ENTRY BEGINS. 2nd YEAR OF THE GRAND AGE OF EQUESTRIA
Lieutenant Bailey Enart scrambled frantically up the hull of his command tank with a sense of driven urgency unlike any other he had experienced before. He had been fighting alongside the Scarred Swords since he was sixteen, little more than a naive, bright-faced brat with delusions of grandeur and glory. In all that time, he had not once heard one of them make such a speech as the one that Sixth Captain Dragoon had given to the beleaguered Manehatten Liberators, as the Loyalist; Imperial Army, Astartes and Equestrian forces had become collectively and colloquially known.
Suffice to say he could see why the Swords fought as valiantly as they always did, if they had speeches like that pumped into their ears whenever a battle started. The Astartes around him had fully rallied to their leader's call, sweeping across the fire-base like a relentless tidal wave - cutting down, smashing apart and tearing through any and all corrupted pegasi in their path. His own Imperial Army troopers were significantly less deadly, but were still doing him proud as they covered the retreating wounded and medicae staff.
Engines were starting to splutter and roar as the armoured division prepared to move out - hatches slamming shut, shells ramming into place and pintle-mounted weapons continued to unleash metal death into the Chaos forces still descending on the base from over the smoke.
Enart finally made it to the commander's hatch of the Hell Raiser, throwing his head down into it to inspect the condition of his crew.
"You morons all still alive in here?!" he yelled down the hatch, already spotting the tops of several heads down in the tank's main compartment. His query was met with the five affirmative responses that he'd been hoping for, but he still did a head count himself to be sure his ears weren't playing tricks on him. "Vairn, Gestople, Rhys, Kayres, Valk. Good."
"Lieutenant!" Enart pulled his head out of the hatch to see who'd called out to him and quickly spotted Princess Luna standing at the Hell Raiser's side with her remaining guards. He could easily guess what she wanted, so he gave his answer before she could even ask her question.
"Does her majesty need a lift?" he chuckled heartily, grinning as he tipped the visor of his flak helmet at the Equestrians. The Knight's Nobilis World Fleet was a harsh place to live and grow up in, so much of its population were somewhat nihilistic and accustomed to the constant threat of death that war brought with it. The most ancient Hive Ships of the fleet had weathered the trials of both the Materium and the Immaterium since before the Age Of Strife - as such many of them were barely still pressurised and plagued near continuously by everything from explosive hull ruptures and O2 production failures to loss of gravity and reactor breaches. Death was a part of life, a fact that was made clear to the spacers of the Nobilis from the day they were born.
So it was easy for him to maintain a bright grin even under the hellish conditions of the attack, surrounded by blood, steel and fire he kept his mind collected and cool.
"It'll be a little cozy, so I hope no one's claustrophobic." he actually laughed as he gestured towards the hatch. The twins went first, the sister assisting her limping brother up the crew ladder and into the hatch. "Make room down there, we're gonna have plenty of company." he called into the tank again as he helped Silent Arrow up onto the turret and then back down into the growling war machine. "Break out the spare heat cloths, Gestople, we're all gonna need one!"
Luna was the last up, stopping for a moment to observe the battlefield they were leaving behind. The evacuation of the Field Hospital was well underway - vast scores of medics and surgeons pushing even greater numbers of wheeled stretchers away from the fighting. They moved towards the downed hulk that had been the force's dropship, seeking cover beneath its immense bulk - to hold out and wait for support from the rest of the battalions, steadily advancing from their landing site several kilometres west of the forward base.
She watched the IA Infantry as they enacted a staggered withdrawal, guarding the rear of the medical company from the attacking pegasi - who were unable to fly over their heads due to the unrelenting efforts of the AA gun crews and the Hydras.
The Astartes were already loading into purpose built transports, Chimeras as Luna was lead to believe, leaving only a single squad behind to defend the base - not that anyone was under any delusion that a single Astartes squad wasn't more than sufficient for such a role.
"Are we really going to move through the fire?" she asked Enart, her tone far more even and calm than she felt in that moment. She'd seen such blazes swallow entire towns in the past, burning for days, even weeks, at a time before finally exhausting their fuel and dying out.
"The Sixth Captain wasn't wrong when he said his plan may sound suicidal..." the Lieutenant ceded, also casting a wistful gaze over the shambling remains of his fire base - before taking a deep, unfaltering breath and turning to face the Princess of the Night. "But it's the only option we got. We can't go around, it'd take too long - haste is key when it comes to engagements with the Ruinous Powers. For the same reason we can't wait for reinforcements from the rear. Air drop is a no-go, obviously." he accompanied those last words by sending a nod towards the broken Devourer, to emphasise his point.
"But the heat-"
"Relax." Enart cut Luna off with a confident grin and a soft hoof touch to her shoulder. Normally she would have recoiled from such contact, not only because of the ancient stigma about touching royalty, but also because of the powerful 'Boundary Issues' she had built up over her millennia spent alone on the Moon. However, she didn't pull away from the junior officer's hoof - allowing the feeling to calm her nerves somewhat.
"Helly has been through worse heat before." he continued, tapping on his tank's turret with a rear hoof and allowing his grin to morph into a sincere smile. "Just wrap up nice and tight in a heat cloth and keep taking hydration packs - with any luck we should make it out the other side without having become steamed buns."
"...Very well..." Luna eventually sighed, moving to lower herself into the Hell Raiser's crew hatch. When only her head remained poking out into the open air, she turned to look at Enart again - baring a small smile of her own. "Silent Arrow likes a glass of red wine after patrols. Just something you may want to bare in mind." she winked at him with an almost devilish grin on her muzzle, before finally dropping the rest of the way into the tank.
He remained standing outside for a moment after that, thoroughly bemused by what he had just been told. "What in the sweet heck is that supposed to mean..." he muttered to himself, detaching the heavy stubber from its pintle mount and throwing it down to the gunner below - before finally climbing half way into the hatch.
He quickly observed the battle line of Leman Russes as they conducted their final preparations. A vast, green shape rumbled into the corner of his vision as he did so. The Hellblade Strike on the Hearth was already advancing, flanked on both sides by the two Predator tanks that had dropped with it.
"Woah..." someone below breathed as Enart picked up the bleeping vox headset built into the wall not far from his command seat.
"Attention Imperial forces that can hear my voice. This is Sixth Company Captain Dragoon, my forces are preparing for lift off now. Assault forces may begin your advance at your discretion."
"This is the commander of the Strike on the Hearth, we are beginning our advance into the flames. Do the other command elements copy?" both voices possessed the same harsh, cutting tone that all Astartes seemed to share - so Enart had no doubts about the authenticity of either of the communications.
"Sixth Company, Third Squad Sergeant Tiades, I copy."
"First Lieutenant Enart here, I copy." his answer was the last and he quickly followed it up with an order sent out across the Imperial Army frequency that his forces were using. "All vehicles, advance! Close the battle line, five tanks across. Transports bring up the rear. Keep it tight lads and ladies - no stopping between here and the end of the battle. And no, I will not accept dying as an excuse to stop!"
With that said, Enart lowered himself fully into the Hell Raiser's cramped interior - slamming shut and sealing the command hatch behind him.
"Pilot, take us away!" Dragoon called into the intercom set into wall near to the Thunderhawk's loading ramp. He punched the door lock with one wing on the way past, causing the ramp to emit a fierce hiss before rising back into the hull - locking into place with another pneumatic hiss and a 'clunk'.
The low roar of the aerospace-craft's engines steadily evolved into a deafening shriek as their turbines got up to speed, the fuselage creaking ever so slightly as the wings held back the thrust until it was at suitable vertical takeoff power levels. With a final heavy 'clunk' the extreme forces being produced by the engines were redirected, vents lining the underside of each engine housing opening up and projecting said force straight into the ground.
The fleeing Loyalist Equestrians watched with silent awe as the one-hundred-twenty-one tonne brick of a craft lifted itself off the ground and climbed to a hovering position several metres above the ground. There it stayed for several seconds as its pilot performed his final systems checks, swaying only very slightly in the breeze-less, late-afternoon sky.
"All instruments showing green." the pilot's voice came over the Thunderhawk's internal vox, sounding as calm as he would if were about to take a peaceful drive in the countryside and not make a near-suicidal drop run against an Astartes destroyer. With a single, sharp movement of his armoured hoof twisted the handle of the main engine power control ninety degrees, deactivating the vertical thrust, and pushed the lever all the way forward. The shriek of the engines became a near in-audible scream as they cycled up to their full power - throwing the boxy craft forward like a bolt from a bolter.
"We are away. All craft, form up on me. We'll climb vertically at max power and dive on the Arc Phantom from above." the other three Thunderhawks, who had already taken off and had been holding in a circle pattern, formed up behind the lead vehicle as it began its steep climb. "Remember, its void shields are down - but those defence guns are still working perfectly fine. We'll focus our fire on those and leave the critical systems to the Captain and our brothers."
"We are here to bring the Imperium's justice to the traitors, brothers." Dragoon said solemnly to the jump pack equipped Astartes 'standing' behind him, clinging to the now vertical floor of their transport using the magnetic grips installed in their armour. Unfortunately, these grips were only installed in the bases of their hind leg boots, so they had to lean forward to keep their fore hooves in place. The two squads of Space Marines were lined up, single file, on either side of the forward hold - prepared to jump from the access doors on each side of the hull. "We are here to remind them that The Emperor does not tolerate treachery."
The hull lurched and rattled as the Thunderhawk continued to climb higher, the winds buffeting the craft only growing stronger as time went on.
"Activating rocket propellant. Passengers brace." the pilot's announcement was accompanied by a low rumble, as the engines' screaming jets were closed off and their rocket function took over - allowing the gunship to push even higher through the thinning atmosphere.
"We will bring all of humanity's furious vengeance down upon the Apocalyptians, so that they might understand their grievous mistake." Dragoon proceeded to speak, unperturbed by the tumultuous movements of the craft that he was fixed to. "We will fall upon them as silent reapers - come for their worthless souls."
As the word 'silent' left the lead Astartes' lips, the inhabitants of the hold sealed off their breathing systems and deactivated their vox links - the enemy wouldn't know what was coming for them until it was far to late to stop it. The sixth captain spoke only through his helmet speakers now, but it was enough.
The group of Thunderhawks were reaching the pinnacle of their climb, on the very edge of where air met void - where blue was transitioning into black, but the stars were not yet visible. Each craft finished their ascent with an aileron roll that allowed them to turn and level out. The deployment lights within the lead plane's hold glared red once again, bathing the super-soldiers in a blazing, hateful light.
"WE ARE THE ANGELS OFF DEATH!" Dragoon roared as the door to his right released and began to slide open. The deployment lights flashed green, but were almost immediately drowned by the sunlight that poured in through the openings left by the retreating doors.
"AND WE SHALL KNOW NO FEAR!" all of the Astartes yelled in return, gripped by burning fury they leapt from the Thunderhawk as if it were burning down.
And then, he was surrounded by silence. Filtering out the wind rushing past him at hundreds of miles an hour left Dragoon with very little to listen to at all - other than his own steady breathing. Even his own extremely heightened hearing couldn't grant him the ability to hear the blood, that which still stained his armour, freeze and break away as he plunged downwards at approaching super-sonic speeds. He calmly watched the altitude and velocity reading on his trajectory path - projected onto the eye lenses of his helmet - tracking the two values as they rapidly decreased and increased respectively at extreme rates.
He watched impassively as the Thunderhawk that had ferried him to the upper atmosphere streaked past near-silently, careening past at blistering speeds with nought but a quiet rumble. He caught a glance into its compact command deck as it flew by and saw one of the pilots nodding to him, a gesture he returned in kind - a mutual, wordless wish of good luck. The aerospace-craft's three siblings soon joined it in his field of vision, forming up into a diamond shape once more as they rapidly approached the cloud banks below them.
He still had a fair bit of time before anything of interest was to begin, so Dragoon took some time to look about himself - to see if there was some landmark or notable point for him to observe from his elevated position. He identified the pinprick silhouette of Mt. Canterlot far off to the west, an expanse of water to the east and a long range of snow-topped mountains to the north. His view to the South was obscured by the vast columns of smoke, still rising from the city and the Hellblade's wrathful blaze below.
He calmly watched it all get blotted out as he entered the cloud bank, idly pondering if he would ever see it all in person some day. He hoped not - if he was there then that meant war was there too. He wasn't on this world, hell he wasn't in this universe, to sight-see. Ozonus Prowl's entire existence was devoted to warfare and destruction, his body specifically redesigned and enhanced to make him a killing machine, an army of one and the last sight of any hostile being which may cross humanity's path.
"But you were also made to protect, were you not?"
He blanched, from dead calm to frantic in less than a second, desperately searching the damp, white airspace around him for a source to the voice he'd just heard. It wasn't through his vox link, he'd deactivated it before he'd leapt from the Thunderhawk. It was as if someone had been plunging alongside him and had softly whispered the question directly into the concave ear pieces of his ponified helm. It took the panicked captain a few moments to comprehend the situation, but it did click eventually.
It was a psychic communication, or something akin to it in the very least. That was how the Ruinous Powers did it, using their immense power to project thoughts, feelings and images directly into the minds and souls of material beings. But, this didn't feel like the malignant psychic touch of the Warp - a feeling he had become very familiar with during the gruelling months of the Purge Campaign. That was a vile and repulsive sensation, regardless of which of the voices spoke to him, the chants of the Warp disgusted him and that alone was enough to put him off considering their offers and threats - although this aversion was backed up by decades of mental conditioning and thorough training.
However, this voice was different. There were no accompanying sensations, no distinct crawling feeling up the back of his neck, no knotting of his stomach and no feeling of bile rising in his throat. It was just a voice, plain and simple - calm and clear - spoken as if it was a little more than a polite query made over a pleasant dinner.
Dragoon had no time to respond to the probing voice, as his thoughts were interrupted by a set of blaring alarms sounding off directly into his ears. In the mere moments he'd spent reacting to and analysing the voice he'd drifted significantly away from his glide path and was now plunging straight towards the city. He'd broken free of the cloud layer and could now see his surroundings clearly again.
The Arc Phantom was off to his left and was rapidly drawing closer, but on his current trajectory he would miss it by a decent hundred yards or so, passing its starboard bow to continue into the Manehatten skyline. He had to act fast.
Acting on instinct, he spread his mighty wings and levelled out - slowing his descent to give himself some more time. Next he angled his body to face directly towards the destroyer. Finally, with a thought, his jump pack roared into life. With a tooth jarring lurch he shot off towards the traitorous warship, his wings catching lift and allowing him to regain some additional altitude.
As Dragoon continued to close on his target, the tactical readouts on his HUD suddenly lit up once more - squawking furiously as the Arc Phantom was bombarded by a series of concussive explosions. The ship's entire dorsal side seemed to ignite from stem to stern - its frame shuddered under the hellish assault, left exposed to direct strike without the protection of its void shields.
Mere seconds later, the quartet of Thunderhawks came screaming into view with guns flashing. They peeled off from their attack run at the last possible second, one coming so close that it just barely avoided scraping itself against the destroyer as it flew past and below it.
The battered starship would not be taking this punishment laying down however, as mere moments after it was strafed with rocket fire, its defensive armaments began to spring to life. Gigantic autocannons, lining the ship's flanks in massive twin turrets, began firing off shells the size of drop-pods at the four pesky gnats that were attacking the far larger vessel - thankfully with little success.
In cases such as these, the Thunderhawk was far superior to its larger, older cousin - the Stormbird. The smaller, more nimble gunship was more suited to the high-G active manoeuvres required to strike against warships with powerful defence grids, like the Hunter-class.
With their incredibly skilled Astartes pilots the Thunderhawks were able to deftly avoid the destroyer's furious return fire and slowly pick off its defence turrets, one-by one with precise Hellstrike missile barrages - loosing two to three of the deadly munitions from their large, wing-mounted weapons racks. Dragoon still preferred the Stormbird as a transport craft, as did most of his Astartes brothers across the Imperium's space, but he did respect that the Thunderhawk most definitely held some particular advantages that the Stormbird did not.
He was close to the Arc Phantom now, baring down on it's bow section far too quickly for comfort. But not fast enough, he was losing altitude once again and his wings were straining painfully already - beating them would likely result in serious muscle damage. And with his jump pack still cooling down, he had no way of correcting his flight to allow him to reach the destroyer.
"Do I have no other choice?" he growled to himself, considering using his wings despite the very real possibility of seriously damaging them - maybe even ripping them clean off. With all other options exhausted and the time for action quickly running out he tensed his muscles in preparation to follow through with the action, but his focus was broken once again by the same voice projecting itself into his mind.
"Need a little help?" the voice spoke with a reassuring kindness, unlike any the Astartes had ever heard before in his life - even the calm reassurances of his Primarch could not be compared to this being. And that alone was something to be suspicious of...
Thoughts for another time however, as with the voice came a great gust of pleasantly cool wind from below him - seemingly whipped up from nowhere at all. It caught under his extended wings and a refreshing chill seeped into his aching muscles as the gust lifted him to within striking distance of the looming warship.
The phantom breeze left as quickly as it had come, but it had fulfilled its intended purpose. Dragoon lashed out at the ship's hull with his lightning claws - the matter-disrupting power fields that sheathed each blade allowing the claws to bite deep into the solid Adamantium-Ceramite alloy hull. As soon as he had a good purchase the captain deactivated the power fields with a snap thought, to prevent his weapons from cutting deeper into the hull, which would result in him sliding down the shear face of armour to which he had attached himself.
So, there he clung - attached to the bow of the destroyer by nothing more than his claws and his magnetic soles. Gravity tried its level best to dislodge him, attempting to pull him free of his position with his own weight. Put he held firm, fiercely fighting against the pull of the planet and the pained shudders of the Arc Phantom as it was bombarded by the Thunderhawk squadron's fury - fazing out the unnecessary stimuli that assaulted his senses, leaving his mind clear to plan his next move.
Furious Storm-Qrow snarled irritably as he fought to control the errant twitch that was plaguing his right eye, the sound echoing eerily through the dark corridor he was currently striding down - complimenting his rapid, heavy hoof falls like a war horn compliments a heavy beat of drums. It was far from a new experience for him, but familiarity does not always equal comfort or ease. The ceiling was low, or at least it was for him, forcing him to duck slightly under each support strut to avoid having them collide with his new horn - adding to the rapidly growing list of things that were irking him and while admittedly a minor concern in the grand-scheme of life, it was the cause of his manic eye tic.
He had left the housing of the Equestrians in Driger's hooves, relying on the Astartes's current dour mood to see the situation handled correctly. He worried for his son. Of course he worried for them all, no amount of confidence in their abilities could defeat the paternal instincts that connected him to them all. But Driger was normally a bright and jovial individual, with a passionate soul and a bit of a prideful streak - so to see him so quiet and reserved was a great concern for the Second Primarch.
"So many troubles... so little time..." he growled to himself, forgetting both his composure and also that he was not alone in this space. The Sun Princess followed a few paces behind him, clearly uncomfortable in the dimly lit, narrow, metal passageway. He'd been hoping to detach from her company with the rest of her kind, thinking that she'd want to oversee the safe passage of her people through the Excalibur. She had proved him wrong, insisted that they had much to discuss that could not wait and rather than start a debate he'd simply bade her to come with him on his other 'errands'.
They had traversed the ship's corridors in silence, for the most part - the occasional query from her regarding a piece of architecture or perhaps a passing deckhand were the only words to pass between them until now. This would be the first time she would break the silence to ask a question of true import.
"Are there more of you?" it was a vague question, one of the Primarch's numerous personal irritations, so he would respond as he always did to such things - deflect and force the individual asking to be more specific.
"Are you asking if I have more forces in reserve, beyond Excalibur, or if there are more beings like me?" his counter question caused Celestia to blanch a bit, an expression which quickly became an eyeroll and look of slight annoyance. But then it morphed again, into a look of piqued interest - picking up on his wording and going so far as to draw up alongside Qrow to look at him side-on.
"'Beings like you'?" she mimicked, inadvertently striking another of his pet peeves in the process - people who seemed to believe that he'd failed to hear what he himself had just said. However, he had no need to answer her question himself. They had arrived at their destination.
It was a garden, a beautiful garden. It stretched far wider and longer than the tiny walkway that the pair now left behind. For a moment Celestia thought that they'd stepped back into the outside world, beyond the mighty steel fortress's cold, claustrophobic walls and ceilings. But as her gaze wandered upwards she found that said walls and ceilings still remained, although they were no longer constructed from the same cold metal as the rest of the Excalibur. They were covered in countless coin sized hexagonal panels, each one a tiny view screen programmed to replicate a pure blue sky
The metal confines of the space were not perfectly hidden, with her sharp eyes she could just about spy the seems between each panel, but this did not take away from the room's glory in any way - vast fields of flowers and gleaming grass filled the room with cobblestone paths interspersing them at seemingly random intervals.
Great trees stood in pairs or small groups, reaching high into the simulated blue to scrape at the panelled ceiling. Lone shrubs sat and walls of bushes criss-crossed this fragment of a world.
Birds, many of whom were members of species that Celestia could not identify, flitted about in the fake sky. Where they would normally collide with the walls and ceiling of the great atrium, they veered away at the last moment - as though they know well of the farce that the panels presented them.
And there were ponies, hundreds of them - if not thousands - milling about between the trees and across the fields of transplanted green. They were not ponies as her subjects were however, nor were they the same as the Imperials. They were lithe creatures; their legs as thin and dainty as those of a Breezie, their fine clothing hugging tight to their slim barrels. Even the stallions appeared more light and delicate than most Equestrian mares. They did not share the drab coat and mane colourations of the Imperials, sporting all the same variety of hue as her own subjects, but their bodies were marked with symbols that she could not begin to make horns nor tails of. Perhaps the most glaring difference between them and most ponies, however, was their ears. Long, sharp and pointed, they stuck out noticeably from the backs of their skulls like blades - decorated with extravagant rings and more of the symbols that meant nothing to the princess.
"Come on." Qrow's harsh voice brought her back to focus, stepping free of the entrance to the great space and into the garden itself. The 'ponies' in view turned to look at the primarch with a disturbing synchronicity, every head and pair of eyes locking onto the pair in the exact same instant. Their eyes were curious, but cold, moving quickly to her after acknowleging her companion with shallow bows. "We have much to do... and precious little time."
Lieutenant Enart took another vicious swig of the hydration pack he was holding, desperately trying to replenish the liquids he was sweating out at a rate that could quickly fill a medium-sized bucket. The insides of the Hell Raiser were more akin to the core of a steam oven than a tank by this point. Though the walls weren't excessively hot to the touch, thank the stars, the air had become extremely hot and humid - the sealed atmospheric systems of the vehicle barely keeping the cramped compartments liveable as the inferno outside raged on, ever baleful.
"Well, on the bright side..." he chuckled as he tossed the empty pack aside and sat back against the vaguely mild-temperatured ventilation grate positioned behind his head. "I very much doubt we'll need to use the boiling vessel if anyone wants some hot soup." his joke was met with a few half-hearted chortles and sounds of agreement.
It was about as cramped in the tank's interior as the streets of a hive city at midday, providing ultimate proof that - despite its qualities both as a direct assault and defensive unit - the Leman Russ was not a troop carrier in any way, shape or form. Luna was especially squashed by the cramped conditions, having to crane her neck at a funny angle to stop her horn touching the ceiling of the main hull. She, Silent Arrow and the twins were sweating buckets - their fur coats rendered several shades darker than normal by the shear volume of perspiration coating them - and were all panting heavily. Iron Plate, the brother of the twins, seemed to be lulling in and out of consciousness, every now and again his breathing would quieten and his eyes would close, only to shoot wide open again accompanied by a gasp of pain if his left foreleg got jostled. Bronze plate was still being tended by Gestople, the Hell Raiser's left sponson gunner, for her missing ear - hissing a little every time the bandage tape passed over the mangled spot on her head where said ear used to be.
Silent Arrow had accepted a basic healing spell from Luna early on in the journey, reducing many of her shallow scratch wounds to small scabs - if not returning the skin to a fully healed state outright. The fur in those areas was not healed however, resulting in the Lunar Guard Captain being a patchwork of freshly healed skin, scabs and deep, sweat drenched purple. She was checking the crossbow bolts in the quivers mounted to her flank plating, looking for bent shafts and misaligned fletches. What really caught Enart's attention, however, was how she was inspecting them. Her hooves were somehow holding the bolts from the sides - the ammunition seemingly sticking to the bases of the limbs as if they were magnetic.
"How the actual hell are you doing that?" the befuddled lieutenant called down to her from the tank's turret, briefly attracting the attention of everyone in the vehicle - until most of them realised he wasn't talking to them and turned their gazes away again. Arrow cocked an eyebrow at him in response, shooting a quick glance at Luna who shrugged back at her, before calling up to him.
"Doing what?" her voice was gravelly, from the smoke inhalation and the phlegm in her throat caused by the humidity, but still understandable and, now that Enart thought about it, somewhat familiar.
"Holding those bolts. You got magic hooves or something?" it was a sarcastic question of course, such mundane and useful magic was a fallacy, a lie. The only forms of 'magic' that existed were the violent and manipulative sorts employed by psykers and false prophets - both of whom had been extinct aboard the ships of the Nobilis World Fleets since the early days of the Bleeding Void, or the Age of Strife as Imperial records recalled it.
In the beginning of that age of horrors, psykers (driven mad by the mass influx of power driven into their minds by the writhing Warp) and their supporters had attempted to convince the Shipmasters to plunge their mighty World Ships into the Warp with their Gellar Fields lowered. Some had, given in to the influence of their psionic kin. Others had resisted, and were killed for their defiance - their ships commandeered and submerged, defenceless, into the Immaterium. Of a fleet of thirty city ships, fifty capital grade warships and hundreds of escorts only a fleet of 18 survived the culling - seven cities, one battleship, two cruisers, a battlecruiser and nine escorts of varying types. It had taken the Nobilites this long just to rebuild the World Fleet back to half of its' original strength in city ships. The survivors had learned a harsh lesson back then - psykers were a deadly infection and their 'magic' was the most dangerous symptom. It was a lesson they had since tempered to an extent with experience and a little guidance from Primarch Qrow, but it was still one they kept as a key tenant of their lives; 'Trust a psyker at one's own peril'.
So, suffice to say, it came as a bit of a surprise to Enart and all his Imperial comrades when Silent Arrow laughed a little and replied to his very sarcastic question with:
"Well, yes, actually I do. We all do." suffice to say, this immediately set all of the Imperials present on edge. The images of Princess Luna's combat display at the landing site flashed back into Enart's mind, the telekinesis, the energy blasts, the huge shield and even the healing thing she'd just used on Arrow - he'd assumed them all to be the work of some powerful artefact, mounted to her head and connected to her brain via her horn. Had that all been magic? Like actual fairy tale, Legend of Arturias style magic?
He didn't get the time to completely gather those thoughts as a tremendous *bang* sounded from outside and the tank jolted hard to the right, sending everyone who was seated on the left side of the main hull flying into those lined up opposite them. After a brief moment of balancing on one set of tracks the Hell Raiser slammed back down square again, rearranging the seating positions of almost everyone in the main hull again - the only exception being the driver, Valk, who was belted into her seat.
Enart spent a couple of seconds with his eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the ringing in his ears, from the noise, and the completely separate ringing in his skull, from hitting his head on the side of the viewing cupola, to fade. When the latter sensation dulled a bit, he dared to open his eyes a bit and squint through the left view port, hoping to catch a brief glimpse at whatever had knocked them for six.
The land beyond the Hell Raiser's hull was a far cry from the tranquil, grassy fields it had once been and different again from the trampled, blood-soaked bog it had been less than half-an-hour ago. It was now far more akin to the landscapes of an active caldera - a sea of roaring flames as far as the eye could see, the sky chocked by smoke as black as the night and even the earth itself had been reduced to molten rock and blazing soil in places. All this destruction wrought by a single war-machine's venerable fury.
Enart watched the fearsome blaze through the other view ports after failing to spot what had rattled the tank, gazing through each of the other seven little, armoured windows in turn. It was quite a surreal sight, but seeing it through the square and restrictive ports made the whole thing feel extremely distant. Sure, he could tell very easily that he was right in the centre of this burning hell - he need only spare a quick thought to how slick and hot his skin felt to remind him - but the view itself looked so much like the numerous pict screens he'd seen of worlds that the Great Crusade had visited that some parts of his brain was trying to tell him that it was.
But he knew that wasn't the case, every nerve and sweat gland in his body had been telling him as much for quite a bit now, on top of the pain still pulsing in his ears and the right side of his head.
"Lieutenant Enart come in, this is Astartes Sergeant Tiades, copy."
"I copy, sir. Go ahead." he replied, the tank jolting to the right for a second time, somewhat less violently than the first, just as he got the last word out. A pillar of fire erupted from the ground to the left of the tank, the physical evidence of an air pocket under the surface bursting as the Hell Raiser rumbled over it. "So that's what caught us the first time..." he mumbled quietly to himself away from the mic, as he watched the tower of flame sputter out into nothing as they thundered on. It elicited a few shouts of alarm from the main hull below, but did nothing to hinder the tank's journey across the blazing hellscape towards the city and certainly didn't throw everyone around the tank like ragdolls as the first blast had.
"The Strike on the Hearth is reporting that the temperature outside is starting to decrease and the visibility is improving. Can you confirm this?" Tiades was a very straight forward individual, if Enart's previous missions alongside the veteran Astartes were anything to go off at least. He asked simple questions and gave simple orders, although often as part of a greater overarching plan formulated by the Sergeant with the aid of another strategist. It wasn't that he thought his superior was stupid, far from it, but he was certainly a practitioner of the simpler ways of war.
"Only one way to find out sir, gimme a moment. Keep your head down Vairn, I'm popping the top." with that said, he haphazardly whacked the turret hatch lock handle with his hoof, turning it to the 'Open' position, before throwing the hatch wide open and sticking his head out.
Suffice to say, he almost immediately regretted this decision. The swell of heat that washed over him as his head cleared the hatch was unbearable - even through the heat cloth that covered his muzzle and neck he could feel it against his skin. The flames that lapped at the exterior of the tank's main hull only added to the issue, sending flushes of hot air at him with each individual sway of each individual peak of fire.
However, the mere fact that he was able to stand the heat (albeit barely) was proof that they were out of the worst of the firestorm - which in turn meant they weren't terribly far away from getting shot at by artillery again. He winced at the sight of all the peeled paint and scorched marks that covered the turret of his tank, knowing full well he would be getting an extremely monotone rap on the knuckles, err hooves, from the adepts of the Mechanicum come this battle's end.
"Lord Tiades, Lieutenant Enart here." instead of returning to the inside of the tank he had brought the receiver phones and transmitter up from within the vehicle, into the exposed heat of the outside. There was some minor crackling in the response from Tiades, but not so bad that it was unintelligible. "I can confirm that the heat has subsided to tolerable levels my lord. The visibility has started to improve as well."
"Then you'd best make ready for the battle lieutenant, we will be breaking free of this blaze soon..." the Astartes's response was curt and simple as always and was rounded off with the distinct *click* that indicated that he'd terminated the link. Keeping vox chatter and most noise in general, aside from the barking of guns and the roaring of chainswords, to a minimum was a policy in keeping with one of the most basic Scarred Swords' principles in combat; 'A good sword cuts cleanly and quietly, to make sound is to indicate a defect of function, a detail an enemy need not know'.
The Swords descended onto the field of battle in deathly silence, cut the enemy down to the last soldier and left without a word. They had little-to-no involvement with the process of rebuilding a world that had to be forcefully brought to compliance - that role was left to whichever poor sap that Primarch Qrow left behind as planetary governor.
The Second Legion's Primarch had no eye for architecture or city building, having spent his formative years fighting his way, both figuratively and literally, up the command structure of the then Nobilis Fleet's flagship; the Great Dark's Watch. His sons were much the same, many were either voidborn or the children of the feral tribes of Gaia, so had no care at all for the concerns of rebuilding burned homes or reconnecting the shattered remains of a world's infrastructure. They sought only the fires of warfare and the din of battle.
"DAEMON!!" Enart did not even have time to announce that they were free of the worst of the flames before warning screamed through the company vox. There was a shriek as armour tore, followed immediately by an explosion that rocked the Hell Raiser - as the tank on her left was ripped open by a charging Chaos spawn, a Bloodcrusher of Khorne. The brass armoured war beast had slammed headlong into the tank and gone clean through its plating, exposing its ammo and fuel to the flaming ground they road over.
This beast was only the first of many, a massed cavalry charge of nigh-unstoppable blood crazed steeds ridden by Bloodletters of Khorne. They tore through seven tanks and three transports before the Imperials could even react.
It was a deadly play by the Ruinous Power of the Blood God and it left the Imperials reeling...
[End of Entry]