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Sorry for the insane delay. Army life is a busy life. I've finally gotten some real free time, however temporary, so I'm back!
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Lyandro Karras sat in his cabin aboard the Final Secret, and traveled the stars. He swam beyond the limits of the Secret, out past beyond Nirvana, into the outer limits of the system. The Librarian plunged into the void, away from Nirvana's feeble star, out into the emptiness of space. He turned, treading in place, to watch a nebula some three light years distant coil and uncoil around itself, the cacophony of colours blending together into a miracle of energy and light. Karras bathed in the light of a newborn star, and reveled in the freedom of space.
Something tugged at him. It was like a breeze at first, brushing against his leg. It became stronger, more insistent, now like a child's hand, and now a thorn, biting into the meat of his calf. He withdrew, back towards the Final Secret and his silent form in the bowels of the ship. The tugging continued, stronger and stronger.
There was something in the system, something different, something alien.
Karras expanded outwards from himself, reaching across Nirvana, from system edge to system edge. His mind became a great eye, seeing everything.
There was a ship, no longer than a hundred meters, moving into the system. The ship was alien in design, as were its markings. Some part of his subconscious offered up a species: Asari.
The xenos craft was not moving along a single path. rather, it seemed to be moving in small circular orbits, one circle feeding into another, and then another. It was almost as if the ship was looking for something.
An icy sensation ran down Karras' spine. His mind offered up a grim solution to the xenos ship's unusual behavior.
The embarkation of Talon's new brothers. A brief flare of unshrouded engines to allow for intercept, a brief exposure of the Final Secret. A signal, small but definite, sent out amongst the stars by the burn of the engines.
The Final Secret had been detected.
Karras returned to his body. In the darkness of his cabin, Talon Alpha voxed his Kill Team.
"All Talons to arms. We have been detected."
Deathwatch is a pact. It is a sacred band. Our brotherhood requires total commitment. You are Deathwatch before all else. Your kill team; your brothers before all others. You have lain blows upon brothers, and brought your oaths of service to the Long Watch into question. Prove you can honor that commitment.
Talon Alpha's words cut to the hearts of his astartes. Marines became Deathwatch out of pride. Men within a desperately selective brotherhood sought to join a still scarcer honored few, the Emperor's most fearsome alien hunters. Those who became Deathwatch would sooner die than fail in their watch.
Three of Talon Squad's brothers had caused doubt to be cast upon their commitment to the Watch. In traditional circumstances, the brothers would be sent on solitary missions as Black Shields, forbidden to display their chapter heraldry, to die or regain their honor. Such taskings were impossible for Lyandro Karras given Talon's current circumstances, but the Death Spectre librarian had found another, swifter test.
A solitary boarding torpedo slid from the Final Secret's hull, a sleek black shark slipping through the nothingness, bearing three of Talon Squad into the dark. The torpedo drifted for a brief moment, before igniting primary thrusters and rocketing forwards in a burst of blue flame. It bore its deadly cargo forwards, onto a collision course with a milky white shape.
A xenos cruiser had come up over the planet Nirvana's eastern hemisphere, on a course to intercept Final Secret in orbit over the ice planet. The xenos cruiser hung above Nirvana, monitoring a series of descending dropships that fell from its belly like a cloud of bees. The xenos had detected an old signal, released by the Final Secret hours earlier, and was hunting for it. Talon Alpha had deemed the risk of discovery an immediate threat to Talon's mission. A kinetic solution had been authorized. Siefer Zeed, the unruly Raven Guard, and Talon's newest brothers had been tasked with the cruiser's destruction. The milky white ship would die in orbit, and the three would resolve themselves as brothers in battle or join the xenos in death. Zeed and Lu'shan would find common ground. If they could not, Astaron Gerr would ensure the return of their gene seed. Another brother, Prophet, would descend to the planet surface and burn away what was left of the xenos presence.
Inside the boarding torpedo, the astartes sat together in flickering red light, and made ready for war.
"Contact, thirty seconds." Apothecary Gerr pulled his war helm down over his head. "Vox check." In the semi darkness, the bone white of his helm had a deathly aspect. A bloody painted scorpion crested the white armor, its claws extending under the Apothecary's glowing eye slits.
"Talon Five, vox clear." Ghost sat uncomfortably. Omni had stripped him of his power claws. He carried a heavy breaching chainaxe, and a wrist mounted storm bolter, belt fed with Kraken rounds. Around his belly, the Raven Guard carried a bandolier of melta charges.
The torpedo shook violently. The Deathwatch lurched in their harnesses.
"Starboard thrusters have engaged. The xenos must have changed course."
Talon Squad's youngest brother shifted beneath his harness. The Salamander wore a second layer of heavy breacher's armor over his war plate. Mechadendrites clacked together like serpents around his head. A three barrelled flamer shimmered on his left wrist. In his right he held a great plasteel tower shield. The techmarine would be first into the alien craft, and would burn a path into the craft for his battle brothers. The obsidian skinned Salamander flexed his hands in anticipation, the starter flame of his flame gauntlet flickering intermittently. He was young, scarcely out of his first century. War had not yet taught the young Lu'shan patience.
"Talon Seven, vox clear."
The torpedo shook again. An alarm blared.
"Contact in ten seconds. Brace for impact."
The torpedo struck the xenos cruiser just to the left of its primary thrusters. Detected before impact, the ship had attempted to evade the metal meteorite. It had failed.
The torpedo bit into the xenos cruiser's hull. Drill heads on the torpedo nose crushed through the hull, chewing the hull and decks apart. Two decks along the ship's left flank vented atmosphere in a shower of sparks and shattered metal. The xenos craft lurched and writhed like a stuck fish on a harpoon.
The torpedo continued onwards, into the guts of the xenos vessel. The thrusters flared once more and then hard locked, retreating into an armored shell. They would not fire again, not until the torpedo's deadly cargo had completed their work. The heavy teeth at the head of the torpedo ground a precious few extra meters into the hull, tearing through to the very tip of the ship. The drill heads whirred, forming an airtight seal against the blast shielded navigation deck.
Inside the torpedo, the flickering red light turned a brilliant, incandescent green.
A mechanical monotone boomed. "Go forth and execute His Will. The Emperor accepts not failure. Suffer not the Xenos to Live."
Breaching charges deployed from the nose of the torpedo. Within its armored confines, the astartes listened to the thunderous detonations.
Astaron Gerr stood. "Purge Pattern. Kill them all." An ancient archeotech pistol glowed a virulent crimson.
The torpedo head broke open, and the three astartes descended into a world of smoke.
Lu'shan went first into the smoke. The Salamander held his tower shield before him, and poured blue white promethium fire into the breach. A pintle mounted plasma gun on a servo arm hissed furiously. Plasma punched through the smoke in an angry hail. Green auspex scans bloomed from his swirling mechadendrites, feeding a constant stream of information to the three astartes and to the Final Secret.
"Two xenos, our right." Lu'shan rumbled. Bolt fire roared behind him. Seifer Zeed thumped the Salamander across his pauldron. The Raven Guard's storm bolter cycled rounds with a quiet clatter.
"Good call Lizard. Move on."
The Salamander growled, but advanced. The breaching charges had made a bloody ruin of the navigation deck. The xenos vessel's controls and navigation computers had been ripped to shreds by the explosions, and their alien controllers had been sprayed over the jagged shards.
The three marines encountered only one more living xenos, a remarkably well dressed womanly creature with vibrant blue skin. The creature leapt for Lu'shan with a banshee wail, a long sword rippling with purplish energy raised overhead. Apothecary Gerr caught the xenos in the stomach with a blast of red light from his pistol. It screamed, and fell as atomized dust over the astartes.
Zeed coughed. "Didn't plan on breathing xenos this day old man."
Gerr ignored him. "Talon Alpha, this is Talon Eight. We have made entry."
"Understood Talon Eight. Destroy the crew. Take samples if possible." Talon Alpha's voice was tinny over the vox, unlike the Death Spectre Librarian's usual heavy baritone. "Emperor be with you. Talon Alpha out."
The vox link closed.
"We have our orders." Gerr said. "Seven, get us a blueprint of this blasphemy."
Lu'shan nodded. A computer interface, sheltered by a reinforced chair, had survived the breach. A mechadendrite interfaced, and the Salamander went rigid. Talon's Five and Eight waited patiently for two heart beats.
"Blueprint found. Transmitting."
"Two decks remaining," Gerr clicked his teeth. "One ship bay between them, four cargo holds."
"I'll take the first deck." Zeed hissed. A dozen red heartbeats blinked in the Raven Guard's HUD. "They're mine."
Gerr nodded. The Raven Guard vanished, slipping into the depths of the ship.
"Ghost indeed." The Red Scorpion Apothecary murmured. "I will take the bay. Can you take the second deck?" He addressed the young Salamander directly, off the vox. Seifer Zeed was a veteran of the Deathwatch, used to operating alone. Astaron Gerr had been at war for half a millennia. The young Salamander was barely out of his first century, and although no doubt possessed of incredible skill, the pride of a young brother like Lu'shan, surrounded by so many veterans, might make him take unnecessary risk. Keeping the question off the squad vox gave the Salamander the opportunity to ask for aid, and spare himself the shame of inexperience. "We might better face the foe together."
The Salamander refused Gerr's offer of assistance. "I will clear the second deck." He said over the vox. "Leave me the first cargo hold."
The Apothecary could feel the Salamander glowering at him. The boy wanted his glory. The Red Scorpion raised a hand in submission.
"The second deck is yours brother." Gerr said. "Good hunting."
The Salamander nodded. " I will clear it."
Zeed broke open a malfunctioning blast door with a melta charge, and very nearly met the Emperor. A ball of vermillion-black fire tore down the length of the corridor, screaming past his head. Xenos in combat armor shouted to one another beyond the door. Small arms fire whistled around the astartes.
"Little bastards." Zeed hissed. The storm bolter roared. Bolt rounds stitched three xenos against the corridor wall, and punched a hole in the chest of another. Had he his pack and power claws, he'd have been amongst the xenos in an instant. The sluggishness of his advance and his gory harvest irked him deeply.
A second ball of energy flew towards him. The Raven Guard threw himself flat, and let the ball fly harmlessly past him. The storm bolter on his wrist kept firing. An alien trooper exploded into ruins, broken up by four bolt rounds.
Zeed rolled to his left, sheltering behind a metal support. He chanced a glance behind him and saw, with some concern, that the black energy had turned the remnants of the breached blast door into molten slag. Two xenos labored behind a wide barreled monstrosity. The metal beast fired again, and a third ball of black fire hurtled past.
"All Talons, Talon Five. Heavy anti armor weapon, deck one, corridor two. Requesting support."
The words tasted of bile in his mouth. The words that came through the vox burned his ears like a brand.
"Talon Five, Talon Seven. Support imminent, mag lock your plate."
Emperor curse the little lizard. "What are you doing, Lizard?" Zeed's armor locked to the metal deck with a heavy thud. "Techmarine?"
There was no answer. Ahead of him, Zeed heard screams of surprise.
Xenos troopers were floating off the deck, struggling vainly against a sudden loss of gravity, choking at a loss of oxygen. Zeed's helmet chimed, automatically piping oxygen to the Raven Guard. The Salamander had turned off life support.
Well done. Zeed thought. Well done. His storm bolter roared again, and the squirming xenos died.
"Enemy destroyed."
"Understood." The Salamander crackled. "Reactivating life support systems."
Zeed released his mag locks, and stalked over the bodies of the xenos troopers. He'd not admit it, but it really had been well done. The heavy weapon that had caused him so much grief came with him, clamped to his armor by an adamantine magnetic clamp. Mayhap the lizard could work out the xenotech weapon's secrets.
Zeed tugged a melta bomb from his belly harness and prepared to breach another door. His hands flexed. He missed his power claws.
Lu'shan watched Seifer Zeed advance on his HUD. A minute blue raven icon moved from deck one corridor one, to deck one corridor two. A flurry of gunfire buzzed past the techmarine, and the plasma gun on his right servo arm hissed an angry response.
Three xenos troopers fell back from the storm of plasma fire, dragging a wounded and screaming alien with them into cover. The plasma gun continued to spit blue fire, the barrel of the weapon glowing cherry red. Three mechadendrites worked around the weapon, spraying the barrel with cryo coolant to keep the weapon operable. Another trio of dendrites tore away at a computer panel, embedding themselves and burrowing through miles of ship's code. In seconds, Lu'shan had burned away the ship computer firewalls, and seized control over primary systems.
Enemy fire clipped a mechadendrite. The cybernetic tentacle fell limp, retracting into the techmarine's servo harness. Lu'shan scowled.
A hot water vent above the four xenos troopers burst. Boiling water enveloped the troopers. They wailed, and staggered blindly into the open, to be cut down by the techmarine. Lu'shan smiled viciously.
You are avenged little spirit. He hummed. The alien has paid for its transgression.
Within a golden ocean, the wounded mechadendrite danced in gratitude. Its brothers chorused their thanks. A fiery warmth flowed from the neuro-link at the base of Lu'shan's skull over his entire body.
Kill them all for the Omnissiah. The machine spirits chorused. Destroy them all, Forge Brother.
Lu'shan felt the eager will of his machine spirits vibrating in him, and he stormed forwards. Great loping strides carried him down the length of the corridor. His boots splashed through pools of steaming water. Boiling water poured from the burst wall vent, flooding the deck. The slain xenos began to drift. Their exposed skin cracked and cooked. The water slid smoothly down the deck into the next corridor. Something, presumably the burst hot water valve, had interfered with the power. The corridor ahead of the techmarine was inky black.
Lu'shan advanced. His helmet optics whirred, compensating for the low light conditions. His pupils dilated, his surgically enhanced eyes racing the night optics in his helmet to adjust to the dark.
A xenos leapt for him out of the darkness, howling like a mad thing. Two blades flickered in the creature's hands. The blades clattered off Lu'shan's armor, but the creature pushed forwards, unperturbed. It came on, still howling, blades cutting and lunging for the astartes. Lu'shan retaliated, jabbing cruelly with the lower edge of his tower shield at the alien's legs. The alien cried out in pain and staggered. Lu'shan jabbed again, and then swung the corner of the shield into the alien's ribs. Something gave under the shield, and the alien lurched to the left, lifted off its feet by the force of the blow.
The techmarine loomed over the wheezing alien.
"Talon Eight, Talon Seven. I have a living sample."
"Standby." The Apothecary rasped over the vox. "Talon Alpha orders retrieval. Secure your prisoner."
"Understood." At his feet, the alien rolled onto its belly, keening in pain. Mechadendrites snaked out, readying magnetic cuffs.
Something struck Lu'shan across the back. Another blow collided with his knees. He staggered forwards. Below him, the alien rolled over, out of the way of the Salamander's staggering feet, cackling. A metal hand scratched at his faceplate, clawing at his throat. Alerts blared in his visor display. Something tugged at his mechadendrites, heaving at his servo arms.
Lu'shan staggered like a drunk, hurling his weight into the corridor walls to scrape his invisible assailants from his back. Of the alien at his feet, there was no sign.
A machine spirit screamed. A mechadendrite had been torn from the techmarine's back. Boiling fury tore through his nervous system. The Salamander bellowed in fury, clawing at his back. He caught hold of something, and squeezed. Black fluid sprayed over his armor. A tangy, all too familiar smell filled his nostrils. Oil slick coated his back and shoulders, flowing down over his torso. The thing screamed, and struggled in the techmarine's vice grip. Lu'shan raised his flamer gauntlet.
"Burn, blasphemers!" Flames billowed over him. His war plate, reinforced to allow for extreme heat, lit up like an Ecclesiastical pyre on the Day of the Emperor Ascendant. Light flooded the corridor. His assailants wailed in alarm, the one in his grip wriggling violently, straining to free itself. His armor registered four small explosions across his back. Still aflame, Lu'shan strode forwards, tugging the still struggling thing from his back. A burning ruin collapsed onto the deck with a metallic clank. An orange cyclopean light flickered in the thing's face. A metal hand clawed at the Salamander's greaves.
"Suffer the wrath of the righteous, scum." Lu'shan snarled. Fury still flowed through him. His machine spirits rejoiced in the death agonies of the xenos who had harmed one of their kin.
The thing warbled at him. Horror replaced fury. The thing was speaking binary.
"All Talons." Lu'shan's voice shook, cracked. "All Talons."
Alarm flooded through the vox.
"Talon Seven, report!"
"Lizard!"
"Talon Seven! Report!"
Lu'shan crushed the abomination beneath his boot. "All Talons, this is Talon Seven. I have encountered an abominable intelligence." The Salamander saw four more brutalized constructs behind him. "They are controlled by a xenos warrior. I am initiating pursuit."
"Negative, Seven." Apothecary Gerr barked. "You will wait for support. I will contact Alpha."
"No time." Lu'shan retorted. "This vessel is infested. They will overrun us if I do not kill their master here." Ahead of him, the techmarine could see dozens of humanoid shapes, standing in neat rows, heads bowed. Orange eyes glowed in the dark. Mechanical voices chirped and warbled. His visor clicked, and supplied a target count. "I have seventy constructs at my position."
"Talon Seven, withdraw." Gerr cried through the vox. "You must withdraw."
Lu'shan ignored him. Beyond the abominable automata, the Salamander could see the xenos witch. It was smiling. He raised his flamer. The armament on his servo arms hummed. The automata began to move forwards.
"In the Emperor's name!" Lu'shan opened fire.
"Damnation!"
Astaron Gerr shredded a section of interior wall in frustration. The Apothecary's black plate was stained a pale grey by corpse ash. Purplish xenos blood floated in vials around the Apothecary's waist.
"Talon Five, Talon Eight. I am moving to support Talon Seven. You will secure our path of withdrawal."
The techmarine would need support. Pride and righteous anger was driving the young Salamander forwards, into a fight he would surely lose.
"Negative, Eight." Gerr balked at the Raven Guard's reply. "Secure our exit. Leave this fresh heresy to our reptilian brother."
An alien, atomized from the waist down, attempted to crawl away from the Red Scorpion. Gerr seared the xenos into nothingness with his pistol. "Our brother will need aid, Raven Guard."
"He needs his pride more." Zeed retorted. "Let him win his glory."
"He will die." A bulkhead to the Red Scorpion's right hissed open. Strange, emaciated metal cyclopean creatures poured forth. "He is grievously outnumbered, and by a terrible foe."
"Continue on mission Apothecary." Zeed insisted. "I will move to assist the techmarine."
Gerr didn't respond. His pistol vomited forth a stream of red light, and the automata died.
"The Salamander will succeed!" Zeed barked into the vox. "By the Emperor, is it your dotage that makes you like this, or did you always worry so?"
Gerr recoiled. "He is young!" More constructs poured forth, clambering over the ruins of their destroyed brothers, screeching. "I am his Apothecary! I will not let him spend his life so recklessly!"
"He wants to be Deathwatch!" Zeed snapped. "Let him prove it. Secure our exit. I will ensure Lizard survives."
Gerr checked his HUD. The Apothecary and Raven Guard were separated from the struggling techmarine by the core of the ship. The two corridors narrowed and joined together at an airlock twenty meters to the Red Scorpion's rear. He marked the airlock on his map.
"Retrieve our brother." He said. "We will rejoin at the airlock to the nav deck. Do you see it?"
"I see it." Zeed said.
"I will contact Talon Alpha and secure our withdrawal." The automata were piling up before the bulkhead, crawling over one another to get at the Red Scorpion. "Do not tarry."
The Raven Guard laughed. "I won't.
The xenos ship was built around a heavily reinforced internal superstructure, running like a spine along the center of the craft, through which the ship's power and life support was passed. The the port and starboard sections were thus separated by six meters of metal and wiring. The superstructure had been designed to withstand a catastrophic hull breach, even a ship to ship collision. From this central spine, supporting columns arced like ribs around the inside of the hull. Even in the event of a catastrophic breach in the hull, the ribs would keep the vessel together.
Seifer Zeed's last melta bomb blew one such breach into the flank of the ship. Alarms blared, and vacuum pulled at him, trying to tear him out into the void.
The boots of his warplate mag locked to the deck. Crawling, almost on his hands and knees, Zeed hauled himself out into space. Astartes armor, although void safe, was not impervious. Icy cold nipped at Zeed's skin, and his armor thrummed as it funneled heat from its power pack to compensate. Gripping a shuddering section of exposed hull, the Raven Guard swung his body up and out, kicking his legs forwards to hammer against the outer hull.
His armor locked on with a dull, and satisfying thud. He swung forwards, and began to crawl up towards the spine of the ship. The ship map in his helmet display tracked his position against the hull, a small blue raven trudging slowly towards a snarling dragon head.
"Talon Seven, Talon Five."
There was no answer.
"Talon Seven, Talon Five."
Zeed pulled himself upright, and drew the chain axe from his belt.
"Talon Five, Talon Seven." Lu'shan's voice was strained. "Go ahead."
"Moving to support Lizard." Zeed said. "Lock your armor."
The chain axe shook in Zeed's hands. It bit into the hull with ravenous appetite, chewing through metal like parchment.
"Lock my…."
The axe broke through the hull. The tear expanded rapidly, shards of metal falling away and cartwheeling into space. "You madman!" He heard the techmarine cry.
"Make way!" Zeed laughed. "I'm coming through."
The Raven Guard had to force his way back into the ship. The sudden change in internal pressure had sucked the spindly metal automata up towards the breach, where they were crushed together into a screeching, warbling blockade. Zeed battered at this mass with his axe and storm bolter, ripping passage through the writhing metal bodies.
Even crushed against the hull, the automata attempted to reach for the Raven Guard, to claw him back into space.
"Get clear!" Below Zeed, the Salamander leveled his flamer at the metal monstrosities.
Zeed kicked a construct in the face, blasted two apart, and fell like a stone onto the deck. Blue white fire melted the howling constructs to the hull, fusing them into a misshapen blob of dripping molten metal. Metal bodies lay strewn across the deck, torn apart and reduced to slag by promethuim and plasma fire. A cluster lay not a meter before Lu'shan, ripped limb from limb by the techmarine's cybernetic limbs.
Still more came on.
"Where are they coming from?" Zeed cried. His storm bolter shredded a group of constructs into shrapnel. His breathing was ragged.
"The cargo holds!" Lu'shan replied. "The xenos witch is summoning them, look!"
The Salamander pointed with a mechadendrite. An alien stood behind the mob of constructs, howling orders to the machine men. More and more of the skeletal machines poured into the hold, crawling through vents, and struggling through tightly packed bulkheads.
"Kill it!" Lu'shan cried. "Kill it and this is over!"
"With pleasure." Zeed threw himself into the host of constructs, setting all about him with the thundering chain axe. Metal and machine fluid flew in all directions. A construct leapt for his face, and Zeed cut it in half from skull to groin. A knot of constructs attempting to simultaneously move through an air duct were incinerated by plasma fire.
"Hurry brothers!" Apothecary Gerr said over the vox. "These blasphemies grow more numerous by the second!"
Zeed laughed. "Rejoice! The Emperor has given us a harvest!"
"Do you need aid Apothecary?" Lu'shan asked. His mechadendrites tore a construct in half, and hurled the twitching ruins into the faces of its comrades. "We can provide it."
"Insolent whelp!" Gerr growled. "I could kill this filth till the Primarchs walk again!"
"We should make haste Lizard." Zeed said. His bolt rounds hammered automata into the deck and shattered them into pieces. "The old relic might die of old age, we tarry to long."
"Relic!" The Apothecary sounded livid. "I'll take that out of both your hides when this is over!"
Zeed was almost upon the alien now. The thing howled, and its automatons swarmed over the Raven Guard.
"Death to the enemies of Man!" The servos in his knees whirred. The marine hurled himself forwards, metal men still clinging to him, onto the screeching xenos. There was a crunch.
The automata went limp. Beneath Zeed's chestplate, the xenos corpse twitched.
Star of Phoros was dead. From start to finish, it had taken sixteen Terran minutes for the three astartes to complete their purge. The marines withdrew to the boarding torpedo, taking corpses and captured equipment with them for study. As a final measure, to conceal their presence, Techmarine Lu'shan coded final orders into Star of Phoros's nav computer.
As the Deathwatch torpedo withdrew, the xenos ship began a nose dive into the atmosphere of Nirvana.