A/N: To all my readers, I'm sorry for making you all wait this long! I hoped to get this chapter out nearly a month ago, but exams really kicked my ass this time around...
Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass or Warhammer 40k.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Metal Monsters, Part I
Black Knights Attack Craft Callsign: Hammerhead Leader
Skies Above Tharsis Region, Mars
"Loosen formation! Let them pass between us!"
The Excalibur-class attack craft abruptly stopped and translated straight horizontally. The Chaos fighters, lacking the physics-defying gravitric drives their counterparts were thoroughly exploiting, hurriedly banked around to intercept. Screaming through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds, they overshot the formation by a huge margin before the first of them could turn around. Having disengaged afterburners to tighten their turn radii, many Swiftdeaths were shredded by anti-aircraft fire from below.
"Hammerhead Squadron, weapons free!"
Hammerhead Leader felt his teeth chattering as he ignited his gravitric drives, slamming his craft into a crushing acceleration and descending upon the now-vulnerable drop pods. A lengthy stream of hadron bolts shredded one pod and its passengers and sheared the stabilization fins off of another, sending it spiraling to its doom below. Angry black puffs of smoke filled the skies as ground-based Hydra flak batteries targeted the incoming Chaos forces. The Excaliburs deftly wove between the friendly fire, downing a dozen drop pods with each attack run.
"Here come additional escorts!"
"Hammerhead Squadron, scatter!"
Red streaks crisscrossed the skies as dozens of Swiftdeaths dove down to meet the Black Knights pilots and clear the way for the second wave of drop pods. The surviving Chaos fighters rose up to rejoin the fray, firing a massive volley of armor-piercing missiles as their counterparts above did the same. The attack craft of Hammerhead Squadron scattered into a dozen different directions as the anti-aircraft batteries below ceased firing in fears of hitting friendlies.
"There's too many of them!"
"This is Hammerhead Four, I'm hit! I can barely keep my nose up!"
"This is Hammerhead Seven, I've got a dozen bandits on my six!"
Swarmed by Chaos fighters and unable to disengage, Hammerhead Squadron could only watch helplessly as the second wave of pods drew closer and closer. Hammerhead Four's lifesigns went dark as the first Dreadclaws screamed past the dogfight, buffeting the dueling attack craft with their sonic booms.
"We've got bogies coming in from seven o'clock, angels three! At least a hundred of 'em!"
A dozen alarms filled Hammerhead Leader's heads-up display as his hadron fields failed. His head swung in every direction in a desperate attempt to track the half-dozen Swiftdeaths attacking him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hammerhead Seven's lifesign disappear. An armor-piercing missile slammed into his craft, sending alarm klaxons into a frenzy as the Excalibur's left wing ripped away. As he struggled to compensate, Hammerhead leader was nearly deafened by his sensor display's shrill beeping as it announced another wave of Swiftdeaths descending to join the fray.
"Missiles incoming!"
"There's too many of them! Can't evade!"
As he finally bought his stricken craft under control, Hammerhead leader could only watch helplessly as his squadron's lifesigns blinked out one by one. He lost whatever sense of hearing he was able to retain when proximity sensors announced another massive salvo of missiles incoming. His jaw dropped when the wall of approaching inevitable doom, along with dozens of Swiftdeaths, evaporated under a hail of lascannon bolts and autocannon rounds.
"A Flight, give these boys some cover! B Flight, on me! We will intercept and destroy the enemy reinforcements! C Flight, target those drop pods! Lux Imperatoris Wing, engage! Engage! Engage!"
A Thunderbolt fighter inverted itself and screamed past Hammerhead Leader with scarcely a meter to spare. The Imperial pilot had just enough time to notice and return the Black Knight's salute.
Combat Information Center
Space Station Ikaruga
Hands folded neatly behind his back, Lelouch stared at the tactical map for a few moments longer. The thicket of orbital construction facilities around Mars played merry havoc with sensor sweeps even during the best of times, a property that the amethyst-eyed immortal suspect was at least partially intentional on the Mechanicum's part. The countless warships slugging it out amongst the tangle of structures further complicated matters. The fact that the sensor technicians were able to extract any useful data at all from the jumble of readings spoke volumes of their skill, and Lelouch made a mental note to put their names in for commendations later.
Though the Chaos assault fleet took great pains to avoid damage the orbiting manufactoria on the approach, sacrificing dozens of warships to further close the distance, their fire discipline quickly fell apart when the battle was joined. Entire salvos of lances and torpedoes missed their targets and slammed into the orbitals, vaporizing thousands of years' worth of ancient and irreplaceable technologies. Lelouch winced as one of the construction yards disintegrated, its debris tumbling into the atmosphere and burning up. Imperial forces, while marginally more careful with their firepower, proved perfectly willing to smash through a shipyard or two with their weapons or even their armored prows in order to open up fire lanes.
With two fresh battle fleets bolstering the five battered ones, the defenders massacred the first several waves of enemies. Though a steady stream of ships emerged from the corrupted interior of Craftworld Altansar, each new wave of Chaos warships joining the fray had already endured devastating hit-and-run attacks courtesy of the Eldar and Black Knights fleets. Their crews already on the edge and having lost much of their fighting strength to ambushes, the reinforcements were easy pickings for the defenders. However, sheer weight of numbers won out in the end: the repeated sledgehammer blows of the Chaos assault eventually cracked the allied lines. Enemy warships flooded each minute flaw in the defenses, forcing their way through into lower orbit.
Lelouch's eyes flickered to the display of Mars' surface, his superhuman intellect rapidly cataloging each of the millions of triangles. The battle in space had become a contest of brute firepower, but the situation on the ground still called for precision. The wide, flag topology of the Tharsis region that had made it an ideal location for the Mechancium to construct its massive forges now made it an ideal beachhead for Abaddon's forces. He could already see clusters of red pressing against walls of multicolored triangles as enemy forces mounted break-outs.
"Sergeant Aurallo," Lelouch flagged down the closest technician, skimming his name and rank from the surface of his mind, "Is the Skinkirou ready for deployment?"
"Yes sir," the Sergeant turned to face him after a moment's delay, "The technicians are ready for you in Bay G-27."
"Thank you, Sergeant. Carry on."
Chaos Landing Zone
Tharsis Region, Surface of Mars
Crazed with bloodlust and combat drugs, the Khornate cultists writhed in their harnesses, pulling futilely at the restraints. With a great ripping sound, one of the blood-frenzied men managed to break free. The landing sent him flying and dashed his skull against a side panel. The harnesses released moments later, and the wave of cultists crashed against the rear wall, trampling over one another to be the first one out. The leader of the warband thrust his rusted chainsword into the air, revving it up for dramatic effect, as the light over the ramp blinked from red to green.
"Blood for the Blood God!" he roared.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!" came the reply.
Imperial Guard automatic weapons dug in beyond the ridge opened up, many of the rounds pinging uselessly against the dropship's armor. Several of the lighter members of the warband clambered up the still-lowering ramp and vaulted over the edge. A few cut-off screams and chunks of flesh reached the inside as they were shredded by the defensive fire. Raising their assorted melee weapons in the air and shouting war-cries, the rest of the warband followed seconds later when the ramp contacted the red Martian soil. Incoming stubber rounds vaporized half of the cultists before their feet even touched the ground.
A nearby dropship exploded as Leman Russ tanks opened fire, reducing nearby cultists to strips of bloody flesh. A massive plasma bolt finished off the crippled vessel, setting it ablaze. Several burning cultists ran out, screaming and beating futilely at the flames for several seconds before falling over. Basilisk artillery pounded the landing zone from afar, reducing entire battalions into a shower of bloody chunks and dropships into piles of twisted scrap.
Cheap, rugged, and able to take and dish out immense pain, the Leman Russ had served as the backbone of Imperial Guard armored forces for millennia. Unfortunately, crew comfort was obviously the last thing on the designers' minds. The crew of Leman Russ 34, of the Arcadian 34th Armored Regiment, operated in marginally more comfort than their peers. Within days of arriving on Mars, sand jammed the secondary weapons' rotation mechanisms. Lacking both the necessary time and resources, the Enginseers opted to simply remove the heavy bolters. The two sponson gunners who would have normally operated the weapons were assigned to other vehicles, and the remaining crew gained some elbow room.
"Leman Russ! Range three hundred-forty six meters! Altitude minus eight degrees, azimuth three degrees!" the commander called out, shouting to be heard even over vox.
The high-pitched whining of hydraulics echoed throughout the crew compartment as the main gun adjusted its aim. The gunner peered intently through his rangefinder, carefully lining the pippers up with the enemy armor silhouetted against the burning dropships below.
"Confirm," the gunner shouted into the vox after several seconds, "Leman Russ, three hundred forty-six, minus eight, three."
"Load AT!"
The loader, stockier than his companions but still fairly lanky by normal standards, easily lifted the twenty-kilogram shell from its rack and rammed it home.
"Up!" He called out as he raised and locked the breech.
"Fire!"
Despite possessing the best hearing protection Arcadia could afford to equip its troops with, the crew was temporarily deafened by the roar. The commander recovered first, reaching his periscope in time to observe the shell impact.
"Negative impact! Adjust azimuth plus zero-point-three!"
Once again, a high-pitched whine assaulted the crew's ears. The gunner's eyes were glued to the rangefinder and the loader's hands hovered over the ammunition hopper.
Black Knights 15th Militia Field Headquarters
Tharsis Region, Surface of Mars
"Ma'am, General Kururugi has arrived in orbit. However, the fighting in space and in the air is too heavy for a shuttle to safely navigate."
From the corner of her eye, Colonel General Majka saw a cluster of blue triangles on the tactical map engulfed and disappear within a swarm of red. They blinked out of existence within seconds.
"He is currently coordinating the fleet from the Jakarta, but plans to land within the next forty-eight hours," the communications technician concluded.
"Has he issued any new orders to the ground forces?"
"Negative, ma'am. He has instructed all officers to continue deploying their forces at their own discretions."
"Any news on our guest?"
"Yes, ma'am," another technician declared, "Medical bay reports he regained consciousness approximately half an hour ago. A guard detail has already quarantined the area."
"Ma'am, we've received an update from the guard detail. He is currently cooperative and has willingly surrendered himself to their custody. He requests to speak with you."
"Patch him through," Lilia ordered, intrigued by the turn of events.
Hangar Bay G-27
Space Station Ikaruga
Though its sleek lines would not look out of place on a more modern Knightmare, the Shinkirou's design clearly showed its advanced age. The process of preparing the ancient war machine for deployment had drawn in dozens of technicians and locked down an entire docking berth. The millennia spent in storage at the Valles Marineris facility had taken their toll, and the violent retrieval had not helped matters. Many of the Shinkirou's parts, almost all of which had not seen production since the exodus, needed replacement. The repair crews had plundered museum exhibits and archives—some of them dating back to the Age of Technology—for the necessary schematics and parts.
Lelouch walked in on a scene of barely-contained chaos as technicians performed last-minute diagnostics on clearly-ancient equipment. A dozen technical documents, some old enough to exist on physical paper, lay scattered around the chamber. Though the work never slowed, the immortal could feel all eyes in the room briefly gravitate towards him. The Emperor of Mankind casually strode towards the storage pod in the center, peering inside to find the Shinkirou's inner skeleton.
Modern Knightmares practically equipped themselves, featuring an intricate arrangement of metal plates that slid aside to admit the operator and then sealed shut to form a smooth armored surface. Though many now took the technology for granted, it proved impractical for mass production until the opening years of the Fourteenth Black Crusade. It had proved impractical in any incarnation, even in Kallen and Suzaku's custom-crafted Knightmares, until after the Great Scouring. The Shinkirou required a significantly more labor-intensive process.
The technicians did not so much as bat an eyebrow as Lelouch lifted the metal skeleton, by itself nearly metric ton, out of the pod and began disassembling it. The vest and pelvis frame went on first, held together by a dozen pins and straps. With an audible hiss, the thigh and leg components slid on and synchronized their servos. The arm and forearm locked in place with a sharp click, and a technician helped Lelouch fit the gloves.
"If you'll just lift your arms up," one of the technicians muttered in Lelouch's general direction as the others began laying out the Shinkirou's armor components.
Black Knights 15th Militia Field Headquarters
Tharsis Region, Surface of Mars
Even with the fairly limited capabilities of her Knightmare heads-up display, Colonel General Lilia Majka could tell their guest was large. Knelt in a silent meditative pose, the light-colored tunic he wore sharply contrasted with his dark skin. The security teams had confiscated his armor, but he easily stood taller than an Archangel Knightmare even without it. Every inch of his body rippled with muscle, and Lilia had the distinct feeling that he could have easily broken through the dozen militiamen guarding him without much trouble.
"Greetings," Colonel General Majka began after a moment of clearing her throat, "I am Colonel General Lilia Majka, leader of the Black Knights 15th Militia Group."
"Greetings, Colonel General Majka," the figure replied in a deep rumbling voice without opening his eyes or moving from his spot, "I am Vulkan, Primarch of the Salamanders Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes."
Black Knights 15th Militia Staging Area
Twelve Hours Later
Though grossly outnumbered, the fleets defending Mars managed to funnel the Chaos landing forces into a select few, heavily-fortified beachheads. Heavy artillery bombardments and dug-in automatic weapons slaughtered the first waves before they could capture much ground, but the dropships continued streaming down from orbit. Armed with little more than their zeal and the promise of eternal rewards, cultist threw themselves at the Imperial guns in massive waves to pave the way for their tanks.
"Here they come again! Stand your ground, men!"
With a grunt, Private Sean Macangus removed his bayonet from the cultist's still cooling body and dragged his exhausted body back to the edge of the trench. The chattering of heavy bolters and stubbers filled the air as the Guardsmen hurriedly snapped fresh charge packs into their lasguns. Explosions deafened them as artillery rained shells upon the advancing horde and allied armor traded fire with the enemy.
Feeling the ground shift, Sean froze as one of the Black Knights militiamen took the spot on the line next to him. Even as the two meter titan offered a reassuring nod, the Guardsman inched away. Sean had heard them refer to their armored suits as "Nightmares," and a more apt name he could not conceive. When the enemy reached the trenches and slaughtered the forward regiments, the power armored soldiers waded through the sea of gunfire and bayonets without fear, vaporizing entire squads of cultists with their weapons.
"We've got tanks cresting the ridge! Mortars, keep them suppressed while artillery draws a bead on them! Air support is coming around for another pass!"
His years of combat experience reasserting themselves, Sean shouldered his lasgun and simply held down the trigger as he pointed it in the enemy's general direction. The oncoming horde was so closely packed together that there was little need to aim. The hail of lasbolts shredded the forward ranks, but combat drugs kept the cultists fighting far beyond the point of reason. Sean watched as a lasbolt severed a cultist's arm, only for the mutilated and tattooed man to pick up his severed limb and wield it as a makeshift club. Another continued charging despite a gaping hole in her stomach. Stubber rounds vaporized yet another's legs below the knees, but he continued clawing forward along the ground when a sane man would have gone into shock.
A rapid-fire ripping sound assaulted Sean's ears as the Black Knights militiaman next to him opened fire. Other Knightmares joined in, driving the approaching swam back several meters with a wave of crimson. Low whump sounds echoed throughout the trenches as mortar teams gained their bearings and began lobbing high-explosive death at the enemy. A dozen cultists were reduced to a shower of gore and orphaned limbs wherever one of the rounds landed. Sean ducked down as Chimaeras roared over the trench, grinding the enemy to paste beneath their massive treads.
"Blood for the Blood God!"
Though they were mowed down by the thousands, the press of bodies kept Abaddon's forces moving forward. Chaos cultists clambered atop one of the armored transports, dragging the gunner out of his seat and beating the unfortunate Guardsman to death with improvised melee weapons. Another Chimaera went up in flames as a melta bomb-laden heretic made a suicide run, hurling himself under the vehicle's tracks and detonating his payload. Twisted scrap metal rained from the skies as a heretic Leman Russ tank's shells found their target.
"Where's that artillery?" one of Sean's neighbors screamed into his vox bead just before a stray autogun round punched through his helmet and emerged out the back.
Sean became acutely aware that his charge pack was depleted when the reassuring ozone-cracks of his lasgun suddenly ceased. With a practiced motion, he snapped the spent pack out of its well and dropped it onto the trench floor before reaching for his combat webbing. His stomach sank when his fingers closed around empty air. As the screaming horde of cultists drew closer, Sean propped his weapon against the trench wall and dropped to his knees, rifling through his dead comrades' gear in search of a fresh charge pack.
"Here," the Guardsman squawked in surprise as a massive pair of hands pulled him to his feet and shoved something into his hands, "Make it count!"
Sean looked up in time to see a Knightmare's retreating back then looked down in disbelief at the alien weapon in his hands. The Black Knights militiamen wielded them as sidearms, but the hadron pistol was easily as large as lascarbine in his hands. Gripping the weapon in both hands and taking careful aim, Sean returned to his spot on the line and began taking potshots into the cultist swarm.
"Counterbattery fire's doing a number on the Imperial artillery! They're trying to relocate, but there's not going to be any of them left if we don't knock out the enemy batteries!"
"Where's that air support? Enemy tanks are ripping us apart!"
"Heavy dogfighting all over the skies! Those Excaliburs aren't coming!"
"Dammit! Third Platoon, on me! We're going tank hunting!"
Sergeant Hyram Kava silently rallied the remaining members of his squad before taking to the skies himself. The micro-gravitric impellers kicked in so smoothly that he could barely tell where his jump ended and the upward thrust began. The cultists below turned their guns skywards in a vain attempt to halt the makeshift airstrike, but the incoming fire proved inaccurate and the few hits simply glanced off the Knightmares' armor. Hyram's heads-up display flickered for a split second as an autogun round slammed into his armor's left eyepiece, mushrooming and harmlessly falling to the ground below. The Imperial Guardsmen turned their guns to the enemy center, and the incoming fire slackened as more Knightmares rose up to join the Third Platoon.
"First Squad, with me! Sergeant Kava, hit their left!"
"Roger," Hyram switched channels with a thought, "Squad, hadron cannons!"
A quick mental impulse sent Hyram's own hadron cannons sliding forward on their tracks. As he surged forward with the eight remaining members of his squad close behind, the cannons' smooth casings slid apart, revealing triggers and grips. A sizable unit of cultists, former Imperial Guard from the looks for their uniforms, managed to rally and formed a bayonet wall in the low flying Knightmares' paths. Their newfround resolve grew weaker as the Black Knights drew closer and broke entirely when Hyram casually extended his hadron blade and decapitated their leader without slowing down. Eight more Knightmares crashed through the formation, slicing the remaining combatants to ribbons with their hadron blades or simply smashing every bone in their bodies with their massive momentum.
"Column of Leman Russ ahead! Van Der Hout, take out the lead tank! Leifsson, rear tank! Rest of you, give them some cover fire!"
Corporal Henrik Leifsson broke off from the main formation at high speed, buzzing his target and taunting its sponson gunners as he wove in and out of their firing arc. The infantry units surrounding the armored firing line sprayed lasbolts in a vain attempt to shoot him down. Many went wide, hitting the air or other cultists, and the few that found their mark splashed off Henrik's hadron fields. Hadron bolts shredded many of them, and a few pumps of the underslung scatter cannon sent the rest scrambling for cover.
As his squadmates suppressed the remaining infantry, Henrik set down behind his assigned target, deliberately scraping his feet against the ground to kick up a dust cloud. Aiming with the help of his infrareds, he loosed a devastating one-two punch from his hadron cannons. The first shot blew off a tread, while the second punched straight through the rear armor and emerged on the other side. The militiaman casually strode up to the killed tank and stuck the barrel of his hadron assault rifle through the gaping wound. A panicked scream was cut off with a pump of the scatter cannon.
"This is Leifsson, target down!"
"This is Van Der Hout, target down!"
Henrik barely suppressed a flinch as one of his squadmates dropped onto a neighboring Leman Russ, presumably from a great height, and crumpled the armor over the engine compartment with a loud crunch. With a roar, the militiaman drove a hadron saber deep into the tank's innards and ensured it would not move again. Another Knightmare clambered atop the crippled armored vehicle, carving through the commander's hatch with some difficulty and killed the crew with a few bursts of a hadron assault rifle.
Another Leman Russ was reduced to scrap when no less than three Knightmares unleashed a flurry of hadron cannon blasts onto it. Twisted and scorched metal and charred body parts rained down on the squad as a lucky shot detonated another tank's ammunition rack.
As the enemy armored vehicles went up in flames one by one, a great cheer tore through the trenches. The cacophony only grew louder as allied aircraft roared overhead, knocking many off their feet with the sonic booms. Far-off explosions reached their ears moments later, and the artillery that had plagued them for so long slackened then ceased entirely.
"For the Emperor!"
The revving of chainswords drowned out the cheering and praises to the Emperor as the Astartes contingent climbed over the lip of the trench and charged into the no man's land. The few cultists brave or foolish enough to continue pressing their failed attack broke and run at the sight, and the Emperor's angels of death showed no mercy. With righteous ferocity, they smashed through the horde with bolter and chainsword.
The cheering died and many a pair of eyes widened in horror as a stray lasbolt struck a standard bearer in the throat. Even as the youth died an agonizing and gurgling death, he held the banner he was entrusted with upright until he breathed his last. Several Guardsmen rushed forward to catch the falling regimental standard, but a Commissar beat them to it. Gripping the pole in one hand, he knelt down and closed the deceased's eyes. Slowly standing back up, he drew his chainsword with a flourish and raised both weapon and banner into the air.
"Guardsmen, follow me to glory!" he bellowed.
A united battle cry echoed through the trenches as the surrounding Guardsmen clambered out of the trench. A ripple effect permeated through the line as thousands of men and women joined the charge across the no man's land. Though the standard was battered and torn with age, one could still clearly see it belonged to the Cadian 84th Regiment. It mattered not. Whether Cadian, Vostroyan, Catachan, Valhallan, or one of the thousands of other worlds that the Imperium once encompassed, they all rallied behind the banner raised high as they charged into the no man's land.
The Imperial victory at Tharsis Plateau was merely a prelude to some of Terra's darkest days.
A/N: Hope this was worth the wait!
Also, the compiled Code Geass 50k soundtrack, with a few minor changes.
OP 1: Ruina Imperii - Sabaton
OP 2/Black Knights Theme: Union - Sabaton
Insert Song (Beneath the Red Sands arc): Suicide Mission - Mass Effect 2 OST
Insert Song (Great War/Great Crusade arc): The Lion from the North - Sabaton
Insert Song (Craftworld Invasion arc)/Eldar Theme: Glorious Land - Sabaton
Insert Song (Battle for Parynor): 1648 - Sabaton
Insert Song (Kallen vs. Fulgrim battle): Battle Music - Witcher 2 OST
Insert Song (Metal Monsters arc): Panzerkampf - Sabaton
Kallen Theme: Heart of Courage - Two Steps from Hell
Lelouch Theme: Carolus Rex - Sabaton
Suzaku Theme: Archangel - Two Steps from Hell
ED 1: En Livstid i Krig - Sabaton
ED 2: The Unsung War - Ace Combat 5 OST