Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

==Unnamed Emperor's Scythes Story==

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The shrouded, other-worldly tint of the Immaterium peeled away as the first ships of the 219th Expeditionary Fleet exited the hell realm. The various attendant ships quickly repositioned to their surrounding places as the few larger ships ponderously oriented themselves in the new system. Destroyers began languid corkscrews around their command vessels while the smaller frigates ballooned outward to form picket lines. Void measurements, order requests, sensor scans, and myriads of other data all flowed into the command deck of the ‘’Basilica Emergent’’, the head of the 219th. Easily the largest of the fleet, the ‘’Basilica’’ was a battleship unlike any other. The pearl-white, marble gilding gifted to her after the rescue of an Eldar world long ago set her apart from the two other large tonnage vessels of the fleet, the smaller battleship ‘’Tantamount and the battlecruiser Dirge of the Warlord. Now organized, the 219th moved in system towards what the frigates had just started pinging at the extreme edge of their sensors: Tyranids. It was not unexpected that the locusts were here for Myriandros’ precious resources. In fact, it was the very reason that the 219th had an extra two ships amongst the fleet. The Scythes of the Emperor had been returning to their own fleet when Myriandros found itself in the way of a tendril from Leviathan. And so ‘’Chitinbane’’ and her sister battleship, ‘’Unyielding Protest’’, despite losses and weariness from previous campaigns, answered the call along with the 219th.

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The locust fleet split into halves around the gas giant, Myriandros Quartus. A small contingent of bio-craft entered orbit to engulf the gas harvesting void stations about the planet. The rest trudged onward towards the human fleet and the populated world of Myriandros Secundus. Myriandros Secundus was in the latter half of its orbit being around 10 o'clock. The first planet in the system was located at 1 o'clock about the center star while Myriandros Quartus was as at 5 o'clock. The third planet had broken up into a moon sized rock after a moon from Quartus was eventually flung off and pulled towards the system center. The collision created an asteroid ring. The ball consider Myriandros Tertium was at 7 o'clock amongst its debris. The 219th Fleet was approaching from the system north in a prime position to defend Secundus and receive the extra-galactic invaders. Admiral Dega aboard the ‘’Basilica Emergent’’ voxed his orders to the fleet. The bulk of the 219th along with the ‘’Chitinbane’’ moved in support of Myriandros Secundus and her people preparing to deal with the now east half of the Tyranid fleet. A pair of destroyers and a triplet of frigates broke off to follow the Unyielding Protest on a long burn on the inside of the system's eminent debris ring. The six vessels orders were to corkscrew around the field and catch a gravity-aided sling about the moon, M. Tertium, and slam into the westward fleet. Dega intended for the smaller contingent to punch through the formation and then flank the eastward sub-fleet. A practical and tactical strategy on the void maps but in the cold, uncaring black, best laid plans are put to the test.

The opti-sensors of the Unyielding noted multiple ichorous puffs on both hive ship. Minutes later, scans identified tentacled-boarding bio-ships. Cogitators spit out flight paths and projected intercepts upon pict-screens. Several flights of the living craft were headed towards the Unyielding. From a dais in the middle of the command deck, the Captain Lyras bellowed with a voice untainted by bionics, “Listen up boys! All hands to stations, we got a fight comin’ our way! Huh-ha-ha! These vile bugs think to board us and eat us from the inside! I'll be Emperor damned if our magnificent vessel will see their likes in our decks! Plus, our esteemed Astartes Captain Phiras and his men are far too tired to fight right now! Poor guys are all tuckered out! Ah-hah-hah-ha! Now spool up those flak turrets, ready our first salvo of macrocannon rounds and remember 'don't drop the ordinance'! Ah-ha-haha! For the Emperor!” The vox caster across the decks went quiet, drowned by the cacophony of of an Imperial voidship mustering for combat. At the utterance of 'all hands’ the men and women jumped to their stations already in the process of preparing even whilst Captain Lyras continued his boisterous cast. Mechanics greased autoloaders even as they fed rounds. Magos and engiseers monitored the banks of plasma reactors as they dipped and spiked at the whims of the charging lance batteries and flaring drives. Auger arrays and cogitators began to relay firing vectors and predicted flight paths of the invading craft, updating as different permutations were analyzed. Amidst the din, Captain Phiras perked an ear towards the vox caster nestled in the corner of his armory. Even amidst the din of clanking ceramite, bolter slides being racked and battle orders being administered, the men of the 5th Company heard their captain respond to no one in particular. “The mad man thinks we're tired? Heh!”

Flesh, vitae and bony armor exploded out of the living boarding craft. The bubble surrounding the Unyielding and her retinue was criss-crossed with flashing dash lines of flak rounds and the cottony contrails of small anti-craft missiles. The bio ships loosed compressed digestive gasses to jink and dodge while augers and cogitators corrected their life taking ordinances. The calculated mechanical precision of the human ships was still being swamped by the sheer number of locust vessels. Some were getting through. One of the destroyers had already been impacted on the top decks; the rasping, diamond hard teeth, enzymes and acids of the craft ate through the meters of adamantite to deliver its deadly payload. An escort bio-ship had found a blindspot in one of the frigates flak screens and careened headlong into the side. The bloated ship burst smearing the vessel in acids and viruses that dissolved through the decks at a frightening rate. Entire bulkheads vented, spattering the viscous juices across the inside of the void shields until they shorted. Boarding vessels dove toward the stricken ship like vultures. A many-limbed bio ship, roughly the size of a frigate, had rushed inside the Imperial formation, impervious to the smaller ordinance. It raked talon-tipped appendages across the vessels ripping up thick plating and flailed limber, coiling tendrils that tried to crush and tear away anything they could grasp.

The Unyielding Protest was faring much better. Her defense networks were nigh-impenetrable. Void creatures that strayed too close were subject to overlapping screens of flak. Missiles tracked and obliterated whatever was beyond the range of the autoguns. Entire flights of troopships and escorts were vaporized as lance batteries fired actinic beams through them at the hive ship and her escorts. Likewise, living craft smeared and then vaporized as macrocannon rounds barreled through their formations towards larger targets. However, Unyielding and her companions were taking just as much punishment. Hundred meter long chitin spines shattered against the void shields. Globs of corrosive bile crashed over the ablative fields eroding them as the tides of a beach might. Sections of Unyielding's void shields were failing. Troop laden craft swarmed towards the holes that had appeared in the overlapping fields. Lyras’ thrust was being blunted.

Warning voxes blared. Dingy, soot-covered yellow strobes illuminated the metal bulkheads. The gun decks of port battery three were filled with a coagulating fog of acrid smoke, corrosive vapors and venting mists. Whorls formed as bolter rounds rocketed towards fleshy gaunts. Linear wisps formed as talons sliced towards servitors, naval conscripts and Astartes alike. The drilling maw of the living dropship had punctured two floors up from the deck. Captain Phiras and his squad were fighting a daunting vertical battle. The locusts would scramble up from underneath catwalks whilst some would jump and leap from above. Others skittered down stairs and through open bulkworks. At any time Phiras and his men were surrounded. The gunnery crew was still drilling even in the toxic miasma and xenos intrusion. Their belief in their captain and the trust in the Scythes gave them courage even in the face of the tide of locusts. The huge macrocannon fired. Backblast and sonic concussion parted the fog. The force nudged Phiras back before the magnetics in his boots activated. Conscripts stumbled but regained their footing instantly; they were used to it. The captain could see gaunts bent over like blades of grass in a wind as their clasping legs fought for purchase. Some were blown wholesale over catwalks and into bulkheads. An unlucky dozen or so locust were crawling on supports and bearings as the autoloading gimbal rocked backwards. The machinery masticated the yielding flesh and chitin of the invaders. Ichors and biles began to ineffectively eat into the metal. Across the deck, the wet corpse of a gaunt sagged onto an autoloader for one of the many flak guns. The overseer stared at the body he had shot several times. The autopistol shook in his nervous grip. Unlike the macro gun, the enzymes and caustic blood quickly dissolved the much smaller structure of the autoloader. It furiously self-destructed. Large caliber flak round detonated in the feed racks killing the overseer, the gun mechanism, it cogitator banks and anything else unlucky enough to be near it. A stray round pinged off of Phiras’ pauldron.

Phiras looked up; he had one more level to reach. Above was the second floor of the gun deck where the troopship had punched through. The locusts were still trickling out of the slimy, toothy orifice. He heard a clang behind him as a pair of gaunts landed on the catwalk. He wheeled and his bolter barked. A quintet of mass-reactive shells obliterated the intruders. Phiras turned back towards the staircase and sauntered on. The locusts swarmed the captain as soon as he reached the landing at the top of the stairs. Phiras whirled into a flurry of measured sword strikes and bolt shells. He pumped round after round into the gaunts that rose from below the catwalk and clambered up the stairs behind him. His sword separated snarling heads and swiping talons even as he ducked and blocked them. His bolter had clicked empty so he resorted to crushing one of the last beasts beneath his heel while swing his gun around to crumple the skull of another offender. He finished it with a bifurcating swipe through its thorax. Another miniature battle was over. The evaporating ichors fizzed into mist off the floor and his armor. His chest piece had a rent in the left side and his pauldrons were covered in a myriad of scratches. An errant boring beetle had gnawed and melted a hole into his right shin guard. “Damn. They managed a couple hits,” thought Phiras.

The macrocannon fired again. Down to the other end of the suspended floor Phiras finally saw a pair of his squad round the landing. “You boys are slow,” he smiled inwardly. The creatures scuttling towards them met grisly fates at the fiery maw of a storm bolter, smoking bolt pistol rounds and gnashing chainsword teeth. The three Astartes joined up at the quivering mouth of the troopship. Phiras yelled out over the din of battle, “Burn the infestation out men! Get your meltas out!” Grenades were tossed into the gullet. The sizzling meat and tortured screeches of the dying ship were ignored. “Set that patch up Ordin,” Phiras ordered, “Graid, finish off the remaining creatures in this deck.’ The marine placed a mesh field over the hole as inertia pulled the bio ship out of the cavity. The shimmering field would hold the void out until an adept could patch the damage. The other marine jogged off to confront the few gaunts scattered about the gun deck. Meanwhile, Phiras voxed the various other squads he'd sent to other puncture sites. Some reported they were still in the process of repelling the borders. Others had successfully eliminated the locusts and were moving amidship to new breaches. The macrocannon fired. Suddenly entirety of the Unyielding lurched throwing the marines and conscripts to the floor. Immediately Phiras’ comms pinged with a priority hail from Captain Lyras, “Phiras! We got a problem!”

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