Chapter 99: Chapter Twenty-Eight: Death in Calixis (Part X)
Some of the Vindication's weapons turned on the Osseivores, but the oncoming horde of slave soldiers fulfilled its purpose and kept Imperial guns turned away from the true threat. The tentacular manipulator limbs of the Osseivores were capped by boney claws that could rip open metal or crush unfortunate enemy infantry. Something other breeds of Osseivore specialized in, with blending whips of serrated flesh-plastic, or huge dual-limb claws armored enough to withstand point blank Lascannon fire and strong enough to rip apart Knight-Walkers. These Osseivores were woven together for a different role. As one the line of biomechanical Tank-things plunged their manipulators into the waxy surface of the War-Moon. Acting as traction spikes, giving leverage and stability for the Osseivore as it rested on its carapace-covered haunches. The stance required for an biomechanical artillery platform.
The great tubular structure growing from the Osseivore's back combined elements of spinal column, rail gun, digestive tract and a traditional kinetic weapon barrel. Capable of mounting different weapon systems as needed. These particular Osseivore's were equipped with tools of destruction unlike most anything else the Xeno used. Batteries of great boney spikes. Each at least five meters long and a meter across at its widest point. Mega javelins launched through acrid combustion and squeezed muscles. The Bone Balsistas fired practically silently, a slight crack and the sound of displacing atmosphere they only noise made. Another unique property of the War-Moon's gaseous covering was a drastic increase in the sound barrier. No rumble of guns or boom of displaced air accompanied the Osseivore's bombardment. Just quiet death in the shape of carved bone.
Still overtaxed by the firing of the Magma Torpedo, the Vindication's shields were in no position to deflect the oncoming barrage, a few lucky gouts of flak knocked some from the sky, but the vast majority struck their target. Tearing metal and puncturing the Strike Cruisers hull. Before the first wave of Bone Bolts struck, the second was in flight. In minutes the warship's hull was covered in thousands of jagged spines. Giving the vessel the impression of a great seabeast who'd earned an urchin's ire. Ion and void shields were quickly restored, muting the bombardment and initial damage checks started. The blindly fired spines had not struck anything crucial, barely piercing the ship's armor. Still, the Rangda had proved that paranoia is a virtue. Bulkheads were sealed shut and regions of the ship close to the impact were evacuated.
Back on the surface of the War-Moon the Imperial defenders from their crude fortresses faced the oncoming swarm of slave-soldiers and other Rangda chaff. Boltguns, las weapons and every other available form of missile weapon fired into the tide. Blasting apart slave-soldiers and wounding others. Those knocked down were quickly trampled by the sheer momentum of the charge. Rangda Warriors and Constructs slinked through the slave-soldier army, using it as shield and sword. The newly restored shields of the Vindication kept the worst of the Shadow Blasters, Necrotic Beamers, and Rad Bolts from the Imperials. But the charging Rangda force would soon cross the shields, this battle would become a close quarter brawl in moments.
Meanwhile the Magma torpedo continued its steady descent into the War-Moon's crust. Burning slowly, like through layers of bedrock, occasionally opening up strange alien chambers and tunnels which were quickly sealed shut by the semi-living material of the War-Moon. Time was running out, other more proactive Osseivores and unknown Cerabvore warforms were entering the battle. More traditional artillery pounded on the Strike Cruisers shields, and Wasp-craft flitted closer and closer every passing moment, pushing back Imperial Land Speeders and flak defenses. The Night Lords had decided on a plan for Exterminatus, and were reaching the critical moments.
When the battle for the Hangers and exterior of the ship was lost the Virus Bomb would be activated. The Tech-Priests did not know how effective the Life-Eater would be against the strange biomechanical creations of the Rangda, but they had to try. Once the Virus Bomb was detonated, the Astartes would need to act quickly. Deploying the Cyclonic torpedo into the shaft created by the Magma Torpedo and cracking open the accursed Alien Megastructure. Ideally both Vindication and Wrathful Black, the two crashed Night Lord ships would detonate their payloads at the same time but that was unlikely. Still the two attacks would keep the Rangda busy and ensure the final knife went unnoticed. The Final Knife, a stratagem named after an infamous quote of Konrad Curze.
"I use three blades when I kill. One the Enemy knows about. One the Enemy does not know about. And one my allies don't know about. Nobody expects the final knife until it's already sheathed in someone"
The earlier sortee by the Landspeeders had done little, only mildly helping the flak screen and not gathering any particularly useful data. But it had provided a distraction for another craft to escape the battle. A midnight clad Stormbird, midnight clad in both coloration and ability. The miniaturization of inverted void shields had proved possible but not particularly cost-effective. Normal stealth tech usually proved sufficient for craft smaller than a few kilometers. That being said, a few experimental air transports had been built. With the full range of Night Lord stealth equipment, and inverted Void Shields installed. One of that rare and eclectic craft had been part of the Vindication's compliment and now embarked on a suicide mission of grim importance. It carried a handpicked force of Astartes and the warhead to the Expedition Fleet's Phospex Torpedo.
Location: Star Cloak, Experimental Night Lord Stormbird
Date: 893.M30 (Four Hours since departure from the Vindication)
Four squads of Astartes, almost a demi-Company, had been tasked with delivering the Crawling Death to the Xeno nest. Their orders were simple: get the Phosphex as close to the War-Moon's "mouth" as possible. While Xeno engineering, particularly Rangda defied reason, a few basic tenets must apply. When the Megastrucutre had obliterated the Resupply Fleet's stragglers, it had opened up and spat death, unleashing energies even the greatest minds of Mars would fail to shackle. Such a mechanism would require delicate and unique mechanisms that would tolerate the presence of Phospex poorly. Of course it would not be unguarded, the Rangda Kindred had proved themselves no fools. This was a suicide mission within a suicide mission, a fact the Night Lords took grim humor with. Naming the adhoc formation "Martyr Company"
Martyr Company, composed of some of the most viciously pragmatic killers the Imperium kept. Flying across the animated corpse of a World carrying one of the foulest weapons of human construction. Yes, that suited the Night Lords perfectly, and who was to judge, that was their job after all? So Martyr Company aboard the Star Cloak Stormbird shot across the skies of the War-Moon. Avoiding circling packs of Wasp Fighters, and attempting to navigate the surreal megastructure's surface.
No human mind could rightfully understand the shifting fleshy landscape that wheeled past the Stormbird. Boney towers dotted with polyp growths and rubbery tubing stretched skyward. Moving across the wrinkled and twisted "ground" like Icebergs drifting in some eldritch ocean. Something was always moving, constructed organisms skittering over plastic field, migrating tumor hills, the opening and shutting of gas-spewing orifices, and rarely the surfacing of Rangda war-forms. Literally pulling themselves out of the Planetoids surface like the Chthonic afterbirth of some dead god. The shifting surface, high radiation levels and the requirements of running quite limited the Star Cloak's eyes. Thankfully they had not been noticed and there was no indication they would be unless a Xeno literally ran into them. Not an impossible thing across the wriggling skies of the War-Moon.
They were making good time, only having to change course twice to avoid Wasp Construct swarms and a rubbery worm creature the size of a land-train drifting slowly through static-charged clouds of gas. Cogitator predictions would have them reaching the ideal landing site in short order. From there things would get considerably more difficult. Powerful energy fields encircled the Corpse-Star Ignition's "barrel" A circular scab near the War-Moons equator as wide as an Imperial Cruiser is long. The few scans they could get backed up a hypothesis of the Mechanicum, such a deadly weapon could not be used without a price. Having burned and rad-blasted the surface into a sheet of polished mineral. Turning even the extraordinarily radiation resistant Rangda flesh-plastic into a barely congealed mass of cooling pseudo-graphite. The Stormbird could not pass the shield easily, and would likely trip alarms. The Astartes moving on the surface with the aid of a Librarian would have a better chance.
Librarian Zlatko was no Solomonari, the Precognitive gifts of his Legion had never dominated him like so many of his Brothers in the Librarius. Part of the reason Fenj selected him as Astartes Psyker on this mission. The Solomonari had lost much respect in the Chapter Master's eyes. The other reason was Zlatko's unnerving talent for truly creative battle-psyking. Another thing about the Night Lords the wider Imperium did not know and was honestly better off not knowing. The VIII Legion boasted creative and artistic talents kin to the Phoenix Blades and Dawn Angels. Skills that were put to use in morbid and terrible ways. Witnesses to the Night Lords "art" found it stomach-churning and awe-inspiring. Images dredged up from the mythological Old Hells and unleashed on the worst type of monsters. Justice after all required punishment, something the Night Lords excel at.
Captain Rusya of the Second Company of Chapter 189 would be leading the Martyr Company, the relatively young officer had earned his marks leading daring counter-raids against the Slaugth, if anyone could adapt and respond to new Rangda horrors it would be him. The Star Cloak would soon reach its destination and Captain Rusya went through final checks. They had Thirty Four Battle Brothers, Five Terminators, a Librarian and a truly terrible bomb. A grav-sled would be used to transport the Phosphex Warhead, surrounded by the Terminators, who would escort the cargo.
Soon the Stormbird dropped low, towards the edge of the pseudo-graphite expanse, a lip of sorts stuck up above the scablands, a cliff topped with jagged spines that arced with unknown energy currents. This would be the first barrier they would need to breach. Rusya and Zlatko had conspired during the trip, forming a crude but hopefully effective plan. They needed to locate a Rangda and quickly and quietly capture them. An opportunity presented itself thanks to Zlatko's psychic senses. The curious half-blank, half-psyker aura of a true-born Rangda was not easy to find, but the Librarian was an Astartes, what was adversity but their raison d'être
A target soon came into psionic focus, a pair of Rangda Warriors half-merged with a nearby spire. The strange frequencies flowing to and from the small spire gave insight into what the Xeno's were doing. They were at a command post, transmitting and receiving orders and data. If they were not subdued quickly they might rouse the whole Xeno nest, least of which the entombed slave-soldiers buried in gelatinous coffins just below the War-Moon's surface near the spire. The Garrison to go with the two Rangda Warriors. They would be dealt with, nothing would spare them what was about to happen.
The thirty five Astartes of Martyr Company lept from the Stormbird, the Five Terminators and Phosphex Bomb staying aboard until they could be safely unloaded. Maneuvering jets and jump-packs let the descending Night Lords strike as they had hoped. Encircling the hab-suite sized spire and the two Rangda wired into its ossic surface by cables and hoses. Cloaked in the mechanical shadows of Mars, decades of training and instinct, along with Librarian Zlatko's warpcraft. They were undetectable until it was too late.
The first Rangda barely had time to surface from the fugue of connecting to the spire when its head was scooped from its shoulders. It had been a marvelous show of precision, speed, and teamwork. Two lightning claw-wielding Battle Brothers had gently but swiftly carved the Rangda free, severing dozens of strange connectors, hoping to at least slow any alarms. A Third Astartes drove a Power halberd down from above at an angle. Punching through the thick double shoulders of the heptapodic Xeno and into where its torso and head met. Leveraging the downward momentum to drive the spear through where a human might have a spinal column and major artery. The blow separated the lamprey-like tube of armored flesh the Rangda used as a head from its body.
The Catastrophic internal damage and decapitation would not "kill" the Rangda, merely break its war-form badly. With nutrients, replacement parts and time the Rangda Warrior could repair itself. Or more worryingly, disperse the viral clusters that made up its true being. Animated gobbets of puppetered flesh squirming away, ready to infect another victim. That chance could not be taken. Damaged badly enough to prevent an immediate response, the Rangda was pulled free of its nest and thrown bodily into the air. It was lighter than the Astartes expected, and they put more force in than necessary. It mattered little when Brother Orddot of the Destroyer Wing hit the soaring Rangda with a charged gout of Plasma while it was mid-air. Leaving only a cloud of ash where the Xeno had been.
The second Rangda did not require such a coordinated effort, just Astartes to guard Zlatko as he worked. The Librarian dropped down from the black void like the legendary Strigoi. Thrusting spindly claws of silvered metal into the Rangda's body and tendrils of psychic power into its mind. Working Warp-Craft of any kind on the Rangda would be difficult, their half-blank nature granting them protection. Zlatko could not peer into the Xeno's soul like he would virtually any other being, he had to find an alternative method. One he had helped design about a decade back while working aside Black Knight veterans of the Ceres Campaign. Bodies are but containers for souls, for the electrical impulses that effect existence in such a peculiar way. Normally a Psyker gripped the soul of a foe and manipulated it to effect their body. Theoretically the reverse was true, requiring creativity and an element of madness to work.
Giggling wildly to himself Zlatko started his messy work. Extending his senses through his psychic power and the imaging capabilities of his gloves. Finding the patterns of impulses that made up the Rangda. It was as Zlatko had expected, no singular neural mass like a brain, instead, a dispersal of Virions with super-cell properties throughout the nervous system. It would take Zlatko a bit to pull apart this curious mixture of meat and metal, ah well time dilation was an extremely practical psychic skill to master. Poking and prodding individual neural clusters, like an over-eager youth with a vivisected amphibian. Zlatko managed to form a rudimentary sense of how the Rangda Warrior worked. Enough for him to crudely puppet the flesh of the thing.
This effort was taxing, both mentally and spiritually, made worse by the naturally Blank state of Rangda neural tissue, forcing Zlatko to use more power than normal to effect the tissue. It took a few attempts but the Librarian eventually succeeded. Warping the messages and signals his Xeno puppet was sending back into the great biomechanical brain of the War-Moon. Turning the sudden Astartes assault into a piece of debris from the battle striking the "song-spire" as the Rangda called it. Debris that would need to be cleared and repairs were needed. As such, things would be passing through the barrier the spire helped maintain, and it was not an issue to be investigated.
Zlatko didn't know how convincing the message was, he had tried to stress the damage as being disorienting but fixable. Hopefully, that would cover any mistakes or missed cues. Perhaps the battles raging in the void and across the War-Moon would keep the labyrinthian intelligence of the Rangda busy. With those preparations, the Stormbird let off its cargo and took to the skies. It would be far too overt in the scab crater and would attract unwanted attention if it skulked around nearby. Anyway a return trip was not exactly needed, the Star Cloak would head towards the Wrathful Black and provide any aid for the other beached ship. Leaving Martyr Company to the task ahead.
Fully assembled the Night Lords made it down the steep cliff and into the rad-blackened flesh-plastic covering the Rangda's most insidious weapon. It took a little effort to get the Terminators and grav-sled down the sharp incline. The built-in descent thrusters of the Armor-Skeletons were nearly entirely used up, preventing the bulky armor from crashing into the ground. And one of the two Tech Marines assigned to the mission had made some crude modifications for the sled, it didn't have to be pretty, just get the job done.
It had been close to a Terran day since the Corpse Star Ignition had ripped through the Void, still the radiation levels in the scablands were obscene. Extra protection had been hurriedly added to Martyr Company's armor. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep them functioning longer, but even after only a few moments at the edge of Ground Zero the taste of metal filled the mouths of every Astartes. The Emperor's Space Marines can survive the worst the galaxy has to offer, but not even they could face the power of a ruptured star and live. All that was left for Martyr Company was to get the Phosphex Warhead as deep into the scablands as possible and if they could maybe pop off a few Melta bombs to punch through the pseudo-graphite crust and help the Phospex along.
Gazing out at the polished black expanse Librarian Zlatko broke the grim silence that had settled over the Night Lord. "Alright then, let's hurry this up then. Never thought I would die to an exterminatus weapon, figured a Neverborn would eat its way out of my guts eventually. Ah well, let's best get this over with Brothers."
With that the Librarian set off, stalking across the pseudo-graphite steppe keeping his senses peeled for anything coming. After a few steps he stopped, considered a moment, and spoke again. "Frak it, we're all going to die anyway. Brother Luka I was the one who swapped out the Air Filters before the Drop on Vishi-2, you had annoyed me and figured it would be funny. Brother Vitomir, you are perhaps the dumbest Astartes I have had the misfortune of meeting, I hope I don't die before you. Sergeant Arseni, I helped Brother Milomir beat you in that duel three years back."
For a moment a pregnant silence filled the vox channel before the near entirety of Martyr Company burst out laughing. The mad cackles of dead men finding some humor in their end. The laughing continued for a solid five minutes before Captain Rusya brought it to an end. Even he found it funny, but they had a job to do. The laughter continued for a few moments more after Rusya's call to cease and the Captain sighed and spoke: "I suppose if anyone else feels the need to unburden themselves in such a crude manner they might as well. Anything else you care to enlighten us with Zlatko?"
Underneath his helm the Librarian gave a sad little smile and responded: "Yeah, once you are dead, head for the blinding light and don't listen to what the shadows say. It'll burn like a Sumpfire for a bit but beats the alternative, Death isn't always the end of Duty."
With that cryptic remark Martyr Company continued their trek. Exchanging spiteful confessions, finding humor and comfort in each other as they went to their deaths. They were exposed out on the Black flats and any enemy patrol or scan would pick them up. The radiation that cooked the Night Lords alive seemed to prevent any meaningful surveillance by the Rangda. Or perhaps even these twisted Xenos considered what Martyr Company was attempting far too mad to even attempt. Either way they continued unmolested, a constant string of Stim injections and the occasional Revitaliser kicking in keeping the Night Lords moving.
They made good time and simply followed the Giger Counter, going deeper and deeper into the scablands. When the first Astartes fell, his blood vessels popping open like torn tubing, Captain Rusya decided they had traveled far enough. After giving the crippeled Brother the Emperor's Mercy, the Astartes got to work. A melta-drill would be used to punch through the outer layer of the Pseudo-Graphite and then the Phosphex would be detonated. Rusya would pull the trigger and he left it up to his men how they wanted to die. A few engaged in honor duels, some gave their favored weapons a final use. Some like Zlatko were content to wait until the Crawling Death devoured them.
Shortly after the melta-drill burned itself out the ground shook, a cataclysmic shockwave cracked the rad-blackened ground. Even in the strange atmosphere of the War-Moon the noise was deafening, a wall of force powerful enough to deafen or even kill the unprotected. It seemed either the Vindication or Wrathful Black had gotten to use their own weapons. With new urgency the Phopsex torpedo was prepared. Soon a wave of dust and debris was visible on the Horizon, the more physical effect of whatever detonation had just occurred. It would soon crest the Canyon and be on them quickly. A Great swirling Haboob of grey dust and splintered flesh-constructs.
Zlatko simply watched it come, hearing a telltale click and hiss behind him. A geyser of green fog spat out of the Phospex Warhead. For a few precious seconds the Crawling Death was simply spat into the atmosphere, injected into the atmosphere and carried by the winds like some hellish volcanic eruption. Then it started its grizzly work, everything it touched burned. The surface of the War-Moon started to be devoured by a technorganic horror of mankind's own creation. As the first flames started to creep through his armor's seals. Zlatko whispered a quite defiant curse to the Rangda. "Eat shit and die Xeno"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone