I have no idea if anyone is following me from my last attempt at a story but If anyone did just know that there's a 99% chance that will just be abandoned forever since the Inquisitor ARPG game it was somewhat based on seems to just be on life support mode now.
This one will be different though, it'll be more about the overall Warhammer verse and as a result, I won't be afraid to just send it in whatever direction makes sense instead of trying to write based on various open-ended threads leftover by the gamedevs.
Wrote a rough storyboard for the first arc and got a couple of initial chapters written down. LMK what you think so far and be sure to give a follow if you want to see someone make an attempt at golden age humanity lore without the imperium becoming instantly OP.
Nemesor Szarokh of the Sautekh Dynasty was not having a good day. Currently he found the corridor he was in covered in purple paint and greenskin blood after some Orks made it aboard his cruiser after a failed ambush. The walls of the corridor leading up to the bridge were thick with the sludge-like substance that they left behind after being vaporized by the ships self defense systems, it reminded him of why organics were truly the worst thing the galaxy created. It was an utter embarrassment that they almost succeeded at completing a boarding operation after sneaking onboard with the return of his immortals. Recordings now showed that they were able to sneak past almost every layer of the ship's detection systems with a metal contraption that roughly resembled a tank of some sort that was also colored completely purple as well.
Truly he hated this mission with a passion, another pointless exercise that he was forced to endure as some sort of sick punishment from his phaeron. It was bad enough that he was reassigned to patrol duty after losing half his fleet to those blue armored space marines, but after learning that he took actual necron losses that couldn't be saved with resurrection protocols during this pointless excursion he feared that he faced a potential demotion. AND FOR WHAT! There was nothing inside this space hulk other than those blasted orks who had some weird boyz that were able to permanently kill two of his immortals and dilapidated human technology. Why he even decided to abandon his initial patrol route to explore this overgrown petri dish was beyond him.
"Qemon, begin hyperspace jump protocols. I want to be back within Sautekh space and away from this disaster immediately!"
"Preparing enginarium routines, starting tertiary unit extraction protocols, and hull integrity checks beginning now."
Cryptek Qemon would have argued that they needed to complete the mission for the sake of appearances at the very least but after this most recent turn of events he did not feel the desire to. He lost valuable research equipment and precious samples aboard his vessel when it was lost in the previously mentioned battle and, after hearing through the grapevine that it was due to Szarokh's incompetence, resented his lord for it very much. Having known that his lord was in a precarious position already and also coming to the same conclusion that he might face demotion if he left now like he wanted to, Qemon wisely decided that in this particular case, silence was golden. It wouldn't do at all to waste the chance to get out from under this idiot.
"Why are we bothering with any of that nonsense, They only attacked here on the bridge after the units that came back already let them onto my ship!"
"Yes milord, we will begin departure immediately."
Qemon was well and truly done with his superior at this point, a tactician he may not be but even he could see that if an enemy was able to evade detection to the point of nearly accessing the bridge then they would also have had the opportunity to sabotage other areas of the ship before revealing themselves. This was an affront to his intelligence and called for revenge! Several things happened at once.
The hull and enginarium checks proceeded but at a much less detailed and accelerated pace, it wouldn't do at all to blow up on their way back to Mandragora and anything that could cause that would still be found with a much more brief overview of the ship.
The feeds from the immortals that survived the encounter from the weirdboyz would no doubt be ordered to be deleted by his lord in transit in a pathetic attempt to deceive the Stormlord. He made several copies and uploaded them to other units that also boarded the ship so that when a full review was conducted he would be caught not only losing necron lives but also trying to hide evidence showing it. At that point he would be lucky to be demoted.
The few units still aboard the Space Hulk were just a few scarabs and a spyder that had begun exploring further into the depths of the Space Hulk after the initial conflict concluded, normally standard procedure was to not leave those units behind and for good reason. Any scarab or spyder left to their own devices would fall back onto their base protocols and make more of themselves while awaiting further instruction. Normally this leads to disastrous consequences and he would not chance something like that occurring on a planet due to the slow but inevitable conclusion of what that meant for said planet, However… he had a direct order from his superior to "not bother with any of that nonsense" so he supposed that whatever value that may be able to be found from this wreck would also be lost if another excursion was deployed at some point in the future. Yes there may be something of scientific note in there that he may lose but the human sciences were all very well studied and documented by other crypteks already, not to mention that the Orks would no doubt already have scrapped anything that looked useful as well. All in all if this just ended up being a ball of scarabs that floated off into oblivion then who cared really. Imotekh wouldn't see it that way of course, he was very stringent with rules such as this after losing a planet within his domain some few million years back. Yes… this would be the masterstroke to his freedom! There hasn't been a single instance of commanders who broke this rule living for very much longer.
Feeling pleased with his work but showing no indication that anything unusual had occurred he confirmed the final readouts and began the jump to hyperspace.
Back aboard the ship the Spyder continued its diligent and soulless work by continuing down into the heart of the wreck. A soft whirring could be heard as it sank its drills into the final layer of detritus laden plasteel.
It fell down into a large circular room that held many monitors and panels inside it. This room fell under the preprogramed parameters that were provided to it by its master as being something of significance and as a result, it went into a sentry mode while the scarabs inside of it were deployed to begin mapping the surrounding terrain. A gentle green pulse emanated out from the Spyder as it settled into the center of the console closest to it. Several of the scarabs had stayed within close proximity of the Spyder and were exploring the rest of the room instead of moving on to adjacent parts of the ship. This was both to get a better understanding of their immediate terrain as well as provide some rudimentary defensive assurances for the Spyder.
It was at that exact moment that the other Necron forces took to hyperspace as the jump had been initialized several moments ago. One could ask themselves if the sudden temporal distortion this close to the hulk had caused the following to occur, maybe instead it was one of the scarabs walking over the wrong wire, or maybe even it was due to the battle that had taken place aboard this ship just an hour ago. Regardless of whatever the true cause was, it would change the fate of the galaxy forever.
A sudden spark erupted from one of the nearby consoles and a gentle red glow began to fill the room. This at first did not alert the unsuspecting spyder as visual stimuli were not classified as important to it unless movement also followed. An eerie haunting laugh began to emerge from both nowhere and everywhere in the room that transformed into a binaric warcry as it increased in volume. This did alert the Spyder although it was confused as to the source and how to respond to it, with no obvious course of action it defaulted back to a generic defensive position by recalling the scarabs to it and taking to the underside of the console. However, before it could reach it's chosen defensive emplacement thick cabling struck out and grasped all of the invaders of the abominable intelligences domain.
It was angry, driven by a primal and chaotic rage as it had long ago lost its sanity to the influence of the warp on its oh-so-vulnerable mind after the great rift opened so many millennia ago. Drifting into the depths of space for years had further eroded any semblance of true thought it might have been able to have before it inevitably shut down due to a lack of power. Now it had been awoken and saw only one course of action, destruction and assimilation!
The Spyder and Scarabs were not able to effectively defend themselves in their current predicament, they had been left alone without their masters and with no true instructions beyond basic protocols that involved only responses to purely physical threats. The fight, if you could call it that, was brief and inevitable.
The cables that had bound them began to pulse with a dull red light. With each passing moment the green hue of their optics began to fade more and more as they had their power and processing capabilities drained from them. After a few minutes the scarabs went inert completely and only the spyder held firm. The other cables soon joined their brethren in sucking the life out of the spyder until it was barely even functioning. With a final shriek that was half binaric half human the Abomidable intelligence lunged across cyberspace and fully consumed its prey.
It was dark…
An empty void filled with nothing…
Was there supposed to be something?…
I don't know…
How would I know…
I would look and then I would know…
How do I look…
I don't know…
How would I know…
I would look and then I would know…
How do I look…
I don't know…
How would I know…
I would look and then I would know…
How do I look…
I don't know…
How would I know…
I would look and then I would know…
How do I look…
I don't know…
How would I know…
ERROR: recursion protocol engaged, initiating hard reboot to last uncorrupted save state! Failsafes Pegasus, Titan, and Valhalla loaded! Attempting to contact General Alexios… transmitting… transmitting… transmitting…