When in deadly danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout,
Parody of the Litany of Command, popular amongst commissar cadets.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
In Canterlot, a number of Imperials milled about under the watchful gaze of guardsponies. Many were laborers, electricians, technicians, the sort of necessitates needed on an interstellar vessel. Off in the corner were the ship's outcasts: Janus Hassil and Zachariah Fendor.
“Oh, this is not good.” Janus Hassil was the Skyward Valkyrie's senior astropath, and as his mechanical eyes looked at the Emperor's Tarot. While astro-telecommunication and other forms of telepathy were his forte, divination was a hobby he had developed over his years of service. Frail and sickly, his hands shook as he revealed the third card. The first was the Emperor, which meant Warp-travel, discovery, and hope. The second, the first's indicator, was the Inquisitor, which, when combined with the first, meant intrigue, espionage, and interaction with sapient xenos.
“Something wrong, Janus?” Zachariah asked, leaning his bulbous head over his friend's shoulder. He, unlike Janus, was a Navigator, a human subspecies possessing a third eye in the center of the forehead, allowing them to, obviously, navigate in the Warp. “You know I never paid much attention to this Tarot stuff.”
“Hush; I must see the remaining cards.” The third was the Space Marine, humanity's protector, drawn inverted. They would fight a losing battle, hopelessly outmatched. The fourth, which was the indicator of the third, was the Kraken. “The Astartes face a powerful enemy when the Valkyrie happens upon them as she emerges from the Warp. Necrons? Tau? Certainly not Chaos. What's messing with me, however, is the Inquisitor. Why would the crew of the Valkyrie interact with aliens, peacefully, no less?”
“Are we not doing just that right now?” Zachariah asked, his black eyes looking about. The ponies, as Magos Martellus had called them, seemed harmless, save for the two larger ones who frequently passed through the chamber. “Maybe the last card wraps everything up nicely?”
Nodding, Janus moved his hand to reveal the final tarot, frail, spidery hand trembling in the room's cool air. Placing two fingers on the liquid crystal matrix, he turned it ninety degrees. The image began forming rather quickly, but Janus closed his eyes to avoid seeing it. He always did this, just in case he ever drew the Despoiler. While predicting certain death and destruction of entire worlds was necessary, he preferred to delay such revelations for as long as humanly possible.
“Luna!” A crashing sound, followed by the voice belonging to the psyker pony Janus knew as Princess Celestia, echoed through the large chamber, drawing the attention of everyone in the room, even the ones who could not understand. At the larger pony's hooves lay a bucket with a small puddle of water spilled next to it. Celestia was drenched, and her sister could only smile.
@#@#@# Amos's POV @#@#@#
We waited in tense silence as the elevator came to a stop in the corridor. Our guns, what few remained, were aimed at the door, the only entrance large enough for a Broodlord to easily pass through. I popped a fresh battery into my las carbine as we heard the doors open down the hall.
“I can feel it scratching in my mind,” Twilight groaned, clutching her head. The unicorns seemed to be faring about as poorly, what few were left. Forbidden Query looked like he was about to faint, but there was a bit more steel than fire behind his eyes.
“My skin feel like its moving,” Jay said as he started slapping his arms. He looked like he was swatting invisible bugs off his uniform; the Broodlord's influence must have been causing him to hallucinate, probably playing on one of his fears. A loud stomp in the hall made us shut up and redouble our focus on the doorway.
“A spiritu dominatus,” I began, thinking back to my earliest memories of my homeworld. The missionaries would sing the Emperor's hymns during our worships; though it was a prayer, the way they sang the Fede Imperialis always stuck out to me. “Domine, libera nos.”
“From the lightning and the tempest, Our Emperor, deliver us,” Delphine finished, looking a bit shaken. As far as she knew, I didn't devote much of my time to the Emperor; she didn't think I was a heretic by any means, but she also knew I was very private when it came to faith.
“From plague, temptation, and war, Our Emperor, deliver us,” The Shipmaster smiled at us, pulling the action on his rifle back; he looked, in my opinion, hopeful. The ponies joined in, humming, as they didn't know the hymn. Twilight's breathing evened out as she gained some composure. The Broodlord knew we were in the showers, so why worry; it would get to us at its own pace.
As if on cue, a massive, clawed hand grabbed the side of the doorway. A second later, its head peered from around the corner, looking at us with its gigantic eyes. My comrades, including Jay and Twilight, knew enough to look focus on something other than its eyes; many of the inquisitors were not so lucky. The gaze of a Broodlord is hypnotic, a powerful psychic ability that can render even the strongest-willed man immobile, but it only needed a fraction of a second to tear into something with its scything talons.
Then, as most of the ponies dropped the guns, it screamed, high and terrible. I clutched my hands over my ears in a vain attempt to keep my eardrums from rupturing. The glass of my goggles shattered, and would have blinded me, had my eyes not been closed. As I tumbled to the floor, I heard the Broodlord's shriek take on a different tone, then cut off. I had no intentions of playing the hero, but I clutched my las carbine and took a peek around my crate as soon as I gained my composure. I was a little shocked by what I saw, to say the least.
@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#
I punched the hole I made in the elevator's floor our and pulled myself through. Chrysalis and the remaining drones flew out immediately after, ready to draw blood in need be. The control panel was broken, but it was obvious someone had used it somewhat properly, which only added to my knowledge of the Broodlord's intelligence. I made a joke about Chrissy and her changelings being like xenomorphs, but seeing genestealers, I take it back.
Giving commands through the hivemind, we crept through the steel corridors, not that we had to go very far. Even if we didn't follow the bodies, the sound of something fighting Query were rather loud. We burst into a sprint to give aid, but as I sent half the remaining drone to watch the far end of the hall, I could see he didn't exactly need it. Now, before I explain what he was doing, I need to confess to a rather... capital offense my Inquisition commits on a regular basis. Dark magics are practiced, honed, and improved within the Temples; they make for powerful unicorns, even from the weakest bunch.
Forbidden Query had the characteristics of dark magic influence: a purplish aura emanating form his eyes, a reddish tint to his horn's tip, and a cold look in his eyes. He may have stood a chance against the Broodlord; he applied everything he knew about fighting humans and minotaurs in melee. Sadly, those techniques only really worked if you were facing something with two arms or less. Genestealers had four, something Query's addled mind only realized as the Broodlord's hands wrapped around his neck.
I brought my pistol up as I noticed the monster's lower limbs twist to better slice into him. I barely had time to fire a single shot before the scything talons whipped through Query's stomach. I finished unloaded the clip as I ran forward, drawing my powersabre. A blue beam collided with the Broodlord's eye, flash-boiling the soft tissue and breaking its hold over my other inquisitors.
Amos ran out from behind cover, firing with every step he took. He stepped on a genestealer's corpse and jumped at the Broodlord, making him either the craziest bastard I'd met in the past few months, or the bravest, and I wasn't sure which was more impressive. He slammed into the overgrown bug and brought them both tumbling to the ground. Hissing and shrieking, it was too focused on its destroyed eye to pay much attention to Amos. He raised the butt of his las carbine above his head, and brought it down.
He slammed it down again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
He didn't stop until all he was hitting was a mass of off-green muck with a few bits of chitin here and there for texture.