In the Pillar
Syrano stepped back, avoiding a strike and then froze. The lychguard rather than finishing its paralysed prey, adjusted its shield and raised its sword in salute. A figure appeared on the throne. Sitting back as though it had always been present and simply waiting for the right moment to reveal itself. Shorn of the human disguise it had worn the necron commander slowly stepped to its feet. Still clutching its black staff but otherwise completely changed from the hunched human doctor it once pretended to be. The body was grey, but chased with gold inlayed text that could have been mathematical symbols or wildly complex decoration. A golden crest now topped its skull, prominently displaying the circle and helix that had marked the entrance of the complex. Kryn looked round in confusion. All three Astartes were unmoving and both Tarik and Cormack had frozen mid-stride. Nothing had changed aside from the appearance of the commander so she dropped to one knee and fired at the figure on the throne. The bolts stopped in mid air then exploded. The commander leapt, covering the length of the room in a single bound. Kryn managed to fire off the rest of her clip, but the speed the necron moved left most of her shots going wide. A couple hit doing damage to the ornate armour but not slowing the figure in the slightest. A backhanded blow sent her bolt pistol flying across the room and even as she reached for her shockmaul, knowing a shotgun would have no effect on such a heavily armoured target, the staff swung round. The blow was delivered with such force she was flung into the nearest wall. Her arm broken, armour buckled and ribs shattered by the blow. The necron stood for a moment waiting to see if she would try to get up. Her first and last attempt drew a gasp of agony that sprayed a mist of blood across the inside of her visor. She assumed at least one rib had pierced a lung. She had landed almost sitting up which would give her more time before she drowned in her own blood but against a superhuman opponent she was good as dead already. Satisfied she was no threat it walked over to Syrano. It stared for a moment at the psyker then brought its staff down hard. There was a sickening crunch. Then the necron kicked out. Syrano's body clattered to the ground. Kryn glad that the way he fell spared her from seeing what remained of his head.
There was a series of harsh mechanical sounds and she realised the necrons were talking. The grating lasted a few moments then the lychguard bowed and disappeared through the portal. The commander stalked back to his throne and sat. Staff in one hand, the other rested on the controls that lined the arms of the throne. After a brief pause it gently brushed a sequences of lights.
"Rychek I presume?" Tarik's voice was laboured, as though he was struggling for breath.
"That's Cryptek Rychek to you, primitive. Should I care who you are?" The necron's voice was still that of a cultured high ranking imperial doctor.
"No. But you will care who I represent."
"The Inquisition. An upstart organisation. I have met many inquisitors. Some came to talk, some to bargain. Most just screamed until they died. Which sort are you?"
"Talking."
The tall necron lazily moved over to inspect the frozen Inquisitor. A green glow from the staff seemed to illuminate parts of Tarik.
"Powered blades. Clumsy, but effective. Overcharged las pistol, primitive, barely effective. Heavy augmentation for a non-priest. Just about functional, but would need regular repair. Hmm what's this?"
Rycheck's arm shot out and he flicked the catches of Tarik's body armour, bringing it close for an inspection.
"This is quite effective shielding, I've not seen anything like this in your Imperium before."
"Archaeotech." Tarik acknowledged. Ignoring the slights from the rest of Rychek's examination.
"Might have known. The humans finally do something almost clever then forget how. But... you're running this constantly. Your primitive power cells can't take that sort of draw." He put a hand over the shield emitter and his hand blurred, flowing over and into the device. "I see, this is not the original. You copied this." He glanced over at Cormak. "Recent materials, crude workmanship. But you failed to understand the purpose of all you copied. There are redundant ports and inputs, this was only half of the system."
Now the blur took on shape, the round emitter filling out and a silvery rectangular framework surrounded it. Rychek threw the whole armoured chest piece, emitter included in the air and fired three times with his staff. There were 3 white flashes and the amour hit the floor unharmed.
"Surprisingly effective. With appropriate modifications might even be useful as an upgrade to basic armour, if I can disguise the origins. Well, you managed to interest me. That is unusual. Now to the screaming and dying."
"I thought talk was an option." Tarik gasped out.
"What is there to talk about? Your attempt at infiltration here is defeated. Your system defence force is trying to stop a Scythe Harvester ship with a bunch of junk ships. You'd need twenty of them to stop a single Jackal raider, and my... the Mephrit Overlord has brought two."
"That's what we thought." Tarik grinned. "You do know we've been building those junk ships for nearly two centuries now."
"A decade, a century, you worry about such brief periods." The necron sneered.
"They finish a ship a week. You should worry about your mathematics."
The necron jerked suddenly. Attention totally focused on the central dais. The display zoomed to an unremarkable patch of space where the three necron ships were about to engage the human fleet which was represented by a single icon. That icon suddenly split, one per human ship. The screen filled with a great cloud.
"What? No! This can't be."
"Maybe you should start to worry about such brief periods."
In Orbit
"They're firing again!" The ensign called out.
The necrons had better range and accuracy. Every time the three necron ships fired three human ships were crippled or outright destroyed. The main guns of the Harvester in particular carved through shields and armour alike. While the 3 necron ships had almost free movement Ulrich knew the Captain of the Legacy was struggling to coordinate the fleet. Despite this they were now in position.
"All ships fire on the escort designated Jackal 1." The Captain ordered. At her word every pitdog fired its main lance. Individually they were powerful weapons that would not have looked out of place as part of a cruiser's broadside. But individually they would have done little damage to the necrons advanced shields, let alone the self-repairing armour. Together the beams congregated and lit up the necron Jackal, large parts of it hitting the temperature of the local star. Even the ancient technology of the xenos was unable to survive that level of energy. After three seconds the beams shut off, capacitors drained but the damage was done and what remained of the Jackal floated on as twisted metal, cooling rapidly.
"Hammer of Ursulon move in and put a rolling broadside into that wreck. I do not want it magically fixing itself" The Captain looked at the display. "Tetran ground give us a firing solution on the next vessel, all ships charge and prepare to fire in 300 seconds... Mark."
The Pitdogs could overcharge the main cannon to achieve the sort of firepower necessary to take out a necron ship, but the recharge time was horrendous and the necrons would be able to return fire at least 5 times before they could fire again. Ulrich saw the Captain knew she had signed the death warrants for another 10 ships.
"They are trying the lightning arc again." A tech adapt sang out from one of the sensor arrays, registering the power build up.
"Maintain separation."
Crackling lightning bolts snapped out from the two remaining necron ships. The shields of the two ships bearing the impact imploded and green sparks tore into armour before jagging out to the next nearest ship in turn. Against a close packed enemy these arcs could disable multiple ships. But the Imperial fleet was prepared for this an had spread out. While nothing could save the initial target the overpowered shields of the pitdogs, together with distance ensured that subsequent hits damaged or destroyed shields but left the ships still able to attack.
"Cronos Beach and Tiger Claw both destroyed. 15 other vessels hit, 2 have lost void shields. All capable of firing." another ensign reported, one of a team trying to handle the weight of communication between the fleet's vessels.
"They took 147.9 seconds to fire again the first time they used their lightning arcs. It is reasonable to assume a similar delay this time." The tech adapt reported, to a brief nod of acknowledgement from the Captain.
"Could be an error on their side, they would have done more damage over that time with their main weapons."
The seconds ticked by punctuated only by adepts reporting the destruction of further Imperial ships.
"We have a solution on the second Jackal."
"Broadcast, get those ships in position."
Frantic communications ensued. The necron ships were difficult to detect with the targeting arrays possessed by system defence vessels so large arrays on and around the planets were being used to triangulate both the Imperial and xenos ships. From that the angles could be transmitted to ensure that the Imperial ships were able to take a shot at the intruders without any friendly fire. But it was a clumsy process during which the particle whips of the necron ships struck out three more times, each strike crippling or killing another pitbull.
"Time to full power strike?"
"15 seconds."
"All ships ready on target designate Jackal 2." Verod waited the final few seconds. "Mark."
The second Jackal died the same way as the first. Although the heavy necron firepower had outright destroyed a dozen ships, many of those that were merely crippled were still able to fire. And the majority of the Imperial ships were still undamaged. Brilliant lance beams transfixed the second necron ship and it melted and crumpled.
"Anvil of Faith, move to 345.233.119. Rolling broadside on that hulk. Make sure it won't get back in the fight."
The second cruiser, fresh from its duties escorting Imperial Guard regiments moved to imitate its sister ship. The two pouring round after round into the apparently inert necron raiders, bitter experience hard-learned from previous engagements warning that even apparently dead necron ships could oft-times recover and fight.
The Captain sat back in her command seat seeming a little more relaxed. Though the two ships that had been disabled had a fraction of the power and destructive weaponry of the remaining Scythe Harvester the pack tactics that had been developed by the Inquisition for the defence of Tetran appeared to be working exactly as planned.
"So are they going to phase out now?" Ulrich asked, knowing the necron habit of vanishing whenever a battle was going badly.
"Maybe. They could cut and run, or..." The Captain leaned forwards again spotting something in the tactical display.
The Scythe began to accelerate. Great generators pulsed with unnatural energies as the huge capital ship moved with the grace of a small frigate.
"Target Scythe prime coming straight at us." The ensign at the scanner station reported. A trace of fear present for the first time since the engagement began.
"Comms: Broadcast – 'Ghostmaker'. Helm full reverse, weapons give me rapid continuous salvos from the dorsal cannons. Ensign I was time to impact, 30 second intervals." She glanced at Ulrich's quizzical expression. "The guns probably won't hurt it, but the recoil will propel us away faster."
"Turning to give a broadside?"
"Our best armour is at the front. Though if it comes to it... All gun crews, I want all portside batteries ready to fire on my mark. Full dose on my call. "
"3 minutes to impact" Sang out the ensign as the marker on the tactical display began to visibly close on the Imperial lines.
Though the Scythe accelerated quickly to a speed any Imperial capital ship would have taken several minutes to attain, the distances in a ship to ship engagement were huge. Meanwhile 4 ships that had been in formation behind the Legacy themselves accelerated towards the Scythe. They quickly outpaced the Legacy as it slowly killed its forward inertia and began to move backwards. All four of the pitbulls adjusting their trajectories to put them on a collision course with the alien ship. The primitive ramming tactics must have been obvious to the necrons but with their ship's superior armour compared to the smaller, almost unarmoured Imperial vessels their commander obviously considered it of little threat. A particle whip lashed out at one of the ships that had slightly outpaced its three companions. The shield held briefly before the emitters exploded and green fire crawled across the front of the ship eroding through deck after deck. Somehow the remaining husk still had functioning engines despite the front third of the vessel simply vanishing. With the loss of mass it accelerated even faster while the Scythe's own motion more than doubled the closing speed. They smashed together the remaining superstructure of the Imperial ship crumpling until the oversized fusion core that powered the ship breached and the remains turned into a brief plasma fireball.
The ship, like it's companions was run by servitors and a skeleton crew, trained by the Inquisition and put in place for this final run. The weapons were inactive, the drive ramped up to maximum and the power plant fuelled above capacity and on a hair trigger. None of the half dozen crew survived. Nor had they expected to.
Now, too late, the necrons realised the danger. While the impact damage was superficial the rupturing power plant had turned the ship into what was effectively a huge plasma torpedo. The remaining three ships were spaced out just far enough that their shields survived the rupture of their comrade's drive. But far too close for even a necron vessel to avoid. The second hit, its shields folding instantly before its core ruptured in turn causing the crescent at the front of the necron ship to lose one of its spikes. The broken fragment tumbled the amour at its edge forming distorted curves as it tried to reconnect with the rest of the ship. A particle whip flashed out, but this seemed underpowered compared to previous blasts and while it took down the shields of a pitbull it did nothing more than superficial damage to the hull. The Scythe tried to pull into a clumsy turn which just ensured the next impact hit it in the side, this explosion causing the necron engines to flare and die before the final impact added to the damage.
"One minute to impact!"
"All ships fire on the Scythe." The Captain ordered. Over a hundred lance beams shot out. While not charged to their full potential they were still potent and in huge numbers. The shields and armour of the Scythe might have been sufficient to survive even this onslaught when undamaged. Now with shields gone and much of the armour ablated away by the repeated impacts the internal functions of the ship were splayed open and cut away by ravening laser light. What remained was still on a collision course with the Legacy.
"Thirty seconds."
"Fire full broadside. All port thrusters fire."
The ship shuddered, the superstructure vibrating as the mass weapon discharge and thrusters firing pushed it beyond its design tolerances
"Ten seconds."
"Brace for impact."
The last gamble was still not enough to avoid the corpse ship but enough to ensure it hit a glancing blow to the front armour rather than a direct impact. The ship shuddered again. Void shields screaming before they collapsed. The grind of metal on metal reverberated through the vessel. Armour sheared off. Compartments torn open and the ship spun round like a child's toy. But still, it survived.
Ulrich clapped Captain Verod on the shoulder in appreciation. On the tactical screen the markers for the three necron ships glimmered then vanished.
"They've gone."