It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries
the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth.
He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master
of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He
is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark
Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for
whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he
may never truly die.
YET EVEN in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his
eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested
miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their
way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the
Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted
wolds. Greatest among His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes,
the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades
in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless Planetary
Defense Forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests
of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their
multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present
threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.
TO BE A man in such times is to be one amongst untold
billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody
regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times.
Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has
been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of
progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future
there is only war. There is no peace among the stars,
only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the
laughter of thirsting gods.
UNTIL NOW.
(Imperial Mining World, Hydra Volantis, Ultima Segmentum, 935 M41)
HYDRA VOLANTIS WAS an unremarkable world all things considered, located in the north-eastern fringe of Ultima Segmentum, it was one of many mining worlds inhabiting the Centaurus Reach, a region on the very edge of Imperial Space located between the fabled Ghoul Stars and the fractious and divided Damocles Gulf. It was composed of three sectors, almost seven-hundred worlds of varying degrees of habitation.
Despite it's obscurity, nearly fifteen million people lived on Hydra Volantis, it's population divided amongst hundreds of isolated mining colonies. Each and every single one of them toiling endlessly to meet their tithe quota set by the Adeptus Administratum, the byzantine bureaucracy that held the Imperium of Man together with mountainous expanses of red tape. The minerals mined here went directly to the Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus, worlds where the Tech-Priests reigned supreme and the only places in the galaxy where any knowledge concerning the ancient and mostly forgotten art of Science could be found. These worlds were vital to maintaining the Imperium's ever moving war-machine, supporting innumerable campaigns where men fought and died, never to be remembered or celebrated.
Hydra Volantis was nothing more than a footnote on the sector census with two lines dictating population and product output. An easily forgettable dust ball on the edge of nowhere.
But then the Orks came.
They arrived in ships constructed of discarded scraps and converted asteroids. They literally fell upon the world, crashing their crude vessels into the surface, and boiling out shouting their feral warcries. The Hydra Volantis' Planetary Defense Force struggled to mobilize to counter this invasion of xenos, having been caught completely by surprise.
Three townships had fallen in the first week of the invasion, their inhabitants either driven into the wastelands or butchered like cattle in their homes, and in the streets; their brutalized remains hung as trophies upon multitudes of war banners carried into battle by their bestial creators. Panic gripped the once quiet colony as the death count rose, and the greenskin horde waxed in numbers.
The terror spread even further when reports of enormous green beasts bearing iron fortresses on their backs, and flocks of crude fighter craft reached the already quivering ranks of the PDF, whose body had already been weakened by the recent Imperial tithe which stripped it of it's most competent and promising members. The only thing that prevented mass desertion was the sobering fact that there were no ships in orbit to evacuate to, and thus nowhere to run. It was either kill or be killed.
It was in this spirit, that the stalwart but inexperienced PDF confronted the xenos horde.
"Hold the line damn you! You will not embarrass the Imperium by folding to the likes of them!" Roared a PDF captain as he fired his laspistol into the fray as his company fired upon the latest Ork charge threatening to breech their line.
They were tasked with defending the city of Arkistead as it's population evacuated eastwards to a more secure location. They had dug in and fortified the outskirts of the settlement with a haphazard arrangement of trenchworks, not exactly the work of the Krieg Death Korps, but it was adequate for the task. The 3rd Hydra Volantis PDF regiment had arrived in force to cut off this route of invasion, to cut off the xenos taint from tainting more of their home planet with their barbarous footsteps.
The air ran thick with the guttural cries of the enemy, screams of the wounded and dying, and prayers muttered hoarsely between the distinctive cracks of lasgun fire. The PDF was holding, but only just barely. The sound of grinding treads announced the arrival of an antiquated Malcador Heavy Tank. It's hull mounted heavy bolter opened up on the greenskin ranks, stitching gore strewn lines of mass-reactive death into the frenzied mass. The sponson mounted heavy-stubbers also added their clamor to the din of the battlefield.
The captain paused in anticipation as the ancient tank's venerable battle cannon aligned itself in preparation to fire. Even the relentless howls of the xeno forces seemed to quiet. It all came to an end with the tank unleashed a shell downrange with a thunderous report that shook the air like an enraged primal deity. An instant later, a blossom of fire, scorched earth and dust bloomed in the Orks midst, slaying dozens of the foul beasts and scattering their bodies and parts into the air.
"Do not let up! Our world is counting on you, for the Reach!" The captain commanded as he fired a bolt of energy into a frenzied ork's skull as it came close to the trench, it tumbled down to join the other corpses piled upon the breastwork like a gruesome sandbag fortification. But among the dead could be seen smaller human forms wearing the olive-grey flak armor and tan fatigues of the 3rd Hydra Volantis PDF.
The roars of badly tuned engines assaulted his ears, he turned to see a squadron of orkish buggies, their flanks daubed in red paint, and sporting their crude motifs. The Malcador's battle cannon sent them a high explosive welcome package courtesy of the PDF, the shell detonated right in front of the lead buggy, lifting it (and any greenskin unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius), into the air, it's driver hollered out like a professional yodeler as it's blasphemous vehicle somersaulted into the one behind it, both buggies exploded in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics that immolated all nearby orks.
The remaining buggies opened fire on the trench works with shootas and rokkit launchas. Heavy weapons teams hastily redirected their fire to contend with them. Heavy bolter fire tore up one of the buggies. A lascannon beam cleaved another right down the center. Two missiles streaked from the back ranks into the last two buggies, consuming them in balls of fire and shrapnel.
The rest of the horde continued to push towards the Imperial defense line, undaunted by their casualties. They bellowed their excruciatingly repetitive war shout, and charged with their massive cleaver like weapons held high, and their shootas blazing without any regard to accuracy or friendly fire. Las and autogun fire from PDF troopers thinned their ranks, and as soon as they came in range, flamers shot out gouts of burning prometheum to keep them from swarming into the trenches.
The Malcador fired once more, this time at close range, blowing yet another ragged hole in the tide of green flesh and gnashing teeth. The fetid fumes of burning ork bodies began to fill the air that was already unclean with dust and smoke. The captain was glad that he, like all the other PDF soldiers was wearing a respirator to contend with the planet's thin atmosphere.
Despite the odds, the inexperienced soldiers were making a good showing. Many were volunteers, hellbent on saving their world from this implacable and uncompromising foe. Scores of PDF troopers had lost their lives on this terrible campaign, but far more of the enemy had been destroyed in turn.
Even now as the ork ranks thinned, the captain could detect a change coming over the foul xenos; their morale was apparently rooted in strength in numbers, and now that their numbers were whittled down and separated their attack was wavering.
"Don't let them regroup! All units concentrate fire!" He shouted into the local vox net.
He watched more intently now as the ork horde's morale steadily broke down and they turned tail and ran in the other direction.
"Captain Chelkar!" A fresh faced trooper ran up to him, his face stained by soot, and his cheeks tracked by tears shed some time ago, drawn by the realities of war. It's glorious aspects revealed as futile notions, overshadowed by it's horror.
"Messenger, make your report," Captain August Chelkar instructed.
The private blanched for a moment before saying, "Latest word from the recon teams, part of the horde has branched south towards the Panopticon."
Chelkar's face darkened before redirecting his attention to the Orks who were regrouping for another assault.
"Thank you private, return to your post." He said offhandedly, the private saluted shakily before running off down the trench line. For the seventh time today, Chelkar wished his vox operator and the communications kit had not been blown to smithereens three skirmishes ago. But what the private said bothered him.
The Panopticon was a humongous and complex arrangement of ridges formed in a circular shape around a single large conical mountain. The formation was completely unnatural and has long been considered an oddity of the planet. But if the Orks settled in there, it would be nearly impossible to get them out, the Panopticon, if fortified was just one big giant killzone for any invader.
Chelkar glared over the breastwork at his massing enemies. One battle at a time... he reminded himself as the men and women of the 3rd PDF once more prepared themselves for renewed confrontation.
August Chelkar held no illusions that the PDF could repel this invasion, the best is could do was hold the line as best it can until an Imperial Guard relief force arrived to prosecute the enemy. But unfortunately, he knew that it could likely be months before the Administratum could dredge up a few regiments and throw them at this easily forgettable ball of rock. That is if they even bothered to send one. For all he knew the Orks could be attacking more strategically vital worlds in the Reach, and in that case Hydra Volantis would most likely be written off. Just another statistic in this Emperor forsaken galaxy. We need a bloody miracle.
Deep underground, beneath the geological marvel known to the planet's inhabitants as the Panopticon, an ancient mind stirred to wakefulness as new information brushed across it's dormant consciousness.
Orkoid lifeforms detected, grid A34, 68, 10. Multiple contacts
Threat level escalation. Initiating emergency start-up sequence.
A spark of wakefulness became a fire. A Neuro-AI awoke from deep hibernation, alerted by it's subroutines of an imminent threat to it's survival, and the survival of it's charges.
Quickly, the AI known as Nyx came to full power as it's core processor activated. Nyx was a generation XXIII Neuro-AI, affectionately labeled as a Man of Stone, a nod to the painstaking and time consuming process required to create him, and others like him.
It took a few nanoseconds for Nyx to review all 465 of his contingency orders. He quickly stopped on one.
Contingency Order 66: In the event of an alien invasion of the planet. Revive all security teams and Army, Marines personnel. Appraise situation and await further instructions.
Nyx's runtimes paused for an instant, the digital version of a sigh. He couldn't believe he was saying this stupid line.
Execute Order 66.
A/N: MUAHAHAHAHA! I am back bitches! I have defeated the mighty beast known as the Writers Block and proudly present to you this chapter. I am sorry if I made the PDF seem a bit too competent in this chapter, but I wanted to make it clear that this is not going to be a 'curbstomp the evil Imperium' story. The Imperials have stood against uncountable dangers with nothing but their flashlights, T-shirts, and standard-issue balls of steel, and they are not going to fold so easily, not even to their technologically and socially superior 'Ancient' counterparts. In the end this story is going to be almost as much about the Imperials as it will be about the Ancients. Stay tuned for further chapters. AVE IMPERATOR!
