Manric gazed at the readouts of the naval engagement intently.
He was locked in a simulated battle with his opponent, the Immortal Itolyx. They were both in the heart of the crownworld, using a holographic battle arena that had been constructed just for this purpose. It simulated, as closely as possible, the experience of commanding a fleet of Necron ships.
"Shit," Manric mumbled, knowing he was in a great deal of trouble. Partly lucky, partly a poor decision on his part, he'd lost his Cairn class ship early in the battle. "Pick off the little one," Manric ordered absently as he tried to puzzle out his best action in the overall battle. His ships obeyed, focusing fire and easily annihilating a weaker unit. I know my mission, but how suicidal are we feeling today? Itolyx was tasked with defending a planet, Manric was tasked with tossing a few shots directly into it, to deprive the enemy of a strategic resource. The resource is EX level. Taking a deep breath, Manric deliberately committed himself.
"Hold the path. Harvest, take the oblique…" Manric moved his remaining forces into an attack pattern that was designed for penetration, to get to the objective. Itolyx knew precisely what he was doing, of course, and moved in defense. Manric had one ace up his sleeve, though, as one of his ships was equipped with a rare weapon, an Arc Obliterator. But how to get it close enough?
"All units protect the Dual Strike as we press the attack." That was not the ship equipped with the Arc Obliterator. However, Manric was trying to make it look more important than it was. Itolyx was prone to fall for tricks like that, due to his extremely by the book thinking. So it proved this time. Itolyx took the bait and went for the Dual Strike as the Arc Obliterator quietly charged up.
Then, disaster. Manric watched in disbelief as ship carrying the Arc Obliterator took a hit, just as it was about to fire. Red warnings blazed, indicating critical failure, and then the ship exploded. But as it detonated, the Obliterator also fired, and scythed through both forces like a mad thing. Ships exploded like fireworks and then a completely out of control blast impacted the planet. Open mouthed, Manric watched as the atmosphere of the planet went black and crackling. Then the simulation ended with an Objective Complete message for him.
"You have won this round, but I will win the next," Itolyx said as the partition dissolved. Manric blinked several times before finding his voice.
"I think we should reclassify that as a draw, since I didn't mean to do that," Manric said, still a bit stunned by the series of events he'd witnessed. "AI, what odds did you happen to hit for that to happen?" He was honestly curious.
1/1000000000 Good grief. Manric shook his head as Itolyx bent his head to the console, re-checking the readings.
"You had an Arc Obliterator? Those are very rare and unstable." Itolyx said before lifting his head and addressing the AI. "What is the logic in his forces having such a weapon?"
The ultimate commander of Manric's forces had that weapon through unauthorized means and decided to employ it in what he knew was a likely suicide mission. The AI said helpfully and Manric lifted an eyebrow. Because it was unauthorized, Manric was given no information on its use.
"Hmph, foolish… but even if it was random chance, you completed the objective and I did not. You have the win." Itolyx said firmly and Manric could only accept it, even if he really hadn't earned it. "What is our next scenario?"
This is a joint exercise. Ah, right. Manric moved around the display, taking his place beside Itolyx. Your opponent will be STC, playing with human starships. Ah, that meant they would have the edge in technology, but the STC would have more ships to play with. I will be your commander. You are tasked with obeying my commands, along with the rest of the fleet. You will be graded on how well you perform your maneuvers. However, I may give you incorrect commands or the situation may change so rapidly that my commands will be out of date. If you can identify those moments and take independent action, you will be given bonus points for initiative. And docked points if they were wrong, but that was the danger of taking initiative.
Since the object of the lesson was to teach the two of them, the STC and the AI were not actually playing. Instead they were following an orchestrated dance dictated by the module, but employing their vast computational abilities to adjust on the fly. By the end of it, Manric was very pleased with his own performance. He'd even managed to earn an initiative point for seizing an opportunity. Itolyx did less well, fumbling one maneuver and earning no initiative points. But then, initiative was definitely not his strong suit. As he came out of the haze of concentration, Manric realized that his body was complaining from the time spent standing, hunched over the monitors.
"Can we take a break? I'm afraid my neck hurts," he admitted, envying Itolyx for a moment. It had to be nice, not having all these minor aches and pains.
"Yes, I would like the opportunity to review my performance." That was always good too, taking a moment after a session to ponder what they'd done and how it could have been better. Manric took a seat on a simple wooden chair beside the wall, while Itolyx stood beside him, his joints locked in what Manric knew was the Necron equivalent of taking a seat. Oddly enough, Necrons did use chairs – or perhaps better described as thrones – but only for very formal occasions. They weren't necessary, they were just the trappings of nobility.
Manric knew he should be reviewing the exercise himself, but his thoughts moved in other ways. In particular, they settled on Itolyx. He was an Immortal, one of the Necrons elite soldiers, but most were almost as mindless as the common warriors. Manric knew a bit of their history now and knew the "Star Gods" had tricked the Necrons into accepting metal bodies, granting them immortality but largely turning them into mindless husks. Simokh had been the one to explain that the common belief was that it was stronger willed individuals that came out intact, but he considered that unlikely. Instead, he thought the Star Gods had deliberately lobotomized all of the lower classes to prevent rebellion.
Whatever the reason behind it, though, Itolyx was an exception to that rule. An aberrant Immortal who had come through with almost his entire mental facilities intact, he was far from alone as Phaeron Rahkaak had preferred Immortals and Lychguards like him for her personal retinue. But of all of them, Itolyx was the most intelligent.
"Itolyx, can I tell you something that would horrify my own people?" Manric suddenly asked, surprising himself. Itolyx looked down at him. "When the war is over I have no idea what I'll do." From the tilt of his head, Itolyx found it a strange admission. "War is all I have ever known and despite everything, it's the only time I feel truly alive." The feel of his spear in his hands, the thrill of the life and death struggle, the satisfying rush when he separated another drukhari raider from their head… that was the pinnacle of his skill, his ultimate achievement. "And the thought of retiring to my estates with my wife and family is a special kind of hell," Manric confessed, knowing that what he was saying would make anyone on Hope recoil in horror, then tell him it was all the war, he would adapt, he loved his family. And all that would be true, but it missed the point. "I only married because it was a duty. If it had been my choice, I would never have had a family." Manric knew the cold truth of that in his bones. He loved his children and had done his best, and it seemed to have been enough, but he was not a man who should have been a father.
"I do not understand most of what you are saying," Itolyx admitted, not to Manric's surprise. He likely couldn't remember much of family. "But I understand that you are a warrior who craves war. It is difficult, when there is no war to be fought… I have felt this many times." Manric suddenly felt badly, complaining to someone who was often expected to act as a virtual statue, from what he understood of Necron society. "You will adapt." Yes… he probably would. Maybe he'd figure out a good way to avoid his family. Would Reinhart need help dealing with civilian unrest? "May I confess something that I find distressing?" Eh? Manric looked up at him, tilting his head questioningly. Itolyx took the silent invitation and continued. "This managing of starships causes my neurons to fire in a way I have not experienced in so long, I cannot even remember it. It is very unpleasant and took me time to even understand that it is fear." Ahhhh.
"As a general I can tell you that that is not just normal, it is healthy," Manric said and Itolyx shook his head in silent disagreement. "I mean it… that's fear of failing, not just yourself, but all those depending on you. Phaeron Rahkaak herself down to the lowest warrior. I have seen young officers who did NOT have that fear, on their first command… they were either already convinced they were geniuses, or just didn't care about their men." Itolyx was looking at him intently now. "They were always bad commanders and needed to be removed. This fear you feel, it is a necessary part of learning to command."
"Then it will pass. Good." Itolyx nodded. "That is all I need to know. I do not like this feeling. But are we ready to continue?" He asked and Manric nodded, pushing himself up.
"Yes, let's get started on the next module." They had a lot to learn. The battle against the drukhari might be relatively straightforward, but it might not too.
They needed to be ready for anything.
Cieth-Siel, dracon of the Luminous Rose kabal, smiled viciously as her forces began their assault on the puny human settlements. The Luminous Rose was a weak kabal, of little importance to anyone, but they made a fairly good living gathering slaves for Commorragh.
The settlements seem larger than usual. This will be a good ingathering. The humans bred like rabbits but it still never failed to surprise her, how they could refill their ranks in such a short time. Although they had learned there were limits to that and it didn't do to ruin a good hunting ground.
Cieth-Siel considered this world the best of hunting grounds, and knew many of her warriors agreed. Most of the other human worlds they visited were cowed slaves, staking out their own for the vultures. Cieth-Siel hated those, spiritless and broken. What she loved was to see the fire of a real opponent and feel that thrill that came from knowing her own life was in danger, at least a little bit. That made it all the sweeter when she crushed them.
The humans seemed more fired up than usual, their swift little tanks already moving to meet them. Cieth-Siel smiled and gestured her troops to –
She felt nothing as she took a perfect hit from the Deathmark's Synaptic Disintegrator, and crumpled like a broken doll. But she felt everything as taloned hands reached from the warp and seized her soul, dragging it to hell, screaming.
Even Cieth-Siel would have admitted she deserved every moment of it.
Elsewhere, in the darkness of space, ships were drifting. Not slowly but not too quick, they were moving with deadly purpose.
Itolyx examined the tactical readouts and felt none of the unpleasant neural stimulation he'd learned to recognize as fear, or its close kin, anxiety. As the moment was happening, it seemed to turn into one of the many war games he had played, and an easy one at that. The drukhari were fat and stupid, far too confident with the many times they had come here unopposed.
"Zhandrakh, Syloth, you will take this one," Itolyx gestured to the display and the ship he wanted them to have was obediently lit in the green spectre of targeting. "We shall have the other." His warship was a Cairn class, larger than the other two. And the drukhari hadn't even noticed them yet. True, they were using the inertial drives on very low setting, but how stupid were they?
The answer was very stupid indeed. Itolyx didn't want to try his luck but they got very close before he activated the Sepulchre. He had no idea how the psychic emanations would affect debased aeldari, so they immediately followed with a particle whip and gauss weapons, which breached the hulls and cleared the way for the smaller boarding vessels. The eldar ships jerked and shuddered before trying to fight back, but the shots were uncoordinated and Itolyx suspected the Sepulchre had been effective.
We are in, came the clipped report from Immortal Taakah. Heading for the bridge and engineering. If they could take and hold those two areas, the ship would be theirs. And Itolyx badly wanted these two ships taken intact, for the sake of the larger plan. For a moment, he spared a brief thought for Manric.
Hopefully the ground battle was going as well as the star battle.
Meanwhile, in the ground battle, Manric was grimly pleased.
To be fair to the dark eldar, they had no reason to believe anything had changed. There was nothing from orbit to show a difference, and they had destroyed the Necron tomb a thousand years ago. Even for the eldar, that was a not inconsiderable length of time. Why should they suspect their ancient enemies had awoken to take revenge? Much less allied with the humans?
They didn't, and the resulting battle went very poorly for them. What made the most difference was the phalanx of Knight armor. The drukhari thought they knew how to handle them, thought they could cripple the joints, bring them down and cut them up. They found out otherwise, and paid for the knowledge with blood.
What also made considerable difference was the presence of the Deathmarks. All the Necron warriors remaining were busy with the star battle, but the Deathmarks had little place there. This kind of war was where they would shine, so they had been tasked with destroying the drukhari shuttles and then picking off anyone who appeared to be a leader. It made Manric wince a little, seeing drukhari just dropping dead, but it was incredibly effective.
Our biggest problem is going to be escapees. That was NOT a normal concern with a dark eldar raid, so Manric hadn't planned for it. But he'd already spotted a few of the smarter ones realizing that everything was just a botch, and vanishing into the trees. They would certainly start raiding the human settlements for "food" and living off the land. After a moment of hesitation, he opened a channel to the Deathmark commander.
"We have some deserters on the drukhari side. They're not too important, but the battle is well in hand. If you can detail one or two to hunt them down, I would be most grateful." Manric said, aware of the fact that he had no authority to order the Deathmarks.
Acknowledged. That was the only response, but Manric knew them well enough to know that was assent. That done, Manric gazed over the battlefield and nodded to himself. It was time.
Manric himself joined the battle then, joining his men and leading from the front. His spear shone with the cold light of witchery as he sliced through mutated flesh, tearing apart the drukhari's minions. Then the dark eldar noticed him and flung themselves against him, mad and laughing, tossing their own lives away in a final blaze. Manric obliged them, his spear tearing through flesh and spilling blood, again and again.
Then it was over. Manric lowered his spear as he realized there were no more enemies, and the battlefield was full of the dead and dying. The great guns of the Knight armor had gone silent, and a few men picked through the battlefield, shanking anything that dared move. Glancing over his forces, Manric could easily see they'd taken heavy casualties… but this time, they had all died cleanly, instead of being snatched away to feed the dark needs of a race of cannibals. And with any luck, they would never have to fight and die like this again. Glancing up at the sky, Manric hoped the battle was going equally well for Itolyx.
They could do without the drukhari ships, but they would be very helpful for the next stage of their plans.