The smell of burnt ozone, smoke, and burning wood wafted into my nose. I rose up, groggy. Blown apart tanks laid dead on the ground. Pockmarked buildings threatened to crumble down. I hadn't finished looking around when a man, dressed in orange fatigues, stumbled out of a bulwark, pushed out by a pair of hands. His eyes were wide and dilated in terror. He charged at me, screaming at the top of lungs. I stared at him as he leaped at me.
Was that a lasgun strapped to his back?
I took a step back at the black cylinder clutched in his hands.
Was that a krak grenade?
"For the Emp—"
There was a gun in my hands. The gun recoiled, aimed through sheer instinct, and the man fell down as a small explosion sounded out. The impact of the krak grenade rocked the earth, sending dust into my red tinted vision.
He laid there, joining countless others deceased, like sandbags stacked on top of each other. There were so many. It wasn't just mounds of bodies. There were entire hills, almost forming their own fortifications and walls. I could barely move forward without stepping on a corpse.
This was a dream. While playing Space Marine 2 on my laptop, I likely fell asleep flat on the keyboard. Then, because of all the background noise from the game, my mind was provided with the material to create this mindscape. I had to say I was impressed so far. Debris floated in the air and shone in the twin sun. A tower nearby collapsed to the ground. My steps left footprints. Everything seemed oddly coherent, for a lucid dream.
"The dogs of the corpse emperor have taken the western side of the objective," a voice hissed through the vox. There was a metallic quality to it, not fully human. "Night Lords, renew the assault! Our lives and souls are at stake!"
My vizor was packed with indicators. Allies on my sides and behind. Enemies were to the front and marked red. Main objective in the distance: a palace of gold and marble, surrounded by a protective line of planetary defense troopers. There were dozens of other indicators. I processed it startlingly easily, the situation before me clear as glass.
The night lords were laying siege to the capital of this world. Cultists, wearing flak armor painted with chaos symbols, were everywhere. They shot from high buildings, sprayed rounds from the rear end, and guarded the flanks. At the front, armored, giant man- tanks sprinted forward, running to cover, dodging rounds that whipped through the air. Skulls dangled from their pauldrons and weapons. Bat wing crests jutted out from their helms. They were covered head to toe in plates of armor, carrying bolters half the size of normal people: all of that should have slowed them now. It simply didn't make sense for them to that quick.
I realized something while looking down at the astartes. I was looking down at them. I was wearing Terminator plate armor. Bulky, cumbersome power armor that turned the superhuman soldier inside it into a walking tank. I jittered inside the power armor as shots pinged off of me like pellets. "Death to the corpse emperor." My voice, filtered through my helmet, sounded awesome. "Brothers, with me!"
I charged forward. A group of troopers tossed aside their weapons and ran, but were caught by my power fist, crackling with energy. A scout sentinel fired at me, running through smoldering buildings, dodging the covering fire from the Night Lords and cultists. I shrugged off the heavy bolter rounds, the barrage making me take several steps back. My armor turned red like molten iron. Everytime it appeared out from a building for a few seconds, it would disappear into the next, at least until a bullet whizzed into the open chamber of the machine. The machine stopped still in its tracks.
My armor cooled off with only black scorch marks. Damn, I felt cool right now.
"Your passion for battle makes you commendable, Hekaten." Laughter echoed through the vox, low and raspy. Another bullet whizzed through the air and struck down an enemy sniper. "But save your ammunition for now. We might be lucky enough to find a couple of Manus's scattered dogs inside the palace. With such a sacrifice, the deluded fool could truly ascend!"
"Our leader is going to ascend into a daemon prince?" I asked. The dream was getting more impressive by the moment. There was even a comprehensible story behind it. It was almost like I was actually in the fortieth millennium.
"He could. There is a great chance. The stars have aligned for him to ascend. I've heard that the Changer of Ways looks upon him favorably."
A snort, almost a snarl, reverberated through the vox channel. "He will not ascend. Tzeenech is fickle. Don't forget about the inquisitor hiding away from us."
"Of what ordos?" I asked. I strained and thought of Eisenhorn. Maybe if I thought of him, it'd be him. After all, that was how lucid dreams worked.
"Ordos Malleus. He knows of the plan. This world will be destroyed. Exterminus. The imperium would rather sacrifice one world than let a prince of chaos birth itself."
"It won't happen. We have the inquisitor caged in that tomb of a palace. We slaughtered every astropath on this planet."
Another harsh snort through the Vox. "This is ill-advised nonetheless."
"Focus on the slaughter, Little Kalow. Take a slave or two afterward to cheer yourself up. Your pessimism bothers me."
We pushed the line toward the fortress. The intensity of the battle increased. Heavy artillery blew apart buildings. Turrets locked onto anyone in the open, blowing them away. Even Using terminator armor would be too risky, unless I wanted to look like Huron Blackheart, then I would go right ahead.
"Hekaten, now would be an opportune time to send in the meat shields." A Nightlord, Kalow, looked at me from behind a fallen Chimera. In his hand was a chainsword with small bones as tassels, dangling from the bottom. "Unless you wish to go yourself."
Meat shields? Knowing the Night Lords, that likely violated the Geneva convention and every human rights law to have ever existed in one go. I hesitated for a bit, before I nodded my head, because it was a dream. Nothing could go wrong in a dream.
"Send the meat shields in," I said through the main channel.
Devourer dropships appeared from the skies. There were five of them. They opened their hatches and tens of thousands of people jumped out, from hundreds of meters from the sky. The space around them chilled, leaving a misty trail as they plummeted. When they landed, I winced.
With the meat shields, we weaved up to the palace, dispatching pockets of troops until we paved a path to the fortress. By the end, only a few hundred of them were lift, standing listlessly now that their purpose was fulfilled. One of them lingered near me. The inside of my helmet moistened with condensation.
The dream felt too real.
I could feel rubble crunch beneath my feet. My breath got quicker when I exerted myself. The troopers were the most realistic.
The enemies didn't just stand around and shoot like in Space Marine 2, not giving a qualm about losing their lives because they were rigid AI and nothing more. Here, in my dream, they screamed, they cried, and they ran. I hesitated to pull the trigger when several of them begged for mercy, making the sign of the aquila with their weapons tossed to the ground.
"I have done no wrong, angel." One had said, bowing down."I am pure. I am no heretic."
A trench knife had been clenched in the other one's hand. She had been a woman with pretty hair and dark eyes. She had said, "The vile archenemy. You fight alongside them?"
They had both had their eyes on me.
Then, I decided that the situation was uncomfortable and that it was only a dream, so I pulled the trigger once for each of them and moved on.
We stormed into the palace. I kicked open the gate since I was the only one with terminator armor. It flew off its hinges. I entered the hall, met by the focused firepower of twenty lasguns. The other night lords entered and finished them in seconds with their bolters. A lightning fast blur rushed ahead of us, power maul crackling in his hand. His left hand was a claw.
"Slaanesh," I said absentmindedly.
"Don't say that word," Tava said. "You know he doesn't like being reminded of it. His gifts are becoming too plentiful for his own good."
The man's helm was off, which revealed his black irises and pale skin. A son of Nostramos, adapted to darkness. I nearly started gushing, a space marine of my second favorite legion in front of me, before I stopped myself. I really had to work on my self control.
If I had the chance to meet an Iron Warrior, even in my own mindscape, I'd probably end up embarrassing myself.
We continued into the palace until we reached an elevator. It was silent. The elevator smoothed to a stop and rushed through several colonnades before stopping. A majestic gilded door stood in front of us. A keyboard was beside it.
"I will deal with this."
The voice came in a monotone. A night lord with mechadendrites walked to the console. Eventually, the door grinded open up to the side. As it creaked open inch by inch, the night lords raised their weapons. I did so too.
A squad of Iron Hands was standing on the other side.
A fraction of a second passed before their chaplain fired his heavy bolter twice. The rounds hit the techmarine directly in the head, mechanical components and ceremite blown to pieces. I grinned, not giving a damn as I unload my bolter into a blue barrier.
"Nightlords, we have been deceived!" The boom of bolterfire blasted on the vox. Guttural bellows and roars reverberated in the background. "An Iron Hands company is ambushing my position! Converge to me now!"
My power fist was aching to be used. I had never felt so badass before. The remaining Night Lords fired their weapons, hitting a translucent blue barrier, then scrambled for cover behind the columns. I didn't care about the cover. It was just a dream, after all. If I willed it, then nothing could pierce my armor.
"You idiot, what are you doing!" Tova screamed.
A vanguard held out his plasma pistol, the sheer power shaking the weapon. I was shifted to the side, nearly caught off balance, by a grappling hook. Plasma grazed at my chest, and I gasped as pain lanced through me.
I could feel pain in a dream?