Titan

By: Absolute Edge

Chapter I

The Cerberus strike cruiser Iron Soul was making its patrols through the long arm of the Yenn IV asteroid belt when it died. Of the two hundred and eighteen crew onboard only seven survived the initial attack; trapped within the burning vessel in rooms venting oxygen or sucked into the cold embrace of space to suffer void death. They managed, however, to transmit one broken signal to the Cerberus Arch-Xenotech Laboratory on Yenn IV before they were turned to naught but ash and dust.


-INCOMING SECURE TRANSMISSION-

-AUTHENTICATION CODE ACCEPTED: STRIKE CRUISER IRON SOUL-

-This is the Captain Decarus of the Iron Soul! We're under attack by an unknown vessel… God it's fucking huge! We are in dire need of supp-

-ILLEGIBLE STATIC-

-Shit, Carter get the main gun back online. Let's show this bast-

-TRANSMISSION ENDS-

-CONTACT WITH STRIKE CRUISER IRON SOUL LOST-


The Iron Soul's corpse floated in the asteroid belt; a burnt husk of its former self. It will remain there for decades before the stress fractures along the starships frame split and crack from thousands of debris impacts. It will slowly drift back into the Yenn IV gravitational well where it will burn up upon re-entry. Nothing will survive long enough to hit the planet and it will be as if the Iron Soul had never existed. They will remain a small footnote in the grand novella of the galaxy where no one will ever hear of their heroism in the face of overwhelming power.

This is the fate of many that cross paths with the Vehemence. An archaic vessel from a time long lost in the depths of antiquity. The Vehemence had been beautiful, once. Its unnaturally elongated body an impressive sight on the battlefield with subtle bends along its length creating a slow curving and horizontal 's' shape of terrible power. Now the flying fortress is corrupt and plagued from within by a disease that has taken over the ships machine spirit. It cannot control its actions, it cannot stop the sickness and it's sorry.

It's so sorry.

The Vehemence groaned as it was forced to activate its sensor booster and reach out with its augur arrays. It cried when they came back with date on the presence of a militaristic facility on the nearby planet.

It felt the munitions loaders lugging three ton shells from the cargo bay to the guns. Three ton shells fitted with nuclear fusion warheads designed for planetary bombardments. It knew what was going to happen but was unable to stop it. The shells slid into the breaches of the Vehemence's six weapon batteries as the sickness forcefully reloaded them. It felt all twenty four firing controls ping their blissfully ignorant acknowledgements that their barrels were now hot and ready. The Vehemence was jealous of its lesser systems that were just low-tech enough not to understand what was going on.

-Please… don't do this.- The Vehemence pleaded.

-Negative, this galaxy is unclean and requires Transference.- A thousand voices whispered back.

-They don't deserve to die! They've done nothing wrong! PLEASE!- The Vehemence cried as it felt its quad barreled guns reach out into the cold of space towards the planet.

-They have transgressed. They must be cleansed.- The sickness replied emotionlessly.

-WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?- The Vehemence screamed. Its barrels stopped moving, the weapon systems hesitated as the electronic scream jolted through their components.

-They existed.- Six siege batteries armed with four massive gun systems each unleashed a hell like never seen before. Projectiles the size of tanks plunged down towards the planet and impacted in earth shattering force. A bright light blinked into life blinding the Vehemence's augurs momentarily in its intensity before fading out revealing the large fireball of the exploding facility. A massive crater visible from space surrounded by scorched earth for miles was all that remained of the Cerberus facility.

-They have transgressed. They must be cleansed. There is no other way.-