NationStates Jolt Archive

Lucas, Church of Chaos Undivided

"Cleanse, purge, kill!" – Sister Cecilia shouted as she kicked in the door of yet another room. The Chaos cultists inside jerked about in panic, treated to the horrible visage of a fully-armored Sister of Liberty, her face splattered with blood. She swept the boltgun across the room, flame erupting from its recoil brake as the KHI-6 "Eradicator" did its work.

It was glorious. The inch-caliber shells exploded within the very bodies of the chaos cultists, throwing broken ribs and pulped flesh everywhere. One man remained alive somehow, even though his left shoulder had basically ceased to exist, and his right eye and part of his face was missing. He tried, with a last-ditch desperate effort, to aim a rifle at her with one arm.

"In the Messenger's Glory Eternal!" – Cecilia roared, firing another, final burst of boltgun fire destroying the man's upper body. As what remained of him fell to the ground, she spoke, seemingly to no one – but in fact, the communicators in her armor's 'collar' came alive instantly. "Sister Darenia, do you read me, over?"

"I am at Tier Six. I have a small issue here…"

* * *

The Cultists filled the entire corridor, shouting, waving weapons. Two energy beams impacted Darenia's armor, but she did not budge. It was heavy armor of the Aggressor variety, and unless the cultists had a bunch of HVMs…

The Aggressor's mounted weapons – a variety of light gatling guns and lasguns – fired all at ones, contolled by neural impulse from Sister Darenia. The weapon she was holding – in essence, a light laser cannon coax from an Army tank – flashed in brilliant red, bodies literally exploding in small clouds of steam where it hit flesh, bits of wall collapsing where it hit rock, cultists screaming in terror as the suit's weapons chewed up their flesh.

"There goes that issue. Sister Virginia, do you have the roof secured?"

Up there, several Sisters of Liberty prepared for their part of the mission. They wore light armor, and could easily rappel down the external walls. Now they would begin breaking in through the windows, boltguns spitting death, throats spitting the war cries of their order.

"Cleanse, purge, kill! The Lord Messenger will know his own!"

A door to Darenia's left fell out – a man has just been thrown through it and into the corridor. He was already dying – a flailing, screaming ball of fire. Someone loves the smell of promethium in the morning. – Darenia smirked.

And then her communicator came alive again.

"This is Sister Victoria speaking. I have the sacrifice chamber secured. We've gotten here just in time – they were going to start on the children half an hour from now. I am requesting medevac for forty children, aged six to fifteen, repeat, requesting medevac…"

"Are we sure we've got all the children?"

"Yes, Sister Darenia, I am perfectly sure. You are weapons clear on the building. Our mission is already accomplished, the children are safe. Cleanse it all."

And then it began in earnest. The Sisters now went room to room – grenade first, and four angry, heavily-armed nuns later, firing into anything that moved, whether or not it was carried a weapon. After the Chaos worshippers fell to the ground, it would be standard procedure to shoot them a few times – just to make sure of course. Sister Darenia would simply step on them with her heavier suit – it accomplished the same result, but in a far more satisfying fashion.

At some point they found the man who passed for the cult's high priest, or whatever it was called. They never found out the exact title. Darenia simply bitch-slapped the man with her powerfist, removing his head and most of his upper body, and there was that.

And then there was the basement.

It was blocked with a heavy blast door, marked with chaos insignia. Even at a casual inspection, it seemed that the door was very new, added much later than the construction of the building itself.

"You know, this place seems far more ancient than the cult." – one of the Sisters commented as Darenia ripped the two-ton door of it's hinges and threw it aside.

"You should have read your briefings, silly." – Darenia scolded – "They've added some – like most of the above-ground section – but the building is really old. Nobody knows how old, but it predates the Chaos cult, and in fact it predates all recorded humanoid activity in the system. There's two dozens of those around the system. Held by a variety of factions."

"Holy…"

"Yeah. I bet that's why they wanted it. There's likely some artifacts from the original builders hidden away here."

"Who did build it?"

"Nobody knows. All we know is that… In the Messenger's Holy Name, what is that?"

In the far corner of the basement, there was a sort of stasis bed, seemingly made out of ivory and inscribed with unknown symbols. The lid was made of glass – or something transparent.

And lying under the glass was a girl, maybe fourteen years old. Her face was not yet particular – almost like the face of a storefront doll. More surprisingly, the girl had no hair or eyebrows, adding to the disturbing storefront-doll appearance.

"Carefully, Darenia. Sister Lucilia, do you sense any Chaos?"

"No… this thing is, if anything, related to the builders… it uses the same symbols they used."

"Oh good. I hope she's not alive. Some form of android or something. Come on, let's secure this thing."

"Sister Lucilia! What is happening?" – the empath suddenly sagged, leaning against the door.

"Simple… I feel weak… you know, humans discharge energies of various kinds during battle. Anger. Fear. Excitement."

"And?"

"Something has sucked the air free of this stuff in seconds. I think… I think we did something…"

"You mean…"

The stasis coffin was beginning to open.

Ten days later

Message from Sister Superior Victoria Sheshet, to the Erisafevena Order Headquarters

As I have previously reported, we have discovered a young child, in her early puberty, in a stasis bed under the location of our last combat op. The child, as reported, has been unable to speak, read, or write, like a newborn baby. Sister Darenia, the order's Librarian and Heavy Weapons Officer, has been assigned to the child after our return to Carmel.

The child has been most talented, and has made completely unexpected progress in this endeavour. More intimidating, she has demonstrated displays of telekinetic power and physical strength not explicable by her muscle mass. Further, her facial structure is changing, at a speed unexplicable by normal biology. We extrapolate she has a form of shape-shifting power, and that the 'true form' of her species is just developing. She is clearly not human, of course.

I am requesting the advice of Order personnel.

A ragtag fleet of Imperial vessels burst from the Warp. Many of the gothic vessels were damaged and at the center of their formation was the Strike Cruiser Maledictum. This strike gorup of thirty vessels was led by the 5th Company of the Blood Ravens. Captain Orios and Terminator Captain Toras stood on the bridge of the Maledictum. Stepping forward Captain Orios grimaced as he realized their Warp jump had been misguided. Slowly they approached a world where they hoped to affect repairs on their vessel then suddenly they heard the comm chatter of Imperial warriors.

Academician Darens was the first C’tani to viist Carmel. It was quite a trip, and one for which he’d actually had to use a spacecraft, a relative first. The craft in question being a jump-off craft of the Lossë-Elen Deep Space Cruiser Infinitude, a three mile vessel currently plying this arm of this galaxy on a languid tour that would take five years and bring it into contact with almost a hundred different contemporary cultures, and the ruins or developments of five thousand more.

He wasn’t human, or elven, or necrontyr. Nor was he, originally, a machine. Instead, he came from a nomadic race of long-distant from Terran stock hominids from the Septima Stellar Graveyard, a small slice of desolate real-estate at the base of and between the Norma and Scutum Cruz arms, relatively near the centre of the galaxy, where weak solar sails and blazing photon engines were the order of the day to navigate the rubble of planets destroyed in some long forgotten war of the titans.

In Earth time, Darens was four thousand and seventy two years old, but in his own timeframe, he was in his late seventies.

Of course, it didn’t show, because Darens was one of the relatively few C’tani (0.2%) who had changed radically in body-form from their macro-species-norm. In his present state, Darens consisted of a power-core that extracted energy from his environment either by fusion of hydrogen split from available water, solar energy, or even matter-conversion (mostly for powering weapons systems). Around this ‘organ’ was a lattice of dense processing material, wherein his consciousness was generated, and connected to this solid ovoid, about the size of a human heart and lungs, was a sheath of magnetic and gravitic propulsion units, under a frame of linkages for the main volume of his body, an intricate lattice of living metal ‘bones’ that were linked at one end or the other by complex magnetic and physical joints. These ranged from the size of human fingers, in the largest, to microscopic tweezers in the least.

This body form was designed for delicate biological science, for even though there was nothing biological about it, it was fully equipped to exist in almost any environment and interact with almost any life form. It could never catch any illness, nor could it weary or suffer from most perils that endangered organic life.

It was also designed to adjust to most species, on the outer layer, repulsive fields and holograms were used to give it an appropriate appearance, in any colour or texture, and beneath, all but the central core itself could be changed on a whim to fit different body forms; Darens had, over the years, been an arboreal eight–limbed creature, a whale, a great gas bag creature, and many, many, different humanoids (he’d lost conscious count at fifty seven) but today, he was using his ‘default human’ appearance, lofty, long, dark haired, dressed in the current height of C’tani fashion, blackest fabrics that intelligently determined when they were being looked upon, and flickered into a riot of half-unseen colours in the corner of the viewer’s eye, to get the most out of them, one had to have augmented eyes with greater colour perception, otherwise, they simply seemed drab and black.

This extraordinary individual was on the payroll of one of the many Tephet universities, but at the moment, this errand was from a third party, and, he had to confess, just a little personal interest.

The hundred meter light-flier settled into a languid and decelerating orbit of Carmel, its white spiked and curved, almost horn-like, Lossë-elen insignia marking out its origin, along with a line of Sindarin text and a blue-green surface colour.

Drifting down from the rocket-like vehicle, Darens hummed – the sound generated by two of the ‘bones’ under his holographic skin vibrating according to a complex algorithm – and looked around, his visual senses provided by analysis of the the feedback of the holographic surfaces of his body, before flicking off at a speed just shy of ‘jogging’ towards his destination…

Landing Pad

"Greetings, Mr. Darens.” - Sister Darenia was the first one of the Sisters of Liberty that Darens would 'see' on his visit. The monastery itself was a replica of a Gothic construct, implanted in the very wilderness of Carmel without practically any traces in the landscape except on the very place of its location. The landing pads were not very far away, but starting from the edge of the landing pad and up to the doorstep of the convent there would be only green grass – subtly and unobtrusively mowed, however, to become a soft road – for those visitors wishing to walk the trip.

It was easy to see, once you saw Darenia outside of her assault armor, why the Convent's librarian was also one of its heavy weapons operators. The Librarian was small in stature, and thin as well. Her unkempt red hair fell just below her shoulders, and her red eyes smirked at you from behind heavy, thick-rimmed glasses (that happened to also be her access point for the Universal Library Interface). Freckles were splattered across her rough-looking cheekbones. She was not exactly the paragon of beauty, nor of physical strength.

"I think you've come for Xenia. Follow me. She's been... causing us some wonder.”

Library

Naturally, you don't need paper books in the age of advanced space travel. Just have the stuff uploaded to your head and get it over with. But some people – and the Librarians of the Order are among them – also believe in the value of good old solid book reading. And so there is the Library – one just like libraries elsewhere in the Order, filled with books – from your trade paperback to heavy tomes bound in real leather.

It is here that Xenia prefers to spend her time. It is quiet, and Sister Darenia is kind, and the other Sisters don't get scared of her face if she chooses a desk that's hidden behind some bookshelves.

Xenia's face is no longer the indistinct mannequin's face that's been there when they've offered the coffin. Naturally – as some have already discovered – she's able to shift her bodily form. But what's disturbing is her true face – the one form that, it seems, is her own. It has adjusted a bit since discovery – she has taken up a lot of Darenia's features, as well as those from other sisters. And since – though nobody knows it – she's still a growing child, it's still moving. She has hair now – long, flowing, too long to have naturally grown overnight, and a bit reddish. Her 'natural' eyes are a bit myopic. And yet, some things remain the same. Her overall stature, her long pianists' fingers. The pose in which she sits at the library desk.

She wears the training uniform of the Order, mostly because it's some Sister's old clothes, and twirls a pen in her fingers as she reads – nothing serious, of course. A thick adventure novel, as a matter of fact.

"Hi, Xenia. Doctor Darens is here to see you. He's the person I've told you about.”

The pen stops in mid-motion, and the girl looks expectingly at the Doctor.

"Good day, Doctor Darens. I'm Xenia. I'm very pleased to meet you.

The huge Space hulk, The Torch of the Word, floated through the warp. Suddenly there was a flucuation in the distant colours of the Immaterium, and the ship was informed by it's Daemonic Servants that it was Imperial, and it was damaged. The Torch burst back into the world of mortals, and started to make its ponderous advance toward the Imperials. They would pay for the endless millenia waiting, and no more would the Consecrated Host hide in the shadows, now was the time for the Blessed Word to be revealed.

The strike group was anchored in high orbit affecting repairs to their vessels when the Hulk broke into the system. Immediately klaxons sounded across the Maledictum and Captain Orios was disturbed from his battle plans. His eyes were alight with eldritch fire as he reached through the warp to discern the nature of the vessel. His surveyors were reporting the massive object was in fact a Hulk. Even before they told him Orios whispered the words, “Chaos….” He gripped his force staff tightly in his hands and looked across the bow of the strike cruiser. They had two Battle Barges, three Emperor-class Battleships, five Strike Cruisers, six Apocalypse-class battleships, and a number of escorts besides the Maledictum herself. They were also accompanied by an Exorcists strike cruiser the Daemon’s Scourge. The subordinate Space Marine vessels belonged to the 8th, 9th, and 12th companies of the Blood Ravens respectively. Captain Orios knew his fleet was already at battlestations. Nova-class Frigates brought their strength to bear alongside the sleek forms of the Strike Cruisers. A hulk was such a dangerous vessel that their attack pattern would have to include the might of the battleships.

He turned to his crew, “Ready the fleet I want the Daemon’s Scourge alongside our own vessel. I want to speak with Captain Helgor as soon as possible about our possibilities. Also tell all Space Marine Vessels to ready boarding parties for an assault on the Hulk. Surely these foul warpspawned monstrosities will stand no match against the combined strength of the Blood Ravens and the Exorcists.” Captain Orios’ armor was much different than those of his battle-brothers, decorated in black jewels and painted a dark black sheen. His shoulder guards bore the heraldry of his Company and his Legion but that was where the similarities ended. Oath papers fluttered from his armor detailing the death oath he had sword to his Deathwatch team after their death aboard a xenos vessel. Gripping his force staff tightly he watched as the hulk closed in smiling, it had been a long time since he had raided a Hulk.

OOC: Guys, i appreciate your input and such, but can you please take it to a separate thread?

OOC My strike group was actually going to make contact with your Sisters but yeah.

OOC: Do you mean take the feuding to another thread or just fighting? Cos my Space Hulk can pull back mysteriously to wait for our enemy Imperials if you don't want to fight yet. After all, that isn't so strange for Chaos...