NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Linked to my latest post in The Phantom Invasion. Meant to be here as a placeholder really, but if you can think of a legitimate reason to interfere, talk to me so we can sort things out.


Rumbling. The gentle humming of the massive ship gliding through the daemon infested immaterial was quite relaxing. Even if millions of man eating daemons awaited to prey on the inhabitants inside the ship, clawing at the thin layer of void shields that protected the ship from the external menace.

High atop the observation deck of the strike cruiser, Consular Rend looked out upon the vastness of the great ship. Around the ship, the swirling, churning colors of the warp raged outside. Again, it was another pleasant effect to the Consular. The ship itself was bristling with armament, both big and large, projectile and missile. Grey Knight strike cruisers were notoriously well armed and armored, able to take on and defeat a much larger chaos battleship, or even two if the captain and crew were skilled enough.

He sat on a small rickety chair close to the window. The fur parka he was wearing made him sweat, even as he sat. But the mysterious need for the ships and buildings of the Grey Knights to be below 40 degrees made Rend think twice about wearing a simple robe.

Thoughts mulled in his head. He actually feared informing the Council of the impending conflict. Why was it ‘Impending’ he thought, because he knew the Council would react swiftly, and harshly to the Chronosian threat, and its allies. Why does he fear informing the council of the impending conflict, he thought. Because in most instances when, history has shown that the Azahan people were repeatedly, and brutally defeated by the Arch-Enemy. However, he knew that times were not the same. He knew that the alliance with the Trinian, and the integration of the Isiah to the Imperium made the Azahan strong, stronger then they ever had been, and much more determined. But he still doubted their ability to even ding the Galactic Empire’s renewed conquests.

From the armored command center of the captain, Rend was told that it would take another 12 days to reach an Aphotic Wormhole, then another four days to reach Azaha Prime. The Consular settled back, and enjoyed the ride.

OOC: taggage for future interference.

The Black Fortress looms over a world of shattered and broken obsidian, an almost black mirror of ancient and hallowed Azaha Prime. Now it was a testament to a cruel and sadistic, almost whimsical will. The symbols of the Inquisition adorned it, debased and ruined. This was the citadel of the Black Order, the dark power behind the Imperial Inquisition.

At the peak of its highest tower, they sat. Countless twisted psyker-things, runting and mewling things that whispered from gnarled mouths. They whispered lies and truths, past and future slipping across their split tongues. Now, blood at their lips, as hallucinogenic fumes seeped into the room they spoke. They spoke of things to come...

"The yawning maw shall swallow them to an Aphiotic heart, the bastard children of a province lost. They shall come to bring the warning, we shall come to bring the Word. We have seen it...So it shall be."

"Show me..." A voice hissed, a holographic map flickering into existence above them, a gleaming galactic map.

"There..." Each voice was as one voice, a burning ball of warpfire staining the firmament of the representation. "There they dwell."

"Excellent..." The voice rose from a whisper, eclipsing itself as it descended into laughter, a black gauntleted hand cupped it, watching its gleaming. "Ready my finest men and the finest vessels of my fleet. We shall cut their throat. The Emperor's work must proceed unmolested."

"As you will, Lord..."

The black armored figure rose from the shadows, moving across the vast chamber, bestriding the bent-double backs of the psykers till they mewled and hissed in pain. He stood at an open window, gazing out at the stunted landscape, and the hellfires that raged in the Warp tormented sky.

Archon Lash De Drakan, Primarch and Legion Lord of the Black Order let a smile cross his twisted features.

And somewhere, the warp began to darken, to grow tumultous and heavy with storm.

~tag~

*TAG* for possible participation

No more rumbling. It was two days later, the rumbling was replaced by a violent shaking, as if the ship itself quiverred in fear. Rend awoke, his face flat against the cold deck of the ship. He lifted his head and looked around, jerking it to the side to look out into the immaterium.

The once calming swirl of gentle colors was replaced by nothing but violence. Black jagged swirls accompanied by giant flares of blood red and orange ravaged the ship's voidshields. The giant arcs of energy and entropy seemed to threaten the hull itself.

Jumping up, the Consular bolted as fast as he could to the center of the ship, where the command center was. Every jerk and shudder of the ship almost send the consular sprawling. Only sheer fear kept him upright and running.

Finally arriving to the main doors to the command center, he stopped and banged on the armored hatch. He only stopped when something no longer seemed right. The ship stopped shuddering and jerking, only replaced by a gentle deceleration and finally a rumbling stop. His heart sank once again.

As the door creaked open, Rend lept through to the red-lit dome where the captain was sat, and controlled the ship.

"What has happened! Why have we stopped?! We need to keep moving lest we are found out!"

Slowly, the captain swivelled his grand chair to face the Consular, his left bionic eye whirring and resizing the imager inside, his flesh right eye squinting at Rend. In a calm voice, he spoke. "It seems we already have been. That warp storm wasn't in any of our charts, nor did the ebb and flow of the warp suggest that one was brooding. It just appeared." He stopped for a moment to sigh. "Want to know how else I can tell? I had four Astropaths ten minutes ago. I have one now."

He blinked his right eye, and the ship's intercom came into life. "Attention ship, elevated status. Load torpedoes and weapons, keep them offline however, if this is a random occurence. Out." His eye blinked again. "Now we wait for the storm to end."

The warp trembled.

The fabric of it became alive again, roiling and thrashing like the tides of some insane sea. Howls of madness broke on rocks of insanity, thoughts became real and surged over the feeble sea-walls of the material plane, to drown all before them in the sickly half-light of the warp. The warp exploded in glorious color around the becalmed ship, as vast ships tore free from its depths and turned their immense guns upon the solitary strike cruiser. Countless lance batteries opened up, not to destroy but to cripple, to bring down shield and gellar-field. To eradicate engine and propulsion, but not to kill.

That would be a bloodier affair still.

Drop pods hurtled forth, slamming into the ship, tearing into the metal of its flesh like leeches, biting and snapping. The inner walls of the vessel tore and deformed, as countless heterogeneous troops surged forth.

At one point in the ship, a lumbering, rotting thing slumped forth, a twisted Terminator, ancient beyond count. Marks of Nurgle adhered to it, gleaming and alive, writhing with pestilance. Bullet laced with toxins surged forth from its roaring autocannon, a great power-claw tainted with venom clenching as it strode forth. The walls themselves seemed to blister and decay, as other Plague Marines surged in behind it, the metal buckling and rotting as the thing let out a roar of phlegm-choked malice, and flies poured from its exhaust tubes in a buzzing, hissing wave.

Others wore dazzling armor, moving like phantoms and hurtling blasts of pure sound at their foes, combat-injectors flexing as they pumped them full of combat drugs, ramping up their sensations to unheard of levels. They did not kill swiftly, nor did they ease their foes suffering. They savored pain, and drew pleasure from the offering of it.

Death itself had come for the Azahans.

Vast sheets of shimmering energy wavered under the onslaught of the attack. In response, the cruiser's own weapons opened up on the enemy in a great roar, hurling forth firepower that was over double what a normal cruiser that size maintained.

Swiftly however, the shields fell, and bright white lances of energy seethed and exploded on the outer hull of the engineering compartments and massive propulsion tubes that propelled the ship forward. The cruiser shuddered, and ceased forward propulsion, only being hurled forward by momentum alone.

"Repel boarders! Repel Boarders! By the Emperor's soul, repel these damned heathens!"

Rend was already running along the corridors, stumbling and falling everytime the the ship shuddered and groaned. He kept passing several teams of Naval troopers and Stormtroopers running their way to the outer passageways of the ship to meet the oncoming enemy. He should have stayed in the relative safety of the captain's control center, he thought.

Far behind him, the halls echoed. Cracks and shrieks of weapons fire, and their impending richochet sounded loudly in the confined halls. He was growing more worried with each passing moment, for each passing moment he drew closer to the outer skin of the ship, where his quarters was set. He had to protect the message however. He didn't know how, but he would.

Next thing he knew however, he was slumped on the deck, shortly after he had been jolted into the bulkhead to his right. He looked up from his resting spot to see the bulkhead that had been to his left had been torn away. His eyes widened as dark figures slowly emerged from the gaping maw.

Time seemed to slow down. For what he thought was hours, he watched what he thought was soldiers emerge from the maw. For a split second, his heart lightened as he saw the soldier was wearing not any combat color he knew of, but wearing highly decorative and ornate colors. But as quickly as his heart rose, it plumetted to his gut.

With a great smile, the combatant lifted an odd weapon towards the Consular. He saw the heretic blink suggestively, before his ears started to split. He writhed in pain before the weapon even fired as the charging blew one of his eardrums. Looking up only to stare his woodbe killer in the face, the pain finally stopped. In a blink of his eyes, the heretic was sprawled on the deck infront of him. Looking to his left, he saw a squad of Navy Troopers begin to engage the boarders with stubguns and other low calibre weapons. He didn't need a second look, before he scrambled on his hands and knees, before leaping out of the fighting and bolting down the halls to his quarters.

He only hoped his quarters was still there.