Hey guys, The New Mandalord here.
Its another Friday, so a new chapter.
From now on, the new chapters are going to be based off the new-ish codexs. So the last codexs mean zilch.
Hope you enjoy.
The Fall of Macragge was not an over-night campaign that the Tau Empire thought of on a whim, it was in development ever since the Damocles Gulf campaign and small attempts, such as steering Hive Fleet Gorgon towards it, had failed. What they truly needed was a great distraction, something to pull the majority of the Space Marine chapter – mainly the Ultramarines – back to a distant location. So when the Void Dragon awoke on Mars, devastating its manufactorums, and heading for Terra, the Ultramarines were the first to respond in mass. This was the distraction that the Tau needed.
It was not an easy campaign though, far from it. The Tau Empire and Ultramarines always had a secret respect for one another, whether fighting against the hive fleets, Chaos, Ork Waaaghs!, or against each other, but to survive and show the galaxy that they were a force to be reckoned with, Macragge had to be theirs.
- Excerpt from Tau Historia, Sixth Sphere Expansion. Written and editted by Po'la Cala'Sha'Ma.
Thunder loomed in the distance; it was going to rain soon. Not bullets, lasbolts, artillery, bolter rounds, or aerial bombardments, but actual rain.
Shas'vre Bas'shia Sha'kais always hated the rain, it made him feel slow and always messed with his instruments, and on Macragge it rained hard and sharp.
The humans on Macragge had lost; they just did not want to admit it. They just did not want to believe that their most dignified planet was about to fall to the Empire, and that their glorified protectors were nowhere to be found.
Bas'shia paid no mind to this. Words still rang in his head. His orders, delivered by the human commander himself, were issued without flattery. He hoped.
"Hunt," the gue'vesa had said. "I want to make this a relative quick campaign."
Bas'shia had nodded content with his role and assured of his place in the greater conflict. He just did as his name told him.
Now he strode through the ruins of the human cities, Fire warrior teams bowing with respect as he passed, something akin to awe flashing in their eyes. He paid them no mind.
He strode through teams of inactive Broadsides hunkered down within one of the many large cathedrals that covered this planet. They were under repair and were being resupplied for future bombardments.
"Shas'vre," a voice called to him. "Kauyon."
The voice belonged to his human commander, Kain Osman. Bas'shia found him an interesting study, because he was a student of Farsight, and spoke to their leader as an equal. He was unlike most commanders, a seasoned veteran and a brilliant tactical mind but also very adaptable to different environments. He even supported Bas'shia more dramatic strategies, as long as it did not waste more lives than it spared.
He stood beside the tech priest, Mehmet, and Shas'el Jhi'Kaara.
"Shas'vre Bas'shia," Kain said, seated behind a marble altar that he transformed into his command desk. "After your… interesting choice in destroying the defense cannons, your battlesuit is beyond repair."
"May it rest with the Omnissaih." Mehmet said.
"From Jhi'kaara's reports, the Fortress of Hera is heavily guarded with a full company of Predators, Fellblades, and at least one Reaver-class Titan. The Fortress of Hera holds the most powerful relics known to the chapter, and the Library of Ptolemy is the most complete in the Eastern Fringe. Taking it will cripple all remaining Ultramarine hostilities on the planet, but we cannot do a full scale assault. If we do, then they will destroy the monastery. That is why I am sending just you to take of it."
Their machines; their 'tanks' to use the gue'las' improper language, were brutal things. They were creations of arrogance and brawn, little different than the ramshackle machines constructed by the be'gel. Their Titans they put too much pride and hope into. They looked pathetic to Bas'shia, a child's interpretation of a nimble and graceful battlesuit. There was nothing laughable about their armaments though.
Bas'shia's eyes widened. Normally he enjoyed bombing an enemy position, but sending just him into a well-defended area was suicidal; far from any teachings of Farsight or the Greater Good.
"Sir, with no disrespect," Bas'shia said slowly. "I cannot fulfill this task, even with a broadside, is there another way?"
"Unfortunately, no," Kain said. "We need that monastery and all of the secrets it holds in one piece. But I never said that you will be going in a broadside."
Almost on some kind of other worldly command, more lights flickered on, showing Bas'shia what he would be using. It towered over all of the other battlesuits, even if it was still in a hunched-over position, and it was armed to the teeth with two heavy rail cannons positioned in the back, a heavy burst cannon fixed on one arm, and the still experimental Ion Accelerator on the other.
"You will be piloting the XV 104 Riptide Battlesuit," Mehmet explained. "I took the liberties of arming it to suit your abilities, and be more efficient on your mission. Its stealthfields and drones should help you get through the Crown Mountain range without alerting any unwanted attention, Omnissiah help us. From there, do what you do best without destroying the suit!"
"Or the monastery," Kain mumbled.
Brother-Sergeant Prycil cursed. The words he said gutterspeak, vulgar, and offensive to every form of life in existence. They betrayed a deeper sense of unease, a deep sense of unwanted emotions and lack of blessed logic in the adept.
He received admonishment from the tank's commander, but these were soften be attached signifiers expressed sympathy. "Emotive responses are unbecoming to servants of the machines."
Brother-Sergeant Pycil murmered his apologies and continued to scan the mountain range. With the war in the Sectorum Solar, most of the chapter had left to support the Emperor, leaving very few Ultramarines left on their home planet. So doing jobs such as scanning the mountain range, instead of leaving it to a servitor, has become a daily routine for Pycil.
The just as they had been since the invasion began, had been empty.
Pycil watched the screens before him with augmented eyes, clicking and whirring, while what remained of his brain scanned the rudimentary manifold for possible returns. The system malfunctioned, fuzzing in and out, rife with interference.
Something zipped across the manifold, something small and bowl-shape and impossibly fast. His eyes did not see the object. He tagged it and packaged the data for review by the captain.
"What is…?" the captain began.
He never finished his question.
Pycil never answered.
Plasma lanced into the Fellblades, breaking apart the Trinity of the Crusade. Pycil, the commander and the crew atomized.
The Predator, Thorinn, was lagging behind. Some stubborn part of the machine-spirit, irritated at being awoken so soon after birth, refused to move at full speed.
Brother-Sergeant Nihlus, commander of the Thorinn, was busy trying to explain the problem to his commanding officer on the company command Fellblade, Imperial Truth. He winced as static washed out his aural feeds.
"The Emperor's Fury has vanished," hissed Nihlus.
"Explain," demanded Techmarine-Captain Talmin Caecilluis.
"It's just gone, sir," Nihlus replied, aghast at the lack of knowledge. Horror ripped through the tank. The lack of knowledge was both disturbing and terrifying.
Nihlus attempted to set aside conversation, to discard the unwelcome emotions washing through him. He focused on the blessed tanks and brothers beside him. He returned to his continued conversation with the Force Commander on the Imperial Truth. Static again washed into his ears, but Nihlus now swore he could hear something under it, something that sounded… other.
He was about to warn his Captain, to ask for clarification when two shots hit the tank abeam.
The Thorinn ceased to exist.
Bas'shia smiled. It was smile of gloating, nor a smile of arrogance or even victory. Such things were beneath him, more fitting for the gue'la he was hunting.
His drones surged ahead searching, reporting. In truth he did not need them. The gue'las made no attempt to hide as they defended their precious monastery.
Two had already fallen by his hand. Destroyed in the name of the Tau Empire, cast down for their rejection and their slavish adherence to a doctrine of intolerance, xenophobia, and zealously.
The Ultramarines scattered before him, falling upon their knees at the sight of him and his machine. Screeches broadcast across the communications network, the signature of hunting kroot while the more clipped and professional tones of advancing fire warrior stealth teams kept him abreast of the greater battle abroad. Other voices were noticeable for their absence, as was only proper.
The drones chattered at him as they scouted, providing a detailed map of the surrounding region and the waiting armored division. Bas'shia eyes narrowed in concentration as he adapted his plan, his kauyon, to the situation at hand. He issued fresh orders.
He smiled his lipless smile, blue flesh crinkling at the motion.
"Thorinn, be advised you are falling behind. Increase your speed and join the line." Techmarine-Captain Talmin Caecilluis of the Ultramarines, commanding aboard the Fellblade Imperial Truth, was sick of saying that and even more from the apologies. Annoyance, so strong it overwhelmed his emotional dampeners, surged through his systems.
Then the feed to the Thorinn vanished. There was no explanation, no report, and no hint. Talmin's irritation grew. He noticed something that washed away his annoyance with apprehension.
Two other machines were missing. Talmin tried to raise the Predator Thorinn and the Fellblade Trinity of the Crusade on the vox. No response from either.
Talmin apprised the tank division's Force Commander, Magos Jullius Prescott, who was in charge of the Reaver-class Titan Emperor's Fury, of the situation. Prescott, arrogance flushing through the noosphere, ordered that the Imperial Truth to continue its course. The xenos could not possibly harm such a mighty machine, a Titan in the service to the Omnissiah. It was a massive thing, crafted in now defunct forges by Macraggian tech-priests that were now long dead. The Imperial Truth rumbled down no particular path. It had no need for roads. It made its own. He felt ashamed for punching through the homeland of Roboute Gilliman, for bringing harm to the planet's honor, but that will happen if the xenos and traitors are able take the planet. He could only pray to the Omnissiah and that his battle-brothers, Primarchs, and He would forgive him for this sin.
Something akin to pandemonium swept through the Imperial Truth, flooding its systems and crew. Tanks were dropping, blessed machines, holy in the eyes of the Omnissiah and His faithful, dead and destroyed without warning, without response.
Outrage and chaos. The tank commander, the battalion head, senior Techmarines all were shouting in Lingua Technis and Gothic. They were not afraid for their own safety. Their lives were sacrosanct, protected by the Emperor and the Omnissiah. What brought them outrage was failure. They all knew that the Tau would come for their monastery – their home - for all of the relics and ancient technology locked inside. They will defend and repel the invaders – or die holding the line.
The lights and smoke censors swung and swayed, casting crazed through the hazy interior. Talmin frantically searched for the Thorinn and found no sign of the tank. The machine was dead.
Two more tanks, two more blessed machines, disappeared from the display before Talmin. The Deus Machnicus and the Omega-346, might Predator tanks, the pinnacle of Imperial and Machnicus perfection, dead and gone.
Magos Prescott thundered into the vox demanding something, anything, some small hint that he had control of the situation. He received no response.
Tense minutes passed; tense minutes in which another Predator and Fellblade died. Talmin heard it die this time. Heard it die with his flesh ears. All aboard the Imperial Truth did. The light flickered in sympathetic loss, the machine spirit manifesting the sympathetic pain. Feedback screeched through aural plugs. Static danced along the interior. Pain, electric hot, flooded the crew's system. The thing, whatever hunted them, whatever dared challenge the might of the Ultramarines and the Mechanicus, was close.
Talmin raged, as close to apoplexy as it was possible for a servant blessed by the Omnissiah and Emperor with extensive augmetics to be. His binaric cants were clipped things, appended with most urgent and forceful signifiers. Talmin could feel his rage bleeding into the manifold and it affected others within the Fellblade as well. Underlying the rage, underlying that heady emotion, was something deeper, more primal. Talmin realized with a start what it was, for he felt it too. He felt it seeping into the manifold from all in the Fellblade.
The feeling was dread.
Fear made the gue'la weak. Fear made them uncertain, made them commit mistake. 'Thinning the heard' his human allies called it, it was a sport them just as much as him. Even though these were their Space Marines, who were engineered to know no fear, their actions were still the same. They reacted exactly as he expected. The tanks were beginning to clump together, beginning to form fighting clusters as they continued their patrols.
This Riptide, his new warsuit, was perfect for this purpose, perfect for this hunt.
The guns, his guns, whined as they cooled down.
He stepped over the burning wreckage of the dead gue'la tank. A massive carving, shaped like a human skull, half-machine, half-bone glared at him, a mark of gue'la superstition.
He could see a standing war machine at the end of the pass, plumes of black smoke spitting up from primitive engines.
Bas'shia smiled again. His next crowning moment, his coup de grace as humans called it, would be taking down the Titan.
Talmin whispered hushed orders into the vox. He urged the remaining Predator and Fellblade commanders to cluster together, to seek safety in numbers.
Even as he did so, he watched as more tank sinifiers wink out, lost on the auspex. The Fulgrim's Grave, Pride of Macragge, Primarch Hammer, Pattern XYZ44, and the Devine Retribution all died impotent. None sighted their killer. None fire back in anger. Forty-eight machines remained.
They caught the first sight of the predator hunting them three minutes later.
A junior tech-adept approached Talmin, mumbling honorifics in Lingua Technis, clutching a pict in sweaty palms. Timan snatched it with an extended mechadendrite.
"Is this confirmed?" Talmin demanded, staring wide-eyed at the printout.
The tech-adept responded, affronted, before remembering whom it addressed. "The machine is certain. There was no interference."
Talmin inloaded the data onto the noosphere.
With part of his brain, Talmin analyzed the data, parsing it, applying blessed logic to the image. The rest of his brain was dedicated towards keeping the battalion moving to the front line.
Thunder rumbled outside. Thunder or something else dying.
Talmin flinched and what remained of his organic features grew an unheard of pale. Unbidden, the object captured by the pict emerged into his consciousness.
It was tall, tall and vaguely humanoid. The curled around it like a diaphanous robe, revealing and consealing in the same moment. The smoke sight was horribly intimate. Flashes of light split up the smoke from various points on the various points on the humanoid shape. The thunder of guns, so many weapons. The humanoid shape should have been reassuring, should have been comforting, but the figure was not squat. This was not one of his reborn battle-brothers locked away in a dreadnought, no blessed machine crafted by loving human hands.
What he could see of the thing was all clean lines, rounded intersections and malign… otherness. The machine, the enemy, the predator that stalked them, had penetrated their lines, moving far past any front, striking deep into the heart of the Ultramarines. It was halting their advances, keeping them from moving forward. What's more, it was picking them off, killing them, denying them of duty.
The dread afflicting the manifold intensified as Maggos Prescott, safe in the Emperor's Fury, made his own identifications and conclusions.
Talmin and his adepts redoubled their prayers.
The prayers were reassuring. The twinned tongues of Lingua Technis and High Gothic curled serpentine around each other, drifting over the tank speakers. They provided a comforting counterpoint to the hammering bangs coming from outside.
They sounded like drums, like rage and anger.
Commander Eryn Bersek, hunched over his station, was half blind. Fire flared. Lightning stabbed. Faces howled in the outer pict viewers.
He could not see their companion, the XYZ44, through the thronging menials in Mining Repositorium Location 867-AG. His only hint that it was there was the constant vox burbling of Lingua Technis coming from his counterpart in the XYZ44.
"Desist and disperse," he announced. His voice was calm, despite his inner turmoil.
The menials ignored him.
"Fulgrim's Grave, why have you stopped?" whispered that machine-brained bastard-brother, Talmin, the clipped professional tones of an experience techmarine. His brother had abandoned too much of his pure humanity to the filth of the machine. While Bersek aspired to the hieghts of his bio-engineered perfection, he could not help but loath the man for his callousness, for his logic. Someday, Emperor willing, Berserk would be the same; encased within a holy dreadnought. For now, though, he retained some connection to his humanity.
"Labor menials, Captain. We are swamped by labor menials," Berserk said, trying to sound contrite.
Talmin's response was a non-verbal sree of nonsense data, the Lingua Technis equivalent of derisive snort.
"You will advance," Talmin ordered.
Berserk canted his compliance. Their progress was slow at first.
"Desist and disperse," the commander tried once more. Again he failed.
The Predator lurched forward, treads screeching as they failed to latch on to the rockcrete surface of the improvised road. Crew flew from their seats, interface sockets spurting oil and blood as they were violently disconnected. Sparks flew as machine systems failed. The machine spirit growled from the engine, then coughed, wheezed and sputtered out.
The screen blinked at him in angry red letters
Red armor hit.
Eryn Berserk felt blood dribble down his face, smelled the rich fluid in his nose, tasted it on the air with multiple inbuilt sensors.
"Dead. We're all dead," someone moaned, half wailing with despair and fear.
Berserk dragged himself forward, his enhanced legs broken and unresponsive. He was searching, hoping, praying, that some function yet remained with the Fulgrim's Grave. The power flickered.
He could hear a fierce whining sound from outside. Heavy footfalls thumped into the ground. Something came close, some cursed thing.
The commander's hand stretched before a console. He cursed as he failed to reach.
The screen before him flickered as outer pict-viewers cycled through default modes. They saw nothing and transmitted nothing.
Berserk screamed with effort as he felt his life fade out.
Finally, he reached the console.
He shook as he typed, as he ordered the machine to perform its holy purpose.
They were still transmitting a minute later when the xenos machine outside opened fire and terminated the Fulgrim's Grave.
Talmin watched as the enemy machine killed the Fulgrim's Grave, screens flickering as the machine spirit processed the images. It stood, staring down at the outer picters, its own inscrutable lenses clicking and whirring. It took one step forward, flames backlighting it. The tiny head cocked to the side as if puzzled. Muzzle flare distorted the image, but the looming xenos machine was the same deep red as the previous image. If there were any differences in between this machine and the one in the pict before, Talmin did not notice them. Logic dictated that they were the same. He searched for some inkling of humanity, some anthropomorphic quality that would make it familiar.
There was nothing. The machine was so different, so other, so xenos, that it nearly broke the techmarine's mind.
But Talmin smiled. Something akin to joy spread through the manifold. They had spotted the machine, the picts clear as they could be amid the night and the fire. What was more important, however, is that they now knew where it was.
The bait was set. The kauyon, his hunt, his mission, neared completion. The Space Marine gue'la had proved easy to predict.
They believed him to be in a gathering space, a square position of the mountain rangedevoid of any cover, even from their looming Titan. He could hear their chatter over the crude communications networks. He paid no attention to their words. He listened to their tone, to their panic.
They tried to hide it beneath crowing victory calls and bravado. They thought him cornered. They thought him easy to kill. They were wrong.
Bas'shia would teach the error of their arrogance.
His treads were heavy, for this machine lacked the perfect subtlety of a stealth suit. He had no need for stealth now. He wanted the gue'la to know that he was near, to knowthat death was about to claim them. Each bear of their hearts would be gasping thump declaring that the extent of their mistakes were known.
This was not like past hunts, like against the feral orks or fanatical works of Chaos. Fear now was merely another tool of the hunt. There was no hatred felt for the gue'la, omly sadness, only a peculiar form of regret. There was so much they could have learned from each other, but they were bred into a doctrine of madness and ignorance.
But it was not role to question. His gue'vesa'o had spoken. The gue'la were dead. Their planet now belonged to the Tau Empire.
The XYZ44 was the first to enter Mining Repositorium Location 867-AG. It was also the first to die. The xenos machine fire once. The accuracy was stunning. Bright plasma, painfully blue and white, lanced straight up the 44's gun barrel and immolated the crew within.
The two tanks entered from different side trails, guns already firing, machine prayers broadcast loud from external voxes. Pride of Macragge and Primarch Hammer joined them, their own lascannons speaking, their own voxs transmitting the same holy prayers.
The xenos machine stood unmoved, undaunted. Plasma streamed from the mounted guns while drones rotated in complex configurations before it. Each shot from the Predators or Fellblades impacted against the shimmering shield.
Each shot was answered by the warsuit.
It wheeled and turned, killing everything it faced.
Once powerful tanks were reduced to burning scrap metal.
Talmin, minutes away in the Imperial Creed, listened, watched and trembled.
He screamed from his command throne, reverting to the flesh-voice of his youth, stress beginning to overwhelm his augmented brain. "Kill it!"
Talmin fed tanks into the fray, trying to overwhelm the xenos battlesuit, following the orders of Magos Prescott.
He was sending them like grox to the slaughter.
"How much longer until we kill the damn thing? How many more minutes until we hit the Repositorium?" Talmin demanded, flesh-voice disguising his quivering feelings.
"Two minute, sire," came the replay from a robed enginseer.
Talmin nodded, his command throne gripped tightly metal hands.
Talmin dedicated part of his vocal functions to whisper benedictions to the Omnissiah, praying for more speed, praying for victory, praying for death.
With swift haptic commands, Talmin Caecillius, sent more men and more machines to their deaths.
The true test had begun. Whether his suit would survive would be up to Mehmet's 'machine spirit' superstion, but this was it. This was the climax of kauyon.
This was what the hunters called the Rai'kor Kau'va, the Moment of Perfect Patience. The moment of exposure, of endurance. The hunt lived or died.
More gue'la machines challenged him and died. But with every second, their numbers grew, and every second he stood more chance to be hit, to be slowed down.
Bas'shia's smile became a grimace. His accompanying drones chattered at him, their intelligence excited him. Their reports did little to ease his mind, to ease the tension of the moment. He blinked to shield his eyes from another tank's death, railgun discharge ringing.
Another.
The tank flew backwards, burning, splintering, dying. It erupted in a mushroom cloud of flame and dirty smoke.
Another.
The gue'la vehicles ceased all forward momentum. Smoke, dark and greasy pouring out of interior.
Another.
The cannon rotated on his left arm, spitting death, plunking them into the gue'la machine. The human tank blazed with fire as the fuel tank ignited and combusted.
Each dying, each exploding in a dozen different permutations. Some died with screams, others with deafening sounds. Some merely froze, smoke emerging from ports in the hull. But what mattered was that each was dead. Each was silenced.
This was a challenge the zealot gue'la could not ignore, not while he stood before him, the object of their wrath, of their so called 'nonexistent' emotions. Missiles thudded down into them, killing them. The gue'la did not note the direction they came from, only the destruction they wrought.
The capacity of the Riptide battlesuit for destruction was prodigious, its tactical applications perfect for this moment. The height, the sheer promise of such a machine was intoxicating. It was graceful in a way that could not be equaled. Not by the Imperial's Baneblades, not by the superstitious tech-priest's titans, be'gel stompas, and not these space marine tanks. The perfect melding of two castes, with earth caste ingenuity and fire caste bombastic nature, were now working in destructive harmony.
Bas'shia grimanced, but the smile lurked beneath, wait to emerge.
The bait had been taken. The kauyon was ready.
These simple gue'la tanks died, bu the true prize, the purpose for his hunt was almost within sight.
The faster Predators tanks rushed forward, pushed in to face the warsuit, to cripple it and try to bring it down, while the remaining Fellblades were giving them support. But they were failing, and worse dying.
Talmin was annoyed now. The techmarine's eyes twitched. The only sign of continued intellect was his presence on the manifold, the continued hissed cants directed the crew. Talmin could not stop shaking, irritation and anxiousness flashed through his mind at the frailty of his human psyche. Both emotions spread through his systems like a corrupted disease. One part of him wanted to tear the xenos and Prescott to pieces with his own two hands, while the other part wanted to discet the alien warsuit piece by piece. The closure they approached, the more framiliar the design became. This machine was created by the mad tech-priest Mehmet, and he wanted to see how far gone this enginseer had gone in his time with the xenos.
Five tanks remained now, five glorious machines remained with him now. They were Temeraire, Bellerophon, Collingwood, Emperor's Vanguard, and of course the Imperial Creed, while the Emperor's Fury continued to stand guard at the monastery. The Imperial Creed was the only Feelblade in the outfit, the rest were Predators that just rolled off the assembly line floor earlier that week. The other tank commanders chattered at him, nagging, seeking his attention. Talmin gave them no response. They were afraid. Their armor was vulnerable. Talmin felt glad that he sat with the Creed, its armor proof of the manifest destiny of a man and the benevolence to the Omnissiah.
The smaller machines clustered around the Fellblade like a juvenile child around their mother. The arterial they advanced down, the longest known road that entered three quarry, trembled beneath their combine.
Talmin could see the flashing ahead, the smoke drifted from the battle. Five hundred meters until entry.
Three hundred meters.
One hundred meters.
Then it dawned on him. This xenos warsuit wanted them in the quary where it ruled supreme. It wanted all the tanks destroyed, so it could take on the titan unopposed. Talmin switched to the coms, but hesitated. From what he witnessed the xenos could hack into their com signals, and giving the new order would only cause him and the other tanks to become new target. He just gave one order to the crew of the Imperial Creed, to fall back to the monastery and let the rest of his men fend for themselves.
Bas'shia noticed this, but paid no heed. Instead he focused on the tanks that were left behind. The sound of thunderous guns, and bright flashes of plasma soon became the death of the remaining tanks. With their tanks now reduced to melting scrap metal in the middle of the quarry, Bas'shia turned his sight of his prize; the titan standing watch at the monastery.
Fire flared as missiles deployed, trailing brightness through the thich grey smoke. Five missiles, crafted by the genius of the Earth Caste, guided by the perfect technology of T'au, lanced towards the gue'la titan.
He could hear them screaming. The titan desperately wanted to break away, to run, to survive this doom that came for it. Its turbines squealed as the leg joints moved, but if it tried to retreat, then it would cause damage to the monastery. It mattered little.
The speed of the Riptide was faster than what he was used to, but when he was able to knock the titan to the ground it was worth it.
The shas'vre's smile returned, dry blue flesh crinkling.
Their Lord Commander aboard the Emperor's Fury was dead, slain without exacting and vengeance.
Talmin Caecilluis, Techmarine-Captain of the Ultramarines, commanding battalion magos aboard the Imperial Creed, stared without seeing. The man, shocked, aghast, appalled, stumbled to his feet. He didn't remember falling.
He sucked in a judging breath, and ordered, "Fire!"
The Imperial Creed bucked back as the Accelerator Cannon fired a density-core armor piecing shell to bring down the warsuit's shields, and then casted a hailstorm of fire from each Havoc Launcher, Multi-Meta, and Heavy Bolter that the glorious machine was armed with.
Bas'shia was caught off guard from the shock of the first blast, and if it was not for the Riptide's powerful shield generators he would have been dead. But because of the suit's Nova Reactor, it was strong enough to disperse the shot and recharge the cells at a faster rate. The crippled titan made for the perfect diversion for him, allowing take the fire in his place.
He returned no fire. He merely waited the attack out, waited for the gue'la fire to slacken as he knew it would. Their sensors were crude things, easily disrupted by adverse conditions. The thunder of guns slowed and the ceased. Gue'la tank commander was now trying to find him, to see if he was dead, to ascertain the efficacy of their own craft. He waited for the smoke to clear.
Shas'vre Bas'shia Sha'kais did not.
Fire flared as more missiles deployed, trailing brightness through the thick grey smoke, flowed by a powerful blast from the rail cannons.
A console exploded, sparks flaring against the darkness. Bodies layed everywhere while servitors mumbled for now defunct orders.
Fire spat, pitch flowed, and oil dribbled.
Someone gibbered nearby, a scree of numbers and letters; jumbling, senseless, useless data. Talmin stumbled through the crew compartment. Each new blink and click of his eyes bringing with a new sight of devastation and destruction. He saw the emaciadted corpses of his brothers, still mouthing words, still trying to pray to Him.
Talmin felt a thrum of joy. The Emperor had heard them. The Imperial Creed yet lived, its armor proof against the predatory corruption of the xenos, its machine spirit doggedly refusing to succumb.
The tank jerked forward.
Talmin Caecilluis barked out orders in holy machine cant. His voice was assured, steady. The guns opened up. The Imperial Creed answered again.
Bas'shia weathered the incoming storm. The last gue'la machine thundered towards him, driving headlong through the smoke. He felt no panic, no fear, only sheer joy. This was what he lived for, the mon'wern'a,the killing blow, the end of his kauyon, his time to shine as a great hunter or die in the largest and most amazing explosion known to the fire caste.
Unseen in the barrage, unwitnessed by the gue'la, flew two sets of drones. Their black and red paint was unbuttered, un chipped by gue'la guns. They chattered at Bas'shia.
The shas'vre smile returned, dry blue flesh crinkling again; more than ever.
Behind the drones, striding down the path from the Repositorium that minutes earlier saw the Ultramarine's armor advance, came the rest of his ta'ro'cha, his war party, their weaponry still smoking, vapours still sliding from their shoulders.
The Ultramarine's tank fell into stunned silence, guns smoking. Their main barrel dipped, almosr an acknowledgement of defeat. The tau Riptides dipped their guns in turn, an acknowledgment of the tenacity of their foe.
They opened fire. The combined might of the Empire was shown through their guns. Talmin was slightly proud, because he and the Imperial Creed died the same way they were born: in fire and blood.
Vre'al'anuk, her heart was burning with excitement, was the first to speak. Her words were filled with passion that rule her senses, that made her a productive member of the fire caste, but Bas'shia felt pity for which ever male she got her hands on afterwards. "Fools, the lot of them! Blind, ignorant, zealot, barbaric fools," she said.
Bas'shia said nothing. He respected her opinion, but her view of an enemy that she did not have to fight made something sour boil inside him.
Vre'Jonson, second of the ta'ro'cha, displayed the naiveté of his thoughts, of his race, with his response. He articulated genuine regret and sadness they felt at the necessity of their war. "It's a damn shame, little bird," he was mainly talking to al'anuk, "You might be okay with this, but I'm not exactly thrilled with death."
"Good, you shouldn't be, life is a sacred thing," Bas'shia said, giving the young human wisdom that only a warrior could.
"It's just hard to remember that sometimes, Bas."
"This is true," he said, giving al'anuk a silent order to set the rest of the Fellblade on fire. "But we still must remember, and honor their words. Courage and honor."
"Courage and honor," Jonson said out of respect.
"Courage and honor," al'anuk said out of pressure.
Words hissed across the cadre's communication network, seeking him, and his ta'ro'cha. They were needed elsewhere, the order claimed, and that the kroot would clear out any remaining Ultramarine personal within the monastery. Another gue'la armor column had been spotted, this time with three Reaver-class titans, had been spotted. Another threat to their foothold and conquest.
Shas'vre Bas'shia Shi'kais strode away from the burning wreck of the gue'la vehicle. He did not wait for the rest of his ta'ro'cha to join him. He knew they would follow regardless.
"Come," Commander Kauyon'Do said. "The kauyon begins again!"
Author's Notes
So I had alot of request of how Macragge was taken away from the Ultramarines, and I hope the execution was right. I just figured if the Viod Dragoon was awaken on Mars then the Ultramarines would be the first to arrive to defend Terra and take back Mars. A perfect time for an attack. I do really like the Space Marines, but the new Riptides stole my heart and we made sweet love!
Sorry for the wait. I had computer problems, final exams, and a new job. Damn you life!
Later.