Ch 2: Spoils of War
A green field opened before Hermes as his eyes adjusted to the brilliant sun of Macragge. He put a hand above his eyes to shield himself from the white glow. Whispers surrounded him as he stepped into the meadow, his bare feet brushing the grass as he walked. The warm sun bathed his skin, and pleasant memories presented themselves before his eyes, and faded out of existence as quickly as they had come. Memories of battles past, fought against Xenos and human alike, where he had won the glory and admiration of his brothers.
The whispers brushed words of encouragement across his ears, as light and gossamer as a feather's touch. Some thanked him for his service to the Imperium and to his legion, while others wished him a good journey through his subconscious. Some even sounded like the voice of his Primarch. These visions, however, were nothing new. He knew he was dreaming. He had been for what felt like centuries. But still, they were a welcome sound in this field of eternal bliss.
A river was born before him, and he waded in up to the knee, and stooped to drink of the cool water. It tasted sweet upon his tongue. Here, he still had a tongue with which to drink. Here, his wounds had healed, and he was whole once again.
He continued to walk, lazily sauntering past the newly- forming groves of sweet apples, and the tall reeds of Albin's cane that scented the air with their honey-like nectar. He would enjoy plucking one of those apples, and tasting its flesh once again, but he knew this was not destined to pass, for the hill in the distance was always his destination.
There, memory burst from his psyche, and he would be a boy once again. She was there too. He had only the vaguest of memory of her, but here, she was always clear. And they would laugh and frolic through the green fields to their heart's content, until they both collapsed in the grass, destined to start the dream over again.
He climbed the hill to find her seated under a tall tree of lively oak. Small mammals danced and played through its branches, and her gaze turned up to them. Her hands danced over a small scrap of parchment before her as she struggled to capture them in their happy romp. He approached, and sat beside her, trying his best not to break her concentration.
Her eyes lit up as she noticed the Astartes, and she wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, shouting "Big brother!" He laughed and reciprocated her hug, his chest shaking with pent- up laughter. "You've come back!" she shouted happily. She stared up at his large physique, and stated with a giggle "And you're bald!" Hermes bellowed a hearty laugh and hugged her again. Her hand reached up to rub his shined dome. He stood and picked her up in his strong arms.
"I'll always come back to you." He replied kindly. "You look lovely," he said, prompting her cheeks to flush. "Did mother buy you a new dress?" She nodded happily. "Yesterday. She says if I keep growing, she'll have to buy me a new one tomorrow." He smiled at this. Another whisper passed his ears, this one female, and less silky than all of the others. His battle- hardened mind began to race with anticipation, and a warm sensation buzzed in his chest. However, he put it out of his psyche. Now, there was playing and laughter to be shared.
He placed her on the ground, and knelt to her level. "Would you like to play a game?" he asked her. To his dismay, she shook her head. "Not today. They told me you can't stay long." He frowned, and asked "Who told you that?" "They did," she said. "They told me they need your help." The whisper suddenly came back, this time with more intensity. Ancient one, it seemed to say, wake up.
Hermes knew what would come next. He turned from his sister. "I must be going." He said gloomily. "Will you come back?" came her reply. He turned to her and smiled. "Always, my dear. How could I ever forget about you?" he replied, as this heavenly world faded from existence.
The sun was soon replaced by the glow of lumen globes. The fields, by the sheen of dank metal. Tower buttresses soared above him as read-outs and schematics soon flooded his vision. His arms felt heavy with the weight of fully-charged armaments. Here, the world was a far different place. Here, the world was grim and dark, and his duty switched from pleasant dreaming to that of destruction.
His wounds had not healed, but sealed away in this amniotic sarcophagus, he was no longer in pain. His seven- meter chassis whirred to life, and his exhaust stacks billowed with black smog that nearly drowned out the swirling incense. A small woman stood before him, clad in a white, hooded robe, and bristling with augmented wires that connected to a pack on her back. He spoke, and his deep, guttural voice was electronically rendered to the outside world "Where are we?" he asked, causing the very walls to shudder with the sound of his presence.
"We are at a world called Conquer, Ancient Hermes. And you are needed once again." Her voice sounded strange, and tine. As if her vocal cords had not been augmented yet. Her face was a maze of wiring and bulged flesh, but it was still mostly flesh. She was an initiate of the Mechanicum, he decided. One who had barely begun her journey to becoming more machine than human. "Do I have a mission briefing?" He asked. "Yes," she replied. "It has been uploaded to your system." A flash of blue light shone across his eyes, and the information flooded his brain. In that instant, he knew everything he needed to do.
"Will my drop pod be ready?" "Yes, ancient one. The legion has already begun deployments. You are to lead an assault just ahead of the army." "I understand." He stated dryly. He stepped from his plinth, and lumbered down the great hall, to where the battlefront awaited him.
Among the legions, it was a great honor to be encased in a Dreadnought. A nigh- indestructible piece of machinery that entwined with the user's neural synapses, thereby becoming his very flesh. Hermes bore this honor with solemn humility. At first, he hated his metal tomb, and regretted the fact that his grievous wounding had brought him to this in the first place. However, soon, he grew to accept it, and even rather enjoy some aspects of his new status. He was free to retreat into his own mind whenever he wished, and dream the centuries away, until the staccato bark of battle called to him once more.
He lumbered into a most- empty embarkation bay, where an enormous drop pod waited to shuttle him to the planet's surface. Shivers ran through the ship as her orbital cannons fired, and lance beams lit up the nearby viewing portal. The battle for this world was already intense. He prepared himself to unleash every ounce of his fury on the Xenos foe that besieged this world, and tried to balance his humors.
He carefully checked his weapons systems. His assault cannon was at full capacity, and his twin flamers had full tanks of promethium. His siege claw flexed. He was ready. All around him, army units were boarding storm birds, in anticipation of his decent to the planet. Eyes cast upon him, and turned away. Several soldiers made the sign of the Aquila as he passed, and several reached out to touch his carapace.
The drop pod before him opened, and he boarded the tiny vessel. All eyes were on him as the door closed. His virtual map opened and pointed out a location with the highest concentration of enemy activity. This was to be his drop point. He primed his weapons systems as the pod dropped into the atmosphere. "Courage and honor." He repeated to himself.
Xasze 'Muham watched the sky as it came alight with what seemed to be metallic comets. He had not encountered such a thing before, and wondered what sort of omen this could spell for the rest of the campaign. Surely, the Prophets would have told him that there was something coming, else they wouldn't have given their full blessing in this holy war. Perhaps "war" was not a proper term for it. The planet's defenses were broken, and now, they were on to extermination.
The populace here was weak, and many of them readily surrendered to the Covenant forces. They should have known by now. There was no surrender. Not here. Not with him. The gods desired their destruction, and he was obliged to carry this implicit order out.
Several of his Kig-Yar cohort gathered to his side. "Sir," one of them voiced in his strange accent. "This domicile is clear. Shall we move to another location?" He nodded curtly. "Pass out rations to your men. And have the Unggoy burn the bodies. The humans' stench offends me." The Kig-yar sped off to his waiting squad without another sound.
Black smoke rose from several of the buildings as the smell of burning corpses filled the air. The humans were such delicate things. Their skin and bones easily crumbled under the bolt of a plasma weapon, leaving them in charred ruin.
Ashes fell from the billows of smoke. He stepped through the rubble into the center of this village square. The outskirts of the city were dimly lit at best, but after the power had been killed, the night sky had seemed somehow iridescent. He did not remember hearing of solar flares on this planet, and wondered if this may be an atmospheric anomaly.
More comets zoomed past in flaming arcs. The distant boom of their impacts filled the air. Perhaps this was a product of the destruction of the planet's moon. He hadn't been close enough to examine the falling debris, and was unsure if it was metallic, or stone.
Another Sangheili marched into view and made a quick motion with his fist against his helmet. His blue armor shimmered his suppressor field's glow. He called out "Major. Communications seem to be down." The red armored Sangheili walked to meet his inferior. "Have you tried squelching your channels? Perhaps it is an effect of this comet storm." "I have, but only receive static." Xasze clicked his mandibles in irritation "Return to the rear when you can, and have a huragok fix it. We'll maintain battle-sign until then." He retorted.
The comets were getting closer now with each passing moment, and Xasze vaguely wondered if they would have to fall back until the storm cleared. As a small band of Kig-yar approached him once again, a dull shriek split the air. A fire ball lit the ground around them. Suddenly, the smoke was clearing, and the ashes blew outward, as if some wraith had simply blown them all away.
One of the comets was approaching. It flew straight down, and was vaguely pyramidal in shape. It trailed brilliant fire, but its sides were painted a deep blue. "Take cover!" the Sangheili shouted. The ground forces scattered, Xasze took cover behind a nearby vehicle. The object slammed into the ground with the force of a large explosive. Several of the Unggoy were unlucky enough to be directly in its path, and were immediately crushed on impact.
The smoke cleared, and small explosive at the object's apex forced its sides open, like a blooming flower. The Kig-yar readied their shields, and several approached it nervously, weapons at the ready. "Hold fire until the threat presents itself." Xasze called to his troops.
Out of the darkness of the craft's interior, a large shape came lumbering on robotic legs. It must have been tens of cubits in height, and its top gave way to a steeply sloping box- like appearance. It rushed out with incredible speed for such a large thing, and crushed the nearest Kig-yar with its dreadful weight.
The covenant opened fire. Plasma bolts impacted against the thing's carapace, but simply left smoking scorch marks. Needler fire grazed its flanks, and simply exploded where they hit. Through it all, the thing seemed to be laughing in deep, guttural tones. Its arms raised, and simply batted away several of the Kig-yar. They flew several meters in the air, before their bodies impacted nearby buildings.
The Unggoy backed away, maintaining fire on this metallic hulk. A glow from both of its arms suddenly showered them in blue- red flame. Their methane tanks exploded, and many were incinerated where they stood. Xasze's plasma rifle overheated. He held up the smoldering weapon, attempting to allow it to cool, but the thing's onslaught would soon reach him, he realized. "Fall back!" he called to his remaining forces.
The Kig-yar turned and began to run, covering their backs and heads with their hand- held shields. The thing bellowed its joy to the heavens, and shouted in a deep, human voice "Turn to me and meet thy doom, Xenos!"
A weapon on its arm began to spin as it took aim at the retreating covenant. Gunfire erupted from the whirring device, and shredded stone and Kig-yar alike. It immediately overwhelmed their shields, and tore their bodies into sprays of bloody viscera. An unlucky Kig-yar, whose legs seemed to no longer function, attempted to crawl away, but was crushed under one massive foot.
Xasze turned to his fellow Sangheili, only to find that he was gone. The inferior commander ran across the killing field, plasma sword in hand. It would prove to be his last act of defiance. He attacked the being, and gouged a glowing scar down its right leg. However, it barely seemed to penetrate its armor. It lifted him up by the head in its clawed hand. The Sangheili's armor glowed and flickered. The sound of sparking reflector field armor was soon replaced by the screech of metal- on- metal, and soon, by the wet crack of bone.
Orange blood leaked from the thing's fingers, and it hurled the Sangheili's ruined body to the ground in front of it, as if in challenge.
Xasze looked to his left, then his right. Very few of his Kig-yar remained, and only one Unggoy still crouched behind cover. The rest were either dead, or had deserted. A Kig-yar attempted to ready his shield. Thudding foot-steps soon announced the thing's attack. They started slowly, but soon quickened. The thing's shoulder slammed into their position, and they were crushed, like many of the others. Xasze stiffened. Now, he was alone. He wondered what would happen in the moment of his death. And more importantly, what this thing was.
He stood upright, and bellowed a challenge to the creature. It turned to face him. "The Emperor's light shall burn out your filth!" it yelled. It reached down, and picked up a piece of destroyed concrete that seemed to be twice the size of any normal Sangheili, and simply threw it without a second thought.
Xasze Mu'ham's vision filled with the approaching debris, then simply went black. The creature's laughter echoed through his fading consciousness, and its footsteps simply left.
"Fifteen seconds to planetary impact." Came a metallic voice over the pod's vox speaker. Cassius gripped his grav-harness tightly with one hand, and mentally ran his war plate through one final systems check. The pod began to shake violently. Outer stabilizers fired, and their decent slowed, but only barely. Twenty Astartes lined the walls, each performing their own checks and final weapons calibrations.
Bolters locked and loaded, and plasma rifles glowed to life, bathing their users in an eerie blue tint. "Remember, brothers." He called out over the din "Kill without mercy. Break their will to fight." Twenty fists slapped chest plates in acknowledgement.
"Ten… nine… eight…" Cassius gripped his harness tighter. He always hated planetary impact. Not that he was afraid, for he had not known fear. He simply hated the bone- jarring slam into the ground. He always felt as though he was locked into an artillery shell with barely any protection from enemy fire, and no real direction.
He mag-locked his boots to the floor. "Seven… six… five…" the vessel's onboard vox sounded. He could already hear the sounds of combat leaking in from outside. "It sounds as though our brothers didn't wait for us. Show them up!" laughter filled the pod. "Four… three… two… one." The pod smashed into the ground below. It shook with the impact.
Cassius unlocked his harness, stood, and unsheathed Skarhelm. Explosive bolts blew the doors down on their hinges. "Courage and honor!" Cassius shouted over the cacophony that followed. He thumbed the activation switch on his gladius, and it was covered in a sickly blue repulsor field.
He charged from the pod, his crimson cape fluttering behind him. His squad followed suit. They had landed in midst of the enemy. Several of the smaller Xenos shrieked and attempted to run, only to be cut down by bolter fire.
A bird- like alien wielding a shield rushed Cassius, and fired a weapon that appeared to fire some sort of glass shard. One of these darts impacted his pauldron, and exploded, leaving a small divot in the ceramite. He swung his sword down against the creature's shield. His gladius met with resistance against the energy field surrounding the shield's frame, however, this creature was weak compared to the Astartes. He easily stepped to the side, and battered its shield away. Skarhelm plunged into its abdomen.
Viscera spilled from the wound, and blood sizzled and steamed from his sword. The thing collapsed with a gurgle. Cassius turned behind him, and cleaved a smaller creature's skull in two with a quick sweep from Skarhelm. Chainswords screamed around him, and Xenos burst with explosive bolter rounds.
A small, glowing round careened off his curved pauldron, leaving a black scorch mark in its wake. He quickly drew his bolt pistol, and fired it into the nearest Xenos, unsure if this was his attacker. The alien's chest burst open with bright blue viscera. He fired again, hitting another in the back.
The creatures seemed to be retreating now, and the Astartes followed. The dull, metallic hiss of a plasma gun discharged somewhere behind him, and carbonized the head of one of the bird- like creatures retreating before them. It went sprawling, and twitched several times, before finally falling still.
Several Astartes in gleaming terminator plate passed Cassius and opened fire on a nearby building. A small, glowing globe fell from an upper story window, and stuck to a terminator's pauldron. The tiny, glowing sphere exploded in a shower of sparks and super- heated gas. The terminator went down to one knee. An apothecary came to his aid, and began the long process of removing his pauldron.
Cassius growled in anger, and pointed his sword to the building. "Illuminate them, brothers!" he shouted over the vox. "Unleash hell!" Bolter fire erupted around him, and the top of the building disappeared in a hail storm of explosive bolt fire.
More of the tiny aliens ran from the scene, as around them, their comrades were cut down by the advancing Astartes. Cassius looked around the field of carnage, and shook his head. The aliens scattered on the ground were tiny, and were armed with mere side arms. This must have been the expeditionary force, he thought to himself, a mere probe on our lines. "This was an insult to our honor, brothers," he voxed to his company. "The enemy has refused to fight us face- to- face, so they sent their minions to see what we're capable of." A murmur went up over the vox link. "Kill the survivors, my brothers. And leave them where they lay. Let these Xenos see what we are capable of."
Princeps Helina paced the bridge of the Mons Furiosa, sighing with each passing minute. "How much longer?" she asked an irritated tone. "combat systems are initializing, my Princeps." Came a cool, monotone voice from the weapons control platforms. "How much longer?" she repeated. "Thirty- two seconds. Skitarii fighters are reporting minor skirmishes in our vicinity. "Perfect," she said "Moderati, are you linked?" "I have a link, my Princeps."
She nodded, satisfied that all systems were finally coming online. She turned, and mounted her command throne. She removed her crusher cap, and ran her hand through her hair. She produced a small tie from her pocket, and tied her hair back, revealing the neural implants sutured just below her skull. Tiny, hair thin wires climbed her shoulders, and crawled up her neck. "Establishing command link." Came a tine, robotic voice from somewhere behind her.
A gout of searing pain burst through her skull, and she gasped sharply. Her vision filled with brilliantly yellow light. The war machine's engines rumbled to life somewhere deep within, and her command throne shook. She blinked the light out of her eyes. Her vision was suddenly filled with images of bright forest, and dense canopy. A fertile valley opened below her feet. She could feel soft soil beneath her soles; could smell the scents of war on the air. Around her feet, seemingly miles below her, Skitarii fighters clashed with xenos in shimmering arcs of plasma and las- fire.
She smiled. She threw her head back and loosed a booming bellow from her war horn. She was no longer Princeps Helina. She was the master of the battle. She was the very breath of the Omnisiah She was the Mons Furiosa, a towering Imperator- Class Titan, and this battle belonged to her.
Each step brought a new rush of exhilaration. Vegetation flattened beneath her feet. Each thudding step was the music of the apocalypse; the titan a vengeful god ushering in the demise of worlds.
"My Princeps," came a distant voice "Several enemy tanks detected." She glanced downward to find several small purple tanks hovering on repulsor fields. One fired directly into her leg, sending a stab of warmth over her lower calf. "Alert the tech priests to withdraw the Skitarii," she replied to her very distant crew. "Moderati, charge our plasma annihilator." Sparks of warmth filled her right arm. She levelled it at the nearby tanks, as she absent mindedly watched the retreating forms of battle cyborgs nearing her legs. Firing solutions flooded her mind in an instant. Her fingertips felt white- hot with pent of potential energy. "Annihilator is charged, ma'am." Came the distant voice again.
She fired at the nearest tank, knowing which one she chose would make no difference. In the span of a millisecond, a brilliant explosion erupted from the enemy vehicles. Shielded enemy warriors were boiled alive within their force fields, and their tanks were instantaneously vaporized.
The god- machine moved once again, and angled its trajectory toward the capital city, were smoke rose above the buildings in great, black tongues. The distant sounds of fighting were picked up by her sensors as the sun rose over the scarred land. She smiled. Can't let the Astartes have all the fun, now can we? She thought to herself as she marched through the forest, into battle, and to glory.