Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Sixteen (section)

==9-175-001-M42==

The Dark Eldar outpost on Curria was aflame. It wasn’t their fault, though. More or less everything between a Salamander and their objective catches fire.<br>
“UNTO THE FIRE!” Elysius roared, casting about with his crozius and Power Fist. The Dark Eldar who had decided to escape the burning building through that particular door disintegrated as the Fist connected, showering the room beyond with bits of his armor. Two Fire Drakes leapt into the gap, laying the room beyond to waste with their meltas. High above, on the top floor of the structure, the Dracon commanding the slavehold powered the Webway Gate at the structure’s core, intending to make his own retreat.<br>
“This will set us back some stock, if we are to retain our position,” he remarked offhandedly to the haemonculus beside him.<br>
“Your position, perhaps, Dracon. Mine is somewhat more secure,” the foul being noted. The Dracon turned to glare at the fleashreaver, but couldn’t argue. It was right.<br>
“Hold your tongue, or I will remove it,” he growled. He turned back to the Gate controls, aligning the runes at last. “Ah. We go.”<br>
“Leaving so soon?” a deep voice snarled.<br>
Both aliens whipped around to see a gore-drenched suit of power armor standing stock still in the middle of the room, both hands resting on its hips.<br>
The Dracon reacted in an instant, drawing a shard pistol and firing. The rounds bounced off of the apish suit, leaving no visible damage.

The suit did not move. “What sorcery is this?” the Haemonculus grated.<br>
“Now why did you go and do that?” the suit – or the ape within – asked. In a heartbeat, the suit twitched, sending a beam of red light through the air from its hand. The Dracon melted into the shadowfield it carried, unhurt. “I was willing to discuss the possibility of letting you die painlessly,” the suit replied. The eyes of the helmet flared with a brilliant red light. The human in the suit – was it human? – suddenly moved, snake-like, to grab the liquefier out of the Haemonculus’ hand, twisting until the arm itself left its socket.<br>
The fleshreaver screamed, a horrible darkness pulling at the edges of its sight, as the suit drew back an arm. The Dracon watched from the shadows as the ape mulched his lieutenants’ head, then fired his splinter gun from the hip, sending a withering stream of shards at his target.
The suit rolled low, faster than even an ordinary Space Marine should have been able to move. “Problems, xenos?” the suit asked, a resonant gibe. It sprang back up, the generator in its backpack whining. The red beam appeared again, transfixing the shadows into which the Dracon melted.<br>
“Stalemate, ape,” the Dark Eldar snarled.<br>
“Not really,” the creature replied. “I think this diversion is working perfectly.”<br>
“Div-” the alien’s slanted eyes flew open as the sound of a Gate activating sounded…again. “What? What have you done?”<br>
“As my liege and Lord have commanded,” He’Stan said, firing the hotshot laspistol he had mounted on his wrist once more.

“Ape! You defile MY tower? You open MY gate?!” the Dracon roared, hurtling a grenade towards the human warrior. He expected the mon-keigh to dodge the grenade or scramble to leave the room, but it did neither of these things. He instead reached forward and caught the Vortex bomb in his hands, gripping it until his gauntlet creaked. Head down, He’Stan bulled forward, directly through the shadow-shifted Dracon…and into the wall beyond.<br>
The Dracon leapt back, ready to fire on the dumb animal’s back, but He’Stan wasn’t there. He had bounced off the alien substance from which the wall was made, rebounding with a kick from his artificered armor. He shot through the Dracon’s shadow once more, landing on his back in the middle of the room in a heap, far from the alien lord.<br>
“Burn, you foolish beast,” the Dracon crowed, sighting the pistol at the neck joint of the prone Salamander.<br>
“Nah,” He’Stan said dismissively.<br>
The void grenade – which He’Stan had left lodged in the wall – exploded, sucking the Dracon into the Warp, alive and screaming, in an instant. He’Stan rolled to his feet, watching as the entire wall was sucked away. Then, the black orb where it had been disappeared, leaving a perfectly symmetrical gap in the building.<br>
“Lord He’Stan! Are you there?” Elysius asked.<br>
“I am, Reclusiarch. Is the Gate secure?”<br>
“It is, brother. No casualties amongst the Fire Born, but the vermin gassed their slaves when they sensed us winning.” He’Stan sighed, commending their souls to the flames. “Shall we lock the Gate open?”<br>
“Immediately,” the former Pilgrim said, looking out the hole in the wall. “I suspect that the Emperor will want to handle this one personally.”

Sure enough, the wave of purple smoke roiling outside the building put proof to his claim. The massive Emperor of Man appeared outside the structure, bowling over the totems and various other things the Eldar liked to put outside their slave pits for some reason. “EXCEPTIONAL WORK, GENTLEMEN. IS THE REPRISAL READY?”<br>
“I believe it is, Sire,” He’Stan noted, a data stream from orbit entering his eye. “Yes…their teleportorium is charged and shielded.”
“NICE TIMING. I NEED TO BE ELSEWHERE FOR THIS PART, MY PRESENCE HERE WILL OVERWHELM THE GELLAR TUNNEL ON THE TELEPORTORAE. BE BACK SOON,” he promised, vanishing once more. As soon as the mist cleared, He’Stan gave his signal.<br>
“Reprisal, this is Pilgrim. We are clear. All hostiles neutralized, Gate locked open. Advise departure, over.”<br>
“Pilgrim, Reprisal, reading you five by five. Passengers are en route,” the cruiser in orbit reported. With a shimmering flash, a quintet of Land Raiders appeared in the center of the clearing the Emperor’s arrival had cleared, and promptly began disgorging troops. With another flash, a platoon of serfs in Salamander armsman colors and medicae uniforms arrived, hustling into the building.

Vulkan emerged from the Land Raiders alongside his troops, resplendent in his repaired Terminator armor. He glanced over the ominous structure before him, shaking his head in disgust. “It never fails, you know,” he said aloud.<br>
“Lord?” one of the other Fire Drakes asked.<br>
“The Dark Eldar. The Dusk Wraiths. Whatever. Ten thousand years since they first attacked Nocturne, and they haven’t changed one bit.”<br>
“Why would they?” the Drake noted. “They are perhaps the only race in the galaxy for whom things have consistently gone well. Such as it has.”<br>
“Save the Orks,” Vulkan noted.<br>
The Drake chuckled. “Yes, sir.” He hefted his multi-melta, slotting in the power feed, and shook his head. “You know, they still tell tales of the Night of Storms, my Lord.”<br>
“Eh?” Vulkan glanced over at the Terminator as he saw to his own kit.<br>
“The Night of Storms, my Lord. The night you stood in the square of Hesiod and hit the Eldar with hammers until they ran away in fear,” the Fire Drake said, finding his weapon suitable. “It must have been glorious.”<br>
“Glorious? Not so much, really,” Vulkan said modestly. “I didn’t even realize that the others had joined me until we had nearly won.” Before he could continue, the Reclusiarch Elysius emerged from the dank building and sighted his Lord.

Without a word, Elysius marched straight up to Vulkan and took a reverent knee. “My Lord Vulkan.”<br>
“Reclusiarch.” Vulkan bowed, eyeing the panopoly of relics on the black-armored Chaplain. “I owe you thanks, for maintaining the faith and devotion of my brothers in my absence.”<br>
“It has been the honor of my life,” Elysius rumbled, rising to his feet at a gesture. “I will gladly follow you back to the Webway.”<br>
“Back?” Vulkan asked, cocking his head.<br>
“Indeed. I have fought here before. The Dark Eldar are an ancient foe.”<br>
Vulkan eyed the icon around the Reclusiarch’s neck. “That looks familiar.”<br>
“It is yours, Sire,” Elysius said, lifting the golden trinket. It was an Icon of Vulkan, which he had worn at Isstvan over his Terminator armor. The Reclusiarch handed it over, and Vulkan stared at it in the palm of his massive glove.<br>
“I forgot this when I left,” Vulkan said quietly. He tapped it against his breastplate, remembering. “Thank you, Brother.” Elysius nodded and watched in silence, as Vulkan threaded its golden chain through the loops that held his cape in place. “I don’t know if you ever noticed, but there’s a magnetic coil in here,” Vulkan said.<br>
“It correlates to the magnetic seal on the Reclusiam, we know,” Elysius said. “We store fragments of the Tome in there.”<br>
“Good,” Vulkan said. A rising roar announced the arrival of a dropship. Vulkan tilted his eyes up and watched as the colossal slab of metal parted the clouds and descended towards them. “Well…we have trade,” he said, shaking his memories away.

“Indeed,” Elysius said. “I will be honored to join you in battle personally, if you will allow it, my Lord Vulkan.”<br>
“Absolutely, Reclusiarch, you’re welcome to join us. Was that not the plan from the beginning?” Vulkan asked.<br>
“No. It was the plan for me to accompany the Guard waves in, and assist them in securing a foothold. But…with no disrespect intended to the Guard, they have their own Chaplains. My place is with my Battle Brothers,” Elysius said.<br>
“Ah.” Vulkan considered. “…Very well, Reclusiarch, you may accompany us. What’s your name, anyway?”<br>
“I am Elysius, my Lord,” the Chaplain said, inclining his head.<br>
“All right, then Elysius, accompany us if you wish.” An Aquila-class shuttle sped past the colossal Guard dropship, settling down at the very edge of the field the Emperor’s arrival had created. A number of Guard officers disembarked, looking at the Dark Eldar structure with disgust and trepidation in equal measure. One Commissar especially seemed repulsed; perhaps he had been in one before. Elysius noted Vulkan’s attention and explained. “They are the advisors of the Guard commander. Commissars, War Clerics, Chaplains, Enginseers, Sanctioned Psykers, a Primaris…so forth.”<br>
“Good. I’m surprised the Munitorum was able to divert so many forces from the Tyranid fronts,” Vulkan said, walking into the Dark Eldar structure with the other Drakes in tow.<br>
Elysius laughed. “I imagine the Emperor’s word was persuasive.”

Cain looked up at the Dark Eldar structure, his stomach tightening. There were forces of darkness and Chaos in the galaxy that unnerved him more – Necrons came to mind – but none were quite so unapologetically evil as the Dark Eldar. Even the Tyranids, really, were just hungry. But these abominations…<br>
He shook his memories away. Here, at least, with the Emperor himself leading the charge, the odds of his survival were, paradoxically enough, higher. Hearing the rumble of Promethium engines up ahead, Cain looked over to see several Land Raiders in Salamander colors rumbling up to a large door in the battle-scarred building. Even as the vehicles pulled up, a shaped charge on the frame blew the door down, and the Land Raiders rolled on in.<br>
The contingent of Guard officers moved up to the structure, as several Salamander Terminators surrounded the structure and started hosing the bodies down with flamers. Cain had worked with Astartes before, of course, but never a First Founding Chapter.

A gigantic Terminator with a billowing drake-skin cape was entering the building now, sweeping the room beyond with a glowing spear. Reasoning that he at least must be in charge, Cain and Jurgen followed him in, both men grimacing in distaste at the carnage beyond. “A rough job, that,” Jurgen said, staring at a heap of discarded Dark Eldar weapons that a Techmarine was busily melting.<br>
“Disgusting,” Cain sniffed. The Terminator turned at the announcement.<br>
“Commissar?”<br>
“The xenos weapons,” Cain said, gesturing at the wrecked wargear. “Weapons of intimidation and pain. They’re not martial weapons, things designed to kill as rapidly as possible.”<br>
“True enough,” the Terminator said. His gaze turned to Jurgen and lingered for a moment, then seemed to shake itself loose. “Well, the dropships ferrying the first wave of armored and mechanized units arrive soon, Commissar, so see to your men before the Emperor returns.”<br>
“Lord Astartes, I would ask what role your own company will take in this assault,” Cain said, wrinkling his nose as the smell of the flamers torching xenos bodies reached him.<br>
The Terminator turned back to him. “Lord Primarch, actually. And I am leading all armored units in person,” he said.<br>
Cain gaped. “Will…wonders never cease,” he murmured.

Mere moments later, a shockwave outside announced the Emperor’s return. “GENTS, GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT. VULKAN, ARE YOU READY TO GO?” an earsplitting voice asked.<br>
“I am, my Liege, as soon as the Guard units dismount,” Vulkan said, walking back out.<br>
“NO TIME, PROBLEMS HAVE ARISEN. JAGHATAI’S UNIT IS READY TO GO NOW, BUT THE DARK ELDAR MANAGED TO GET A SIGNAL OUT THROUGH YOUR GATE BEFORE YOU KILLED THE GUYS CONTROLLING IT, AND THEY MAY BE WAITING FOR US,” the Emperor said urgently. “IF WE’RE GOING TO DO THIS WE NEED TO DO IT NOW.”<br>
“I see…then we’ll have to send the Guard units in as they arrive,” Vulkan said, processing that. “We may need to divert more, as well.”<br>
“I KNOW, AND WE WILL, I’VE ALREADY ‘REQUESTED’ ADDITIONAL MECHANICUM AND GUARD UNITS BE DIVERTED HERE,” the Emperor informed him. “BUT REALLY, WE NEED TO DO THIS NOW. IF THEY GET SOUL EXTRACTORS SET UP BY THE GATE, EVERYONE WE SEND IN AFTER THE FIRST WAVE IS GOING TO DIE.”<br>
“All right, then…” Vulkan said, tapping his helmet vox. “Father to Pilgrim. We’re out of time. Open the Gate.”

A small contingent of Mandrakes scurried away from the Gate, abandoning their positions as it spun to life. The phalanx of warriors beyond – largely mercenaries nobody higher up the chain would miss – leveled their weapons at the shimmering circles of black-on-black. “Aim low, you rats, take them at the legs,” their leader snarled, hauling his heavy stub rifle up to his shoulder and sighting low. An entire armada of Dark Eldar vessels swooped over the crumbling building in which the Gate was built, practically cuing up to take slaves of the human survivors. The dead, reddish light of the dying stars overhead cast a deathly pallor over the rotting city of Commorragh.

“They’ll send armor first, with infantry on the flanks and psyker or two, probably,” the mercenary said, aiming down the sights. Before he could continue, the black ripples around the gate flared and spat.
A torrent of fire poured forth, washing over the panicked mercenaries. The packed mass of rabble screamed and tried to run, but a column of purple light emerged from the wall of fire, instantly vaporizing everything along its path for a kilometer, finally crashing into the wall of a massive foundry.
The Emperor walked through the fire, shaking his head. “I WOULD MAKE A SCUM AND VILLAINY JOKE IF ANYONE ALIVE TODAY WOULD GET IT.”

He glanced up at the swarms of alien craft, which were darting around, clearly taken aback at his appearance. “OH, GOOD, AN AUDIENCE.” Without a word, he gripped a chunk of the building that had fallen beside him and hurtled it into the air, breaking a skiff in half. “NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION…” He ran forward, vanishing under the broken rubble of the building. The swooping aircraft and the Dark Eldar aboard opened up, showering the building with splinters and energy.

Abruptly, one of the fighters exploded, as a stream of bolts slammed into it, showering the ground below with shrapnel. A Hydra rumbled through the Gate, with several Land Raiders and a Predator close behind it. Aware of the sudden threat from their flank, the aircraft split their attention to the vehicles, redirecting some fire to it. The Emperor emerged from his cover and fired his psychic beam once more, vaporizing several smaller aircraft in a single attack. “SAY HI TO SLAANESH FOR ME, LADS, I BET HE’S STILL SORE FROM LAST TIME,” the Emperor laughed, watching the attack dissolve. Several aircraft broke formation and soared off, clearly having had enough of the unexpected attack.

A trio of Rhinos came through next, and immediately disgorged their Fire Drake passengers. Several were mounting shoulder-launched missile tubes, but the air attack was done, and none of the mercenaries survived. “Job well done,” He’Stan muttered, leaping down from atop the Predator, where he had been crouching. “Send the next convoy through,” he ordered through his vox
.
A stream of servitors and techpriests was emerging now, swarming over the Gate’s controls, and erecting heavy stubbers and autocannons on tripods. Several more vehicles were arriving too, and the remaining Salamanders followed on foot, fanning out around the site.
“ALL RIGHT, MEN, SHIFT IT, WE HAVE MINUTES BEFORE VECT OR WHOEVER FIGURES OUT WHAT’S GOING ON HERE,” the Emperor instructed. “WHERE’S THAT TECHMARINE?”

“Here, my Liege!” a Techmarine proclaimed, brandishing an ordinary dataslate.
“GOOD, HANG ON,” the Emperor said, and teleported out, dragging the Techmarine behind him through the Warp, and emerging again nearly a thousand kilometers away, under a hovering Gate several orders of magnitude larger than the one they had used moments before. “HIT IT.”
The Techmarine shook off the disorientation, tapping runes on the slate.
The Gate suddenly spun to life, and the xenos that weren’t busy screaming in horror at the daemon in their midst gaped in shock as the Gate spat a Battle Barge out overhead.

Jaghatai grinned, gunning the engine on his Bike as the sudden shift in his stomach indicated their arrival. “Perfect. FOR THE IMPERIUM!” he roared, waving his chainsword over his head. The small army of Minotaurs, White Scars, and Naval boarders around him yelled their approval. The Barge’s hangar shook, as the dropship they rode lifted, and rocketed out of the hangar bay, its point defense weapons blazing away at the cityscape below.

The Emperor nodded his satisfaction. “I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER.” He glanced down at the Techmarine, teleporting him to safety aboard the ship in an instant. “VULKAN, DO IT.”
Vulkan, still on the other side of the Gate on Curria, nodded at the psychic signal. “Move out,” he instructed, gesturing at the Gate before him, and marching through. The Guard units behind him did so, engines rumbling to life. Vulkan loped through the Gate, closing his eyes as he did, and opened them on the other side. The Rhinos were lining up alongside the Gate, their passengers fanning out on the ground, weapons flaring as they marched into the darkness.

“NICE. REMEMBER, OUR ROLE HERE IS RAW DEPLETION. WE’RE NEVER GOING TO DESTROY THE WHOLE CITY WITH TWO TASK FORCES, BUT WE CAN GIVE THEM ONE HELL OF A BLACK EYE, AND SO WE SHALL. CAPTAIN DUNNER, AS YOU WILL,” the Emperor said.

Above them, the Scourge of the Heretic fired its broadsides and prow cannons, save those that faced the forces on the ground. The ravening beams of energy burned through layer after layer of buildings, scouring them away from the city, and killing hundreds of thousands of xenos in moments. The Emperor watched their screaming souls vanish into the Warp with grim satisfaction. “NICE. KEEP IT GOING. AND LAUNCH THE GROUND UNITS,” he said, and joined the ship in its attacks. The hundred-kilometer buildings all around them spat lightning from their peaks, sparking off of the void shields around the Battle Barge. The warship shifted its aim, firing the Nova Cannon down the prow into a massive spire to its side, punching a hole clean through it.

The streets below dissolved into complete anarchy, as the Kabals summoned their warriors to fight the ship hovering above them, and the wiser xenos ran for their lives, preferring shameful survival to eternal torture. The Salamanders emerging from the Gate in the distance seemed almost inconsequential in comparison.

The Gate behind the Scourge flickered to life again, as the rest of the Imperial ships in the Minotaur battlegroup emerged one by one, adding their fire to that of the larger vessel. The air split with the sound of collapsing buildings and discharging starship cannons, rendering everyone and everything that survived the barrage deaf. Brilliant light, too bright to watch, burned out eyes and shattered glass for a thousand kilometers.

The Guard vehicles emerging from the smaller Gate were far enough away that they were spared the harshest effects of the weapons, and fanned out around the Gate in an ever-increasing cordon. The Emperor and warships in the distance continued to pound the city in the distance, as the ground units deployed.

Jaghatai’s dropship – and the other ground units emerging from the fleet vessels – tore away from the ever-expanding ring of destruction towards the Gate Vulkan had seized. The ships touched down at the edge of the cordon, disgorging Jaghatai’s fast attack units. Vulkan nodded as Jaghatai tore past him, hefting the Spear. “All right, all units, move out! Remember that your objective here is raw collateral. Infrastructure is secondary to enemy combatant casualties. To clarify: all Dark Eldar are enemy combatants,” he said, a fiery wrath coloring his words. “Attack!”
The Guard units and Astartes beside them opened up, firing slowly and deliberately into the crumbling buildings around them. This was a dark edge of that particular island of reality in the Webway, long abandoned for the shimmering spires, but it still crawled with the dregs and the slaves. The Salamanders and Guard cut them all down without mercy, ripping a hole in the city. Jaghatai and the fast-movers raced through the streets, hacking away at retreating Dark Eldar and tearing hastily-built barricades down.

Asdrubael Vect watched the carnage from his spire. The windows darkened as the Nova Cannon fired again, but the beam was still so bright that it left an afterimage on his sight. His building was emptying, as tens of thousands of Kabalites and other warriors departed, to save their sorry hides, or to fight the invaders. He, however, stood at his window and watched the world end.
This was hardly unprecedented. He himself had engineered the arrival of several Mon-keigh ships in the past, to remove the weakling aristocrats that had opposed his rise to power. That time, though, they had been fighting to free one of their own. This was slaughter. Absolute butchery. Some part of him respected that.

The window darkened again as a cruiser fired its prow Lance. A small building on the outskirts of the city vaporized under the beam, and Vect sighed. It would take years to replace. On top of the centuries it would take to rebuild the rest of the city. Fantastic.

He turned from the sight and sat on his throne, looking out over the empty court. Even the slaves were gone. He was alone. As an afterthought, he called a shimmering sphere of crystal from the floor, and gazed into it. The small group of Mon-keigh that had emerged from the raid Gate was burning away at the edge of the city, accomplishing nothing compared to what the ships were doing. Idly, he wondered what they were up to.