Chapter Two
An Armored battalion slowly pushed forward into sector C7-983, the guns mounted on the tanks drifting back and forth across the still burning ruins of the habs. After fighting off the traitors, Grosslyn had sent in a message to high command about the two possibly operating Titans and, even with the Imperial forces heavily under siege the Emperor had ordered the Titans to be retrieved.
The answer had been to send out a sortie of troops supporting a group of tech-priests to reawaken the Titans.
As the battalion drew near to the crater exposing the entrance to the underground complex, a shower of shells and Lascannon shots erupted from nearby ruins. Several Leman Russ tanks exploded, as well as a few Hellhounds and Salamanders. The response was immediate, the troop carrying Chimeras with their valuable cargo leaped ahead while the slower battle tanks turned to face the enemy. Several rounds of ammunition later added a sizable number to the death toll and brought the hab-block crashing down.
As the Chimeras drove into the tunnel and banked downwards, the battle tanks formed up around the crater.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Halmead glanced around the massive spherical cave as his Chimera pulled up outside the entrance to the pyramid in the center. The five minute descent had lessened the initial impact of the area, and the destruction of a Chimera, and it's squad, when it slipped from the path, had helped bring him back to reality quickly.
He jumped down from the slowly lowering ramp as a scruffy and battered captain walked out from the structure. Before, Halmead would have had the man pushed back to corporal for that kind of appearance, but in the middle of a war of this magnitude, a neat appearance was the last thing on anybodies mind.
"Captain Nash Grosslyn, Sir!" the captain said, saluting smartly. "I'm glad to see you and, if I may be frank, I never expected to see reinforcements in such strength."
"The Emperor doesn't forget Grosslyn. And the report of the two Titans you found drew a lot of interest from Tactica Command. The Heresy is reaching a critical stage now, and even just one Titan could help tip the balance. If you could…"
TAKE US TO THE TITANS+ a mechanicalised voice stated. Turning, Halmead spotted the heavily altered form of Tech-Magi Dolman floating towards them. There was a gasp as several men stepped back, and Halmead couldn't blame them. Tech-priest regularly went in for massive organ and limb replacement with implants, but Dolman was worse then most. A large grav-plate mounted on caballing in his abdomen replaced his legs, and his arms had been replaced with several mechendrites writhing like snakes from his shoulders while skull-drones floated around him. The face was obscured by lenses, and a Vox-ponder in Dolman's throat spoke for him. Behind him was a retinue of several lower ranking tech-priests and Skitarii bodyguards whirring forward on motorized tracks.
"O-of course my lord," Grosslyn stammered. He turned and lead the group into the structure.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HMMM…+ Dolman mused to himself as Halmead scowled at his back. After the Magi's insistence on speed, he had stopped and was staring at the barely visible symbol on the wall. +AS I EXPECTED…+
"As you expected?" Halmead asked. Dolman turned his mechanical gaze on him, but Halmead refused to back down. The disregard the Adeptus Mechanicus had for unaugmented people was legendary, but I'll be damned if I let him push me or my men around, Halmead growled mentally.
IT MATCHES DATA I HAVE+ Dolman said reluctantly. +ONE OF OUR OLD INFO FILES SPEAKS OF A TEMPLE-FORTRESS CALLED 'NERV', A MIGHTY BATTALION OF LIGHT IN A WAR LONG SINCE FORGOTTEN. PRE-DARK AGE OF TECHNOLOGY AT LEAST AND PROBABLY PRE-SPACE FLIGHT. THIS SYMBOL APPEARS TO MATCH THE RECORDS. IT IS THE REASON WE ARE HERE.+
"We spent ten minutes here as you stared at a symbol for that?" Halmead exploded. "Our people are dying up there! According to the latest figures every minute over 100 guardsmen and four Space Marines die! We can't afford the time for you contemplate a symbol you figured out several minutes ago!"
THEN PERHAPS YOU SHOULD LEAD US DOWN, RATHER THEN SHOUT AT ME+ the Magi pointed out coldly. Halmead growled for a second as he got a grip on his temper, before turning to Grosslyn.
"Lead on Captain," he growled quietly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Halmead watched as Dolman floated through the broken door into the Titan containment area, and blinked as Dolman dropped to the floor and began screeching some kind of machine code.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. Dolman slowly floated back up to his normal height and turned to face Halmead, the few parts of his face that were still flesh twitching in ecstasy.
IT'S THE EVANGLIONS+ he shouted.
"They're Titans. I know you consider them holy, but they're not that impressive."
THEY AREN'T TITANS, THEY ARE EVAS! THE PREDECESSOR TO THE TITANS! THEY ARE THE PERFECT BLEND OF MACHINE AND MAN, THE GREATEST AND MOST PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF THE OMNISSIAH+ Aside from the reference to the Omnissiah, the Adeptus Mechanicus's Machine God, Halmead didn't really comprehend what Dolman was saying.
"I don't care what they are. Our orders are simple, to reactivate them soonest. Get to it."
YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS? A DISCOVERY OF THIS MAGNITUDE REQUIRES AN ENTIRE TEAM OF MAGI AND HOURS OF PRAYER-EQUATIONS AND EXCAVATION, NOT JUST MYSELF AND A FEW TECH-PRIESTS+
"We don't have the time for your techno-bullsh…" Halmead began, before his comm.-officer ran in and interrupted him.
"Sir, we've got a problem!" he shouted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Albionse growled in boredom staring at the dirty world below him, glowing with the occasional flash of war. Apparently a daemon had whispered some kind of warning to Horus, requests had been passed along and orders had been passed down, and now he, Albionse, Captain of the Strike Cruiser Blood Wrath, World Eater Marine and favored of Korne the Blood God, had been reduced to impotent rage.
Rather then chasing down the remaining Imperial vessels and spilling their crews into space for the great Gods, he hovered above this 'sector C7-983', he had been ordered to watch for Imperials and, if they managed to reactivate the weapons below the surface before the Chaos warriors could arrive, destroy the area from orbit. According to the Auspexes, the Imperials had surrounded the entrance to the area, and the nearest forces had just entered the zone.
Albionse shook his head. It was time for a little creative work with his orders.
"The cursssed Imperialsss have entered the temple," he hissed whipping his new, snake-like, Chaos-altered tongue around. "Fire the Bombardment Cannon."
"But our orders are only to…" his exec began, before Albionse sliced him in half with his crackling power claw.
"Fire."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Magma projectiles fired by an Astartes Strike Cruiser are designed to rip apart entire warships. By the time the unlucky comm-officer had passed on the warning to General Halmead, they had already penetrated the atmosphere. The detonation was visible from orbit and killed 500 Chaos Space Marines, approximately 4 million civilians, nearly 8,000 Guardsmen and every Imperial Guard Tank in the battalion sent to sector C7-983. The blast radius covered an area virtually twice the size of C7-983.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Halmead did something he had never expected to do again.
He opened his eyes.
Less then a meter in front of him a shimmering orange field extended to either side. He stumbled back several spaces and realized that the field was an octagonal shield over 200 meters in length. Behind the shield, the Evas, their supports, 40 tons of metal and concrete, three squads of Guardsmen, half a dozen Tech-priests, four Skitarii, Captain Grosslyn, General Halmead and Tech-Maji Dolman stood, outside the area protected by the shield…
Halmead felt like collapsing and puking, and from the sound of it several people were doing just that.
Everything had been wiped away, leaving a crater the size of a city. Halmead tried to say something, anything to pull his remaining forces back together, to prepare for a follow-up assault or to retreat to safety, but he couldn't force the words out. Then, something nearby roared…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eva Units 01 and 02 stared out over the devastation that covered an area twice as big as Tokyo-3. Their friends, family, everyone they knew were dead. That they had died nearly 30 millennia ago and had not, in fact, died in the explosion did not seem to register. For the first time since the failed 3rd Impact, the Evas moved. Unit 01 grabbed hold of Unit 02's outstretched hand and passed it the Lancea Longinus. Then, with the crack of armor, Unit 01 extended it's energy wings and, still holding Unit 02, flew up towards the murderers of the city.
The Evas quickly rose into space. Pausing for less then a second, Unit 01 carefully ejected the cables linking the two Evas from Unit 02's back, spun around on the spot and flung Unit 02 towards the Blood Wrath, before flapping its way around the Strike Cruiser. Unit 02 passed through the Blood Wrath's Void Shields without slowing, and made a perfect landing on its hull, where it promptly set about ripping apart everything it could find.
"Ssshoot the Warp-damned thing!" Albionse screamed, ripping apart a tactical officer who wasn't moving fast enough. Every shot from a close defense turret was either intersected by some kind of orange shield or simple bounced off the thing's armor. It also wasn't having any trouble with being in space. The Strike Cruiser mounted external gravity generators to felicitate repairs or to allow Marines to stand on the hull and repel boarders easily, but now it was allowing the thing to move around unaided. Narrowing his eyes, Albionse realized that the shield only seemed to focus in one direction and the thing was facing away from…
"Quick! Ssshoot all clossse defenssse turrentsss at it'sss front! Then bring the Lance around and hit it in the back!" He watched in glee as the monster concentrated on the turrets shooting it's front, ignoring the ship-killer cannon turning slowly behind it. The Lance began to charge before firing… and the monster did a perfect backward flip over the beam and crushed the turret into the deck.
It then hesitated, before raising the two headed lance it was carrying and throwing it straight down.
The Lancea Longinus was capable of penetrating the ultimate defense, the A.T. field. A mere ten meter thick adamantium hull was nothing to it. It passed through the hull, twenty decks and internal bulkheads and the ship's genarium. As it sliced out of the underside, Unit 01 caught it one handed. As Unit 02 jumped away from the Blood Wrath, plumes of white hot plasma erupted from the ruptured genarium. The ship convulsed, and erupted into a massive fireball.
Easily skirting the explosion, Unit 01 caught Unit 02 by the arm and snapped the Plug socket back into it's back. Both Eva's flew away from the devastation behind them and back towards the planet below.
To be continued…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tech-Magi; Higher ranking members of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Grav-plate; Anti-gravity generator.
Mechendrites; General purpose manipulators mounted on the end of tentacle-like cabling.
Skull-drones; The skulls of the dead are often refitted with computer components, manipulators and a grav-plate to perform menial tasks in the Imperium.
Vox-ponder; A Vox is a combination of radio and loudspeaker used by the Imperium.
Skitarii; The troops of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Similar to the Imperial Guard, but tend to have a large degree of implants to make them better soldiers (e.g. an inset Auspex or Vox).
Omnissiah; The Adeptus Mechanicus's Machine God, considered the source of all technological knowledge.
Prayer-equations; An example of how religious the Adeptus Mechanicus is, computer programs are considered more like prayers.
World Eater; A traitor Astartes Legion. Khorne worshippers and obsessed with spilling blood in close combat. It is a bonus if it is the enemies' blood.
Auspex; A combination of several types of sensor.
Void Shield; An energy shield.
Warp; The energy Universe were the daemons of Chaos exist. Unlike in our universe, faster then light travel is possible there, so to move between star systems ship must 'ascend' into the other place. Warp travel is highly dangerous, and many ships have been torn apart by daemons when their defensive shields fail.
Lance; A massive laser based weapon for destroying other starships at close range.
Genarium; A plasma reactor that powers the entire starship.