Under the ice

by Brother_bellial

chapter 1: The start

" Sir, we are out of the warp." Scaerta transmmited over the noosphere.

Magos caervolla was suddenly pulled out of his reflection by the sudden burst of information in the noosphere. He immediatly issued his orders. He then linked himself to the cogitators of the heavy assault torpedo. he was in the exosphere of a planet. The velocity of the torpedo was about 231m/s. acceptable. It was by the Omnisiah's holy will they were still alive.

" Praise the omnisiah. keep us at this pace." He ordered.

"sir, our thrusters our badly damaged." the skitarii quickly replied.

The tech-priest assimilated the information as he considered alternatives. The gravity on this planet is about 0,67 Terran gravity, which ment that the speed at impact considering the low gravity and the terran-like atmosphere, terminal velocity would be about 340m/s.
This will badly damaged the already fragilized equipment on the archeotype torpedo.
The parachutes are out of the equation, they will burn as soon as deployed.

" Are the grav-chutes still functional?" Caervolla inquired

" They are operational. " the skitarii pilot answered.

"Set the torpedo at 39° upwards and fire the grav-chutes."

the torpedo was now slowing down and stabilizing. However, they were over an ocean. Not the perfect landing place.

"Magos, I recommend diving to achieve 500m/s. This should get us overland in a few minutes" the pilot suggested.

" Excellent Scaerta, you may proceed."

The magos felt the gravity of the planet "suck him towards it" for the lack of better words. However, his augmented mind gave it little attention as he was way past the feelings and suffering of the meat-bags.

After a few seconds, the pilot redressed the torpedo at a near-horizontal bearing.

succeeding to few tense minutes, the torpedo was now flying horizontally at 408m/s, which was too fast for a landing.

" fire the retro-thrusters when we are at 4 meters from impact. we will only have 5seconds of fuel to burn. Activate the frontal drill;"

" 1800 meters from impact" blared the warning.

"1000 meters from impact " Blared the warning in a fatal rythm"

All over the torpedo bursts of static could be heard. The skitarii were praying. Praying to the sacred trinity. Praying to the Omnisiah, The god emperor and the motive force.

" Brace for impact!!"

The reinforced adamantium hull shook as it took the impact in a calculated way in order to diffuse the most energy possible. For a short period of time, the torpedo continued to shake and spasm in an odd way.

Then the lights were out.

The magos quickly adjusted the issue, a simple side effect of the unhappy machine spirit.

"It appears we have drilled 6 kilometers into the ice, magos." The pilot transmitted as the power slowly came back online.

" How deep ?" Caervolla inquired.

" About 500 meters, sir." came the answer.

" There is no time to lose.Tell the skitarii vanguard to solidify the tunnel with the hull of the torpedo. Awake the battle automatons. Tell the rangers to drill into the ice around the torpedo. ready the thallax cohorts. Start to set up camp and construct a reinforced door at the entrance. Prepare our base and start to construct a platform for the archeoptor and the arvus lighter " The magos ordered.

The magos gave a crisp sallute to the pilot, who returned it. He then walked past the munitiorum, past the refectorium and into the " war room". He had previously installed a rule before the mission, should a emergency like this occur, the important personnes of the crew of the boarding torpedo would meet here.

He could see that the marshall and the alphas have heard and understood his rule. after all, they were skitarii. He signed for them to sit around the table.

" Are there any sign of Xeno civilisation, Marshall?" he asked

" Yes magos. A city is detected 20km from here to the south." he answered " It would be wise if we would be, cautious towards the xeno on this planet. We have neither the resources nor the manpower to wage a war, even against a primitive xeno civilisation."

" Indeed. " the magos responded. " tell your men start to mine resources. Do to the lack of servitors, we will builled a space-ship ourselves. Even if it takes months."

"estimated resources are 4500 tonnes of raw metal, copper, zinc and diamond. The torpedo should be enough to get half of those materials listed, plus the functioning warp reactor, circuits. The rest may be used as a base to start build a ship. Estimated time of 9 months and 5 days." the alpha designated as " retygh-089 answered.

"We have a lot to do if we want to leave this planet"

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a few hours before, in Equestria......

During the years of the war, ponyville has lost a lot of things. It's joyous attitude, the collorfull houses, even pinkie pie's legendary parties. Now, an eternal grey reigned over the once happy town.

In an old tree, scorched by time and which the last green leaf had fallen a long time ago, a window basked the surrounding darkness with light.

In this window, a single princess still hoped for the end of the war, the return of friendship. Twilight sparkle, princess of friendship, glazed through her telescope into the night sky.

"Hmmmm, I wonder what is going to...."

Her thoughts were interrupted by the blazing light of a meteor, falling towards the crystal empire.
quickly, she started to make notes and calculations. The meteor has indeed fallen in the crystal empire, near the crystal heart in fact. about 40 equestrian miles.

Perhaps there was hope after all. Perhaps they can find enough celestium to boost the army and most importantly the princesses.

"Spike! " she called

" I'm here, i'm comming!" her number 1 assistant responded as he ran towards her.

" take this leter, please."

Dear princess celestia.

I assume you must have seen this meteor falling. This is the first time in one tousand years!!
According to my calculation, It will fall about 40 miles north from the cristal heart.
I hope you will help us explore it. This might be the opportunity to find the rare cellestium. Perhaps it can be THE turn of the side of this war. Perhaps, we can restore friendship and harmony again.

Perhaps there is hope.

Your dear student, Twilight sparkle.

Author's Note:

This torpedo is a special torpedo (non cannon) the size of a small transport ship (500 meters). it can carry six vanguard squads of 10 , twelve skitarii ranger squads of 10, no servitors since it's a boarding torpedoe, 3 thallax battle-cohorts, 10 kastellan battle-automaton, 3 castellax class battle automaton, a Thanathar siege battle automaton, 3 ironstrider balistarii and 3 sydonian drogoons. There is also 4 termite seige drills and 2 dunecrawlers. There is also an arvus lighter and an archeoptor fusilliade.

All my thanks to Skitarii_garte_01101001 The official co-author of the story.

I will assume the vanguard can turn their radiation "off".

1m/s =3,6 k/h

1km=1,78 equestrian milles

Comments

[warpsmith]

What were they using torpedo against that would need arvus lighter or archeoptor? Because torpedos are made for boarding action against ships. Those don't have enough space to fly around. And torpedo would have been needed to be fired from a ship, so that needs to be somewhere still. Not to mention that building a ship that would be powerful enough to not only get thru gravity pull but also navigate thru the warp without navigator is pretty much impossible. There is a reason why ships are made on dockingyards that are on space.
And considering that is quite a force to be commanded by single magos is troublesome, like who is going to look after kastellans with their protocols?

[OP Omni God-Emperor Doom]

10867598

Dude? I know that you are one of, if not, the best fan expert on Warhammer 40K that I have ever met in this MLP Fanfic website.

But, don't you think that you are probably overthinking things too much, and just give this person some slack?

This is his/hers first story in here. And I will probably make my first story for WH40K myself eventually. But, even I ain't 100% knowledgeable to even 25%-30% of the entire WH40K franchise.

I have to keep watching AND rewatching Favorite WH40K YouTuber's videos, wikis, etc. To get all of that info and lore drilled into my brain.

Edit: Why the dislikes over here?!!

[warpsmith]

10867670
Oh believe me i am holding back. I did not even go to the deepest lore pits of cruelty. I can give credit about noosphere and them trying to integrate a Allan Blighs made mechanicum lore units to current 40k ones. Because that can be difficult. But i will ask questions that writer may have not thought about.

[OP Omni God-Emperor Doom]

10867740

Okay then. Although, I don't know about Allan Blighs sadly?!

[Brother_bellial]

10867598
Well first everyone is not introduced yet ( hum hum tech priests and more space marines) and I think 40k ships are huge, and usually dark Mechanicus ships are converted Mechanicum ships, which means there are the forges and huge areas that may be easier to cross by, say, aircraft. If some torpedoes boarded war hound titans I think an Arvus or two may be nice. Again everything is not in place yet

[Brother_bellial]

10867740
Oh I have very much thought of that (and you are the reason it was predictable) but I did presised nothing is cannon. I mean an archeotype torpedo about 500 meters long ? A Magos talking nicely with skitarii? A ducking cafeteria in a boarding ship? I mean we are on a mlp crossover right 😂

[Brother_bellial]

10867598
Perhaps some kind of emergency bail-out but unlikely cause hell everyone dies in 40k

[Brother_bellial]

And CELESTIUM what the hell is this stone? I don’t know but it’s heretical
10867933

[warpsmith]

10867754
Allan Bligh was a lead designer of Horus heresy tabletop, he effectively designed most of what mechanicum has model and lore wise.

[warpsmith]

10867930
Well yes 40k ships are huge but there is not really space to maneuver inside ships, unless its one of thous ark mechanicum ships that had in one of the books a arena like space that allowed guard regiment and titans to practice fighting in a urban setting while they were traveling. So in a sense yes there can be on biggest ships may have such spaces. And what comes to torpedoes well, i have read that imperial fists did make a boarding action supported by cybernetica maniples against iron warriors flagship during heresy. So its not that far fetched. Its just that there is only one tech priest with i presume cortex controlled so he can order automata forces. Which means that he really cannot split his forces unless he wants his automatas follow his last order to a letter until given new ones.

[OP Omni God-Emperor Doom]

10868270

Thanks.

[Crystonian]

10867598
Escape? Always be prepared I say. Even if its unnecessary.

[Phantom_Eclipse]

Nothing like a good MLP/40k crossover! Right into the tracking folder and awaiting the next update!

[Alex80]

New chapter ???

[Brother_bellial]

11140942
sry i pretty much f***ed this story to a point of no return. so either a complete rewrite or it's dead

[Alex80]

11145352
Ok