Disclaimer: This Code Geass thing? Yeah...I don't own it. Same with this Warhammer 40k thing...
A/N: In response to eman's review: closer to four or five meters, I'd say. Either that, or Britannian MBTs are enormous. Either way, Knightmares in the Geassverse can't exist in the current state of the 50k-verse, if only because Earth's Sakuradite supply has run out long ago.
As to Heir of Empires: don't worry. The cameo's coming soon. Very soon. ^-^
Chapter Eighteen: The Counterattack
As the fleet around Altansar faltered, the skies over the Craftworld played host to an endless, macabre meteor shower as heavily-damaged ships tumbled into the atmosphere and broke apart. Eldar anti-aircraft batteries blazed away around the clock in a futile effort to stem the seemingly-endless flood of Chaos drop pods and transports. Though the one hundred twenty troopers of the 10th Orbital Planetary Assault Wing fought ferociously, their presence wasn't even a blip on the radar compared to the crushing might of Fulgrim's armies. Every battlefield where they showed up to turn the tides was matched by a dozen positions overrun by the enemy.
At the same time, news of the 10th OPAW's exploits spread quickly. If for nothing else than determination to not be outdone by a bunch of mon-keigh, the Eldar defenders fought even harder, even gaining ground in some places. Though much blood was exchanged for every square meter of ground recaptured, the counterattack had begun.
Outskirts of Castrinaia, Surface of Craftworld Altansar
017.M51, Day Three of the Siege of Altansar
Though she had once fought in the Corpse-Emperor's name, Delo's soul now belonged entirely to the Prince of Pleasure. Once a member of the Imperial Guard, she had betrayed the survivors of her regiment and deliberately led them into an ambush. A most delicious sensation flooded her body whenever she thought back to that day. She could still see the looks of betrayal on their faces as she knelt before a Traitor Marine of the Angels of Ecstasy warband, the right side of her torso bared to display the mark of Slaanesh carved into her flesh. She had little doubt that some of the mind-meltingly potent combat stims given to her were sourced from her former comrades' bodies, and she had even participated in torturing several of them to death.
In the few years since, she had risen from a favored slave of the Angels of Ecstasy to the leader of her own warband, the Eternal Host. She had plundered dozens of worlds in the Prince of Pleasure's name, and her ruthlessness in battle—matched only by her successes—attracted a great many followers. The Eternal Host swelled in size as it absorbed new converts and smaller warbands alike, all united in their search for new sensations and pleasures.
As she surveyed the hordes before her, Delo stopped to inhale deeply. So intense were the sensations shown to her by the Angels of Ecstasy that only a constant supply of ever-stronger stimulants, pumped into her facemask from a tank on her back, could give her even the slightest pleasure.
"Charge! A double dosage of stims to the first one to bring me an enemy's head!"
Even the promise of such a meager reward proved enough to send the forward ranks trampling over one another in a mad race to reach the enemy lines. She wouldn't send in the elite core of her warband, most of them Imperial Guard traitors like herself, just yet. Better let the new blood soak up some of the defenders' ammunition first.
"Incoming! Get ready!"
Chaos Basilisk artillery had pounded Castrinaia day and night in an attempt to flush out the Eldar, but the defenders had dug in deep. The relentless bombardment leveled many of the city's thin, graceful spires and cratered its wide streets, and the Bonesingers used what little remained as raw material to construct fortifications. Wraithbone barricades reinforced with dirt sprang up virtually overnight in preparation for the Chaos attack. Hundreds of Guardians stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the shallow trenches behind the barricades, Shuriken Catapults at the ready. The ground beneath their feet rumbled as thousands of cultists charged over the hill and into the city's main avenue.
"Steady…steady…hold your fire…"
A Dire Avenger Exarch by the name of Anduah had taken personal responsibility for the defense of Castrinaia, vowing that not a single meter of its streets would fall into Chaos hands so long as she drew breath. Though the Guardians unquestioningly obeyed the Exarch, many shifted around nervously. Sheer momentum carried the enemy horde forward, and those who ran too slow or stumbled were simply trampled underfoot.
Anduah could barely suppress her disgust as she peered at the horde through binoculars. Many of the cultists were dressed in little more than rags, though a resourceful few had scavenged bits of armor. A few bared the right sides of their chests, a curious habit specific to the followers of She Who Is Not Named. She could spot a few lasguns and autoguns in the crowd, but the vast majority made do with melee weapons. A lucky few wielded blades and chain weapons, but the vast majority were armed with little more than wooden rods with metal spikes driven through them. The screaming and slobbering horde reached the city limits, the streets funneling them into the brunt of the Eldar defenses.
"Fire!" Anduah screeched, drawing her second Avenger Catapult and unloading into the oncoming swarm.
The Guardians and Dire Avengers unleashed a disciplined volley of shurikens that devastated the enemy's forward ranks. So tightly packed was the horde that each disc would pierce a cultist and then several more behind. The casualties not trampled underfoot continued the charge, their corpses driven forward by the press of bodies behind them. Support Weapon Batteries entrenched in the city's central pavilion joined the second volley, ripping enormous gaps into the enemy formation. Monofilament webs rained down from above, slicing off limbs and dicing a dozen enemy soldiers at a time. The cultists' desire for a double dosage of combat stims overrode their already-limited survival instinct, and they continued charging rather than seek shelter from the horrific weapons. A salvo of missiles came down next, each leaving a crater and a shower of body parts wherever it landed.
Gaps in the enemy formation were filled in just as quickly as they appeared. Corpses carried forward by the horde's momentum absorbed Eldar shurikens, allowing the combat stim-frenzied cultists to slowly inch towards the Eldar barricades. The few lucky enough to possess firearms began firing wildly, many of their shots impacting uselessly against the fortifications. Occasionally, a Guardian would stagger back, his or her mesh armor dissipating the force of the hit. Anduah could only watch as one of the defenders fell to his knees, gurgling and clutching his neck, as a autogun round bounced off the rim of the barricade and into the gap between his helmet and mesh armor. He bled out before his comrades could help him. Several Guardians rushed forward from the rear trenches, one taking the fallen warrior's place in the line and the others dragging his body away.
Outskirts of Castrinaia
Twelve Hours Later
Though the forces of the Eternal Host attacked in great numbers, the Eldar defenses around Castinaia held. The press of bodies had overwhelmed the volume of defensive fire several times and the followers of Chaos scrambled over the barricades. The forward positions devolved into bloody close-quarters combat, and hundreds of Guardians rushed up from the trenches to shore up the defenses. Casualties always proved heavy, but the line held.
The Chaos horde had broken several times, and the Eldar utilized the precious reprieves to the fullest. Bodies were collected and soulstones gathered. Medics made their rounds. Weapons were allowed to cool and ammunition stocks were replenished. The Guardians took the time to meditate and revitalize their exhausted bodies. The lulls were shattered all too soon by renewed Chaos assaults. Each wave of cultists grew steadily better-equipped and more grotesquely mutated.
"Ceifulgaithann, form up!"
A low whine echoed throughout the city streets as Guardian Jetbike Squadrons emerged from their hiding places in the rear trenches. They slowly poured in from the side roads, assembling at the center of Castrinaia's main avenue and wordlessly forming up. Three squadrons of a dozen Guardians each formed up into a lightly-armored spearhead spanning the width of the street, with a trio of Shining Spears forming the very tip.
"Ready!"
The Guardians revved up their engines, and the Shining Spears lowered their Laser Lances.
"Charge! Mael danaan!"
Ulneer, an Aspect Warrior of the Shining Spears, leaned forward in his seat and opened the throttle. The jetbike shot forward, seemingly on a collision course with the forward barricades. To their credit, the Guardians appeared unfazed, their disciplined volleys never faltering even as apparent doom drew ever closer. At the last moment, a wraithbone ramp rose out of the streets, launching Ulneer, his fellow Shining Spears, and the three dozen Guardians with them into the air. Several Guardians paused to look up as the jetbikes barely cleared their heads, and the shuriken volleys stopped in fear of hitting their own.
Where the repeated shuriken volleys failed, the jetbikes succeeded. The swarm screeched to a halt, trampling the forward ranks as they came to a stop. Cultists clawed over one another in an attempt to reach safety, but wraithbone barriers sprang up to block the back alleys. A storm of shurikens ripped through the panicked horde, opening a path for the jetbikes as they descended upon the enemy. As he drew close enough to count individual cultists, Ulneer leaned ever further forward, his Laser Lance charged and at the ready.
A few random executions by the higher-ranked cultists managed to restore order, and the horde began counterattacking. Autogun rounds and lasbolts bounced off of Ulneer's armor as he incinerated several cultists with his weapon. One of the Guardians behind him wasn't so lucky, and the force of impact threw him off his jetbike. The vehicle spun out of control, crushing many cultists before skidding to a stop. The Guardian was quickly swallowed up by the Slaaneshi mob, and his screams as he was savagely mauled to death rang in Ulneer's ears. The screams continued in the Aspect Warrior's head as the Guardian's soul was dragged into the realm of The Great Serpent. Another Guardian subtly shifted into position, emerging from the center of the spearhead to take his fallen comrade's place.
At such close ranges, each shuriken fired tore through a dozen cultists, and the few who survived were promptly crushed by the jetbikes. The revving of chainswords filled the streets as Guardians hacked at the hands that reached out to grab them. Several were dragged out of their seats and into the sea of bodies. Ulneer did his best to ignore the screams as cultists beat and hacked them to death then crushed their soulstones. Through sheer weight of numbers, the enemy slowly whittled the attackers down.
Ulneer fired his Laser Lance as fast as its capacitors cycled, but the still-living bodies impaled upon its tip made the weapon increasingly difficult to aim. The Shining Spear briefly removed his hands from the jetbike controls to grab and snap an arm reaching out for him. The cultist screamed in a mixture of ecstasy and agony. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Ulneer snapped his neck with a second blow.
The jetbike squadron could no longer maintain the tightly-packed spearhead, and the survivors drifted further and further apart. Without their comrades protecting their flanks, the Guardian jetbike riders suffered heavily. The barricades began firing again, the hundreds of bodies separating the riders from friendly lines also shielding them from Eldar shurikens. Their backs turned to focus on the fast attackers, the horde was slow in reacting to the renewed attack, and the defenders enthusiastically repaid their comrades' sacrifice with enemy blood.
As the horde began thinning, Ulneer's lance finally became too heavily-laden for him to aim effectively. He tossed the weapon aside, smashing any cultists caught within the lance's wide swing arc. Shredding the cultists before him with his jetbike's dual Shuriken Catapults, Ulneer could finally see the desolate no man's land beyond Castrinaia's edge.
The survivors of the attack, consisting of Ulneer and a handful of Guardians, roared through the gap into the open terrain beyond. Elation and triumph turned to horror as hundreds more cultists, much better-armed and –equipped than the horde they had just survived, appeared over the hill and began raining lasbolts and, to Ulneer's horror, shurikens, down onto the riders. The very thought of such profane hands touching such an elegant weapon filled the survivors with rage, and they pushed themselves past their injuries and exhaustion to charge the hill.
One by one, the remaining Guardians fell, some knocked off their jetbikes and others killed outright. The survivors drew their chainswords and, with a battle cry, continued charging up the hill. The sheer volume of enemy fire mowed them all down within a few steps. The sight of a nearby Guardian decapitated by a stolen shuriken weapon added to Ulneer's rage, and he leaned forward slightly to squeeze even a tiny amount of extra speed from his vehicle. A lucky lasbolt glanced off the Shining Spear's helmet, sending him tumbling from his jetbike.
As the second wave of Slaaneshi cultists closed in, Ulneer grabbed a chainsword from a nearby Guardian's corpse and charged. He slashed and stabbed in every direction, slicing off limbs and heads, as the horde engulfed him. A lasgun butt to the back of the head made Ulneer's vision swim, and the Shining Spear staggered. In an instant, the cultists piled onto him, raining blows down on him as he struggled to stand up. Even as his bones shattered under the vicious assault, Ulneer continued swinging his chainsword, slicing ankles and Achilles' tendons.
The last sight he saw before dying was a dark blur descending from the skies.
"Keep it up! Don't let them regroup!"
Several cultists became Private Kelly Racicot's unwilling cushions as her Knightmare slammed into the ground. Paying little attention to the guts and brain matter caked onto her feet, the OPAW trooper ejected two of her hadron sabers from their wrist-mounted scabbards and thumbed the activation switch. The weapons hummed to life, vibrating almost imperceptibly as internal particle accelerators created the crimson red blades. With speed that came only with extensive training and experience, she whirled the blades around her body in intricate patterns, absorbing the incoming autogun rounds and lasbolts.
Dropping their landspinners to the ground, Kelly and her squadmates leaned forward and charged the enemy. Still knocked off-balanced by the OPAW team's sudden appearance, the soldiers of the Eternal Host put up only scattered resistance as the deadly blades sliced them to ribbons. Lasbolts and autogun rounds simply bounced off the Knightmares, while shurikens managed to gouge their armor but failed to penetrate.
Kelly spun the blades around in her hands into a reverse grip and bought them forward in a scissoring motion, slicing apart half a dozen cultists to her front and sides. As more closed in, she snapped the blades back outwards, decapitating them. Several of the Eternal Host managed to overcome their shock and form a firing line, and a volley of lasbolts slammed into Racicot's chest. She staggered slightly but recovered within a second, slicing up the soldiers who had moved in to exploit the opportunity. The Private leaned forward slightly, squeezing just a bit more speed out of her landspinners, as the firing line aimed their second volley. One of Kelly's comrades staggered and fell over, the cultists piling on top of him before he could recover.
"We'll take care of him! Get that firing line off our backs!"
Kelly's two companions peeled away at blistering speed, drifting their Knightmares as they turned around to aid their fallen ally. Racicot urged every bit of speed she could out of her Cherub as the enemy lined up another volley. Aided by her Knightmare and by adrenaline, the Private leapt up into the air, sailing over the volley of crimson bolts. The soldiers in the firing line paused, craning their necks to follow the airborne OPAW trooper as she cartwheeled in midair and slammed into the ground behind them. The resulting shockwave caused several of the enemy to stumble, and Kelly was on top of them in a heartbeat.
Spinning her blades back around into a forward grip, Kelly decapitated half the members of the firing line in a broad sweep. She stabbed another as he fired, the lasbolt drilling through the outer layers of her armor but ultimately failing to penetrate even at such close range. A battle cry from behind alerted the trooper, and she whirled around just in time to take off another soldier's head with a vicious roundhouse kick. The headless corpse continued its lunge, driving its bayonet into Kelly's stomach. The tip of the blade pierced her Cherub's outer shell and carved a shallow gouge several centimeters in length before snapping in two. Racicot stumbled from the force of impact, dropping one of her hadron sabers, and the enemy was quick to exploit the opportunity.
Kelly planted her foot, stabilizing herself, when the shrill beeping of her sensor suite's proximity warning filled her ears. A powerful back kick caved in the rib cage of the soldier charging her from behind and sent his body flying backwards. Straightening back up, she threw her remaining hadron saber at the cultist charging her from the front. The blade spun through the air and neatly bisected him. Spotting another enemy bull-rushing her, Kelly dove into a roll, retrieving her hadron saber as she tumbled and slicing off the cultist's legs below the knee. Standing back up, she finished off her crippled opponent by driving her blade through his torso and into the ground.
After briefly analyzing his chances against the whirlwind of death that was Private Kelly Racicot, the final cultist threw down his lasgun and ran. The OPAW trooper whirled around and launched a slash harken at him. The high-speed mass of rutalium carbide and hadron field burst through the cultist's torso with a shower of gore. As Kelly reeled the deadly projectile back in, her opponent stared wide-eyed at the hole in his chest for several seconds before collapsing face-down into the ground.
The whole scuffle had lasted less than a minute.
"Enemy reinforcements incoming!"
A high-pitched whistling sound reached Kelly's ears a fraction of a second before a battle cannon shell landed barely a meter away. The explosion obscured her vision with flying dirt, riddled her armor with shrapnel, and scorched off her Knightmare's paint. Not even rutalium carbide could protect her from the concussive shockwave that followed: the force of impact forced the air from Racicot's lungs and launched her into the air. The OPAW trooper flew several meters before hitting the ground and slid several more before finally coming to a stop.
"Those tanks are going to tear us apart!"
"Keep calm, trooper, and keep firing!"
Unable to actually track the fast-moving OPAW troopers, the enemy armor simply saturated the no man's land with shellfire. Forced into twisting evasive maneuvers, the Black Knights' accuracy suffered greatly. Most weapons fire slammed uselessly against the earthen ridge the tanks had lined up on, though occasionally a lucky hadron bolt would set off an ammunition rack or a well-timed FLEIJA warhead would vaporize a tank. The Chaos forces would simply shove the wreckage out of the way, and another tank would take the destroyed one's place.
Bruised and battered but otherwise miraculously unharmed, Kelly Racicot gingerly picked herself up off the ground and made several futile efforts to locate her missing weapons. The shockwave had torn her light hadron machine gun from its mounting lugs, and she had dropped her hadron sabers at some point mid-flight. She never found her sabers, but she did eventually locate her machine gun a small distance away. A shell fragment had punched straight through the weapon's thin skin, severing vital circuitry and rendering it useless. Her ears ringing and head pounding, she made several unsuccessful attempts to claw her way up the sides of the impact crater. The OPAW trooper finally succeeded after her fifth attempt and plopped, exhausted, onto the ground. Her breathing gradually slowed, and she dazedly sat up and slowly took in her surroundings.
"Move, trooper! Keep moving if you want to live!" her sergeant barked, snapping her back to reality.
Kelly shakily stood up, supported almost entirely by her Knightmare's leg servos. Her hard-won efforts were wasted as one of her squadmates blindsided her. The two troopers tumbled several meters before collapsing in a heap of limbs. Any annoyance Racicot felt regarding the collision instantly evaporated as a shell landed right where she stood moments before.
Jumping to her feet, Kelly drew her FLEIJA launcher and hurriedly checked it over. Breathing a sigh of relief that it showed no visible signs of damage, the OPAW trooper unfolded the weapon and slung it over her shoulder. The trooper who had tackled her out of the shell's path shakily stood up and shook his head vigorously—most likely to clear his vision—before re-shouldering his machine gun. Landspinners screeching, the two took off in separate directions.
Anduah surveyed the brief but intense battle at Castrinaia's outskirts with great interest. Though she would not deny that the soldiers of the 10th Orbital Planetary Assault Wing fought ferociously, the Exarch had privately doubted tales of them wading through hundreds of Chaos soldiers and emerging victorious. Seeing their nearly one-sided slaughter of the Eternal Host dispelled those doubts. However, even they could not stand alone against the horde of Chaos tanks and infantry now appearing over the horizon.
"Support batteries, open fire!"
As the first wave of missiles sailed overhead, Anduah thrust one of her Avenger Catapults into the air and addressed the Guardians around her.
"Let us show these mon-ke…these Black Knights…how Eldar fight!"
Castrinaia's Eldar defenders, weary but reinvigorated by the Exarch's words, voiced their approval with a deafening roar that echoed through the city streets. They sprinted through the streets and vaulted over the barricades, pouring out of the bombed-out city as a great wave of bodies. Grav tanks and War Walkers, having spent the battle waiting amongst the rubble for the perfect opportunity to strike, emerged from their hiding places and joined the charge.
C's World
The Warp
Once again, hundreds of daemons clawed at the barriers surrounding perhaps the final stable pocket within the tormented Warp. Several threw themselves at the wards and were near-instantly destroyed by the sheer psychic power. The maddening chittering stopped as a gash formed in the fabric of the Immaterium and slowly widened. A lithe woman, her form cloaked in unimaginable psychic power, emerged from the portal. Even the greatest and most terrible of daemons stepped back, giving her and her companion a respectable amount of space. The great horde parted and scattered, allowing the two women a clear path into C's World.
"For now, my job is done," Euphemia suddenly spoke up as they crossed the threshold, "All that happens once he awakens is solely in your hands."
CC turned towards her pink-haired woman, a curious expression on her face.
"The battle that follows the Emperor's awakening is one in which I cannot intervene," the Guardian remarked, answering exactly none of the questions her statement raised, "For the time being, Lelouch must not know of me."
The green-haired immortal opened her mouth to retort, but Euphemia cut her off.
"The Time of Dying has ended. Now begins the Age of Redemption."
The Guardian seemed to move further and further away as she spoke. It took CC several seconds to realize she was the one actually moving, and that she was once again falling through the Warp.
Outskirts of Castrinaia
Surface of Craftworld Altansar
The wave of Eldar bodies crashed and broke against the Eternal Host, and the battle devolved into a brutal close-range firefight. Cultists clambered atop grav tanks, and Eldar troops would climb up to sweep them off. Dozens of bodies piled against War Walkers, tipping and the bipedal war machines over and leaving it at the mercy of the crazed horde. Yet, meter by blood-soaked meter, the defenders of Castrinaia reclaimed Altansar's soil. The soldiers of the 10th OPAW forged ahead, forming an armored spearhead that plunged deep into the Chaos lines. As the Knightmares drew closer, Delo grew increasingly desperate.
"You outnumber them twenty to one! Kill them!" the traitorous Guardswoman screeched over the vox, "The first one to bring me one of their heads gets first pick from the prisoners!"
A flash of motion in the corner of her eye drew Delo's attention away from the battle. Her gaze flickered in every direction, yet she saw nobody else but her own bodyguards. Before she could dismiss it as a mere figment of her imagination, a bulky figure appeared in the extreme edge of her peripheral vision. Delo whirled around to face it, but she was greeted only by the sight of a burned-out Leman Russ tank. By the way they nervously fingered their weapons, her bodyguards seemed to have noticed something as well.
"You!" Delo motioned at the bodyguard closest to the hulk, "Check it out!"
Wordlessly, the man shouldered his lasgun and cautiously approached the wreck. He stopped several meters from the vehicle, weapon pointed wherever his eyes looked as he scanned the area. Satisfied, he crept around the hull and disappeared from sight.
"Toss a frag back there," Delo ordered when the bodyguard failed to reappear after several seconds, "If that doesn't kill whatever's back there, the two of you catch him in crossfire!"
"Roger! Frag out!"
The grenade exploded with a faint whump, and two of Delo's bodyguards stormed forward. The sound of lasgun shots filled the air for several seconds, then silence.
"Clear!" one announced after several tense moments.
The two Guardsmen emerged from behind the tank, one of them dragging the headless and shrapnel-ridden body of their comrade behind him. Delo's eyes grew wide as a dark line appeared on their uniforms, starting from the right armpit and travelling diagonally down to the waist. The pair of bodyguards managed several more steps before they paused and looked down at the steadily-growing blood stains on their flak armor. One managed to look up in shock before his body slid apart.
Delo whirled around to face her last remaining bodyguard just in time to receive a faceful of blood. Blinded by the spray, she staggered backwards and fell over. Wiping the blood from her eyes, Delo found herself almost nose-to-nose with her subordinate, a surprised expression permanently etched on his face. She noticed a second later that the rest of his body from neck down lay several meters away.
Delo snapped.
Springing to her feet, the leader of the Eternal Host drew her chainsword and swung at the empty air around her.
"Show yourself, you coward!" she shrieked, her expression wild and spittle flying from her mouth, "Where are you?"
"Right here," a deadly-calm voice announced from behind her.
With a roar of terror and rage, Delo whirled around and buried her chainsword into her attacker's shoulder. The color left her face as the strike did little against her opponent's armor except generate a shower of sparks. The man before her stood at least a head taller than her and wore armor of similar, though aesthetically much simpler, design to that of the OPAW troopers currently ripping through her warband. Fear stripped away the last of Delo's reason, and she took a wild swing at the armored titan.
He momentarily disappeared and reappeared approximately a meter away, well out of the range of Delo's swing. The top half of the chainsword cleanly separated from the rest of the blade, turning end-over-end through the air and hitting the Leman Russ hulk with a clunk. With an animalistic growl, Delo threw away her now-useless weapon and charged her opponent, bloodying her knuckles as she uselessly pounded her fists against his armor.
Delo was already too far lost in fear to notice her opponent's left hand slowly reaching and clamping around her head. Images of pure horror overwhelmed her mind, and she collapsed into a senseless heap on the ground.
The Psychic Special Warfare soldier nudged Delo's body with his foot to confirm she was actually down before opening a channel with the Caerleon.
"This is Operative Nathan. I've captured one of the enemy commanders. Requesting extract."
A/N: Yeah. Psychic Special Warfare operatives are kinda scary, aren't they? The Craftworld Invasion arc reaches its peak!