Midsummer night, Cal'eas system .
Weapons open fire! Boil them in their adamantium coffins! Ratra barked.
Hikowa what is the status of our gravity drives?
Sir! Gravity drive is spooled up and ready sir, we are ready to jump.
Jump to Ov'iera sept, go home.
Midsummer night glowed brilliant sapphire blue as it vanished into the warp.
997. M41 terran calendar 16th june, aboard Emperor class battleship "knight of terra"
Captain void shields are down, im reading thirty correction thirty-six torpedoes inbound, firing counter-measures.
To late! All hands brace for impact the XO shouted over the intercom, the knight violently shook, and groaned as scream of torturing metal buckled and snapped.
Damage report! The captain ordered.
Heavy damage to the portside weapon battery, structural integrity failing, decompression alarms on deck 87 88 89 and 93,portside magazine holds have been breached, high risk of detenation. Seven-hundred plus casualties confirmed, secondary plasma reactor is leaking drive plasma. The servitor reported without emotion.
Seal all bulkheads in the breached decks, order engineers to seal of the magazine, shutdown the reactor and shunt down all drive plasma.
Sir, the Resolute is vibrating, their reactor is overheating, the emperor! Self destruct sequence has been iniated!
Move us away ensign! The captain yelled, all power to engines.
Aye sir, 20% of nominal power diverting to the engines, engines responding, minimal velocity.
Danger! A servitor interrupted the ensign's report. Detenation close proximity, danger! Blast wave approaching, minimum safe distance not achieved. Emergency order sixty-six, sealing all bulkheads and compartments, standing by to vent atmosphere, locking down hangars. Error cannot close secondary Magazine, collision with blast imminent, brace the servitor went silent.
The ship blew sideways and anything not welded or bolted down flew, as with the crew most could hold for their life's, the other they weren't so lucky, cries of pain could be heard across the ships as crewmen with multiple fractures and shattered bones lay on the floor, in wires or even impaled with "harmless" things.
The captain stood up, he spit out blood and watched the damage that had been visited upon his ship,
Anyone not dead make a sound the captain instructed with rasp tone in voice.
By your command, the servitor reported.
The bridge crew woke up one by one,
What the hell happened the XO asked, damage report?
Resolute has been vaporized, getting no contact from the prow of the ship…scanning, integrity failed, we lost….. by the emperor, all torpedo tubes are gone, the prow..sir… its gone, all decks breached, Magazines seem to have blown up, and taken the pro with them, casualties are hold on, figure show eleven thousand plus, fires in all forward compartments, venting atmosphere to kill the fires, warp drives wrecked, primary reactor destroyed, secondary reactor is offline, leaking has stopped, all macro cannons are offline, emergency generators up and running, dropping emergency beacons.
Good. What is the status of the battlegroup? The captain asked.
"resolute vaporize, so is the "lance held high" and the lunar class cruiser "Agathon" our sister ship "Hammer of Kara" has been badly damaged, the light cruisers have only sustained light damage, And nothing worthy to report. They are dispatching disaster pods, and repair crew and our detachments which we sent to the Resolute is trying to get the warp engines back online, re-enforcements should be arriving shortly. The ensign reported, while the bridge medic was sealing a gash in his forehead.
"alright, lets see if we can get this ship moving, if the tau think they can get away with this they are mistaken, contact Lord admiral Cornelius, I have a few requisitions.
Midsummer night warp skim, time anomaly fatal error…..
Sir? Why didn't the humans attack the ship, they could have vaporized us anytime they wanted.
"I don't know" it must have something to do with such a large boarding action force Ratra replied to his confused officers. The boarding party have they been taken care of? And what are our casualties?
Sir, pathfinders and fire warrior squads still reporting enemy units throughout the ship, our casualties number are a bit unreliable, but confirmed figures are: thirty-four pathfinders, twenty-one fire warriors, and two hundred thirty six normal ship crew. enemy casualties: forty space marines including one captain….Ardias, one hundred sixty-six storm troopers, and two have been captured and stripped of weapons. Light damage to the reactor room, nothing serious as of yet, but engineers are repairing what they can.
Good, patch me in to shas'ui kais .
Sir, one space marine dead ahead, engage, few more silent burp could be heard, and the lone marine slammed to the ground , "tango down" Kais heard in his helmet speaker. Wait! Damn static heard, and in Kais HUD he watched, as the young warrior life-signs flat-line, as did seven other warriors. Kais went to his feat, and ran toward the target, a wounded space marine, which had just killed eight of his warriors, and Kais was going to make that marine pay personally.
Warning! xenological threat: detected proceed with caution captain ardias's armour machine spirits reported in his helmet H.U.D. "perfect, the troops are ready, the stage is set" the space marine thought to himself. Fiannly the tau had caught up to him. Open fire his sound receivers picked up and translated.
A burst of pulse fire impacted on his armour but didn't do any damage, his armour was crafted from some of the finest artificers in the imperium, he fell to the ground and shut of the light in his helmet.
Be careful my friends, Ardias heard he could see the enemy move closer. He prepared himself the timing had to be perfect to achieve his goal, before the fire warriors could react Ardias shot forward snapping in front troopers head clean from the spine, pulled up his bolt pistol and pumped rounds into the xenos squad, he turned took aim and tried to fire the pistol "clack" empty, damn the emperor! He thought, empty, he tossed the useless weapon aside and punched the last warrior in the chest smashing through the xeno armour, breaking every bone in the aliens chest, and threw the limp body aside.
"Brother execute second phase of the plan" Ardias ordered over the com channels, acknowledgment light winked in the corner of his heads up display.
Warning: xeno threat detected proceed with extreme caution! Tha machine spirit notified again, Ardias could grow a bit tired of the spirit, after all he had been in action for centuries and had mastered every aspect in combat, xeno threat close! The spirit repeated, Ardias turned and saw the tau warrior run down the corridor shooting.
Captain ardias reacted and dodged most of the incoming shots, but three chough him in the side, more than enough to kill a normal humalebeing, he was a space marine! With a mere grunt he brought his power sword to bear and slashed at the oncoming alien, the small agile warrior evaded his swipe cleanly, the small xeno dropped to the ground to dodge the second swipe and shot Ardias with a full auto burst, Ardias could feel pain slashing through every fiber of his being, although the armour tried to compensate with biological filling and painkillers, it did very little, he could feel his body coming heavy and cumbersome, and fell to the ground.
Kais slowly stood up, with the sight trained on the marvel lying in front of him, "how could I evade two space marine swipes, Kais shot the marine in arms and legs, to immobilize him for sure, then pulled the helmet off.
Kais was shocked to find what was under there, he opened a communication line to Ratra.
"what is it shas'ui?" Ratra asked, "sir the space marine….requesting permission to upload the helmed feed? Kais said slowly.
Granted. Ratra replied, and turned the view screen, the screen filled with static and then sharpened to the life like feed from Kais. Ratra was shocked "is this footage real?" the ship commander asked.
Kais pulled his helmet off, and showed his scarred face. "I´m afraid so kor'O, the enemy marine detachment"…they are all drones!
997.M41, terran calendar 16th june: Ultramarines fortress monastery: Pride of Hera, Macragge, ultramar system .
Captain Ardias kneeled down in front of a shrine to the emperor and his forefather the great Roboutte gulliman, father of all ultramarines, this sacred shrine had been built during the great crusade when the emperor and his armies counquered every world in the imperium uniting humanity and forged the largest galactic empire in history. Chaplain Severus joined him. "Brother is something troubling you?" the black armored figure asked his fellow ultramarine.
"no…nothing, brother chaplain" Ardias replied troubled.
It is not wise to lie to a chaplain, brother, do not disrespect me by lying, speak your mind captain, Severus replied with a firm tone.
"I have mixed feelings with using robots fighting in our place, downloading your consciounces into a lifeless machine, We are space marines! We are the emperors chosen, we should not letting machines fail on a mission which we and our battle brother could easily win, quickly and with ease. Captain ardias spoke choosing his words carefully.
" agreed, but orders are orders even if we do not like them like you stated we ARE the emperors chosen we were picked from thousands of pilagrims, soldiers and inititates to be trained equipped, and forged into the soldiers we are today, although I have to admit the legio cybernetic have done a great service to the emperor." The chaplain spoke, then stood up "I hope you wil accept you feelings and purge them to serf the emperor, I wwould rather not have disciplinary hearing with you, the novices are plenty enough. The chaplain secured his helmet and then walked away.
"machines in our sacred armour, what will happen to the imperium next Ardias thought to himself.