Chương 76: Chapter Twenty-Five: Rust and Ruin (Part VI)
Article Eight
Dated: (128) 894.M30
It was hours before planetfall. The second Void battle for Rust's orbit waged around us and the Stormbringers prepared to begin the war for the surface. One hundred thousand Astartes prepared for the initial attack. With over a million Auxilia and an entire Titan Legion ready to accompany them. This would be the first overwhelming strike. To secure a beachhead and clear the way for the rest of the assault. Clan MacSmyth and I were to be deployed in this initial attack. Our heavy vehicles following the initial infantry deep strikes, to help secure ground zero of the invasion. For this Clan MacSmyth and myself by extension were honored to wait for deployment in the Grand Hanger of Thunderhead.
Equipped with the best civilian armor I could get and swarmed by a small flock of Servo-Skulls. My mind worked hard to brace itself for what was coming. I'd been in battle before but nothing like this. The Servo-Skulls were linked to my augments and would let me get a view of the battle without getting too close to combat. The Skulls were observation drones and everything they recorded was also fed into the Stormbringers cogitators, giving me an unofficial role as a scout. A cry of "Attention!" filled the air and my Servo-Skulls responded to my shock and clipped onto my armors pack. The cry did not startle me, it was what came with it.
The air in the hanger instantly became static-charged, heavy with latent power. Something pulled from the peripheral of my vision and I found myself slowly turning to face it. Even if I wanted to stop the movement I could not have. Some base part of me reacting to what had just entered into the Grand Hanger, and taking control as an instinctual reaction to him. Primarch Culain MakTursan, Lord of the X, Stormlord, Star-keeper, Ira de Imperator, a legend given flesh. Surrounded by Terminator clad Astartes, which he dwarfed and clad in storm-green plate that visibly crackled with power. He felt somehow unreal yet more real than any of us. It was as if existence itself focused on him, making all my attention pull towards the Primarch.
Even hundreds of meters away I could make out his features perfectly, far better than my augmented eyes should allow. Short black hair with close-cropped facial hair framed a stern face inset with stormy grey eyes. I swear I made eye-contact with him and my heart stopped for a second. The Primarchs terminator armor added to his already considerable size and a series of sturdy looking mechadendrites were built into it. Two of the larger ones each holding a weapon locked onto his armor. A massive hybrid of Assault Cannon and Heavy Boltgun with seven barrels in one. On the other, a mighty power-sword larger than the Greatblades wielded by normal Astartes. My eyes could not look away and I almost forgot to start recording the Primarch as he strode between rows of Astartes.
Culain MakTursan stopped occasionally to talk with a commander, mortal, or transhuman. His oddly lilting baritone carried through the Hanger and he seemed almost relaxed. The confident air of a general before the battle around him. Yet a sense of potent, barely contained power followed him. Maybe the reason the universe seemed to focus on him was fear? Anxious of the destruction he could unleash at a moment's notice. I tried to push the thought aside but it stuck. Some instinct told me how incredibly dangerous this being is. A living cyclone of destructive fury compressed into superhuman flesh by an immortal genius. Now aimed at his species foes.
The Primarch reached the center of the Hanger. Somehow pulling even more attention from the assembled thousands onto him. He almost seemed to grow in stature, like his presence filled the room both metaphorically and literally. A mechadendrite snaked from his back and deposited his massive sword into the Primarchs hand. Stormking Culain thrust the blade into the air and it crackled with lightning. A wild grin crossing his face Culain bellowed: "Let's kill some Orks!"
A thunderous roar of agreement filled the hanger and the assembled Astartes left to prepare for battle. Recordings of this moment were transmitted across the entire Crusader Fleet and a great shout of battle-lust rippled across the assembled Legion. With no great speech, or fanfare, the invasion of Rust had begun. After all, you don't need many words to say a Storm is coming.
Article Nine
Dated: (128) 894.M30
Before the Imperium it was a common verbal expression to compare great destruction to the Wrath of God. Watching the first strike against Rust it struck me how inadequate that saying proved. What god could match the Wrath of Man? Three waves of fire and death struck Rust as the start of the ground war. First a moon cracking bombardment of Macro-Shell and Lance Strikes. Probing for any weakness in the Orkish shields that covered the burnt acidic skies of Rust. The second wave consisted of a million drop pods. A steel rain covering a small continent. Most of the pods were duds, a screen of falling metal to hide the ones carrying Astartes. Cracks in the Orks defenses were pried open by chapters worth of Astartes. Crucial shield generators and flak turrets took offline by incredibly fast super-soldiers. Paving the way for the third wave, the one I was part of.
Fleets of dropships, vehicle-pods, and quick-fab fortresses rained from the sky. Surrounded by a buzzing swarm of Fighters and interceptor-skulls. Protecting us from the Greenskin flying-craft. Locked into a reentry couch and pumped full of G-compensator drugs I fell to Rust inside a Tetrarch Heavy Lander. It carried part of Clan MacSmyth and a complement of Auxilia to the surface. Compared to a Drop Pod the Lander was taking a sedate course towards the surface, and yet I still lost consciousness twice on the descent. Even when designed to accommodate less-augmented humans orbital drop vehicles are traumatically intense.
Fighting off the acceleration threatening to push me back into the black I watched the skies of rust through some sensor-skulls I was patched into. My senses cycled out of my body, hopping between different drones and camera systems, a privilege of the Remembrancers. Our destination was Green-Forge-Beta, or at least that's what the tactica adepts called it. A hundred-kilometer wide plateau covered in a monument to Xeno industry. This sprawling factory-metropolis was the second largest of its kind on Rust. If the Imperium could take it we would have a strong beachhead. The Orks were obviously not going to let this happen easily.
Thousands of crude fighter-craft filled the sky, relying on strength of numbers to rip from the air. My heart nearly stopped when I saw them succeeded in such an endeavor close by. An Auxilia troop-transport swarmed by a rabid flock of Orkish fighters, riddled with lead and fire until it detonated in a massive conflagration. The Orks did not flee the blast until the last minute, so obsessed with claiming the kill. I wager a quarter of the number attacking the lander burned up in the explosion, too slow to evade it. These Aliens were mad, utterly insane, diving headlong into battle with a barely functioning sense of self-preservation. As if War was more important than living. Thinking back to the dossiers I had read about the Greenskins I occurred to me it probably was to the Xenos.
My heart hammered away in my chest as I watched the surviving Orkish swarm dart towards us. A song of screaming metal started as autoguns opened up, pelting the Lander with a storm of hot lead. This was it, this was how I died. Holding my breath, waiting for an explosion to snuff me from existence. It never came, salvation arrived in the form of Xiphon Interceptors. A wing of the aircraft screamed past us, ripping through the Orkish fighters. Lascannons shredding the Xeno craft and saving us from a fiery doom. Wings of Astartes and Navy fighter craft soon surrounded the Lander. Having broken through the first wave of Orkish orbital defenses and protecting the heavy landing craft as they descended.
I watched our descent through the eyes of a dozen Servo-Skulls. Our destination was a crater at the southern edge of Green-Forge-Beta. Created by some impossibly large industrial accident in Rust's history. Astartes drop-pods had already secured the impact basin and it would prove an excellent starting point for the offensive. Squads of Imperial Fighters, Bombers, and Dropships broke from the Landers and flew towards the great battlements of Green-Forge-Beta. Distracting the defenders lining the towering walls. Giving us time to land and disembark. The lander slowed at a steady but still gut-wrenching rate as we reached the surface. A chemical cocktail designed to protect me from the rapid deacceleration flooded through my veins and made landing survivable.
Once the lander made contact with the ground it released its cargo. The entire bottom half of the vessel unlocking and unfolding. Leaving the new lighter and more agile ship to return to orbit and prepare its next run of cargo. Automated processes under the careful supervision of Enginseers transformed each deposited cargohold into prefab bunkers. Land Raiders, Rhinos, Predators, and Land Speeders detached from the dropped cargobunker and moved to position. Tech Adepts and Auxilia troops quickly finished the process of turning each lander's load into a miniature fortress and supply depo. Swarms of Servo-Skulls deployed from the fab-forts and ranged across the battlefield. Giving me a unique perspective from a thousand different eyes.
The Crater was soon filled with Imperial war machines and soldiers. Only some Landers deposited fab-forts like the one I had arrived in, most delivered vehicles, troops, and supplies. I briefly wondered why the Orks were letting the Imperium set up a forward base of this magnitude so quickly. A cycle between different Servo-Skulls showed me the ugly truth. Every second spent turning the crater into a base of operations was bought with human and transhuman lives. An army of Greenskin vehicles poured forth from the nearest gate of Green-Forge-Beta. Tides of scrap-craft, dust-buggies, malformed walkers, and similar Xeno contraptions fought Astartes and Auxilia armored vehicles in the far distance.
This was my first time properly seeing Orkish construction and it lived up to its reputation. Everything from the quarter kilometer tall walls of Green-Forge-Beta to the storm of land vehicles shared the same brutish primitive construction. It all seemed "thrown together" as if a child tried to recreate some machine it did not understand. Nothing was symmetrical or refined. The walls were a haphazard piling of layers of defensive structures and scrap-metal. Defying gravity to stretch up into the sky. Teeming with alien life and machinery. Even as the battle raged in the wall's shadow faint signs of construction were apparent. What I first thought was gun-barrels and plasma discharge was in truth crane systems and short-spindly Greenskins welding new additions to the wall. The gate where the Greentide had flowed from was only a gate in name. It appeared more like a cleft in the wall, a jagged fissure stretching from the ground to half-way up the wall. With every passing second of observation, it became apparent to me this "wall" was more a massive vertical nest that encircled the Xeno industrial complex. A slum and scrapyard turned into an ad-hoc yet formidable fortification.
Fighting through such an enormous and feral fortress would be incredibly costly. Bringing with it all the troubles associated with urban, tunnel, jungle, and siege warfare all at the same time. The walls of Green-Forge-Beta must be bypassed, one way or another. Infantry and Armored detachments battled Orkish hordes across the ashen wastes. Pushing towards the fissure the Greenskins used as a gate. Newly deployed Artillery soon opened up, testing the patchwork of shields covering the outer wall. Orkish gunners across the vertical labyrinth before us turned their attention to the rapidly growing Imperial beachhead in response. A duel of steady Stormbringer thunder and screaming Orkish rockets filled the air around me. On more than one occasion the fab-fort I sheltered in took a direct hit and the entire structure shook with the impact. Ion and Conversion shields could only mitigate so much of the Xenos firepower.
Across the battlefield, I watched the heroics of the Imperials and feral power of the Orks. A Land Raider of one of the Clans deployed with us took a direct hit from an enemy siege gun. Instantly overloading its shields and ripping through the Tank's armor. Fire erupted from the destroyed Land Raider and sent bits of metal flying. To my shock, numerous armored figures pulled themselves from the wreckage. Badly wounded Stormbringers escaped the ruined war-vehicle and joined the battle on foot. Even with armor burnt black and wounds visible from my remote perspective they fought on. Grim determination to push forward no matter what marking out the Sons of Culian.
The battle entered its next phase as warning claxons set off across the beachhead base established in the crater. Servo-Skulls rapidly moved back towards docking ports. Both mortal and Astartes ran for cover inside Fab-Forts as a mechanical voice broadcasted across the main vox frequency. "The wrath of the Omnissiah has come. Brace for Titan fall."
Wave four of the Imperial bombardment had started. Over a hundred massive drop-pods descended towards us. The largest of which more resemble Imperial escort ships than actual drop-pods. When Astartes arrive en masse by Steel Rain it is called a Descent of Angels. An accurate description as thousands or even hundreds of thousands of shooting stars make planetfall. No such poetic term exists to describe when the God-Machines of the Mechanicum arrive from the sky in vaults of blazing steel. I doubt any phrasing in gothic or any other human tongue can ever do it justice.
Even with the Titans still miles high and layers of ceramite surrounding me, the sheer power of what was coming echoed around me. The roar of maneuvering jets more powerful than some lance weapons filled the dusty atmosphere of Rust. Windstorms born of massive air displacement accompanied a stomach-churning anticipation for the inevitable impact. When it came, it did not disappoint. The ground shook beneath me with such intensity I feared the fab-fortress would be blown away. All I could do was shut my eyes and try not to vomit as tremendous force impacted my body. After a few heartbeats that lasted a lifetime, the shaking stopped. Any attempt to tap into exterior cameras or drones proved ineffective, massive clouds of dust obscured the vision of any eyes I peered through. However, the presence of great shadows hidden behind blankets of ferrous winds could not be denied.
As the last of the aftershocks, caused by smaller Titans landing, ended. The sound of moaning metal and hissing mechanical muscles erupted. Impossibly large hulks hidden in the dust storm began to unfold. Bringing a new wind with it that blasted away the obscuring sands of metal and silica. Revealing the cargo of the mammoth Drop-Pods for all to see. The Titans of the Legio Titanicus had arrived. A pentarchy of Imperator Class Capital Titans exited the macro Drop-Pods and took to the surface of Rust. Every step the colossal war machines took sent another tremor through the ground. The ponderous footfalls of Capital Titans were soon joined by the marginally lesser tread of Battle and Scout Titans. The Talos-Adamants legion joined the battle.
Of the five Capital Titans one stood apart, Nuada the premier Titan of the Talos-Adamants. What marked Nuada apart was its unique bridge. Shaped gold and beaten bronze covered the skull-shaped bridge of the Titan. Giving it the face of a colossal beautiful human. An intricate genderless mask of precious metal nestled below the fortress resting on the Titans shoulders. Human proportions and features bonded to unstoppable mechanical might in an unsettling combination. As I watched Nuada slowly turn towards the jagged gate, its lumbering steps capable of squashing entire buildings. My connection to the Servo-Skull drones flickered for a moment, as a wave of static traveled the frequencies. The mechanical equivalent of an apex predator letting out a warning growl. A growl that quickly became something more as the mouth of Nuada opened up, pink-gold lips widening to release the God-Machines roar. In a challenge loud enough to shatter glass and pop blood vessels the Warhorn of Nuada sounded. Soon its siblings and escorts joined the choir of rage. Forming a single unified note of pure bestial rage somehow caged in silicon and metal.
The Warhorns echoed across the crater and reverberated against the scrap nest the Orks considered a wall. With the challenge issued, now came the fury of Titans. As one the Pentarchy of Capital Titans marched forward, troops of Battle Titans forming a loose ring of escorts around the behemoths. The lupine Scout Titans had already rushed ahead into the clash near the jagged gate. Hunting for any threat capable of harming their larger kindred. My most distant skulls darted around the main battle and showed the shock and fear in the Xenos. Entire convoys of Greenskin scrap-craft turned as fast as their crude forms could allow. Fleeing towards the safety of the gate and away from the Titans. Some of the larger Orkish vehicles took the opposite approach and focused fire on the Titans. Charging through Astartes lines at suicidal speeds, firing madly. Neither strategy proved to be much use.
Void-Shields that had no business outside of Voidships and fortresses protected the Titans from the storm of lead and exotic energy unleashed by the Greenskin attackers. Scout and Battle Titans quickly intercepted the Xeno attackers who broke past the Astartes. Reducing them to a mixture of slag and ash. More broken machinery for the world of Rust. Slowly but steadily the five Capital Titans made their way closer to the jagged gate. With each step monumental weapon systems charged up. The two Capital Titans on either side of the formation were the first to fully prime their main weapons. Only a few moments notice were given between the Titan's comm-officer relaying the war-machine's intent and their action. Twin Hellstorm Laser Cannons opened fire. Rapidly fired blasts of directed energy roared forth from the Titans. Slamming into the jagged gate and the wall around it. The bizarre mess of shield systems built into the wall quickly started to break down under the Titans firepower. Gravitic, Void, Ion, Displacer, Converter, and a few more exotic variants of shield systems popped under the Imperial Assault. This constant Hellstorm barrage was only the start. Three new Suns ignited on the surface of Rust. A trio of Plasma Anhilliators from Nuada and its closest siblings were unleashed.
Plasma fire ripped forward in unstable gouts of death. With no shields to neuter the attack, the full might of Three Capital Titan primary weapons struck the gate. One moment the jagged gate was there, the next it wasn't. An unstoppable wave of Plasma vaporized hundreds of tons of metal and thousands of Orks. Lighter Imperial craft was sent flying from the shockwave. Paint was stripped from the hulls of larger vehicles and I sincerely hope no one was unlucky enough to be unprotected when the three Titans fired. The Talos-Adamants are sworn to the X Legion and follow the brutalist philosophy of the Stormbringers. No quarter would be given, and the Emperor's enemies would die screaming. The blinding flash of three miniature suns soon faded. Leaving a mushroom cloud billowing into the sky and an iron-scabbed crater where the jagged gate had once stood. The Titans had done their duty and breached the Xeno wall. Providing a hole in the defenses of Green-Forge-Beta large enough to march an army through. Which is exactly what the Stormbringers did.
Talos-Adamant Titans, Stormbringer Astartes, and Auxilia from a hundred regiments moved to enter the Greenskin stronghold. Firing blindly into the ash-choked hole in the wall. Nuada and its kin fired lesser broadsides at different parts of the wall bordering the crater we used as a beachhead. Bursting shields, and reducing turrets-nests to dribbling flows of slag. The Plasma Annihilators had done their work and needed to cool off and recharge. Hellstorm, Vengeance, Nemesis, and Inferno Cannons still fired, and Orks died in droves. It seemed nothing could stop the Titan's wrath and victory would soon be ours. That is till the first Titan exploded.
The first sign something was a Reaver Titan stopping mid-stride. The Escort Battle Titan simply paused. Breaking from its formation encircling the Capital Titans. Then after a moment of inactivity, the Reaver detonated. Blasted apart from within by some unknown means. No damage to its armor, only a flicker of Void Shields and an eruption. The Talos-Adamants reacted quickly, diverting power to Void Shields and rapidly taking defensive positions. It did nothing to stop the next wave of blasts. A scattering of Battle and Scout Titans died in fire. There was no impact, no projectile trails, just sudden death from nowhere. Nuada moved with some machine-spirit instinct then. Rapidly jerking its colossal frame away from the gap in the walls. That saved the Titan, as an explosion ripped one of the God-Machines arms off. The force from the blast was still powerful enough to nearly topple Nuada.
Moving faster, trying to reach and destroy the mysterious weapon the Talos-Adamants pushed forward. Hoping to catch up to the advancing Astartes Tank companies. I could tell when the third volley of impossible explosions was to come before it even happened. A pounding headache struck me right before the blasts. Blasts that either missed or failed to find key-systems this time. Something had changed, the Stormbringers had adapted to whatever the Greenskins were throwing at us. The Orkish weapon had lost much of its accuracy and could not reliably hit the Imperial Titans.
After the battle, I learned what exactly was occurring in that brief moment of unknown violence. The Orks now had a clear line of sight with the Wall gone and unleashed the "Doom Driva Kannon '' An utterly insane weapon that's lunacy matched its destructive potential. The weapons ammunition came in the form of spherical explosive pods with Gretchin-breed Orkoids wired into its targeting system. These lesser Xenos are shown pict-captures of a target just as they undergo a mixture of lobotomization and electrocution that starts the firing cycle. The Gretchin-controlled ordinance is then shot into the Warp. Aimed in some arcane heretekical means by the brain-damaged Gretchins to re-enter the material inside the target of the weapon. A virtually unblockable form of firepower capable of tremendous damage. It was only through the quick thinking of the Astartes Librarians that the complete destruction of the Talos-Adamants was prevented. The Librarians had sensed the shift in the Warp and used their power to deflect the Doom Driver shells. Using enough psychic power to cause headaches in all but the most warp-dull humans nearby. A psyker Remembrancer of the X Crusader Fleet assigned to a Librarian described it as an incredible feat. Stormbringer Librarians creating avatars in the Warp molded after Giants of Old Earth myths. To smash away the incoming Doom Drivers in a battle of thoughts and willpower. Even with their efforts some Orkish shells got through and ripped a grim toll on the Titans.
Injured, with not insignificant casualties the Titan Legion kept marching forward. An advancing wall of giants shrugging off all but the most grievous blow. Only when the Titans finally reached the gap they tore open in the wall did the terrible truth of Green-Forge-Beta become clear. Orks are a species divorced of any semblance of sanity. Run-away weapons produced by long-dead masters, running amok in a galaxy wounded by countless ancient wars. The fact such horrific mistakes such as the Orks inhabit the stars shows how unworthy the Xeno is to rule the Galaxy. Run-away weapons that despite their madness and illogical actions are some of the most dangerous creatures in existence. As the Titans passed the broken Scrap-wall and my Servo-Skulls went with them, something became brutally apparent. The Scrap-wall was just that, a wall of scrap. Not a defensive structure by any meaningful design, but a mound of refuse repurposed as a bulwark. On its other side lay the real defenses of Green-Forge-Beta
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