NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: From the other thread....

This RP is ***CLOSED*** to everyone except Doomingsland and myself.

*********

~From the desk of Lord Damien the Destroyer, Supreme Warlord of the Excessively Armed Empire of Automagfreek~

A facade if I've ever seen one, "Emperor" Black. Strange how your criminals who are sentenced to death aren't simply put to death, as their judgement indicates. You made no mention of these criminals being sentenced to slavery or forced labor, so it is there that your argument for your slave trading ways disappears.

Your attempts to sugar coat and disguise slave trading into a tool of justice will not work here. Your expensive trials and due process do not change the fact that you are trafficking human beings, and as I stated before if they are death row convicts, then they need to be executed as their sentence implies. And if your system is so just and wise, why do you ship your criminals off to some foreign land to work or receive them to do the same?

Common sense would dictate that the justice system that sentenced them would be the ones to carry out their judgement, in the form of imprisonment and resocilization, or death for the more vile degenerates. Nations that see this practice as legitimate will be blinded into thinking that all trades in this manner are simply criminals, and a front clearly exists where innocents can be traded away without suspicion.

And then we come to Caesar Maximus, loudmouth from the bloated corpse of Doomingsland. You can not honestly think you can contend with my will, now do you, little one? I have never in my day seen anyone so suicidal that they would openly mock and taunt the most powerful man in the world, but alas now I have seen everything.

Fear not Caesar, for if it is war you want, then war you shall have. Much as your God is dead, you too shall die a long and agonizing death, and before you expire I will see to it that you witness the horrors I unleash upon you heathen scum. I will be happy to parade your carcass through the streets of ULE City, and your festering remains will be a testament to my commitment to rid this planet of slave trading craven dogs such as yourself. Oh there will be blood Caesar, for I am not a man to be taken lightly.

Both Strator and Doomingsland will be made an example of, so that perhaps the rest of the slave traders will come to their senses before they too suffer the same fate. The Light shall prevail, make no mistake about it. Our righteous justice will be swift, and it will be without mercy or pity. And fear not Mr. Aurelius, for your Taskmaster in Doomingsland will indeed be set ablaze, and I look forward to hearing you wimper like the bitch you are. Pathetic, jock hugging bootlickers such as yourself have no place in this world, and it would do you well to mind your tongue in the presence of your superiors. It would be most unfortunate for you if I were to add your nation to the list of the condemned.


http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/3269/dreadfireclose7ue.jpg
---Damien the Destroyer---
-Supreme Warlord of AMF-


Meanwhile, the fleets of Task Force Dreadfire prepared themselves for immediate deployment to Doomingsland, where the first of many coming battles in the war on slave trading would take place. A smaller token force was being assembled under the leadership of Vidimir Breathstealer, hero of the Kraven Wars and one of Lord Dreadfire's favored Warchiefs. Also under the Warlord's command would be his usual array of other Warchiefs, Zander the fierce, Brinks the wise, and Azrael the great.

While a war with Doomingsland certainly would not be the greatest challenge Damien had ever faced, it would definately be the largest fight in recent years. Perhaps one of the largest contingents of Freekish military units were placed on standby, either to act as reinforcements or to defend the homeland should anyone be foolish enough to attempt an invasion. In the north, the Sentinel legions took to their ships and began preparing themselves for war. Silently they boarded their ships, only erupting into riotous praise as they cheered the arrival of their champion commanders.

In the south, the tribes of the Fallen began moving eastward towards the great port cities, where they too would join the fight. Azrael's famed 406th Legion had been one of the most successful military units in Automagfreek's history, and males from across the southern Fallen territories answered the call to battle. The women had turned out in their finest garb to wish their warriors farewell, their hardned nature nearly matching that of their male counterparts as they kissed them goodbye with dry eyes.

The Freeks would do their part in this conflict as well, deploying in numbers that had not been seen since the rule of President Tom Kaye. The anti-slavery cause had always been widely supported within Automagfreek, and following the inflammatory comments from Darian Aurelius, they rose up in droves to defend their honor. Under Lord Damien the Freeks had enjoyed progress until anything anywhere else in the world, and though their Warlord was capable of terrible things, he had never treated his faithful and loyal citizens poorly. On this day they would show their support for Damien and the anti-slavery cause, and unity and moral flowed throughout the lands of Automagfreek like a great river.


*******

Before starting off towards St. Freeksburg, Dreadfire made his way to Dawn's Cathedral which sat atop a great hill within the ULE Valley. It was customary for him to offer his praise to Eurynome, the Corpse God who had become the master and protector of Dreadfire since the erradication of The Destroyer. Kneeling before the glowing alter and surrounded by a thousand burning candles, the Warlord spoke gently the name of his God, hailing his glory and seeking his protection.

Oh mighty Corpse God, the feast of ravens will soon come to pass, and a plentiful bounty of fresh souls will be offered in your great name. Protect me as always in my quest and grant me the strength to overcome any obstacle, and I shall repay you with the blood of millions.

A dark void began to fill the stained glass windows behind the altar, and gradually the darkness began to surround the entire sanctuary, transforming it into a dank and desolate landscape where no light could penetrate the blanket of blackness. A hiss and rubble filled the void, and stepping forth from a fiery rift was the Corpse God himself, dripping in ichor and stinking of centuries of putrid rot.

Arise, Dreadfire...Slayer of men.....destroyer of worlds...scourge of mankind. Grant onto me a great sacrifice, and your rewards will be plentiful. Fail in your endeavor, and you will be cast into the Abyss for all time!

You shall have my protection and guidance so long as you obey.

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/6231/corpsegodzh7.png
Eurynome
Corpse God of Beherit

Damien bowed his head respecfully, and gradually the darkness returned to the void from wence it came, and the santuary was as usual once more. His God and his people had spoken, and the time for hellfire and retribution was nearing. Having been given Eurynome's blessing, Dreadfire removed his dagger from the scabbard at this side and ran the blade across his left hand in one swift motion, drawing enough blood to fill the small golden offering bowl at the altar.

Having accomplished his spiritual obligations, the Warlord returned to the ULE Valley belows and boarded his private jet, and with a military escort he made his way towards St. Freeksburg, where the Mouth For War awaited him along with thousands of Freekish surface combatant vessels, all primed and ready for the coming war. Upon seeing the arrival of the Warlord at the nearby airfield, the many thousands of Sentinels, Fallen, and Freeks roared in approval, beating their chests and firing their weapons in the air. Dreadfire made his way through the soldier ranks still piling into their ships and took up his position in the bridge of the cursed warship. The dark cloud that forever lingered over the mammoth steel hulk was alive with electrical activity, a telltale sign of the carnage to come.

Urbis Doomanus, Doomanum Superior, Imperium Doomanum

"It is said that the Romans, upon arriving in these lands, were driven mad, one by one...it is said that this same madness that possessed those men of steel was inherited by their offspring; that this madness was never lost. An innate violence still courses through our veins, brother," Gaius Alexius Doomanus hissed into the ear of his brother,

"You know this...for in you it is most strong."

Maximus looked up at the man, his vicious stare burning into his brother's eyes.

"When used correctly, dear brother, this is an asset to the Lord's Servant. Madness is in the eye of the beholder," he growled.

It had been seven long years since the bloody Arretian Crusade- the Questo-Czardaian Invasion, better known as the Circum-Havenic War. Since then Maximus had earned so many scars, shed so much blood, that he was now no longer the same man he was before that- he was, as his younger brother Gaius had said, possessed of a madness; one that at the moment was indescribable.

He'd fought three crusades in the past seven years, even going so far as to liberate the Holy City of Jerusalem from the infidel. To the people, Caesar Maximus III was a living, breathing Saint. He'd been granted tenfold remission for whatever sins he may have committed: cleansed in the fires of war, bathed in the blood of the nonbeliever. He had done things that were simply...indescribable in the Name of the Lord, and he did not for a moment regret any of it, for it was His Will.

"It is time, my brother."

At this moment, his Faith had never been stronger. Standing up from the high-backed plush leather chair, he cracked his neck, glancing out the tall window that overlooked St. Michael's square.

The sun rose; a red dawn. A sure sign of things to come. Directly across from his window, a kilometer away at an equal level, sat an enourmous guilded cross, topping the Cathedral. At this exact moment, the sun was directly in line with the cross and the windows of Caesar's personal chambers; the effect of the sun reflecting off of the gold was simply amazing, one that he'd witnessed before: the cross seemed ablaze with the Lord's Glory; red light pulsating from gold about the cross.

"Dei gracia," he muttered.

In the adjoining chamber his wife slumbered, their child safe in her womb. It was so silent that he could hear her breathing; he took comfort from it. He would not see his wife for some time, if ever again.

Facing directly ahead, his black and gold ceremonial armor stood erect, a golden cross adorning the breastplate; his blade, Ironwind, was mounted upon the oaken mantle above it. The entire chamber was carved of black marble, meticulously polished; the reflection that stared back at Maximus was one of pure darkness.

Standing erect at six-foot seven and weighing in at two-hundred eighty pounds of pure muscle, he was a powerful warrior; he stared into his own, black eyes in the wall. His square jaw, brutally scarred face, and shaven head was cast in a foul shadow. Stepping forward, his footsteps echoed amidst the high vaulted ceiling. He threw on his own armor; he did not need a servant to prepare him for war.

”Lord willing, this shall be a short one,” Gaius, already clad in his own black ceremonial armor muttered, leaning against a wall as his brother armed himself.

Maximus grunted, not even responding as he slid on a gauntlet, looking into Gaius’ eyes once more in an expression of utter severity.

Strapping on his sword, it hung at his left side. Tucking his red-crested helm under his left arm, he finally spoke in a booming voice,

”Let us now depart; His Holiness doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

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The old man gazed into the kneeling Emperor, his ancient eyes glazed over. Red light, cast from the stained glass windows lining the Cathedral of Saint Michael, encompassed all within the massive cathedral in an eerie glow. From the Throne of Saint Peter, he chanted his blessings in a hushed voice amidst total silence.

”Come down upon Thy loyal servant, oh Lord, so that he may be encompassed in Thy Glory; and that of the Holy Spirit,” wheezed the sinister Pope Innocent VI, bobbing the incense back and forth about the head of Caesar, who was upon his knees before St. Peter’s Throne, utterly devoid of feeling.

”Come forth, oh Lord, so that the barbarian hordes of Satan may once more be repelled by Thy mighty hand; bless this man, Thy holy instrument in this blessed Crusade against the nonbeliever who seek to defile Christian lands with their foul heathen stench,” he spat as he spoke, wheezing and reclining back in the throne.

Leaning forward, ever so close to Mighty Caesar, his decrepit stench filled the nostrils of Maximus, his breathing filling his ears, and whispered, ”Make the white sands red with heathen blood, my son; no mercy to the infidel,” he paused for a moment, looking Maximus in the eye.

Pure malice filled the eyes of both men, and the two locked respectively unnerving stares with one another for but a moment,

”Maximus, you have Christ’s blessing on this Crusade; do as you must to drive the heathen back into the foul pit of damnation from which they’ve spawned. Slit the throat of all nonbelievers who seek to taint these lands; wade knee-deep in their blood: bathe in it, for it shall further purify your soul,” he sat back up straight, his eyes sweeping across the massive congregation that was amassed before him: ten-thousand of the faithful on their knees at the sight of the Lord’s mouth on Earth.

”The infidel seeks once more to invade Christian lands,” his voice boomed across the massive cathedral, ”I say to you, once more they shall meet the Lord’s wrath.” looking down upon Maximus, he spoke again,

”No longer shall your name be but Maximus, oh Mighty Caesar: Arise, Caesar Maximus Sanctus, Defender of the Faith, and go forth to do battle with the nonbeliever in defense of the Lord’s people.”

The cheering resembled that of a mighty beast roaring as Maximus rose from his knees, dwarfing the Pope who remained seated before him. Towering above the congregation, the red light pulsated from his gold-trimmed black armor. Turning his back to the Pontifex Maximus, he drew his blade, holding it high into the air.

The Pope rose from his throne, standing just a bit taller than Caesar, and spread his arms, looking towards heaven,

”Our Father, Thy Will be done!”

”DEUS VULT!” the entire congregation roared in unison, Maximus pounding his blade to his chest.

”DEUS VULT!”

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A great sea of black and gold stretched out as far as the eye could see before Caesar; a blinding display, the radiant sun gleaming from their finely polished parade armor and shimmering silver bayonets. A forest of rifles tipped with twelve-inch pugio bayonets, all held at a perfectly even height, stretched out amongst the men, only the black and gold standards of the legions rising above them. It was a spectacular sight to behold, indeed.

War drums pounded a grueling beat; trumpets blared a mighty anthem. At the forefront of the amassed armies was Caesar’s own Legio XIII Damnatium, the legion he’d fought with in the Arretian Crusade and in Czardas. Even amidst the sea of men he could pick out the faces of men he’d fought along side through several harsh years of brutal campaigning, men he’d gladly have at his side for the coming Crusade.

They stood in utter silence; frozen in time. The only movement was of the standards, topped with the skulls of slain enemy commanders, flapping amidst the gentle desert breeze. They were all utterly silent, the only sound coming from the instruments.
They were assembled upon the Campus Christi, the Fields of Christ, a vast plateau adjacent to Urbis Doomanus; the capital’s own parade grounds. Not since the nuclear strike on Arretium had there been such a vast host assembled atop the plateau.

They numbered in the millions.

Maximus stood atop the viewing stands, carved out of a section of the plateau that rose high above the rest. By his side were his greatest commanders: his brothers Marius, Lucius, Cassius, and Marcus. It had been Lucius that had been defeated at the First Battle of Paralentum by the Questarians, and he again that had triumphed months later at the Second Battle of Paralentum reaping a righteous vengeance upon the hated Kido Butai, Questaria’s carrier squadron, and utterly annihilating it.

He was now the Magister Classis, the supreme commander of the Imperial Navy.

The other three were seasoned generals: veterans of fighting in Crematoria, Damnatium, Arretium, and for Marius, Czardas.

Even from a distance one could tell those five were brothers; they were the strongest of the House Doomani. Besides them were a number of generals, including Varus Magnus Malleus, who was, of all the men, Caesar’s most trusted general, having fought alongside him all through the crusades and onwards; even before.

The parade grounds themselves were well-kept: marble tile, tended to 24/7 by slaves to ensure they remained polished even amidst the desert. It made for a rather interesting structure.

” Brothers, we’ve all spilt our fair share of heathen blood,” Maximus roared, his booming voice carrying all the way across the vast host.

”This time shall be no different; though the Freekish barbarians spout themselves to be the world’s finest warriors, we all know better than that,” a wry smile slithered across his lips, ”We shall slaughter them in droves, and the deserts shall once more be stained a brilliant red with the blood of the infidel. They seek to murder every good Doomani that draws breath; the fool Dreadfire has even proclaimed this to be his goal!

“I say to you, my Brothers in Arms, let us reverse his banter. Let us shatter his pitiful heathen dreams and lay waste to his armies, and carry our Holy Crusade all the way to ULE City.

“Brothers, we shall rain righteous flame upon the nonbeliever. We shall dine as conquerors in the Name of God in the ruins of their capital; we shall drain their rivers of water and fill them with their blood!

“And that said, I say let them come. If ‘Dreadfire the Destroyer’ wishes to do battle with true men, then we shall be as kind Christians and grant him the honor. Let him sacrifice to his false gods as he will, for it shall not do him any good, for we fight in the name of the One True God. He and all his pagan slaves shall die at the hands of the Faithful. Now, we have a lot of work to tend to, brothers.

“And so I leave you with these final words: DEUS VULT!”

It was at that moment that the silence of the vast army broke; the piercing roar of two million men simultaneously proclaiming the will of their God caused the entire plateau to tremble as they all identically raised their rifles, the forest of steel rising amidst the roar of the crusaders. Their mighty roar carried on all through the mountains; for dozens of miles. It was heard loud and clear in the streets of Urbis Doomanus; this roar was immediately answered from within the city by another twenty million Doomani, roaring their cries of “Deus vult” to answer their brothers that were fortunate enough to go on crusade.

There would be blood. Oh, yes, there would be blood….

Wonder and wait as I stare at the cross, thinking in ways that have Christ at a loss. Kick your ass out through the Lord's pearly gates, when Heaven burns and engulfed into flame.

Dreadfire slept peacefully in his quarters aboard the Mouth For War as the last few ships in his fleet slipped from port and ventured out to sea. The moonless sky and dead calm sea were a rarity for this time of year, though the eternal stormcloud over the Warlord's flagship was always alive with activity. With his mind at ease and his officers handling the night shift, Damien slowly drifted into a state of unconsciousness to a place where his mind had not been for many ages....

The darkness crept in all around him and soon the stench of a millions years of rot filled his nostrils, and suddenly he lept to his feet and gasped for breath as the sulfur filled air burned his lungs. The barren landscape was nothing more than a total wasteland, devoid of any life form and sweltering from the heat of 3 suns. The blood red seas crashed voilently against the piles of skulls that lined the once beautiful beach, and a great sandstorm whipped at Damien's eyes as he attempted to survey the area.

He spotted a giant black obelisk jutting from a deep gorge some miles away, and after mustering all his strength he started off towards the mammoth structure. Roughly two hours of nearly clawing his across burning rock and sand left his hands blistered and covered with open sores, but gradually he made his way towards a flimsy wooden bridge that crossed the chasm towards the spire's gates. A burning lake of molten rock lay inside the giant canyon beneath him, the fiery liquid bubbling violently and releasing great clouds of heat that nearly caused Dreadfire to burst into flames right then and there.

But his quest towards the strange tower was complete, and as he attempted to throw open the gates and move inside, the giant doors simply slid open and welcomed him to come inside. A puzzeled look crossed his face as the gates slammed shut and rocked the entire structure from side to side, for the inside of the building was not made from iron or stone, but from living flesh. The pulsing walls dripped with ichor and the floor rumbled as he walked towards a single spiral staircase that dominated the center of the lobby. After a brief rest to recover himself he ascended towards the upper level of the spire, where he would be shocked at what he saw.....


Blasphemes villain, the killings begin, murdering Christians and torturing them. Conquering churches and slaughtering lambs, doing it all for my love of Satan... (I love you Satan, my lord)

As Damien climbed the last of the stairs he stood before a vast room unlike that was much different, for the thousands of eyes that composed the walls starred through him as to pierce his very soul, and soon his attention turned to an imposing figure. Sitting in a throne of fire atop a pile of decaying whores was a larged winged creature, his rotting face cracking a smile as a gnarled finger gestured him forward. The being spoke not through any kind of voice, but directly into the head of Damien, and the horrid shriek it unleashed into his head caused the once proud warrior to drop to his knees in pain and terror.

But soon the assorted screams and groans morphed into words, and the unholy abomination ordered Dreadfire to rise and face him. Do you know who I am, pathetic flesh-man? No reply was issued, and the large figure rose to his feet and asked once more.

When no reply was issued again the demon stepped down from his throne, the piles of brutalized and decaying victims beneath him moaning in agony. Dreadfire was taken back, but the Warlord stood firm against this imposing being, for he himself had dealt with many a greusome entity in his time.

Bring death to your God; tear apart his begotten son. Christian you are dead, fucking kill every one of them. Drop down in defeat, retribution of hypocrisy. In life is unknown, after here I will own your soul.

Dreadfire, in your black soul you know who I am. I am the master of Eurynome, your Corpse God who commands your allegiance and grants you his blessings. Your quest is one of great importance, mortal....for you will destroy the heretical Christian scum and bring about the end of their God. Do this, and your rewards will be great. Fail, and you will face me.....

The Warlord bowed his head and offered his praises to the creature, though more out of necessity than loyalty. Moments later he awoke in his bed, dripping in sweat and the skin of his body literally steaming in the cooler night air. It had been many years since he had such a vision, but never before did he show the physical signs of having actually been there.


Death to God, banished and burned to incite the invert. Blasphemy.... when Heavens burns we inherit the Earth! No more lies, churches and crosses confusing the mind. Agony, watching them burn in their righteous empire.

When morning broke nearly three days after first falling asleep, Damien took to his position within the bridge of his flagship, a grim demeanor about him as he went about his duties directing his fleet movements. His officers had informed him that spirits amongst the troops were extremely high, and once more His presence upon the battlefield would serve as an even greater inspiration. Dreadfire acknowledged this and informed his First Mate that he would speak to the men later in the evening....for the next day they would engage the Doomani on the seas.

Father is everything alright? We haven't seen or heard from you in days. Azrael asked over the radio with a hint of concern in his voice. Yes my son, I am just fine. I've been searching my soul and mind these past few days, and I am confident that we can easily put an end to the Christian Doomani menace.

Christian? Azrael was surprised. When did this become a holy war? Damien snapped back, his rage more intended for his enemies than for his son. The minute those bastards in Doomingsland and their cronies insulted our religious roots and labeled us "uncivilized pagan bastards". What they don't realize is that *we* are the righteous ones, and we will set their enslaved people free and bring their worshipping of the False God to an end. He stopped himself from ranting further, and instead ordered Azrael's ships to move into their pre-arranged formations.

The entire Freekish armada had been moving at a steady pace to the northeast of Doomingsland on purpose, and as the distance towards their shores began to close, the fleets began breaking up and assuming their formations. Each Warchief would assume their own role in the coming sea battle, with Brinks taking the northern most position, followed by Zander in the center and both Damien and Azrael in the south. The plans had been drawn up carefully and fully completed that afternoon, with multiple contingencies put in place depending on the level of Doomani response.


When Heaven burns I will dance in its fire! Drop dead hyraces, paradise has begun to bleed. Give praise to the Lord, over in the face of war. Christian wait with death, Heaven burns into nothingness. Satan on his throne rejoice in returning home.

As the final sunset before battle began to take place, Dreadfire made his way to the bridge once more and prepared to broadcast a message to his men, something his did on the eve of every invasion. Wearing his ceremonial garb and having his officers in their finest dress as well, Damien initiated the broadcast to every Freekish ship at sea.

Sentinels, Fallen, and Freeks...my brothers. Let us first give our praise to our mighty and just Gods, for it is with their blessings that we will accomplish our goals in showing the slave trading Doomani scum who they are dealing with. Together we shall crash upon them like a great tidal wave, consuming all in our path and leaving nought but emptiness and death behind us. The Doomani seek to challenge our might and resolve, openly defying our will continuing their oppression of those within their lands who should be *their* masters.

Go forth, my brave children. Go forth and bring justice to the Doomani and glory to Automagfreek. The eyes of the world look upon you now, and they shall see that a rested and rejuvenated AMF cannot be bested even by the most formidable. Against you there can be no victory, and come tomorrow the tides of war and retribution will have come in. Make me proud...make your Empire proud!

The men aboard the Freekish vessels cheered and applauded their commander, singing his praises and roaring in approval. Soon after there would be great feasting and merry making, for the largest battle in recent memory was about to take place. Surely the Doomani knew that Dreadfire was about to make good on his claims, and surely they knew the sheer size of the force that was coming for them. Several thousand ships continued breaking into their various Warchief lead formations, and as darkness began to fall Dreadfire ordered his submarines to venture further outwards and scan for hostile threats.

The 300 subs donated by Allanea to the Freekish cause would be coming in from the north, and would likely arrive just as opening salvos were being traded. Plans had already been made for incorporating the additional combatants, though it was rumored that they would serve as a largely defensive force.

Meanwhile, carrier and SD based aircraft began taking to the skies in greater numbers, especially in the southernmost elements of the fleet, where threeSentinel class Super Dreads, the 'Sentinel', 'Reaver', and 'Varchak' made up the core of Dreadfire and Azrael's battlefleets. The 'Templar' was under the command of Zander for his center line defense, though most of Zander's ground forces were placed under the command of Damien himself. Stratosfighters skimmed the uppermost regions of the atmosphere in search for any aerial inbound threat, while Sea Scorpions patrolled the lower altutides up to about 55,000 feet. Knowing the Doomani air force was quite capable, the pilots of the Freekish planes prepared themselves for a long and grueling fight to determine who would maintain aerial supremacy.

End of God, when Heaven burns it will fall to the Earth. Watch it burn, angels on fire and screaming berserk. Holy Ghost, lost in confusion and puking in pain, when it burns pissing on prophets that fall to the flame.

Finally, the time had drawn near. M'Lord, we are still just outside of long range missile fire, but that window will soon close. I suspect that Doomani elements seen here, here and here will engage us as soon as we are within range. Dreadfire's first mate continued gesturing at the LCD screen showing Doomani fleet movements and locations, courtesy of Freekish spy satellites that were disguised as Iuthian and Scandavian news satellites.

With the distance between the Doomani coast closing, Damien ordered all his fleets to make a sharp turn to the southeast and prepare for combat. Brinks began spreading his ships out in battle formations throughout the northern waters, where he would hold his position and keep the northern coast and channel of Doomingsland in check. Zander moved his center force into position as well, continuing the shadown Dreadfire and Azrael as they began venturing further towards their enemies.

M'Lord, we're in their range, and they're in ours. Without a doubt they know we're here. What are your orders?

This is it....the time has come. Dreadfire thought to himself before barking orders to fire long range weaponry at the Doomani ships off the west coast near Caesarea, and the southwest coast near Ephesium. The Arretium forces off the coast and in the channel would be kept at bay for the time being due to Brinks's heavy presence in the north which was still just outside of both Freekish and Doomani missile range.

Long range Skewer missiles were fired from the ready tubes on board the smaller Freekish frigates, though at such a distance both sides would have difficulty scoring much damage, which Dreadfire anticipated. The larger vessels in his vast armada would prepare more medium to long range missiles such as the AI driven 'Hellrage', as well as 'Swordfish' anti-ship missiles. The big guns aboard the Sentinel class Super Dreads were loaded and readied for action in the coming hours, their massive main batteries trained to the east and waiting for the moment to strike. Several Stratosfighters that carried a largely anti-ship payload fired their single 'Skewer' at their chosen targets within the Doomani pockets of ships, saving their 'Hellrage' and 'Swordfish' missiles for later.

The selected targets would be the outer escorts of the Doomani fleets, because at such ranges it was unlikely that targets towards the center and rear of their formations, such as carriers, would even see the missiles before they were destroyed. Therefore, it was decided for now to pick at the escorts and whatever vessels that were positioned furthest to the west. Targets would likely change as the distance was closed, but for now Damien was content to start his fire off at the perimeter and walk it in gradually.

Gods be with us....let them Sleep Now In The Fire. Dreadfire whispered in a short prayer as he changed into his combat attire.


Wonder and wait as I stare at the cross, thinking in ways that have Christ at a loss. Kick your ass out through the Lord's pearly gates, when Heaven burns I will stomp on his face! Blasphemes villains, the killings begin, murdering Christians and torturing them. Conquering churches and slaughtering lambs, doing it all for my love of Satan.

Deicide
-When Heaven Burns-

"Fucking pagan scum," growled Admiral Cassius Vorenus, reclining in his seat in the combat information center aboard the Sarius Rex, causing several heads to turn in his direction.

This was Classis Doomanus Boreus' new, temporary flagship; an Iron Duke-class super capital, a mighty vessel nearly two kilometers long. It was a warship larger than anything most people could even imagine, and yet it sat idly at the Freudian Straight along with the rest of Classis Doomanus Boreus. The time for full-scale offensive action against the Freekish Navy was not yet.

"Something wrong, sir?" Commander Torington, Vorenus' XO, asked the visibly irritated Doomani.

The entire crew of the Sarius Rex, save for Cassius, were Praetonians; because the Sarius Rex and her sister ship, the Malleus, had been deployed to Doomanum on such short notice, there had been no time for a new crew to be trained, and so the Praetonian crews had been retained as Auxilia in the Imperial Navy.

Vorenus turned to the Praetonian,

"Sitting here like this is unbecoming of a warrior, Commander," he replied most seriously, turning back towards the series of monitors arrayed before him.

"I know full well just why this must be so, but still," he paused for a moment.

He shrugged it off.

"Fucking pagans," he growled again.

The fleet before him, that of Warchief Brinks, sat idly, like his, beyond missile range. It was quite irritating, indeed; there was nothing more Vorenus would have liked than to go out and face that disgusting barbarian in open combat, to utterly crush his fleet and keep the Freeks from even touching Christian lands altogether.

Naturally, those above him, in their infinite wisdom, decided that it would be better to deny Cassius his fight at this moment. Perhaps it was for the better. It did not matter; he would follow his orders to the word, for it was God's Will.

A few dozen stories above him, in the Admiral's Bridge, was the commander-in-chief of the fleet, Magister Classis Lucius, brother to the Emperor. It was he who was orchestrating the entire operation; unlike Vorenus, Lucius was a very patient individual. He had a pretty good idea of what Damien was up to with these maneuvers, and was in the process of orchestrating a response on the part of his other fleets, Classis Arretianis, Classis Ehpesianis, and Classis Caesareanis, who were about to be engaged by Damien's other fleets.

The initial attack on the enemy fleet would be made not by the Imperial Navy, but by the Army; land-based vertical launch systems, concealed beneath the scorching desert sands, literally lined the coastline. Tens of thousands of missiles, ranging from surface-to-air missiles to anti-shipping missiles, layed in wait for the Freekish Navy to come in range.

The Arma Caelus Imperium Doomanum (ACID), the Imperial Air Force, was already working in tandem with the navy to provide air cover: the navy, in this sector, generally lacked aircraft carriers, instead relying on land-based fighters and bombers to supplement their dreadnaught battlegroups. Land-based OTH RADARs as well as satellite-based thermal imaging sensors and other systems were able to pick up on the locations of the enemy fighters; the Doomani would let the Freeks come to them in that instance. In that case, it would be they who had utter numerical superiority.

With the Freekish Navy finally coming in range, the VLS tubes began to light up all along the coast: compressed air blew the sand off the tops of the silos, and the doors slid open; moments later, the missiles flew out the tubes amidst an exploding fireball, quickly rocketing high into the atmosphere before cruising at hypersonic speed towards Damien’s fleets.

ACID simultaneously launched a strike of their own; stealthy Sariel bomber, laden with dozens of Redemption anti-shipping missiles, made runs out to ranges nearing 600 miles from the Freekish Navy to deliver their deadly payload. This strike was even larger on Brinks’ fleet due to the fact it was making sure to keep out of the range of the land-based systems, with no less then eight-hundred bombers taking part in that strike alone, ensuring that the waters around Brinks’ fleet would be swarming with deadly supercavitating torpedoes.

Meanwhile, the closer the Allanean submarines, now in the service of Automagfreek, got to the Doomani coast, the more vulnerable they’d become; in the days preceding the Freekish Invasion, the Imperial Navy and Air Force had taken it upon themselves to turn the waters into a living hell for submariners. Tens of thousands of CAPTOR mines had been strewn about the ocean floor, their dispersal becoming heavier and heavier the closer to the coast one came; they’d deploy their deadly supercavitating torpedoes on not only enemy submarines, but on ships as well. This along with the SOSUS system, which would allow for the High Command to track the movements of the enemy subs with ease, created a safe zone of the Imperial Navy to operate, giving them much needed breathing room.

And so it was that the skirmishing of the navies commenced; initial losses by the picket ships were relatively light thanks to advance warning of the incoming missiles, giving them plenty of time to launch countermeasures and interceptor missiles. The real carnage would not begin until the two fleets got closer…

Right on cue.. Scoffed Damien as he watched his scopes light up with activity from the expected Doomani response. The extensive electronics warfare suites activated and began filling the air with disrupting signals in an attempt to confuse the inbound missiles and divert them away from themselves. Towed decoys were also launched from the stern of every surface vessel that would project an intense series of signals that were intended to attract the inbound weapons, and flare and chaff mounts were readied in case all else failed. The extreme mixture of disrupting signals would likely cause the missiles to lock onto the easiest thing they could, which would be the bigger than usual towed decoys, which for lack of better description were nothing more than large transmitters with inflatable tubing around it.

SmartFlak systems were brought fully online alongside the complete array of long, medium and short range missiles that would be fired to intercept whatever the Doomani planes and coastal emplacements threw at them. The integrated defense networks in each of the segmented battlegroups would communicate with the other ships around them, in case a friendly vessel could not adequately stop an enemy projectile before defenses of last resort such as Mk. 66 'Hellfury' CIWS were employed.

As the fleets of Dreadfire and Brinks prepared themselves for the onslaught, Freekish planes in the air would provide the first layer of defense as well as retalliation. The Sea Scorpions within Dreadfire's battlegroup that flew at roughly 55,000 feet began to see on their scopes the first wave of Doomani missiles, and half of the planes in the air began to target the inbound weapons with 'Skewer' long range missile which would hopefully reach out and eliminate some of the threat. Stratosfighters in the skies above them would usse the AI drive 'Hellrage' missiles as a second layer of defense, though several fists of the high flying jets began to advance towards the inbound enemy craft at their maximum altitude.

The large blobs on the radar screen courtesy of Freekish OTH systems were impossible to not notice, and real time satellite imagery streamed to the crews on board Dreadfire's surface combatants as they attempted to determine the profile of their attackers. Brinks had also done the same, though he slowly began pulling his fleet further back west another 10 miles from their current location, and spread themselves wider along their northern and southern position. The cluster of Sea Scorpions and Stratosfighters that Brinks had in the air began moving forward ever so slightly, being cautious to remain outside Doomani land and fleet defenses, while at the same time being able to engage the inbound planes with long and medium range weaponry.

Moments before word of the first launch against the enemy air assault reached Brinks, the makeup of the inbound swarm was identified, Sir, enemy aircraft consist of bombers. Little to no escorts visible. Brinks ran a wrinkled hand across his aged face, his still sharp mind calculating the situation at hand. Send forth our currently airborne planes to engage, and deploy half the reserves to fleet defense. Within moments it was made so, and several hundred Sea Scorpions and Stratosfighters from Brink's arsenal peeled across the sky towards the inbound bombers, preparing to lock on a fire their long range missiles. It was hoped that the enemy would be routed before they could fully deploy their AShM payload, and with little to no escorts predicted, the likelyhood of that happening was great. Their orders were to engage and defend, though they were ordered to dance ever go carefully on the outer limits of the Doomani naval and land defenses.

With every fleet, including Zander's center force, initiating their missile defenses and maneuvering accordingly, the fight against Doomingsland would soon be underway. Dreadfire's scopes had shown that though the initial air defense against the inbound missiles and bombers on the outer aerial perimeter had been more effective than expected, many of the AShM's made it through. A second and indeed third line of jets at assorted altitudes were then ordered to take down as many as possible to spare the fleet trouble early on.

Meanwhile, the Freekish missile launch had continued as Damien and Azrael's joint taskforce continued moving southeast towards the coast, approaching Ephesium at an angle. The Doomani fleet parked there would soon be under threat of AShM's as well, as the vollies from aboard Freekish warships and planes intensified by the second. The Doomani missile tubes on the coast were difficult to spot from the satellites above, so efforts were largely focused on the Doomani bombers and ships in the area. Whatever air assets the Doomani had in the southern theater would not be spared, and as the AShM launched increased in scale, so did the AAM barrage.

The Freekish missile frigates were beginning to make their presence known, though the larger battleships and indeed SD's also joined in the symphony of missile fire. The Varchak had begun venturing further towards the outer perimeter of the layered fleet defense despite orders from Damien, and as a result it began playing a much more active role in the salvo exchange.

M'Lord, status update on the first enemy volley.... Dreadfire jerked his head towards the screen to his right, eyeing it carefully as he began attempting to count the blips that had not been eliminated.

"Just as you predicted, m'lord."

Lucius smirked as the red blips representing the Freekish carrier air arm began moving towards his bombers.

Fucking PERFECT, he thought to himself.

Regaining his composure and reserve, he replied to his XO, "Very well, proceed as planned."

All was falling into place. Phase one of the operation was going relatively smoothly; of course they hadn't expected their own missile barrage to do much. It was all a courtesy if anything. They knew the real carnage wouldn't come until the fleets closed and engaged, but until then, Lucius had a goal that was arguably more important than even crushing the Freekish fleet: total air dominance.

This next phase in the operation to decimate the Freekish invasion was going to be swift and decisive, and hopefully give some degree of air superiority to the Doomani...for awhile, at least.

With the detection of incoming enemy aircraft, the bombers began to slow their approach, breaking formation into a very loose array of aircraft, thus rendering enemy RADAR far less effective against their stealthy designs.

Following this, the local interceptors began to move away from the mainland in a loose formation, making maximum use of their superb stealth. It was highly unlikely that a ship-mounted OTH would be able to pick up a fighter-sized stealth aircraft at these ranges, anyway.

Many of the pilots in question were veterans of the wars against Questers and Czardas, their aircraft, the ACI-73C Aquila, another veteran of that brutal war; one that had totally outclassed their foe. The fighters' calculated arrival would allow for them to reach the bombers before the enemy did, giving them time to provide adequete escort. However, this was merely a formality; the real killing blow in this plan was yet to come.

First to be utilized in this main strike were ZMI-designed Coldstar II intercontinental surface-to-air missiles in order to swat the Freekish aircraft from the skies before they even reached the bombers. Hundreds of missiles, based in silos that very well could have housed ICBMs, were launched from the coast, filling the sky with massive hypersonic munitions, streaking across the redened sky en masse.

These missiles were capable of reaching targets up to 8,000km away; however hitting something at that range was another story. Now that the Freeks were within 1,000 miles of the coast, it was safe to assume that they could be hit. With land-based OTH RADAR as well as orbital infrared and RADAR providing the locations of enemy fighter formations, the missiles cruised towards those locations, powered by ramjets, matching the altitudes of their targets. Although it appeared that there were not nearly enough Coldstars launched to hit even a majority of the Freekish aircraft, this would soon be rectified. At roughly 120 kilometers, the missiles began to break apart; suddenly, instead of a single Coldstar, there were now six Reaper air-to-air missiles streaking at hypersonic velocity towards the Freekish aircraft; there were now more than enough missiles in the air to cause serious damage to the enemy’s carrier air arm.

From here on in, the Reapers would utilize their own sensors on top of the other land and space-based sensors to home in on their individual targets, utilizing sensors ranging from IR, to LIDAR, to RADAR to hunt Damien’s fighters.

With those missiles streaking towards their targets, the Aquilas began to pick up their own speed, moving to close the distance between themselves and the enemy aircraft to finish off whatever was left.

Simultaneously, missile bases in Damnatium began to light up. Spewing forth from the silos hidden amidst the desolate wasteland were Mars III intercontinental cruise missiles. Initially, they rocketed high into the air, propelled by their solid fuel rocket boosters and pushed to hypersonic velocity before their scramjet engines took over, bringing them to an altitude of 120,000 feet and pushing them to speeds exceeding mach fifteen.

As they closed the distance to their Freekish targets, sub warheads would begin to detach from the main missile, their own solid fuel rocket motors igniting, their fins guiding them to their own targets, ensuring they hit with maximum kinetic energy.

However, these were not conventional explosive warheads.

As the individual warheads neared their targets, they themselves split open, spewing forth another eight smaller warheads, which then homed in on specific sections of the target ship before they themselves burst open, sending a shower of hypersonic tungsten darts screaming towards the enemy warships. The primary goal of the darts was quite simply to cover the enemy ships with them and completely vaporize their RADAR and other sensors in an effort to put the eyes out of Damien’s navy.

However, the sheer velocity of the darts meant that there was a good possibility that they may have even been able to punch holes in the armor of enemy ships (certainly on lighter ships and escorts, as well as on aircraft carriers), which opened up for the possibility of a dart breaking into a turret and setting off a magazine, or punching through a flight deck and igniting a fuel supply.

The attack was appropriately larger in scale against Brink’s fleet and air arm.

The outer defenses of both Brinks's and Damien's fleet were in the thick of the battle, their anti-missile systems engaged fully as they tried to beat back the first wave of enemy ordnanace that had slipped through. With the 'Hellrage' and 'Skewer' missiles continuing to fend off the successive enemy vollies, short range 'Gladius' missiles burst forth from their launchers and attempted to intercept what they could using their sheer speed from their ramjets to their advantage.

Meanwhile, SmartFlak defenses across the board had gone into full effect as they laid down a literal wall of shrapnel to both shred the incoming missiles and to help knock whatever sub-penetrators that had slipped past the formidable Freekish defense. The 'Hellfury' CIWS guns were being put through their paces against a foe that was actually testing their ability, their 35mm armor piercing discarding sabot rounds flying out in great bursts from their multi barreled emplacements.

But alas no defense can ever stop every projectile every time, and gradually the ships from both Warchief's perimeter defenses began falling victim to the barrage. Some of the more lightly armored frigates felt the blow the worst, with portions of their upper works either aflame or badly damaged, while a few were even immobilized to the point where they could go no further. In the south it was the same story as in the north, save for the 'Varchak' soaking up a great deal of the inbound fire. Several smaller 4" gun emplacements were knocked out by both explosion and KE round alike, while a forward RADAR array was pierced and rendered inoperable. Perhaps the worst damage came in the form of a penetrator slicing its way through a barrel of turret #5, leaving a decent sized entry and exit hole which would be a nightmare to repair.

The ships on the line that had been hit and were able to still move and fight were cycled into the rear, while fresh defenders were brought forth. The fight in the air was going pretty much as expected, with losses being noticable but nothing too severe. Concern came over Damien as his satellite thermal imaging picked up a large inbound wing of Doomani craft, their speed suggesting that these were fighters coming in to support the unprotected bombers.

M'Lord, they are playing into our hands. Shall we spring the trap?

Damien did not hesitate for a moment before nodding to his First Mate to begin ordering the counterattack that was sure to change the tide of the aerial battle. Zander's center force had gone all but unnoticed, and it was a mistake that would cost the Doomani greatly. Upon seeing additional vollies of enemy missiles and their surge in air presence, Zander received word to unleash a punishing salvo to both the north and south. While not a show of full force, the blistering torrent of 'Hellrage MK2' missiles were sent forth in both directions to help change the tide of the battle to a decisive Freekish victory.

Hundreds of the lighting fast, AI driven missiles were fired from the many frigates within his fleet, as well as from his larger surface combatants and even submarines. The missiles would sue their advanced sensor packages to scan the air for infrared, EM, and radar signatures and to engage accordingly, with priority being given to enemy planes and secondary priority to enemy missiles. Many of the missiles that were fired sported EMP warheads, which would either cause the death of the Doomani fighters, or at least render the guidance systems on their AAM's and AShM's ineffective (the latter effect was expected to work on the enemy bombers, though the chance of downing them was slim to none). The advanced 'Hellrage' flew forth in staggered waves and at varrying altitudes towards the known course of the Doomani fighters and bombers, and they would soon be joined by a punishing volley from Azrael's, Damien's, and Brink's ships.

The air had been saturated with missiles from below, and from above it was no different. As the bombers began to spread themselves wider and strained the OTH radar systems of the Freekish armada, the ships began relying more on their LIDAR systems and infrared tracking from satellites to hunt down and destroy their foes. Planes from Zander's center force began moving to the north and south, where they would assist Stratosfighters and Sea Scorpions already in the area. But with the heavy missile saturation taking place, the Doomani might not know that they had just fallen into an aerial pincer. Freekish fighters would soon be hitting them from 3 sides, while 'Hellrage' missiles would attack from all sides, above and below.

The missile batteries inland that had continued to pour forth their payloads were marked by Freekish satellites in the area, and scores of long range stealth cruise missiles were employed to take them out. These same weapons were also fired at airstrips as far out as the missiles could reach in an attempt to deny the Doomani bombers a place to land and reload, since their Tyrandian frames could not handle anything short of a perfect runway, something Dreadfire knew and would exploit.

But the barrages did not stop there, for the pockets of Doomani ships fell under even greater AShM fire as Dreadfire's ships came ever closer to the coast of Ephesium. Submarines in the south began to advance further away from the main element and began actively seeking out any threat in the water or skies they could engage. The Allanean subs in the north were holding fast and preventing the two other battle groups from breaking out, and those that tried would be fired on by Mk. 202 Demon Hunter supercavitating torpedos and other advanced weaponry.

I want you to continue the barrages without pause, and in fact with increasing scale as we move further inland. Their navy has effectively put in check, and at this point they are relying almost solely on air power to try to halt us. I have ordered Warchief Lucian to arrive and bring additional carriers, frigates, destroyers, etc. to bolster our numbers in the north and south. Zander has begun his attacks and can easily afford to divert reinforcements our way, so this battle is not going to see a halt any time soon.

Dreadfire was continuing to brief his staff about the current situation as the Mouth For War shook viciously from side to side.

What the fuck just happened? Shouted the enraged Warlord. One of the crew informed him that the ship had sustained a hit on the stern of the ship, but the damage was not severe. One of the observation posts on Dreadfire's flagship had been hit with a stray missile that had been thrown off course in flight by Smartflak systems many miles away. The storm cloud over the dark ship continued to tremor with electical activity as it sustained the first hit of the war.

"Clever bastard..." Lucius smirked as he watched the Freeks begin to bring their fighters from the center fleet to bear on his own fighters.

This was too good to be true...he'd have to be wary in this case, but passing up this opportunity would be nothing short of negligence on his part. The enemy's EMP strike on the incoming Doomani aircraft had less than spectacular results on the part of the Freeks; with the Aquilas normally operating with their RADAR switched off in order to keep the enemy from homing in on those emissions, those systems were still intact, as were their EMP-hardened IRST and electro-optical systems.

With all other internal systems hardened from EMP (save for the primary radios that had been in use, resulting in their being fried), the fighters were still fully operational. With backup radio systems kicking in, they'd be able to continue the fight with little trouble, although the swarm of enemy fighters closing on their flanks was certainly something to be worried about.

In this case, the term “home field advantage” would carry even heavier weight. Of course the Doomani had not been so foolish as to throw away all of their interceptors in a single strike; in fact, Zander’s aircraft were going to meet a nasty surprise.

Coming out of the center along the coast, another swarm of Doomani aircraft stealthily approached: Sariel bombers and Aquila air superiority fighters, along with countless Acredula medium bombers.

By now, the ability of the Freeks to track the Aquilas and Sariels even with their OTH rendered relatively ineffective by the stealthy nature of the aircraft had earned the suspicion of the Doomani. At the sort of ranges they were engaging one another at, ship-based LIDAR (a system generally incapable of seeing over the horizon) and IRST could not possibly pick the fighters up, therefore they looked skyward.

It was noted the unusual amount of supposed foreign “news” and “communications” satellites maintaining geo-synchronous orbit over the combat area. Something did not look right at all; those satellites should not have needed to be in geo-sync orbit, and the fact that they originated in non-CAD or allied nations made it seem even odder. In all likelihood, they were Freekish spy satellites.

In the midst of the battle, Lucius’ staff had been in contact with Maximus’ own command staff. They’d all quickly come to a consensus: those satellites needed to be neutralized for the sake of the Imperial airmen currently headed into combat, and for the sake of the Imperium itself.

Before the bombers and fighters even really began to clear the coast (Freekish infrared satellites would no doubt have difficulty seeing them against the land due to the reflection of the sun’s energy off of the sand), the Imperial response against the enemy satellites in the area was under way.

Doomani orbital assets in the area, consisting of the ABM and anti-satellite defense network that protected the Imperium, were swift to respond to the commands of their master. Within seconds of the orders being issued, the satellites began to unleash their payload: the enemy satellites were initially targeted with a large sweeping strike from sat-based MASERs in order to fry their electronics and jam their signals, preventing them from gathering and sending their critical data to Damien’s navy.

Moments later, they began unloading their kinetic kill weapons. Watermelon-sized tungsten projectiles, guided via a variety of systems, were fired from the satellites en masse, literally several dozen kinetic kill devices per satellite to ensure they were destroyed. Any Freekish satellites moving in to replace them would also be met with an immediate strike to prevent them from making an impact on the battle down on Earth.

As that was occurring, the fighters and bombers below, adequately spread out to prevent the enemy’s OTH from picking them up, began moving in on the center fleet, now lacking the air cover provided by the fighters they had sent to engage the other fleets of fighters. Depending on the amount of enemy air cover that remained over Zander’s fleet, a large amount of the escort fighters would split off from the group and move to flank the flanking enemy and turn the tide of battle in the favor of the Doomani.

Simultaneously, land-based batteries along the middle segment of the coast began to spew forth their massive payload of Coldstar missiles, targeting Zander’s aircraft as they moved to flank the other aircraft in order to throw a wrench into their plan and soften them up for the Doomani flanking action that was under way.

Meanwhile, the fighters already engaging proceeded to go after the Freekish aircraft moving to intercept the bombers, opening up with their medium range missiles from ranges exceeding 120km before splitting up to get as far away from their point of launch as possible. This would ensure that any missile fired at that area would end up finding no target due to the stealthy nature of the aircraft themselves.

Meanwhile, the bombers hung back with a token escort, waiting to see how things went.

Finally, the next stage of the operation prepared to commence.

Lucius’ fleet was just about ready to get into position; the Freekish northern fleet was no major concern for the moment. Though they did not know that there were so many submarines serving with the Freekish fleet, they simply were not worried. They would be safe provided they stayed within the allotted corridor along the coast: from the coast itself to about three hundred miles out, hundreds of thousands of super cavitating CAPTOR-type anti-submarine/anti-ship mines had been deployed along the ocean floor, essentially creating a safe zone for the Imperial Navy to operate without fear of attack by submarine, and acting as a tough delaying force against the enemy fleet when they finally closed for a gun fight.

Not only were they protected by the mine net; SOSUS arrays would provide advance warning of any approach by enemy submarines well before they ever got into torpedo range. Despite this, the escorts of the fleet were deployed in force on the ocean-side of the fleet: anti-aircraft and anti-submarine groups, usually built around an escort carrier or heavy cruiser; several of those groups in turn built around a super carrier or pocket super dreadnaught, with those groups finally being built around the dreadnaught squadron, consisting of the Sarius Rex and another half-dozen Apollyon-class super dreadnaughts, including the vaunted Remus (which, under normal circumstances, would have been the flagship of Classis Doomanus Boreus), which was credited with sinking the Questarian super dreadnaught Mountbatten, a Hood-class super capital.

Another similarly-sized fleet headed up by the Malleus, the other Iron Duke sent by the Praetonians, was currently amassing in the Mare Doomanum on the other side of the country. This fleet, however, had received further foreign aid: six-hundred Questarian-built vessels had recently been integrated into Classis Doomanus Cancer, the Southern Fleet.

The Sarius Rex, surrounded by dozens of escorts, was among the first to slip out of the Straights of Freudia into open sea, quickly turning south and moving along the coast. The rest of the massive fleet, numbering in the thousands, followed suit. This was a fleet large enough so that no single Freekish fleet could stand against it; it would most likely require the combined effort of several of Damien’s fleets to effectively put Classis Doomanus Boreus out of commission.

Moving out of the straights, they were now putting themselves in a position to have any approaching landing force in check, especially any approaching the area of Arretium or Caesarea; Ephesium, much further away to the south, was days away, and was thus in a far more vulnerable position than the other two cities.

Meanwhile, in order to cover their advance from a full-blown strike from Brinks’ fleet, a stiff response was needed in order to emasculate their ability to reach Classis Doomanus Boreus with their fighters. With a good amount of aircraft already tied up in the massive air engagement taking place in the north, simply throwing more aircraft at Brinks’ fleet would no doubt only complicate matters further. As a result, the decision was made by Maximus himself to unleash one of the Imperium Doomanum’s super weapons: the Unity Guns.

Deep in the barren wasteland of Damnatium, two hundred carefully concealed armored doors slid open amidst the jagged, rocky surface, scattered throughout the massive province. The barrels of the weapons did not even protrude out of the holes; yet moments later, flame erupted from the holes as they spat out their deadly payload of 33”, GPS-guided, rocket-assisted anti-shipping shells.

The shells, propelled at velocities exceeding seven-thousand meters per second, shot high into the atmosphere, reaching orbit and cruising towards their targets. Soon enough they began to dip down, plunging down towards their targets far below: plunging down towards Earth at velocities exceeding five-thousand five-hundred meters per second, the shells homed in on their targets via their GPS and inertial referencing systems, aiming to plunge their tungsten-capped high explosive warheads straight into the decks of Brinks’ carriers, denying his aircraft a place to land and refuel.

The shells would have more than enough energy to pierce the decks, which would most likely result in the ensuing explosion setting off fuel and ammunition supplies stored below deck; those explosions coupled with the holes in the decks from the sheer kinetic energy of the round hitting would hopefully render the carriers inoperable.

Expecting a response from Freekish orbital assets on the launch sights, the doors of the gun positions immediately slid shut after firing, and the weapon systems themselves receded back onto their tracked chassis, rolling along the underground railway system that linked the Unity Gun network, bringing the guns themselves to unoccupied bunkers to fire again from a new position.

Meanwhile, Imperial orbital assets remained vigilant, expecting Freekish godrod satellites to try to move in and make a run on the sights at a moment’s notice.

OOC: I'm not totally happy with this post, so edits are likely to follow.

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The orbital space above Doomingsland had become a nightmare as projectiles began filling the entire theater where spy and news satellite alike had been watching the action below. In such a highly anticipated war, Freekish authority detected potentially hundreds of satellites both in geo-sync and high orbit, therefore specific targeting of Freekish assets would be difficult. Thos ethat had been feeding critical data below had fired their thrusters in an attempt to evade the inbound enemy salvo, though some were not quick enough to escape their fate. The passive weapons platforms that had been lingering in the heavens were quick to respond with godrods of their own, and because they were higher in orbit they were not likely to accidently knock out any unarmed observatory platforms.

Swarms of KE and high explosive projectiles were unleashed from the launchers aboard the weapons satellites towards the hostile Doomani platforms that had made the mistake of taking the fight into space. The debris of obliterated satellites and bits of munitions began to litter the space high above the battle at sea, and this would make future tracking in the current theater by both sides treacherous. Freekish ASATs from foreign bases in Mohahi, The Most Moral Order, and Outposts 10-17 were fired en masse towards the stars, where they would maneuver towards Doomani space and engage not only weapons platforms, but any Doomani satellite within eyeshot of the battefield. Lord Dreadfire was quick to order follow up barrages of ASATs from the Sentinel class SD's Sentinel and Reaver, though their numbers were limited and would merely serve to bolster the intercontinental response.

Additionally, thousands of high explosive sub munitions and potentially millions of ball bearings would be put into the space above Doomanum proper from nearly HOUND sized missiles that were fired from Automagfreek itself. The Freekish military would make the Doomani pay for their cowardice in taking the fight into a whole new level, and the response from news agencies who had legitiamtely lost their eyes above the warzone was blistering. The outrage from other foreign outlets would be inevitable and just as heated as those from domestic outlets, who had now lost millions of dollars in communication assets. Lord Dreadfire had also ordered the additional weapons platforms, Stratosfighters, and high atmospheric bombers carrying anti-satellite weaponry were to take to the skies across the Empire and prepare for any possible intercontinental response from the Doomies.

With the scathing orbital battle taking place, long range communications on both sides would inevitably suffer. The Freekish satellites that had managed to evade damage or remain higher in orbit struggled to feed data down towards the ships below, though steps were being taken to remedy this. Illiorian made disposable satellite drones were shot into the airspace above the combat zone to increase the observation and data sharing capabilities of the fleets as the carnage continued to intensify in scale, and due to their small size it was likely they would be mistaken as debris. Though the action had gone into a new theater, Lord Dreadfire was more focused on pressing the action on the waves and bringing the fight onto the ground.

Thus far the Doomani response was simply to fire as many missiles as it can and attempt to drive the Freekish fleets away from the air. Certainly they had overestimated the effect of such tactics and underestimated the resolve of a well equipped and well trained AMF navy, for the defensive response up until this point had been token at best. With the increase in Doomani planes and the addition of ground based cannon fire, the retalliatory response from Dreadfire would be elevated as well. As his southern force prepared to engage in a gun battle with the pocket of Doomani ships outside Ephesium, the aerial defenses around Damien and Azrael's ships was increased exponentially yet again. Up until this point the Freekish air wings had performed admirably in spite of the massive amounts of missiles being lobbed about, though with the southern fleets closing into gun range, their job would be made even harder.

But what really struck Damien as odd was the sight of Doomani ships leaving the protection of the northern straight and venturing southward. He absolutely could not believe they would make such a suicidal move considering the Allanean submarine force and Brink's entire battlegroup were not too far out. Within moments of spotting this large movement orders blared across the secure channels for the northern force to unleash everything they had at the Doomani ships in an attempt to capitalize on their aparant death wish. Every ship within Brink's outfit that possessed anti-ship missile launchers was ordered to throw their full might upon their foes, and defeat them before they could even be a factor in the battle. Thousands of AShM's were primed to be fired from the hundreds of surface vessels within the northern force, and the initial volley saw missiles in the triple digits saoring towards the Doomani ships. These were nither Skewer or Hellrage, but the more advanced Poseidon Mark II AShM's, which were designed for stealth and to glide mere feet above the waves and use both IR and RADAR scanning, performing erratic maneuvers as it entered its final stage or if the weapon came under attack via jamming or enemy interceptor missiles.

Great clouds of Poseidons were sent forth with great speed and succession, the tubes being reloaded and emptied as fast as the crew could possibly do it. With Lucian closing in fast with additional surface combatants and even more supplies, Brinks spared no expense in making sure that his foes went to the bottom of the ocean. With the carnage unfolding in space, now was the perfect time to unleash a weapon that had not seen action for many ages, but instead was revamped several times in the wake of World War 5.....the FAW-2A 'Porcupine' missile. The massive, near ICBM sized weapons were fired from hidden silos from Outposts 11-15, as well as from the heart of The Most Moral Order in droves. Soaring up towards the heavens at incredible speed, the massive three stage missiles prepared to make their way above the passing Doomani ships, where they would plummet back down towards the Earth. The main body of the weapon was a giant tungsten spear, and from the heart of the 'Porcupine' would spew 10 additional rocket powered tungsten penetrators, which were sure to cause massive trauma to even the mightiest of ships. Each re-entry vehicle could easily move at ICBM MIRV speed, which clocked in at easily Mach 15. If the weapon itself detected a weapons lock in itself, it would deploy its payload early and attempt to continue on as planned, though at such great speed the window to intercept would be small. The Sarius Rex was the chosen candidate to receive the first barrage of these weapons, though the various smaller dreadnoughts in the Doomani northern force were potential targets as well.

With scores of Porcupines and Poseidons making their way towards their targets, 'Supremacy' class stealth submarines began moving southeastward in an attempt to head off their foes and force them against the coast. The bulk of the Allanean subs that were sent to guard the northen passage from a breakout were told to creep in ever so slightly and guard the rear in case of a retreat, though several fists of Cartagena subs dared to venture towards the armada of Doomani heavy surface combatants, though they remained careful to stay well out of any kind of retalliatory range. SmartFlak and the full defensive systems of the norther force were being fully tested at this point, with literal defensive fogs of flak and swarms of Gladius missiles being fired en masse in hopes of protecting themselves. For too long Brinks had simply played defense and tried to keep the northen Imperial navy in check, and now he would show the Doomani what his offense could do.

Meanwhile, some 110 nautical miles out at sea in the southeastern waters of the Imperium, Lord Dreadfire's ships committed fully to the sea battle that was mere moments away. Due to the angle they had sailed in at, Damien's ships were able to immediately cross the T and bring all the guns from his Super Dreadnought force to bear on his Doomani foes defending the coast of Ephesium. The mammoth 30" guns of the Varchak were the first to engage with rocket assisted, GPS guided, high explosive armor piercing anti-shipping shells from her 5 triple mount turrets. Flame and smoke belched from all her main batteries as she unleashed a full broadside towards her prey near the shore, and the other 'Sentinel' class SD's were quick to follow suit with broadsides of their own. Though Reaver and Sentinel had surprises of their own, for in their first broadside each of the center guns in the front 3 mounts contained a new weapon that had been put into production following the outbreak of the war on slavery, designated the NW-110 sensor fused artillery shell. The sensor fused shell would be guided in via rocket assistance and deploy 25 submunitions, which would in turn release 3 bomblets each for a total of 75 smaller devices. They would spin horizontally and scan the a large area with IR and laser sensors and guide themselves towards the target once it was detected, and each bomblet contained a microchip that had on it stored several basic ship and vehicle designs. Gun and missile turrets would be prime targets, and as each bomblet detonated it would deliver an explosively formed penetrating blast, which could penetrate light to medium armor with ease. This in turn could easily render gun turrets and their barrels combat ineffective due to the holes that would be punched out, and missile turrets or any exposed ordnance would be at risk of detonating on deck. At the very least the upper works would be an absolute mess with holes from end to end, with armaments of all size potentially being taken out of the fight, leaving the ship without a means to retalliate.

However, these weapons were not to be used repeatedly on ships and would be saved for when Damien's forces began to encroach on the shore, though a fair share would be fired to damage as many gun emplacements and missile turrets as possible. Since retalliation was expected any moment in the form of heavy SD fire, Dreadfire ordered the bulk of his force to spread out and continue steaming on while the behemoth ships duked it out. It would still be a little while longer before the Mouth For War and its 20" guns could assist in the barrages alongside its sister BB's and their 18" weaponry. AShM's were also fired with even greater fury in the south, with the majority of Damien's missile toting ships joining in the symphony of coordinated missile fire. With Azrael's taskforce melded into the Warlord's battlefleet, he sported easily twice as many ships as Brinks, and he would use this advantage to bring as many missiles to bear on his foes as he could. Having crossed the T first and gotten off the initial barrage, Damien allocated some of his reserve frigates to assist with the engagement in the air, as his SD's would be largely occupied with engaging Doomani fighters.

It's looking hairy sir, but we're holding. Shouted the Captain of a Sea Scorpion unit as he vectored the thrust on his high performance jet sharply, causing the missile on his tail to lose sight of him and descend to the ocean below. Damien acknowledged and began moving more of his defensive fighters forward to bolster his numbers in the skies, knowing that enemy was continuing to gather themselves and deploy in force. The interruptions due to the space fiasco would make his job more difficult, but not totally impossible...at least not so long as Dreadfire had anything to say about it. Reports were reaching him that Brink's carriers had suffered hits from artillery, which struck him as odd seeing as they were so far out to sea. The carrier Iindomitable had its bow section literally sheared off and was in danger of losing all control, while another had taken a direct hit to the bridge. The momentary disruption from Freekish godrod retalliation had likely caused the latter portion of the enemy shells to lose sight of their targets, but Damien was reassured that this would be an isolated incident once his ASATs and godrods went to work.

The call for stealth bombers of his own had come in, and from the hidden base in Mohahi came several small wings of Stratobombers, their numbers fairly low to prevent them from being detected. They would be deployed either alone or in small pairs to carry out specific missions once the sea battle had come to a conclusion, which wouldn't take long in the south. Damien's overwhelming numbers and sheer amount of firepower would get the better of the detachment of Doomani ships outside Ephesium one way or another, but for now he braced himself for the inevitable return fire from whatever large sea guns Maximus had in the south. Zander would also be making himself more known both in the air and at sea, as his ships began to further encroach on the Doomani coast. Their main goal was to prevent the northern detachement from running the gauntlet and flanking Dreadfire, but their purpose was also to deploy ground forces where they could and hopefully get an advance guard on dry land. As he examined his screens and continued barking for his pilots to keep up their fire and position, he gauged the coast for a likely LZ. If the landing ended up failing outright or if the Freekish forces were overwhelmed, it would make no real difference in the grand sceme of things, save for keeping the enemy occupied while the Warlord and his son Azrael poured on the real heat onto Ephesium.

The war in space had, thus far, destroyed billions worth in Doomani, Freekish, and foreign satellites; despite this, neither of the warring nations seemed to be content with the amount of destruction unfolding. They needed to destroy more. The stiff resistance by the Freeks only caused the Doomani to further escalate; with direct strikes into Doomani space which had resulted in the destruction of countless civilian and military satellites, they needed to respond in kind. And this they did with a brazen fury.

The sheer amount of kinetic kill weaponry unleashed by Doomani satellite weapons platforms was simply innumerable; both acting as interceptors to neutralize incoming Freekish systems as well as an offensive measure to strike at Freekish space, striking at their satellites indiscriminately. Tens of thousands of ASATs equipped with payloads ranging from directional flechette and high explosive warheads to submunitions and ball bearing warheads were unleashed from ground sights throughout the Imperium to clear out the surrounding space of non-allied satellites; many of them, however, upon reaching orbit, continued on towards Gholgoth and Freekish space in order to strike at the heart of the enemy.

The Freeks, in addition to destroying Imperial satellites, had also destroyed countless foreign and allied satellites: Generian, Tyrandisian, Borman, Parthian, Questarian, Praetonian. The list goes on. All in all, both factions appeared to have collectively pissed off the entire world. And there was no indication of the carnage nearing an end.

Back on Earth, things were only getting bloodier. OTH RADAR continued to provide the Imperial Navy with up-to-date intel on enemy fleet positioning as well as the incoming swarms of anti-shipping missiles; this allowed for the latest Freekish naval missile spam in the north to be countered as it normally was. Picket ships, as usual, were the hardest hit, with frigates and destroyers frequently taking lethal missile hits. What was left of the Imperium’s satellite network was able to cue the High Command in on the launch of what appeared to be Freekish intercontinental weaponry, leading to a frantic shuffle to counter the launch.

The ACT.LXVI was designed specifically to deal with the threat of intercontinental cruise missiles, such as the Freekish Porcupine missile it was now being used against. Countering such weapons is rather simpler then it seems at first glance; one needs only to put one’s own interceptor missile in the right place at the right time so that the two have a collision, and with a mach fifteen missile, its easy to predict its course to their inability to maneuver.

Of course, if you fail to destroy such a missile during its cruise stage and it manages to go terminal, it’s far more difficult, if not impossible, to neutralize. With the threat of an ICCM strike being all-too-real, the Imperium Doomanum had stockpiled tens of thousands, if not more, of these missiles- when the launches were detected, they went to work.

Rocketing high into the atmosphere, they matched the altitude of their target before abandoning the booster stage and igniting their engines. Putting themselves on a direct collision course with the incoming ICCM, they’d reach their target in a matter of minutes due to the sheer speed of both bodies. From here things got more dangerous; even a slight miss would result in the missile overshooting its target by hundreds of meters before it detonated. If it was a hit however, it needed only to be a slight hit; even knocking it slightly off course would likely result in the missile totally missing its intended target. Sheer volume of fire on the part of the Doomani meant that the chances of one of the Freekish missiles making it through was slim- but, again, no defensive network is perfect, and those few enemy missiles that made it through truly left their mark.

The Sarius Rex was moving forward at 30 knots, periodically switching course to make itself a more difficult target. Admiral Vorenus had dealt with this sort of thing before in his career. Sitting in the CiC with the rest of his command staff, he tensely watched the monitors, watching as the holographic images representing the enemy missiles drew nearer and nearer, splitting off into their individual kinetic weapons. Expressionless, he raised his right hand,

”On my mark, forty-degrees port. Flank speed,” he bellowed.

”Aye, sir,” came the reply from his helmsman.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, his breathing remained steady. The tungsten spikes were now in their terminal stage, drawing closer and closer. He knew that at these speeds they would not be able to maneuver very well…

”Mark.”

”Forty degrees port, flank aye,” replied the helmsman, turning the wheel and sliding the throttle forward.

The massive vessel banked, turning and accelerating. Mere seconds later a massive torrent of water taller than the ship itself erupted just two hundred yards starboard; the entire vessel shook from the shockwave, electronic systems temporarily going black. Milliseconds after this smaller rods began to impact on and around the ship. More torrents of water shot hundreds of feet into the air besides the vessel, while explosions occurred on deck; a total of two rods impacted Sarius Rex, blowing large holes in the deck and killing over two hundred sailors, knocking several secondary armament systems offline as well as disabling one of her RADARs.

Several other dreadnaughts and battleships took similar hits; one of the battleships was not so lucky, being commanded by a less-experienced captain. The NID St. Athanasius took one of the larger rods to her superstructure and was penetrated straight through, breaking in half. She was under the water in a matter of minutes, sunken with all hands.

Of course, the Doomani were able to reap their own terrible vengeance. With the Freekish submarine force closing on the coast, they would soon find themselves under attack from a foe previously unseen. Three-hundred miles off the coast, the Freekish submarines began to run into Maximus’ CAPTOR net. Anchored at the bottom of the sea, the torpedo-mines waited for an enemy submarine to pass above them, referencing their own passive SONAR as well as the Doomani SOSUS network, which would ensure no enemy submarine made it by undetected. Once that occurred, all hell would break loose.

From seemingly out of nowhere, the Freeks would detect torpedoes igniting their engines right underneath them as they shot towards the surface at speeds exceeding 300 knots. And there were lots of them; nearly six torpedoes to each submarine; this was only the outer layer of the vast minefield that lay off the coast of Doomanum. At this point, it would likely occur to Damien just why Lucius was moving his fleet out of the safety of the channel despite his massive submarine force.

Lucius’ fleet was now in position to sweep in and flank Zander, who was by now in range to begin putting troops on the ground. The situation in that area was growing all the more precarious for the Doomani; dozens of hidden 33”, 25”, 20”, and 12” shore batteries began sounding off, specifically targeting Zander’s troop transports with guided, rocket-assisted shells. This was bound to be overkill for such vessels, but that was the entire point: they wanted to ensure that when the Freeks actually did land, they did not have much in the way of men to use. Meanwhile, Imperial Guard units in that sector prepared to encounter enemy forces.

The bunker systems spanning the coast were impressive to say the least- well, if you actually knew they were there. With the coastline itself consisting of jagged cliff, the Freeks would first have to overcome a natural obstacle before they could even see their enemy who, for all intents and purposes, be superbly concealed amidst the surrounding dunes and hills, with hidden bunker complexes built right into them.

A full legion of Imperial Guard was in place, awaiting Zander’s infantry to land, over 25,000 men. The unit: Legio Custodes CCVI Arretium, one of the most battle-hardened units in the Imperial Guard. Veterans of the Czardaian invasion of their city, these men had fought and won one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Imperium, seeing horrors the likes of which one could not even begin to imagine. Waiting in their bunkers, they were baying for blood; eager to add to the dozens of notches carved into the stocks of their rifles.

Meanwhile, things were really starting to heat up down at Ephesium. It was an interesting turn of events; the Freeks, by crossing the T of Classis Ephesianus, had in effect had their own T crossed, not by ships, but by the massive land batteries laying in wait. Even as the Freeks fired their opening salvos, land-based 33” guns began putting rocket-assisted guided rounds downrange right into the fronts of the Freekish dreadnaughts, whose guns were turned towards the Doomani fleet which was having a little trouble returning fire.

Despite this, they began maneuvering, putting their own broadsides out. Of course, the Freekish SFW salvo had certainly caused serious damage- the Ephesium, the flagship, had taken the brunt of the salvo and had much of her secondary armament and sensors taken offline, several of her 27.5” guns had holes in the barrels from the submunitions. Despite this, she kept her own salvo up, pouring dozens of rounds into the nearest enemy dreadnaught, in this case the Varchak, which was simultaneously being hit by land-based guns, missiles, and torpedoes.

Smaller land-based guns, twenty-five, twenty, and twelve inchers, targeted lighter vessels: escorts, battleships, carriers, and transports. Several batteries of thirty-threes and twenty-fives were devoted to putting holes into the Mouth for War.

Meanwhile, the city itself began to brace for an invasion. The women and children had already been evacuated- what remained was a massive contingent of Imperial Guard numbering in the millions, eager to spill the blood of the unbeliever.

Pray for blood, pray for the cleansing, pray for the flood. Pray for the end of this nightmare this lie of a life can as quickly as it came dissolve. We seek only reprieve, and welcome the darkness. The myth of a meaning so lost and forgotten....


Varchak was in trouble. Deep trouble.

Captain Stevenson of the mighty 'Sentinel' class warship had angered Dreadfire with his brazen actions of putting himself into the firing line too early, and the behemoth vessel was beginning to show signs of his mistake. Varchak was still too far out to sea to take hits to its armor belt, due to the fact that the shells were not being fired at a flat trajectory, but instead the enemy ordnance was impacting the deck and upper works. The ship was aflame in several places on the port side near the rear battery, and fire control teams struggled to keep the ship from burning into a lifeless hulk while the gun battle was just starting to heat up. Shells from the mainland smashed into her deck and ravaged her once beautiful facade with giant holes, while literal rivers of blood poured through her cooridors from the scores of Freekish sailors killed by the impact. It was clear to Captain Stevenson that this was going to be a fight to the finish, for Varchak was now too committed to the fight to withdraw.

Dreadfire shook his head in disbelief as ships from the frontal perimeter began coming off the line, some so badly ravaged that their upper works resembled that of a garbage trawler. Many more would not be returning for repairs, as they were either split into pieces from anti-shipping missiles or simply pounded into submission from inbound air weapons and ground based guns. One destroyer in particular, the DDS Saint Bradshaw, was almost unrecognizable as a warship, for she had been ground down so far by shells, missile impacts, and the resulting fires that everything from the deck up was almost totally gone. The body of the ship itself was so badly cracked and broken that it was liable to sink at any minute, though it was a miracle that it was even able to move at all. Initial estimates put the losses from the once proud destroyer at 95%, and Damien was debating wether or not the ship should just be sunk, due to the fact that it would likely not stay afloat much longer. The other masses of twisted and burning steel that were still afloat as the rest of the fleet passed by angered the crews that gazed upon them, strengthening their resolve though their hearts went out to their departed comrades.

The Mouth For War had been rocked several more times by land based artillery, which seemed intent on attacking Dreadfire directly within the comfort of his own flagship. But the Mouth would not sit quietly and take a pounding, for her 20" main battery was in firing range with rocket assisted guided shells, and a punishing barrage of high explosive and sensor fused weapons exploded forth as she delivered a powerful broadside towards the land guns. He had always grown angry any time his favorite ship suffered damage, and the resulting boom of a 25" shell off the port side put him into a near fury, especially as the ship rocked violently as if being picked up out of the water and shaken. The Warlord was further enraged when he learned that the northern submarine force had foolishly stumbled into a giant minefield and was forced to either fall back or hold position, but reports were conflicting on just what was going on. Brinks had in actuality ordered the Cartagena submarines that had obliviously wandered into a death trap to hold, while only a couple were ordered to advance towards the northern fleet along their exact route, hoping that the small number of subs not traveling together would stand a better chance of not tipping to Doomani off to their location.

Take hold of my hand, for you are no longer alone. Walk with me in Hell.

Overall, the gloves had all but come off as the battle slipped from the atmosphere and was taken to the heavens over both Doomingsland and Automagfreek. Freekish scopes had detected a massive retalliatory ASAT that was bound for space over Gholgoth itself, and AMF godrod satellites in geosynch prepared to take the brunt of the assault, mostly due to the fact that only weapons platforms would be stationary, all other satellites would be simply orbiting the planet as usual....though signals were being sent to alter their course so that they would not be damaged in the aftermath of the orbital battle. Within minutes, Stratosfighters and Stratobombers scrambled with maximum 'Hellrage' missile payloads in an attempt to ease the damage that was about to ensue. Gholgoth itself would respond in its own ways, and the counterpunch was likely to be large enough to minimize the overall impact of the Doomani launch, but there was little doubt that Gholgothan space was about to be littered.

Meanwhile, Zander's attention continued shifting towards the Sarius Rex and its accompanying battlegroup which was now effectively boxed in from three sides, with only to Doomani mainland devoid of a Freekish presence. As elements of the 327th Sentinel Mountain Division prepared to assault the enemy installations at the top of the jagged coastal cliffs, the ICCM attacks were intensified, as well as AShM vollies from both Zander and Brinks. The latter Warchief had thus far parked himself in the north and helped to prevent a breakout, but as the Sarius Rex skirted his defenses and ran the coast south, he decided that perhaps a pincer move was in order. With the 'Cartagena' and 'Supremacy' submarines holding fast in the north and northeast, Brinks decided to impose on the Doomani naval presence attempting to rally against Damien in the southeast. 'Sentinel' class SD Templar would lead the taskforce from Brinks's main element to assault the mammoth Praetonian ship and its detachement, and her escorts included fists of frigates, destroyers, submarines, and a few token Scythe class battleships.


The intensive vollies of AShM's coming from both Warchiefs did not see a halt, and as Zander prepared to stonewall the Sarius Rex until it could be encircled and destroyed, a small detachment of amphibious troop transports set off towards the cliffs of the Doomani coast from 30 miles out. Night had just fallen over the region, and under cover of darkness the assault craft would advance from over the horizon and drop off troopers from the 327th Mountain, before heading back out to sea. The transports that carried the AAPC's were under siege from the mainland, and they struggled to keep themselves safe as they maneuvered defensively to avoid the columns of water and explosions of hot steel and body parts all around them. The Freeks were attempting to sight in the guns for counter battery fire, but the chaos in space made this all the more difficult, as the remaining full size and disposable satellites were busy streaming data down to Damien and Azrael's joint armada. But nevertheless, the first incursion onto Doomani soil was about to take place shortly.....



Pray for solace, pray for the resolve. Pray for the a savior, pray for deliverance. Some kind of purpose, a glimpse of a light in this void of existance.

Off the coast of Ephesium, the exchange of naval gunfire continued without pause, as the rest of Taskforce Dreadfire closed in on the Doomani city and the enemy vessels stationed there. Shells were already being put into the city as well as the batteries defending it, while the vastly outnumbered Doomani fleet delivered its own broadsides against Damien's ships. While still moving at an angle to the southeast, his ships were able to keep moving forward in order to continue to bring all their guns to bear on their foes, all the meanwhile still having the option of maneuvering while engaging. The Mouth For War and Varchak continued to bear the brunt of the defensive vollies, though the punishment they unleashed into Ephesium and the Doomani ships was many times more terrible. Scores of sensor fused shells were put into the air over the land defenses, where the submunitions would seek out and silence the guns that were being sighted in from the besieged Freekish satellites.

Alright my children, the moment has arrived....the time to kill is now.

Dreadfire then ordered his entire joint fleet, numbering in the thousands, to unleash a full torrent of AShM's from the sea and air at the only thing standing between him and Ephesium. The bombers he had ordered to assist would soon be within range to fire their long distance weaponry, though Damien was more focused on utilizing his assets already in the air slugging it out with both plane and ship alike. The death blow would soon be dealt to any ship still in the area due to the swarm of missiles nearly three times that of what Brinks had fired off, and with more and more battleships entering gun range, it would be looking grim for the Doomani soon.

Just as a full broadside was delivered from Varchak against the flagship Ephesium, a huge hit from its nearly 28" gun caused a giant pillar of fire to erupt on the deck, ripping a mammoth hole into ther heavily armored deck and penetrating into the mid levels of the ship. This caused Varchak to sway violently as damage control teams scrambled to the scene and attempted to subdue the fires that had erupted. Three of the smaller 12" batteries were put out of commission, as well as a score of misisle tubes, SmartFlak and CIWS guns. With the combined assault from the land, air, and sea, Varchak was beginning to feel the effects of the barrages. The entire ship shook once more as not one, but two shells of varrying caliber hit nearly the exact same spot just above the waterline near the gaping hole caused by the Ephesium, which caused her to take on water rapidly. The neighboring compartments were slammed shut immediately to prevent her from sinking, but Varchak started to list on its port side quite noticeably. Counter flooding was attempted to bring the ship back to a level plain, whil pumps began clearing out any water that had seeped in before the compartments were closed.

The screams of wounded and dying sailors nearly overshadowed the tremendous booming of her main batteries, and EMT's were quickly overrun and out of room to treat everyone. Pools of steaming blood and boiling fat caked the inner cooridors that were now visable from the main deck, which itself had several sailors either totally charred into a crisp, or fused to the metal from the intense heat generated from the shell blasts and the resulting explosions. Hundreds of obliterated corpses had to be simply tossed overboard in order to clear space for crews to operate in order to keep Varchak fighting, but the sentiment aboard the warship was that nobody was going home after this engagement.

Dreadfire screamed on the radio for Captain Stevenson to withdraw, but the Captain could not be raised on the wire. He feared that perhaps the headstrong captain had met his demise, but that was immediately put to rest as word was put out that Varchak's ears had been taken out as well. Knowing that the mammoth SD could not take a sustained series of hits for much longer, he ordered the Sentinel and Reaver to focus on the batteries targeting the wounded giant. The Mouth For War and its accompanying battleships would take care of the enemy vessels that were about to be on the receiving end of a large blanket of missiles, though Dreadfire's flagship was not without its own wounds as well.

Now witness the end of an age. Hope dies in hands of believers who seek the truth in the liar's eyes. Take hold of my hand, for you are no longer alone. Walk with me in Hell.

Everything was going as planned, though matters such as Captain Stevenson's stupidity hampered efforts to minimize Freekish losses during the drive towards land, where the full force of the AMF military would be unleashed. With Sarius Rex and its escorts encircled and continually besieged with 'Porcupines', AShM's, and anything the Freekish ships could throw at them, Zander boldly turned his ships to the southeast slightly, giving the Doomani the port sides of his capital ships where they would wait to bring their broadsides to bear. The flanking maneuver the Warchief saw unfolding would be in serious jeopardy considering the intensive succession of attacks that were being unleashed from the sea and air, and with friendly bombers en route....it would hopefully tip the scales decisively in Dreadfire's favor.

With a landing into Ephesium almost a certainty now, the Sentinels under Damien's command prepared themselves for action by loading up into their combat transports and smaller amphibious assault craft. The 406th Legion of the wildmen known as the 'Fallen' under Azrael's command would be some of the first forces to touch down alongside Freeks from the north and Death Dealers from the dark places inside the Earth. Doomani resistance thus far in the air and sea overshadowed the events that would soon take place on the ground, and all indications were that this would be one of the toughest fights of Damien Dreadfire's life.

You're never alone. Walk with me in Hell.

-Lamb of God

Homage to our God, the act of killing bears us
Closer to His grace, beyond the void of darkness
Every drop of blood, a chance to deify us
Bring us to our lord our killings transcending
Convictions of violence pure, unrelenting

Plataea, Crematorian Coast

Thunder. The smell of salt air is mixed with the smell of blood and boiling flesh. In the distance the great steel behemoths lay in wait, sitting silently in the accursed waters. A thin mist has descended upon the barren, jagged coast of Crematoria at a place called Plataea. On this day, the names of thousands would become forever engraved in the charred, blood caked annals of history as some of the greatest warriors ever to step foot upon a battlefield.

On this day, the souls of thousands would be sent to be judged by whichever god they worshipped, be it pagan on Christian. Death does not care for religion; if you are a man, it will take you. Believer or unbeliever, it will take you; like a ravenous vulture, it preys upon the souls of men. This day Death’s hunger for souls would be sated.

Upon the cliffs of Plataea stood guardians of the Imperium keeping faithful watch; sentinels of the God of the Christians. It was low tide; the unbeliever would have the opportunity to reach the cliffs without being crushed against the jagged rocks that lie at their foot by the cruel waves that constantly batter the coast of these cursed lands. The waters were now black; one could not see more than a few inches into the abyss. Soon they would become red; the white sands would suffer a similar fate.

Even in the mist the searing heat felt as if it could bake a man alive; within the bunkers, the men sweated profusely as if trapped within an oven, licking their lips in preparation for the meal of unbaptized blood they would soon consume.

They had branded themselves with the Sign of the Cross; upon their foreheads they had eagerly accepted the hot iron, letting out no sigh nor groan as their flesh was singed. Holy flame searing itself into their mortal flesh in preparation for their martyrdom; gracious in their divine agony.

Devotion drips from my jagged blade
My righteous hate fuels unyielding rage
Sacramental slaughter all for faith
In the homicidal doctrine he creates

Flashes in the distance illuminate the foggy air; the Freeks begin their bombardment. Massive shells slam into the face of the cliffs; massive chunks of rock burst out from the cliff in a great explosion of dust and debris, crumbling violently and collapsing, landing on the beach below. Massive gaping holes remain behind within the cliffs; within them, severed limbs and heads, piles of putrid, boiling flesh, torrents of blood drip onto the beach below.

There is no sound coming from within the confines of the bunkers; they are disciplined. There is no need for shouting, no need for speaking. There is only waiting; watching in utter silence as the men stare intently down the iron sights of their battle rifles. These men have seen this before; they have seen worse. They are forlorn, without family; veterans of Arretium who had lost all but their lives in God’s service, and yet they persevered. In His service they have done things that were simply indescribable.

Up and down along the cavernous battle line walks the Monks of St. Michael; they bless the soldiers and their arms, chanting prayers as they do so. The Custodes do not respond visibly as holy water trickles down their brows onto their weapons, they merely stare emotionlessly into the distance as the world crumbles about them. They can see the enemy landing craft now; silently sliding across the surface of the water, they cut through the fog.

They tuck their rifles into their shoulders snuggly; how they have missed that feeling, the feeling that you are about to take the life of an infidel. It is all overwhelming; the smell of one’s comrades as they are burning alive, the feeling of the notches you carved into your rifle’s stock up against your cheek, the sight of an innumerable amount of heathens beginning to spill out onto your beloved soil. The time to kill is now.

Decapitated heads, adorn the holy altar
Kneeling at its base, we stare in veneration
Every single death, brought us closer to Him
Take us to our Lord our bloodlust evolving,
Enshrining the bodies, evil emerging

The crackle of rifle fire and the barking of machinegun fire carry about the cliffs’ defensive works; the thundering of the occasional howitzer causes the very Earth to shake. Blue tracers rain from above like a lead maelstrom upon the Freeks; the amount of firepower being put into the beach was simply indescribable.

Torrents of sand and gore erupt from below as mortar and howitzer fire begin to impact the beach in rapid succession; in the distance one could easily see flames spewing off of the decks of Freekish ships and landing craft as Doomani artillery slams into their decks in great quantity.

Even amidst the seemingly unstoppable hail of fire, the Freeks continued to move through the onslaught. The artillery continued to be exchanged; the breastworks of the cliffs were crumbling in various parts from the sheer amount of artillery fire being poured into them, yet even from those sections tracers continued to fly down at the attacking Sentinels. Men with missing limbs, charred flesh, torn faces continued to pour fire into those below in order to cause as much death as physically possible before they themselves expired from blood loss or enemy fire.
Mendicant monks, acting as medics, walked down the lines, cauterizing the horrific wounds of the Custodes even as they fired, using instruments as crude as blowtorches to get the job done. Even as flames licked their wounds, the Doomani continued to fire: inhale…aim…exhale…fire. Oblivious to the carnage around them, numb to the pain, the chaos, they continued to kill, basking in the bloodshed.

It was pure insanity.

Hate rips through flesh and bone
The dogma states that it must be done
We adhere to the holy text
More must die if we are to advance

Below, Freekish troops had reached the base of the cliffs. Trained as mountaineers, they began to scale the enormous five-hundred foot heights even as bullets pinged off the very rocks they gripped onto, as grenades blew up meters away from them, sending some plummeting to their deaths in the jagged rocks below.

The Doomani calmly adjusted their fire; machinegun positions trained their weapons straight downwards into the climbing enemy soldiers, pouring unending hails of steel into those that had made it so far while they were most vulnerable. Riflemen moved to the edges of their bunkers in the areas where holes had been blown, crawling out until they were dangerously protruding above the jagged depths; staring down their sights, they continued the butchers work. One by one; they aimed carefully at individual enemy soldiers, preferring head shots above all else.

The rifles sharply recoiled against their shoulders, spitting out a high velocity piece of steel capable of piercing even the toughest of the armor worn by the vaunted Sentinels. The Freekish artillery barrage began to intensify; everywhere shells were impacting, blowing men and material alike completely apart. Limbs and intestines lie strewn about the ruins atop that desolate cliff in great number; as if in an ecstasy of blood, men lacking legs, their guts spilling precariously from their bellies, pieces of their face completely blown away, crawled feverishly towards openings in the bunker so that they may kill more infidels. It was what they were born to do.

Occasionally a Doomani, near death, would cast himself from the cliff, falling straight into a group of Sentinels in order to tear them from the cliff face on his way down.

Pray to our God
With blood we praise His epic acts of hate and homicidal glory, legendary murders
Trust in our Lord
Leads us to kill in the same way that He did, sever all the heads in sacrificial splendor
He is close now
Soon He will be among us leading, violence, ruin, divinity, homicide

Bloodied and battered, the Sentinels began climbing into the bunkers like insects. Almost immediately some of the Custodes simply leapt to their feet, springing forth like vicious animals at the Sentinels and tackling them over the side with a sudden burst of ferocity, taking both themselves and their enemy down into the abyss below. The others simply poured rifle and pistol fire into their enemies as they clambered over the tops before proceeding to charge into the fray with rifle butt and bayonet.

The ensuing melee was simply brutal; finally face to face with their opponents, the Custodes abandoned the reserve that had characterized their conduct up until this point. With an enemy within arm’s reach, they simply went berserk, tackling their foes over the cliff, jabbing ferociously with bayonet, clubbing viciously with rifle butt; in many cases, the Custodes went so far as to sink their teeth into the throats of their opponents, who fought back in a similarly vicious manner. However, the Freeks had numerical advantage; one by one the Custodes fell, bloodily fulfilled, their bloodlust quenched.

The Freeks had seemingly reached their goal; this was at a high cost, but not all was what it seemed. Moments later, the shrill whistling of artillery fire overwhelmed all other sounds.

From the surrounding sand dunes, the Custodes, laying hidden in yet more heavily fortified defenses, watched as God sent forth his wrath from heaven. The beach, now inundated with Freekish troops, was suddenly consumed in flame; thousands of artillery shells rained from the sky simultaneously, splitting open in midair and showering their victims with possibly millions of thermobaric and fragmenting bomblets. Not a single inch of beach remained untouched from the bombardment. Holy Terra shook from the unspeakable amount of firepower being concentrated on the beach; this slaughter had been planned from the start.


Kneeling in the blood, we see our Master watching
Look behind His eyes, a soul so ruthless, perfect
Transfixed by His gaze, His congregation waiting
We summoned Him here by doing His bidding
Now He will slay us, circle completed


Like ravenous vultures, the Custodes entrenched in the surrounding sand dunes descended upon those that had made it to the tops of the cliffs; not through a bayonet charge, but through sheer mass of firepower. The dunes lit up in the fog; muzzle flashes illuminated the darkened air, blue tracers cut across towards their targets. The putrid stench of scorched flesh was all-encompassing even as the bloodbath continued.

Mortar and artillery shells began to drop en masse onto the cliffs’ ruined bunkers in an effort to force the Freekish troops atop them from their cover, either into the rocks below, or into the teeth of the machineguns. Divine bloodlust: this was one trait the Freeks and Doomani shared in common.

Arterial spray paints the temple red
Our Master's advent brought us death
Rapturous screaming fills these hallowed halls
Blood soaked paradise awaits us all

-Cannibal Corpse

The face of the cliff was beginning to simply fall apart from the artillery barrage from both sides, and it was looking like the diversionary assault wasn't going to last long. Sentinels that had made it inside the derilect bunker took up firing positions near the seaside entrance that had been blasted open and fired at anything coming inside, though the endless swarm of fanatical Doomani's were beginning to overwhelm their position. Several men had been pounced upon and fell over the side of the cliff to their death, but as more mountaineers finished the scale upwards, the amount of firepower brought to bear increased greatly. Automatic squad weapons were employed to keep a constant stream of lead moving forward to both supress the Doomani charge, as well as to clear ground for an advance so that more Sentinels could enter the fray.

However what few remained on the beach would not be joining the fight, for their flesh had been reduced to pulp and vapor from the massive artillery barrage. Though they went into this with decent numbers, they were slowly beginning to succumb to the torrent of munitions being exchanged by both sides. Knowing that their lives were going to be short and their deaths bloody, the Sentinels made their stand within the rubble of the bunkers and prepared to take as many Doomani heathens with them as possible. With precision firing and support from ships at their back, they began lengthening the fighting gap between themselves and the hostile forces, allowing them some breathing room......but at the same time leaving themselves more vulnerable to enemy artillery. It was a risk worth taking, for the inbound barrages began to increase with ferocity from every available gun and missile, and would hopefully buy them more time.

Several Sentinels began throwing the bodies of their fallen comrades over the sides of the cliffs below, removing their spare ammo and grenades save for one, which they pulled the pin on before tossing them over the side. Their bodies exploded into pieces that rained down on the blood stained sands below, for they were intent on not allowing their fallen brothers to be desecrated in death. Those that remained began loading smoke rounds into the side loading grenade launchers and firing them outwards, as well as tossing canisters to screen their movement. Once the thick white cloud filled the area, the Sentinels that remained formed ranks and began advancing in pairs under cover of machinegun fire being randomly dumped through the middle of the field of fire.

Scores of bullets tore through the dense cloud as the units continued their movements up through the left and right flanks. Artillery from the sea had been directed towards the left flank and center formation of the enemy ranks, and continued to rain down with great succession. But the enemy's torrent of shells continued to exact their toll on the Sentinels, who continued on undaunted in an effort to kill as many Doomani as they could. The fireteams on the left began to wheel and dart about madly, unloading their weapons with as much accuracy as they could muster. But after coming nearly face to face with the enemy again, they realized that they were too few too late in the battle. As the field commander watched his men continue to get cut down and blown up, he ordered the remaining teams to gather the dead and wounded under smoke cover and make for the cliffs. Once there, the bodies were tossed over the side with live grenades attached to their chests, and those who remained alive fired off every last bullet they had in their possession. With shells continuing to hit all around them and the sounds of Doomani gunfire increasing, the Sentinel commander announced that they would not be taken alive.

With a warrior roar they dove from the cliffs with explosive in hand, intent on ending their lives themselves as opposed to that of heathen bullets. The commander was the last to jump, offering his thanks to the Gods before letting the spoon fly on his hand grenade. He stood at the edge of the rocky cliff and fell gracefully from the top, plummeting nearly fifty feet before the explosion tore his torso into halves. They had fought well considering they had inferior field position, few numbers, and no reinforcements. But their efforts were not in vain, for this mission was simply to probe the Doomani ground forces to gauge their response.

Dreadfire was interested to hear of Doomani field tactics, though he considered their response to be more of a panicked one than a logistical one. Intriguing....they seem to like fighting tooth and nail under a blanket of artillery.... He himself was no stranger to all out human wave assaults and would know how to deal with such tactics, and his ships continued to impose on Ephesium by the minute. Nearly every large cannon was sounding off at this time, firing towards what remained of the Ephesium naval garrison and against suspected hard cover that could be utilized to defend against the initial landing. Missiles and larger SDN shells favored the airfields within range, as well as power plants and other key targets, thoug Varchak continued to concentrate almost solely on the naval engagement. Disposable satellite scanners that lingered amongst the space debris continued feeding information to the ships and planes below of aerial IR signatures, as well as radiation signatures from nearby radar installations. These would be under fire from anti-radiation missiles from the escort frigates in an attempt to damage the enemy's ability to spot their planes.

ICCM fire was beginning to intensify across the board, targeting the Sarius Rex who was still utterly surrounded as well as the ships guarding Ephesium. The FAW-2A 'Porcupine' had performed better than expected thus far in the conflict, and entire caches were ordered to be emptied in an attempt to further desimate the Doomani navy. Sensor fused shells had done a considerable amount of damage, and a fair share were being fired off towards Ephesium to destroy any armor or artillery that either directly opposed the chosen LZ, or that lingered in hiding to rain death down upon the Freekish advance once it came. Though he would have liked nearly two weeks of straight shelling before moving in, Dreadfire knew that getting his men into the fray and off their ships was important, even if losses would end up being higher.

Continue pressing the barrages on all fronts, they cannot have much left in the tank now. Prepare the men, have them stay at a safe distance for now, but I want them to be ready for immediate action when I order it.

"Sir, it appears the Freeks have surrounded us," Commander Torington calmly addressed Vorenus, who was busy puffing away at his cigar, watching the monitors leisurely.

Taking the cigar out of his mouth, he breathed smoke from his nose and smiled sardonically,

"Those poor bastards. I've got them right where I want them!"

The Praetonian looked at the Doomani puzzled, sweat dripping off his brow.

Turning to his XO, Vorenus explained himself, "You see, commander, the Freeks have signed their own death warrant. Now we can shoot in every direction!"

Torington glanced from side to side, visibly confused.

"Shall I give the order to commence fire, then, sir?"

"Fuck yes, Commander. Roast those pagan dirtbags on my mark," he growled.

"Aye, sir," Torington replied robotically, proceeding to work with the weapons officer on getting a firing solution.

The mighty vessel shuddered slightly as a shell impacted her deck, scratching the paint a bit. Moments later, she shook violently as he mighty 35" guns sounded off in rapid succession, targetting Zander's flagship. Her DPs quickly answered the call of the larger guns, spitting out an even more intense volley of shells out towards the distant, unseen foe.

Sarius Rex's SD squadron had turned their guns in anger towards the foe that had foolishly tried to surround them. 27.5" guns of the smaller Apollyon-class super dreadnaughts supplemented the enourmous 35" guns of the Rex; these in turn were supplemented by more numerous 25" guns of the pocket super dreadnaughts, and the 20" and 18" guns of the battleships.

Freekish escorts were faced with another daunting foe: the 12" guns of the Apostle-class heavy cruisers, who would be further supported by the lighter 6" guns of the lighter cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, with whom the Freeks would be able to contend with. In terms of sheer firepower, however, the Doomani had the upper hand; in order to actualy complete the surrounding of the enourmous 2,000-strong fleet under Lucius, the Freeks would have to spread themselves precariously thin, allowing for the sheer firepower of Classis Doomanus Boreus to do its work.

On both sides, anti-shipping missiles continued to be thrown back and forth; however, by now, both sides would most likely be close to running out of missiles. This contest would be decided through gunnery.

Sarius Rex was visibly hurting from the sheer number of Porcupines being thrown at her; four of her thirty-fives had been put out of commision by the kinetic kill devices, with a sizable portion of her DPs also suffering heavy damage. Her own sensors were all but completely fucked; despite this, she'd still be able to get accurate shots off through the use of datalinking with friendly units. However, in accordance with standard Doomani counter-SD doctrine, she fired her own munitions-laced shells into Zander's flagship, targetting her superstructure in order to neutralize her sensors, DPs, and CIWS. Only a small number of the shells fired into Zander's flagship were cluster rounds, however; the Sarius Rex was more concerned with totally obliterating her target through the sheer brute force of her anti-shipping shells.

Other Freekish battleships and dreadnaughts would be handled by the smaller capital ships, whose firepower tended to outclass their foe.

South of the battle, around Ephesium, the situation was more desperate for the Doomani. The city itself was taking moderate damage from Freekish shelling; the Imperial Guard garrison remained largely intact, however, thanks to the hardened shelters they remained concealed within. The airfields in the immediate area had been totally decimated.

The naval battle was clearly in the Freeks' favor at this stage; most of Classis Ephesianus had been decimated by the intense shelling, despite the heroics of the crews of the vessels, who had made a point of killing as many Freeks as possible before going down with their ships. The Ephesium, flagship of the fleet, was still somehow moving despite the fact she had caught fire and that her superstructure was a complete ruin.

In a last-ditch effort, she sprinted towards the wounded Varchak, coming within three hundred yards of the vessel before unleashing a vicious broadside from her 27.5" guns at near-point blank range. Her 6" rapid-fire dual purpose guns also made a point of raking the Varchak with literally hundreds of shells to add to the destruction; if Ephesium was going down, Varchak was going with her.

Varchak had taken all the punishment it could, and with the waters around Ephesium growing more and more vacant, the mighty SD had served its purpose, though Dreadfire continued to curse Stevenson's name for his arrogance and headstrong nature. The flagship of the defensive fleet was hellbent on ramming the Varchak, something that had not been done at sea in ages....but it appeared that the maneuver would pay off. Freekish weapons could no longer attack the 'Ephesium' for fear of raking the dying 'Sentinel' class ship, so it was up to what remained of Stevenson's crew to weather the storm.

At some 300 meters it was obvious that she could not stop the inevitable ram, and in an attempt to fire off one last broadside with what remained of her main and secondary batteries, she turned hard to port as fast as she could. The lumbering giant would not be able to turn far with such a short distance, but hopes were that perhaps she could maneuver to such an angle that the two ships would simply scrape alongside each other. But alas it was not meant to be, and with guns blazing the 'Ephesium' plowed straight into Varchak at top speed, causing both vessels to quake and sway violently. The sound of steel literally exploding as it cracked under pressure drowned out the bellowing guns from both sides, and it became clear the this contest would end with violence. Water poured through the near city block sided crack in her hull, causing millions of gallons of water to pour into Varchak with great speed.

Her remaining guns then pitched downward and fired a single coordinated broadside, causing the ship to split even more under the fierce recoil from all of her batteries sounding off in a point blank attack on the enemy ship. It was obvious 'Ephesium' would be going down to the bottom alongside her, for the battered ship had sealed its own fate by pile-driving itself in a last ditch suicide attack. Men jumped from the sides of the sinking Varchak in droves, hoping to escape a watery death as the ship began to shatter and fold along the massive break in her hull. Fires had broken out everywhere due to the intense shelling and the impact itself, and ammunition lockers filled with assorted ordnance ranging from 155mm to 5" shells were set ablaze. The massive explosions caused literal pillars of fire to shoot into the smoke filled sky, and burning men writhed on the deck in agony or simply fell into the sea as their skin turned to pure carbon.

Dreadfire watched the imagery on his scopes in anger as Varchak crumpled into the gaping void in its side and began to slip into the sea, the 'Ephesium' almost entirely fused to the sinking hulk. The front half of the ship then rolled onto its deck and exposed the armored underbelly for several minutes before disappearing into the foamy, blood tinged waters. The rest of the ship then slid forward onto the split and stood straight up into the sky like a massive obelisk of steel, and there it sat motionless for some time before slowly descending vertically into the sea. As the tides approached the final triple mount of her main battery, the crew still inside and doomed to drown sounded off the mighty guns one last time in defiance, pointed in a random direction towards the land. Damien was choked up for but a moment as he saluted the brave men who died fighting the Doomani scourge.

May the Gods watch over the fallen men of the 'Varchak', the Superdreadnought that fought like an armada.

But the sacrifice was not in vain, for a near open road now lay before them to their primary target: the city of Ephesium. Guns and missiles continued to lay siege to military targets on the beach as well as in the city itself. Anti-radiation missiles were still being put into effect to destroy their radar stations and render them blind to the Freekish jets in the sky. And as Dreadfire's ships began imposing on the coast even more, transports filled with men swarmed safely around escort ships near the center of the massive battle formation. However, as the sun began to set on yet another bloody day of combat, a tiny fist very small and stealthy craft began to advance towards land in a very wide formation as to decrease their chances of being detected or taking devastating blanket hits. However they would not advance far over the horizon, for the Sentinel Stalkers inside would deploy onto small inflatable rafts with outboard motors and sneak the rest of the way in under cover of naval guns. The teams were equipped with scuba gear and supressed weapons, and were given the task of clearing as much of the beach as possible to allow landing craft to unload with greater ease.

Damien and Azrael's joint armada then began to spread itself out in an even wider formation in preparation for the massive amphibious landing, while more of the numberous heavy cruisers and missile frigates began diverting towards Zander and Brinks, who still had a fierce fight on their hands. The Sarius Rex had felt the wrath of the Freekish fleets as well as the Porcupine missiles would had worked to devastating effect. With the Rex all but impotent, the ICCM barrages would now be directed towards the supporing capital ships in an attempt to chop the legs out from udner the remaining fleet. With the bulk of anti-shipping missiles all but spent, the inevitable gun battle was about to ensue. However, most of the Freekish ships that had encircled the remaining Doomani fleet made it a point to dance outside the range of most of the hostile fire, in essence keeping a buffer zone between the two aramdas. Freekish submarines would now get their chance to shine, and had put themselves into a position that would allow them to remain out of danger, but still able to sink any Doomani ship that attempted to close the distance towards Zander and Brinks's surface combatants.

The silent predators sat patiently in wait for their foes to attempt a break out, though with the near victory in the south it would appear heading anywhere but back to where they came would be suicide. In fact, the northern arc of Brinks's forces maintained a wide perimeter to actually allow the remaining Doomani horde to retreat if they so chose. But knowing that was unlikely and would lead to further assaults on Doomani coastal cities, the idea was was merely that: an idea. However, the mass landing that was about to take place near Ephesium would be drawing most of the Doomani and Freekish attention. The hammer was about to fall upon the besieged city, and the world would see the true might of the Sentinel war machine. The diversionary force had not died in vain, for the enemy had been weighed and measured, and Damien knew exactly how to sack the city and gain ground.

Ephesium

The road now lay open for the Freekish horde to storm the fortress-city of Ephesium; with the sheer amount of resources being poured into this one objective by Damien, it looked as if the fate of the defenders was sealed. They would all die at the hands of Damien's army. Just how the battle unfolded remained to be seen, however; the Custodes certainly did not intend to simply lay down and die.

Shells crashed amidst the mighty city, smashing buildings to pieces and setting ablaze various sections. Even amidst the chaos the Custodes maintained their discipline. These men were but average Doomingslanders called up to defend their home city from foreign invasion; Caesar's Legions were still trecking across the barren wasteland of Damnatium. Despite the fact the majority of these men were not full-time soldiers, their discipline was simply staggering.

If an officer ordered his men to stand still in an open field amidst the bombardment, the men would do just that, seemingly oblivious to the danger around them. They were like automotons bred for the purpose of killing; all of the training and brainwashing that had been forced upon them as children and young men was now coming into play.

The mighty sea walls of the city were crumbling in certain sections from the weight of the Freekish bombardment; portions of the city had been reduced to rubble. The Custodes, however, were nowhere to be seen at this point. Not a single life form stirred on the surface of the city. They'd all taken cover in the tunnel network that honeycombed the city or in the thousands of strategically positioned bunkers. However, a token force continued to fanatically man the outer defenses of the fortress-city despite the heavy Freekish bombardment.

They knew full well that they would be the first to be martyred and took heart from it; they knew of the triumph of their brother Custodes at Plataea. They knew full well the Freekish war far from invincible as some meek heathens had claimed, for it had been the Doomani that had demonstrated that fact at Plataea. They had watched from shore as the Imperial Navy made a brave last stand against the Freekish hordes, even taking one of the enemy’s flagships down with them.

It was to that example that the Custodes sought to live up to. Whether or not they lived or died made no difference in the grand scheme of things; what mattered was how many Sentinels they could kill. Every Freek they killed was one less Freek that Caesar would have to slaughter when his vast army finally clashed with Damien’s army. As such, it was their God-given duty to kill as many Freeks as physically possible so that His will may be done in a swift and timely fashion.

As darkness began to fall, the vigilance of the Custodes left to guard the sea walls only increased. The squads of Custodes were equipped with high-powered thermal imaging scopes as well as individual night vision systems and scopes on their rifles; as a result, when the Sentinel Stalkers began closing in on the battlements on their rubber rafts, they ran into a welcoming party.

The Doomani, as evidenced at Plataea, were superb marksmen; at Plataea the majority of casualties inflicted on the Freeks had been done so by the 7.8x63mm DR-78M battle rifle, the mainstay of the Custodes Imperatoria, using only iron sights. Ephesium was a city of great wealth; as such, they could afford to equip their Custodes with the best equipment available, including scopes.

As a result, the Sentinel Stalkers found themselves initially taking fire from ranges exceeding eight hundred meters, and the fire in question was strangely accurate considering their distance to the city. Custodes riflemen augmented by machinegun crews began to put down a lethally accurate blanket of fire onto the incoming enemy boats; this would likely force the Stalkers to dive into the water to evade the fire. Ephesium was prepared to mount a defense against such adversaries, although their method was far from subtle, and, if anything, would hamper full-scale landing operations overall.

All along the coast of the city ran an underwater oil pipeline designed for the purpose of defense; the pipeline itself was buried under twenty feet of solid rock. However, multiple siphoning points all along the city’s coast went up from the pipeline itself to the surface of the rock. The locks on these points were electronically disabled, causing a torrent of oil to spew upwards from the pipeline. Amidst the blackness of the night, it would be virtually impossible to see as the surface of the water became clogged with the fuel.

As the muck thickened at the surface, underwater torches ignited the torrent of fuel at their sources, causing underwater jets of flame to spew upwards, igniting all of the oil at the surface of the water. A ring of fire seemed to spurt out of nowhere a few hundred meters from the sea wall, turning night to day. The jets of flame continued to spew beneath the water, effectively blocking the paths of the Sentinel Stalkers. Those that did make it past would have to deal with the now fully-alert Custodes manning the sea wall.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, the naval battle to the north continued to rage on. The Freekish tactic of skirting beyond the range of the big guns was something of an irritance to Admiral Lucius, who immediately decided to put a stop to the nonsense. He had complete numerical superiority over the Freekish fleet, which had stretched itself by surrounding his fleet against the coast.

He had a simple way of turning the tide: he ordered every single one of the ships under his command to launch an enourmous salvo of missiles targetting the whole of the Freekish fleet while his rear echelon began moving out from coast. This force would swing out, pushing the Freekish fleet back and form a line with the Doomani fleet, adjacent to the large Freekish relief force heading northwards. The stage would be set for a major naval battle that very well could decide the fate of the war, although chances were that would be decided not at sea but on the ground.

As the rear echelon swung outwards, so too did their ASW patrols, which would screen the fleet from the waiting Freekish submarines. Constantly scanning the area with active SONAR and referencing with SOSUS, the Freeks would find sneaking up on the fleet to be a task next to impossible; doing so would result in an air-launched supercavitating torpedo being sent screaming towards them at speeds exceeding three hundred knots.

With the northern fleets straining to maintain supremacy amidst the ongoing naval confrontation and the enemy beginning to use their numbers wisely and wheel about their flank, Dreadfire knew that the time to solidify his position had come. With the defending fleets at Ephesium beaten and the road to the mainland nearly clear, Damien ordered a large contingent of his ships to bolster Azander's defensive line, while at the same time ordering Brinks to reform his lines in the west to block an all out flank. As a result, doing this would allow the enemy to spread themselves out and effectively form a line parallel to the Freekish ships, but it was a move that had to be done to spare Brink's embattled ships.

However, a large contingent of gunships and guided missile frigates were still imposing on Ephesium with the intent of softening up ground targets in preparation for an all out blitz, and with the battle in the air effectively a stalemate due to SAM support on both sides, neither Sentinel nor Custode could expect much fighter cover for fear of weakening the aerial power of the remaining fleets. Needless to say, the onslaught of shell and missile alike was relentless as the ships not taking part in the defensive wall began moving into siege formations. This assault pattern had been done time and time again by Damien's battle hardened officers, who strategically began shuffling the transports and landing craft about as to avoid a single horrendous loss, while coordinating the surface combatants so that their firepower could be concentrated and maximized.

However before a landing could take place, the Sentinel Stalkers would need to complete their objective in clearing the path for the transports and landing craft, at least enough to prevent them from being entirely destroyed. Upon seeing the splashes of bullets impacting the water and hearing the booming of distant heavy sniper rifles, the team leaders rolled off their rafts after securing their diving apparatus to their faces. The rest of their men followed suit, seeking refuge from the precision rifle fire as their mission profile changed, now their goal was to eliminate the wall of fire that would hamper landing efforts and risk the lives of many Sentinels. The torches were spotted nearly a hundred yards out from their position, the glow faintly reaching their eyes even though the waters were surprisingly clear.

The leader of Alpha squad gestured to the sections of pipe that were feeding fuel to the torches, and signaled his men to set up demolition charges and prepare to clear the way for the rest of the Freekish army. Bravo and Delta squads advanced as well and prepared to destroy as much of the pipelines as possible to effectively render the torches impotent, and as they swam forwards to set up the charges, they carefully surveyed the area around them to the best of their ability. Swifty they placed their satchels and began moving as far away as they could before remotely detonating the demolitions and causing a massive shockwave to plow through the calm waters and a pillar to shoot up from the surface and into the sky. The full effect of the explosions was yet to be seen, for burning pools of oil still illuminated the top of the shallow sea and would likely only disappear after burning themselves out.

However, the black smoke that rose from the burning fuel screened the area and hampered visibility of the shore, which was a blessing in disguise, for it gave the Freeks a welcome smoke screen. With surface combatants hammering Ephesium and its defenses mercilessly, Damien decided it was time to send forth a forward detachment of troops to gauge the enemy's ability to structure a defense. With the Stalkers covertly moving towards a near impassible insertion point (where they would have to scale rough terrain) and given the task of wreaking havok on the enemy's flanks, the first wave was summoned forth from the protective rings of the fleet's defense. Artillery and missiles targeted key structures and potential fighting positions not only near the outer walls of the city, but several miles inland. Key bridges, roads, and choke points to the north and south of the city were bombarded by sophisticated GPS guided cruise missiles, in order to prevent the enemy from easily shuffling troops and armor about the coast of Ephesium.

The 40 foot high walls shielding the city from the sea stood straight up from the waterline, leaving little to no room for men to unload and begin fighting. To remedy this and provide a literal ramp in which his men could charge up, Dreadfire ordered an unpausing bombardment of Porcupine missiles at strategic points in the center of the cliff wall and at certain angles, while battleships and other gunships began hammering the structure near the waterline. The insane damage caused by the 10 re-entry vehicles and the main body of a single kinetic cruise missile alone would cause massive damage via direct impact as well as shockwaves of energy that would ripple through the internal composition of the stone. Combined with the destructive force of heavy armor piercing shells near the base, the result would be severe and effective: the walls would collapse. The siege of Kravonika during the Kraven Wars taught Freekish high command many valuable lessons about assaulting a fortified coast, and those skills and experience would be crucial in opening a hole through which the Sentinels and assorted infantry forces could flood through.

Days of nonstop bombardment had already passed, and the vollies were intensified as fists of amphibious assault carriers and armored landing craft began pressing the attack on the coast. Very few planes broke away from the aerial action to strafe the landing zones and draw attention towards the skies ever so briefly, hoping to catch the enemy turning on their radar systems and then subsequently eliminating them with anti-radiation missiles. Only a few thousand had been summoned forth to finally assault Doomani proper, and meny thousands more waited impatiently for their chance to follow through in future waves. While activating their jammers and electronics warfare suites, the loaded craft sped towards the cliffs under fire, though the burning oil disrupted visual ability to identify the swift and agile Freekish landing party. This ability was further cut down as the battleship Razorfist sounded off with 16" shells filled with dense smoke to further mask their approach. 60mm mortars on the landing craft would also fire off large clusters of smoke one in range, and their 30mm guns would lay down a heavy volume of suppressing fire if the enemy began firing upon them directly.

With the night sky dark and filled with oil and canister smoke, and the dust of blasted rock, the Freekish troops covertly made their way towards the coast and began unloading several units far enough away from the several mile or so blast radius that the fleet had been hammering. The main waves would pour through the opening once it had been sufficiently blasted, but in the meantime the forward units were under orders to harrass the enemy defenders who were not killed from the near endless bombardments since Freekish ships came within firing range of Ephesium some time ago. With the covering vollies still impacting not only the wall but any possible resistance points directly near the seawall, the landing craft shot forth pneumatic grappling hooks into the tops of the walls with tremendous pressure, detaching them quickly from their hulls and opening the gates to allow the soldiers inside a chance to use them.

Though the real fighting on the ground had not started yet, the pieces on the board were all but fully moved into position, and the hours and days ahead would see the beginning of the actual army on army fighting that both sides had been yearning for.

*****

OOC I didn't want to take this too far without giving you time to respond.

OOC:Sorry for the massive delay...and relatively poor quality of the post...I'll hopefully be able to add some character stuff later today.

Ephesium

Shells smashed into the city's mighty sea walls: these ancient walls simply could not stand up to the immense firepower of the 21st century weapons being employed by the Freeks and began to crumble in the places that they were being bombarded. As Damien had hoped, massive chunks of the walls crashed into the sea, leaving more room for troops to land. Of course, the fact was that the Sentinels being unloaded on shore would now have to scale the highly unstable crumbled sections of wall, which would present a problem of its own.

Due to the immense bombardment, most heavy units had withdrawn from the fighting positions of the wall itself; of course, they made sure not to simply leave it for the enemy to capture. A wide variety of mines and IEDs were left behind for the Freeks to deal with as they attempted to fan out and secure the walls; all this while having to withstand the firepower of the Custodes. The Doomani could be expected to play dirty.

Mines included thermobaric munitions, capable of incinerating large sections of the area in addition to Claymore-style directional mines. Most lethal of them all were the gas mines, laden with Pestis Dei, a chemical weapon that had been used countless times by the Imperial Army to kill millions.

The Custodes manning the walls, meanwhile, did not retreat very far; in fact, they'd simply moved back across the street to the ruined buildings and fortifications adjacent to the walls, concentrating their defenses around the breaches in the wall where the Freeks could be counted on to assault. Machineguns and grenade machineguns of various calibers were massed and mortars zeroed in; recoilless rifles were trained, fresh stocks of 125mm and 105mm beehive rounds massed; fewer in number were several Digitulus Dei rounds, which were effectively 105mm RPG rounds with a nuclear warhead, giving them a fifty-ton yield. The Doomani would make the Freeks pay in blood for every inch of their city.

Meanwhile, infantry began in earnest in one of the further corners of the city. As Sentinel Stalkers attempted to access what was percieved as a weak point by scaling the cliffs around the area, they were suddenly met by sniper fire. It looked to be a repeat of Plataea: once again the Custodes held the high ground; they'd already proven themselves to be superb marksmen when fighting the Freeks, and that would play a key role here.

As they tried to climb, snipers equipped with scoped DRS-78 designated marksman rifles as well as Maurus 95M.IV bolt-action sniper rifles began to pick their targets. From the distances they were shooting, it was nearly impossible to miss, especially considering that the Stalkers wouldn't be able to find much in the way of cover on those cliffs. Anticipating an artillery strike, a secondary perimeter was established away from the cliffs and ringed with riflemen and machineguns. Any Freekish commandos that made it to the tops of the cliffs would find themselves exposed with no cover to Doomani machineguns and snipers.

Further down the line, Freekish forward elements began to unload in breached sections of the sea wall. Forward observers keeping an eye on the suspected landing zones began calling in fire missions from the mortars: the first rounds to be dropped in were illumination rounds. Parachute flares ignited in midair, turning night to day over the ruined sections of wall. The Freeks would now be very aware that they were vulnerable: moments later the ordnance would start coming in. 60mm, 82mm, 125mm, and 203mm mortar crews began dropping rounds into the target zones: the unfortunate first wave would be pounded relentlessly by air bursting anti-personnel rounds even as they attempted to clamber up the loose rock up into the city itself.

Any Freekish soldiers that made it over the top and out of the killzone would be dispatched by the nearest sniper: the machineguns and other riflemen remained silent to prevent the enemy from realizing that they were there. Immediately coming out of the ruined wall, there was very little cover in immediate sight, which was certainly a bad thing considering the flares that lit them up overhead.

The Doomani would be quite disappointed if the knew how small the first wave was, for only several dozen Freekish engineers exited the assorted landing craft and began taking cover amongst the rubble. While it was not clear to the Doomani exactly what they were doing, it was obvious that this was not an initial surge into the city. In fact, the unloading was so fast that the Doomani were likely to mistake it for a pull back, since the scores of assault transports that had come over the horizon had turned back, and deceptive radio chatter screamed of "Fall back! We are not yet ready!"

But the engineers were already quickly at work, taking readings on the ground of radiation, electromagnetic and thermal levels, and prepared to direct naval gun and missile fire from up close. Several Freekish soldiers laid as flat to the ground as they could as they neared the top of the rubble pile, and ever so gently they snaked almost invisible fiber optic cameras through the debris to get a view of the other side. Disposable spy satellites that drifted amongst the lunar devastation scanned the chosen incursion areas and would assist in triangulating fire. Intelligence technicians aboard Dreadfire's ships began locking in the positions of noted heat signatures on their screens and directed the gunnery crews to fire on the chosen coordinates with rocket assisted, GPS guided smart weaponry. A majority of Dreadfire's gunships had already been actively hammering targets within Ephesium for days on end without pause, and now thatground incursions were being made, the fleet focused their efforts on eliminating the enemy ground presence.

Large cluster munitions from the Sentinel class ships and loads of anti-personnel rounds from battleships and other large gun platforms were immediately ordered to cease the razing of Ephesium and to instead direct fire towards the designated soft targets on the ground. And so they did, and in unison the first volley was sent forth from across the fleet, followed by subsequent barrages until a several mile area was devoid of Doomani life. Knowing that artillery and tank crews were likely hiding amongst the devastation on the ground, Dreadfire ordered that the surrounding area be saturated with munitions in an effort to take out the surroundings of the heat signatures. Intel crews at sea watched from space as the guns boomed loudly, followed by the hissing of cruise missiles as the frigate force continued hitting hard targets in the center, rear, and flanks of Ephesium.

Rounds are away, stand by. The encrypted message echoed in the ears of the lead engineer, who had been directing his men to place breaching carges along compromised sections of the wall around them in an effort to further open them up and allow room for troops to maneuver. As they pulled back towards the waters edge, they took cover as the first shells came screaming in around them. Meanwhile, the Stalkers who had silently begun scaling the cliff came under fire, with several of them being dropped with accurate rifle fire from the top of the cliff. The rest immediately loosed their harnesses and dropped at freefall speed towards the water, before slowing themselves at the last minute and taking refuge in the rocky waves. The enemy above them would be under artillery fire in a matter of seconds, so with patience they waited for the go ahead to proceed.

The commanding officer of the Stalker detachment flicked the selector switch on his assault rifle to single shot and pressed the buttstock hard against his shoulder, and ever so gingerly he began to post out from around a rock. The non-reflective surface of his scope was coated with beads of water from the frothing sea around him, and with care he aimed his weapon at a steep upward angle in order to get a beat on those firing down on his men. His breathing was gentle and smooth as his right index finger began squeezing the trigger, a Doomani soldier's face squarly in his crosshairs. The weapon discharged, a slight recoil from the shot causing his torso to twitch ever so slightly. There was no follow up shot, for he did not want to give away his exact position, and there was no need, for the artillery that could now be heard descending would do the work for him.

Meanwhile, the Sentinels, Fallen, Death Dealers, and professional Freekish soldiers who sat in wait aboard their combat transports brooded in anticipation for the coming onslaught. This was to be one of their biggest tests yet, and many of Dreadfire's men were hardened veterans who had stormed the citadel walls of Kravonika, and they had learned the hard lessons of assaultinga fortified coast. Each man was outfitted with tactical NBC gear, designed to provide maximum comfort, mobility, and protection should the Doomani resort to dirty tactics. They continuously checked their gear and outfittings as they sat harnessed into their transports in anticipation for their assault run. But they would not get to spill heathn blood just yet, for the fleet's bombardment would have to work its magic before boots could be put on the ground.


*****

Several hours passed and night had fallen across the lands and seas, and the smoke of a burning city clouded the skies and blotted out the moon and stars. Freekish technicians on board the numerous support vessels continued monitoring heat signatures in a several mile radius around the designated incursion zones, and they were confident that the enemy had either been obliterated or forced into hiding. Wether either was true still had yet to be fully realized, but Damien knew that eventually he would have to put his men into harm's way and meaure the level of Doomani resistance. His ships still had plenty of fight left in them, and were prepared to blast the entire area and clear it should resistance be too great. Several more points on the wall had been blasted by high explosive SD shells set to explode after a slight delay, allowing them to burrow into the center of the walls before detonating. The advance team coordinated the demolition of the breached wall to furhter open its gap with the shelling of a large portion of fortification just to the southeast of their position. The explosions were horrific, tossing gigantic slabs of stone and debris across the entire area and leaving utter destruction in its wake.

The specific targeting of enemy heat signatures had gone on for hours, and the advance Freekish engineer team prepared to scout the area on foot. But before they moved out, several salvos of sensor fuzed shells from the Reaver were sent forth from every main battery, sending scores of small skeets across the entire area to search for enemy tanks and artillery pieces. If the skeets could not find either, they would act as anti-personnel devices and further serve to clear the area. Without knowing what the shells had taken out, they began moving over the top of the large debris pile after hearing the multiple explosions of hundreds of skeets. The unit activated their HUD's and switched the cameras on their weapons to thermal view and raised them up over the rocks to scan the area. After being given the go ahead command, the engineer team broke into two outfits and moved laterally to the seawall in both directions, immediately seeking cover.

Taskforce Delta Kilo two zero and two one in position, stand by for data feed.

Information began a rapid exchange between the ships offshore and the men on the ground, who received real time satellite footage of the area in their HUDs. Without knowing the measure of the Doomani presence after relentless shelling, they cautiously began to physically search and clear areas on their HUD that showed no heat signatures. Dreadfire's intel officers watched from each man's helmet cameras and from the eyes above as they began to move out. Damien would soon know if the time was right to send the rest of his men or not, but with the cover of darkness on his side, it was obvious that the moment was nearly upon him.

Somewhere in Damnatium, several hundred meters below ground

While the situation appeared to be growing more and more bleak on the strategic scale, Maximus still laughed it off to the relief of his subordinates. He had that quality of him: he laughed in the face of adversity and spat in the eye of death. It were these qualities that endeared him to his brother Doomani: it put them at ease, gave them confidence. Most of all, it made them willing to go far beyond what normal men were willing to do for anyone in Maximus' name.

While foreigners held him to be borderline insane and certainly mentally disturbed in more than one way, the Doomani did not see this in him: instead they saw a man touched by Christ's light, burning with His Spirit, and His righteous anger. One thing both sides of the arguement acknowledged was his competence as a leader: while he was clearly lacking diplomatic talent, Doomanum had itself become more powerful than it ever had been before under his reign. Militarily speaking, the man had simply never been defeated in battle despite spending the last ten years of his life in an almost constant state of campaigning.

How he'd found time to manage an entire empire at the same time was simply a miracle in and of itself. That said, he was indeed a unique man: a madman to some, a saint to others; formidable to all. But now, he faced his greatest challenge of all.

The room seemed to stretch on forever in all directions: at the center was a massive holographic projector displaying a global theatre map, displaying the movements of literally millions of troops throughout the region of Haven as well as the lands that lay west of Doomanum. All over the map blinking red icons represented hostile formations: these were further subdivided through shape into the various nations they belong to. The Greek letter Alpha represented Allanean units: these were displayed as swarming towards Kahanistan in their final attempt to land and route the Doomani forces that invaded. Freekish forces were shown as they currently were: the bulk of their surface combatants currently locked in fierce combat with the Doomani fleet midway down the coast, with the rest concentrated around Ephesium and the siege that was currently being fought there.

Further west at Iurarium, the massive Kregaian armada that had infiltrated the Sea of Doomanum was emblazoned against the blackness of what was supposed to be the water. However, throughout all, there was a massive amount of gold units there to resist. At Ephesium, the brave defenders continued to hold on against a numerically superior foe; in Kahanistan, the some two-hundred thousand expeditionary troops continued to wage a brutal war of extermination against the Kahanistani heathens and simply waited for their hated Allanean foes to come and join the battle so that they may spill even more blood. Further north, the Paralentum Islands seemed to be totally covered in gold units representing ACID formations, preparing to sally forth and intercept and exterminate the Allanean reinforcements before they could even set foot on the ground.

In Iurarium, untold millions of Doomani were taking up arms in response to the alarms blaring throughout the city quarters: hundreds of legions were simply springing up out of nothing in the populated areas. This was indeed war on a vast scale, and Maximus was simply loving it. However, the area that he was most transfixed with was the one nearest to him: Ephesium. It was there that his strategy to crush the Freekish invasion would ultimately succeed or fail. Of course, his goal was not to stop the Freeks at Ephesium: he knew he could not hold the city without a breakthrough by the naval units further up north. Freekish naval artillery would slowly break down the garrison of Ephesium over a hopefully long, costly battle for the Freeks. That was what he was banking on: a war of attrition against Damien Dreadfire. He knew for a fact that he could field far more men than Damien in the field; however, he did not send them forth to Ephesium.

Instead he'd decided it more prudent to keep them prepared to crush the Freekish incursion that would proceed to stain the sands of Crematoria following the fall of Ephesium: this would allow him to fight on his own terms and inflict a series of humiliating defeats and bring about a swift end to this theatre of war, allowing for reinforcements to pour into Iurarium and Kahanistan in vast number.

But that would not be for some time; for now, he would have to deal with the preparations for what would be the final blows of this Crusade. Outnumbered in all sectors of engagement. Maximus cackled viciously in the face of the holographic images flashing before his eyes. His heathen foe would soon know why he was laughing.

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Ephesium

Hidden in concealed bunkers and basements, the Custodes had indeed not been annihilated by the Freekish bombardment; heavy casualties near the sea walls had been sustained, but they were by no means wiped out. They laid in wait, biding their time. Armored units dispersed throughout key chokepoints in the city had, of course, been heavily concealed: their engines had been switched off and thermal shrouds tossed over them, leaving Freekish sensor fused weapons with nothing to find for the most part. Instead, as the Freeks had intended, most of the munitions went undetonated. Of course, in those sectors, the Doomani had no intention of moving: the Freeks would have to navigate minefields created by their own artillery now.

Meanwhile, Freekish combat engineers moving along the seawall to secure it would be dealing with an entirely different threat: Doomani IEDs and mines. 82mm mortar rounds laced with the dreaded Pestis Dei had been taped together and linked with a common fuse and a laser trigger, ensuring that any Freekish combat engineers walking about the wall would be met with nasty surprises. Other traps included explosive shells rigged together in a similar manner, these ranging from rounds as small as 60mm mortar shells to rounds as large as 16" naval artillery shells. Purpose-built landmines would be the most dangerous: bouncing betty-style mines with modern fusing and detection were embedded amongst the rubble and broken concrete of the seawall; Claymore-style directional mines were similarly dispersed in anticipated lines of advancement.

However, the Custodes had learned by now: they remained in hiding. The Freeks would not realize they were there until their main body had commenced landing operations. The pieces were all in place. One of the bloodiest battles in history was about to commence in earnest.

OOC: Doom has ok'd the contents of this post, so I don't want to hear anyone bitch about me taking liberties.

**********

The Freeks waited for the last of the up close artillery to drop before moving out, their final cue being the simultanious detonation of sensor fused bomblets that were not able to scan any armor or soft targets. The skeets were designed to leave a clean battlefield in the event they could not track and destroy a target from above, with a five minute delay fuse that activated once the ordnance hit the ground. The resulting series of explosions covered an area several hundred yards wide in every direction less than a quarter mile away from the soldier's positions. Knowing that any booby traps in this area were likely disposed off, they merely had to venture through the shattered streets in front of them in order to reach the hopefully cleared zone to their east. The Freekish soldier in the point position began advancing slowly in a heel toe fashion through rough cover, carefully scanning the area with his eyes and gun camera for potential threats when it happened......

The detonation was enough to shake the ground forcibly, while the man's body was reduced to a cloud of liquid flesh and fluids, though parts of his body armor and helmet remained intact but contained nothing but spattered gore inside. The communications personnel at sea watched as his HUD went to snow, and the shouting of Two-one-six down! Man down! The Freekish soldiers immediately took cover and scanned the area carefully with their gun cameras, ready to engage any target that presented itself. However, after several moments of waiting it was determined that this was but a random trap put forth to slow the main Freekish landing, so upon receiving further orders from naval comms they continued forth. It wasn't until the second and third explosions that the men decided to halt their movements and secure a perimeter.

Word was sent that they would require a fast boat to deploy a detachment of additional engineers and Unmanned Urban Support Vehicles to support them and clear out as much of the booby traps as they could. With missiles and shells still soaring overhead, the boat arrived as quickly as it possibly could and began to unload several Sentinels with their Hellhounds, vicious attack dogs bred in the south of Automagfreek that had proven themselves valuable during the assault of The Kraven Corporation. Their keen sense of smell would allow the men to detect the locations of explosive devices, while the UUSV's would take care of disposal as well as scouting up close for danger.

While this was taking place in the background and while the Doomani sat and awaited the main bulk of the landing force, Dreadfire decided that the time was right to at least test the resolve of whatever Doomani defenders remained alive in Ephesium. Satellite intel was already suggesting that perhaps the enemy was massing in preparation for a counterattack following a Freekish touch down, but with his naval guns still at the ready he prepared for the first 5,000 to land. Each soldier was outfitted with combat suitable NBC gear, again a reference to the horrors suffer during the Kravonika campaign, for Damien knew the Doomani were not ones to fight with honor. The bulk of the first incursion force was comprised of Sentinels who would insert themselves at the assorted breach points along the main LZ, while smaller squads would winch themselves to the tops of the sea wall along the flanks.

The order to attack was carried out as quickly as the orders were given, and immediately a fist of assault transports that had been circling over the horizon within the safety of the fleet began to speed towards the coast. With Ephesium smoldering in the distance, the Sentinels loaded their weapons and began roaring their approval as they would finally get to spill Doomani blood. The ominous black clouds from the fires throughout the city cast an eerie shadow across the soon to be battlefield, but with steadfast determination the Sentinels sailed forward. As they came over the horizon they split into smaller groups then split once more as they made their final approach, their positions random and spread out from one another to prevent a potential mass casualty situation from happening. However the guns of Ephesium had largely fallen silent due to mass shelling and precision targeting, though Dreadfire knew all too well that plenty more remained in hiding.

As the Freekish enginners continued to spot and mark mines for destruction, other still attempted to blast the large debris pile from the sea wall that fell into the water into a semi-stable pad to drive tanks and support vehicles up. However their task was largely put on hold as the first landing party began to spill forth from their assault transports and rapidly advance into cleared out parts of the city. However they were disappointed to find that the area was largely deserted due to the massive shelling that had taken place the past several days, which lead them to believe that either the Doomani had withdrawn, or they simply all died. Probing further into the city the Sentinels and Freekish soldiers found that though portions of the city in the center were intact, they too were devoid of life.

Dreadfire knew that although an opportunity presented itself, it was still a risky move to fully commit. He remembered the lessons of Kravonika and fully expected the unexpected from Maximus, but on the same hand he had great faith in his army. After taking up his rifle and the Relic's Sword, Damien made his way towards the assault transport he had summoned forth, and he decended the Mouth For War into the vessel that was packed with Sentinels, cheering his arrival.

I've come to lead you myself, my children. Maximus shall soon feel true terror at your hands, and I will be there at your side every step of the way! Cheesey, he said to himself, but always motivating for his men to hear his encouragement.

The fully loaded Freekish assault force was sent off towards Ephesium a mere 12 hours after the probing elements had secured themselves positions in the heart of the city, essentially cutting it in half. Traps and other nasty surprises were still being dealt with and were still killing Damien's men on the ground, but the agile army knew that it had to keep moving in order to achieve its goals of crushing the Doomani force. Tens of thousands prepared for combat, and Dreadfire himself was the first of the main wave to step onto Doomani soil. He sniffled and ran his hand under his nose as he scowled and surveyed the surroundings, his men pouring forth from the transports like a tidal wave across the shattered ground.

It wasn't more than two hours after the landing that Dreadfire's 5,000 strong foward element began pushing in the direction of the eastern outskirts of Ephesium towards the vast desert that lay beyond. Damien knew that Maximus was out there somewhere, but exactly where...he did not know. All he did know was that the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up as his ears caught chatter coming from the radio operator next to him, his receiver alive with screams of "CONTACT!".

Ephesium

As the Freekish forward elements continued to advance towards deeper into the city, they'd find the roads growing more and more narrow. This was, after all, an ancient city; it was one of the more easily-defended cities in the Imperium, and its construction reflected this. Towards the outskirts of the city, where much of the city was still mostly intact and only slightly scarred from Freekish bombardment, Maximus had instructed his Custodes and the Legionaries that had accompanied him to the city to establish defenses in the narrow streets.

Maximus himself lay prone in the shattered storefront of some shopkeeper who had by now either taken up arms or had been killed. Images of Damien's advance forces moving towards his positions flashed before the eyepiece hanging down from Caesar's helmet; the infidels drew nearer and nearer. Zooming in on his own position, an orbiting UAV displayed a force of Sentinels approaching Maximus' own position.

He grinned viciously and nodded for his machinegun crews to lock and load. Immediately under his command were a pair of 4M1 medium machineguns, a 105mm Spiculum recoilless rifle team, and a pair of medium grenade machineguns. The sounds of feed trays slamming shut, of bolts being drawn back and released, and the clanking of belted ammunition reverberated in the dusty air.

The wind blew, carrying sand about the streets. His Legionaries switched on their thermal imaging sites on their weapons and stared down. Maximus silently motioned to his radioman to prepare to call in his fire mission. Down the street narrow, medieval street, the first of the Sentinels appeared, moving with robotic precision and swiftly scanning their immediate surroundings. Once more they found no sign of their Christian foe.

Speaking softly into his radio, the man beside Maximus began calling in the fire mission on the Sentinels;

"This is Imperator Actual, fire mission on prearranged coordinates. Quick fuse."

A voice on the other side reverberated in Maximus' ear,

"Confirmed, Imperator. Shot, over."

From a few kilometers back, a battery of 203mm siege mortars sounded off, lobbing their enourmous shells into a steep parabollic trajectory.

"Splash, over."

Three seconds to impact.

There was a shrill whisteling resembling that of water poiling in a tea kettling; desperately the Sentinels attempted to seek cover within the nearby buildings but to no avail. The entire section disappeared in a massive cloud of fire, smoke, and sand; rubble shot skywards at high velocity, mixed with arms and legs, and a thin red mist as the entire section of street was completely obliterated along with a platoon of Sentinels.

Over all radio channels including that of the Freeks, a ferocious roar sounded,

"DEUS VULT!"

The machineguns barked and the grenade launchers thumped, spitting lead and explosives into the cloud of dust; there was a load roar as the recoilless rifle sounded off, flinging a beehive round down the street to make short work of the Freekish wounded. The trap had been sprung on the Freekish forward element; little remained to buffer Damien's main force from that of Maximus.

The Imperator knew full well that Damien would soon be frantically ordering his naval artillery to bring down as much fire as physically possible on where he thought the defensive positions were; anticipating this move, his battle plan called for his own units to immediately commence an assault right through the annihilated Freekish forward elements and engage in close combat with Damien's troops to prevent him from saving himself with his heavy artillery.

This contest would not be decided through force of firepower, but through skill in battle. The Doomani let loose a fearsome warcry as they swarmed down from their concealed positions, sweeping through the obliterated enemy forward element straight towards the Freekish main body. A stready bombardment from sixteen-inch siege guns and 152mm howitzers would now be throwing off Damien's forward most troops to make it even easier for the Doomani to get within their ranks.

Maximus and his personal guard, the Equites Augusta, were currently fighting alongside a full cohort of Custodes, who would spearhead the initial offensive. Maximus knew that Damien, like himself, liked to lead the battle from the front. There was an excellent chance that the two warlords would encounter one another in the field of battle; the Imperator wanted nothing more right now than to kill Damien with his bare hands.

As the advanced pressed forward out of the congested outskirts and out into the shattered moonscape of the inner city, Maximus spied his Custodes entering into a firefight with a force of Sentinels up ahead. Perhaps this was Dreadfire's own personal guard?

Caesar could only hope. With his numerically superior Custodes acting as the tactical 'anvil' of the maneuver, locking down the Sentinels with a torrent of precisely aimed rifle fire, machinegun fire, mortars, and recoilless rifles, Maximus maneuvered his Equites around towards the flanks of the Sentinels in order to overwhelm and crush that unit.

It was a scene of utter chaos: the blue tracers of the Doomani filled the air, criss-crossing with the tracers of the Freekish foe. Torrents of sand and debris shot high into the air, often taking with it the limbs of both Doomani and Freekish soldiers. Already in some sectors the Custodes and Sentinels were going hand-to-hand, making artillery support for either side virtually impossible.

Maximus had gone to work with his rifle; preferring headshots, he'd already taken the lives of a few of the pagan Sentinels as the flanking attack commenced under the cover of machinegun and grenade machinegun fire. Damien was in there somewhere...

Damien's forward element had little to no time to respond, and as a result a mere handful managed to run back to the center of the city where the bulk of the main force had been sitting. The enemy simply had decended too fast for there to be much of anything in terms of far support, so as a result the two forces were moments from impact. As Damien gauged the situation in his head as the battle cries of the Doomani began to echo through the shattered streets, he stood up from his cover and placed his crimson cloak around his mighty shoulders. Taking up his rifle and readying his battle sword, the veteran warrior simply charged full speed towards the sea of foes with a fiery cry escaping his throat. His loyal Sentinels followed suit without hesitation, and thus both armies began speeding towards the same point in the heart of Ephesium...where they literally crashed into each other with violent force.

It was a sight almost from a movie, both waves of men emerging from the smoke and dust only to shoot and stab at one another point blank. The Doomani were fierce in their flanking attack in order to shatter the Freekish lines and slaughter them all, but Dreadfire forsaw this and ordered his men to assault the oppposite flank hard. The result was grim...the two forces began to spiral into one another until no discernable lines existed. The gates of Hell had burst open in the streets of the once proud city, and commanders on both sides simply threw their playbooks out the window and instead hoped against hope that they would be victorious. Dreadfire and Maximus had no clue they were about to meet each other face to face on the battlefield, but as the two shot and hacked their way through all opposition in their path, a familiar outline caught Damien's eye, and Maximus too saw the familiar flutter of the Warlord's blood red cloak.

As if time slowed down, they turned and faced each other, their eyes fixed as they gripped their weapons fiercely. Damien stepped forth slowly and removed his utility belt, then his rifle, until he was free of obstruction for the coming duel. With a sly and devilish grin Maximus obliged, and soon the two began to circle each other like caged animals, cursing and taunting one another before finally holding their blades at the ready. The soldiers around the two leaders gradually took notice of this and drew their attention to the open circle that had now formed around the pair. Men were chanting and roaring their master's approval as more and more gunfire around the zone began to die down. It seemed the eyes of the whole battlefield were fixed upon Damien and Maximus.

Shall we? Dreadfire snorted as his red eyes throbbed and flame accented his pupils. Maximus, unimpressed answered with the opening slash of his sword against Damien's midsection, to which the Warlord attempted a disengage so he could run his foe through quickly. Maximus however did not lose control of his sword and proceeded to spin and attempt to cut the mighty Damien's legs out from underneath him, which in turn was met with a quick leap and a sharp downward cut. The Relic's Sword impacted the pavement hard and shattered the ground where they stood, allowing Maximus to deliver a downward swing to Dreadfire's right bicep. A violent roar filled the makeshift arena as cleaved flesh spattered on the concrete followed by a steady stream of blood.

This injury did not deter Damien in the slightest, who answered with a series of vicious jabs and swings, and the two began to tangle their blades in an elaborate swordfight the likes of which had not been seen since the ancient times. Blood and meat flew everywhere as the two hacked at each other mercilessly with every intent of delivering the fatal blow and essentially deciding the outcome of the war right then and there. However the tide began to turn as Damien caught a lucky break; his downward slash was blocked by Maximus, allowing the Relic's Sword to scrape down the enemy blade and implant itself into the Doomani leader's leg. A brief wail of pain rang out before yet another as Damien was stabbed in the left calf with a dagger Maximus kept with him. Dreadfire answered with a flying knee, and the two landed in a heap on the ground as the circle around them continued to grow.

Without stopping to recover their weapons, the two began instead to club at each other with rock and stone, foot and fist alike. The seemingly coordinated series of swordplay had degenerated into an all out barroom brawl, and the pair struggled to grapple for offensive position as knees, headbutts, and punches were dished out back to back. Maximus nearly won with fight as he picked up a small portion of steel beam and concealed it behind his leg for a moment before swinging it down towards Damien's head. Instinctively the Warlord did the only thing he could, and raised his left arm to bear the brunt of the impact. The resulting snap of the bone sounded like a gunshot, followed by the painful howling and wailing that ensued. He looked in horror as his forearm bent at a fairly steep angle, and momentarily his eyes spewed fire from the sockets, causing Damien to deliver a crushing uppercut to Maximus's chin. The Doomani sailed through the air, twisting his body around as he landed face down on a sharp rock, gouging out one of his eyes.

Dreadfire then collapsed on the ground from exhaustion as Maximus rolled over only to discover a river of blood and vitrious fluid running freely from his eye. Neither man had the will to continue after such a fierce fight, and the cheering of the onlookers had long since died down. Dreadfire slowly stood and gingerly held his shattered arm, looking at Maximus's red face and sizing him up. Both men were an abolsute mess of severed flesh and clotting blood, and after licking his cracked lips, Damien uttered:

Well done Maximus, well done.

He stumbled on his feet before sitting down on a broken section of house to his left, and after pulling himself together his Doomani counterpart gripped his oozing wound and nodded in approval. Maximus too rose on uneasy legs and advanced towards the tired Freek with caution, though it was Damien who first extended his hand and said I have yet to find any man in this world who would fight against me with such...conviction...such courage. Suffice it to say I'm impressed.

Maximus spoke not, but intead focused on wrapping a piece of cloth around his facial wound. It makes me wonder, what two such warriors could do fighting alongside one another as opposed to against each other. This caught Maximus's attention, and for a momenth he pondered upon Dreadfire's words. I think you've got something there... The Warlord smiled ever so slightly, then gestured his way.

Come, let us tend our wounds and quench our thirsts.

It was then that calls of 'Cease fire!' rang out from both sides across the airwaves, and almost immediately combat across the entire theater halted. Naval guns fell silent, planes returned to their carriers, and men sat at their camps in anticpiation, for they knew not what had occured.