revealed her to be Badb Trill-Gorath, although one would have to look close, for this was almost a different woman, her posture, her features, seemed different. At first an observer might think it was some sort of surgery, until a realisation hit them, she was smiling in simple joy, she moved differently.

Then in the time it would take such a hypothetical realisation to hit an observer the scene changed, Badb stood carefully detangled herself from the man and walked across the room carefully to her clothing. Her features, her expression changed, until it would be impossible to see the woman who had giggled and laughed before, the woman who had seemed so at ease with the universe. When she turned to look at the man, no hint of the love that had blazed before was on her features, she regarded him coldly, as if analysing his role in coming events. As for the man he too went through a change, as Badb changed he once more felt the piercing pain as through his heart had been ripped from his chest. His dreams once more turned to ash before his gaze, and the loss overtook him.

For a moment he thought over the past year, the all too few, and short moments when Badb was no longer the Lamenting Blade, and was the woman he had known before, those moments of sublime peace and happiness, and the price of those moments. The pain of moments such as now, and he, as he always did, accepted the price. The past few hours, where worth the weeks of pain, and then the man was gone, replaced with the thing he had become, the weapon he was.

Back on Yvresse

The first piece was in play, the game had begun, for the Kionashi three prizes lay before Iyanna in her visions, three new strands of fate could be wrestled from the river. The first was the simple act of unification, the three races of Keigh could become one; the Exodites, the Fallen and the Kionashi, the sundering of the Fall would be reversed. Oh it would not be a complete unification, others would resist, but it would start here and now, in this war to come. The second was set in motion in her message to the Roanian’s, for the merest second as Iyanna looked upon one of the potential strands of fate arising from her lie, she felt pity for the woman she would manipulate, but in the end that fate served her people, and better the Mon-Keigh suffer than Yvressians die.

The last was a strange feeling, but she welcomed it briefly, a part of her, a small part, but it was there, would rejoice at the sparing of the lesser species from the pain they where about to endure. Yet it was a small part of her, as if it where an over-riding concern she would act now, before the pieces where fully in play. She could save them completely, she could strike now, the path to her foes was already open, they brought it with them after all, yet she did nothing, she merely watched.

Port Flight Pod Squadron Ready Room, Battlestar Trident
"We will be the first wave in the wide-scale Colonial counter attack, the target picked out for the Trident battlegroup is this target, here", the Commander of Trident's Air Group used a laser pointer to point to one of the live DRADIS images patched from the Caprican Plantary Defence Force, while he did this, a box of Caprican Imperial Cigars was passed amongst the Viper and Raptor pilots in the room, each pilot and ECO removing one and stowing it in one of the pockets of there flight suits.
"The Trident will jump to this location here, relative to the target, and law supressive fire over the targets bow, unfortunately the coordinates of the target are far from certain, so we may be out by a few clicks, but still accurate enough to permit preemptive targetting for saturation fire, our firestars, Prometheus and Atlas will deploy in flanking posistions, while the Kusangi will jump in behind them and prevent them from turning to withdraw, we will then engage and destroy, good luck, skids up in fifteen minutes"

<<< Fifteen Minutes Later >>>

"Set Condition One throughout the ship, all hands prepare for a combat jump" echoed through the halls of the mighty battlestar as she prepared to jump into her first combat since she had been launched, the previous holder of the same Trident had died in orbit of a faraway star nearly forty years ago, guarding a supply convoy from a trio of basestars until support arrived, the ships crew had recieved a post-humous award for valour, and the crew of the new Trident would try there upmost to avoid dishonouring the memory of those brave men and women, even if they were to enter a fight that was just as lopsided.

Pilots ran to the launch bays and climbed into cockpits that had just been vacated by personel from the deckgang who had been preparing the ships for launch and moving them towards the launch tubes, marines checked weapons and distrubuted themselves around critical locations throughout the ship.

CIC

"Attention aboard the fleet, set condition one and prepare for a combat jump" spoke the comms officer into his headset, set to the general battlegroup frequency, and he got acknoledgements as the other FTL capable combat vessels began there own preperations, which would be over far quicker than aboard the massive Trident.
As the officer of the watch lowered the jump count starting key into the slot on the navigation board, the communications officer again spoke into his headset "Attention aboard the fleet, on my mark set jump clocks for five second interval", the officer of the watch then looked over to the admiral at the plot table, recieved a nod and dropped it the rest of the way into the slot, starting the jump clock.
"Mark" finished the comms officer and flicked the headset to the "standby" posistion.
"Four, three, two, one.... jumping"
And the ship began the familiar stretching......

Scorpia Fleet Yards, Orbit of Scorpia, Orbit of Aquaria
Scorpia Yard was the largest shipyard for the production and refitting of capital ships, and one of two yards under the direct control of the admiralty, the other being the outsystem base and fuel depot at Straphine's Star, which was also the only yard to come close to matching it in berthing ability. Of the eighteen battlestars docked here at the time of Valkyrie's arrival, only fourteen were spaceworthy, the other four were undergoing refits or major maintainance that could not be suspended, there were also three battlestar hulls under construction, this was after all only one of two yards capable of producing full sized capital ships. There were also empty slips for almost sixty battlestars and numerous smaller vessels, all protected by the Scorpia PDF, along with elements from its sister moon, Tauron and from the colony Scorpia orbited, Aquaria.

The fourteen Battlestars which were spaceworthy immediately prepared for action, while crews began to work double shifts to bring them to operational readiness, while the planet, and the shipyards defences were stood to maximum alert, civilian shipping was restricted to essentials only and only then by FTL, and orders for similar precautions were spread to other bases and other worlds throughout the entire occupied sphere of Colonial space, now they just waited for the storm.....

“Lord, proximity detection…”

Fifteen light seconds out from Caprica, the Eldar escort Nostalgia was suddenly not-quite surrounded by a human flotilla.

Aboard it, the sybarite commander Oran scowled in irritation, which soon became a look of surprise and horror as he examined the scanner display. “How did they get so close…” It took him a moment to realise there was no scanner officer in the cramped bridge, and he simply shot t he seat where that individual should have been, “they must have some stealth system. Do they see us?”

“I know not…” the helmsman said, as Oran began to slink back to the command dais.

“Burn engines at full. Bring us about toward that!” he waved at the planet on the display. The ship shook suddenly, and Oran had his answer, these evidently-stealth ships had come do destroy his own.

The effect of turning, would, of course, bring the main weapons battery to bear on the enemy too, but Oran had not thought of that, yet.

“My lord. The Assault Capsule has been destroyed,” added the Eldar manning both the weapons and defence stations, “Instructing main batteries to return fire,” she added, looking at a diagram on the screen before her, showing the Trident in a spiked reticule. The laser batteries that clustered around the prow of the Eldar vessel fired, and tracer beams showed on the screen as the weapons gave a rippling-volley towards the enemy.

The battlestar’s hull incandesced into vapour and molten metal down part of one flank.

Oran didn’t get to see any more. A high-velocity round punched through the bridge, which opened up as though it was a tin being levered open. Not that Oran even had time to notice, the vaporisation and pressure of the railgun round killing him, and everyone in the chamber, instantly.

The ship turned a little, and fell apart along its axis, flaring brightly for a time, as brief fires gutted it, before its hulk continued to drift; it wouldn’t enter Caprica’s atmosphere, its intrinsic momentum was too high, and it was still headed away from the planet.


In Makharan, a grand parade was being held. Thousands upon thousands of gravitic skiffs gave it a vertical element, and winged troopers hung dextrously off every surface, while bikers and sky-boarders raced madly between other groups.

Kasraedan looked out across thousands of lesser cabals, many of them favouring lurid colours, whites, golds, reds. They were merely waiting for his word, “Before you lies destiny. You have your targets,” he said to the million-strong throng, “go forth and do as you will! Slay, take, and despoil. It is ours, now, and we need no other reason. Feed upon their woe!”

He spoke from the deck of a large, customised skiff, built between two hulls, each of which mounted at their top a vast anti-vehicle dark lance. His usual retinue was joined by the miniscule, contortionist sized cage of his ‘pet’ Spizanian, the young woman he’d picked out before. She was gagged, and pressed into its golden bar, though she was still dressed as she had been, surprisingly. He’d felt it would serve his purpose for her to take her with him to see Makharan, and the first of the many armies he would unleash upon her home. So far, about all he knew about his random ‘pet’ was that she was Captain Joan "Speedy Coyote" McLachlan, who’d been found in an escape-pod of some sort. Apparently she was a fighter pilot, or some such thing.

He sat back down in his throne, leaned back, and put his feet up on Joan’s two foot sided cubic cage. “Go. We have an attack to lead,” he said, languidly waving to his gravitic-raft’s pilot.

The Eldar flooded into the webway, and soon, the Archon, and his pet, at least released from her ‘travel cage’ and being hawkishly watched by two incubi. Huge, eight foot warriors with large, impressive, crackling pole arms and guns on their heads, wearing hefty plate armour that looked like a cross between a flight suit and some kind of medieval monstrosity. And she was leashed to the back of the archon’s arm. They’d put something in her ears, too, that translated their language for her. Into a headache causing monotone, of course.

The leader at least, had learnt English at some point, as he understood her replies. But he refused to speak in it, and had quickly bored of hearing her name, rank and number, which was why she was currently wearing some kind of surgical gauze gag that made her tongue itch.

“Fleet wide command,” the leader said, “power to full. Reduce Shadow Fields to normal intensity, begin manoeuvring. Plot a course to take us into orbit of the most populous planet, and launch fighter craft fleet wide,” Kasraedan didn’t know about the flexibility of colonial jump systems yet, but even so, the drives he was used to engaging would still be able to appear right atop his fleet at this range from the sun, and he didn’t want to be intercepted too well, “Signal the webway strike teams to attack. Good hunting, my kin…”

S.P.S. Acrux, Flagship, Federation Mars Task Force, Marine Country, Deck 42

Left, right, left, right, left, right… Nine and a half kilometers. So far. Only another five hundred meters. One more time around the track. She could feel the sweat creeping down her forehead and she closed her eyes for a second as it dripped. They stung enough, after all.

Even enhancement did not prevent sweat from stinging your eyes.

She shook her hair, causing the over regulation length pony tail to come up off her neck, flinging sweat about her. But more steps all the while.

Left, right, left, right, left, right… Around the curve. There was definite burning in her calves. She was going to have to do this more, it felt like. Maybe everyday instead of every other. Surely Eric could handle more of the paperwork and let her get an extra hour in the gym. Though it might be she needed to tell Ari to cut down on the after dinner sweets, instead.

Thoughts of the delicious chocolate mousse from the night before distracted her for another hundred yards. It was enough of a distraction to allow some of the sweat to drop into her eyes, prompting urgent blinking as she rounded the final turn of the half kilometer track…

Finally, she was done.

A little huffing and puffing, but the need for air was unconsciously taken care of by her augmentation. Only, you still had to train the pseudomuscles.

Not really fair. Technology was supposed to make things easier, after all.

The dark haired woman scoffed, and plucked the sweat darkened workout suit from against her skin, letting some air in. She had owned this suit for twenty years, before the nano-fabrics became widely available, and she was secretly pleased she still fit into it without bulging the basically skin tight garment anywhere.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Dark brown eyes looked up and found the speaker.

“Yes, Engle?”

The young marine, so new he pretty much still squeaked, gave a brief start. Apparently the identification features of his augmentation had yet to sink in on the instinctive level. “Ever since I got assigned to the ’Crux, I’ve seen you down here every other day, and I, uh, know the Naval officers have their own gym up on deck 8, and, uh, I was wondering why you came down here to the Marine gym to run all the time.”

“I like that you keep the enviro set five degrees warmer in here, and keep it ten percent over standard G. I find that my companions among the Naval officers of this ship tend to disagree with me when I reset the controls upstairs.”

Private Engle looked aghast. “But… but you’re the admiral.” It was a statement, but he made it sound like a question.

Salma Fiorentino grinned. “They disagree quietly.”

“Uh, yes ma’am.”

Vice Admiral Salma Fiorentino, Commanding Officer, Mars Task Force, Commanding Officer, Designate, Federation Third Battle Fleet (If the ships ever started to arrive), waved the young man to the track. “Carry on, Private. Some of us have a ship to fly in big circles.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.” He jogged out onto the track as she turned her back, still smiling. Just another day at Mars.

Sitting Room of Lady Warknight Aeranth Caergrim, Graceful Blade Strike Cruiser Finesse, by the coffee machine...

'State Identity...'

Snarl.

'State Identity...'

Exhalation, then, 'Kierlan, Ryn. Warknight. Rising Star.'

'Confirmed. Good Morning, Lord Ryn.'

Ryn Kierlan grumbled. Entirely all too much work to get a cup of friggin' coffee, which, once had it in hand, wasn't at all what he preferred -- he picked out hints of cinnamon and other spices contaminating the brew...

Still, this wasn't his ship, and he knew very well that the intention was to annoy him. Had to give Aeranth her due, she'd gotten everything right, down to the 'Lord Ryn,' a title he hated with an firey passion.

Which didn't make it any easier keeping a straight face when he turned around and had to look at her...

Aeranth Caergrim was the second 'youngest' Warknight of the Graceful Blade, senior only to Ryn himself...a situation which she seemed to enjoy entirely too much for Ryn's peace of mind. Probably the worst thing was that she was actually a capable Warknight, someone worthy of his respect...the resulting conflict of interest had him positively detesting every second he spent aboard Aeranth's Finesse.

One did not, however, become a Warknight by showing one's emotions, and thus Ryn forced a smile and sat down, sipping his tainted coffee. Aeranth grinned back at him -- she wasn't an unattractive woman, just not his type. Still, it might be worth it to respond to one of her advances, just to get her off his back...something to contemplate in the future. For now...

Aeranth played with her coffee cup, "So, Ryn, what do you think of our beloved Warmaster's newest plot?"

Ryn did his best to appear thoughtful, then shrugged, "What do you mean? It's perfectly legitimate and I support it whole-heartedly."

Aeranth hid her grin by taking a sip from her cup, but the traces remained after the cup was lowered, "Of course, Ryn. What I meant was, what are you planning on doing about it?"

Ryn blinked, "I doubt I'll have the opportunity to influence the plans much. In fact, I expect that Fendurian will split us up into independent companies. I can't begin to plan on that level until I know my specific situation.."

That shut her up...

Later, in the personal quarters of Lord Warknight Ryn Kierlan, onboard the Graceful Blade Strike Cruiser Rising Star

There was something calming in maintaining one's armor. It was the rare Voidstriker who did that by himself -- mostly armor maintenance was performed by a Legion's Warsmith and Artificer-staff. Which, technically, in this case it was, as Ryn was a trained Artificer himself...but, still, it was unusual.

His Warknight's armor was more than a step up from the armor he'd worn less than three years ago, before he'd risen to his present station -- it was a relic suit, dating back to the early days, before Torquemada Illyrian led the Sevle Legions out into the universe...

Fitting it had been sheer joy -- nearly a month spent cloistered with Warsmith Shakaran and his assistants, adjusting the suit so that it fit like a second skin and functioned in perfect unity with the Warknight inside.

It wouldn't be long, now. He could feel it. The flotilla had been hovering within the Warp for...a while. Exact duration meant nothing to a Sevle, things just didn't work that way. But...soon. Soon it would be time. A part of him relished the opportunity to do battle...but not all of him.

Dock of the Strikestar Harrier, outskirts of Caprica City

The underside of the Strikestar that rested in the docking bay was visible as the roof of the massive chamber that was used to service the vessel while it was on the ground, normally it would be crowded with mechanics and engineering equipment, but it was hte middle of the night, and the ship would be boosting to orbit at the first light, so all the equipment had been cleared and the chamber evacuated, however it was still rather well lit by uplights in the floor, sidelamps mounted in the walls and ofcourse lights mounted on the underside of the hull, which were currently being tested in preperation for the ships launch, unfortuantley this combination required the guards walking around under the ship, in order to prevent any possible sabotage by any possible party, had to wear sunglasses, which had been ordered from a supplier in a bulk order by the military itself, which meant they had arrived five years late and cost there weight in gold.

One of the guards heard a crackle and smelt sulfur behind him, and spun around shocked as he saw an enormous semi-chameoleonic humanoid standing about thirty feet away behind him, he dropped to his knee and swung to bring his rifle to bear, as the alien started to charge, as the weapon came into line he yelled at him to stop, and released the safety catch.
The Alien didnt stop, so the guard fired one round that caught the Mandrake in side, that didnt stop him, so he fired a second round that caught the Mandrake full in the chest.
The only partly visible eyes of the monster widening in shock for a second and closed as he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes only five feet from the guard, whos heart was now going 220 as he shakily stood and closed on the creature, his rifle ready to deliver another round, while he desperately called for the QRL., leaving a small structure made of something that had not been seen on the Colonies for centuries...... Wraithbone, then it changed, as a wierd tunnel appeared attached to it, as if something was about to come through.

Meanwhile the DRADIS screens of every Fleet and PDF vessel across hte colonies picked up the massive swarm of intermittent blips approaching from the directoin of the destroyed Listening Post Sierra-2, they flickered on and off the screen, appearing and dissapearing, except now they appeared as brilliant crimson rather than the unknown yellow which had flicked up on there DRADIS screens, they were as ready as they were going to be for the enemy, it was his move, even as battles raged across the worlds of the system against Mandrake infiltrators, they were ready.

Personal Suite of Fendurian Ranth, Warmaster of the Graceful Blade, onboard the Battlecarrier Blademaster

Fendurian Ranth rode the event waves. It wasn't something he particularly enjoyed, but it was something he found himself doing more and more these days...simply because information was far too damned difficult to gather other ways...but it didn't really matter. It was next to impossible to gather specifics from this form of observation, unless you were Torquemada Illyrian.

Which he, Fendurian Ranth, was not...still, he was good enough for this purpose...and he found what he was looking for, and fled back to firmer ground, breaching the border between the not-Warp and Reality like a swimmer coming up for air. Or some other nice cliche analogy.

A moment of weakness came and passed, wherein Ranth's handsome face was twisted into an expression of not-quite pain, then his personality re-asserted itself and his faced smoothed in to more regular lines, hiding his true emotions just as effectively as putting on his helmet would. Fendurian Ranth was Swordmaster of the Sevle Legions, and one did not live to become the best swordsman of a race of warriors by showing weakness...

Though it was less weakness and more the after-effects of his prior activity taking their toll on his body and mind. It happened to all Sevle, even Torquemada...the not-Warp wasn't a pleasant place. That knowledge was what caused the assembled Warknights and other ranking members of the Graceful Blade to politely ignore their Warmaster's moment of apparent weakness...

Then Fendurian Ranth began to speak, and all attention was focused on his words.

"It has begun. Return to your ships...it will not be long. Not long at all..."

A wave of dismissal and they all left, except for one, who was held behind by a gesture from the Warmaster. Artificer-Warknight Ryn Kierlan stood alone before the absolute master of his Legion and tried his very best not to show fear, which he seemed to succeed in, or, at least, Fendurian Ranth deigned not to notice.

"Ryn. I have something for you. It arrived earlier..."

Fendurian waved his hand in an odd manner and a strange package flew from the top of a nearby table to drop into Ryn Kierlan's waiting hands. The young Warknight blinked, once, then read the tag...and inhaled in surprise.

Ranth smiled, "Another Warmaster would be unsettled at one of his Warknights receiving that sort of package. I am not. I know your family, Ryn. Yours are not traditionally of the Blade, am I correct?"

Ryn nodded, slowly, "Kierlan has traditionally been an Immortal name, yes, My Lord."

The Warmaster nodded, "I did not question your reasons for joining My legion at the time you did so, I do not question them now. But the other Warknights might see things differently. Be careful, Ryn. You have much promise, and it would be a great shame to lose you now."

Ryn Kierlan knew a dismissal when he heard one, and it was entirely to his credit that his steady pace didn't waver one bit...

More than one mandrake arrived in a wildly inappropriate place, and others were detected easily enough during the day when they failed to find a suitable lair for the night, to set up their charges. Later estimates put the number of effective mandrakes at around six to seven hundred. About a hundred of those six to seven hundred set up their gates and then wandered off. The others failed to set up at all, either due to being shot down, due to simply rampaging away with bloodlust or being unable to find a secluded area where their kin would be able to access the colonies.

And a fair few were misjudged teleports that caused their travellers to simply fell into the ocean, to sink like stones from the weight of their wraith-gate backpacks. The funniest ones were the mandrakes that appeared in nightclubs, twenty-four hour restaurants, and in one instance, the cell of a police lockup.

Of course, those who made it were more than enough to set up their charges and lurk, were there when they opened, as bleeding gashes in the fabric of spacetime, as though some knife had cut into reality itself and made a wound that bled crazed Dark Eldar warriors.

The attacks were led by grotesques – those slaves and Dark Eldar used as experimental subjects (at least, those of them that were unlucky enough to survive) for the arcane and pointless surgeries of the Haemonculi – and Talos, a general classification of perverse mechanical device that incarcerated and automatically tortured victims to provide it with arcane, unscientific power, bristling with almost randomly firing spasmodic-splinter-pistols.

This was because the dark Eldar expected some of their mandrakes to be shot down effortlessly, but grotesques were near completely immune to small-arms fire in the short term – their experimental nature was often focussed on making them more durable, and the pain was nothing compared to that which they always endured.

The anti-gravitic Talos was designed to resist heavier weapons, though anti-tank munitions, because of their haphazard nature, had a fair chance of destroying them. But then, even destroying the first wave efficiently and utterly, the Eldar behind would not falter, merely using it as a distraction while they brought up their heavy weapons.

In fact, those attacks through web-gates that had been fortuitously blockaded were simply doomed… The Dark Eldar were not an excellent breakthrough force in such conditions. It was the ones that hadn’t been found that the Colonial authorities needed to worry about.

Where they weren’t resisted, they would surge out, seemingly doing nothing at all, except opportunistically slaying or capturing anyone unfortunate enough to be directly in their paths.

These first groups sought to spread out, and place even more wraith gates, some of which were simply dropped out like detritus, especially where there were crashes or counter-strikes.

Like farmers, these Dark Eldar sought to sow before they reaped…

A soundless black void.
And yet not.
An ocean, filled with flickering, silvery lights that could be fish, were they still long enough to be examined.
And yet not.

The Warp is all things to all men, but for Trajan, meditating in the red Martian dawn, it is a vast plain, golden in the sun, stretching off into infinity, movement in the grass marking hunters that would trouble anyone less psychically impressive than the former Librarian, whose might is enough that he is left untroubled to his meditations even by the circling hyena-forms of the Warp predators.
Here in the Warp, regardless of the hunters weaving their way about him, his body is his own, the original form he'd worn centuries in the once-and-future past, before his acquisition of his present form, before his dreadnought, before even his induction in to the Paragons.
A man, pleasant featured but unremarkable, sitting folded in the lotus position, hovering gently above the ground by an inch or so.
He waits.
The notion had come to meditate from a clear sky, a feeling, no more. Trajan was used to listening to his feelings. Things had become much clearer since his ascension to his new form, thus then, he listened to words unspoken and waited.

A scent of smoke, wafted on an non-existent wind reaches him. It is the smoke of burning flesh, of reft soul, of the misery attendant to those for whom torture was both necessity and pleasure.
Trajan's lip curls.
The Dark Eldar. Damn all Eldar, but damn them most for their sybaritic weakness.
His mind arrows back along the smoke's trail, swifter than could be real, the Warp rippling beneath his passage till he finds himself staring down on an unimportant system in the galactic back-blocks.
The smoke ripples everywhere, a banked blaze, waiting for fuel to burst into life. Thin it is presently, but it thickens as he watches.
Something must be done, and as always, it is the Astartes who must do it.

Trajan wakes, still cross-legged on a Martian hill, but a man no more. A construct of Wraithbone and psychoplastics, enameled green rises to its' feet.
Trajan stares down through the rippling mists of the Empyrean which surround him always, adjusting the hang of the massive sword on his back, the blade easily fourteen feet long, before he strides forth, scooping up the equally massive scatter laser his impossibly strong form hefted as easily as a pistol, ignoring the distraction of the Empyrean with the focus only Mankind was capable of.

Legs twice the height of a Space Marine swallow the distance across the red plains as Trajan ponders whom to speak to on this. Falco cannot be distracted, Tash'a'dar would not welcome his presence and Mereo...he wonders about.
No. The best solution would be to approach an old friend.
The towering construct halts, and Trajan's mind ranges out, seeking like a hound after a faint scent, until contact is made.
"Garm?"
"A voice from the air? What madness is this, unless...Trajan? They told me you had run moon-struck my Brother, lost to us through the witchery of the Eldar?"
"Yes and No Garm. But I vouchsafe to you now, I am as sane as the next of our brothers."
"I'm standing next to Abbadis as we talk Trajan."
"Don't be a literalist Garm, what I bring warning of brooks no humour."
"A warning?"
"The Dark Eldar strike at a far system where no succour can be found by the inhabitants, the savage xenos already harry them, the Empyrean writhes as they tear their portals wider to feast upon the terror of the inhabitants."
"You are certain of this?"
"As though I stood upon their worlds myself."
"Then it is fortuitous that Falco has given me leave for independent patrolling with the 101st-"
"You will need more-"
"Trust your battle-brother Trajan. I will bring Sayid and his pirates too, as well as Metikoi and the 87th..."
A pause falls in the mental conversation, Trajan struggling to ask what he would, but Garm is a true brother.
"And I'll dispatch a Thunderhawk for you of course."
"My thanks brother."
"I need no thanks for aiding a brother in his duty Trajan. It is always my pleasure."

Thus then, the strike cruisers The Coming Dawn, Mereo's Fist and Blade of the Sun rumble their way through the warp, trailed by their escorts, fifty four escort-type ships, nearly five hundred Battle-Brothers, Terminators and Scout-Probationers of the Adeptus Astartes along with thousands of servitors and crew-serfs, such a force as to make even the staunchest foe cower, much less the febrile murderers of the Dark Eldar.

Preparation for War is a long business, Warriors had to be gathered, and equipped, the defences of Yvresse seen to, for their foe, like them made use of the Webway, and so a war here could risk the home. Fleets had to be gathered, Titans ran through the final checks, and the Titans where vital to the Yvressian plans, for their Fallen kin had no match for such awesome firepower, all this had to occur in secret. Rangers where sent out alone, to find the exact route to their foe and slip back unseen. As the preparations for war continued the pulse amongst the Kionashi grew stronger, the driving need the blood lust and the anger, the hate. It grew stronger, passed through the Infinity Circuit of the world ship, and into the chamber of Khaine, where it fed the mighty Avatar, stirring it from his sleep, and as he roused the anger was fed back to the people that had spawned it. Causing their war lust to grow stronger, creating a new stronger call, which returned to the Avatar, and so on, the pulse grew stronger, the time for war approached, soon the Young King would die.

Carefully as the Runes danced before her she admired the board she had set up before her. On it where the numerous pieces which, between them, represented the coming conflict. Here the refugees and civilians of the Mon-Keigh, there the Military of the Mon-Keigh. Slowly she picked up another piece finely wrought and detailed, a massive armoured man and placed it slowly onto the growing board. It was a pure whimsy on her part, and helped not one whit her divinations, but, when making war against fellow Keigh, certain artistry was part and parcel of the whole affair. With the figure placed she considered the remaining unset pieces and carefully lifted another, a beautiful white marble figure, that looked much like how the Mon-Keigh pictured their Angels, here was another manipulation, long in the making, and now finely bearing fruit.

The Roanians where in a state of change, long ago they had forbidden the use of magic, but that time was over, and their new ruler, Empress or whatever title the Mon-Keigh female had given herself, sought now items of great power to the Roanian way of thinking. Long ago, Rangers and Harlequins had planted false tales in the places of learning, false texts implanted into libraries of then forbidden lore, suggesting that at least one such item had fallen into the hands of the Dark Eldar. In her hunger the piece would commit much to the cause, and in doing so…

Slowly Iyanna traced a scar onto the figure before her and bowed her head in pity, war was never easy, and some would pay a large price for the prize Iyanna sought, but it was as it must be. At last she looked at the board, other pieces where still to be added, but for now, all was as she could make it. With that she stood and left the chamber, she had a day or two now, a day or two in which she was free, for there was very little she could do now. Events where in motion, the Yvresse war machine would prepare itself, the Exarchs where leading their Shrines in rites of war, the Bonesingers went over the weapons one last time; the Rangers scouted the routes to travel. All was in play that she could direct, and so…

She hurried through the web, for a few days of relaxation leaving the persona of the Farseer behind her, for at least a while, for a while she would allow herself to be simply Iyanna Arienal, of the Kionash.

(Subject to edits upon request of those directly referenced)

Alessa toyed with the string in her hands and looked up at the painted ceiling of the councilroom. These sessions were positively interminable. And yet, the idea had made so much sense. In a society where mages ruled, why shouldn't the mages themselves handle those crimes committed against them? The theory was sound. And yet... and yet..."Take him away and flog him." She ordered, waving her hand airily even though she hadn't been paying the slightest attention. It amazed her how many crimes against mages there were.

There was a polite little cough from next to her."My lady, we do not, in fact, possess flogging as a punishment." Daray Karan, Grand Vizier of the Kingdom. He sighed, in his long-suffering way, and stroked his chin a little, a gesture he'd picked up from a human of his acquaintance five hundred years before. "I believe I do have a solution to our problem, though..."

The offending party, whose crime had been to steal from a mage's pocket, looked nervous, as he had been doing so ever since the police had informed him he was going to the Special Court. "My lord, mercy!" He fell to his knees, grovelling.

Daray Karan slowly rose to his feet and intoned, "You are hereby gaesed to go to the pond in the City Lake, and spend the rest of your days emptying it out with this sieve." He picked up a piece of paper and transmuted it into the sieve. "Guards, take him away." He thrust the sieve into the criminal's hands and returned to his seat. "Next!" Around the table, the assembled mages shuffled their papers.

Bartimaeus glanced at Alessa for confirmation. She waved her hand and returned to the elaborate cat's cradle taking form in her lap."The next convict refused to hand over a book believed to be magical and fired a shot at an enforcer when he came to collect it. Please bring in Joaiel Darquis."

Alessa's cat's cradle snapped in her hand as the last scion of the Divine Imperium's most noble houses was brought in, tied up with chains. He crossed the floor slowly, surrounded by heavily armoured guards. "What is the meaning of this insolence?"

"Be silent, your masters are speaking." Daray leaned forward and glowered at Joaiel. "You are accused of the most fiendish of crimes this court has jurisdiction over, the refusal to relinquish a text to its rightful owners. Bailiff, present the text in question." The robed figure placed the small brown book on the table. The court passed it around itself, and then up to Alessa, who took it and frowned for a moment, then placed it next to her on the throne.

"I neither recognise the jurisdiction of this court nor the authority from which it stems." Joaiel countered, his eyes gleaming with anger and pride. "I am the true Lord-Emperor of the Divine Imperium, as I am the closest living relative of Prince Caspian Drakharn, my nephew."

"So, you're the brother-in-law of a monstrous madman whom your father turned against? I'm sure that counts for something." Daray laughed, curtly. "You're lucky we tolerate such presumption."

"I saw him die..." Alessa said, dreamily, her eyes fading as she lost herself in her memories of that fateful day. "Just after I came to the palace... the ShadowLords ate him... and then they killed Caurentin..." Daray fell silent. It was so rare that his mistress took an interest in the court's proceedings that he was unwilling to intervene. "And since my father was the last true Emperor, it fell to me to decide what I should do..."

"Your father, my lady, never acknowledged you as his heir, even if he was mentally competent of so doing." Joiel growled. "He made even Caurentin seem stable. What makes your blood better than mine? You're just the mongrel offspring of a bastard and a bitch, and to top it all off you use monstrous magical powers." The mages around the table grew so quiet that if one of them had dropped a pin, they might all have dived to the ground.

Daray Karan coughed nervously, his hands twitching. "Well, quite. I think we'll add that treasonous statement to your record and increase your punishment exp..."

"Be silent." Alessa ordered, her mind snapping back to the here-and-now so quickly that it might as well never have gone. She rose to her feet and slowly stepped down off her throne, her gown trailing gently on the floor behind her as she walked to the bound Darquis. "You're very bold, aren't you, Joiel?" She whispered, reaching a hand up to gently cup his face, stroking her small, soft fingers along his cheek. "You're very proud and you have a high valuation of your worth."

"And why shouldn't I? As I said, I am the true Lord-Emperor of this poor nation." Joiel glared at her, but made no move to resist her caress.

Her voice softened. "Yes, you did... well, why not? Why not become the Lord-Emperor? I am looking for a consort." Behind her back, Daray veered through several shades of red in a matter of seconds. Alessa didn't seem to notice, or care if she did, and her hands still travelled along Joiel's delicate, statuesque features. "If you can accept that our children shall not take the throne, I see no reason not to..."

Joiel paused, the offer clearly tempting him. He looked down at her shining blue eyes, and for a moment the world seemed balanced. Then he tore free from his bindings and slapped her hand away, rage powering him. "I thank you for your offer, witch, but I prefer my woman to be of pure blood. And taller." The bindings quickly wrapped around him again and the bailiffs resecured his arm by breaking the shoulder bones.

Alessa looked hurt, but her hand gently traced his cheek again. "A shame..." And then she whispered a spell, and Joiel collapsed into a pile of dust that blew out the open window. She returned to her throne. "Who's next?"

"P-Pardon, milady?" The wizard who had been nearest her display of power fumbled for his sheet of paper. "Um...someone accused of unauthorised magic usage. The ArchChancellor is demanding he be handed over to the Academy for training and punitive work."

Alessa rose to her feet and walked to the door. "I'm sure you wonderful gentlemen can solve that amongst yourselves."

"Your majesty, what shall we do with that book?"

The woman paused, indecision written on her beautiful features, and then she reached out. The book floated into her hands. "I think I'll keep this for some light reading tonight."


The Librarians of the Imperial Archives very rarely had much contact with their nominal masters in the Imperial Government. So it took Alessa five or six times to get through to Rudan's Library Moon. "Chief Archivist, I need you to run a search for a validification." She said to the image floating above her desk, and held up the small leatherbound volume. "I'm looking for something detailing..." She read out the passage, and looked up at the Archivist hopefully.

Than Keegan frowned and shook his voluminous robe straight, then flipped through his catalogue. "That sounds strangely familiar," he said, inconclusively. "I remember seeing something very similar. I'll get back to you after a search." He hung up.

Alessa put her feet up on her desk and looked at the page in front of her, a smile flitting across her face. "I'll talk to you in a week, then." For the first time in a while she was genuinely pleased with herself.


A week passes.


Imperial City at night is not a dark place. Nor is it particularly quiet. Hundreds of millions of sentients live, work and play in the continent-spanning metropolis, and for some of the species that live in the Divine Imperium the night was when they woke up, stretched their assorted limbs, and began to lumber to work. Even the ordinarily noctophobic Roanians felt comfortable enough in the streetlights of IC to wander and visit market stalls.

It would be hard to tell that the city had recently been convulsed by some of the most horrible events in the history of the Imperium, events that still left their scars across a dozen worlds and a hundred battlegrounds. Here, all that had changed was the mysterious return of the Institute of Magical Studies to the site it had equally mysteriously vanished from 3000 years before, complete with its teachers and students, all of whom seemed somewhat surprised to find themselves 3000 years in their own future.

Daray Karon looked out over the comforting bulk of his city from his office high in the towers of the Crystalline Palace. Around him, his assorted grimoires, spell components and mirrors hung, waiting for him to require them in one of his works. Now, though, he was too busy considering his future in government to worry much about spells. Alessa herself hadn't thought much of having a Grand Vizier. In fact, the idea didn't occur to her until he had suggested it to her a few months ago. Under his careful stewardship, though, the government had finally begun to take shape. He gently rubbed a finger along his desk and looked up at the ceiling, beginning to doze off.

Then there was a buzzer. With a grunt, he slammed his fist onto the desk. "Yes? I'm busy, so make it..." The words died in his throat.

"Daray, get over here. I have something to show you." Alessa's face appeared over his desk. "I'm glad I caught you here, I thought you'd have gone home."

"Can't sleep when the organisation of the Imperium's on the line." He said, smoothly. "Where are you?"

"In my chambers. Hurry up." The image cut out.

With a sigh, Daray disappeared.



"You called for me, my lady?" Daray asked after he opened the door to her chambers. Alessa was lying on her bed, flipping through two different books. It took him a moment to realise that she was topless, and he wondered if that was what he had been called to see.

She glanced down at where his eyes were heading, and then frowned. "Not that. Look at these books." Alessa sat up, the books levitating to where he was standing, and then she stood up and went to fetch her nightgown.

Daray scanned down the two pages she'd been reading, and then stopped. He went back to the top, and read to the bottom, and then he slowly collapsed into a seat that he ensorcelled to appear behind him. "Alessa, you can't seriously..." She placed her robe on the night table and walked across to him, leaning over his shoulders. Ordinarily, he, like any male, would have relished this, but now he was too distracted by events. "This is madness."

"Is it? If so, it's verifiable madness. I think it's worth the chance." Her smile was infectious. "Just think about it, Daray!"

"I am. This is a rash and foolish idea, and I hope you're not going to ask the council to approve it."

"Oh, heavens no." Alessa laughed and brushed her hand along his hair, sending little sparks up and down his spine as she did so. "I'm going to order the council to approve it."

"Two books do not a verification make," Daray retorted, leaning away from her so he could think clearly. "Alessa, please try to think about this. They're dangerous, mad and hideous beyond reason!"

She gently pulled him back into range, her arms trailing down his sides as he was. "I found some documentary and video evidence of raiders with the item in question..." She whispered into his ear. "And if you support me in this, I'll approve your idea of how I should choose my successor when I decide to retire. Tit..." Her hand gently grasped his and brought it to her chest, "for tat."

Daray smiled slightly. "And if I refuse?" He asked, though he knew the answer coming.

"Then I'll find a Grand Vizier who won't."

"And if I agree, what will I be given now?" Daray looked up at her, his eyes steely. "You're making a lot of promises about the future, but will I be given anything right now?"

She paused, a slight little smile coming to her lips. "Why yes, Prince Daray Karon, Lord of the North Tower and Master of the Imperium, I believe you will." She gently twisted over the side of the chair so she wound up in his lap. "Me."

If Daray had pupils, they would have crossed then. "Prince Daray Karon?" He stuttered, stunned, and then his eyes widened. "You?"

"Mmhm..." She purred, resting her head on his chest with a pleasant little sigh. "Unless you also think I'm a mongrel and too short for your tastes." Her hand on his hair tightened slightly.

"Perish the thought." He said, hurriedly, as he gently lifted her light body up and carried her back to the bed.


And so it was that a few weeks later, when word of the Dark Eldar attack on Spizania reached the gently pointed ears of the Roanian intelligence community, the Legions of the Mage-Queen were ready for action and already in the process of embarking.

Alessa sighed and smiled as she opened a window and looked out at the crisp summer of Rudan Prime. Down below, in one of the many squares of the Divine Mile, hundreds of the local garrison were waiting to board shuttles for the fleet that, if she squinted, could just be made out above atmospheric level. "It's a beautiful day!" She said, happily as she spun on her heel to face the disapproving eyes of her councillors.

"Yes, wouldn't it be best if you stayed here to enjoy it?" The Lady of the West Tower, Ayana Amaris, asked with a shake of her short blonde hair. "Surely you could trust your generals to obtain the item."

Alessa laughed a little. "I want to get my hands dirty." She ran a finger through her own luxurious blond tresses, then settled back in her throne. "It's been a long time since I found anything interesting, I'm looking forward to using some combat spells."

The Lord of the South Tower frowned and leaned forward. "Surely you could send someone you trust to do this, My Lady. Perhaps one of the court?"

Alessa looked at her councillors, all of whom seemed to subtly try to appear as trustworthy as possible.



"Has she stopped laughing yet?" General Bran Aislin asked his lieutenant, Hrss Sk, over their afternoon tea on the bridge of the Imperial Dragon of the Eternal Morning. Occasional giggles still filtered down from the Imperial Suite in the back.

"Ssshe's having sssome difficulty calming down, it ssseems." The Salamandr lifted up a teacup suprisingly daintily considering its massive claws and lack of thumbs, though the illusion was spoiled by the forked tongue that slipped from between its fangs and lapped at the liquid.

"I wonder what was so funny?"


And so the Imperial Expeditionary Force slowly drifted to Spizania's system, the Legionnaires already planning battle strategies and readying their prebuilt defences.

Police Despatch Centre, 13th Precinct, Caprica City, Caprica

"Sarge, we are getting reports of unknown creatures appearing across the city, they are heavily armed and are apparently of an extra-colonial origin, multiple murders in progress according to reports"
"Oh god, is this some practical joke?" said the sarge over his cup of Cocoa, rolling his eyes.
"No Sir, its actually happening..... oh god, Code Zero, Units down in the shopping mall on 13th street, same intruders"
"Oh God its really happening" yelled the Sergeant as he sat up so rapidly that he slopped half of his nighttime cup of Cocoa over the front of his normally pristine service uniform.
"Page everyone, i want everynoe we have on the streets in fifteen minutes, and get the ART in here, ASAP"

Fleet Marshalling Yard, Straphine's Star, 5 Light Years Away

The enormous solar collectors glinted in the sun as nearly half of the entire Colonial fleet began its preperations for war, the amssive enemy armada had been detected by the outer system sensor array a few minutes ago, and the armada that had been preparing to go to 3 hour notice went to fifteen minute jump-to-combat orders, as the enemy armada was nearing its first major population centre, the asteriodal moon colony of Troy orbiting the outermost gas giant, where a population of nearly forty five thousand eaked out an existance mining the other members of the small Gas Giants retinue. This would be the first contested area of the war, with Marine Corps Strikestars ready to preform risky jump maneuvres to enable the evacuation of the population while the fleet fought a delaying action alongside the tiny Troy PDF.

The Commander of the Trojan PDF had just two combat warships at his command, both of them firestars, both of them veterans of the last war against the cylons, named Hector and Aeneas. In addition, he could call on batteries of missiles and DRADIS drones scattered throughout the sixty three moons of the gas giant, and a single squadon of Viper Mk2s based at the colonies spaceport. For ground troopps he only had a couple of hundred police and reservists based in the main habitat, some fifteen kilometres beneath the surface of the five hundred kilometre diametre asteriod, situated beneath a pan of near solid iron ore shot through with a few cracks, throughwhich the tunnel to the habitat had been dug almost a century before. The mining and refining equipment itself was based on the surface, and was horribly open to attack, then again, it was not a problem, all the fleet and the PDF had to do was hold the enemy back long enough for the civvies to escape, and if all went well and the navy glory boys did there job, the poor old men and boys of the Planetary Defence Force might just get out of with there ships and lives intact.

The leader of one of the first Eldar squads leant from the open side of his raider and whooped a jeer at the humans scurrying below, firing a splinter rifle down at them wildly. Even a cut from the shotgun like weapons would fester and cause pain, and that was enough reason for him to do it.

The Eldar vehicles soared over the city, darting helter skelter between buildings, seeking to avoid exposing themselves to enemy fire, smashing through windows and walls, dropping more web gates, in some places, capering through office buildings and slaying everyone present, in others, seizing as many humans as they could and herding them onto the rooves of buildings as hostages to prevent outright destruction as they established more arteries – the enemy would not yet know that it was better to kill the prisoners of the Eldar than to let them live in misery

Other Eldar units were more vulnerable, as they made the effort to cross the distances between cities, following roads and rail where they could, or coastlines, jinking wildly to avoid fire, not even bothering to try and avoid detection, but rather, trying to avoid orbital fire –which they viewed as far more of a threat. For this reason, the Eldar vehicles broke up into smaller and smaller groups, concerned by the possibility of nuclear type weapons destroying a large group of them, and eager to spread their portals to as many cities as possible on each colony.

Here and there, the first signs of Eldar depravity could be seen, as slave-snares, dangling razor hooks and glue trailing leashes, caught some passers by and the Eldar pilots swerved to drive such unfortunates through glass, or tear them along streets. Eldar bikers decapitated those too slow to flee with the sharpened blades that decorated their vehicles, and flew into and between buildings in search of civilians to slay.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely one sided, but the dark Eldar seemed to be very resistant to the attrition factors that would commonly stymie such a crazy advance – almost without exception they didn’t seem to care about the deaths of others, and seemed to be so confident (or high) that they deemed their own deaths impossible.

Their advance seemed reckless, crazy even, as they rarely bothered with even token fortification of their footholds. Crazy until one realised that they intended to establish a hundred times as many in the next few hours.

---

Kasraedan smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. His unfortunate ‘pet’ was enduring his latest whim, which resulted in her being suspended, naked as before, from a twisted spur of blackened wraithbone that hovered beside his command dais, pulling her arms up behind her back, and her legs below, with her head bound between her knees. The warrior who’d come up with it had wanted to ‘make some incisions’ too, but Kasraedan had denied that, with the gloating addition that he wanted her to last. The spectacular discomfort of it, along with the impending misery from what he expected to transpire – she couldn’t really see, but she would hear just fine, something which would make each order he gave a little more satisfying - in this command centre soon enough, would satisfy for now, after all, he was likely to be in the command room like this for many hours now...

“Report,” he said, scraping the monomolecular claw he’d had driven under his own original nails against a field-whetstone that trimmed it back, for a few fractions of a nanosecond, to the sharpness it was expected to hold. It slid back in the still spike-like protective support that clamped onto the tip of his finger bone, and he moved onto the next one.

“The mine layers report that they are returning to standard positions, Dread Lord. Your orders have been carried out,” he added.

“Excellent,” he purred, “Order all ships to maintain constant velocity, and we shall see if the Homunculus of Nightmares was correct… Keep the gap in our centre open. What word from the worlds below?”

“None as yet, Lord…”

He had a feeling it was going well…

I feel...the very essence of my being...torn at with razored-claws. My soul, ripped at...seeking to tear me apart, scatter me throughout this hellish realm, lost to my kind forever...still alive, but unable to act. A fate so similar and yet so very different from that of the weaker-willed of my kind, the Free Sevle...The Free Sevle find peace in dispersement, their minds scattered throughout the Warp, unfettered by the constraints of reality. They know true power...god-like power. Yet like gods, they are uncaring. Mindless. Unable to focus on minute details...they will never know the thrill of battle or the love of another. Though godhead is but a thought away...I shun it. I am Sevle.

But this...this place, this not-Warp...wishes to trap me. Torment me for eternities on end. This fate, also, I refuse. The shredding claws find no give in the iron sphere about my core of being...but they can no more stop trying than I can stop resisting. I am Sevle.

I push on, forcing the not-Warp to reveal that which I seek...a glimpse...a clue. I weave complex patterns in the streaks of light that characterize this hell...and from those patterns, I gain what I have sought. A single thought, smooth and crystalline...and I take it as mine...and my eyes open.

I stare blankly off into the distance, brilliant violet eyes unfocused, chaosfire lightning bolts flaring about...the eyes of the Sevle are more than mere sensory devices. The eyes provide a window to the power within. Torquemada Illyrian's eyes are raging storms of chaosfire that give a light entirely their own...

My eyes reveal the truth about me -- I am a Mage-Knight. A powerful Mage-Knight, yes, but nothing more. I am content with this, for greater power brings greater vulnerability...I am content with myself. I know my greatest weaknesses -- foremost of all, a lack of ambition. I have little wish to advance beyond my current position. A Warknight, in command of my own Strike Cruiser...with a full complement of one thousand Void Strikers.

I rise from the couch and accept the robe that Nysha passes me, shrugging into it. It is not, as some would expect, due to a lack of clothing -- we are as effective in full armor as we are 'skyclad,' no matter what certain...deviants...would have one believe.

The not-Warp leaves most Mages, myself included...chilled to bone. I am clothed in comfortable noncombat dress...which isn't terrifically warm. The robe, thick and soft, is. I take a series of deep breaths, then open my eyes. Of course, they were already open...technically. Physically.

I run my hand through Nysha's short red hair and she responds not unlike a cat...and I smile...then my mind clears and I am fully aware...meaning I hear Nysha's voice.

"Ryn? Master Ryn?"

I let my hand drift down to her cheek before I respond, "Yes, Nysha?"

She rubs against my hand, her voice soft...she's a Blade girl, not one of the few I brought with me from the Immortals, and she never has been able to wrap her head around the idea that I won't flay her alive for speaking at a level that doesn't require me to trigger my tracking-sense and the super-sensitive hearing that comes with it...I'm exaggerating, of course, but she is awfully quiet...

"Master Ryn? There was a message from the Warmaster -- Great Lord Ranth says to prepare for emergence. The message came while you were waking up..."

I nod, "Thank you, Nysha. Tell Shara that I'll be suiting up in a few seconds..."

She's off like a shot, and I've got a few things to take care of...such as ordering the men and women of my Strike Company to Imminent Conflict status...which is an awful fancy name, and about the only formal thing we have anymore. It's something I had to learn about -- it's a Blade thing. The Immortals didn't bother with silly things like that -- it was assumed that you were always ready for battle...

Of course, that's assumed in the Blade, too. It's just that the Graceful Blade believes in taking the armor off sometimes. There's some mystical nonsense in there, somewhere...I still haven't really figured it out. A lot of the traditions of the Graceful Blade are still foreign to me. I'm trying to learn, but there are a whole lot of little things, silly things...but that's for later. I've got a battle to fight. Not long now.

I grab my Warpblade, Tres'hara from her resting place and quick-walk to my armory. Another thing I'm still getting used to -- a normal Voidstriker has a cabinet for his armor and weapons and maybe one of his servants...slaves, in most legions, is cross-trained to help in fitting the battle armor. A Warknight, however, has his own dedicated Artificer to handle the maintenance of arms and armor. That was the way it was done. It wouldn't have been right for me to serve as my own Artificer...

Which bothered me. I was an Artificer with the Immortals, once. I had trained under the legendary Jory Aedarion, widely considered to be the most brilliant Chief Artificer ever to have lived, and I loved serving in that capacity. I'd impressed the Blade's Chief Artificer when I'd come here enough that he'd skipped the usual tests, and I'd been able to retain my title without having to spend months proving my capability...only to find that, upon my promotion, I couldn't even maintain my own armor. Infuriating.

Not that I let that stop me from tinkering, but I missed the routine...it was a lot like meditation. Now it was pure business -- I couldn't Shara's capabilities as an Artificer...technically. She just had no passion for the position -- she kept my armor and weaponry functioning perfectly, but the thought of improving it was alien to her. I entered the armory and before three minutes had passed was on my way out again in full battle gear, and it was my idea of full battle gear, horrendous as the concept was to dear Shara.

You see, I'm ambidextrous. Born that way -- it's hereditary. My father was ambidextrous, and his father before him, and his father before him, and so on. I'm also the only ambidextrous individual in the Graceful Blade, to my knowledge. Certainly the only one to actually take advantage of it -- the paired pistols on my gunbelt have become something of a trademark of mine.

They aren't standard pistols, either. Different from the single-barreled heavy pistols used by the Graceful Blade and the vast majority of the Sevle Legions, but also different from the twin-barreled over-under heavy pistols pioneered by Katr Blackhammer's Blood Dance legion and used by a small group of influential legions -- including my former legion, the Immortals. My pistols have but a single barrel, but the similarities end there. Sorta.

I don't bother heading to the bridge -- I'm not the kind of Warknight who fancies himself a starship commander. I can lead men, and I can fix the ship if it breaks down...or, well, I kno how to fix it, anyways...but I've never had much interest in ships beyond that required of me as an Artificer. I leave the Rising Star in the capable hands of Captain Jaslorcel, and figure that the less I meddle the better off we'll be.

So I head for the troop assembly area -- I'll give some kind of inspirational speech that nobody will listen to, get a lot of cheering...then there'll be a lot of waiting. Pass the time somehow -- usually by doing something stupid like an impromptu talent competition -- if you haven't seen someone breakdance in Voidstriker Battle Armor, you're missing out -- and then it'll be time and we'll enter real-space...and then it'll be go time. Blood will flow, foes will be slain...

Business as usual.

Briefing Room A, Fleet Command Headquarters, Picon

The room was an ampitheatre space that was half filled, and slowly filling with squadron leaders, captains and commodores of what amounted to half the entire Colonial Fleet, along with a complement of men and women, mostly older that there fleet colleagues, wearing the uniforms of the Caprican ODF and Planetary Defence Forces, whos older warships, many of them veterans of the last war, would be fighting alongside the ships that had replaced them in regular military service.
Once it was full to the brim, the lights dimmed, and an officer wearing the rank of Admiral stood up and walked to the podium. "Good Morning, as you know, an unknown enemy armada is encroaching on our system, in addition long range imagery has confirmed numerous vessels of a similar type to the one that the Trident and her sister ships briefly engaged and destroyed on Caprican Approach, what you do not know" he paused for a second, "is that the enemy armada is on a direct course for Caprica", several gasps echoed through the room, and the man again paused until it grew again, with only a few russles of papers to contend with the sound of his voice, he continued "It approaches from approximately five degrees above the plane of the system, and will, unless it changes its headings, pass within forty kilometres of the surface of the Angel moon, near its northern pole, and infact directly over Tanis Station, later in this briefing we will discuss what the Angel Moon Defence Unit is going to do to comabt this threat, but for now i continue with a SIGINT analysis."
He hit a few keys on the computer built into the lectern, and the projector behind him came to life, whirring slightly as it displayed an image of the enemy armada taken in IR, and another in visible light, both from fleet recon elements based on the Battlestar Indefatigable.
"As you can see here, there are pinpoint reflective sources superimposed on the enemy fleet, which show as cosmic background on the IR image, this indicates that whatever they are, they are not emitting signifant amoutns of energy, which counterindicates them being strike craft or similar vessels, as this is the correct time of year and also the correct heading for the Vespid Meteor shower, and since we have not been able to get a good DRADIS read on the objects, due to the distances involved, we can only say that they are small and which places them in the range of normal meteor sizes, whether or not they are meteors or not is not an important question, all i know is, whatever they are, we cannot jump ships into that grouping, which prevents us engaging them before they reach the moon at least, and now i pass you to Rear Admiral Jack Sloper, Commander-in-Chief, Caprican PDF", he stepped away from the podium and a man in his late fifties took his place.
Jack Sloper was a famed officer, having been the youngest commander of a battlestar on record for nearly thirty years, until he was eclipsed by the new commander of the Valkyrie, even though he had retired nearly two years ago after achieving flag rank, he had retained an immense amount of influence in the service and was regularily invited to dinners at the fleet admirals table on Piscon, which was a lengthy trek from Caprica for most of the year.
"As you know, with the eccentricities in the Angel Moon's orbit, most years the Vespids penetrate the lunar system with minor deflection and hit the Caprican Atmosphere, however, approximately every one year in ten, conditions similar to those of this year prevail and the showever is deflected by such a large degree that the fragments are either deflected into orbit of one of the two large bodies in the system, or simply ejection from it altogether; this means that the enemy armada will leave the cover of those asteroids/mines or whatever they are within a few minutes of passing over tanis sattion, which will leave them open to attack, as they pass my boys will engage them from the surface, all our mobile batteries and fighter squadrons are being transferred to suitable locations now, as are the Venerable and her consorts, we will hit them hard, and its your job to back us up after they pass the moon and continue on there way.
Civilians are being evacuated to the southern hemisphere by the underground and surface rail links, however htings have been held up by the arrival of mysterious aliens who try and plant wierd gatelike structures, we do not know how many have succeded, but we have caught more than 15 in the process of doing this so far."
"Once they leave lunar orbit, if they hold there current flight profile, as we believe they will, the fleet will jump into flanking posistions and commence firing, assisted by the customs battlestations in orbit and the defensive batteries on the fleet marshalling station in orbit, we will not be able to inflict many outright kills, one of thoe ships is nearly ten miles long, but we can cause significant damage to its ability to fight, as we demonstrated during the last war, now onto specific operational details......"
An hour later numerous launches and Raptors took off from the facility and began transitting either to the fleet command annex in orbit, or jumping back to the ships and squadrons of the passengers aboard, each of them knowing there part in the plan for the defence of Caprica, the launches backlit against the firse now rising from parts of Piscons capital city, caused by the mysterious marauders that the regular army was now being called to combat.

Kasraedan smiled. To have proceeded so far without challenge was beyond his wildest expectations. The world of Caprica, his translators and interceptors called it, loomed ahead. “Let’s see if we cannot flush them out,” he said. “Fleet gunnery. Acquire targets.

“Direct this vessel’s phantom lances toward the largest city on this hemisphere, set to minimum power, and fire at random. Inform all vessels with kinetic weapons to pick an area of volcanic activity, or failing that, a mountain range, deliver around one teraton of firepower,” he used an Eldar unit of measure, of course, a measure that would destroy an area equal to that of a small Terran nation, and make Caprica dark for months, enough to cause famine, but not necessarily depopulate the planet, if help were not delivered.

“Commence fire…” he said, waving a taloned hand.


The phantom lances were light-speed weapons, configured to generate a light-absorbing beam when they fired, the flagship had thirteen lances, each of which could fire fairly rapidly, delivering a pulsed beam that jacked its wattage up while allowing its cooling systems to handle the energy efficiently. Many of the shots actually missed, due to the excitement of the gunners.

Where they hit; they destroyed buildings.

That was it. Here, a skyscraper was cored, flaring like magnesium burning, reduced to a shell, with the middle layers burnt, the windows blown out by vaporized material and people, there, a house incandesced into a fireball as the pulse burnt away a cylinder of land underneath it, forcing the gas to rush out in all directions. The initial volley was almost thirty shots, which scattered widely across the city.

Slower, but far more devastating, was the volley after volley of missiles and kinetic weapons streaked toward the planet. It would be minutes before they arrived, but when they did, between them, they would destroy mountains and cast them up into the upper atmosphere, making twilight descend upon the world in an especially violent form of terraforming – terrorforming, perhaps – of course, this was less a damaging attack than the armada was capable of, but by using so many weapons, Kasraedan hoped to ensure that the locals would be unable to destroy the over ninety percent of the missiles they would need to, in order to noticeably reduce the effects.


Kasraedan flicked his hand out, to caress his ‘pet’ as he watched the city on one hologram, and the larger bombardment on the main tactical display. “Now, let’s see if they bother to defend themselves yet…” he mused, paying no more attention to her miserable protestant reaction than one would to the contented purr of a cat. It was much the same thing, to his mind.

Command Centre, Defence Station Acheron, nr. North Pole, Angel Moon

"Deployment of nuclear weapons is authorised in the Angel Moon theatre, good luck" was the message that had arrived by the priority teletype channel only seconds before, and now the station was preparing to engage the enemy that was sweeping perilously close to the moon, directly above them, on its way to strike at the apparently defenceless planet of Caprica, which civilian transports were hurrying to evacuate, although it would be impossible to save all five hundred million people unless this fleet was turned away or at least slowed massively, it would infact be inpossible regardless, but they had to try.

"All batteries standing by, guns loaded and tubes hot, commence firing on my mark" stated the commodore in command of the facility, and its hundreds of associated mobile missile launchers, on which thousands and thousands of conventional and nuclear tipped weapons.
"Five, Four, Three, Two, One..... MARK MARK MARK"
The words echoed across the control room, across the plot tables as across the northern polar region of the moon, thuosands of trails of dust and crystals of flash frozen propellant products propelled tens of thosuands of missiles into teh sky towards the fleet moving overhead
"Turn, you bastard, turn"

Kasraedan sighed. These humans were so dull, with their efforts at resistance. He languidly shifted position in his chair, “Target all shadow lances around that northern installation. Blast the whole top of the moon off, but try not to destroy the facility itself…”

“My lord. Of the missiles.”

“Yes. I suppose we should do something about those,” he said.

“Have the capitol ships withdraw behind the minefield, and the escorts in that sector give covering fire…”

“And our escorts?”

“Direct them to fly through the mine field. Have our ten flank squadrons decelerate and Inform them that they are to drop their shadow fields and maximise their energy outputs in order to assist our other ships in drawing the mon-keigh torpedoes into a crossfire. And have our weapons batteries set up that cross-fire beyond the minefield too; it can’t hurt to try… Then give me control of the mine-field at this station…”


Almost as one, dark beams, visible dark slashes against the verdant sphere of Caprica, hundreds of shadow lances struck out, cutting into the top portion of the moon with frenzied activity, as though they were a spoon removing the top of a boiled egg, melting leagues and leagues of its surface, vaporising it, and because they were unavoidably concentrating on one side of the separated piece, vaporising vast quantities of rock on one side but not as much on the other, sending it into a slow spin. The whole section would doubtless break apart in time, but it was possible that the fortress, with its missiles, would survive, at least in part, spinning off away in an irregular orbit, and eventually – assuming they didn’t self destruct it – plunging into Caprica’s atmosphere.

Moments later, half the Eldar fleet altered their courses, burning their engines in acceleration once again, and giving the missiles a sudden but brief plethora of targets. Moments later, the effectiveness of their shadow-fields resumed, and the endar fleet again became a morass of false echoes and patches of impossible darkness.

Except thirty ships, which, to the missiles, shone like stars…

Kasraedan watched the thousands of green cylinders of the enemy missiles approach, between thousands of pin-pricks of deep violet, toward a few dozen ruddy red ship-images.

He watched, and waited, observing the blue lines designating battery fire from the fleet beyond the missiles. Some; lots, of the enemy missiles were homing on the stranded ships, but some were not. It didn’t matter to him.

The escort craft began to move again, concealed themselves again, as the missiles approached…

“Too late…” he said, as white spheres of the first missiles engulfed them.

He pressed a sharp-rune-d button, and the most distant mines began to detonate, immolating missiles by the hundreds, then thousands.

He pressed it again, consuming a larger part of the already damaged survivors of the main body of missiles, coordinated for a time-on-target strike on his fleet.

“Die..” he hissed, and pressed the button to activate another mine layer, sending hundreds of the mines into oblivion.

“Decoy squadrons report severe damage, lord…”

He pressed the button again, and the last missiles disappeared, along with the remainder of the mines.

“Critical damage, Lord”

He stared up at the subordinate that said it. “Fire control to my station!” he hissed.

It took a few moments to enter the command, and everyone on the command deck – even McLaughlin – could see what he aimed to do. A targeting reticule formed around the damaged Eldar ships.

“Death…” the Grand Archon hissed, taking obvious and intense pleasure from the act, as he pressed the ‘fire’ button again. As one, the targeted ships broke into dull-grey fragments as the flagship’s shadow lances immolated them.

If only he’d had the chance to savour the sweetness of betrayed souls. There was something disappointingly impersonal about it all. Nonetheless, this was a peak of pleasure…

Missile Star Calabria
"All forward missile tubes loaded with Mark IV Thermonuclear Ship-to-Ship missiles, yields set to maximum, broadside and aft tubes set for Mark II GeePee Missiles, shaped charges loaded. Point Defence Tubes are loaded and targetting DRADIS is enabled for automatic"
"Very Good, Guns, Report?"
"Both primary gun mounts are in the green Commander, point defence cannon standing by"
"Nav, give me the count on jump prep"
"All systems now secure sir, awaiting jump order from FLEETCOMSTRAPH"
"Give me the jump count"
"Aye, 5 minutes and counting", a counter appeared over the fleet plot on the main DRADIS console, and began to tick down towards zero, a display that showed literallly hundreds of ships gathered in a compacted arrowhead, laid out to give all the ships forward weapons fields of fire forwards, although the other unguided weapons of the fleet could not befire until the range was closed sufficiently that the enemy armadas profile spread out to allow broadside guns to be brought to bear.
"4 Minutes and counting"
The Commander, an brown haired man approaching his twenty fifth birthday, one of the youngest commanders in the fleet, albiet not a commander of a battlestar, picked up the headset and keyed the plot table comm board for shipwide.
"This is the commander, approximately fifteen minutes ago a raptor jumped into the outsystem of this facility and transmitted the following report", he paused and held up a computer printout, "it was transmitted in the clear", he then read it out.


FLEETCOMSTRAPH COPY ALL UNITS
RAPTOR 2104 SENDING, LT. TRANISE 1593211-Y
MESSAGE READS
ALIEN ATTACK FORCE HAS BREACHED THE CAPRICA OUTER PERIMETER
ALL COMMS WITH PDS ACHERON LOST, ASSUME TOTAL DESTRUCTION PROBABILITY 80%
REPORTING DAMAGE TO LEADING ELEMENTS OF ENEMY FORCE
CAPRICA ODF PREPARING TO ENGAGE
RECOMMEND MOVE OF JUMP TO ASAP
MESSAGE COPIED FROM PRIORITY DISPATCH ADM. JENSON, COMORBCAP

"As such, we will be jumping in approximately 2 and a half minutes, and before we do, I wish to say how much of an honour it has been to have this ship as my first command, you are without doubt the finest crew a rookie captain could wish for, and you are finest ship in the fleet. By this time tommorow the battle will be over, many of us may be dead, but the survivors will drink to their memory, and will know that those of us who fall today will be drinking with the gods in Elysium while they toast. And that we have died defending the ideals of the people of the twelve colonies and that we died with our eyes open, facing our enemy...... Now.... lets get to work", he clicked off the comm feed and the CIC crew noticed that there was a single tear in the eye of the commander, and then they knew in their hearts that the war had started.

"Jump Clock at 30 seconds, FTL Go"
"Sublight Go"
"Missile control Go"
"Guns Go"
"Dee-See GO"
"Engineering Go"
"FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE.... JUMPING"

Three things happened as the CIC stretched so that the plot table appeared to be thirty feet away before snapping back into focus, the Caprica ODF rounded the limb of the Angel Moon and fired its first salvo into the dorsal flank of the enemy fleet, while the compacted arrowhead that comprised the majority of the available Colonial Fleet units appeared between the enemy and Caprica, and the gunstar wing that comprised the majority of the rest of the Spacegoing Operational Colonial Fleet appeared in the rear of the enemy fleet, and commenced firing.l

"Jump Complete, Astro Readings show correct Coordinates"
"Line of Fire is clear, Weapons Free, Nuclear Weapons Safeties Released"
"Fire!"
"Firing all tubes"
"Firing forward gun mounting"
The forward railgun mounting of the missilestar recoiled as it spats two glowing peices of deathbringing metal towards the Dark Eldar Fleet, and a dozen pairs of thuds reverberated through the hull as all nine forward tubes discharged the Mark IVs in ripple fire, and the 15 Mark IIs were launched in a similar fashion.
"All tubes clear, cold and in vacuum, outer doors sealed, repressurising to open inner doors"
"Reload all tubes with similar missiles, fire when ready"
"Aye Sir"

Thousands of nuclear tipped and ocnventional missiles once more sprang from the compacted arrowhead as they spead towards the heart of the enemy armada, guns and missile tubes ablaze.

Kasraedan smiled. The human-cattle had committed a major force against them, at last. Thousands of missiles streaked across the stars, some even impacting his own ship, he was shifted in his seat slightly, In return, the Eldar ship’s batteries opened up, along with the fleet’s, sending strobing laser-light and quarter-furlong long slivers of crystal plated in steel armour, shot at a velocity best expressed in tenths of lightspeed. When these projectiles hit, parts of them would crash through an enemy ship, and become poisonous, agonising vapours, while other parts would, due to the fibrous and redundant nature of each shell’s casing, wedge themselves as broken, jagged slivers, in the remainder of the vessel, in order to hopefully poison any crew members who might try and repair it, or at least tear space suits.

Of course, most often, the velocity was such that the entire area was vaporised, projectile and all, but Kasraedan’s ship designers liked to maximise their cruelty.

Of course, right now, he had a battle to win. A screen displayed one of the attacking ships, with gun turrets on all sides, not terribly vulnerable, but he would try and maximise its weaknesses with manouvers. “Inform our fighter elements to move against theirs and bring them in closer to the enemy ships than ours…” he said, “Then have our main force move in a dorsal roll, have the seventh and third cruiser wings break off and take front and rear positions.

It was said that no plan survived contact with the enemy, and Kasraedan didn’t expect this one to, either. By splitting elements from his fleet, as the main unit made a tight twisting manouver, he planned to make the colonial manouvers more difficult still.

The main force would turn toward the enemy, firing their prow weapons, aside from Impalers, which the Grand-Archon ordered held back, on the enemy, then they would move to position themselves ‘above’ the fleet defending Caprica. While it was likely that the Colonial fleet would roll to bring its main weapons to bear on them, if they didn’t, the Eldar would have a decisive advantage.

Even then, it would still provide an advantage. As long as the Colonials were between the Eldar and Caprica, Kasraedan could not unleash the full firepower at his command, for fear of stray shots mulching its surface into molten rock.

Other elements, cruiser wings, comprising multiple squadrons of cruisers and their escorts, would break off front and rear, and attack the enemy ships in those sectors.

Of course, it wasn’t going exclusively their way. The most effective human attack was the one that appeared in the aft quadrant of the Eldar vessels. The ships had been designed for quick and decisive raids and ambushes, and were poorly armoured on their aft sections, to decrease overall mass. Nuclear missiles and railgun rounds broke the glowing engine segments of the Eldar ships, sending huge puffs of liquid hull into space, and breaking the structural axis of the shps, sending them drifting into pieces. The escort ships, not particularly sturdy at the best of times, were particularly vulnerable to this, and the gunners in the aft colonial attack group could, for a moment, celebrate killing one enemy ship per second.

Leaning forwards, Kasraedan petted his captive, watching a shadow-pulsar bisect one of his own ships. Someone was settling their scores on his time. He’d have to make an example. Later.

Ryn whistled as he paced -- there was little to do, as everything that must be prepared for his own action has been prepared. The battle skimmers sit ready in their drop cradles, their floatdrives inactive -- they are sleek of design, yet still threatening, and their primary cannon is not at all dissimilar to the secondary beam armament of the Rising Star herself.

The fast attack skiffs are attached to the skimmers' mooring points -- where the skimmer is a dedicated combat vehicle, the skiffs provide distance-mobility to Sevle Void Strikers upon the ground. The Void Strikers would fight dismounted -- the skiffs were only moderately armored and possessed of little in the way of weaponry, thus in a combat situation, they would serve little purpose other than to concentrate the Void Strikers that rode it into a nice, neat target. Which wasn't good.

About him, the rest of the hundred Void Strikers assigned to this troop bay milled, socializing and otherwise amusing themselves before 'Conflict Imminent' was announced. The scene was duplicated in Rising Star's nine other troop bays -- this one was the 'main' bay only by virtue of Ryn's presence in it.

Elsewhere, the Rising Star's complement of Hellsabre aerospace fighters was preparing itself for action. The pilots, Void Strikers, yes, but they never fought outside their fighters if they could help it, were strapped into their cockpits, visors down -- for they would launch upon the initial entry to realspace. Ryn Kierlan and his Void Strikers would deploy upon the second emergence, some time later.

For a time, the only Sevle presence in the area would be the Graceful Blade's fighter wing. Which was...moderately worrisome, especially considering that until such time as Fendurian Ranth chose to make alliances...they would have no allies. So to speak.

Luckily, the Graceful Blade would not be represented poorly -- three thousand fightercraft would be deployed upon that initial emergence, two thirds of them Hellsabre fighters, the other third Stormsickle attack craft -- fighter/bombers, though the Sevle did not use that designation. They were superb fightercraft, and the pilots that flew them were all extremely adept at their functions.

Though, admittedly, they weren't entirely certain what they would be doing once they launched. That, hopefully, would come in time...

innnndeeeed.

Gunstar Resistance, Flagstar of the 3rd Gunstar Squadron

"Enemy turning to bring bow weapons to bear sir" shouted the gunnery control officer over the noise characteristic of a battlestar in combat, "Suggest we begin the shortstep".
The commodore of the 3rd Gunstar Squadron turned to the Navigation officer, who was busy at his console, "How long until jump calculations complete?"
"Thirty seconds, commencing jump prep"

The Resistance led her companion gunstars in line abreast, coordinating the fire of her squadron, while other squadron flags did the same, directing hails of heavy weapons fire into the rear of the enemy armada, which was lit by flashes of exploding ships and the pricks of light of numerous weapons impacts both from the weapons of the gunstars and those of the rest of the fleet that was in the path of the enemy weaponry.
"Jump Calculated, Jumping in Five, Four, Three, Two, One!"
The ships of the gunstar wing ceased firing momentarily and jumped, appearing in the rapidly widening gap between the ships that were hammering the fleet between them and Caprica and those that had turned to engage them, immediately the gunstar escorts launched the vipers that had been held back in the earlier part of the engagement. The gunstars had been given clear lanes of fire before they had jumped, and instantly upon arrival they commenced firing in all directions into the heart of the enemy armada, into the rears of the ships that had turned to fight them and into the back of those which were still progressing onwards.
The ODI units attacking from the relative "belly" of the enemy fleet came to maximum accleeration and started to charge, missile tubes firing as fast as they could reloaded and guns discharging so quickly the supercapacitors were starting to glow.

Battlestar Erechtheus

"Inbound enemy missiles! Firing PD guns!"
The ships forward Point Defence Battery fired a spray of fragmentation rounds which spread a spray of light across the scene before the battlestar, which proceeded to kill dozens of missiles, but unfortuantely three broke through the barage and hit the ship, crippling its intercooler assembly and causing massive power losses and spikes which fried the navigational computer
"Sir, we cant maneuvre, all i can do is lock the engines on one course"
"Very well, lock engines full ahead readline + 10"
The Nav officer gulped and punch in the commands into the nearly dark console infront of him, locking the engines to ten percent above rated maximum thrust, forcing the battlestar out in front of its comrades and into an irreversable charge at the nearest enemy vessel on this course, which was several times the mass of the battlestar, although was apparently far lighter built, judging by the fires that were burning on its flanks from earlier mauling attacks by colonial weapons.
"Impact in twenty five seconds!" yelled the navigation officer, as the commander punched in the codes neccesary to vent the Osmium suspension that shielded the tylium fuel tanks from the radiation produced by the main reactor, immediately tylium temperatures began to rise as the radmetres climbed towards the level at which a catastrophic chain reaction would be initiated. He then set time delayed fuses on all the ships remaining nuclear missiles and ordered them loaded into the aft missile tubes, which would shield them long enough to do there job.
"Ten seconds"
"My fellow crew, it has been an honour to serve with you these past years, and i never thought that it would end this way, but I want you to know that you are the finished crew I have ever served with and that I have no doubt I will soon see you on the Elysian Fields, good luck", the commander released the last key he had pressed, which had activated the shipwide comm system.
"Three, Two, One, IMPACT!"
The commander closed his eyes as the ships armoured bow smashed into the lightly armoured hull of the enemy vessel, shearing off peices of STS armour plate as it punched a huge hole in the ship and slowed down as it carved vast swathes through teh armour, finally it came to rest, the inertia of the ship causing most of it to pancake as it collapsed into the ship infront of it as it came to rest.
Before the shock of the impact had even translated over the 700 metres of hull between the bow and CIC the commander had closed his eyes and braced himself against the plot table, at peace for the first time since he had heard that his lover had been listed KIA when her listening post had been completed destroyed.
Well, atleast il get to see Lucy again....
The CIC was flattened as the shockwave pasted and reached the tylium reactors and fuel storage systems, causing a massive overload that triggered the metastable decay off all the fuel aboard the ships and triggering a radiation pulse that detonated all of the ships nuclear weapons, adding to the multi-gigatonne nuclear detonation, tearing the ship into peices and killing the DE vessel in one fell swoop. Meanwhile the fleet was fairing badly, although it was mauling the front vessels of the Dark Eldar Armada, it was doing so at enormous cost and casualties were mounting.

Grand-Master Haemonculus Lalflensor smiled, it wasn’t very nice, the scraping of his teeth across his gums was almost audible. He didn’t deign ever to stand upon a floor, rather, riding at all times on a modified Hellion board, a hovering gravitic platform that held his feet, upon which he stood. “Prepare yourselves brethren…” he said, and he, and his debased company of escorts, vanished.

Moments later, after they had teleported onto the ship the humans called Resistance, the teleport chamber disappeared in a flash as hundreds of tonnes of metal ploughed through it like a mace, the comparatively low-speed impact of the human ship not quite destroying either vessel, but instead, crushing the vessels together, the smaller, human ship protruding from the larger one like an arrow.

The ramming ship flared into incandescence, and the Eldar vessel’s side broke, tumbling and pinwheeling apart, as it broke into more and more pieces, burning in the void.


As one, the largest ships’ gunnery sections puzzled at the suddenly altered sensor readings. For a moment, the enemy appeared to be in two places, and then, they opened up with heavy-shot against the gunstar squadron. There was limited fire, from only the largest ships, but there was plenty of it even so. Enough that the shots that missed the foe began to take their inadvertent toll on the rear Eldar ships, pulverising several of the smaller ones.


Kasraedan watched as most of the main body focussed their fire on the enemy before, and the rear fleet element began to turn on their axis, two or three wrenching themselves to pieces as the stresses of turning at the speeds for which they were designed overwhelmed their hastily constructed structures. Others, damaged, a third of their number destroyed, returned fire, prow batteries and lances and torpedoes reaching out to strike at their evasive aggressors.

“This battle is nearly done. Prepare my Impaler squadron!” Kasraedan declared, rising from his seat and leaving the control centre…

Alessa stretched and stepped out of the shower. The beautiful young woman walked to the towelrack, her hips moving back and forth with every step as water slowly dripped down the curves of her body. She stopped and turned to face out the viewport. Staring through the reflection, she closed her eyes tightly. 'This is a mistake...I shouldn't be doing this...'

Alessa brought her hand up over her heart. Its beating soothed her for a second, and then she opened her eyes, staring out into space. The universe around her slowed down and she reached out to touch the minds of her people, skimming such information as she needed to establish the well-being of her empire. Then, slowly, she opened her mind even wider. Information poured in, knowledge and thoughts and feelings. Her skin began to shift in colour, as if the very universe itself was filling her. Twinkles of light appeared beneath her skin, points of starlight...

and then she turned her attention to the quarry of the Roanian fleet, and fell to the ground, clasping her hands over her ears. The lights underneath her skin vanished, and she stifled a scream as the Dark Eldar punched holes in her universe, tearing aside her concentration. Slowly, unsteadily, she rose to her feet, her hands shaking. Alessa reached up and put her hand over her heart again, sighing in relief at the feeling of her heartbeat beneath soft, yielding flesh.

The bathroom door slammed open and a large, but comforting figure stormed in. The Salamandr growled as it looked around the room. "Your Majesssssty, isssss all well? I heard you fall." The Private Guard licked its forked tongue across its lips.

Alessa looked up at the guard, wearily shaking her head. "I tripped." She mumbled. "That's all." She rose to her feet and, reciting a quick spell, ran her hand down her body. In a matter of seconds she was dry and dressed in a loose blue robe. "Give me a moment to collect myself. Where are we?"

"We are currently in holding posssition a light-minute out of orbit from the Commonwealth world of Heraklion." The Salamandr informed her, retrieving its forcepike from behind the door. "Lord-Captain-Commander Aisssslin, he isss already on hisss way to the ssssurface with the transsport bargesss and the ssshuttlessss." It stepped aside to allow her to pass.

Alessa yawned daintily and flopped onto her bed, resting her head on her hands. "Oh, we're picking up the humans?" She murmured, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face. "Yes, Captain-General Airan mentioned something like that to me." Her ears perked up and she spun around, calling up a communications screen. "Aislin!" She said, warmly.

The LCC's face appeared on her screen, warily. Behind him, the jungles of Heraklion were looming larger and larger. "Yes, Your Most Radiant Angelic Majesty? How may this humble servant assist you?"

"Mmm..." She steepled her hands and leaned against the wall. "I want to meet some humans. Invite the high officers to stay on the court."

"What?" Bran's face froze. "Your majesty, I disagree most strongly with this course of action. They're humans!" The male shook his head. "I appreciate that you want to meet..." His breath began to come and go in spurts. "Your...Majesty..."

Alessa's eyes were glowing red. "I will not be disobeyed." She murmured, her eyes focussed on his jugular. "If you will not do your duty and perform basic courtesy towards high-ranking guests and allies of the Empire, I will find a new Lord-Captain-Commander who will. Do I make myself clear?"

He tugged on his collar, gasping for breath. "Crystal, your majesty... I will invite a selection of the... cleaner... specimens to stay on the Angelic Court."

Alessa made a deep sound similar in tone and meaning to a purr, and her eyes turned back to blue. "Good!" She smiled and shut down the communications channel.


Upon receiving landing clearance, the LCC's shuttle landed in front of the Freestian base. The door slid open, but for a second there was no sign of the officer within. Soon a felinoid hurried out of the open door and knelt to the ground. Soon a Roanian dressed in a long, flowing red robe stepped out of the shuttle onto the catcreature's back and looked around him. With a barely decipherable curl of his lips, he stepped down onto the ground. The felinoid stepped aside as two armoured Legionnaires left the shuttle to flank the officer, their guns at the ready.

The LCC and his escorts walked across to the Freestian commander. After a second or two, the officer showed his fangs and slowly bowed slightly. "Faith and Duty, Honoured Ally."

The Lord Captain was greeted by a mixture of ad hoc formalness and organised chaos. That this was a new facility was evident, with the seemingly utilitarian prefab buildings and mobile equipment that dotted the landing pad (which was little more than steel matting over a chopped down jungle clearing) and the surrounding area. The Freethinker team had been here only a couple of months, and had been left somewhat stranded by the sudden departure of their supporting spacecraft, leaving only a few old corvettes and frigates that sat hanging in the surrounding space as potential guardians. On the surface, a quarter of a million military and civilian personnel milled about the new and untouched world, surveying and building the first permanent settlements on the planet.

The three figures that greeted the Lord Captain-Commander were an interesting cross section of the three main species of the Commonwealth. The first was the pale, grey haired human captain of the base, average height and build for a human but seemingly dwarfed by his companions, wearing the dark navy uniform, clean and ironed but slightly worn, of the Freethinker Royal Spaceborne Navy. He smiled and offered a salute.

“Lord Captain-Commander, welcome to Spaceport Olympia” the words sounded grand, in complete contrast to the half constructed milieu around them. “Captain Pederson at your service. Allow me to introduce the expeditionary force commander, General Tobias Oakland and the vampiric representative Lord Sempero Dryiad, one of the Warlords of Navarrok.” A hand indicated who he meant, but the standing would have been obvious regardless.

The ghoul General towered over everyone else, seven and a half feet of armoured bulk, though it was obvious the armour didn’t add much to his height. Naturally broad and extremely powerful, only the neck and head of the warrior showed from the plating. His face had once been handsome, perhaps a century ago, but now the strong jaw lay covered in scar tissue, the left-hand third of it now lay screwed and twisted in the aftermath of a horrific burn, and the right eye formed the base of several scars that seemed to run deep enough that were he human they would still run with blood. Smaller indentations, lines and the cracking of both age and the natural effects of harsh desert life gave the impression of some weird abstract sculpture of a man’s face as opposed to the genuine article, and one had to wonder whether this carried on over the rest of his body.

The armour itself seemed to carry on the worn motif, the slashes and indentations in the metal carried with pride, countless blows and burns etched like engravings into the surface. A ragged, mud strewn robe sat haphazardly over the armour, covered in dark crimson and mud stains, lined and decorated with chains of bones, teeth and what looked disturbingly like polished skulls of various hominids and other creatures. Fangs the size of bayonets took pride of place of course, as much as a reminder of home as trophies of success. The soldiers around them, readying for the off, wore similar decoration and flaws with triumph.

Compared to the snarling behemoth that was the ghoul commander, Lord Dryiad seemed practically human, though his own smaller, powerful frame and poise would have required the efforts of a lifetime spent dedicated to self-improvement that seemed at odds with the laid back air the vampire presented. A stainless crisp black uniform covered the lithe yet muscular body, glittering only from the epaulets, numerous medal and an almost elven torque that sat around his neck. He seemed almost youthful, his appearance bearing none the of the hardship that Oakland seemed to have endured, but then he had far more control and choice in his appearance, and reasons for looking better than most. Both remained silent however as Pederson continued.

“Lord, we must thank you for your hospitality and offer of carriage. We have been, taken aback by a surprise attack on the Mainland on Earth, and we have been left somewhat under equipped for the tasks presented. We have seen the re-emergence of the dark elves as an opportunity to, exact some revenge and of course help ensure others don’t endure a similar fate. If the General here would care to explain…”

“Of course” spoke Oakland, with a voice as deep and growling as expected, “we have as said been left somewhat in the lurch. As we mentioned, we have a fair few ground troops available for planet side operations, about thirty odd thousand of the finest infantry around plus our support elements.” He made a dismissive gesture to the various battle suits and light wheeled vehicles sitting unoccupied around, covered in technicians and power cables, some were even up and moving, fifteen foot Behemoths crashing through the trees. “So if we can move said forces with you we can hopefully add ourselves to the defensive effort….” Three dull flashes interrupted them, but Oakland and Pederson merely looked over their shoulder at the rising mushroom clouds on the southern horizon and then gave a dismissive shrug. “…Especially since our operations here and beginning to come to a conclusion, at least for now.”

“So, hopefully, you can accommodate us!” Oakland grinned. It was terrifying.

Above the Dark-Eldar raddled cities of the Colonial worlds the sky opens and rain begins to fall.
However, to risk a cliche, this is a rain of steel, drop-pods shriek down in columns of flame while Thunderhawk transporters spiral down behind them, racked tanks and APCs rattling as the blunt-nosed shuttles bank around the inevitable Spizanian ground-fire, bursts of servitor chatter the only communication between the descending forces as the cone-shaped landing craft augering toward the ground.

The better-aimed, or just luckier, slam down close enough to concentrations of Dark Eldar to send them flying, before immediately disgorging squads in the black/green/silver of the Paragons, the Wolf's head symbol of Garm's 118th Company prominent on shoulderpads not bearing the red cross-potent of Sayid's 55th.
Squads of tactical marines disperse from their drop-pods, which quietly move into guard-mode, waiting for any non-human to encounter them and bring down a storm of automatic fire or a torrent of missiles, depending on the pod.
Aside from the trotting, disciplined lines of the tactical squads, dreadnoughts waddle from their pods, the awkward motion of the great war-machines belying their lethality.

Inevitably not all the drop-pods are on target and one streaks down into a (recently) abandoned gas-station, howling down in a ruler-straight trajectory ending in a volcanic explosion as the white-hot base of the drop-pod drills its way through concrete and steel to hit the fuel below.
Metal groans within the inferno, shrieking and popping from intense heat and...something else.

A towering shape clambers out of the crater, wreathed in smoke, reaching the top of the shattered rubble just in time for half a dozen Dark Eldar to sprint out of the darkness, splinter rifles to hand, predatory, exultant grins and blood-spattered armour indicating they'd been down long enough to begin their campaign of murder.
Seeing the shape emerge from the smoke, the twisted Eldar come to a halt, then hurl imprecations in their own tongue as the Wraithlord moves further from the wreckage, massive head casting back and forth like a hound on a scent, then twitching slightly as though it had just noticed the patchily-armoured group below.
A red daubed hand reaches up to rub under its subjective 'chin', ignoring the slung shuriken cannon and wraithsword slung from its back, before shrugging and stepping over the cursing aliens, who, enraged at both the appearance of one of their cousins, and of its disdainful ignoring of them, promptly open fire, splinters pattering off wraithbone with no more effect than rain.

The towering construct lopes across several blocks, followed by an ever-increasing number of Dark Eldar, all of whom pump splinter after splinter into its chassis to negligible effect, the Wraithlord ignoring them completely as its huge stride covers ground easily.
Its only when the vast, yet elegant wraith-golem moves around a final corner to find a single Space Marine clad in intricate silver armour with bronze-chased plasma pistol and sword at his belt resting quietly at the edge of an now-dry fountain that it stops.

The Dark Eldar, now some several hundred metres behind due to leg-length differences, howl war-cries and redouble their pace.
The Astartes looks at them for some moments, then looks up at the Wraithlord.
"Not that I'm not glad to see you Trajan, but aren't you forgetting something?"
The construct cocks its head.
What, Garm?
"Those Trajan. The Eldar. The ones we're here to defeat." The Marine flicks a dismissive hand at the charging warriors, who're by now getting quite close.
The wraithlord turns, giving a slight start.
I'd forgotten they were there. Thank you for reminding me brother.
"Never a problem Trajan. Enjoy yourself."

The Wraithlord nods as best it can, then takes a long stride forward, foot crunching into the concrete as the other swings like a pendulum up behind it, then scythes through the air to crunch into the torso of the foremost Dark Eldar, launching him in a flat trajectory to smash against one of the surrounding builds in a burst of crimson.
The horde skid to a stop, which is precisely the wrong approach as the Wrathlord, balanced almost en pointe punts an other screaming Eldar through the air to its bone-crunching doom.
The storm of splinter re-doubles, enough of it directed at Garm that he prudently vaults into the fountain-bed, but still, it is completely irrelevant to the mighty wraithbone creation.
Trajan by this stage is going for height, kicking unfortunate warriors nearly straight up, the shrieking aliens launching into the night sky, then pin-wheeling down to thump soddenly into the ground below, or smack meatily into their kind, indeed, his most impressive efforts lead to a pseudo-explosive effect as Eldar land hard enough to knock their kin flying, the inevitable spikes and points of warrior armour forming reasonable ersatz shrapnel.
The warriors by now are scrambling for cover, and as the first fire beings to ring off Trajan's artificial hide, an almost palpable sense of brow-wrinkling disdain comes off the Wraithlord, who extends green-enamelled arms, and, with a slight gesture, ignites the ornate bronze flamethrowers mounted thereon.
Flames that burn with a strange purple tint streak out into the night, turning half a dozen Eldar into screaming, flailing torches, which is frankly enough for their fellows, who promptly break and run in impressive unison.
In a few moments the plaza is empty except for bodies, a peeved-looking Wraithlord shaking his fist and an Astartes who is laughing so hard he feels like his fused ribs are going to burst.
Come back! Cowards! I'm not done with you!

Iyanna was stood now deep within the heart of Tor Yvresse, the room was in near darkness, and a round table was surrounded by Keigh. An Exarch from Each shrine stood to bare witness. Iyanna herself stood in front of a large Bronze door of immense size and weight, seemingly shut with the weight of ages, it would require colossal strength to open a legion of Keigh would need to work days to shift the door a fraction of an inch. Her voice slowly rang out over the gathering. ‘Shuvaralis, Autras’Korotay.’ The words where an old dialect of Eldarlan, ancient with no true English translation. She continued the words carrying the sound of ancient ritual, but moving into a lower form of the language one in more general usage. ‘We have come to witness and to sacrifice’ with that she turned towards the door removing from it an ancient blade obscured by her form. Turning back to the assembled group she continued. ‘Our words we give to honour, our hearts to battle, and our essence to he who awakens.’ In one hand she held aloft the ancient blade, it seemed to bristle with barely contained energies. Her other was empty as she continued. ‘The time for Battle is once more upon us. The bloody hand will point the way.’ With the use of the term Bloody hand her free hand rose as if being presented to the Exarch’s.

From outside the chamber, a door opened, a man stood, as if awaiting a summons, free of clothing, his body covered in ancient runes some seemingly carved into his hardened flesh. ‘Enter Young King. Chosen of the Exarchs.’ Iyanna’s voice spoke as if in greeting, and the man strode forward to the table, confident seemingly unafraid, that fear and pain was still to come.

Reaching the young king Iyanna placed the blade of the sword before him as behind the man Darvins placed around his shoulder’s a finely woven cloak, the item screamed of days of craftsmanship, of expense of nobility. Perhaps, gone unnoticed, for now a single goblet sat in front of the man. Who would then place both arms over that goblet and under the blade. ‘Cup of Greal accept this sacrifice’ came Iyanna’s voice once more the sword descending onto the Young Kings arms, drawing forth blood that fell into the goblet. As it did so a rune, the same was carved into the man’s flesh and shone with reflected power. It was almost done the young King had been crowned and made into a worthy vessel.

The sword was handed to him and he took up the cup, without a sound the mammoth bronze doors swung open, inside all that could be seen where flame filled a vast chamber, obscuring what was behind.

‘Go to him, bring him forth.’ The command from Iyanna seemed unneeded; the man was already moving to obey, walking without fear towards the inferno. As he passed the threshold of the chamber, the doors swung closed the outer chamber descended into silence and as they bore witness to the screams of agony, that pierced the soul. Whatever occurred in that flame filled chamber beyond those doors was still a mystery to the Keigh. It would perhaps always be so, but it was done. Slowly the screams died down, usually at this point the chanting would begin, but for once things where different, the keigh seemed nervous, the doors reopened and brutal figures where herded into the room even as Iyanna and the rest of the rooms inhabitants left by other doors.

Later all that could be heard from inside the room was the sound of the creatures screaming in pain and fear, as the Orks knew at last fear. It wasn’t until the screams ended that the door was at last opened, and the Exarchs looked within, for now Khaine appeared sated.

Manipulating the Mon-keigh was always an easy thing; Moreso when they almost wanted to be manipulated.

"...attacking the human worlds of the system in force. They will slaughter or enslave all they encounter unless they are stopped."

The Exarch-Warlock finished and stood silently at the front of the desk. Normally he would have cast forth the runes and made an appeal to mystical destiny but he knew it was unlikely to sway the mon-keigh sitting there. Logic and reason dictated their actions as well as a sense of obligation to do the right thing. Which, again, made it easy.

"And why not stop them yourselves? As you said, they are your Dark Kin. You know them best."

The woman spoke - or not woman. He could tell she was not bound by the same fate as humans though she appeared as one of them. The question was expected and he knew the right answer as well as it's appeal to them.

"Because if they are only stopped there they will continue. Only we can stop them forever. Their paths are known to us and us alone for they dwell deep in the warp in their twisted city of darkness and evil. But to destroy them we must commit our full might or nearly so. Others must go to help the humans. Others have already gone but they will not be enough."

"All right. We'll go help them."

"Good. There is much you still must know to defeat them. Their leader is cruel, cunning and of a malicious intelligence..."

----

"...and we can post the Ghost Dragon and Warp Spiders on the Mk39's. This will give them plenty of operational room. And the commanders..."

"Yes. The Exarchs will wish to join battle though. Waves serpents shall carry their warriors into the fray. Perhaps a dozen to each of your frigates... Wraithlords with your tanks...

Admiral Villanova was holding a command meeting with his opposite from the Eldar expeditionary force and one of the first things decided was to mix their forces. Highly unusual, yes, but the SDF lacked a way to detect the wraith gates of the Dark Eldar. By mixing their forces the two could hit them hard and fast and then move on.

The mixed force would be broken down into a number of sub-sections built around a pair of the SDF's Mk39 GravFrigates (http://www.sunsetrpg.com/yappa-ng/index.php?album=%2FSpaceships%2F&image=SDFMk39.jpg). Each of these would serve as a command and coordination platform and would also transport squads of Warp Spiders and Ghost Dragons (http://www.sunsetrpg.com/yappa-ng/index.php?album=%2FPowerarmor%2F&image=SDFGhostDragonII.jpg) to allow both units maximum use of their jump drives. These would be escorted by Eldar Nightwing Fighters and Phoenix Strike Fighters as well as SDF Aggressor Assault Fighters (http://www.sunsetrpg.com/yappa-ng/index.php?album=%2FSpaceships%2FFighters%2F&image=SDFAggressorA.jpg) and squads of Swooping Hawks on the wing. Each sub-section would also have a transport section made up of the lightning fast Eldar Wave Serpents and Falcon GravTanks and the larger and more lumbering Jade-II Gunships (http://www.sunsetrpg.com/yappa-ng/index.php?album=%2FSpaceships%2FFighters%2F&image=SDFJadeII.jpg) transporting squads of Howling Banshees, Striking Scorpions, Dire Avengers in the smaller craft and mixed squads of Marine Grand Daiklaives (http://www.sunsetrpg.com/yappa-ng/index.php?album=%2FPowerarmor%2F&image=SDFGrandDaiklaiveB.jpg) and HitMark Combat Androids as well as a variety of smaller drones and androids. If, by some odd combination of circumstances, they were to come across enough Dark Eldar to give their collective firepower pause, there was an organized armored reserve that would function as an armored fist element to smash them. This was made up of the heavier units available to both forces - SDF 'Bulldog' Super Heavy GravTanks and Mk-III UHCV's (http://www.sunsetrpg.com/yappa-ng/index.php?album=%2FPowerarmor%2F&image=SDFUHCVmkIV.jpg), Eldar FirePrisms, Wraithlords, Dire Reapers, and Vampire Strike Bombers. These would be given infantry and additional air support by the strike section that had called them into action.

Logistical command would be handled by the SDF, and frontline command by the Eldar Exarchs. Even though the SDF had chosen to commit 0-Division to the fight there was still a general feeling among the SDF forces that there was a need to prove themselves to the Eldar. With the awakening of the Avatar the Keigh were in a near-frenzy and when battle came it would be interesting to see who rushed into the fray faster.

----

But first, information...

A dozen of the SDF's seasoned warships popped out into realspace in the target system far above the stellar north and south poles. These began to fire off probes into an expanding network that would provide the dispersal of the various fleets in the system. This would be broken down and plotted so that the Fleet that was coming could make the best possible opening gambit.

Emergence

Feels like a wave of cold washing over you, like you're jumping into a pond just moments after the ice has melted. Except that isn't right, because it feels like you're ON FIRE.

Ish.

Ryn Kierlan felt his mind snap sideways, then his eyes opened and he saw all...and when he saw what he wanted to see, his voice shouted a command, though it was unnecessary, as his command circuit had trigger the Drop Klaxon the instant the impulses had fired...but tradition was tradition.

"PUNCH IT!"

And they did.

The Flotilla had emerged...split. As was the intention. Half of the colonial worlds each got at the very least a strike cruiser, with additional units assigned in proportion to the expected threat. The most serious threat was granted the honor of being dealt with by the Blademaster herself, that massive ship emerging from the Warp in relatively close vicinity to the planet -- Sevle command of the Warp was largely unmatched...

The large warships -- the Battlecarrier Blademaster and the various strike cruisers -- did not, as had been originally planned, deploy their entire strike craft alotment. They deployed only a token force in support of the now-deploying ground forces, who emerged from the capital vessels in clouds of dark blots...

--- Dirtside Generic ---

The first down are the Vanguards, as is their role. They do not deploy from orbit, rather, the nature of their specialist armor suits and their special training allows them to Warpwalk directly onto the surface.

Somewhere....somewhere, a squad of Vanguard Voidstrikers arrives in the midst of a Dark Eldar warrior unit, stepping out of tears in reality like so many nightmares. They had not intended, exactly, to deploy within the midst of the enemy, but they had not intended not to, either, and so they explode into action.

Here, a warrior is impaled on an outstretched Shimmerclaw, there, a Vanguard Voidstriker has disemboweled another with his punch gun's bayonet. Another has closed his powerful gauntlet around a leg and is using the jagged-armored body of his enemy as a particularly wicked fail, while he fires his heavy pistol with his other hand.

But that is atypical. Few of the Vanguard have deployed within 'intimate range' of the Foe, though several have deployed within small-arms range, and the heavy pistols favored by most Vanguards have added their chatter to the cacophony...

Less than a minute after the initial deployment, the greater mass of the Sevle ground force arrives, plummeting from orbit. The drop pods have broken up on the way down, and the individual warriors fire their leg-thrusters, used in exactly two situations: orbital insertions and maneuvering in space, to break their descent. They come down relatively softly and attempt, immediately, to regroup. Though many care little -- the Sevle are as comfortable fighting as individuals as in squads, to speak truth.

--

Ryn Kierlan steps onto solid ground with a vague smile upon his face. He has drawn both of his pistols, and his hands come up to address the Foe. The rounds fired by his weapons are smaller than those fired by the standard Sevle heavy pistol, but his pistols have fire higher rates of fire -- each weapon has its advantages and its disadvantages, of course...

He moves forward, his personal squad regrouping about him even as he advances in a smooth, seemingly-orchestrated manner, though they have not yet communicated meaningfully. They are Sevle...

--

Fendurian Ranth, Warmaster of the Graceful Blade, has deployed into the midst of a knot of Dark Eldar warriors who have been using the ruins of a structure as a firing point. His foot barely touches ground before he is motion, tearing his warpblade free of its scabbard, a tendril of darkness reaches down from the blade's cross-guard to wrap tightly over his knuckles, securing his grip upon the blade. They are one.

He moves. His blade flicks out once, twice, and again, and he has yet to still. The warriors scream their dread war crys and pile into the melee, lithe, alien, lethal, their wicked blades and splinter weapons products of advanced technology geared towards massacre and infliction of pain...

It was beautiful, in its way -- the intricate dance played out betwixt the Sevle Warmaster and the fell raiders...the Warmaster in his intricate, sleek black, blue, gray, and white armor of ancient design -- sleek, powerful, superior...and the raiders in their blade-armor, terrible, alien, vicious...shadows highlighted from point to point by distant flashes of light -- munitions of various sorts. Blood flies freely...and moments pass.

In the end, Fendurian Ranth flicks his warpblade to the side, blood flies from the fell blade in an arc, repelled by the surface. The Warmaster stands amidst a slaughter, the warriors appear to have been dismembered by a vicious, homocidal Cuisinart with grudge...

Ranth traces a finger across a shallow gouge on his breastplate and scowls, though the expression is invisible behind his helmet...

Vrathnan, his Arms-second, sprints into view, arriving at the scene with his carbine at low-ready.

"My Lord...you could have left some for the rest of us..."

Fendurian swivels his helmet to face his bodyguard and laughs. "I suppose, Vrathnan, I suppose.."

The remnant of the Warmaster's personal bodyguard assembles shortly thereafter and they move to find a more secure position for a command post. This task will occupy them for some time, as there is not yet a defined line of conflict, thus removing the possibility for any sort of 'behind the lines' safety. As such, the Warmaster and his bodyguard fight as Void Strikers for a time, and they revel in it -- they are elite warriors, but their position as a command element often relegates them to a rearward position, taking them out of the fight...which is fine, in general, as they are all veterans, having seen more than their fair share of conflict and glory...but it is nice to keep one's hand in, is it not?

--Spaaaaace--

The flotilla vanishes as swiftly as it enterred, only to re-appear again, grouped into a battle formation on the outskirts of the ongoing conflict with the Dark Eldar fleet. Lord Captain Ajarath Larferian commands from the War Bridge of the Battlecarrier Blademaster.

-

"Lord Captain, the Flotilla has re-emerged."

Larferian nods, "Very good. Transmission: Flotilla: Boost to Alpha-Six, Variant Four-Four-Nine-Two. End. Tactical, firing solutions for projected course. Guns, report?"

The grizzled Starstriker commanding the weapons subsection of the War Bridge checks his read-outs and smiles ferally, "All elements report ready and willing. Missile range as projected, primary lance range plus two, capital beams as projected."

Larferian's answering nod is short and sharp, "Superb. Primary Lances will fire as they bear...Bee-Eff-Bee-Ell-Eff."

The veteran weapons officer nods, "Aye, sir. Big Fish before Little Fish. I'm watching them."

"Fantastic."

Larferian returns his attention to his plotter, his jaw working slowly all the while -- he has a reputation as a gum chewer, quite justly gained. Just one way of dealing with the stress of his position, and an endearing little personality trait when compared to the methods used by some of his counterparts in other legions...

Time passed...

The gunnery officer tapped a command into his console and the review screens situated strategically about the War Bridge played out the results in magnificent, dramatic, ai-modelled imagery. The Battlecarrier and her consorts flushed their forward missile tubes, sending a cloud of Warphead-tipped smart attack munitions into the the flank of the Dark Eldar armada, though that cloud, and indeed the Flotilla itself, seemed miniscule in comparison to the massivity of the Foe...

The missiles would not reach their end-targets for some time. The Foe would suffer their first casualties not from that initial missile salvo, but from the Blademaster's mighty forward Primary Lance cluster...

Time passed...

The gunnery officer's hands played upon his console again and the review screens relayed the result -- the prow of the massive Battlecarrier Blademaster was suddenly the source of a blinding brilliance as the Primary Lance cluster fired -- individually, each of the lances could core a small starship lengthwise. But the size of each weapon precluded broadside mounting and the power draw prevented their mounting on anything but a Battlecarrier...which was a shame, as they were delightful weapons, with almost double the range of a capital beam...

Unfortunately, the refire rate was pathetic. As a result one of the Holy Grails of the Artificer's trade was a faster-firing Primary Lance. Rumor had it that Jory Aedarion had developed such a thing at some point in time...but he hadn't been seen, outside of rumor, in millenia...

Nonetheless...

Lafarian looked up from his plotter, "Transmission: Flotilla: Lay it on, gentlemen...they know we're here, now, and we don't want to be late for the party!"

The Flotilla surged forward, closing the range...closing the range...until maneuvering thrusters fired and swung the vessels about ninety degrees, presenting the Dark Eldar with their broadsides. The primary drives flared to life again, shedding some small amount of absolute velocity to maintain a proper angle -- they had never been moving directly at the Dark Eldar fleet, exactly, but the angle they had been moving at would, eventually, have driven them into at least some part of the hostile fleet...which was, partially, the idea...but not entirely.

The Sevle warships went to maximum rate-of-salvo on their broadside armaments moments later, capital beams cutting across the void, followed up by the massed broadside missile armament -- broadside missiles traded the stand-off capability of the missiles in the foreward tubes for greater killing power. Less endurance, more wham. Classic...

Shadowing another fleet was sometimes a worthy job.

Or at least that was what the Admiral Mistress of the Eöl Clan thought as her fleet popped out of the warp, the modified, hybrid designs of the aelosian war fleet looking alike to both eldar and dark eldar vessels. Her own battleship, the "Sudden Backstab", was a VoidStalker sporting an massively changed and armoured prow similar of a Torture capital ship, followed in its wake by a small swarm of lesser DarkShadow Class cruisers, MoonEclipse Carriers, and their support escort frigates and destroyers, armed and armoured with the best both trends of eldar design had to offer. Pulsar and Phantom Lances, Leech and Seeking torpedoes, Holofields and Shadowfields, Solar Sails and Mimic Engines. Although the diversity and heterogenous mix added a lot of options to the Eöl Admiral Mistress, stole her of the most specialized duty of "pure" eldar ships that the other Admirals of the Sindar Empire enjoyed, or the close combat boarding capability of the renegade dark eldar pirates.

She had been following the ships of the Dawn Paragons for months, not to exactly stalk them waiting to strike the Astartes vessels, as Aelosia sported a rather open policy towards the Chapter of Space Marines, but to trace possible enemies on the wake of the armoured spearhead of the Imperium's Best, or even to give them support should the paladins of the Emperor faced with enemies superior to their own amazing engaging capabilities. The Mistress hoped to salvage the hulks left after the burning punishment of the Paragons' flotilla cleaned the stars of filth, but this time, she was facing an even better scenario.

A Dark Eldar attack upon some unsuspecting human planet. The raiders were everywhere, stalking the besieged place, but being stalked in return by other parties. Each and every detector in the aelosian fleet rang with sudden alarms as more and more ships were detected in the far proximities of their range. Incoming Tor Yvressi ships, Sunset vessels, and the present local defenders, with more and more lectures swarming the readers, that flashed with both sound and light in the bridges of the aelosian fleet.

The drow Admiral smiled over her control throne inside the bridge of her flagship, pondering about the chances in front of her. Beneath her flashy, exotic and more than pleasant to the eyes appearance, she was the most devious mind of the Sindar Empire, or so her peers believed. Far away from the fringes of the Sindar imperium, she was fairly free to do as she pleased here. She hated her duty of nursering the Space Marines, that to her elven supremacist eyes, were too far inferior mentally to the elves as to provide anything else than brute military muscle and cannon fodder to the objetives of Aelosia. Finally she got a chance of extracting some profit of her prolongued and useless duty.

Placing her fleet outside the range of the superior firepower of the other forces nearby, she activated the mimic engines to play an easy duty, to disguise her fleet as one of the most conventional fleets of the Sindar Empire. Actually, as the fleet of the ArchDuke Admiral Kithail Hyral, usually in duty around the aelosian Craftworld. She had no doubt that the Dark Eldar, being the true masters of the mimic technology and warfare, would see easily through the ruse using their own detectors, but as a matter of fact, the drow admiral wanted the Dark Eldar to recognize the patterns of many of their ships, and act accordingly to that, and to not fall for the trap of disguising her ships as normal aelosian-eldar ships of the line.

The Sunset, Yvressi, Adeptus Astartes and other factions' ships were another matter entirely. She didn't want them to add two and two together and see the similarities of her ships to the raiders that were attacking the planet, or soon she would become a target even before she had enough time to explain either their sudden appearance, or their purpose in this place. And even having the time, her possible answers or explanations weren't exactly sound. In any case, if the ships were going to be detected as a "possible" hostiles, was reason enough to end as a pincushions of starfire for all those trigger happy captains out there. A "normal" aelosian fleet was going to be classified as an ally by both the Marines, the Eldar, and the Sunset forces. The perfect camouflage, she thought. She had the right codes, and the right protocols, not even forged, to mimic another fleet of her own Empire. The move was sound, the tactic, perfect, the deceit, marvelous. She was so proud of herself.

The drow rose from her throne, the crimson skirt of her revealing silk dress swirling around her ebony body as she stepped down the control center, and approached one of the communication advisors. "Open me a link with the Dark Eldar Archon. Or if you can't trace the mothership or flagship of the fleet, open me a link with any capital ship of the raider forces. Supreme security, double encrypted. Make it sound like a surrender call to all others, but help me to talk with the Commorragh's envoys".

"Your orders manipulate my will, Mistress. Do you need a translator? They doesn't speak sindar or drow, madam", asked the humble communication officer.

The move was delicate, the hand racing through the air in a gracile flight. The slap was sound and brutal, leaving a set of slim fingers marked upon the cheek of the officer. "Don´t be an idiot, I speak their language. Back in the good days, I had dealings with more than a Cabal. Read the history of your clan before asking stupid, useless questions".

OOC: Stupid jolt and its post eating. What follows is a brief summary of my original post. Hopefully when I return from my little pilgrimage to France, I shall expand it

Unfortunately, there was a massive lightning and thunder flash that obscured the remaining meeting between Freethinker and Roanian. One thing's for sure, though. The Roanian did stand on top of a felinoid's back to address the tall ghoul and deliver a personal invitation, complete with glowing head, from Alessa to all major officers in the 'auxiliary' forces to stay on her ship.

Then the shuttles landed.

~~

Fortunately for the commander of the good battleship Eructhean, he did not die. Instead, he was teleported on board the single imperial scoutvessel that had quietly been skulking around the system. Half-naked and unarmed, but very alive (even if the Roanians did at first glance appear to be the angels of myth), he was given a chance to help turn the tide in the war against the Dark Eldar by pinpointing a world the Roanians could use as a 'beacon' to call in their fleet, along with those of their allies.

In exchange, the Roanians promised to give him clothes, and return him to his own people as soon as possible.

The Strike Star shuddered as it sustained yet another hit from an enemy gun battery, ripping armour plates like peices of dead skin and exposing numerous compartments to space, two hundred lives winked out in an instance, vapourised by the enemy weapon, while another hundred were snuffed out as superheated superaccelerated shrapnel tore through internal bulkheads, perforating numerous personel and then sucking them out into the void.
But even this did not stop the Strike Star as it dodged in and out of burning wrecks of enemy and Colonial Warships, admittedly more colonial than enemy, gun batteries ablaze as they continued to cycle, defying the weapons designers who would have put there entire life savings on them having begun to cook off by this point.

"CIC, Guns, weve fired nearly two thousand main artillery projectiles, about one quarter of the after magazine remaining, forward magazine is empty"
"Roger that, what about light guns?"
"Its not looking good there sir, weve expended more than half our fragmentation ammunition and AP is nearly gone"
"Very Well, continue firing!"
The commander of the somewhat crippled strikestar turned to the Marine Contingent Commander, "Major, the Ground Strike Rockets were loaded when we left dock werent they?"
The Major blinked her hazel eyes and then gave him a grin that made his blood freeze, it was mirthless.... feral....
"Yessir, all tubes are hot and locked!"
The commander turned towards the plot table and gave his XO that same grin, "Navigation, give us a course towards the nearest enemy major warship, head us straight at them and prepare to break away to port as if you were strafing him. Guns, unlock the safeties on the ground attack rockets and standby to fire as we strafe, have the guns target the impact sites!"
The crew snapped to obey the orders as he gripped the edge of the DRADIS console to avoid being knocked off his fleet by another blast that turned another few metres of his ship to superheated vapour. But then again while they were doing this to him and the rest of the fleet, they couldnt be doing it to the refugee ships even now attempting to withdraw behind the screen the fleet had thrown in front of the enemy leviathion.

"Commander, Guns, weapons unlocked, firing patterns set, ready to fire when ready!"
"Navigation, course set, approaching missile launch range"
"Guns, Fire When ready, Navigation, you know what to do"
"As Ordered; Yessir"

The ship lumbered, albiet that was only in comparison to the enemy and allied fighters (she was nearly as fast as the enemies small raiders), onto a new vector, straight at an enemy Heavy Cruiser analog that was engaged with three battlestars in a pairing that still looked rather badly matched, with the Battlestars taking far more fire than they were capable of laying down.
At the appropriate range the rocket tubes that lined a large percentage of the ships hull discharged, sending a flurry of rockets into the side of the enemy ship, causing massive explosions that set off more explosions, internal this time, along the entire flank of the enemy cruiser.
Guns fired into the breaches that they had opened as the ship vectored away, tearing through internal bulkheads but doing little more than bloodying the ships nose, it was still easily capable of engaging the ships that were trying to tie it down, but maybe the Strike Star had bought the heavies a fighting chance.
Then a message came through the priority channel that changed things entirely,
"ALL SHIPS TO WITHDRAW TO POINT BLEAK BY FTL, RECOVER ALL REMAINING FIGHTERS IMMEDIATELY"
Vipers and Raptors broke from engagements with enemy starfighters, fleeing in good order for the flak cover of the larger warships, which immediately jumped upon reaching maximum fighter capacity, luckily the engagement had been just as hard on the fighter units as on the capital ships, and every operational craft was able to jump away over the course of the next few minutes, leaving the dead to the custody of the Dark Eldar, along with the debris of several battlestars and gunstars and the debris of hundreds of destroyed fighters and escorts.
Even two battlestars that had been unable to withdraw but still contained crew, crew who had been infiltrated by enemy hunting parties, thrust from one fighter for existance into another.

Kasraedan’s forces were suddenly confounded by an almost total retreat, even as an escort tumbled open as a Strike Star fired its heavy nuclear missiles into it at nigh on point blank, and followed it up with the last of their ammunition.

The Grand Archon himself smiled, dancing with joy. It was incongruous, given his bulk and menace, but he had a reason; in battle, while he was no wych, he was as agile as all his kin. He lazily batted a grenade from the air, back at the man who’d thrown it. The blade he used was a long, slender sword of exceptional make, incorporating grooves that ran with a black poison.

He languidly flicked his wrist as he pirouetted around on the ball of his foot, the thongs of the whip Harahansirc flicking out to enmesh a weeping boy brandishing a sidearm as though he had no idea how to use it. He screamed in tremendous agony, as every pain transmitter in the affected neck sang its loudest, and he fell a moment later, as Kasraedan lightly stroked the eye of a young woman who had cowered behind him; she screamed first in horror, then in surprise, and then, tremendous pain, as the poison leaked into her humours and then into her blood.

She would die after her comrade, whose heart would already be stopped, and whose fading moments would still be filled with the pain of the agoniser. He laughed, for a moment, and then felt pain of his own, an unaccustomed feeling; for although he was a member of the dark kin, this didn’t mean he savoured suffering for himself as some of the more directionless did.

It was like a hard punch to the side of the chest. He could barely believe that these cattle wounded him. He turned deftly, gazing upon this bold attacker with scorn, unwinding the death-caressing thongs of Harahansirc form the dying youth, to look at a far older human, in a blue uniform he imagined showed rank.

He flung the whip out, its thongs wrapping around the gun, wrenching it away, and sending terrible pain into the very bones of his assailant. Somehow, he still moved, though, and, gods forbid, moved towards the assailant, whose face must surely to him appear to be some lover or blood relation.

Kasraedan stabbed forward with his blade, punching straight through the man’s chest, and his heart, its monomolecular edge shearing through fabric and bone and pouring out a thousand doses of the most virulent poisons imaginable into the insolent mon-keigh.

He screamed, of course, as these horrifying fluids went to work, but he also reached behind him, pulling an ovoid shape from somewhere, drawing out a part of it; a grenade, Kasraedan thought, and turned, the sharp-beyond-sharp blade cutting its way out, as the enemy dropped it.

He flung himself forward, and cowered, clasping a wall with the hand that had held Harahansirc moments ago, his fear unmanning him so that he could not stand, hauling himself through a hatch, closing it behind him not a moment too soon, as the air thrummed as though he were imprisoned within a drum.

A few moments later, that same door swung open again, its dogging sheared away by the blade of a power halberd. The lofty black-clad figure of Aringha, one of his incubi, stood over him. “Coward,” his ancient, cultured voice sneered, “Rise and take up your weapons. If you must flee, try to at least flee with dignity, hard though that would be for one who stinks so… We are done here; the foe retreats.”

Oh, to torment Aringha until he was naught but a brain within a great web of nerves, capable only of suffering upon suffering, but Kasraedan knew full well that Aringha was indispensable to his armies.

More so even than he himself was.

The shame burnt cold in his heart.


The battle was won, yet the battle went on. The Eldar fleet turned its guns to the most prominent active remaining enemy contact, its weapons all concentrated on that single enemy ship…


Meanwhile, there was some confusion as to whom communications should be addressed to while Kasraedan was… hunting. Eventually, the link was taken over by the guttural growl of Master Guardian Klos, the nominal chief of the Incubi, still aboard the flagship, if only to keep its officers in line.

"My Lord Captain...you should fall back! We should fold back into the Warp, emerge later, strike them from another angle..."

Ajarath Larferian gritted his teeth against the pain being relayed from Blademaster to him, via his command implants. A lesser captain would have been reduced to babbling incoherency, but not Ajarath Larferian, Lord Captain of the Graceful Blade.

"Perhaps you would like the rest of my job, as well, hmm, Katrya? Here, let me share what it's like..."

And he seized upon Katrya Arlos' mind, pouring a sample of the horrific torment that he bore without comment into her through the link that all Captains shared, and she screamed over the comm, begging him to stop. Which he did, after maybe thirty seconds.

"Follow your orders, Katrya. While they're shooting at me, they're not shooting at Black Promise. Be happy about that. And get off my screens."

With that dismissal, the Lord Captain returned his attention to the battle at hand. The Foe were pounding away at the Blademaster with what seemed like everything they had, and a lesser vessel would have quickly succumbed, but the Blade's great Battlecarrier was built of sterner stuff...and, indeed, was extremely difficult to hit in the first place.

The first line of defenses was purely incorporeal -- the electronic interference that reduced guided warheads to gibbering nothingness and had been known to cause them to detonate while still in the launching tube, though that level of mastery had not yet been achieved over the weapons of this Foe. The passive effects also served to obscure the Sevle Warships upon the Foe's sensors -- this much they were quite capable of.

Then came the outer Interceptor shell -- the counter-missiles, the dispersal clusters, and the shield-drones. They broke apart solid shot, re-directed unguided projectiles, and caused beam weapons to lose cohesion.

Then there was the inner Interceptor shell -- the autocannon and beam weapons that attempted to destroy or intercept anything that penetrated the outer shells, though with beam weapons this was often a matter of luck as much as anything.

The very last layer of defense before the Battlecarrier itself was struck was the great Warp Shield, a focused field of energies that was quite impossible to fire accurately through -- while it did not stop hostile fire, it quite often did re-direct it, occasionally even sending the shot back at the original firer, many times with even greater velocity. Beam weapons had extreme trouble penetrating the Warp Shield, often dissipating on contact or seeming to bend away from the rift in reality to dissipate harmlessly into space.

Beyond the Warp Shield was the Battlecarrier itself, and for all of its great defenses, some fire did penetrate the entire way. Unfortunately for the Foe, it would take a lot more than 'some fire' to do more than greatly hinder the vessel's captain through feedback pain, for the Battlecarrier was protected by an armored skin tens of meters thick at its thinnest...and that was just the beginning.

Yet for all of its protection, the sheer volume of fire pouring in on the Blademaster was beginning to take its toll even on that Leviathan...and Ajarath Larferian knew it. Knew it, because he felt it. Knew it, because his ship was as much a part of him as his own body. Knew it, and hated it.

A wordless snarl directed the Battlecarrier to return fire. Not that it hadn't been firing constantly since battle was joined...but it hadn't been firing everything. Some weapons were held back from general action for reasons that the Sevle seldom discussed, added to the fray only in certain situations. This was, apparently, one of them.

Thousands of gunports along the flanks of the great battlecarrier slid open, the wicked muzzles of the Warpcannon within bared to the void for the first time in three millenia.

Ajarath felt this as it happened, felt the terrible hunger of the Warpcannon, and hated that it had come to this, hated that it was his own weakness -- the pain was affecting him more than he cared to think, he was unsure of his ability to guide the Battlecarrier safely into the warp with the feedback pain as great as it was. That he had no other choice did not make him like the action any more.

The gunnery officer had no control over these weapons -- they were part of the Battlecarrier itself, part of the great Shipmind that Ajarath Larferian was the living embodiment of, and unleashing their fell energies was as easy as flexing his fingers.

Larferian smiled manicly, his lips forming words, giving them voice, though not his voice -- a twisted mockery of his voice, echoing with the hunger of the Warpcannon.

"No-one's gonna take me alive..."

The sides of the great Battlecarrier seemed to vanish into the void, then explode outward as the Warpcannon discharged. An instant later, the results were evident, as the Warpcannon tore their prey out of existence, dragging entire ships out of this reality and into that other, where even the most depraved would find torment beyond imagining.

And there was a price, too...

Larferian gasped as the Warpcannon rescinded behind their gunshields, releasing their hold upon his mind, and he tasted blood in his mouth. His entire body ached, but he couldn't stop to rest, not now. He had to exploit whatever advantage the sacrifice might have given him...

And so he ordered the Flotilla into action, and the Strike Cruisers went to flush-fire, sending crashing broadsides out across the void to shatter fragile Dark Eldar raiders asunder...and still the great Battlecarrier writhed under the punishment of the Foe, but there was a sinister mockery to its writhing, now, as if the vessel itself was laughing at the attempts to break it.

As if it was saying "I was here before you were more than a dream in the mind of a depraved creator. I will be here when you are nothing more than dust. Who are you to inconvenience me? You are nothing. Vermin."

And, indeed, as Ajarath Larferian could attest...that was exactly what Blademaster had in mind.

Iyanna nodded as more pieces moved into play, this one was unknown to her personally but, it would prove useful before the end she knew. Another figure was lifted from a small chest beside her and moved onto the board, now filling with pieces. Her hands lingered for the briefest of seconds over a replacement figurine, Khaine had taken to the board, and that removed the more traditional form of the Eldar, almost a pity really still.

Pausing again she turned to the Chest again and lifted another piece with a sigh she considered it, a gamble, but perhaps, yes it might be worth it. Ellyion, Princess of Outcasts and Pirates, I and the Council have a need for your services. I have a small task for your fleet. I promise rewards and glory, both from myself and that which you take from those who stand against you…

She plotted into the night, across the vastness of space, and then turned back to the board. Elsewhere a fleet gathered and slipped its moorings entering the web silently and heading for the system of the Mon-Keigh now in question. Broadcasting ahead of itself across the web, seeking it seemed to contact an Archon.