1001
Despite the millions of Skitarii at his disposal, Alpha Primus Raiji-44 Stroika did not like sending them to their deaths. The Skitarii might be remorseless, cold and efficient killers, but treating valuable soldiers as expendable was far from efficient.
Unlike most forge worlds in the Imperium, Draconis IV actually valued the lives of their mechanical soldiers, and Stroika agreed with that assessment. On a planet so far away from the Draconis system, there was no easy way to replace the soldiers that he lose. Losses and casualties were inevitable, yes, but through careful planning, cautious calculations and meticulous execution, they could be mitigated and minimized. To lose an entire maniple of Skitarii just to claim a single objective was not efficient and extremely short-sighted. If another mission or unexpected scenario would to occur, Stroika would find it difficult to operate with such significant reduction in number, manpower and firepower.
Furthermore, each Skitarius grew stronger as he survived. The creed of the Adeptus Mechanicus was knowledge is power, and no adept embodied that more than the warriors of the Skitarii legions. Their knowledge of combat grew with every battle survived, their reflexes honed and senses optimized through invaluable experience that could only be gained on the battlefield. Most Magi from other forge worlds might claim that the knowledge sent back to them from dead Skitarii was power enough. Stroika and his master, Archmagos Styrimidon, knew better. Knowledge was not merely information. The reflexes encoded into the biological neural tissue that remained despite extensive mechanical augmentation could not be replicated by the data packets streamed back to Yamato's monitors and pict-screens. The abstract sixth sense and instincts that Skitarii warriors developed during war, while dismissed by Magi from other forge worlds as absurd and completely illogical, had time and time proved its existence to the Archmagos Explorator in his centuries of waging warfare.
As such, Stroika, having learned from Archmagos Styrimidon, was imbued with the same values and mentality.
The Skitarii marched wordlessly to the cavern where the Imperial Guard and Knights had encountered the Necrons, their only conversation embedded in data packets and information streaming in the invisible noosphere all around them. Binaric blurts hissed quietly, correctign a vector or angle in which the relentless Rangers marched, or the hulking figures of the Onager Dunecrawlers moved, their heavy, metallic legs sinking deeply into the ground as they lifted the ungainly main bodies across difficult or dangerous terrain.
The Skitarii Vanguard formed the...well, vanguard of the maniple, their rad carbines bristling with lethal radiation. Each squad of 10 Vanguard had at least three of their soldiers armed with plasma calivers, the weapons having been improved with the latest technology that the Artisans in Draconis IV had managed to glean from Tau plasma weaponry. Behind them were the loping forms of the Ironstrider Ballistarii, their lanky and fragile frames striding over the hard, granite ground. Unseen were the Sicarian Infiltrators, the shadowy assassins having already slipped into cover and preparing for a deep strike.
Stroika had ordered that most of the Onager Dunecrawlers had their Icarus arrays be replaced by neutron lasers. As the battle would be taking place in the subterranean cavern, the Necrons were unlikely to employ their mysterious aircraft. As vast as the cavern might be, there simply was no space for the high-speed flyers to maneuver and fight effectively. This was a relief. According to the information and combat data that he had downloaded from the noosphere and Manifold regarding previous skirmishes with Necrons, Stroika knew that one of the popular strategies that the Necrons favored was "Flyer Spam" or "Flying Circus".
The strategy apparently involved maxing out Necron troops such as Warriors or Immortals, stacking them all into as many Night Scythes as possible, accompanying them with half as many empty Night Scythes and half as many Doom Scythes, before raining down green, disintegrating death upon their poor victims. It was brutal, it was effective and it was nearly impossible to beat.
One irate Guardsman had even went on a rant on how it was "Cheese" or "super-cheesy", but Stroika filed that irrelevant but interesting tidbit away. Having no idea what cheese had anything to do with Night Scythes or Doom Scythes for he had long discarded his olfactory and taste senses, Stroika concluded the Guardsman was hungry when he made that remark.
Ironically, the Guardsman was part of the 24th Elysian Drop Troops, whose commander had responded that they shall counter the Necron Air Force's "Cheese" with cheese of their own by fielding as many Vendetta Gunships as possible while requisitioning entire batteries of Hydra Flak Tanks. When they finally won with that formation, the commander gave a short speech (the Ecclesiarchy asked him to encourage the citizens of the Imperium through obvious propaganda) where he merely licked his lips and said, "delicious. The cheese was delicious, and so were the opponents' tears."
Stroika recalled that examination of Necrons showed that they were biologically incapable of shedding tears or any kind of organic liquid so he didn't understand what the commander was talking about.
In any case, it was a good thing that they didn't have to deal with "Flyer Spam" within the tight confines of the cavern.
As the Skitarii marched relentlessly into the cavern, backed up by the monstrous Kastelan robots and Kataphron battle-servitors behind them, their auspexes and omnispexes picked up a lot of readings. During the time the Imperial Guard had retreated and was replaced by the Skitarii and Legio Cybernetica, the Necrons had mustered a full force. No longer just two floating Monoliths, nearly a hundred of them hung suspended within the huge space, backed up by ten Obelisks. Entire armies of Necron Warriors stood ready, flanked by their Immortal comrades, as they prepared to guard the strange construct behind them, which caused the Mechanicus sensors to jump crazily.
The STCs were definitely there.
Mixed into the forces were Canoptek Wraiths, Canoptek Spyders and Canoptek Scarabs, the mechanical units scrambling around to find a target. The ghostly Wraiths floated along the shadows, phasing through walls with their intangible forms. The colossal Spyders accidentally crushed several Warriors underfoot, who promptly got back to life thanks to their Reanimation Protocols.
Stroika sighed when he saw that. He knew that Reanimation Protocol was going to be a pain despite his Skitarii and the Kastelan robots possessing Feel No Pain.
Multitudes of Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers - led by Destroyer Lords, rows of Tomb Blades, scuttling Flayed Ones and columns of Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks were interspersed with the main troops, the heavy vehicles lingering at the back to provide long-range artillery with the Doomsday cannon and the infantry zipping around with their jet packs and jetbikes.
An Alpha Primus of a Skitarii legion from another Forge World might have ruthlessly ordered his forces to charge straight at the Necron army, but the Skitarii commanders of Draconis IV operated differently. They did not needlessly sacrifice and expend the lives of their men. Even if the tech-priests of Draconis IV were to successfully recover the hidden STCs inside the Necrons' tomb, they would still be tasked to fly out to Hell's Claws next to recover the legendary omnicopaeia. To waste a large chunk of their forces and combat potential in a suicidal charge here would not see the Skitarii perform efficiently in their next mission.
To waste the lives of his Skitarii by throwing them into the deadly line of Necrons was not only inefficient, it was a waste of resources – especially when he needed those valuable resources for future missions. It was also an insult to the Omnissiah to treat his highly revered creations like expendables.
No. Stroika would be smart and cautious about it.
Besides, Stroika had learned from the combat and tactical data regarding Necrons that suicidal charges and a war of attrition were unwise maneuvers against a still largely unknown enemy who could possible possess superior numbers and perpetual reinforcements from whatever xenos portal or gate they were using. Stroika knew the tech-priests were interested in studying the Necrons' incredibly ancient technology, but that goal was secondary to the recovery of STCs and defeat of the enemy. To win, Stroika couldn't throw fresh meat at the meat grinder and expect the machine to break down. He had learned from his data that four infantry regiments from the Death Korps of Krieg had tried that on the mining hive world of Hieronymous Theta and learned the hard way that throwing bodies at the Necrons to overwhelm them was inefficient and an impossibility. Inevitably, the campaign was a catastrophic failure and the soulless guardsmen were forced to leave the planet for Exterminatus.
The Skitarii of Draconis IV never liked the Death Korps of Krieg because of their fanaticism and inefficient manner of sacrificing soldiers, and in the few times he served with them, Stroika almost came to blows with the Death Korps regiments.
He was determined not to repeat the same mistake they made. Repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result was the epitome of stupidity. The Death Korps of Krieg, to Stroika, represented that.
[Open fire,] he ordered the vehicles in a binaric blurt.
As one the Onager Dunecrawlers and Ironstrider Ballistraii opened up, their neutron lasers and lascannons atomizing and shredding the massed ranks of Necrons. Such was the power of the energy weapons that the Necrons were unable to reanimate, their bodies blasted apart atom by atom. Making use of the Skitarii's superior range, Stroika commanded volley after volley of devastating laser fire, blowing up countless xenos into their component atoms.
Recognizing the threat, the Necrons advanced, returning fire with their gauss weaponry or tesla carbines. The Vanguard stepped forward to screen the walkers, but their defense was unneeded. The Onager Dunecrawlers' Emanatus forcefields shimmered as the gauss fire hammered them, but the Field Harmonics strengthened the forcefields by combining them into a much stronger barrier, which helped them withstand the spiked barrage, the exotic projectiles merely causing ripples across the advanced shielding that protected the heavy walkers.
If the Necrons were surprised that their gauss weaponry, so effective against the more heavily armored Leman Russ Demolisher tanks, did no damage to the meticulously shielded Onager Dunecrawlers, they didn't show it. Instead, they continued to march grimly toward the determined line of Skitarii Vanguard, who awaited them with overwatch fire from their deadly rad carbines.
And then, the two armies met in a silent clash. Green and silver machine-cold killers collided with red and black mechanical soldiers forcefully, augmented limbs, advanced weaponry and metal ripping into each other. The cold, eerily gleaming metallic skulls of the Necrons stared expressionlessly at the dull, dark and smooth masks of the Skitarii, who returned with hollowed gazes through their goggle augmetics. Where most armies would scream, taunt and roar at their enemies, the two forces fought silently, the army of the Mechanicus communicating through wordless streams of data in their invisible noosphere and the Necrons in their alien, united mentality of annihilating whatever was in their way. Absent was the ferocity and rage with which warriors of all races screamed at their foes, replaced by cold, efficient calculations, methodical murder and ruthless fighting. The only sounds that filled the cavern were the barks of rifles, the shrieks of laser and exotic energies, the thunder of heavy cannons.
The flayed ones were cut apart by Sicarian Ruststalkers, their skeletal frames and stolen hides no match for transonic weaponry. The spindly assassins then moved to engage the Canoptek Wraiths that drifted about, dissecting unfortunate Skitarii Vanguard with their sharp, whip-like coils before phasing out of danger. Led by Princeps Rho-Mannu, the Ruststalkers darted through the throng of Warriors and so-called Immortals, leaving a trail of cleaved Necrons as they made their way toward the ghostly enemy. The Wraiths proved invulnerable to the Ruststalkers at first, but as more data flooded in from the survivors' experience, they learned to time their attacks correctly, calculating to the closest microsecond and striking with pinpoint accuracy. They stepped back whenever the Wraiths dematerialized and phased into intangibility, biding their time. When the Wraiths materialized to eviscerate their supposedly vulnerable foes, the Ruststalkers struck. In time it was the Ruststalkers who were dismembering their foes, leaving a trail of dead Wraiths in their wake.
The cybernetic assassins may lack the martial prowess, combat skill and superhuman strength of the vaunted Adeptus Astartes, but they possessed unrivalled efficiency, uncanny precision and most of all, knowledge to deal with their foes. Numbers streamed down their optical augmetics, indicating the moment to attack down to the microsecond, their bioware issuing astute calculations, angles and simulated trajectories, allowing the Skitarii to fight as well as, if not better than their Space Marine counterparts. This, Stroika took grim pride in as he ducked under a spiked gauss projectile from a Necron Warrior and responded with a blast from his galvanic rifle, knocking it over. At his signal, a Vanguard pumped the fallen body with three blue spherical blasts from his plasma caliver, melting the xenos and its nearby comrades into molten slag. There was no reanimating from that attack.
The Necron Overlord, hiding at the back with its Annihilation Barge, continued to issue commands, its skeletal mask frozen in a perpetual snarl. Or was that an illusion that served to intimidate its enemies? Not caring, Stroika sent a binaric blurt to his forces as he directed them to take out the Necron warlord.
In response, a team of Sicarian Infiltrators descended behind the Overlord, dropping from behind the shadows. The Overlord staggered, hit by the Infiltrators' potent Neurostatic Aura. While the Infiltrators were listening to pop psalms that sang the praise of the Omnissiah in a hip manner, their enemies only heard howling static and mind-piercing noise that turned their vision white and obstructed their other senses. Pressing their advantage, the Sicarian Infiltrators prodded the Overlord with their taser goads until it fell over, dead. No matter what armor or shielding it possessed, there was no way the Overlord could make all its saves from the sheer number of attacks, particularly when the taser goads exploded with crackling energy once every six times to deal an extra attack.
With the warlord slain, the Infiltrators turned to the rest of the Necron Royal Court, peppering the remaining Overlord, various Lords and many Crypteks with flechette blasters before advancing to engage them in melee with their taser goads. The Ruststalkers followed their example, advancing on the firing Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks, and tossing their mindscrambler grenades at the offending vehicles. The grenades caused the alien vehicles' systems to go haywire, powerful electromagnetic pulses shooting through the floating vehicles and shorting them out. The Annihilation Nexus crashed to the ground and the Infiltrators were on them, once again lashing out at the surviving crew with their taser goads. More Infiltrators were dropping from the shadows, disrupting the Necron commanders while the Ruststalkers continued to target Necron vehicles to inflict maximum damage.
The Rangers had gotten close enough to unleash their arc rifles on the devastating Monoliths and Obelisks, the blue-white energy crackling from their highly advanced weapons to the seemingly impenetrable black walls of the floating pyramids. A sustained barrage of lightning saw one Monolith explode, and another, and eventually even the resilient Obelisks cracked under the onslaught, blowing up in spectacular fashion under the combined firepower of haywire energy and neutron lasers. The Necrons were beginning to buckle under pressure, and despite calling upon more Warriors and Immortals from the remaining Monoliths' Eternity Gates, the reinforcements were unable to turn the tide. The Kataphron Destroyers rolled forward, their Cognis flamers flaring as they bathed the freshly arrived Warriors in promethium, their plasma culverins vaporizing the Immortals, and the Kastelan Robots unleashed a bombardment of blazing phosphor from their phosphor blasters, incinerating the Necron soldiers further.
As more Monoliths were lost, lesser reinforcements could arrive.
However, Stroika was in no mood to celebrate. Having remembered the information imparted to him from the beaten Imperial Guard and Imperial Knights, he knew the battle was far from over. As he directed his forces to continue their assault, he sent a binary blurt to the Tech-priest Dominous, Sigmar, who was cleaving through a horde of Warriors with his power axe and pumping volkite shots into them with his volkite blaster.
[We need to disable the structure fast before they can teleport more Monoliths and Obelisks in.]
[I understand. Kastelan Robot Maniple, Sigma-42, follow me!]
Two cybernetica datasmiths, Xi-Lomar and Rho-Gox, immediately ceased firing with their gamma pistols and obeyed. The four Kastelan robots in their charge lumbered after them, their hulking frames smashing past any Warrior foolish enough to stand in their way, their phosphor blasters continuing to lay down suppressive fire even as they moved. Sigmar cleaved his way through more Warriors, a few Tomb Blades and Lynchguard cut down by Ironstrider Ballistarii lascannon fire before they could reach him. A few Triarch Praetorians stood in his way but they were quickly gunned down, being no match for the sheer firepower of the Kastelan robots. A looming Triarch Stalker scuttled toward the cybernetica group to scythe them down, but Xi-Lomar and Rho-Gox responded with twin blasts from their gamma pistols, melting the walker's mechanical legs and sending it careening to one side. Vaulting over the fallen walker, Sigmar let loose a burst of shots from his macrostubber, making sure the Triarch Stalker stayed down for good.
Sigmar finally reached the glowing structure, his mechadendrites unfolding to reveal a bulky item that his augmented body had been carrying throughout the entire battle. Placing it at the foot of the sickly luminous arch, he plugged his mechadendrites into the object and began programming it for its primary function. From a distance, Stroika saw in his noosphere that it was an electromagnetic field disrupter, designed to dissipate and disrupt the exotic and alien energies that the Necrons wielded. When activated, it would depower the Necron tomb and allow the tech-priests to safely come in, dismantle and dissect the structure, recover the STCs and perhaps learn something about the mysterious technology of the Necrons.
In fact, even now it was a technological warfare between the two silent, ruthless forces. The Draconian Tech-priests were utilizing the best technology the Adeptus Mechanicus could muster after extensive research against the highly advanced but alien technology of the arcane Necrons. The forge world of Draconis IV might have a lot to learn from the Necrons' xenotech, but they hardly contemplated the possibility of defeat in a war of wits and brute force against their skeletal foes. No matter how superior the enemies' technology might be, there was no race in the galaxy who excelled in killing like the Skitarii and warrior-Magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Even the monstrous Tyranids inevitably encountered inefficiency in their evolution paths and forced mutations, their vile acid, corrosive bile and digestive fluids were no match for whatever new metal the innovative Artisans of the Mechanicus could quickly develop and produce.
The Necrons' assault grew fiercer, as if they were aware of the urgency of preventing the Mechanicus from disrupting their reinforcements. Heat rays, disintegration beams, tesla destructors all bombarded the towering Kastelan Robots, but every once in a while the Kastelan Robots' Repulsor Grid would repulse the shooting attacks, deflecting the attack back to the offending perpetuator. A Triarch Stalker went down in this way, its own heat ray melting its robotic limbs. A Necron Warrior lost its head from its own gauss volley.
The Kastelan Robots were not merely passive defenders with their Aegis Protocols in place. Even though neither Xi-Lomar nor Rho-Gox was inclined to switch to Protector Protocols for more firepower, they continued to lay down a suppressive fire of devastating phosphor chemicals to set the Necrons ablaze, the reanimating skeletal warriors finished off by plasma spheres from the Vanguards' plasma calivers.
The Rangers had finished off the present Monoliths and Obelisks with the sheer amount of energy crackling from their arc rifles and now turned their attention to the remaining vehicles. Jetbikes were shorted out, Annihilation Barges annihilated and Doomsday Arks doomed. Relentlessly marching toward the busy and vulnerable Tech-priest Dominus, they formed a protective ring around him, their galvanic rifles and arc rifles pointing outward and unleashing destruction while Magos Sigmar worked tirelessly.
Just in time too. The Kastelan Robots' Repulsor Grids were failing under the vicious onslaught, and even the Onager Dunecrawlers who arrived to defend them found their Emanatus forcefield, already enhanced by Field Harmonics, buckling under the unceasing bombardment.
[Done.]
Sigmar distributed an invisible warning before he "threw the switch". In a split second, a burst of electromagnetic wave spread over the structure and the green light instantly winked out. The structure transformed from a luminous alien tomb into a black, metallic protrusion in a second, and the following silence – not just sound waves but also crackling energy signatures and electromagnetic radiation – was deafening.
The remaining Necrons found themselves trapped, cut off from reinforcements and without any route of retreat. Hemmed in by ruthless Skitarii soldiers from all sides, they were atomized by focused streams of neutron lasers from groups of Onager Dunecrawlers. It didn't matter if they were Tomb Blades, Destroyers, Heavy Destroyers, Destroyer Lords, Warriors, Immortals, Lynchguard, Triarch Praetorians, Triarch Stalkers, Canoptek Spyders, Canoptek Wraiths, Canoptek Scarabs, Annihilation Barges, Doomsday Arks or remnants of the Royal Court, they were all vaporized by the sheer might of Skitarii and Mechanicus firepower.
And just as suddenly as they appeared, the Necrons vanished, even their reanimation protocols unable to save them.
[That was close,] Magos Sigmar let out an uncharacteristic breath of relief. [All right, we can allow the xenotechnologists to examine the structure. I'll lead a team of Magi to find the STCs. I'll leave the security of the area to you, Alpha Primus.]
[Understood,] Stroika responded, already sending codes to his Alpha subordinates and delegating sentries, guards and other duties. [We'll ensure the sacred work of the Omnissiah continues without interruption.]
[For the Omnissiah.]
Even as streams of data and code flowed furiously through the noosphere, the Manifold alive with crackling information, instructions and orders, to an unaugmented witness the cavern appeared to be strangely silent and devoid of life.
The servants of the Omnissiah continued their work in perceived silence, the overwhelming noise of data and transmissions in the lively noosphere heard only by them.
When the Necron portal deactivated on the other side, the Overlords of some unknown dynasty began to stir restlessly. That tomb world was supposed to be a gateway for their massive Necron forces, which were currently assembling to scourge all life in the Maelstrom.
With the portal now close off to them, the Necrons were furious – if they could be said to experience such emotion. No…rather than rage, what drove them was cold ruthlessness and unfeeling determination to continue waging the war in any manner possible. The tomb world must be recaptured and the portal reactivated.
Fortunately, that particular Necron dynasty had just a thing.
A Necron fleet was floating at the edge of the Maelstrom, having been dispatched ages ago to observe the system. The Overlords, defying Man's understanding of science, sent orders to the Necron fleet so many light years away, ordering them to plot a course to Asmodai.
The Necron fleet was small, consisting of only a single Carin class tomb ship, a Shroud class light cruiser, two Dirge class raiders and two Jackal class raiders. Despite being so few in numbers, the Necron fleet packed tremendous firepower, possessing the ability to defeat larger ships and greater numbers because of their highly advanced technology.
The Necron Overlord in command of the Carin class tomb ship received the order and immediately complied, without any hesitation, fear or tension in his response. Whatever emotions he had once possessed had been stripped away when the Necrontyr were transformed into the cold, unfeeling Necrons they were today.
The Necron fleet began to slowly made their way toward Asmodai, silently confident in their superior technology and firepower and safe in the knowledge that the human fleet in orbit would be made short work of.