Disclaimer: Code Geass? Not mine. Warhammer 40k? Also not mine.
Author's Note: I really have to stop promising more rapid updates. Luckily, I've come into some pockets of free time lately. I was able to complete this chapter yesterday night, and the next one is in the works. As much as I hate the fluff of the new Necron codex, it has given me so many new toys to play with. I haven't read it all the way through, so I might butcher some of the fluff. I ask you to bear with it. Please?
As a warning, the first section of this chapter may hit on some sensitive topics. If you're offended by the concept of euthanasia, feel free to skip to the first line break. I won't hold it against you at all. I'm not going to post some long-winded justification for this segment, because I've found that makes things worse. Instead, I leave it to you to choose to read it or not and make your own judgements.
Chapter Seven: Beneath the Red Sands, Part II
Auxiliary Reactor, Black Knights Base
Valles Marineris, Mars
At the time of the Valles Marineris facility's construction, controlled-singularity weapons such as the modern-day FLEIJA warheads existed only on paper. Any and all data regarding their destructive potential lay firmly in the realm of educated guesswork at best and blind speculation at worst. As a result, weapons test facilities such as the one at Valles Marineris were built especially tough: not only did their walls have to safely contain such detonations, they had to do so without alerting the rapidly-expanding human presence on the surface. The unintended, but much welcome, side effect of this design decision was that the walls were particularly good at absorbing Gauss and Tesla blasts.
"Dammit! That Death Mark keeps on jumping around! Where's a spook when you need one?"
Tia Ellerbe slid out from behind the wall and unloaded a long stream of hadron bolts into the corridor. Necron Warriors charged en masse, and the single long corridor leading into the auxiliary reactor practically funneled them into the Raider's shots. Return fire, though heavy, proved ineffective, hitting the walls and the partially-closed blast doors and leaving deep gouges in the metal. The powerful hadron bolts, on the other hand, pierced through several Warriors at a time before dissipating, scything off limbs and blowing enormous chunks out of torsos. The high-pitched death-wails of dying Necrons and the sickly-green of phase-outs were gratifyingly common, but the sheer press of bodies kept the attack force moving forward.
Resting her light machine gun on the lip of the blast door, Tia ignited one of her hadron fields as the Necron return fire grew steadily more accurate. From the gouges on the blast doors, she could actually track the progress of the shots zeroing in on her position. It wasn't long afterwards that her field flared up for the first time as it dissipated the powerful blast. Unfazed, Tia continued pouring a steady stream of gunfire into the Necron ranks.
"Look out!"
Tia's companion, a Raider by the name of Mark Lindow, barely ducked in time to avoid the concentrated leptonic beam. Of all the Necrons' borderline-magical technologies, the Synaptic Disintegrator Rifle ranked among the most feared: even a glancing hit could burn out a target's mind, and a direct hit was almost always instantly fatal. Even the heavy hadron fields and thick armor plating of the Archangel Knightmares couldn't absorb more than a few shots, much less the comparatively-thin protections of a Cherub.
"My hadron fields are about to collapse! Chaos Mines deployed!"
Two disks flew out into the hallway, hovering in midair for a split second amongst the Necron horde before unleashing a storm of shaped charges. Mark had once heard a Psychic Special Warfare operative remark offhand that Chaos Mines made a ripping sound when discharging. Unfortunately, the devices discharged far too quickly for a normal human to perceive, so the two Raiders timed their attacks with Warriors' death-screams instead.
"Tia, behind you!"
Tia whirled around just in time to find herself faceplate-to-faceplate with a Necron Death Mark. Even the battle-hardened Raider felt a shiver go down her spine as the thing's mask somehow radiated anger. Judging from the thing's lack of a rifle and heavily-damaged forearm guards and hands, Tia could make a few guesses as to why. Before she could react, the one of the Necron's hands shot out and gripped her around the throat, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. As she pounded futilely at the Death Mark's arms, Mark swung his machine gun around and unloaded into the thing's back.
The Death Mark turned around, tossing Tia aside and focusing its attention onto Mark. The Raider sent another burst in its direction, only for the Death Mark to phase from existence and appear in front of him. A vicious backhand sent the machine gun flying out of Mark's hands and skidding along the floor, stopping well out of his reach. The Death Mark raised its other hand, now aglow with a disruption field, for the fatal blow. Redirecting the attack slightly with his forearm, Mark moved in and countered with several rapid jabs to the Death Mark's torso. Before his opponent could retaliate, Mark hooked an ankle around the Death Mark's and pulled the leg out from under it.
Mark rolled backwards as the Death Mark staggered and fell. It seemingly glared at him before phasing out once again. Allowing himself a sigh of relief, Mark turned to retrieve his fallen machine gun. He didn't even have time to shout a warning as the Death Mark rematerialized behind Tia and impaled her with a disruption field-coated hand. The Raider slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely, as soon as the Death Mark withdrew its hand.
Mark charged, firing his machine gun the entire time and determined to not give the Necron a moment to react. The Death Mark staggered from the multiple hits, unable to focus long enough to dematerialize. The Raider quickly closed in, smacking the Necron across the faceplate with his machine gun butt before throwing the automaton over his hip.
With a vicious roar and equally-vicious stomp, he crushed the Death Mark's head. The death-scream proved oddly satisfying.
"Lieutenant, this is Lindow," Mark spared a glance outside, "The auxiliary reactor is secure for now, but Ellerbe is down. Repeat, Ellerbe is down."
"How bad is it?"
It didn't take a doctor or a close inspection to assess the Raider's condition.
"Bad. She's not going to make it unless we get her back to the fleet right now."
"Dammit. Do whatever you can."
Lindow knelt down besides his dying squadmate. The Knightmare frame had nearly emptied its onboard supply of medical foam in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. It was simply far too little done far too late. A large portion of her blood, far more than any adult could lose and still live, was currently pooled on the floor around her.
"I'm not going to make it, am I?"
It was clear that even speech was taxing for Tia in her current state.
"Don't be silly, Tia. You're a Raider. This is just a scratch."
Mark reached into a hip-mounted storage compartment and retrieved a small container, connecting it to the external feed on Tia's Knightmare. A near-inaudible hiss reached both their ears as the Knightmare's onboard medical suite injected the contents into the Raider's bloodstream.
"Here. Something to dull the pain."
Mark was lying, and they both knew it.
"Hey Mark?" Tia quietly asked.
"Yeah?"
"The next Death Mark we encounter? His ass is mine."
Experimental Knightmare Storage Bay
Black Knights Base
The narrow corridors of the Valles Marineris base proved a boon to the Raiders: with their landspinners deployed, they moved fast enough to temporarily confuse Necron Warriors' motion sensors. In those crucial fractions of a second, they could close in and slice the automaton to ribbons without fear of retaliation. By the time the alarm was sounded and a response mustered, the Raiders were long gone. Several minutes of hairpin turns and hadron saber drive-bys bought them to the blast doors of the experimental Knightmare storage bay.
"Defensive positions! Get these doors open!"
Two Knightmares flanked the armored doors, pressing themselves against the wall and holding their light machine guns against their bodies. Two more pressed themselves against the wall further down the hallway, machine guns at the ready. Three more crouched in the middle of the hallway, hadron fields deployed with machine guns in one hand pointed into the room beyond. The final Knightmare began rapidly tapping away at the keypad beside the door.
"Door's open! Get ready!"
Before the two flanking Knightmares could lean around the edges, gouts of lightning issued from the opening portal. They punched clean through a Raider's field and struck him in the chest. The Raider sank to his knees and convulsed for a few seconds before falling over, its eyes going dark. His lifesigns on the squad uplink disappeared.
"Sarkisian's down!"
Two Chaos Mines flew into the room, followed by seven Knightmares storming through the doors seconds later, hadron fields deployed. Necron Warriors and Immortals on the catwalks above fired down on the Raiders. Several Raiders scrambled for cover as their hadron fields flickered and died from the strain.
"Chandler! Capelli! Vanwingerden! Clear the catwalks!"
Three Cherubs deployed their energy wings and rocketed upwards, their sudden ascent catching the Necron forces by surprise. Before they could recover, the Raiders tossed a dozen Chaos Mines into their midst, the shaped charges shredding anything in their proximity and carving great swathes out of the Necron hordes. A storm of hadron bolts followed, scything down Warriors and Immortals alike by the dozens. To their dismay, every Necron that fell seemed to be replaced by two others.
"Dammit! They just don't stop coming!"
"Use your meson bursts! Bring the catwalks down!"
The storm of red bolts was soon joined by a hurricane of green spears. Necron hit directly were destroyed outright along with the several behind and beside them. The now severely-weakened catwalks began creaking and groaning under the weight of so many Necrons, both destroyed and ones still fighting. The Raiders saw no problem in aiding its fall with slash harkens. The three Raiders directed their bombardment downwards, following the path of the remaining Nercrons as they fell.
"All cle-"
A single Immortal had managed to avoid the worst of the meson bombardment and, somewhat cushioned by the biometal bodies of its brethren, managed to hit the ground sufficiently intact to function. Though its damaged servos protested and static clouded its vision, it raised its Tesla carbine, took aim at one of the airborne Raiders, and fired. The Raider's armor, though heavily damaged from the previous firefight, absorbed a majority of the blast. Unfortunately, enough still made it through to fry the Raider within.
"Capelli's down!"
The six remaining Knightmares poured gunfire in the direction of the shot, reducing the Immortal to scrap metal in seconds.
War Room, Space Station Ikaruga
Four Hours From the Terra System
"I've just received a sitrep from the Valiant. Lieutenant Schneider has just reported in," Kallen summarized, glancing down at the dataslate.
"Have they managed to retrieve the package yet?" CC inquired impatiently.
"No. However, they are in close proximity to the objective and expect to make a pickup soon. Three Raiders are confirmed KIA, but they are confident they can complete the mission."
"These are Necrons we're talking about here!" Suzaku interrupted, "Three Raiders were killed just getting to the objective! They'll still have to fight their way out through a horde of enemies well aware of their presence!"
"We can't afford to pull them out now. Compared to the value of the package, the lives of Lieutenant Schneider and her team are expendable," Nunnally interjected.
Even the normally-apathetic CC turned around to face the governor. Though the director's face remained as stoic as ever, her eyes widened imperceptibly.
"I know it sounds crass, and I hate it as much as you do, but we are currently in a state of war! If Abaddon's forces discover the package, the Imperium dies! Can you imagine his armies equipped with that kind of technology? Not even we would be able to save Earth then!"
"If they can't retrieve it," Kallen added, "They know enough to destroy it."
Black Knights Base, Valles Marineris
One Hour Later
Karen took advantage of the brief lull in fighting to pull up her chronometer. They had been on Mars for barely seven hours, but it seemed like a lifetime ago that they were just hitting the atmosphere. A quarter of their fighting strength had perished just reaching the Shinkirou, and more would inevitably follow as they fought their way out. As one might guess from the OPAW Raiders' unofficial motto, "Suicide missions are our only missions," Karen was no stranger to such casualties. That didn't prevent the most recent trio of deaths from hitting particularly hard: with Capelli's death, the "old guard," the members of the 1st OPAW Raiders when Karen had assumed command, was gone.
Karen took a few deep breaths and steeled herself: she couldn't dwell on such thoughts now. There were eight other, still alive, Raiders depending on her.
"Seals disengaged. See if you can pry the doors open now."
One of the unfortunate victims of the firefight had been the storage bay's registry computer. What would have been a quick and easy task turned into a potentially tedious and time-consuming one, as the Raiders would have to open each pod individually and examine the contents. Worse, many of the pods' circuitry had corroded over time, necessitating a manual release of the seals and usage of brute force to open the pods.
With a grunt, Karen finally pried the doors open wide enough to peek inside. She could only groan in frustration when the sight of a chunky, boxlike Knightmare greeted her. It was a late second-generation design at best, and the design seemed flimsy even by the standards of that era. She suspected it was some unsuccessful experiment in cost-cutting measures.
"Shit! We've got more Necrons incoming!"
Several Gauss beams lanced through the air towards the Raider team. Most of them impacted harmlessly against the walls and storage pods, but one managed to strike a Raider directly in the chest. The blast left a deep gouge in his armor but ultimately failed to penetrate it. The winded, but still very much alive, Raider was dragged to safety by a squadmate.
"Squad, defensive positions! Vanwingerden, you're with me!"
As she and Louisa hurriedly opened the remaining pods, Karen kept the firefight in the corner of her eye. The remaining Raiders had dove behind whatever cover they could find, occasionally emerging to take potshots at the advancing Necron horde. None dared to stick their head out for more than a few shots at a time: the return fire, though about as accurate as usual, was still sufficiently dense to deplete a hadron field in seconds.
"Chandler, you're too far forward!"
Eric Chandler glanced down at the sensor readout, cursing to himself as he realized just how isolated his position was. Several hostile red crosshairs even lay between him and the friendly green ones on the map. He twisted around, bringing his machine gun to bear just as a Necron Warrior passed his position. The sudden, large movement alerted the Warrior to his presence, but its ancient and corroded joints didn't allow it to react in time to avoid being shredded by hadron bolts.
"I'm falling back! Cover me!"
"We've got yo-holy shit! Chandler, get down! We got a Death Ma-"
"Walnder's down!"
Karen could only watch helplessly as another lifesign disappeared off the uplink.
"Chandler, get down!"
By the time the warning registered, Chandler had already sprung to his feet, machine gun at the ready. Before he could take even a single step backwards or take cover, the Death Mark struck again. The leptonic beam bored straight between his Knightmare's eyes. The now-pilotless suit went limp and fell over, hitting the ground with a loud thud. Chandler's lifesigns disappearing was redundant.
Karen allowed herself a few triumphant exclamations as the seventh pod opened yielded the familiar lines of the Shinkirou. She reached into her hip compartment, pulling out roughly a half-dozen smooth, oblong disks. Karen hurriedly slapped the miniature grav-lifts onto the back of the pod, signaling Louisa to start tipping the thing over as she was activating the last device.
"We've got the package! Plow the road, everyone!"
Enormous swathes of the Necron hordes vanished before the tide of green. The Raiders gave the enemy no chance to recover: deploying their landspinners, they roared through the newly-created gap. Clumsy and disorganized Gauss and Tesla volleys made a valiant effort to intercept the speeding Knightmares to no avail.
As the Raiders neared the end of the corridor, one of the Gauss blasts struck home. The shot failed to penetrate, but the force of the blast threw the affected Raider's balance off for a critical split-second. The second hit failed to penetrate, leaving another deep gouge in the Knightmare's armor. The third and fourth hits met with similar results. As the staggered Raider regained his balance, Karen dared to hope that the remaining members of the 1st Raiders would make it out of the current meat grinder alive. Her hopes were quickly dashed when a Tesla blast punched through the Raider's armor.
"Dulmage's lifesigns just went dark!"
Karen twisted her body slightly, bringing her high-speed Knightmare to a halt as the last of her squad crossed the threshold of the armored doors.
"Vanwingerden, get these doors closed! Fillman, suppressing fire!
Though the rate of fire of their hadron light machine guns was prodigious, two Raiders simply could not put out the volume of support fire needed in their current situation. Though Necrons still fell, they were clearly drawing closer and closer with each passing second.
"Got it! Doors are closing!"
"Chaos Mines out!"
Three Chaos Mines flew through the rapidly-closing blast doors, their deadly cargo pushing the Necrons back by at least several meters. Just before the blast doors slammed completely shut, a lepton beam passed through the miniscule gap between them. Caught unaware, Fillman had no time to react before it pierced through his throat. His Knightmare's eyes almost immediately went dark and tumbled to the ground.
"Letsinger, Rodriguz, Lindow, I'm signaling for extraction! Rendezvous at the shaft!"
"This is Lindow. Heading to the rendezvous!"
"This is Letsinger! Necrons are attacking the control room! We're cut off!"
"Dammit! If the two of you are not on that shuttle, I am coming into the Warp personally and dragging you back! You got me?"
No sooner than the words had left Karen's mouth, Letsinger's lifesigns went dark.
"Holy shit! I've never seen a Necron unit like this before! It looks like some kind of knight! It just took off Letsinger's head in one blow!"
Karen's blood ran cold.
"Rodriguz, get out of there! That thing's out of your league!"
The only answer Karen received was silence.
"Rodriguz?"
Another lifesign blinked out a moment later.
Black Knights Drop Shuttle Arbiter
Orbit of Charon
"Captain, we've just received a transmission from Lieutenant Schneider. Her team is under heavy fire and is requesting extraction."
"Forward the coordinates to the pilot. Get Lieutenant Landsford on the line. Tell him and his Raiders to get ready."
Black Knights Base
Valles Marineris, Mars
Lindow met the duo of surviving Raiders in the corridors leading to the base's main firing range. Several deep gouges crisscrossed the surface of his armor, but he otherwise seemed unharmed.
"The extraction point's just ahead! Keep your eyes open! I don't want any more surprises!"
As Lindow rounded the final corner, he found himself face-to-face with an enormous Necron warrior. Clad in armor closely resembling that of a knight, albeit one from another world, the Necron easily towered head-and-shoulders over the Knightmare. Lindow had just enough time to bring his machine gun to bear when the Necron bought its sword down. Lindow's machine gun slid apart, followed by Lindow himself.
"Dammit! Vanwingerden, get that pod to the extraction point! I'll take care of this one!"
The Necron Lychguard leapt forward, his sword raised and prepared to slice Louisa to ribbons. He was intercepted in mid-flight by Karen, hadron saber drawn. The Lieutenant easily intercepted his blade with hers. A front kick sent the Lychguard staggering backwards.
"Foolish human," the Lychguard rasped, "Have you gone insane with fear? Your two companions were unworthy of the swings I expended on them. You will be no different from the others."
Karen bought her saber into a ready position in response.
"I'm a Raider lieutenant, Lychguard. You'll find that I'm in a whole different league."
A horrible screeching sound filled the hallway seconds later. It took Karen several seconds to realize the Necron was laughing.
"So you know what I am. Do you still presume to challenge me to single combat?"
Karen didn't budge.
"Very well," the Necron laughed again, raising his sword as he did so, "I will entertain your desperate fantasy. In the final seconds of your life, witness the true art of the blade!"
The Lychguard was easily half a meter taller than Karen and had at least a hundred kilos over her. Swinging its enormous blade as if it were many times lighter, each slash was made with utmost precision and each capable of slicing Karen and her Knightmare in half. The Raider, however, was noticeably faster, and her smaller frame allowed her to circle around the Lychguard, alternately parrying its blows and striking out at openings. Each blow was met by the Necron's shield, easily the size of Karen's Knightmare by itself. It took every ounce of reaction speed Karen possessed to avoid the ensuing counterattacks.
"Perhaps I underestimated you, human," the Lychguard declared as his and Karen's blades once again collided in a shower of sparks.
Karen suddenly jerked her saber upwards, bringing the Necron's sword with it. Before the Lychguard could bring its shield around to cover the new opening in its defense, Karen snap kicked it in the torso. She followed up with several rapid jabs, then a roundhouse kick. When the Necron finally bought its shield around, Karen was already gone, having slid around the massive chunk of metal to exploit the newly-created opportunity at the Necron's rear.
The Lychguard spared a glance down at the hadron saber now protruding through the lower left quarter of its torso. The Necron swung around, its elbow aimed where it estimated Karen's head to be. The Raider was forced to relinquish the hadron saber in order to jump away in time. She drew a second one as the Necron turned around.
"You have impressed me, human. None have survived this long before me. If you surrender now and swear fealty to me, I shall let you live. A loyal and dedicated slave can rise far in the court."
Karen's reply was to leap forward, saber raised to attack.
"Very well, human, but continue to consider my offer. It is already far more generous than any other has received."
Louisa continued her mad dash for the drop-shuttle as dozens of Necrons boiled from surrounding hallways. Blue and green bolts impacted the walls around her, several striking dangerously close to home. Pushing the pod with one hand and blindly firing over her shoulder with the other, Louisa breathed a sigh of relief when she finally passed the final set of blast doors. That relief turned into despair as she surveyed the scene in front of her.
Louisa swerved to the left, nearly falling over, to avoid the wall of green and blue that greeted her. Dozens of Necrons—arranged into neat firing lines and their weapons trained on the open blast doors—occupied the testing range. Louisa's eyes darted around the room in desperate search for cover, but the sheer volume of incoming weapons fire reduced any safety she was able to find to dust in seconds.
A Tesla blast clipped the Raider in the arm, disrupting her balance and forcing her to slow down.
Before the Necrons could finish Louisa off, a Sleipnir-class drop shuttle roared into existence in the ventilation shaft above. Its hadron machine gun turrets tore holes in the Necron formations and the walls of the firing range alike as the shuttle descended to the ground. Deployment ramps opened up to reveal a fresh and heavily-armed Raider team that proceeded to add their own weapons fire to the mix.
"Get to the shuttle! We'll cover you!"
Karen and the Lychguard locked sabers once again, pushing against each other for several seconds before jumping backwards in preparation for the next attack. The Lychguard had lost much of its bulk since the beginning of the duel. When several hadron saber slices reduced a majority of its shield to ribbons, the Necron threw it away. When Karen's attacks dented and slashed its armor to the point that it was more a hindrance than a help, the Lychguard shed it. Its biometal body had suffered significant damage since then, enough to warrant a lengthy self-repair cycle afterwards. Karen had not gotten out unscathed, either: several deep gouges ran down the front of her Knightmare, and the vicious blows with the pommel of the Necron's sword had doubtlessly caused a few internal injuries.
"You fight well, human," the Lychguard declared, "When I slay you, I shall take your blade and present it to my lord."
Karen lowered her blade and charged. The Lychguard did the same, meeting her halfway. The two warriors passed one another and continued on for several more feet before stopping.
Barely ten meters from the ramp, a lucky Gauss blast caught Louisa in the back. The attack left a deep gouge in her armor, and the force of impact caused her to stumble forward. A second one struck home moments later, adding another gouge to the collection. Several more followed in quick succession, none of them penetrating but several coming awfully close.
Sensing that her time was up, Louisa gave the pod a might shove, sending it careening down the last few meters just as a Tesla blast struck home. Her Knightmare convulsed for several seconds before going dark and sinking to the ground.
Inside her Knightmare, blood poured from Karen's mouth. She looked down at the large gash that ran diagonally down her front. Strength rapidly left her legs even as her Knightmare flooded the site with medical foam. Fighting the urge to sink to her knees, the Raider gritted her teeth and told herself to remain standing. She wouldn't give that Lychguard the satisfaction. Noticing how quiet it was behind her, Karen turned around just in time to see the Lychguard fall to its knees, its sword cleaved in two.
"Human," the Lychguard rasped as it sank to the ground, "You are a true warrior. I concede defeat."
Karen staggered towards the fallen Lychguard, screaming at herself to stay standing with each step.
"May I request the honor of knowing the name and dynasty of my vanquisher?"
Karen hesitated for a moment, and then decided she had nothing left to lose in granting the Necron its final request.
"My name is Karen Schneider, of the Black Knights."
"Karen Schneider of the Black Knights, you have been a most worthy opponent. I am honored to die by your hand."
The Lychguard's eyes went dark and its body went limp. Karen turned towards the weapons testing range and staggered forward for several steps. The last of her strength gave out and she sank to the ground, dead.
Black Knights Drop Shuttle Arbiter
Valles Marineris Base, Mars
"Package is onboard! Pilot, get us out of here!"
The drop shuttle launched a spread of FLEIJA warheads before entering the Warp. The tremors of the base's annihilation were felt even on the surface, but the Mechanicum's logic engines would label them as nothing significant.
Author's Note: And there we have it! The story of Karen Schneider and the 1st Raiders draws to a close. Probably one of the bloodiest plot miniarcs, in terms of percent casualties, I've ever written. I hope I've given them an appropriate sendoff and, as always, I hope you enjoy!