//------------------------------// // The Dark Age: the 1st War for S.T.-s pt.1 // Story: A new faction // by Rub3r0n //------------------------------// Green Green is the color of hope, the color of nature. But it is also the color of an endless tide, eager to sink the galaxy in green and war... Or rather, Waaagh! In WARHAMMER 40K there are hundreds, thousands, millions, of unspeakable horrific threats to all sorts of life. But without any doubt, one of the most known and abundant is the... ORKS! Oh yes! The orks! Those giant fungus war-lovers hilarious bastards, who just want a good fight. You probably have heard of some of the wars where orks are involved, the second war for Armaggedon, the war in Oktarius, the war of The Beast... millions of fights during millions of years. But I bet you didn't hear about this one! THE FIRST WAR FOR S.T.-s! When the equusians met the orks and their first big-scale combat since going to space. This fight truly taught them a lot about the 41st Millenium, lessons, which wouldn't be forgotten. This conflict had blood, explosions, madness, friendship and of course, ... a LOT of HEAVY AND BIG WEAPONS!!!! YUHUUUU!!!! As you already know, Seaforce was commanded to establish the first contact between the equusians and this recently discovered alien species. Hoping to be able to create a good diplomatic relationship and peace for both. Seaforce asked to be in charge of this mission. That would make sense, he had a lot of preparation, practical experience, in other words, he was qualified to. Besides, there was too a personal reason, the hippogriff looked for redemption. More because for achieving it before his own eyes. This had a reason, the failure of Sky Explorer, of which Seaforce felt guilty. This new mission would serve to proof himself again and demonstrate that he was still a good leader. He failed. The two support ships leaded by Seaforce were brought down by the orks, and they had to land forcibly. This revealed the warlike nature of the orks and so, Seaforce tried to communicate with S.T.-2 (Palomino) and warn them, but the radio was damaged during the landing. There were they, surrounded by this green bipedal creatures, waiting for the inevitable end. The last thoughts of Seaforce weren't hopeful or... anything like that, they were about failure, how he failed. He had no plan, he couldn't save the lives laid under his responsibility, he couldn't even warn someone. The support ship got full of orks and equusian blood. The base in Palomino didn't receive news of Seaforce for some time now, this worried them enormously, they feared that something really bad happened and their suspicions were confirmed not long after. A support ship, which accompanied Sneaky One, was sent to investigate. It found several ork ships heading to the plane and tried to make contact and find out what happened, but the orks attacked. Fortunately, the ship managed to dodge the shoots and escape, which wasn't surprising, it was already very clear the habilty of all the ships related to Sneaky One and Sneaky One itself to dodge and being slippery. Meanwhile the equusians tried once and again to initiate a diplomatic conversation and negotiate peace, well they thought that the intentions of the force led by Seaforce were misunderstood as an attack, the greenskins arrived to the planet and began to descend. The arrival of this aliens was felt by every creature at the base, how not? They were doing an unprecedented noise level, oh, and explosions, a lot of explosions. They were pretty usual for orks. When the ships finally landed on the planet... or its passengers fell from great heights, the orks exited, stepping on this new big space rock and ready to start a new fight! Then they all started to suffocate and die... ... ... ... Yeah... do I really have to remind you that Palomino's atmosphere wasn't breathable? They, instead of retreating or something like that, saw this as a challenge! The sign of a good fight! The planet itself wanted to fight against them, what battle could be better than this one? So they tried to kick, shoot and punch the air or the land before just... dying. You can imagine how the faces of the equusians were after seeing this. With the apparently new hostile aliens distracted, the equusians had time to make a plan. First, they notified Equus, calling for support, and so, they couldn't use the mirror portal again until the next month, yes, it works like that, each month the portal is open for some hours. After that, they assured some strategical positions near the usual landing zone of the orks, just in case, to observe them. After 5 days, the tried, again, to speak with the orks and make peace. The greenskins shot immediately after seeing them, so the equusians needed to flew and return to the base. It was pretty clear now that they won't be able to talk peacefully with this creatures and various defenses were risen. The equusians were prepared to fight. And so it happened. The orks found themselves exhausted from punching the air, and when they saw the equusians, they noticed the weird suits they used. These were space suits and gave the orks an idea. Next time they landed on the planet, the suffocation was no more, the fungi mans had created an amazing and super-advanced technology to survive in the toxic atmosphere. They putted fish tanks on their heads, aesthetically decorated with scotch tape (I just love these guys). A lot of battles happened, where the orks and the creatures native from Equus fought bravely against their opponents. Due to the strong dust storms of the planet, the connection that allowed the drones to receive orders and work could fail and these machines would become useless. Because of this, the equusians had to go and fight themselves, using trench warfare techniques and their superior knowledge about the grounds and climate events to defeat the aliens. It's not like if they were cowards, but having an alternative, which allows them to not lose soldier's lives, they naturally would use it. However, this fights and battles wouldn't be any easy to win, the orks overpassed them in number for a lot, so the most frequent form to deal with them was with ambushes and leading them to traps. Plus, the difficulty increased when the orks managed to bring their boogies and tanks, more CHOPPA and DAKKA and other types of crazy weapons. Even worse, combat walkers began to arrive to the battlefield. Killa Kans, Deff Dreads, Mega Dreads, all sorts of those giant robotic armors, Gorkanauts and Morkanauts too. For dealing with these things, the equusians had to use all the firepower they had, all of it. But they couldn't stay like that for a very long time and it was decided to create new weapons and powerful war vehicles to defend themselves. After almost 2 weeks after asking for help to Equus, the orks launched a powerful attack to the equusian base, unleashing a bloody and violent battle for various hours. This battle went bad. How bad? Very bad. And for the equusians. The orks attacked quickly and by surprise, distracting the residents of the base with a frontal attack for later charge to the zones that were left unprotected. It was a blood bath, although some could escape and take refuge in some caves of a near mountain. And the things would have gone worse if Sky Explorer, Sneaky One and Murderships Nightmare didn't have fought bravely against the ork ships that surrounded the planet, stopping any form of orbital attack. As a fact, the captain of Murderships Nightmare, Volkano, was leading the forces on the planet with the help of other military strategist. Murderships Nightmare was being directed by its sub-captain. The improvised base of the mountain was full of fear. The equusians were terrified, not only because of the brutality of the orks, but also because soon the portal would open again and the reinforcements from Equus would find themselves drowned in a tide of green. This made the moral go down.But they had to do something, several plans and strategies were discussed, each one senseless than the previous one, because their desperation made hard to think clearly. They even thought in using their heavy weapons against the orks and... Wait... What?! They didn't use their heaviest weapons from the first moment?! Whyyyy?!?!?! Why were they being so stupid?!?!?!?! Well, because they had feeeeaaar. Fear caused by the tyranids. The equusians feared that orks would adapt to their weapons and turn them against them, it's not like they knew a lot about the greenskins, no, really, they knew nothing. The battles were just killing or die, there was no time to recollect information. But in this dark moment, one hero raised and set things straight. Volkano reunited his companions and gave a speech: "Creatures! Come here and listen to me! I have been seeing your actions, hearing your whispers and feeling your regret. I know very well how are you in this hard situation, you are frightened, you have desperation in the eyes and fear in the hearts, and there's nothing that makes me more sick! I feel sorry for you, really. Of course, I know it isn't easy to stay hopeful and positive right now, but we were chosen for this mission because only we could make it! We all knew NOTHING was going to be easy! So rise, rise with me companions! I don't want to continue seeing you like this, sunk in your own sorrow. I want to see those brave warriors who fought without any doubts against the enemies in the front line again! In action! We are NOT gonna stay here hiding and leaving our friends being attacked by those monsters! We must do SOMETHING! So get the heaviest weapons we have, the real heavy ones and prepare to recover our base! Let's show those bastards who we ARE! And what happens when someone threats us or our FRIENDS! Do not fear!!! The victory depends only and only of US!!!" No one had words. This speech waked up a lot of different feelings, but at the end, everyone agreed with Volkano words. They would NOT let those aliens win, they would NOT surrender, they would FIGHT. Spacestar, one of Volkano greatest friends, was impressed too. He knew that Volkano was usually not very good with speeches, but this one, this one motivated all of them. Spacestar knew that his friend was right, they had to take the base again and make it stay like that, NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT COSTS. On all imaginable fronts, the equusians attacked, fervently wishing to recover what was theirs. The orks there were surprised, they had to deal now with a frontal attack, the other from the rear, on the flanks, soldiers falling from above and others coming out from underground. The technomagical weapons shot and turned the aliens into stone after contact, others teansmutated matter to random things, grenades, which explosions launched hundreds of sharp crystals, rays capable of allowing the user to use telepathical forces and a lot more... The battle was BRUTAL, and obviously, the orks didn't cease without giving a proper fight. Both sides suffered several casualties, but with a lot of effort the equusians achieved to secure the portal room, the main objective of the whole operation. Sadly, the mirror portal was broken, it sure was the fault of those greenskins. However, this didn’t stop them and incredibly fast they put themselves to repair it, many scientists, including Spacestar, were working as if their lives depended on that. "Sector 3 is clear, orks have been driven out." "The same here in sector 5." "I think we've cleaned the entire base, sir." "Good," Volkano answered. "Let's make another check, we can't leave any of them alive." The battle was long and hard, but finally, it seemed that they had recovered their base. The dragon had been leading the operation since its beginning and he was very proud of it being successful, but this didn’t make him lose his concentration or seriousness, their situation couldn't be taken lightly. "Ca..in...thE..." Suddenly, the communication device from Volkano began to receive a weird message with bad audio. The dragon listened attentively until it was comprehensible. "The orks a...here...they atta... rror portal room!" "Oh no." It was the only thing Volkano thought before launching himself in his fastest fly to the portal room, preparing his fire breath and his gun. When he arrived, the fire and bullets fell on the orks before they could even notice, his wrath was on a never before seen level. Volkano's fire had unique magical properties, as the fire of every dragon, his wouldn't stop burning ever, unless someone throws water or sand or something like that to it. This distracted the orks enough to let Volkano shoot at each of their heads and end with them all. But he still was too late, almost every creature there was dead, the blood covered the room and the stench of the flesh made Volkano make an expression of revulsion and disgust. As I already said, almost everyone there was dead, everyone except one. Volkano couldn't remember anytime he had flown so fast in his life. Motivated by the desesperation, he was heading directly to the nursery while carrying the only survivor of that carnage in the portal room. His more appreciated friend, the one with whom he had spent such good moments, shared their training and a thousands more things. Spacestar was on the arms of his friend, with his face unrecognizable and full of blood, actually, Volkano knew it was Spacestar thanks to his cutie mark. The unicorn lacked of some extremities and his horn, probably a lot of broken bones and damaged organs, not mentioning the loss of blood. "Don't worry space' buddy! You're going to be okay, right? Just hold on a bit more, I'm taking you to the nursery," Said the dragon with tears in the eyes and the voice broken. "Th-The...portal...is re-repaired," Spacestar achieved to say hardly, the effort was too much and it hurt to talk. "Shh, shhh, shhh," His friend made him quiet. "Yes, you and all the others were incredible, but please don't talk, it's too difficult for you right now. Don't waste your energies." So Spacestar stayed quiet. "HELP!!!!!" Volkano shouted, asking for medical treatment when he arrived to the nursery. Spacestar was put on a bed and the medical team tried to cure him somehow, but his wounds were too harmful and many medical equipment was destroyed by the orks during the two battles. He wouldn't last. In the last moments of his life, Spacestar had always at his side his good friend Volkano, sometimes other creatures went to see him, but only Volkano was there until the last second. Crying, asking his friend to not surrender and hold on to life, he said that he could be cured, he just had to stay a bit more. He remembered the promise he made to Nova, that he would protect her husband. At that time, it was more a joke than another thing, but now he was ashamed for not being able to fulfill it. Before the unicorn gave his final breath, he managed to make a whisper. "Once my dream...now evercreature's nightmare."