Chapter 36(orphan)
Franklin tried desperately to sleep as the rhino crawled red hot through the impossibly bright pale blue glare outside. The wind was screaming with hurricane force as the super heated air shot upwards, sucking in cooler air from the night side of the planet to replace the near vacuum low pressure underneath this rising super thermal.
The noise of this hemisphere spanning hurricane was quite unbelievable, the heat of the vicious glare powering the mother of all wind storms!
Franklin had no idea how he could possibly sleep in THIS apocalyptic hurricane, even with ears covered he couldn't drown out the screaming howling roar of the wind outside!
Franklin gave up trying to sleep and moved blindly by touch to the door to the cramped cockpit of the rhino, unable to see a thing in his protective goggles.
Franklin slid the door open and could suddenly see through his goggles because of the terrible blue glare through the armoured window slits. The cockpit was cramped in the extreme, and noticeably hotter than the rear cabin because of the light entering the windows.
Franklin awkwardly squeezed inside and closed the door behind him to protect the supply crates from the heat. The light entering the cockpit was hot, but the air conditioning was gallantly fighting against it to keep it bearable for someone in refrigerated armour or power armour.
Malcolm glanced at Franklin, and then shifted as much as he could to make space for him on the single continuous flat ceramite bench seat that filled the width of the cockpit. Franklin squeezed gratefully in to sit beside him, and squinted through his goggles to view the terrain outside.
The visibility was terrible with the glare, but Franklin could make out the rear of another rhino in front of them, and other rhinos to either side of them in a vast armoured convoy.
The convoy was moving between an endless forest of widely spaced giant metal poles, each pole topped by a vast glowing hot angled solar plate that overlapped between identical plates all around them. The solar plates overlapped so tightly that they formed an enclosed ceiling that completely hid the sky from view, but the tiny cracks between the plates had so much light pouring through that it was lethally bright!
The deafening wind noises were mostly coming from above this ceiling of solar plates, but even under this shelter the wind was frighteningly fierce. Franklin could only imagine how bright and windy it must be ABOVE this glowing hot ceiling!
The ground was like glass, the heat making the dust adhere to itself in a glassy conglomerate mass. There was no loose dust at all apart from the dust the vehicles created by shattering the glassy ground, no evidence of water ever flowing at any time, just dry and clean and sterile from the heat.
There was a truly deafening BANG and the area up ahead permanently became thousands of times brighter! Franklin's protective goggles darkened instantly in compensation, protecting his eyes.
"Void shield generator core just went boom from the predator tanks using lascannons on them. The explosion shattered a heap of solar plates, letting in all this extra light," Malcolm explained.
"One down, thousands more to go," added the rhino driver, a marine named Yuki Dutton.
Alarm sirens echoed through the wind a moment later.
"They definitely noticed," Malcolm chuckled.
"I'm surprised we haven't been attacked yet," Franklin opined.
"It's too hot. Even our vehicles are critically overheated right now. If we had any choice then we would be seeking shelter underground right now," Yuki the rhino driver explained.
"Critically overheated?," Franklin asked in alarm.
"Radiators are white hot and above safe operating temperature. Might have to go outside and pour water on the grills soon if they get much hotter," Yuki confirmed.
Franklin thrilled with alarm and desperately tried to call on the power of the Emperor to cool down the convoy before they all died!
"Oh very well, but I'm watching you. Power returned." TigerLily's psychic voice spoke in Franklin's mind!
The power of the Emperor suddenly surged into Franklin!
The Emperor laughed maniacally through Franklin's throat in a distorted angelic laugh of triumph, freaking out Malcolm and Yuki.
"WORD BEARERS! I'VE COME FOR YOU!" The Emperor bellowed.
Power surged through Franklin, and focused on the radiators of every Night Lord vehicle.
"Temperature optimal! What the hell?!" Yuki exclaimed in astonishment.
"Onward Night Lords, you must CRUSH the children of Lorgar! As much as I disapprove of you murderous children of Konrad, I HATE the fanatical chaos worship of the spawn of my son Lorgar! Kill them ALL!" The Emperor bellowed through Franklin.
"What the fuck Franklin?!" Malcolm shouted with alarm.
Franklin turned his goggled eyes to gaze at Malcolm's helmeted head, and a portion of the Emperor's power shone through into Malcolm's mind to reveal itself to him.
"DAMNATION! It's YOU! HAVE MERCY!" Malcolm babbled half insane from terror.
"You promised Franklin that you would turn to follow me. Follow me NOW!" The Emperor demanded.
"Yes, anything just spare me grandsire!" Malcolm promised in terror.
"What are you talking about?!" Yuki asked in confused dismay.
"Franklin here is a living saint of *I* the Emperor of mankind! I am taking back my legion of Night Lords!" The Emperor proclaimed.
Yuki pulled out his bolt pistol with blurring speed!
The Emperor put Yuki in an instant coma.
The rhino swerved driverless as Yuki slumped.
Yuki suddenly gasped awake again.
"That's enough fun old man, dispelled again!" TigerLily's voice echoed in the cabin, and Franklin was once again cut off from the Emperor!
Yuki regained control of the rhino and gazed at Franklin in horror.
"The Emperor has gone again. TigerLily blocked my access to him once more!" Franklin lamented bitterly.
Yuki opened up a vox channel and shouted, "Luke Sevenson! What is this THING in my tank!"
"My son has a rather useful gift wouldn't you say. It's fine as long as we keep it carefully contained," Luke chuckled back over the vox.
"FATHER! I am not a weapon to be wielded!" Franklin protested.
"I don't want to be in a confined space with this living time bomb!" Yuki protested.
"He just cooled down all our radiators, we NEED him for this mission, so get used to it!" Luke ordered.
Yuki growled but accepted this, gazing at Franklin with obvious fear in his body language.
"I didn't WANT to subdue you. You pulled a gun on me! Don't attack me and I won't harm you," Franklin reassured his Night Lord comrade.
Yuki paused considering and then said, "very well neophyte. Don't attack me and I won't attack you. But keep that thing inside you under control!"
Malcolm still hadn't said a word, looking completely overwhelmed.
"I tried to tell you the benefits of your war band worshipping the Emperor. If you all follow the Emperor then you will be able to do the miraculous too," Franklin told him zealously.
"He is really going to HELP us win this war despite being Night Lords?," Malcolm asked.
"Against Word Bearers He will. Of all of the Emperor's wayward sons, Lorgar is the WORST! Even the Slaanesh worshipping Sevenson war band is preferable in the Emperor's sight to the irredeemable evil of the Word Bearers! Even xenos are preferable to these basest of all traitors!" Franklin spat hatefully.
"He hates them enough to help us?," Malcolm pressed insistently.
"Yes, so long as you slaughter the scum!" Franklin said passionately.
"Have no fear of that, these Word Bearers are DEAD when we get them!" Yuki chuckled darkly.
"Then you have nothing to fear," Franklin promised.
"Deal," Yuki and Malcolm said together and kept driving.
***...
The Emperor cooled the radiators of the vehicles yet again for the twentieth time that day, before once again becoming dormant until next needed. It was not even mid morning yet, and Franklin alone had kept the convoy cool this entire day.
Several strategically important targets had so far been destroyed by lascannon blasts. With the armoured heat shields of the targets red hot already, the lascannons already had a head start in melting through them. Hot as the sunlight might be, a lascannon beam was HOTTER, and hot plus hotter equals SO hot that no physical matter can stay solid in the face of such combined heat.
Two void shield generators and 5 ground based laser silos were now blown apart ruins of red hot mangled armour, and with them gone the defences of the planet were slightly weakened.
The light outside was getting steadily hotter and brighter as the day went on, but the wind was getting steadily weaker as it got too far away from the night side of the planet to provide enough cool air to displace the lighter hot air. The increasing lack of wind was only making it even hotter than before, forcing Franklin to intervene with his powers more frequently.
The glare outside was getting so bad that the convoy was slowed down from the reduced visibility, this was no conditions for Night Lords to be fighting in! Too BRIGHT!
At least no one else was attacking them in this furnace heat, the enemy seemed to be assuming that the heat would kill the invaders for them.
"Overheated again, Franklin do your thing!" The vox sounded.
Franklin obediently summoned the power of the Emperor and supernaturally cooled down every heat exchanger radiator in the convoy, cooling down the overheated vehicles wonderfully.
"Kill the Word Bearers before they damn anyone else!" The Emperor demanded impatiently through Franklin's voice over the vox as he aided the convoy.
"Sure thing boss," the vox replied placatingly, the entire convoy sucking up to the one who kept them all alive.
The Emperor became dormant once more, and the convoy picked up speed slightly.
Loud bangs sounded, and the ceiling above the convoy shattered.
"Just blew up a major super heated heat exchanger for the refrigeration system of the hive city below us. They are in for a HOT day today," Malcolm chuckled nastily.
"Millions will die from the loss of that heat exchanger," Yuki added.
"Good, let the heretics and mutants burn," Franklin said gleefully.
The vox crackled into life, "by the pantheon, ENOUGH! We in the city surrender already! Just have mercy!"
"Is the war over already?," Franklin asked in surprise as the Chaos Lord accepted the surrender.
"Not even close. That was but a single hive city that just surrendered. The planet has many thousands more to go," Yuki laughed.
The city was ordered to open up their defensive gates for the Night Lords, and the convoy gratefully entered into the relative cool of the underground city to cool off before continuing, passing through a series of airlock gates into the dark relatively cool interior of the massive underground city.
The glowing red convoy had enough battery supply for a few miles underground, and headed straight for a large underground building labelled "car wash" as Franklin took off his goggles to see.
The rhino drove glowing bright hot into one of the many openings in the front of the building, and a waiting team of dismayed looking mutants staggered back from the heat coming off the rhino.
The mutants slowly returned holding water hoses, and sprayed feeble jets of water onto the super heated ceramite vehicle, causing a loud hiss of billowing steam that drove the mutants away again.
The mutants stood further away with a much bigger hose, and dowsed the tank with a torrent of water. The hiss of steam was deafeningly loud, and the glow disappeared as the heat was consumed by the water.
The rhino drove out of the building when the water stopped boiling, and waited parked out of the way as the rest of the convoy had a much needed cool off.
As soon as all the tanks were cooled down, the convoy simply continued on their way without paying the car wash, and moved underground through the city for a few miles before exiting back to the surface to resume their rampage of destruction against the other cities.
Franklin had his goggles back on before they were even close to being outside again, and the rhino once more drove on into the blinding glare.
For hours Franklin kept the convoy cool as they destroyed ground based orbital defences and blew up heat exchangers that billions relied on to keep cool, cities were surrendering in droves now and the convoy had yet to meet resistance.
At midday it was so bright and hot that Franklin had to work nonstop to keep the tanks from melting, and a trail of destruction filled their wake.
The midday air really was like a furnace, so hot and still that it was making the surface of the glassy ground start to run like a viscous fluid!
"Is it supposed to be THIS hot?!" Franklin exclaimed desperately.
"We landed right on the equator and have been gradually heading north west. The further north we go the cooler the days will become. This day on the equator is the hottest we will experience," Malcolm explained.
Franklin was relieved, this day had been hellishly hot!
Explosion followed explosion as the convoy destroyed every strategic asset in its path, the void shield was getting weak enough for an orbital bombardment soon.
The pace never stopped the entire day, and by afternoon billions of mutants and heretics were dead or dying as their cities overheated without intact heat exchangers. Mutant women, mutant children, elderly people, all dropping dead by the millions and surrendering in droves to protect their remaining heat exchangers.
By mid afternoon the wind started to return, bringing down the temperature, and every minute that passed the wind got more powerful as they got closer to the cool air of the night side.
The wind was soon a screaming hurricane, and the solar collectors swayed about in the wind, plates cooled down increasingly by the steadily cooler stronger wind.
The pace sped up to cause as much damage as possible as the daylight lasted, and with a massive BOOM a particularly important void shield generator exploded, opening up a big enough gap to allow limited orbital bombardment during the coming night cycle.
With this done the convoy doubled back and retreated into the safety of an underground city that had already surrendered, to set up a defensive position and shelter from the coming orbital bombardment of the surface.
Franklin sighed with relief as the rhino parked safely for the night in a heavily defensible tunnel system, the city was critically overheated from the destruction of several heat exchangers, but compared to outside it was a welcome relief.
***...
The millions of surviving inhabitants of the underground hive city "Peaceful Sanctuary" on the planet Lavender Furnace were weeping and traumatised.
Peaceful Sanctuary was a 100 percent civilian city and had been home to over 1 billion innocent civilians, peacefully minding their own business when these invaders came uninvited to destroy over half of the city's heat exchangers, resulting in 80 percent of the population dying from overheating!
The local civilians had not been Word Bearers, but simply unwilling vassals forced to pay huge amounts of their hard earned wealth to the Word Bearers each week in exchange for their lives.
The moment it was cool enough outside, the entire population fled the city seeking other cities with working heat exchangers, as billions of angry local soldiers marched to remove these murderous invaders from their planet.
A mutant woman named Mrs Michelle Rainbow and her 3 small children wept as they fled the city, crammed in the back of a crowded civilian truck with the few belongings they could carry, minus Mr Rainbow who had died from the heat as he selflessly let his wife and children have all of the available cooling!
The back of the truck was filled with other weeping and traumatised survivors who had barely survived the heat, all of them grieving for lost loved ones who had died today.
The truck was outside, grinding it's way over the now cool surface, desperate to find a new asylum before the sun rose again!
The solar plates were all turned vertical at night to let the ground beneath cool as fast as possible, and the plates were angled with the wind, to let the cold screaming winds cool the ground all the faster. The temperature was pleasant for the moment, but dropping fast, and by midnight it would be subzero with the complete lack of greenhouse gases in the artificially processed atmosphere.
The sky above was filled with cold magenta light from the perpetual warp energy that filled the Eye of Terror, and speckled with the occasional stars, but frighteningly lacked the usual blue crackle of overhead void shields! The villains had blown up every shield generator they could find!
Michelle shivered with fear and hugged her children all the tighter, praying to the entire chaos pantheon for this nightmare to not get any worse.
The truck moved for a time before slowing to a halt, and Michelle gazed out the back of the truck to see friendly local soldiers all around them. They were saved!
The soldiers gallantly directed the truck to head for a nearby city that was preparing to accept refugees, informing them that the entire planet was united in fighting off this threat and helping the refugees. The people of Lavender Furnace would overcome this terrible evil and make the world safe again!
Michelle hoped that the evil Night Lords were destroyed to pay for their crimes, these murderers had killed her husband and billions of other civilians in dozens of cities in the course of a single day! May the gods bring justice to these villains!
The truck was just moving past the millions of friendly soldiers when the sky lit up with a terrible red laser lance beam!
It was suddenly so hot outside that soldiers were actually catching fire!
Michelle cowered on the floor with her children under her as it became REALLY hot inside the truck!
The truck then rolled over sideways from a blast wave, rolling with terrible speed!
The truck ripped in half as it slammed into a thick metal solar pole!
People had been ripped in half by the collision!
A deafening sonic boom then struck, and Michelle's eardrums burst! She was now deaf!
The half of the truck she was in plowed to a halt in the glassy ground, throwing Michelle from the wreckage!
The entire friendly army was on fire all around her!
The sky lit up with more lance beams from enemy ships in space!
Huge explosions the size of mountains erupted on the distant ground, shattering all of the solar plates for miles around.
The friendly armies were being annihilated!
Objects with fiery contrails were flying in crazy zigzags all over the sky.
Bright flashes and mushroom clouds appeared on the horizon! They were NUKING the defences of the planet!
All around Michelle was death and ruin as her world was destroyed!
She limped over to find her children in the wreckage.
They were splattered inside the wreckage, DEAD!
Michelle fell to her knees and sobbed as her clothing smoked in the heat. She had just lost EVERYTHING!
Bomber aircraft were soaring overhead now, dropping bombs on the survivors.
Michelle looked up and watched as the enemy dropped a cluster of bombs right over her...
Michelle clutched her dead children as the bombs fell towards her, praying her soul into the care of the pantheon right up until the bombs blew her body apart.
Michelle's soul was now floating free above the ruin and devastation all around, and the entire pantheon called to her to come to the afterlife. She paused for the moment and watched, floating higher and higher as the evil continued.
The bombers were targeting every void shield generator they could reach before local fighter aircraft shot them down. The bombers were not piloted by mortals but all under the control of a mighty Daemon Princess, and had no fear of death as they destroyed the defences, opening up a steadily widening gap in the void shields!
The Night Lord fleet was raining down laser lance beams and nuclear weapons through the new gaps, leaving complete destruction in their wake, and opening the gaps even wider to be attacked in a vicious cycle!
The Night Lords no longer needed their ground forces to completely destroy the defences, the ships could do the rest now!
Michelle was bitterly dismayed as she went to be with her family in the afterlife, her world would most likely be conquered by the villains who had murdered her!
***...
Franklin yawned sleepily as his rhino was loaded into the holding hooks of the thunderhawk transporter a few hours before sunrise. The ground fighting during the night had been limited and sporadic, with the few surviving enemy ground forces disorganised and shell shocked from the nightlong orbital bombardment, letting Franklin get some much needed sleep.
The fleet had been extremely busy during the night and had destroyed so much that thunderhawks were now needed to get the ground forces to the very distant next target in a timely manner!
The thunderhawk transporter shot away into the air once two rhinos were loaded underneath it, and flew very low through the screaming hurricane winds to evade air defences. TigerLily thankfully wasn't singing this time, simply staying silent except for important announcements, Franklin was extremely grateful.
Franklin couldn't see a thing in his goggles from his vantage point, if it hadn't been so loud outside then he would have gotten some more sleep. The day cycles on Lavender Furnace were longer than 24 hours, and Franklin's body clock was getting very confused.
Franklin knew enough from the briefing this morning to know that the target destination was over 6000 kilometres north of their current position near the equator, and that it would be somewhat cooler during the day as a result, letting the convoy rely less on Franklin to stay cool.
The flight was extremely rough as it battled against the screaming winds, turbulence kicking them around in the sky, shaking them savagely. The thunderhawk transporter was flying insanely fast for these conditions, breaking the sound barrier as it roared through the sky.
Franklin just held on as best as he could as the long journey passed by, it was truly astonishing that the orbital bombardment had destroyed SO much of the surface in one night, that the Night Lord army now had to fly 6000 kilometres away to find something to destroy!
"Only one more hour to go," TigerLily announced calmly over the vox as a periodic update.
"Oh dear, the fates are getting difficult to read up ahead, the locals are calling on Nurgle to foil my precognition," TigerLily then suddenly added in a troubled tone!
The vox erupted in urgent questions from worried Night Lords.
"I am trying, fearful ones, adjusting course to minimise risk just to be safe!" TigerLily snapped back over the vox in answer.
Franklin, Malcolm and Yuki exchanged a nervous gaze.
The thunderhawk was now flying far less confidently, slowed down and flying more smoothly. Franklin was praying desperately to the Emperor to keep them safe as the nerve wracking minutes passed by.
"Oh SHIT! Khorne has joined Nurgle against me!" TigerLily cursed fearfully over the vox.
"Oh Tzeentch! The locals have summoned Galit the Beheadinator, a fucking BLOODTHIRSTER! Galit's flying right behind the thunderhawks!" TigerLily exclaimed in horror.
Malcolm and Yuki yelled with fear.
"What's a bloodthirster?," Franklin asked in confusion.
"The worst type of daemon that exists, a Greater Daemon of Khorne!" Malcolm said with grim despair.
"Worse even then TigerLily?!" Franklin asked, thrilling with fear.
"More powerful than even her yes! I don't know how we will defeat this foe!" Malcolm despaired.
An ear splitting bestial roar of pure wrath suddenly shook them to their very souls!
"SEVENSON PANSIES, I WILL HAVE YOUR HEADS!" A hugely powerful deep distorted voice of purest manly hatred exploded through the air with atomic force!
Franklin flinched in horror, even his iron discipline quailing in the face of this horrific voice!
"YOU SEVENSONS STOLE MY CONSORT AND BLOOD SON FROM ME! YOU DISHONOURED ME! YOU INSULTED MY MARTIAL PRIDE! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE! I WILL NEVER STOP HUNTING YOU EMASCULATED SLAANESH COWARDS!" Galit the Beheadinator roared with pure murder.
"Your war band stole the CONSORT and BLOOD SON from a Bloodthirster!? Is your father out of his mind!" Malcolm shouted at Franklin in terror.
"I know nothing about this," Franklin said honestly.
"Your father is a MANIAC! This Bloodthirster has an HONOUR GRIEVANCE against him!" Yuki shouted in rising panic as another roar sounded right behind the thunderhawk.
The crash of huge rapid rhythmic wing flaps could now be heard behind, wings flapping with unholy speed.
"STOP RUNNING AWAY AND FACE ME YOU CRAVENS!" The daemon demanded with a booming roar!
A colossal whip crack sounded and Franklin's thunderhawk transporter suddenly slowed so fast that all 3 of them slammed into the front wall!
The thunderhawk lurched terribly as something absolutely HUGE climbed on top of it!
"It's on the thunderhawk!" Yuki screamed.
"FOR STEALING MY BLOOD SON, I WILL STEAL YOUR'S LUKE SEVENSON!" Galit roared in a voice made of pure violence!
Before Franklin knew what was happening, Yuki grabbed him by the neck and opened a ceiling hatch!
"Take him!" Yuki shouted and hurled Franklin up through the hatch!
Franklin was barely halfway out of the hatch when a gigantic blood red hand snatched hold of him and pulled him out!
Franklin could now see the side of the thunderhawk transporter with the two rhinos hanging under it! The daemon holding Franklin had leapt off the thunderhawk!
Franklin looked up in half mad horror to see the most terrifying monster in the entire universe, and screamed himself hoarse!
***...
