"TARGETING: GREENSKIN INVADERS DETECTED ON FEDERATION SOIL. PREJUDICE SET TO MAXIMUM!" Liberty Prime bellowed as it unleashed the full power of it's twin-linked 'Doompyre' volkite carronade on the terrified Orks fleeing before it. Two lances of orange coruscating energy scythed through the masses of aliens, reducing it's victims to jumbled piles of charred disintegrating bones, and vitrifying the dusty soil into brilliantly glowing shoals of molten glass and forming clouds of searing dust that endowed a drawn out painful death to all that touched it and breathed it in. Those outside ground zero simply burst into flames from the super-heated air. Liberty Prime painted the beams back and forth three times within fifteen seconds before the weapon shut off to cycle another heat sink.
"More fightin' less dyin' ya gitz!" Warboss Ungauld Grimjaw roared, trying to get his WAAAGH! back in order.
"Boss! They's got too much shiny dakka!" one of his under-captains complained. Grimjaw responded by promptly blasting the ork's face to Gork with his soopa-blasta.
"No moar 'scuses! Run up to dere and krump 'em good! Show thems that da Orks are da best! WAAAGH!"
Rokkits, bombs, explosive shells and more than a couple thrown grots were hurled at the advancing Castigator titan. Ork fighta-bombas flew down to strafe the gun-laden god-machine, and grot piloted suicide planes dived in to crash into it with shrill warcries cut short and punctuated by fiery explosions. Despite this abuse, the Castigator plodded thunderously onward, it's hardened void shields insulating it from harm.
"OUR FORBEARS SCOURED YOUR MISBEGOTTEN KIND FROM THE STARS! WE WILL COMPLETE THEIR WORK, AND WREATH YOUR DEGENERATE ASHES UPON THE WORLDS YOU HAVE SPOILED!"
Liberty Prime swung it's other weapon system to the fore, a multi-barreled beast of a rotary cannon. It whined as the barrels cycled, before unleashing a streaming deluge of blinding hot plasma bolts that exploded in thunderous claps as they pummeled the earth, throwing flaming orks and slagged vehicle carcasses skywards in all directions, and leaving chains of craterous glowing white hotspots across the beaten landscape.
"Liberty Prime, you are moving too far from your support group, hold your position," came a terse message over the Battlenet.
Biting back mounting frustration the human/synthetic consciousness that defined Liberty Prime reluctantly halted it's advance. The towering Castigator swiveled it's head left to right, it's baleful gaze lingering upon the stricken enemy. This was true happiness, watching mankind's enemies fleeing before the glorious might of the Federation, to see their pitiful ashes blown away by the winds of humanity's great destiny.
The lesser machines meant to guard him, clustered around Liberty Prime, while crewed by noble, brave, exemplary, and heroic human defenders of the Federation he found their presence bothersome. He was the sword of humankind. He was the foremost of all the Federation's champions. He was the vanguard of Man's redemption. He was Liberty Prime.
Warboss Grimjaw was furious, the titan alone had wiped out near a quarter of the Waaagh! That had survived the initial bombardment. And what was worse, he had nothing at his disposal to bring it down. He decided it was time to leave.
Just then he felt Liberty Prime's gaze fall upon him from afar, the titan's eyes seemed to smolder with newly rekindled zeal. "EXTINCTION IS NON-NEGOTIABLE!"
"Let's get outta 'ere!" Grimjaw bellowed, turning with his bodyguards to make a run for nearby subterranian transports. He could feel the titan moving again, no it was running now. Taking great loping strides as it sought to get to grips with the heart of the Waaagh!
"Start it up! NOW! NOW!" Grimjaw demanded, as he reached the closest transport.
"CALCULATING: PROBABILITY OF WARBOSS TERMINATION: ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT!"
"NOW!"
The badly tuned engine started up, and the Warboss sealed the hatch. "Take 'er down!"
The dozen fully loaded drill transports angled downward and began to quickly bore down through the earth, two weren't so lucky as Liberty Prime, realizing it's quarry was escaping, opened fire with the twin linked volkite carronade.
"NOOOOOOOO!" the titan roared. "WE CANNOT FAIL! THE FEDERATION DEPENDED ON ME!" the eccentric titan cried despairingly, "FORGIVE ME NOBLE SOLDIERS OF HUMANITY! ONLY IN DEATH CAN I ATONE FOR THIS FAILURE!"
The Titan turned around and stood at attention for the stunned Federation assault force, "ACTIVATING SELF DESTRUCT: AUTHORIZATION PHRASE: BETTER DEAD... THEN RED... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4-"
Then the voice of General Stryker cut in through the comm, "LIBERTY PRIME! What the fuck are you doing?! Get back to your position."
The mighty titan paused, "SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE... ABORTED."
It was a scene of total desolation.
Expanses of brittle vitrified soil, fires everywhere, and a choking black cloud of glass and ash that hung over the battlefield.
And yet they still came, hooting and shouting as they pounded over the charred remains of their kindred, even as gunships cut them down from the sky with tracers of deadly energy, even as titans laid waste to their ranks, even as soldiers calmly and methodically slew them from afar with advanced precision weaponry.
They still came.
They did not care.
Ryan Taylor continued to fire upon them, choosing from priority targets that the AI managing Abacus had identified from the collective rangefinders and sensor suites of the entire attack group. This wasn't a fight, this was cleanup duty. It was a scene that was taking place across the planet.
Overhead, missiles streaked towards targets in the sky and on the ground, detonating with bright flashes of iridescent light.
A nephilim titan dropped from the sky, it's repulsorlift jump jets distorted the ash heavy air as it touched down smoothly in front of an armored thrust, it then proceeded to blast the chain of vehicles with it's neutron turbolasers. The golden beams completely vaporized everything they touched, the weapon's discharge caused the Rad-counter on his suit to spike into the yellow range. The titan then jumped back into the sky to waylay yet another enemy prong.
As the Orks came rushing in closer, he could see a number of the smaller ones slowing down, and others collapsing. They were asphyxiating he realized, the air was so polluted with burning hot ash and vitrified particulate matter, it had become completely unbreathable even by the reckoning of hardy orkoid physiology. Anything that was not contained in a sealed environment with NBC shielding would expire within minutes in these conditions, the heat given off from the discharges of numerous energy weapons and plasma tipped missiles had already risen the ambient temperature to 209 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to burn a man alive. The radiation was also high enough to have fairly abominable effects on an unprotected individual, peaking at 1,800 rad in some areas, especially close to the titan engagement zones, the area around Liberty Prime was reported to be particularly volatile.
The greenskin return fire was heavy but inaccurate, and for the most part ineffective. The orks were mostly concerned with regrouping and staying the hell away from the titans, all the while Federation forces were moving to flank the stricken horde on both sides. At this point they had already won, the incinerator drones were already waiting in the rear to dispose of the ork corpses before they have the chance to spore and produce yet more of the annoying xenos.
Still it wasn't without it's dangers, despite being outclassed the orks had taken a fair few of human lives, mostly to artillery fire and on the occasion the orks managed to close into melee range, where their brute size and strength paid the greatest dividends.
"Air units inbound from the north-east, look sharp!" the voice of his platoon leader pitched in over the comm. Sure enough, Ryan quickly made out a collection of blurs coming over from the north-east, he used the x6 magnification function built into his visor to get a closer look, and he was baffled by what he saw. At least thirty screaming green-skins were riding strange contraptions that resembled helicopters, an ancient form of air transportation that was once used by the humans of Old Earth. But these were single seated, open canopy, flying pieces of scrap painted in garish tones of red, and they were coming in very, very fast.
Instructions quickly came in through the Abacus network. As one his entire squad snapped into cover, corporal Kellem joined him behind the soot stained flank of a wrecked ork truck, his smartgun held up in the carrying position. A few more moments passed and the command was silently given. Engage. Kellem and five other smartgunners from the other squads, sprung out of cover their sophisticated support weapons at the ready, immediately afterward they opened fire. A high pitched whining staccato filled the air, arcs of electricity danced erratically around the smartgun's barrel, a meter long tongue of azure hued ionized air erupted in front.
The choppers immediately began to either blow up or tumble to the earth belching black smoke and fire as the guided hypersonic rail sabots eviscerated both machine and pilot alike. It was all over so fast. That was when he felt the ground shake beneath his insulated boots.
"AMBUSH! FROM BELOW!" Sergeant Ransom shouted, just as the orkoid assault drills rose up from the earth like whales breaching from an ocean. And then everything went to the Warp.
The hatches on the sides of the subterranean transports swung down to disgorge the heavily armed greenskin occupants. Standing out from the rest of the screaming aliens was an ork covered head to toe in a massive powered suit of crude armor that spat sparks from the joints, and belched smoke from the back. In the left fist it clenched a massive large bored gun, and it's right was an enormous shear-like claw that crackled with energy.
"YOU THINKS YA' CAN COME 'ERE AND STOMP 'PON ME WAAAGH!? I'LL RIP YER GUTZ OUT THROUGH YUR THROATS SPESS MEHREENS!" The giant alien screamed as it opened fire upon them. Kellem was hit before he could level his gun upon the Warboss, it broke through his shields and scorched his armor, knocking him down and wrecking the smartgun. Before he could get up again, he was snatched up by the alien's claw, he scarcely had time to scream before he was shorn in two.
Having no time to mourn the passing of his comrade, Ryan turned to more important matters. Such as staying alive. He aimed his rifle at a yammering knot of axe brandishing xenos, and depressed the second trigger in front of the primary. A gout of iridescent red flame rushed forth from under the barrel to consume the aliens in front, the plasma infused flames scorching them down to the bone within seconds.
Warren was with him, opening up with his force gun, pulped xenos were thrown backwards as if they had been struck by a supersonic express train, their liquified organs spilling out through rents in their bodies. But there were still plenty more to go around. He saw Private Rosa go down too multiple assailants, their crude axes laying into her heavy armor, her angered curses were soon cut short and her vitals flatlined on his HUD.
"Bastards!" Ryan shouted, as he sprayed plasma fire upon the bloodthirsty creatures, bringing them down with grim satisfaction. The Warboss had killed another marine from second squad, the brute had some form of energy shield running, a golden sphere of energy would appear to block all projectiles that threatened the mighty ork, further complicating attempts to put the abominable alien down.
"Focus fire on that Warboss, we take him out and this is over!" the platoon CO, shouted over the comm. Easier said than done. Ryan thought grimly as he doused another knot of Orks with his underslung flamer. He then turned to get a bead on the Warboss, and found to his dread that the greenskin was looking right at him. "Well shit."
"WAAAAGGHHH!" The great beast roared, it's blood caked claw raised high, piss yellow eyes gleaming with murderous intent.
From childhood experience born of dodging angry grots on the family farm, Ryan leaped sideways to avoid the charging ork, and narrowly avoided being smashed by the claw, and killed shortly after that. Rolling onto his back he opened fire upon the Warboss with his plasma gun, the shield shimmered brightly as it struggled to absorb the shots. How the orks had the capacity to create such a strong personal barrier he would never understand.
The Ork snarled angrily and turned around to aim it's large gun at him. Two things happened: the gun discharged, and the bolt struck the frontal slope of Ryan's thick chest armor; and then the gun spat sparks and exploded, badly mangling the Warboss's hand in the process.
"GORK TAKE ALL MEKS!" The alien roared in anger, tossing the ruined gun aside and charging forward again, claw raised with the intent to finish Ryan while he was still down, and reeling from the power of the shot he took. Red lights flashed on his HUD, and it was unbearably hot, pain coursed through his entire body. But before the Warboss could reach him, he was intercepted by a kinetic blast from Warren's force gun, finally the Ork's forcefield broke.
Recovering, Ryan quickly snapped his volkite sidearm from the mag clamp on his thigh plate, and aimed, the alien tried to move out of the way. The searing orange beam flash vaporized the air it passed through, it missed the warboss only by inches, but it was close enough. The superheated air, flowed upon the warboss' exposed head, and it immediately caught ablaze.
"AUGH! AUUUUGGHHH! ME 'EAD IS ON FIRE! ME 'EAD IS ON FIRE!" The flaming alien screamed, "I KILLZ YOU FOR DAT HUMIE!"
Ryan tried to stand on his two feet, and get another shot on the Ork, but it closed the distance too quickly, the pistol fell from his grip as three tons of heavy gauge mega armor and green muscle collided into him. Ryan got a nice look of an enraged ork visage wreathed in flame, just before both him and the warboss tumbled down a steep slope.
It was not a gentle trip to the bottom to say the least, twice he felt the full weight of the ork fall upon him, and his armor's structural support was stressed to the limit, nevertheless he was sure he had cracked a few ribs, when they finally separated half-way down.
Coming to a rest at the foot of the slope, Ryan slowly got to his feet and took stock of his surroundings. It appeared to a quarry of some sort, abandoned machinery lay everywhere, left here when the Waaagh!, came. The Warboss was also getting up, twenty feet away, it's head was still on fire. What does it take to kill these damn things?! Ryan thought with shock.
He was suddenly very aware that he was unarmed.
The warboss made a choaking, inarticulate roar of agony and rage. Composing himself, Ryan drew his combat blade from the sheath on the small of his back, this was now a fight to the finish.
Deciding to switch things up for once, Ryan charged the warboss, shouting a warcry of his own. "607th Marines for the cup!" The warboss, not expecting such brazen behavior, was taken aback for a few moments before it too charged to meet the lone soldier. But before they met, the fire consuming the Warboss' face, finally began to eat at it's eyes. It flinched. Ryan ducked under the clumsy swinging claw, and dragged his glowing combat blade across the Ork's flank. The Ork absolutely livid of having it's sight taken away, turned about and swung the claw left, right, and center in an attempt to score a hit on the human that had humiliated him.
Seeing an opening in the weakened Ork's defenses, Ryan rushed forward under the Ork's guard, driving his blade to the hilt right into the alien's thick neck.
"Wuh- huh? I'z not boss... no more?" The alien asked stupidly, the flames had burned down to the skull by this point. The Ork swayed side to side, "Awww... z-zog it."
The Ork fell backwards in an undignified crash, skull still aflame and grinning up at the ash choked sky. Warboss Grimjaw was finally dead.
Ryan with a thought, chimed into the platoon comm channel, "This is corporal Ryan Taylor, the Warboss has been eliminated."
"Good work corporal, get back up here, there are still Orks here that need tending to." The platoon commander responded.
"Aye, sir," Ryan acknowledged. He bent down and pulled his blade from the corpse, and made his way towards a shallower part of the slope that he could climb. As he began his ascent he glanced back at the corpse, and saw there was another Ork standing next to it.
The Ork boy took one good look at the corpse and then used it's giant cleaver to cut off the dead warboss' claw arm, it then picked up the limb and weapon and ran away.
Ryan shook his head and continued his climb.
Little did Ryan know that this particular random Ork boy would live to escape this world, but they would face each other again. This Ork would return again as a Warboss, taking the name Bluddklaw, and would lead a Waaagh! Against the Federation that would eclipse all Ork incursions that had come before it. That would be decades from now, but Ryan would rue the day that he let this particular Ork get away.
Codex: Ancients
CA7B-H: Designed by Cherdenko Armories Infantry Systems, the CA7B 'Heavy' is a feared fully automatic hybrid rail gun weapon system. The CA7B has a high rate of fire, and almost no recoil, and it's hyper-velocity rounds rip right through walls and various forms of cover and shred enemies. The rail gun fires 8.75x52mm FSDRAS (Fin Stabilized, Discarding Rail Accelerator Sabot) spikes with a muzzle energy of 42 kilo joules. It is a dual-stage weapon, using gravitic mass-reducing and propelling chamber first and then electromagnetic rails as the second stage.
Basically – it's a railgun, but the inclusion of a mass reducing chamber that lightens the ammunition to a bare fraction of the weight allows for far greater velocities to be achieved than a standard railgun.
CA88SM: Cherdenko Armories Infantry Systems Model 88 Smart Gun. Built around the same technology of the CA7 series, the CA88 is larger and even more powerful, it differs from the CA7 in it's role as a heavy support weapon, and the inclusion of an advanced tracking computer, and muzzle mounted attachment that work in concert to alter the exit trajectories of fired spikes to aid the operator in achieving high levels of accuracy with a track-and-tack, IFF locking, self aiming 'smart' system.
Where the Smart Gun truly shines is the addition of a shoulder mounted multi-tracker, the MT can lock dozens of individual targets with alarming speed, this information is loaded to the targeting computer and the trajectory correction attachment, enabling the operator to cycle through targets as he or she fires the weapon, the end result is that this weapon is the bane of any massed unit formation and tactic in existence. The drawback is that the gunner is limited to a single long cone of fire, and the bulky weight of the apparatus makes it highly unwieldy in close combat situations. And when facing enemies smart enough to space themselves, the deadly effect of this weapon is further reduced. The weapon and it's accompanying equipment are also rather bulky, and put their operators in severe disadvantage in close quarters combat. They are also more susceptible to battle damage.
