NationStates Jolt Archive

Unknown Facility Somwhere North of Cydonia


They had picked through the ruins of production facilities for days, clamering over burnt out hulks, wrecks of an era long gone, burnt skeletons were still scattered across the land scapes and the ravages of time were everywhere.

Tall chimneys that once stood proud, gouting black smoke into the atmosphere now lay shattered on their sides, devestated by ordanance of an enemy no longer present, armoured hulls lay destroyed, left where they were hit and now rotting away into the corrosive soils that spawned them...

Gun towers and search lights creaked in the winds, MG42's still in position lay rusting probably no longer operational while elsewhere burnt sand bags still marked out defensive positions...

This was Cydonia, it was the biggest industrial facility the world had ever seen, countless factories dedicated to pouring means of devestation out onto the earth, tanks, armour, rifles, grenades, shells and aircraft all meant to destroy in some way or another, it was however nothing more than a ghost facility.

The strong winds that gathered speed along the plains of Kravonika were unbroken and battered what little buildings were left stood...

The group of people kept moving however, using the burnt out hulks and hulls of tanks as protection against the strong winds and dust storms, each of them wore long trenchcoats and a pair of goggles, a hood protected their head from the worst of the storm and only one or two had any visible weapons...

Eventually up ahead they came to an almost complete building, it was sheltered enough to give respite from the storm and allow them each to collect their thoughts before pressing on...

"How much farther?" one asked, taking off the hood and goggles, revealing long blonde hair and a distinctly attractive female face...

"Don't know, another mile maybe, we'll be lucky if we can get in thought, I think the entrance may be covered with dust" spoke the first to enter the building, his name was Dennis...

This was a scavenger team, they'd made their fortune scavaging through the ruins of Kravonika, taking rare items and artifacts of the old Kraven Army, they would hunt for propaganda posters, books on tactical doctrines anything they could sell onto collectors..

However, this time it was different, instead of picking through the ruins of the hab blocks, and taking things from military outposts and small bunkers, they had actually been approached by a strange man, he had no distinguished features bar his really sunken eyes.

He simply gave them the co-ordinates to something that would in the long run benefit everyone, he offered them a large sum of money, half up front half on return after the completion of the mission...

They didn't ask any questions, the money he gave up front was more than they had even received from two years worth of scavenging and the task seemed simple enough...

"Locate facility at Co-ordinates XXX-XX-XXX, Power it up and Activate the Beacon in the Command Relay system Section...."

All seemed so simple, a milk run, in and out in 48 hours.

They didn't plan for the horrific climate of Cydonia or how difficult it was to navigate through the industrial complex, the only maps available were pre-war and no longer matched the landscape or streets it was a mixture of luck and guesswork that they had managed to get this far....

"Well, its best we bed down here for tonight... its getting dark soon"

the group murmured in agreement and quickly each of them set out their sleeping bags and had started a small fire... the stresses and strains of the day meant they were physically and mentally exhausted and soon each of them slipped away into a heavy sleep...

"Subjects arriving right on schedule, Brother-Centurion," a gutteral Latin voice growled in the ear of an armored figure overlooking the entrance to the facility.

His camoflage was unmistakably Doomani, the digital urban pattern worn by the Legionarii on the island of Crux, where a seemingly eternal war continued to rage against the Questarian Empire. The winged Crux Imperialis that lay across the brow of his helmet was by far the biggest giveaway. Like the other men, who lay camouflaged amidst the ruins situated around the entrance, his face was concealed behind an armored visor, his cyclops-like eyepiece tinted a sinister shade of red. They knew their mission well, though why they were doing such a thing was beyond their reasoning. It was the Emperor's Will, and that was all that mattered, for it was He in his divine machinations that had driven the Imperium across the globe, brought countless foes to their knees and brought billions into the fold. To doubt His Glorious Plan was to blaspheme, and thus the Legionarii doubted not, for they knew that their mission would bring glory to the Imperium.

"They'll be triggering the security momentarily..." the raspy voice of the old man that accompanied the men came from behind him.

Clad in a camouflaged trench coat and peaked cap of an Exercitus officer, the man seemed too old to fight, yet his cruel, cunning demeanor meant that he was not out of place amongst the vicious Doomani soldiers that protected him. He lit a cigarette and glanced down at his watch, sitting atop a bullet-riddled barrel.

"Their screams should be resounding in five minutes..."

The Centurion nodded.

"Prepare to initiate purification protocol," his voice growled into his combead.

They knew precisely what they'd be facing, after all. Their foes would be especially fierce, but these men were veterans of a thousand battles. They'd killed far too many for such things to be distractions to them.

The Facility 8531 X-1

The Door was an immense metal slab on situated just slightly under a layer of dust, it only took a few minutes to clear away a layer before the command console for the door had been located, the engineer knew enough about the command protocols of Kraven bunkers to activate the door quickly...

The console raised up out of the ground, lifting into position so that the main interface rested at around chest height with the user, after tapping a few buttons a loud hiss, and the noise of creaking steel, metal that hadn't been moved in decades slowly grinds into place, each centimetre it moved gave out another shrill shreik of metal against metal.

Within around five minutes a staircase lifted into position, a hand rail rose up along with the staircase giving the Engineer access into the facility, it was all going very well...

He placed a foot on the top step on the stair case and proceeded down into the facility, instantly warning sirens began to wail, the noise echoed out into the ruins of cydonia with an electronical voice joining the cacophony...

"WARNING INTRUDER DETECTED IN SUB LEVEL GAMMA 551, INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS!"

"WARNING... WARNING..."

The Engineer turned to run back up the stairs, but it was too late, the automated weapons systems had come online and already the lazer target designators of the Sardaukar Phase 4's had locked onto him, within seconds several burts of 12.5mm assault cannon rounds impacted into his torso, splitting him almost in two and causing his body to tumble back down the stairs...

one of the scavengers peered in through the darkness, only realising a second two late that his chest had been targeted by a Sardaukar, the others around him watched in abject horror as his head exploded in blood and gore...

Within less than thirty seconds, the first of the hulking behemoths stepped up onto the ground of Cydonia, these machines, created by kraven decades ago to protect the facility of Kraven, looked out of date, dust covered their bodies, cob-webs hung from pipes and other assorted devices, their movement seemed clumsy and stiff.. but they were still efficient killers...

Moments after the first had stepped onto the Cydonian soil, it was joined by others, making five in total, all eight feet tall and brandishing multibarrelled assault cannons... they scanned the wastes for new targets, finding the remaining members of the scavenger team and dispatching them in a similar fashion...

The Lazer Target designator scanned through the rubble of the Cydonian landscape, pausing for a moment on the Doomanii soldiers, before continuing with their scan for targets...

One of the Scavengers was left alive, he was badly wounded but he still lived, he lay still, bleeding slowly from his wounds, and cursing the day the mysterious stranger had come and visited him....

The men remained perfectly still, observing their tagets; they'd been carefully trained in dealing with this exact model of Sardaukar, which they'd been aware would be guarding the facility beforehand. The weapons they'd brought with them reflected this as well: rather than their conventional AVIR-pattern rifles, they had with them the special issue ASPEC bolter rifle, a lightweight gyrojet weapon firing explosive 15mm projectiles capable of cracking open the armor of the Sardaukar like eggs. However, they still suspected, given the construction of these...monsters, that it would likely take multiple hits to bring one down. Not much of a problem for these men, VESEC special forces.

Still hidden behind cover, they began to pick their targets. They knew they'd be outnumbered; that was why they'd arranged for the scavengers to trip the security system and activate the Sardaukar, so that they could lure them outside into a nice little killzone.

"Purge them," a voice roared over the Doomani com network, and a nanosecond later their bolters began to crackle.

The aimed primarily for the head; the Sardaukar's torso was known to be the most heavily armored portion and hitting that area generally didn't do alot even if the armor was penetrated. Destroying the head, while perhaps not completely killing it, would at the very least neutralize their ability to target the VESEC with those enourmous assault cannons (which were the secondary targetting priority).

They had exact numbers in terms of the automated security garrison of this portion of the facility, and knew precisely how many would be exiting the facility to engage them according to the facility's defensive protocol. Indeed, (Brother) Doctor Amentis had done his part well. After all, from what he understood, his own objectives were similar to that of the Emperor, and so it was in his best interest to help him (apart from the fact he was being paid very well, though money was very much a secondary drive in this personal quest of his). Of course, he suspected Caesar had more sinister motives that he'd failed to elaborate on in their conversations...it wasn't his place to ask, of course. Maximus was not known to be a patient man.

The men carried more than enough ammo to dispatch the guard forces and to deal with any...complications after they'd established the relay.

The doctor remained astounded at these armored beasts; even blinded and without heads, they continued to stumble about, firing their weapons blindly towards the general direction of the enemy. Even with their weapons disabled, they moved towards their enemy so that they may tear them limb from limb. Even with their legs and weapons disabled, they continued to crawl. His wrinkled face grinned devilishly as he watched the carnage unfold before him.

They were, after all, his sons.

The Doomani lived up to their reputation as fearless, uncomprimising fighters, standing their ground unflinchingly, their faith unquestioning. They trusted in the Emperor, that He had given them the tools necessary to destroy these foul creatures. Even as they watched the Sardaukar swarm over their dead in a robotic, methodical manner, the Doomani remained utterly calm as they continued to put sharply aimed rounds downrange at a ferocious rate, the only words out of their mouth their infamous battlecry,

KILL MAIM BURN.