A/N: Nobody panic! The new chapter is here! I know it took a long time, but real life called me away...
Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass or Warhammer 40k.
Chapter Thirty: Metal Monsters, Part V
Argyre Planitia Forge
Surface of Mars
"Watch your step, and keep pushing forward!"
As their allies cleared the surrounding buildings floor-by-floor, the 2nd Raiders fought their way up the debris-strewn avenue. They formed two ranks and used their hadron fields to slowly wade through the steady barrage of heavy stubber rounds and lasbolts. Several dozen Sisters and Skitarii crouched behind the mobile cover, taking potshots at the traitor Guardsmen and Iron Warriors slave-soldiers dug into the rubble ahead.
"Hadron fields depleted!"
As part of the translucent red antimatter wall flickered and died, the Raiders dropped to one knee and unleashed a torrent of cherry-red bolts. Those too slow in finding cover were vaporized almost instantly, and not even those behind rubble were spared. Screams of agony filled the air as missed shots reacted violently with the debris, blinding and horrifically burning cultists with the emitted radiation. The confusion allowed Raiders to swap out and reform their shield wall relatively unmolested.
Scant heartbeats after the final hadron field ignited, the Chaos forces rallied and continued their barrage.
Combine Forward Operations Center
Outskirts of Argyre Planitia, Surface of Mars
Though she was easily older than everyone else in the room combined, Nunnally felt just a little intimidated by all the pairs of eyes focused on her. Eldar Autarchs, Tau Shas'O, Imperial Lord-Generals, Astartes Primarchs, and Mechanicum Magi all sat around an inactive holographic projector, and their bodyguards crowded the conference room's perimeter. From their faces, she could tell that many of those present expected somebody of her rank and role in the upcoming offensive to look a little more impressive. She paid such sentiments no mind: those who underestimated the governor of the Black Knights never did so again.
A squad of Imperial Guard Storm Troopers parted as best they could to allow Nunnally and her companion—a Knightmare bearing the gold starburst of a Field Marshal—to pass. The chestnut-haired immortal took her seat at the table, inhaling deeply and squaring her shoulders as she primly folded her hands before her. The Field Marshal inserted a memory unit into the projector before taking the chair next to her. Several of the gathered leaders jumped in their seats as a crystal-clear projection of Argyre Planitia appeared in midair. The greyscale projection quickly turned red, with a thin sliver of yellow and a single blue triangle at the edge.
"According to the 2nd Raider Team's latest sitreps, this is the current situation within the Warp storm," began Field Marshal Schwer, "As you're all aware, the bulk of new Chaos landings are within the basin itself. Imperial forces still hold the main forges, but enemy offensives elsewhere are steadily widening the Argyre Planitia salient."
A sudden pressure building up in her head, Nunnally turned away from the presentation and closed her eyes. She let out a barely-audible groan of discomfort as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, waving away the bodyguard who stepped forward to check on her. Field Marshal Nikola Liesel Schwer continued as though nothing was happening, but she could feel the corner of his eye on her.
"Since the second wave of Chaos assaults nearly forty days ago, we've been reduced to reactionary tactics," Field Marshal Schwer concluded, "If we close this salient, we can break the back of the siege and finally seize the initiative."
The pressure having morphed into the sensation of white-hot nails piercing her skull, Nunnally considered excusing herself. In an effort to distract herself from the blinding pain, the governor set about committing every detail on the strategic map to memory. The currently-gathered fighting strength totaled one hundred ninety million infantry, five hundred ten thousand armored vehicles, two and a half million artillery pieces, and three hundred fifty thousand aircraft. From the rate of landings in the basin, Intelligence estimated the Chaos forces at three times that amount. The enemy siege lines measured two hundred kilometers deep at some places, with the majority of their armored forces at the northern and southern flanks.
"The Raven Guard is nearly seventy hours' rapid march away as of Primarch Corax's last message," Field Marshal Schwer argued, "Gathering our current force has already given Peturabo more than a month to prepare. We simply cannot afford to delay the operation by another two days."
Nunnally felt sudden warmth on her upper lip, followed by an unpleasant metallic taste in her mouth. Wide-eyed, she shakily bought a hand up to her face and wiped her mouth. A deathly silence had fallen over the assembled leaders, and the world seemed to spin. The governor saw her bloodstained fingers, her bodyguards surging forward, and then darkness.
Upper Spire, Britannia Hive
Holy Terra
In an effort to maintain a low profile, news of their arrival was suppressed until nearly the last second. The drop shuttle deposited them at the upper reaches of the hive's nearly-abandoned guest district, where a nervous delegation of Imperial officials awaited. If the presence of high-ranking Black Knights leaders did not buy their silence, the heavily-armed escorts did. The group was led without fanfare to a modest suite—an opulent palace in comparison to the squalor of the underhive—and left to their own devices.
The Psychic Special Warfare escorts occupied the central area, having moved the furniture off to the sides to create a makeshift sparring ring. The four moved in perfect unison, their motions as much a meditation as they were a battle. Each swung their monomolecular blades—forged to the user's preferences and balanced exclusively for their grips—with full force, attacking and dodging and parrying at speeds too fast for normal humans to comprehend. Even the tiniest misstep or moment of inattention would have fatal consequences. Lelouch alternated between watching them and the surrounding scenery from the suite balcony.
Located many kilometers above the surface, the viewing platform would have afforded a breathtaking view on nearly any other world. On Terra, they could only see a thick layer of smog stretching dozens of kilometers in every direction. Even to Lelouch's battle-trained eyes, he could see only the rare hive spire. His knowledge of humanity's exhausted home, however, told him that he wasn't missing out on very much: the Terran landscape consisted solely of sprawling hive clusters and caustic chemical oceans.
"Not much of a view, is it?" CC deadpanned as she leaned against the railing next to him.
"No," Lelouch agreed, "But that will change once Abaddon no longer threatens this world."
The subsequent silence lasted an uncomfortably long time.
"When news of Horus' betrayal reached us, we desperately wanted to intervene. Suzaku argued furiously for a general mobilization, and Nunnally had already drafted an executive order to begun war production," CC's voice wavered, "But our fleet was scattered throughout the galaxy at the time. By the time we gathered, all we could do was have Kallen lead surgical strikes behind enemy lines."
"An open intervention wouldn't have worked anyway," Lelouch shook his head, "You didn't yet have the numbers or the technology to do more than die needlessly."
For the second time in so many seconds, an uncomfortable silence descended upon the pair.
"She hides it well, but she does miss you," CC suddenly declared, her lips forming a coy smile.
She took Lelouch's raised eyebrow as license to continue.
"Kallen, I mean."
Lelouch's reply died in his throat as CC placed a finger over his lips. The remaining half-baked retorts swimming around his mind disappeared when the golden-haired immortal replaced her finger with her own lips.
"She intends to make up for the last twenty thousand years, and so do I," Lelouch gulped as a predatory gleam appeared in CC's eyes, "Your grand debut is tomorrow, Mr. Emperor, but I intend to have you to myself for tonight."
Kasimov Crater
Margarifiter Sinus Region, Mars
Centimeter by agonizing centimeter, Corvus Corax pulled his broken body over the Martian sands. Every breath bought forth blood and a fresh wave of pain as splinters of his shattered bones drove deeper into his organs. The swing of a Daemon Sword had destroyed one of his eyes, and his heavy bolter was destroyed ensuring he didn't lose his head as well. Though the vision in his remaining eye swam, he could see his fallen Power Whip lying mockingly out of his reach.
The Primarch of the Raven Guard could hear the sounds of desperate last stands and brutal deaths all around him. Psychic lightning and Warp fire scorched the land as legions of daemonic horrors flooded through the rips in reality. Diamantine met diamantine and Warp-forged metal met antimatter as small pockets of Raven Guard Space Marines and Black Knights militiamen pushed back against the enemy horde. Though heavily outnumbered and outgunned, they fought to the very end. Corax watched one of his Raven Guard throw a World Eater to the ground and smash the traitor's skull beneath his boot. He watched a militiaman wade through a fearsome psychic assault, disemboweling the Thousand Sons sorcerer at the miniature Warp storm's center moments before expiring.
The massive form of Magnus the Red stumbled into view, his staff whirling at incredible speeds as a dozen Knightmares pressed the attack. For each swipe of a blade or burst from a blaster that the fallen Primarch parried, two more found their mark. Though Corax could easily tell that the Black Knights had little chance of winning, the sheer ferocity of Colonel General Dieuwke Shaina and her top officers drove the giant back several paces. The head of Magnus' staff slammed into one of the officers, sending him flying several meters into the air. He skidded along the ground upon landing and didn't get back up.
With great effort, Corax pulled his ravaged body forward the last few millimeters and reached for his fallen Power Whip. As soon as his fingers touched the weapon's handle, a great force slammed down on the Primarch's head and lifted him off the ground. As every nerve in his body ignited with renewed agony, Corax bit down on his tongue to deny his opponent the satisfaction of hearing him scream. He could feel Angron's grip tighten—shattering what few unbroken bones the mortally-wounded Primarch still possessed—as the Daemon Prince hoisted him over his head. Corax managed to hurl a gob of acid, spit, and blood at Angron's face between the Daemon Prince breaking his back over his knee and being dropped to the ground.
As Angron's Daemon Sword descended for the killing blow, Corax steeled himself for one final act of defiance. He burned a warning into his very soul, and then compressed his essence into an infinitesimally-small point. Moments before his life ended, Corax watched the Colonel General reverse several of Magnus' blows, using the openings created to land several of her own. With a roar of rage, the red giant grabbed Shaina out of midair and vaporized her torso with a point-blank psychic lance. Then the blade pierced his chest, and Corax knew no more.
The resulting psychic shockwave incinerated the minds of countless cultists and Chaos Space Marines and almost completely cleansed the crater of daemonic taint.
Ecclesiarchal Palace
Holy Terra
Constructed from meter-thick sheets of ceramite sandwiching a core of solid adamantium, the front gates of the Ecclesiarchal Palace were surpassed—in either strength or splendor—only by those of the Imperial Palace itself. The Tech-Priests of Mars boasted that the mighty double doors—forged with methods long since lost to humanity—could withstand a head-on collision with a Titan and even strikes from a battleship's main lance batteries. Such claims had never been put to the test, even during the height of the Horus Heresy.
Lined with titanic statues of saints and martyrs, the atrium beyond could accommodate several dozen Sororitas Orders on parade with all their vehicles and equipment. The vox casters broadcasting hymns and praises to the Emperor had long since broken down, leaving only a solemn silence that was now shattered with the screeching of tortured metal. Rust and corrosion had spent millennia building up on hinges and locks unchecked, and the holy oils and incenses used by Cardinal and Tech-Priest alike to bless the gates had only worsened the damage. The brittle, ancient metal fell away in great sheets as once-fused gears slowly began to turn.
Though the atrium was empty, only a fool would think it unguarded. Mechancium Tech-Priests had blanketed the area with an intricate array of motion- and infrared sensors. Three fully-equipped Battle Sister squads, supplemented with gun servitors and reinforced rockcrete barricades, were permanently stationed at each exit. Nearby chambers converted into convent-barracks and an extensive network of secret tunnels and hidden doors allowed rapid deployment of reinforcements to any point within the atrium.
Yet, against the opposition they now faced, even the Ecclesiarchal Palace's carefully-planned defenses stood no chance.
Corridor Rho-34-Theta
Ecclesiarchal Palace, Holy Terra
"Never have I encountered a situation such as this one," a Tech-Priest's puzzled voice reported over the vox, "I oversaw the maintenance and re-anointment of the mechanisms myself, and the Machine Spirit is content. The door…simply…will not function."
An avalanche of technical failures accompanied the intrusion alarms, crippling the vast majority of the Sororitas force before a single shot was fired. Reports of power armor servos suddenly locking up, of blast doors abruptly slamming shut and refusing to reopen, of burst water and gas lines rendering huge swathes of corridors unpassable flooded the vox network. The one hundred Sisters trapped within Corridor Rho-34-Theta actually counted amongst the minority in that they could actually leave their convent-barracks. Such a slim silver lining would do little to placate their increasingly-agitated Mother-Superior.
"I could send for a heavy-lift servitor," the Tech-Priest offered, "But with the main corridors impassable, it'll have to come through the maintenance tunnels. It will be at least four hours before it arrives."
"The Ecclesiarchal Palace itself is under siege! We do not have four hours!" Mother-Superior Agrippina Gratiana shrieked, "Retributors, burn through this door!"
"That would be ill-advised," the Tech-Priest stated matter-of-factly, "The door is thick, and in such an enclosed space, you would be cooked alive before your multi-meltas could pierce it."
"Emperor grant my Sisters strength, and myself patience," Agrippina quietly prayed as she slumped against the wall in defeat.
Junction Sigma-Delta-Chi
Ecclesiarchal Palace, Holy Terra
"Squad Epsilon continues to disappear and reappear from the vox grid. They report nothing unusual, but the origin of their vox signals moves impossibly far between transmissions."
"Steel your faith, Sisters. We are confronted with sorcery most foul," Sister-Superior Prisca Decima commanded.
"Sister-Superior?" one of the Novices meekly spoke up.
"What is it?" Prisca whispered.
"I feel as though we've been doubling back. The last three junctions we passed were all designated Sigma-Delta-Chi."
A feeling of horror crept up the Sister-Superior's spine as she slowly raised her eyes to the brass plate above her squad's heads. The goose bumps sprang up so fast as to cause physical pain when she read the archaic symbols the Mechanicum used to label their sectors. Sigma-Delta-Chi.
"Sisters, hold your positions and do not make a single noise," Prisca ordered as she took off for the far end of the corridor.
A feeling of unease settled over the assembled Sororitas as the Sister-Superior's echoing footsteps suddenly ceased. A new set of footsteps behind them bought a dozen bolters to bear. When Prisca Decima rounded the corner to face them, they could only stare at one another in mute horror.
Combine Forward Operations Center
Outskirts of Argyre Planitia, Surface of Mars
Nunnally groaned in pain, a persistent and deafening ringing assaulting her ears as she returned from the blackness. She cracked her eyes open, slamming them shut again as the light overwhelmed her recovering senses. A relieved sigh escaped her lips as an unseen hand placed something cool against her forehead. The ringing started to slowly subside, replaced by an echoing far-off voice. As the sounds slowly came into focus, the governor of the Black Knights braved opening her eyes again and found herself staring at the conference room's bare metal ceiling.
"Ma'am, how are you feeling?" a red-and-white Knightmare kneeling besides her makeshift bed asked in a soft voice.
"Like I just lost a Mind War with an Eldar Farseer. How long was I out?" Nunnally groaned as she struggled to sit up.
"About half an hour," the medic replied matter-of-factly, one of his arms supporting her around the shoulders as the other lifted a canteen to her lips, "Here, drink slowly."
Field Marshal Schwer had taken control of the situation almost immediately. A medical team was already alerted and standing by as the governor's bodyguards moved their charge to the edge of the room. Once he was assured Nunnally was out of danger, he continued the meeting as through nothing had happened. The Field Marshal's calm demeanor had proven infectious, and the other leaders quickly stopped sparing even surreptitious glances at the unconscious woman.
"Can you help me up?" Nunnally turned to face the medic, the look in her eyes telling him that she would not accept no for an answer.
"It appears the epicenter of the blast is in the Kasimov Crater. We've got recon flights performing flyovers as we speak…" Field Marshal Schwer trailed off as Nunnally, holding onto the medical Knightmare's forearm with a white-knuckled grip, gingerly crossed the room.
"The Raven Guard and the 34th Militia Group have been annihilated," Nunnally gasped out as she slumped against the conference table for support, "Two Chaos Legions—the Thousand Sons and the World Eaters—are marching towards Argyre Planitia as we speak."
Main Atrium
Ecclesiarchal Palace, Holy Terra
The Seraphim Sister-Superior fastened her helmet and lifted her hand flamers aloft.
"To the skies, Sisters! Let us rain down the Emperor's wrath upon these blasphemers!"
A deafening roar filled the cavernous chamber as a dozen jump-packs ignited at once, sending the elite warrior-nuns arcing dozens of meters into the air. Several ducked their heads, avoiding the atrium's vaulted ceiling by mere centimeters as they reached the apogee of their jump. The statues below appeared as blurs to the Sisters as they began their descent, the massive front gates occupying an increasingly-large portion of their forward field of vision. The latches groaned as they were pushed to their very limits, and a thin—but slowly widening—crack of light appeared between the double doors. Sister-Superior Hilaria Domitilla reckoned her squad would land right in the midst of the intruders.
Hilaria had made so many jumps over the course of her life that she could determine her velocity by the pitch of wind screaming past her helmet's external feeds. She sensed the gradual premature deceleration moments before her suit sensors did. To an outside observer, the Sisters looked as though they were passing through viscous syrup rather than air. The Sister-Superior and her squad shot questioning looks at one another as they descent slowed, then stopped entirely. The Seraphim remained unnervingly calm despite an unseen force suspending them over a hundred meters in the air.
A rapid-fire series of deafeningly-loud snaps caused several to double over in agony, clutching their gauntlets over their sound feeds in a vain attempt to block out the noise. The ancient locking mechanisms had finally reached their limit, sending thousands of pieces of razor-sharp shrapnel—some as large as Exorcists—flying through the air. Hilaria could only mutely watch in a mixture of horror and relief as the statues below suffered the very fate her squad had narrowly avoided. The massive gates swung open with surprising speed, buffeting the Sororitas with the resulting gust of wind, and slammed into the surrounding wall with an echoing boom.
The Seraphim sufficiently reoriented themselves in time to look down and see two tiny figures stride through the entrance. One was hidden behind a flowing robe, and the Sisters felt uneasy just thinking about what lay below it. The other, an armored titan easily standing as tall as an Astartes, spared a fleeting glance in their direction before continuing.
In the final moments of the Imperial Cult, Hilaria and her squad would convince themselves that it was nothing short of an act of the Emperor that saved them from a gruesome death. They would soon find out just how right they were.
Ecclesiarch's Audience Chamber
Four Hours Later
Though outwardly calm, Canoness-Superior Floriana Tullia seethed with righteous fury as she stood atop a makeshift barricade with inferno pistol held aloft. The heretics defiled the Ecclesiarchal Palace with their mere presence, relying on sorcery most foul to avoid facing the Adepta Sororitas' wrath. They had advanced through the complex unopposed for nearly four hours, and Floriana was determined to end their mockery. Dozens of elite Celestians and gun servitors stood alongside the Canoness-Superior, training all manner of heavy weaponry down the long corridor before them. The Sisters' faith was beyond question, and their weapons were personally blessed by the Ecclesiarch himself. Against such defenses, the intruders' witchcraft would prove useless.
Floriana's trigger finger tensed as two pairs of echoing footfalls reached her ears. The sounds of bolt rounds chambering, pilot lights flaring, and heavy bolters spooling up soon drowned them out. None wavered as an armored titan and a robed figure rounded the corner, paying the heavy weaponry trained on them no mind.
"Open fire, Sisters! Destroy these blasphemers!"
"Too slow," a low, calm voice announced.
The armored titan still advanced towards the Sororitas' position, but it walked alone. Floriana suddenly became aware of the hooded figure standing before her. It held a plain yet elegant saber in one of its outstretched arms and an equally-plain scabbard in the other. Disinterested golden eyes regarded Canoness-Superior Tullia as she stood inexplicable mesmerized by the blade slowly disappearing back into its sheathe. Grunts of pain and the sound of metal clanging against the stone floors snapped the veteran Battle Sister back to reality, and she whirled around to see her Celestians collapsing one after the other. Gun servitors began spouting error messages as their heavy bolters slid apart, the barrels neatly bisected and the ammunition belts cut with such precision as to separate the individual rounds without damaging them.
"Fear not: your soldiers tasted only the back of my blade," the golden-eyed witch announced.
Canoness-Superior Floriana Tullia collapsed to the ground, a senseless heap, as the pain of a dozen pressure point strikes overwhelmed her senses. The inferno pistol slipped from her nerveless hands and skittered to a stop several meters away. As she struggled to draw breath, the armored titan casually stepped over her and towards the suddenly-open doors to the Ecclesiarch's chambers. The robed figure spared the subdued Sisters one final glance before joining her accomplice.
Outskirts of Argyre Planitia
Surface of Mars
Field Marshal Nikola Liesel Schwer regarded the scene before him with a measure of awe that not even his Knightmare's emotionless mask could fully conceal. Imperial Baneblades and Leman Russ tanks lined up in formations of hundreds. Battalions of Tau and Eldar grav-tanks stretched far into the horizon. Countless troop transports and masses of infantry were arrayed behind the heavy armor, ready to charge at a moment's notice. Nunnally stood beside the Field Marshal, her eyes staring past the gathered army towards the kaleidoscope of impossible colors rising above the horizon.
"Ma'am," a Psychic Special Warfare operative blinked into existence besides her, "Squad Zero stands ready."
"Then let us begin," the governor of the Black Knights nodded as three more operatives flashed into existence.
Nunnally took a deep, calming breath and exhaled equally slowly. Her arms hung loosely at her sides as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Field Marshal Schwer took a cautionary step back as the quartet of Psychic Special Warfare drew their blades and readied for the coming onslaught. Nunnally's eyes shot open, revealing pits of Warp fire. Tendrils of hair began floating as though underwater as the very air around her pulsed with concentrated psychic power. The Eldar Farseers gathered nearby could only stare in barely-hidden awe as the petite governor rose into the air.
The sheer amount of psychic might Nunnally channeled made her soul, normally invisible to the denizens of the Warp, shine brighter than any beacon. Horrific screeching filled the air as daemons clawed their way into the Materium in hopes of gorging on the governor's mind. Squad Zero leapt into action, their blades whirling through the air and cleaving a dozen daemons in half with each stroke. Though more horrors flooded through the weakening veil between madness and reality with each passing second, the operatives stood their ground and refused to give so much as a single step.
The ground rumbled and gouts of psychic lightning descended from the skies, piercing the veil that isolated Argyre Planitia. A pillar of light, visible even to the warships in orbit, surrounded Nunnally and incinerated any daemon that dared approach. The Warp storm violently flared for a split second, spitting lightning and fire many kilometers into the air, before calming and slowly fading away. The pillar of light disappeared, and Nunnally slowly lowered her exhausted body into the waiting arms of Squad Zero.
Field Marshal Schwer wasted no time, raising his flare gun towards the sky and firing. A bright red streak arced high over troops gathered below, reached its apex, and fizzled out. Dozens more flares shot into the skies in rapid succession as the signal was passed down the line. A far-off rumbling signaled the beginning of the artillery bombardment, and the skies filled with the droning of countless aircraft.
"This is Field Marshal Schwer to all ground forces: commence Operation Desert Goliath."
A/N: And this is as good a time to stop as any! What horrors await our brave defenders? Just what is Squad Zero? What are the "metal monsters"? Well, the answers are simple: you'll have to keep reading, you'll have to keep reading, and it's possible that not even I know! See you all later!