Chapter 26

Clash of Titans

Part 2

"One of the empires deadliest creations. These are what the rebellion had nightmares about during the Galactic Civil War. They are known as Dark Troopers and they were the emperor's experiment to bring battle-droids back into the maelstrom of battle"

Admiral Joseph Halos

The beings that walked out of the storage crates were as large and bulky as a space marine but their armour was similar to that of Imperial stormtroopers, but their armour was pure black instead of white, adding to the air of intimidation that they seemed to spread, in their massive hands were large blast cannons, powerful enough to tear through almost any heavy armour and melded to their backs was a jump-pack and the sheath for a massive vibroblade, the huge beings looked up at the Flagellants, their eyes turning from pure white to deep black as their final systems were brought online.

"What are they?" Robyn asked, watching from the bridge of the Vengeance as the massive creatures got into a skirmish line, their blast cannons pointed at the Flagellants. Outside the battle between the Adeptus Mechanisus and the Inquisition was only getting fiercer, with the warships now skirmishing with each other side by side.

"One of the empires deadliest creations" Halos replied, his voice serious "These are what the rebellion had nightmares about during the Galactic Civil War. They are known as Dark Troopers and they were the emperor's experiment to bring battle-droids back into the maelstrom of battle"

"I'm sorry" Robyn replied "Battle-droids"

"For the empire!" the lead dark trooper, told apart by the white and red strips that decorated his armoured form said, his voice so mechanical that Vallace could only look on in horror. Battle-droids, Artificial Intelligence!

It was then that all hell broke lose; the dark troopers cut lose with their blast cannons, sending a deadly hail of tracer blaster bolts hurtling towards the Inquisitions flagellants, several of them were cut down, the bolts tearing through metal and flesh alike. However the Inquisitions attack dogs recovered quickly, skidding sideways and charging towards their much bigger opponents, this was the ultimate fight, the ultimate test of their mettle, this was speed against brute strength.

The hanger bay was chaos within seconds as the skirmish lines of dark troopers fired continuous streams of blaster fire, stormtroopers and alliance marines retreated towards the battle-droids adding their own weapons to the already deafening assault from the blast cannons, the Flagellants proved their speed by twirling and somersaulting, dodging the deadly barrage with practised ease and finesse.

They charged, the blades attached to their hands slashing out at the dark troopers in particular, one hit home, jumping on the larger trooper and started slashing its armour continuously with its elbow and wrist blades, the massive black armoured droid dropped its blast cannon and with one giant hand grabbed the Flagellant's head and crushed it before dropping the lifeless creature to the ground. The scars of the fight were clearly shown with slash marks cut straight through the armour and helmet, leaving exposed and sparking circuitry. By know many of the dark troopers were forced to drop their ranged weapons and either unsheath their large vibroswords or fall back upon hand-to-hand combat to fight off the Acro-Flagellants, some where faring better than others as a dark trooper fell to the ground, its head rolling halfway across the hanger.

"This ship has its own contingent of dark troopers, does it not?" Halos asked as he watched the battle deteriorate into an all out brawl, reserve Imperial and Alliance soldiers were pouring into the hanger, spilling volleys of blaster bolts and heavier weapons upon the Flagellants, it was only a matter of time until those monsters were eradicated from the Vigilance and he saw the same scene take place on the Dominator.

"Yes sir" the first officer replied "All of the star destroyers have them"

"And do they have atmospheric strike pods?" Halos asked.

"Yes sir but I don't see…" the officer stopped short, a smile crossing his lips "Ah, I see"

"You learn fast son" Joseph said with a nod "Place twenty dark troopers into the pods and prepare to launch them at that ship" he then pointed to the vessel within the protective lines of Inquisition black-ships, a Retribution battleship which ship listings say was called the Inquisitor of Wrath "Let's play the Inquisitions game, shall we?"

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Magi Culsis gritted his teeth as a Sword-class Frigate disintegrated under the fire of a nearby Inquisition cruiser, its hull exploding into several places before it began to descend towards the red planet, its entire form vanishing in red and orange fire before it entered the atmosphere of the Imperium's chief forge-world. His battleship was under heavy bombardment from a trio of Lunar-class cruisers, their lance batteries firing what looked like continuous streams of lance energy.

The old Magi had seen many things in his nine hundred years of life, he had starred into the warped eyes of the horrors of chaos, the dead orbs of the Necron menace, the hungry gaze of the Tyranids, he had faced the mystical energies of the Eldar, the feral bloodlust of the Orks and the hate burned eyes of the Dark Eldar but this was something that he had never faced before, in all of his years as a Magi he had never had to face a fellow warrior of the Imperium, a fellow loyal son of the God-Emperor, but the actions of the Inquisition could not be ignored.

He saw a trio of Marauder bombers, painted with the colours of the Inquisition dive towards his bridge, dodging the anti-air fire and prepare to launch their payload of plasma bombs, only they didn't get a chance as one of them exploded under a hail of red laserfire, another hail clipped the wing of the lead bomber, sending it barrelling out of control into open space, the last bomber broke away from its assault and ran just as a trio of Alliance X-wings flew by, their laser cannons firing continuously.

The Magi managed a smile, those X-wings were impressive fighters, in fact all of the Alliance fighters and bombers were impressive, being several generations at least ahead of their own starfighter technology, if the Imperium ever went to war with the Alliance the Magi knew that it wasn't their capital-ships that would scare him, it was their starfighter contingents.

He looked over at the single star destroyer that wasn't disabled as it moved ahead of the Emperors Fire, its weapons firing continuously, picking fighters out of the sky and exchanging long ranged fire with ships twice its size, further back he saw the silhouette of an Inquisition ship, he zoomed in and relaxed when he saw it swarmed with hundreds of Alliance starfighters, literally picking it apart with their lasers, anti-ship torpedoes and bombs.

"Lord Magi" one of the serfs shouted "The alliance vessel is firing something from its torpedo tubes!"

Culsis turned to inspect the small black objects that were soaring across space; they looked like atmospheric assault pods, were the alliance planning to board one of the Inquisition black-ships? His respect for them just rose, it rose even more when he saw the pods target, the lead Inquisition battleship, the Inquisitor of Wrath, Culsis had to admit, the Alliance admiral either had a good strategy up his sleeve or he was playing a desperate gambit.

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The pods went through the space between the two fleets, moving relatively unnoticed to both the Mechanicus and Inquisition forces, they weren't noticed until it was far too late, the pods smashed into the heavy armour of the Inquisitions lead battleship, burrowing into the hull, once it broke through to the outer corridors of the Inquisitions vessel they opened, allowing their residential dark trooper to walk out into the dank corridors, each one armed with a blast cannon, with an oversized vibroblade and a jump-pack strapped to their backs.

One of the dark troopers starred intently at the other beings in the corridor that his insertion pod had burrowed into, a group of Inquisition storm troopers "Anything you can do" it said, its voice mechanical and flat, making it seem more terrifying "We can do better!"

The dark trooper raised its blast cannon before the storm troopers could react and pulled the trigger unleashing a deadly spray of tracer blaster bolts, within moments the squad of storm troopers lay dead on the ground, their flak jackets and exposed flesh steaming from dozens of blaster bolts. Without a word, or even a flicker of emotion the dark trooper started down the corridor, ready to do to the Inquisition what they did to the Alliance.

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As the last few guns of the Inquisition vessels went silent Magi Durin inspected the battlefield that surrounded his ship and grimaced, half of the Mechanicus warships that answered the distress calls were floating lifelessly across the red planets orbit, either disabled or charred husks. Gritting his teeth at the destruction that these Purists had caused the Magi saw the Lord of Machines launch dozens of rust coloured Thunderhawks, these small transports soared through space, landing within the hanger bays of the main ships and unleashing their contingents of Skitarii and Tech-Guard, the other cruisers and Durin's ship followed suit.

A large flotilla of thirty Thunderhawks flew across the wreckage strewn battlefield, landing within the massive hanger bays of the Inquisitor of Wrath and landed allowing their units of Skitarii and Tech-Guard to disembark, they meet their opponents head on as full squads of Inquisition storm troopers, lead by Inquisitors and Battle-sisters meet them, pouring hellgun and bolter fire into the disembarking Mechanicus soldiers. The Skitarii dived for the metal decking, unleashing controlled bursts of lasfire from their lasguns while the Tech-Guard, seemingly un-phased by the bolter and laser rounds that zipped past them charged their opponents, power-weapons held high and ready to strike.

Further within the battleship Sister Kate of the Adepta Sororitas scanned the corridor ahead of her with her hazel eyes, her fellow Battle-Sister Hera coming up beside her as she stopped, the sounds of lasfire could plainly be heard by now and with a wave of her hand a squad of storm troopers ran up past them to inspect the next corridor, their hellguns poised. Kate didn't know what was going on down here, all that she heard from her communicator was garbled reports from terrified scouts before loud gunfire abruptly cut the transmission.

The storm troopers rounded the corridor and were abruptly cut down as a hail of red laser fire cut through their armoured figures, sending their smouldering forms falling to the ground, both Kate and Hera took cover around a corner and raised their bolters, waiting for the shooters to appear, when a massive soldier, the size of a space marine, its armour was a pure black and a large, alien weapon similar to a heavy bolter held in its hands appeared, Kate and Hera didn't look at each other, they didn't need to, they knew what they had to do and pulled the triggers of their bolters, unleashing controlled sprays of bolter fire. The shots hit home and tore through the armour exposing whatever was underneath, instead of expecting flesh and blood their genetically engineered eyes saw exposed and sparking circuitry, the droid turned and raised its blast cannon unleashing its own salvo of blaster fire, the battle-sisters took cover just as the bolts hit the corner, leaving the wall cratered and charred.

Taking a deep breath Kate jumped out of her hiding place and poured bolter rounds at the droid, not taking her finger off the trigger until the bolter clicked empty, she allowed the empty bolter clip to fall to the deck and neatly slammed a fresh one into the ancient weapon, she then came down to a knee and aimed the bolter at the smoking corridor, her fellow battle-sister and friend coming behind her and aiming her bolter at that same smoking turn. The droid stumbled out of the smoke, its once unblemished black armour now cratered, scored and cut through to the circuitry underneath, the helmet was half blown away, showing the metal circuits and devices of its droid brain, despite all of the damage it suffered it still held its weapon in its hands.

As one the two battle-sisters fired another concentrated volley at the machine yet despite the serious damage it was taking it was able to raise its weapon and fired a concentrated stream at Hera, the woman couldn't dodge and took the blaster fire head on, the bolts ricocheting off of her power armour and eventually blasting through, she gave a pained scream and fell to the ground, enraged Kate grabbed a plasma grenade, pulled the pin and threw it at the machine before grabbing Hera and dragging her around the corner, she looked back to see the grenade explode, tearing its carapace chest armour to pieces and blasting it back to the far wall where it slumped to the ground, its black eyes turning white.

She looked down at her friend and felt hot tears brim her eyes when she saw a pair of lifeless eyes starring blankly up at the ceiling. She threw her head back and screamed in anger before grabbing her bolter and running down the corridor, fires seemingly lighting her hazel eyes with rage.

Meanwhile the battle had spilled from the hanger to the surrounding corridors as the Mechanicus soldiers pushed further into the battleship, Skitarii colonel Drake led his squad down the corridor and stopped short, hearing the sounds of weapons fire and explosions around the corner, he took a peak and saw that it lead to a large chamber, bodies of dead storm troopers littered the metal decking and in the middle were two dark troopers, standing back to back, their blast cannons releasing steady streams of blaster fire. Drake could only look on, watching the deadly symphony of death that the battle-droids unleashed with a mixture of fascination and revulsion.

Drake was about to lead his forces into the chamber when he heard a beeping from his communicator, scrolls of information rushed by his eyes and without a word he lowered his weapon, a scowl crossing his heavily augmented features, he saw that the dark troopers, unleashing death and destruction a few minutes ago now ceased firing, lowering their blast cannons.

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Admiral Halos watched as the two battleships entered the contested area of space, their colour schemes and symbols showing that one was from the Inquisition and another was from the Mechanicus, communications confirmed that they were the personal flagships of the Fabricator General and Maser Inquisitor, ordering all forces, including the Alliance to cease all hostilities at once. A mixture of relief and annoyance rushed through the admiral as he gave the order to shut down the combat protocols of the dark troopers.

While the Fabricator General pulled back his forces, including the damaged star destroyers to the orbit of Mars, the Master Inquisitor demanded that the lead Inquisitors surrender themselves and prepare for judgement by the High Lords of Terra, one of the cruisers refused and was torn to pieces by the hundreds of weapon batteries of the heavily modified battleship. After the show of the Master Inquisitors wrath the rest of the Inquisition forces surrendered without a fight.

Meanwhile the three damaged star destroyers were towed to a repair dock where swarms of drones surrounded them, beginning to make serious repairs to the tattered superstructures, rescue shuttles were sent out to the destruction site of the Guardian in hopes of finding escape pods, sadly though there weren't any, the entire crew had gone down with the ship.

The med-bays of all of the star destroyers were full to capacity, there simply weren't enough healers to deal with the tide of wounded that flooded in and eventually medics and healers from the Mechanicus and Inquisition vessels under the control of the master of the Inquisition were allowed in to help, within the Vengeance captain Rosso floated in a Bacta tank, letting the healing liquid purge the poisons from her system and begin healing her wounds, the embedded bolter round in her left leg had been removed but she wouldn't be using it for a long time. The admiral managed a small smile of relief when she opened her eyes.

His communicator beeped to life and sighing tiredly he grabbed it and thumbed the small device on "Yes?"

"Admiral" the youthful voice of Rosso's first officer responded "We've just received a request by the Master Inquisitor and the Fabricator General for permission to board the Vengeance"

The admiral nodded and lifted his right hand to massage his temple, he knew that this would happen eventually but not so soon, it was times like this that he felt that he needed the advice of a Jedi master "I see, well, give them clearance and tell them that I will greet them personally"

So was it any good? What will Halos next move be? Will the Alliance fleet recover and will Halos continue with his proposal? In the next chapter we will return to the Star Wars galaxy and return to the forces of Chaos story arc, the Ssi-Ruuk/Chaos Conflict is nearing its conclusion.