NationStates Jolt Archive

In the depths of interstellar space, Grand Master Orsini of ‘the Order’ sat cross-legged in meditation. It was hard to find anyone more extensively augmented than him. His bones were made of consecrated true-silver and tungsten composites, interlaced with fibrous pieces of super-tensile exotic matter, each layer of the cold-welded metals contained elaborately hand-tooled runes and occult symbols of warding, every bone of any significant size contained thousands of layers and tens of thousands of warding symbols. More than many of the newer, more advanced, star-ships had.

Holding these together, in the role of muscle and cartilage, Orsini had bundles of living metal threads, each machined to exacting detail and lacquered with materials inimical to the foe Orsini was designed to face. Thinking of this, he casually swivelled his wrist in a way no human could, and flexed his fingers. It wasn’t just the physical that was altered though.

The mind of a member of the Order was simultaneously far beyond human, and less than human. They lacked the capacity for fear or for corruption. They lacked the capacity for tolerance, too, instead their minds were focussed on the just righteousness of their calling.

Everything about them was crafted to further their mission – fighting the minions of the realm known as the immaterium in secret, far across the stars in dark places where any political or full military options were exhausted. They were the light of truth and purity that could operate without restraint or public knowledge.

Their sacred task had only once been seen in public, when Orsini himself had banished a demon prince on Earth, for a thousand years and a day. Other than that, there were precious few records of their existence. And that was how it was meant to be.

The C’tan had crafted the ship Orsini was in, but it was not intended to resemble their vessels in any way. A cigar shaped construction of strange materials that barely returned the echoes of any sensor that was pointed at it. Light from the companionway fell on Orsini, and he looked up to see the armoured figure of Captain Maltis in the doorway. “Sire,” he said, bowing slightly, and Orsini rose, “we approach our target system.”

“Very good captain,” Orsini said, “you seem troubled, brother.”

“Yes Sire,” Maltis replied, “this mission seems less wise than those we have previously undertaken. Surely endangering so many of ourselves to rescue one woman is foolish?”

“I shared your concern until recently, Brother Maltis, and I asked the Master about the matter. He tells me that although our target is one woman, her importance in the long run is that of a hundred.”

“I see,” Maltis replied, “did he say why?”

“She is the High Queen of somewhere, I am told. Her rescue will allow the Master to expand his influence and set back the forces of disorder.”

“I see,” Maltis said, “do you know how he learnt of her location?”

“I do not, however he found her, he is not saying. I don’t know whether he was protecting a source, or simply is unable to explain his reasoning to mere mortals…”

“Then do you have any idea as to what we should expect?”

“Some,” Orsini said, “we’re to expect at least one ‘penal legion’ and there’s some other detail on what to expect, though to be honest, our mission should be over quickly enough that we’re only likely to encounter whatever guards are on the site we’re raiding.”

“I should hope we at least have a means to find our target…”

“We have information on where she is…”

“We’re dead, aren’t we Orsini?”

“Probably,” he said.

+++

The ship dropped from its Faster Than Light drive, procured at great expense from a foreign source in secret, and integrated with some difficulty into the necron designed ship’s spaceframe slowly. It was designed to exploit sensor gaps, there were usually some in outlying colonies of any state, and pass itself off as an asteroid. For that reason, it was carefully designed to have the appearance and even density of a four hundred meter nickel-iron ‘roid.

With its cargo, it drifted towards the Chronosian Prison Planet…

Alert...

The command drifted lazily across the screen, unseen by the Guardsman who sat, feet up, idly dozing at his post. Nothing ever happened on prison worlds; the rigid discipline of Commisars; and the insidious predations of the Slaaneshi Marines and torturers usually kept everyone under control; on a tight leash as it were.

Alert....

Once again, ignored as the alien vessel drew nearer, the guns swivelled to targert but no fire command was given, no kill signal. It was a terrible lag in security, a terrible error that could not last much longer...Surely...

ALERT

And with its ever increasing proximity; the alarms began to sound; the guardsman leaping to wakefullness, examining the strange, garbled sensor readings that were echoing about the arrays. Even if they fired now there was no guarantee that they would hit it. Damn it all to Hell! He leapt up, slamming the fire command, slamming the alarm as well, as far below on the world; the Penal Legion was practicing Maneuvers.

The guns began to fire...

Sigmatis Primus; Chronosian Penal Colony.
Currently garrisoned: The 67th Sigmatian Rifles

The Commisar barked orders, forcing the convict army to get into defence positions; defence turrets manned; lasguns handed out. These were the basic grunts of an Imperial Guard Penal Legion; forced and drafted into service through right of conquest and the gun-barrel of an imperial Commisar. Deeper though; deeper was the domain of inhuman horrors and warriors once the grandest of humanities chosen; now, debased...Maddened and lusting.

“Brothers,” Orsini said, “weapons check.”

The Order’s Knights raised their weapons, wide bore arm-mounted – inefficient, but ideal for the role they were intended for. Each one was loaded with a belt-fed arrangement that loaded wide-bore self-propelled shells of graven silver and materials inimical to the chaotic. With quick, efficient movements they preformed final examinations of the weapons, and switched to their alternate weapons, much like the lasguns used by the waiting guards, but far smaller, the “digital weapons” they were equipped with made up for the limited ammunition of the main weapons by being plumbed directly into the almost inexhaustible supplies of energy that powered their very bodies.

Orsini leaned over to Captain Maltis, hefting a massive hammer with his free hand and showing it to Maltis. “Behold, the most elegant weapon ever devised,” he grinned.

“Hah. If I thought that, I’d have to kill myself. No universe with aesthetics that corrupt is worth protecting.” Maltis said. He held up an iconic looking long-sword made of a silver metal and inscribed with text too fine to see which formed channels that held rivulets of oils and unguents famed for their use against the chaotic in place by exquisitely measured capillarization.

Orsini chuckled, and the first squad tested their teleportation homers, as the Grand Master leaned over to Rasedar, the ship’s pilot and only crew, “How long can you give us?”

“Well, Rasedar said, “if I’m lucky, and I’m better than lucky, I’m brilliant, I can probably keep them from landing more than a few token hits for about half an hour…”

“That will have to do,” Orsini said, “And take heart brother. Though you may not be coming with us, your ardour is more vital to our success than any other’s,” he turned and snapped on his helm, immediately changing his senses to something beyond human, his brain had long been altered to handle the feed from all-round visual sensors, even though the helmet had two red eye-slits, it had sensors that saw in every direction at once.

Orsini hefted his hammer onto his shoulder, and nodded to the ship-captain. “Commence,” he said, and the interior of the ship’s teleportation room disappeared in a flash. The next squad stepped up to take their place, and its captain ordered them to begin the final check of their weapons.

+++

Maltis had the honour of first [unconfirmed, of course] kill even before the disorientation of teleportation had worn off. His arm came out, holding a massive, dual barrelled weapon like a pistol, and he sent a burning lance of plasma fire straight towards the peaked cap of what he suspected was a commissar.

The area they’d been set down was predicted to be an entrance, and sure enough, that was precisely what Orsini and the first, heavy-armoured, squad found. While the three other knights, and of course, Maltis, began dealing out death with their auxiliary weapons, conversion-fields flashing in the night as shots hammered into them, illuminating their shining silver armour so brightly that it was temporarily blinding to ordinary humans, Orsini took his hammer to the doorway. When it impacted, the massive weapon let out a colossal ringing of metal on metal, and an explosive sound – the sound of the compact gravitic systems built into the weapon rending the very space around its head to damage its target.

Maltis crouched, and toggled the teleport homer mounted on his gun-arm into the ‘priority receive’ setting – one that would see the other knights materialise around him, so long as he lived - as he fired the plasma weapon again, shimmering beam lashing out towards a gun turret that seemed able to traverse to their position.

Even soldiers as formidable as the knights of Order could not withstand open-combat against so many foes for long, and it was the priority that they get indoors, where their individual strengths would be pitted more evenly [or rather, more unevenly, as they would like] against their enemies.

In Orsini’s distorted view, he could see a ‘heads up’ display, showing a countdown… 29:55…

The plasma impacted with a warm thud taking most of the commisars face with it; his body collapsing into a rough, twitching pile. Even as this happened the weapons began to roar; the legion opening up with a howled fury. Who knew what the punishment for this would be? Who knew what cruel torment would be perpetrated against them if they did not fight; did not die? Did not win for the malevolent masters of the Imperium.

Lasguns thrummed and pulsed, while grenades streaked across the air. War chants filled the air, a turret burst into smokey flame while others whirled to find their targets; war was joined amidst the horrors of a penal world; madness spilled out across the surface as the order came out "Shoot! Shoot them damn you!"

Orsini struck the doorway thrice, each smack of the hammer unleashing a blinding flash as its power fields converted tiny amounts of the doorway to energy, spewing radiation and heat out like miniature novas. On the third stroke the sally port yawned open as he melted through the last of its titanic, hardened hinges. “Forward!” he cried, and plunged through the doorway, armoured feet treading on broken metal, arm-mounted gun blazing as he entered the room beyond. His helmet automatically adjusted. A human in a black outfit stood in his way, and he reached out, gauntleted hand gripping the cowering man’s head and picking him up. Orsini slammed his victim’s head into the door at speed; he couldn’t hear the noise of it over the din of the battle outside, but he didn’t need to – he could feel that he’d caved the man’s skull in under his showy hat.

He tossed the corpse aside, and stepped out of the way, ducking and firing into the prison fortress, hammer swinging at closer opponents – jabs were sufficient against ordinary soldiers, for even those touched by the powered war hammer were victims of its powerful energy field.


Maltis growled in frustration as his conversion field failed and several lasgun bolts shot through it, some missing him, and one being annoying enough to impact on a joint. He would feel pain, but he was no longer truly capable of it, instead, it was more a sense of awareness that the joint around his left ring finger had been fused, parts of the armour boiled away and parts. The musculature underneath was living metal, and while it too was melted, the finger was undamaged. The armour however, was less advanced, more specialised to its role. He ducked, and could see with his unnatural awareness, the squad pouring inside the fortress.

A ringing pop announced the arrival of the second squad, who scrambled to take up defensive positions as they reacted to the fire of the surrounding enemies. Maltis thought he caught sight of one of them catching a frag grenade as it bounced and hurling it back, but he had no time to check…


Sir Gerhard, the leader of the second squad, was not quite the warrior that Maltis was, but he was a soldier. Arm raised he sent a narrow stream of plasma hurtling towards one of the closer squads, not truly caring if it hit or not – the flash of such weapons was sometimes enough to pin the less dedicated, and it was not as if his position wasn’t obvious. A grenade landed beside him, and he reached out, taking it and hurling it, inwardly praying that it didn’t take his hand off as he held it. Lasgun fire splattered off his helmet, and he fired in retaliation with his own laser weapon. His arm swished as he fired. Rather than a concentrated bolt, akin to a bullet his weapon spat a continuous beam – much less lethal to any individual target, indeed, only enough, at this speed and range to gouge about half a cetimeter out of a victim’s skin. Of course, when one sweeps such a weapon horizontally at face level, it can sometimes be more useful than simply killing one’s foes.

Of course, he rather doubted that Chronosian battle doctrine cared much for the wounded. He saw Maltis disappear into the building with the eyes in the back of his head, and reached to activate his own teleport homer, to bring the next, smaller, squad down.

Far below, pliant, talented fingers played over flesh, dripping blood and reeking of experience as they explored the fabric of the victims flesh. An armored gauntlet rose to tilt the subjects face, regarding it with almost irritated scorn. The interrogation had lasted long, extending now into the realm internal. These lips would loosen in time, spill secrets, undo Empires with mere words. After all, it was the Interrogator's task to coax such betrayals forth, through pain and tumultous coercion.

He sighed lightly as a servo-arm whirred and reached out from his obscenely hunched back, ichors oozing from his undulating flesh, seeping through his armor as the metallic limb grasped at yet another well-worn instrument of torture, unfolding it like some obscene insectoid-form emerging from its chrysalis.

He was about to speak, about to whisper to the captive of what he would share, of what we would do to him...Of the glories of Slaanesh and all the dark temptations of pleasure. All these things could be his, if he were to yield...The pain could end.

High above, explosions stained the world, impacts echoed down the ancient corridors, and the Interrogator turned, annoyance crossing his hidden features beneath the engraved helmet-mask. It mattered little now, surely those troops far above could handle the situation. Then again...Countermeasures did often prove amusing. Turning from the helpless victim, the Slaaneshi torturer allowed his fingers to play over consoles, instituting a lockdown procedure, beseeching the corrupt and tormented Machine Spirits to engage their blasphemous rites and rusted servos, to seal the many doors that lay between them and the surface.

After all, he had work to do...

High above, many fell, blood soaked bodies tumbling in the reverie. This wasn't combat, it was deception and subterfuge, almost as though they intended not to fight, not to wage a true and glorious war. This would hardly do!

One Guardsman, weeping through non-existant, bloodied eyes, face riven with beam-marks, forced his weapon up, firing towards what he thought would be the enemy. The bolt of a commisars pistol silenced his impotent, enfeebled weeping, striding amongst the tortured fray. One of their number had fallen, but that would not deter the Imperial Commissars. They would keep this fighting machine together so long as they were able. So long as their faith in the Gods held true. Some had tried to run, afraid of these invaders, they too had been cut down in their turn.

He watched as they approached the facility, trying to force their way in. His eyes narrowed, voice booming "Forwards, Men! The Gods protect! The Emperor watches over us! We'll break 'em against the anvil, by the hammer! We are his Instrument! We're his Hammer! You'll not be failing in your devotions this day!" He raised the bolt pistol and began to fire again, even as his heavy boots crushed the dead and dieing beneath him,

"Onwards, you wretches! Do you wish to die here!? THEN FIGHT!"

“For die you will!” Sir Gerhard cried. He couldn’t resist it, having heard the commissar’s tirade clearly through the battle. The systems of his armour were designed to filter noise and pipe in pertinent speech, provided it wasn’t a… moral threat. His voice was amplified greatly (and translated) by the suit. He aimed a grenade to bounce up just in front of the commissar, and another plasma bolt in the general direction of the man’s centre of mass and ducked down and away as the stasis grenade detonated, catching the man and the plasma bolt in the periphery of its field. The streak of light slowed almost to a stop, and its victim could see it slowly moving, dimmed by the slowed rate of its emissions. Unfortunately, from the neck and below, his own body was just as unresponsive. He could see it moving towards him just fine (and indeed, everything else outside the grenade’s influence was increased in speed considerably) but avoiding it… not possible.

Another ringing pop followed, and the last of the three squads stepped out onto the battlefield, silver armour glowing in the staccato light of the firefight. They fell to their knees as one, and a quadruple ‘chug’ noise rang out as bolt-firing cannons spat rapid fire grenades from their .75 calibre double-barrelled apertures. Four grenades per knight, sixteen in all (their leader not being armed with the appropriate weapon) shot out in a vague semicircle, and burst overhead. Not pregnant with shrapnel, these grenades, but instead with chemicals. Heavier than air gasses under tremendous pressure vomited out and sank. Powerful hallucinogenic cocktails sank down on the winds

Further ahead, if only a little way. Orsini was sprinting forwards, hammer in one hand, the grinding of gears was another thing that wasn’t filtered out or dimmed by his suit. “Quickly!” he cried into the communications net, regularly re-encrypted using a one-time-pad system. Shimmering halberds and glaives and swords flourished as they cut through defenders unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, fragmentation grenades thump-banged as they sent shrapnel from the sides of the great chamber into some of the remaining densely packed groups.

A door ahead finally reached the ground with a loud bang, and Orsini cursed, hefting his hammer against it, again. If there was one thing Daemonhammers were useful (apart from hammering daemons, of course) it was knocking down doors, this however, didn’t make it any less of an annoying and frustrating experience.

“Any idea how many doors we’re going to have to knock holes in?” Captain Maltis asked.

“A few hundred, I expect…” Orsini said as he hurled the heavy hammer against the door. Maltis joined in doing so, plunging his powered and blessed blade through the fragmented metal, boiling part of it, and a moment later, the weakened door exploded into fragments under the combined percussive force.

“Look on the bright side…” Maltis said.

“There’s a bright side?” Orsini said, as he ground his boot on the molten metal, and lifted it again, adamantine running like water for a few moments as he shook his foot like a dog drying itself to cast most of the liquefied metal off.

“They’ll have difficulty closing the doors behind us.”

Orsini laughed, “And have all sorts of horrors prepared for us when we get down to the lower levels.”

“We’ll need to find out where the High King is being held.”

“Any money that it’s in the deepest, darkest oubliette.”

“I’m not fool enough to take that…” Maltis said, bludgeoning a guardsman with his ‘heater’ shaped shield.

Indeed there were many doors between the Knights and their objectives. The Chronosians took no chances with their hated Prisoners. Doors and locks were common-place, as were many complex defenses. The majority of the Guardsmen remained below, now scrambling in the dark for weapons and ammo, initiating emergency protocols. The light beneath the earth had gone from pure white to a faded, sanguine red. The men tightened their grasps about their weapons, ready to take the fight to the Invaders who now made their way through the Prison.

Countless languished in Spartan cells, their flesh withered and rent by years of abuse. Only a few would join the Penal Legion, the others would be kept, for the High Interrogator’s pleasure. The sadistic rites that went on in the bowels of the prison had conjured horrors beyond understanding, twisted, unknowable things, that skittered and crawled.. Daemonic beasts from beyond the veil of existence.

The soldiers moved in the darkness, readying for combat. One spun into the corridor, his autogun going off as he screamed his warcry. He was lightly armored, but as he spun back into shadows, a grenade clattered down the corridor.

“MOVE!” The screamed order echoed. There was more than one of them, more than one warrior of the dark, their assaults coming fast and furious as the enemy came forth. They had free reign in this underground gulag, they knew it better than they knew each other. It had been home and prison to many of them, it had been their sanctuary and their torment, and now it was being defiled. Each footstep was sacrilege, so the Interrogator’s had taught them. They would not fail…

They could not fail…

Down the knights went. Halberds and maces and gleaming swords twirled and flourished as blood gushed from ruined bodies like fountains and men lay dying upon the iron floors of the hell they guarded. Still the knights shone as though unblemished by the horrific violence of combat and war, for little touched them, and where blood would do so, it flashed into steam as morning dew evaporating under the warm caress of the sun.

Maltis drew his anointed sword back from one victim and severed another with whickering witch flame surrounding it. It bisected its next victim neatly, and he fell to the ground in an awful puddle of gore. He danced aside with some of the others as more guardsmen entered the chamber from a guardroom, fire from lasguns splattering about them like a rain of deathly bolts, blasting miniature craters out of walls.

Scattered lasfire returned against the guardsmen as the knights pressed behind what little cover was to be had. Holding his blade, point down, Maltis reached to his belt, and took several small grenades from the dispenser there. He had the absurd image of tossing balls for a dog, and let them fly, one, two, three.

Blind grenades detonated, advanced burning chaff and smoke hurled into the air, blocking visibility to the naked eye and infrared alike. The penal guardsmen were well enough trained, however, and stood their ground, disciplined suppressive fire ionising columns of the smoke and showing violet beams as they did so. They left no part of the corridor uncovered, but neither could they focus their fire.

Maltis could see Orsini and his more heavily armoured brethren moving through this fire as if wading through a swamp. Orsini’s hammer was raised as he ploughed through the blinding obscuring cover. He tested his wounded hand as he watched. Screams followed.

As relentlessly, the rest of the knights followed.

“Onwards and downwards!”

Metallic claws skittered over command consoles, invoking long obsolete runes, indulging corrupt and bloated machine spirits. This fortress had stood long over the Penal World, watching those forced beneath the Imperium's boot, crushing them yet further into the ground, breaking them. The Interrogator cared little for the affairs of those mortals who came and went, insects and food for his depraved art, yet now he felt a flicker of something in long obsolete organs...

...Concern...

A gesture engaged another set of runes, and suddenly his voice crackled, hissed and twisted across the vox.

"Magos...I must insist that you release the upper floors wards."

My Lord? You cannot be serious! The consequences could be unfathomable! To release all the lesser slave-entities and prisoners?

"It shall be done...Or I shall ensure that you find yourself amongst their feeding grounds"

The Vox went silent, and the Interrogator returned to his most precious work. Time was most assuredly of the essence.

All around the knights, glowing script began to wink out of existence. The Guardsmens assault seemed to die down, but something else became apparent. A whispering, hissing growl began to echo about the corridors, drifting upon the air with the raw stink of the Warp itself.

The floor began to shimmer as the first blazing tendrils of light saturated existence, forcing themselves through the metal now devoid of the wardings and runes that had held them faded. Flopping pseudopods grasped at the floor, pulling the hissing Tzeentchian thing into existence, a mouth unfolding ridged with sharpened fangs, seething and growling and snarling. Gleaming fluid dribbled from the corners of its mouth as it reared up, fanning its pulsing body to its full and ponderous form, always shifting, snarling in obscene, daemonic tongues, whispering a constant litany of bile.

The foremost knight stepped on a plate, and it disintegrated under his foot, a tentacle of some sort smashing up through it to twirl around his foot and squeeze like a constrictor. His halberd punched down, but it too was caught. Ornate armour and foul proboscis smoked as though the latter were meat cast into the flaming grill of the former. It squeezed, and the halberd was wrenched down.

The floor beneath the knight creaked and then, with a loud snap, gave. He plunged into the darkness below, and more foul appendages wrapped themselves around him. His gun flashed, staccato bursts of shells that punched into the didn’t seem to have much effect.

“Brother Salas,” someone cried from above.

Gunshots sounded, and one of the tentacles fell, severed. Ichor spurted and coiled itself into the form of another tentacle, as the severed part of it extended in the same way, merging with another part. It gave Salas enough movement to bring his halberd down on other pieces of the monstrous abomination.

He spat an invective as he trod on another of the probing pieces of tainted blood as they quested to reattach a piece to the whole, cutting as he did so at the one that had wrapped itself around his waist.

A sword darted down, cutting a piece headed for his head, even as he did so. Barks of weapons from above told Salas that there was more going on up there.


Bolts ploughed into the maw of the chaos creature, its flesh hissing and bubbling as the silvered bullets hit it. Orsini hefted his hammer, glowing in the darkness. Maltis was with him, hacking through corded warp-muscles. Where his sword hacked, the ichor blood ran down into it, mixing with inimical oils and waging its own battle but failing to make sufficient headway as the oils banished it.

Orsini’s hammer blurred as it arced forwards toward the main maw of the abomination that was attacking them.

The thing wrapped its tendrils about the hammer even as its non-flesh rent and tore beneath the holy onslaught, burning away beneath hallowed metal, twisting and rendign as other inhuman cries echoed throughout the facility. Gibbering, barely formed warp-beings tore through the walls, howling after years of servitude and slaughter. Prisoner-things, snapped from living death by injections of drugs leapt from their oubliettes in obscene, screaming, berserk rages.

Blood wept from shattered skin, even as the howling nothingness of the warp tainted the fabric of the room, twisting the stone and metal. Corridors seemed to stretch for miles, ceilings rose as high as cathedrals, burning with unholy sigils. Though the warp-beasts fell and screamed, they must surely know that this was but a taste of what awaited them, as the inhuman throng surged and turned and advanced towards them....

All hell seemed to be breaking loose

Of course, it would be more accurate to say that hell was being broken into.

Orsini snapped the hammer back, testing his strength against the proboscises that held it, and finding it wanting. Flaming Unguents scattered onto it from his right, and the tainted flesh burnt merrily, snapping and crackling like a bonfire. “My thanks!” he said.

Space shifted and warped around the knights, and obscene things fell upon them from all sides. Brother Lucitus’ halberd abruptly poked out from the back[?] of one of the creatures, and the harsh chatter of gunfire joined the chorus of anguished cries of dementia, the once-living remnants of several skulls and their contents hitting the walls behind them with disgusting splatters.

Blades whirled and guns barked, creatures fell and knights fought, here and there releasing grenades with fragmentation shells of sanctified silver as distractions.

They didn’t fight everything, they didn’t slay everything, it was impossible. Fortunately, they didn’t need to destroy every foul thing sent against them. Merely outdistance them and get past them.

Rearguard was the worst in these situations, and soon the silvered armour of Lucitus and the brother assigned to share this onerous task blazed with sigils antagonistic to the stuff of the warp, black ichors boiled against them, vaporising and passing through a metaphysical crucible, turning into the pure residue of human blood, that of the original victims. Dead blood, of course, such a crude purification tore through that it saved, like fire through wood, burning away termites but also the pure wood.

And so they pressed on; to the deepest dungeon. Orsini’s only regret was that he had to see everything around him. It was rather irritating.