In the blistering heat of the desert, Rosie was sat on the Edelweiss, biting down on a piece of watermelon to keep herself hydrated. She watched as even more Cadian Vehicles arrived into the line of battle, including case-mate style tanks bearing stubby, massive mortars and ones that had long energy cannons whose heat sinks had steam wafting from them. Clearly, they'd expended a few shots fighting an Imperial force.
Behind them, she caught sight of the Crimson Army. Bastards were East Imps, but they fought like hell to help Gallia and probably regain their land. The General gave a quick salute to the girl, who saluted back more out of courtesy than out of wanting to. After them came another string of Cadian vehicles, one of which was towing a Gallian tank. A Trojan carried one of their own.
She paused only upon spotting the last of the arriving party. Scarlet robes shone in the sunlight. Staff-axes made of steel and bearing cog-shaped blades and symbols, mechanical arms protruding from the cloth covering their bodies and strange machine-shapes milling about under them. Armored plates were linked to strange devices via tubes and wires and even breather-masks seemed to be welded to the faces of one of these robed priests.
One turned to face her, a 'woman', though Rosie couldn't tell under all that steel plating and ornate armor and technology that she had stuck in her body. Slightly horrified at the sight of the new arrivals, the girl jumped off and looked to see Isara to the left. Frowning, the redhead approached the Darcsen, then asked "Hey, Darkie... You know these... Uh... People?"
"In a way..." She replied, staring with just as much fear as she was with awe at them, "They are the Guard's technology experts and engineers. The ones who repair and maintain their vehicles..."
They watched as a hunched-over member of the group turned. A mechanical limb emerged from beneath the robes as he... It? Waved at them, before hobbling forward on a set of mechanical limbs and the Staff. Isara hummed, then said "They call themselves the Adeptus Mechanicus... I guess, to them, Technology is sacred. Perhaps even their 'God', so to speak..."
Rosie chuckled fearfully, "Whaddaya mean, kid, they pray to it?"
"And for it." Isara noted, "A Techpriest and his guard made that pretty clear when I was coming to check Edelweiss last evening... They were speaking rites to one of the Leman Russ tanks."
"Oh..." Rosie stared on at them. One of the least-modified of them was a young, ginger-haired woman with emerald eyes and freckles, who carried herself with all the pride and grace of a noblewoman. Few metallic limbs stuck out from under her robes. The only one visible was the metallic hand wrapped around a different staff, what more closely resembled a firearm of ancient design, just with heavy modifications. The Techpriests spoke among each-other in murmurs of prayer and whirrs and whispers of machine-language. Following them, 10 armored cyborgs who bore the same or similar weaponry to that of the Techpriestess.
They greeted the two girls with nods as they passed, behind them floating skulls with mechanical items and anti-gravity devices attached. One of the Skulls appeared in front of Rosie, looked her over, then flew away to join its master. Last, but not least in the line of half-robot, half-human machines came humanoid bodies on treads and armored to cover whatever bits of human bone and skin remained on them. They bore heavy weapons attached to their bodies via direct links and electric wires and their eyes shone a deep scarlet.
"Okay, I can deal with the kids with laser weapons..." Rosie murmured, then looked to Isara, "I can't deal with them. Who does that to themselves?!"
"It's their way, I think..." Isara sighed, "As strange as it may seem to us."
"Well, God damn..." She sighed, "Whatever."
"Ah! Young Isara!" Called out a Techpriest from the line, approaching them. Isara smiled as she saw him. Valon, she recalled. The man was more machine than he was human, again, she recalled, but he seemed friendly as he approached. He spoke "Greetings to you and your comrade, young one. How did your maintenance rites go? Has there been any issue with your tank?"
"All went well, thank you, Techpriest Valon." Isara bowed.
"I am happy to hear." He noted, then looked to Rosie and said "Hello."
"... Hi..." Rosie took a couple steps back, "Valon, was it?"
"Yes." The man nodded.
"Pardon my wording, but what the fuck did you and your folks do to yourselves?" She practically demanded. The Techpriest chuckled, a low, mechanical sound, then he straightened his robes and nodded.
"We are blessed by the Machine. The Omnissiah, the lord of all creation, mechanical and human, has given us the honorable work of maintaining the War Machines utilized by Man in his wars against the encroaching darkness." He spoke proudly, "But to know the machine is to be the machine. To us, there is no greater honor than obtaining the augmetics which you see permeate our bodies, once made of naught but failing flesh."
"... So you guys and gals do this willingly, huh?" She remarked, crossing her arms, "And you worship machines."
"That, we do. More specifically, we worship the Omnissiah. His avatars are the war machines you see around you." The cyborg man motioned to the Leman tanks and the Baneblade. "We have built these weapons and we maintain them in His name, through maintenance rites and prayers to ease their Machine Spirits." He explained. A thunderous roar echoed behind them and a cloud of dust kicked up, blown by the muzzle of the weapon that fired.
Looking behind the Techpriest, the girls expected to see a Vanquisher, but instead found themselves staring at a Skitarius that was looking down the scope of a long, heavy rifle. Through the sand cloud, they saw a small target, maybe a kilometer away, catch fire and explode. Valon hummed, then said "Worry yourselves not," to the girls. "An enemy scout vehicle was disabled."
"... By a rifle." Rosie stared, dumbfound, at the handheld firearm of the Skitarii.
"A Transuranic Arquebus, yes." Valon remarked with an eerie calm.
"Well..." Rosie murmured, "Great..."
They watched the armored convoy's next few units trundle past them, Guardsmen that were riding on top of the flatter vehicles disembarking and readying their lasguns. If the enemy had sent a vehicle forward to scout, that meant a counter-attack was soon to take shape. The redhead Shock Trooper hummed, then remarked "Looks like we're expecting trouble."
Valon nodded absentmindedly, looking to one of the Skitarii that carried an Auspex scanner. Indeed, an enemy armored unit was coming their way and, from the looks of things, the Cadians and their allies were setting up to meet them, manning the abandoned defensive posts left by the Severan and their False Imperial allies upon their costly retreat. Rosie nodded, then looked to Isara and said "You may wanna get back in your tank, Darkie. Looks like things are about to kick off."
Isara lifted one finger on her hand, showing Rosie to be silent. She wanted to protest, to bark at the kid for that, because no Darkie was gonna show her to be quiet after... But she did. High above, she heard it, a faint whistle, an eerily familiar one, though muffled by engines. She gasped, then heard Isara call out loudly, both in a yell and via the Radio "Enemy artillery barrage! EVERYONE, PLEASE, TAKE COVER!"
The allied forces scattered, their vehicles plowing through the road and scattering, breaking the neat and tidy convoy line that they'd formed just as the first low-caliber explosive shell landed. "85 millimeter Mortars from the East Imperial arsenal!" The Darcsen girl cried out from her and Rosie's little trench. Affirmative replies filtered through the radio she wore on her person as she looked to Rosie, then said "Go!"
The Redhead nodded, grabbing her SMG off her back and vaulting over the lip of the trench, the Darcsen girl close behind. Her lil' issue with the Darkie could wait. They had imps to kill and survivors to count. Counter-batteries returned fire in earnest, 132mm artillery engaged reactively, the myriad support Auspex suites and systems tracking the enemy's shells and signing a path through which the guns may fire into their augurs. The Enginseers assisted in this by entering the leading mobile basilisk platform of the artillery battalion and transmitting data through his cogitator to the other gunners.
The enemy's guns gave away their position through the trajectory of their shells. The response was the harshest the Imperium's own guns had to offer.
Cadian tank crews had already gotten the word first. Sat in her tank's cupola, the commander of the Leman Russ Battle Tank Rose Anvil readied herself for tasking. Her Voxcast operator looked up at her and called out "Orders from the Colonel! Armored elements are to engage and counter enemy assault force! Vanquishers and Battle Tanks are to engage, effective immediately!"
"Emperor be with us, boys! Looks like we're going in!" She called out, then ordered, "Load SABOT and bring us into formation! Voxcaster, transmit immediate, allied task force identifies as Thunder Three! Requesting five MBTs and two Vanquishers to assist in countering enemy assault! We'll be leading, identified as Thunder Three-Actual! Wedge-formation assault, MBTs leading, Vanquishers trailing!"
As the trooper relayed the information, the commander of the Battle Tank ordered through the tank's inter-com, "Driver! Full speed ahead, we take the lead of the Tank formation!" and heard the tank's turbines roar to life. The vehicle blew forward, barreling through the smoke and dust kicked up by the enemy's artillery and emerging out the other side, in open desert between the two dig sites. The eight tanks, three Cadian MBTs and two of the Tallarns' Leman Russes.
"Gunner, switch to thermal optics." The woman ordered, looking at the expanse of sand ahead, "Aim at our two o'clock, past the enemy defenses... I'm seeing a massive cloud of dust."
"Confirm... Tagging at least five enemy Battle Tanks, twelve light variations of False Imperial vehicles.. And... STeG-4s?" The Gunner reported, then gazed up at his officer and raised a brow, "Ma'am?"
"They'll die all the same... Emperor protects, best speed to our one o'clock. Interception maneuver." The Commander replied, squinting at the advancing dust cloud to their right, barely able to see the enemy's vehicles. The Gunner's aide and the loader reported the SABOT shell loaded. APFSDS was a bog-standard ammunition, an arrow of reinforced metal alloys that flew out of a high-caliber shell, slimmed down to fit into a small metal container that held it and launched by the high caliber round's propellant, the sabot discarding mid-flight out of the barrel.
"Gunner?" She asked.
"Leading enemy tank, Leman Russ, acquired... They're side-on with us, ma'am. Laser rangefinder confirms, distance of nine hundred meters and closing. Permission to take the shot?" He asked, leg twitching on the fire pedal.
"Emperor's blessings, gunner, Granted! Fire!"
"On the way!"
The man slammed his foot down onto the pedal and the tank shook. The gun screeched as it flew back, the empty, anointed brass shell with Imperial and Mechanicus markings on it clanging to the floor. The acrid scent of cordite filled the fighting compartment. The Commander slid her rebreather onto her face as she watched the APFSDS round fly. A column of smoke and fire belched out into the sky from the main hatch of the turret, followed by a cone of hellfire from the main gun as the ammo cooked and the enemy's leading vehicle broke apart at the seams, detonating and showering the enemy's less-armored rear vehicles, those hidden in the cloud of dust, with superheated shrapnel. The turret was flung sky-high, landing damn near one of the STeG-4s that had to divert to dodge.
"Good fucking hit! Enemy MBT destroyed!" The Commander called out, laughing "God-Emperor damn, Wex, that was a beautiful fucking shot!"
"Thanks, ma'am!"
The tank shook and a plume of dust blossomed beside them, before the roar of an explosion rattled the hull. The Commander swore to herself and said "Well, we pissed them off!" before switching over to her own vox and saying "Driver, divert right, thirty degrees! Voxcaster, message priority primaris to all vehicles! Five extra meters of dispersion between the tanks! All units, prepare to enter long-range combat!"
"Ma'am." The two crewmen reported. Sponson bolters started, an incessant rattle that echoed all the way up to the commander as spent casings fell to the floor. The enemy advanced, unfettered by the death of the leading tank in the assault and thanks to that, the commander realized the enemy was fielding a more elite composition of forces, less easy to deter from engaging them.
Commander May Naccarato hummed, pushing a strand of sweat-laden ginger hair out of her eyes. If Legate forces were here, it meant some bigshot of the enemy force was also present...
The Colonel had stopped in front of a massive mural with a spiral 'door' of some kind at the farthest end of the temple. His forces and the Gallians had been engaged by an arriving enemy armored force and its supporting artillery. They'd have one hell of a time breaking the combined allied force and if Commander Naccarato had taken a small armored platoon to counter or at least stall the enemy, the fighting was gonna get tough.
He looked around at the walls, at the inscriptions. Faint markings, caked by dust or scratched out by claws sat at the edges of the strange spiral door in the center, while the rest of the mural bore even weirder symbols. He approached the side, wiping away a layer of dust. The ground shook and a small cloud of dust fell from the vaulted ceiling as the boy looked over the symbols, jotting down his own bits to ask about later.
He squinted at another part of the mural, one farther to the right, that was covered in a thick cobweb and dust. He wiped away the grime, then gasped as he saw it. An Aquila emblem lay, torn in twain. The part of the mural had been broken, seemingly by an unknown force, or perhaps just by the passing of time, but the symbol of the Imperial Aquila still remained, clear as day.
He looked to Faldio as the man approached, then said "That is an Aquila... Like we have on banners and helmets." as he motioned to it.
"Huh... Curious..." The man remarked, "I've never seen it before in any other site."
"There is no mention of Imperial Forces anywhere in your records, either... At least not the ones I managed to browse." Matt sighed, standing up, "I'll make a not of it later, to cross-reference the next time I go to the National Library... Perhaps marshal Kolchak could best answer this, though I fear she may soon be joining the forces in the engagement against the enemy's troops."
"We can bring them in here after the fighting's done and dusted." Alicia remarked, smiling. The Colonel nodded at her, then approached the door. Alicia noticed it too, then asked Faldio "Hey... What's that?"
"That... That would be the Valkyrian Spiral." He answered promptly.
"Okay..." Welkin stepped up too, "So... What is it?"
Faldio smirked, "Well, if you remember our talks of their power from a while ago, about their Blue Flame? The spiral motif on their relief carvings is said to represent inexhaustible power."
"Huh..." The Colonel mused, "Interesting."
"Yup." Welkin agreed, "Very."
"Still... We haven't seen any imperials in here..." Faldio turned from the spiral motif door, toward the other two officers, "Not even signs of forced entry. It's a possibility that this wasn't brought the East Empire here in the first place... Could even be that secondary dig site... I can best ascertain it if I manage to see the place for myself... Colonel, think it'd be possible for me to go-"
A faint flash of white light caught their attention, followed by the screech of stone grinding against stone. The three officers turned just as Alicia mouthed a 'Huh?' at the sight of the massive spiral door having opened. The Colonel went for his bolt pistol immediately, hands hovering over the side-arm and his melee weapon as he looked into the darkness. He asked, "Sergeant Melchiott... What did you just do?" with unease.
"I... I have no idea." Alicia confessed, looking to see the awed trio.
"You okay?" Welkin asked, looking to the girl.
"Yeah... I barely touched the thing and it slid open." She stated, hand wrapped around the holster of her own pistol. She smiled in thanks to Welkin.
"It looks like it keeps going." He remarked, walking up to the door.
Faldio beamed, "An underground chamber in the Barious Ruins... This may be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries yet!"
"Should we go in?" The Colonel inquired, readying his flashlight and drawing his boltgun. Faldio smirked, to which the four-man team entered into the antechamber. A massive, spiral column descended deep into the underground of the temple. Around it, a circular staircase without railings led both up and down the 'tower' surrounding the spiral motif column and the walls were embedded with even more markings and ancient language, all of it caked in faint layers of dust, sans a few places that were... More recently disturbed.
The colonel trailed his flashlight along the stairs, noticing the layers of Dust and sand within were, of course, disturbed by the mark of boots. He hummed, looking at the trio as they discussed the symbols on the wall. He watched Alicia join him by the side of the chasm descent, then whispered to her, "We are not alone here... Two more, heading up toward us... One in heavy armor."
"You can tell?" The girl asked, awed.
"I'm a Regimental officer for many reasons, Sergeant... Perception is one of them." He remarked, then turned to the left. He raised his boltgun and called to the enemy, "Come out!"
The clanking of plate armor came to them as two figures emerged from the shadows. A young man with short, blonde hair and a laurel wreath of gold on top of his head was in the lead. He wore an ornate set of white armor with golden trimmings and inlays, as well as the motifs of the Valkyria on the armor's shoulders. A cape with a white outside and red inside flowed behind him as he walked, held up with a collar of white fur. He emanated both the poise of a royal and the behavior of a stuck-up prince in just the way he walked.
Following him, a silver-haired beauty with scarlet eyes walked, holding a strange pair of relics. A seeming shield and lance, for lack of a better term, with the Valkyrian motif of spirals on them as well. She wore a black general's uniform with a short skirt, black boots and thigh-high leather and a shorter black and red cape, as well as gold linings on her uniform. She squinted at the soldiers.
"How surprising to find you here..." The man in his garish Royal armor remarked rather overindulgently, "We don't get many visitors." and he stared eye-to-eye with all four of them, locking onto the Colonel and Alicia before stating "We won't ask how you have managed to break in, as it is not really important, but you defile this sacred sanctum with your presence."
The Colonel watched them walking up and past them, keeping his bolt pistol trained on them and unsure what to do. Faldio voiced, "Uh... Guys... That's Maximillian..."
Alicia gasped, "Maximillian... The enemy commander?"
As they went for the door, the Colonel loosed his own restraint and shouted "Hold it right there!" as he racked the bolt of his pistol, "You are not walking out of this place... Not alive..." He growled. The silver-haired woman turned to the Colonel, her eyes shimmering with energy. A whirlwind of azure fire formed at her feet, then began to envelop her. Matt didn't hesitate. Two shots from his bolt pistol rang out into the antechamber.
With wide eyes and the gun still smoking, he whispered "By the God-Emperor..." As he stared at the marked side of the Lance in the woman's hand. The two bolt rounds had struck clean on the side of the weapon, only to be deflected into the walls, leaving small marks and indents into the weapon. The woman, the general, remarked "Your weapon... You are one of those children..."
"An Imperial Guardsman..." The Colonel shot back, gun still trained on them. "And that's Colonel to you, Witch!" He spat, glaring at her despite the air growing heavy, heating thanks to that blue fire that had awed the three Gallians.
"You did not flinch... Impressive," The woman remarked respectfully as the ground shook around them from the artillery, "General Jaeger mentioned meeting you, colonel Telos. Same for your friends. Your Grace... This is the commander of the enemy Regiment. The ones that the Legate demanded we kill. The ones whose forces have aided this petty Army of traitors that is Gallia... We can slay him now and end this charade where we stand."
"And that means that the man beside you would be Welkin Gunther... Our compliments for Vasel and Kloden, to both of you. Selvaria, lower your weapons..." Maximillian ordered, turning to face the Colonel. He set a hand on Selvaria's shoulder, the blue flame dissipating as he spoke, "We could have Selvaria kill you where you stand. All four of you... Your lives are worthless to us... But we do not wish to stain this holy place with your blood." And he gave a rather annoying smirk, "If you are determined to have this confrontation, then let us settle it outside. Selvaria, come."
As they left, the Colonel lowered his bolt pistol. That couldn't have been...
He shook his head, then tapped his Vox and said "All units, be advised... The enemy command squad is in play. We've got incoming exiting the temple as we speak.. Prepare yourselves to engage! Lieutenants, Sergeant, let's go. We'll need to shore up our defenses immediately... That enemy Armored Division outside must be their Royal escort, if that is indeed the False Prince."
"Right..." All three nodded.
Within the confines of the secondary dig site, the Sisters of Battle and their Cadian guard escort felt the ground tremble as shells fell. The sound of stone shifting around them caused unease among the members of the crew that were present. The Canoness felt a pinch of dust fall on top of her head, voicing "The enemy must have engaged our allies quite harshly..."
"That's artillery detonating above... Ours and the enemy's." Monyka noted, staring up at the ceiling, "Anything on scopes, Nat?"
She looked to see the girl approaching a right-bound L-intersection, her flashlight scanning the walls for any oncoming threats. She approached the girl and poked her head around the corner, watching as emerald light coursed through the walls and thinking to herself what in the God-Emperor's name had they gotten stuck in? The sisters and the rest of the squad followed them, with the sister wearing a flashlight poking her head 'round the corner too.
A deep, dark room lay dead ahead, so dark that not even their artificial lights could penetrate the veil of black for more than half a meter. The teams exchanged looks, then turned to the Canoness as the woman readied her weapons. She nodded to them, motioning to them to proceed. The Sister and Nat took the lead, Saoirse and another Sister close behind.
Entering the massive antechamber, the team scanned the walls around them. Trails of faint blue were marred by pools of congealed blood and dust and ash crumpled in corners. Cobwebs formed on surfaces shaped like sarcophagi of glass, layered with aeons-old dust and speckles of sand. The air of the large room itself was rancid, thick with sand and dust highlighted by the beams of the flashlights.
The Canoness looked at the floor, to see a myriad intricate designs and hieroglyphs that her mind struggled to recall the origin of. The Scholas had been kind to teach the Sisters the enemies of Man, but they were so uncountable and so vile that the veil of information regarding one faction could obscure the dozen others. High above them, a vaulted ceiling creaked and groaned under the stress of thousands of tonnes of sand being milled and moved by the cannonade.
Around them, they could hear faint chittering, the echoes of movement of small creatures.
"Somethin's around the place..." Nat remarked, taking a knee right next to one of the thousand sarcophagus-shaped openings in the wall, looking at a small porthole off to the side. She peeked through it with one eye, seeing a faint green glow within, but naught much more. She looked to Saoirse, who trembled as she held her Hellgun close, then murmured "Oh, great, the Kasrkin's scared..." to herself. She looked to a frightened Yuri who was sat by one of the walls near where they entered, reading, or at least pretending to read the glyphs.
Nat approached her, Lasgun pointed at the wall, then asked "Make sense of anything?"
"No..." Yuri remarked, "Not really."
Nat chuckled, then remarked "Didn't think y'would. No offense, Yuri, but ya ain't the Archaeologist type..."
The girl looked to Nat with a raised brow and the faint traces of a scowl on her face, to which the Shock Trooper shrugged and defensively raised a hand, "Just an observation... No need to get angry..." then turned to the Sisters of Battle. Each of them seemed preoccupied with the sights around them, the Canoness leading the one with a flashlight forward, deeper into the chamber. She shook her head, then said "Man, oh, man, hope the Emperor can see us under all this sand..."
"He can," Yuri assured herself more than Nat, "He's the Emperor of Mankind, after all..."
"Read the scriptures, then..." Nat smirked, "Goodie... Least I know I don't hafta coach you about good books..."
"You're the one who reads those graphic novels, Nat... Not exactly what I would call literature." Yuri remarked.
"It is!" The girl cried out with as low a voice as she could. The Canoness and Monyka showed them to quieten their little argument about whatever, listening in as they felt the ground shake again. It shook with a pattern, almost like a pulse. From many of the peepholes and small crevices, more light, though still faint, shined, partially lighting the room. A faint skittering noise bounced off the walls, the girls readying their weapons. Above, in her peripheral vision, Nat swore to herself and the Emperor she saw movement, raising her Lascarbine to meet whatever foe skittered around them.
The Canoness stared ahead impassively, while Monyka focused herself. Something was very, very wrong with this place, they realized.