A Second Fire
Applejack
“Left side! Don’t let those Immortals punch through!” Applejack roared, spinning on her hooves and letting lose with both of her fusion guns.
The twin beams of light slammed into one of the lead Immortals, the silver construct melting away as the destructive energies tore it apart to the point where even their sophisticated reconstruction matrixes couldn’t put it back together. The rest of the squad quickly followed her lead, firing into the advancing wall of metal at almost the exact same moment as the Immortals returned fire.
The baleful green lances lashed against the fallen rubble that the squad had been using for cover, stripping great chunks from the rock and forcing the squad to duck their heads down. More than one Tau screamed out, but Applejack couldn’t spare the time to look around and see who.
“Dig deep men!” a battlesuit clad soldier roared, before he suddenly sped over Applejack’s head, two more Crisis suits following his lead as they smashed into the Immortals, forcing the implacable warriors to change their targets.
Applejack didn’t need to be told orders at this, leaping up and over the barricade as the squad began firing once more, focusing fire on one Immortal at a time to ensure that it wouldn’t be getting back up. Applejack got one shot off with both guns, before she was amongst them. They towered above her, eclipsing even the few Space Marines she had seen, but they looked slow, just like the majority of Necron forces in close quarters.
Twisting on her forelegs, Applejack delivered a kick with all her might into the one of their legs. The servo’s in her armour worked with her, increasing her strength many times over, but it was still like kicking a solid metal wall. Even so, the leg buckled just enough to throw the Immortal off balance and staggering forward. Before it could repair the damage, one of the Battlesuits turned towards it, it’s fusion cannon letting out a single shot and reducing it to little more than molten slag.
“That’s the last of them,” the lead Battlesuit looked around, before angling his helmet towards Applejack. “That was foolish, Shas’Vre, even for you. You have my thanks for the assistance. Return to your squad, we regroup here for ten minutes before pushing deeper.”
“Aye, Shas’El,” Applejack nodded, turning back to the rest of the squad.
“Get any wounded to the back, take power packs off the dead and get on watch, I want at least four of you watching that tunnel where the Immortals came from,” Applejack began giving out orders, checking her own power reserves on her helmet display, before looking around at the others.
She had commanded this squad for years now, since her promotion to Shas’Vre, and it had shaped her almost as much as she had shaped it. She knew how they all operated now, knew who to call on for what tasks beyond their squad allocations, what each of them could and couldn’t do, and most importantly, she had their trust.
In return, she had shaped them into one of Pa’Laa’s first Breacher Teams, exchanging their pulse rifles for much more destructive and shorter ranged pulse blasters, and exchanging her own railrifles for the Fusion Guns she now carried. Her team had the lowest casualty rate amongst the few other Breacher Teams of Pa’Laa, and Applejack was planning to keep it that way.
They had been on this world for close to five months now, fighting against the unrelenting forces of the Necrons. They were brutal foes, from their Warriors, whose most basic guns could pierce battlesuits, to the disgusting flayed ones, many of whom had been encountered wearing blue skin since the campaign had started. For the first three months it had been nothing but a long string of defeats, the grounds they had taken in the first day of the campaign being relentlessly assaulted, but finally, they had begun to turn the tables. Soon, whole Cadres were venturing into the tombs of the world, breaching deeper and deeper each time.
Then, less than eight weeks ago, they had struck their biggest blow yet, a cadre striking to the lowest levels of the Tomb and detonating its main generator. The resulting explosion had utterly destroyed the tomb complex, all the Necrons still dormant there perishing, and giving the Tau a much needed morale boost.
Since that day, the Tau had been on the offensive, and now, only one Tomb remained, the one Applejack was currently fighting through. The Necrons were battered, but they were still deadly, and Applejack knew that a cornered animal could still bareits teeth.
“We’re ready to move up again,” Applejack reported to the Shas’El, his battlesuit scorched from numerous blows. “Mah squad can take point again.”
“We’ve lost a lot of our forces,” the Shas’El sounded concerned for a moment, before his voice hardened. “But we must push on, for the Greater Good. Bring your squad around to the fore, I will get your co-ordinates, and you will lead the final push.”
“Y’all do me a great honour, Shas’El,” Applejack began.
“To hell with honour,” the Shas’El scoffed. “You’ll lead because your squads Pulse Blasters keep those bastards down, and because you carry Fusion Guns on a non-battlesuit frame. Now, get your squad ready, we move on your go.”
Applejack nodded, adjusting her Fusion Guns slightly, before signalling for her squad to form up around her, before slowly beginning to advance down the tunnel, her helmet’s scanners allowing her to see in the near total darkness.
Deeper and deeper they advanced, scores of Tau behind her, when all hell broke loose.
The crack of gauss weapons discharging caused Applejack to tense up, certain that she was about to be turning to nothing but dust, but they were not aimed at her. In an instant, the Shas’El fell backwards, his entire chest missing, the two other battlesuits soon finding the same end.
“Get moving!” Applejack roared, breaking into a gallop. “Their next step is ta collapse the tunnels! Move!”
The squad followed her lead without question, even as rocks began to fall. The sounds of screams echoed behind them as Tau pulse weapons joined the Necrons Gauss flayers. In moments however, the tunnel behind them was sealed, the sounds of battle becoming muffled, even as the squad kept running.
“Applejack, should we not try and link back up with the rest of the cadre?” one of her squad called over the radio-link, the interference from the tomb making it impossible to tell who.
“No, we keep pressin’ forward,” Applejack retorted. “The rest of the Cadre will have to win that fight on their own, then dig their way through to us. We have the opportunity to get to the generator and destroy this place.”
“And if they haven’t dug through when we set it to explode?” another distorted voice asked.
“Then we’ll sell our lives fer the Greater Good,” Applejack replied simply.
“We’re trained for this,” Valnoth called out, loud enough so they didn’t have to use the radio to hear her. “Tunnels and us mix well!”
Applejack let out a terse laugh, but Valnoth was correct, the few Tomb Spyders that tried to stop them proving that as they were blasted apart, and soon, they stood alone and in silence, in a room filled with the eerie green light that all the Necrons emitted, the power generator before them.
“Set up any explosive’s we have, ah want this place rigged for timed detonation,” Applejack ordered, looking around to check that there was only one way into this room.
“We don’t have any breaching charges left,” Valnoth shook her head. “We used them all in the upper levels, the rest of the cadre were carrying them.”
“Can we access the controls to rig it ta overload?” she asked, looking at Diaoh.
“With enough time, I might…” Diaoh began, before screens suddenly burst into life, all showing the same thing.
An Overlord, one of the Necron ruling class, looked into the room, a battle between the Tau and the Necrons clearly visible in the background. From the looks of things, they were losing, although the cave in look like it had been blasted clear. Applejack’s eyes were forced back to the Overlord as he began to speak, his voice chilling her soul.
“Defilers of my tomb, you have entered forbidden ground, and seek to destroy my home. I would demand death from you, if I were not in a kindly mood.”
“Sure it’s not called fear sugarcube?” Applejack shot back, before muttering to Diaoh. “Get everyone away from the generator. We don’t have time to rig it to blow safely.”
“Were you one of my underlings, you would suffer for that insult,” the Overlord continued. “But I am kind. Your allies here are spent, soon they will be overrun, but you can save them. Give up now, and I will ensure that they are allowed to leave my world, unharmed. I will even offer you and your, compatriots, to share in the same deal, even with your insults to me. All this I offer, if you but cease your actions here.”
“Applejack,” Valnoth hissed almost silently. “The Stealth teams are still reporting in. They’re at the teleportation array, they say they have it working and are locking on to us.”
“Tell ‘em to give us twenty seconds, then git us out’a here,” Applejack hissed back, activating a timer as the Overlord speaking again.
“I require an answer, child. Every moment you waste, is another clutch of your friends slain by my…”
“Sorry to cut in there, but fuck y’all,” Applejack shouted back, turning to face the generator, the screen moving with her so it was still facing her. “Ah serve the Greater Good, not y’all. So ah hope y’all won’t be needin’ this, but like ah said, fuck…”
Applejack fired both her Fusion Cannons as the timer she had set reached zero. The crack of her guns drowned out her last word, before her world went white. A split second later, the colour came back to it, a squad of Stealth Battlesuits in front of her.
“Well done, Shas’Vre,” one of them complimented, before gesturing towards the entrance. “You succeeded, now we must go.”
“Don’t need ta tell me twice,” Applejack nodded, before setting off at a gallop out of the tomb, the rumble of an explosion echoing from deep beneath her, and she could swear there was also a mechanical roar of anger there too.
***
“You did exceptionally well, Applejack,” Shas’O Shan’Ta raised his voice, so that all those who were arrayed on the parade square could hear him. “In destroying the last tomb complex on this world, you have broken the Necron forces once and for all. In light of this, and your years of service, I am putting you forward for your second Trial by Fire. While you are already a Shas’Vre, you earned your first promotion irregularly, and have only since taken one Trial by Fire. Therefore, completion of this task shall see you rise to the rank of Shas’El. Are there any present who would refute her right to take her trials?”
Applejack held her breath as a murmur went throughout the assembled Fire Warriors, but as the seconds stretched on, and no one spoke up, she felt more at ease, her doubts finally disappearing when Shan’Ta raised his voice once more.
“Very well. Come sun up, you and the other Shas’Vre to be tested shall begin your trial, to see who shall become our Sept’s next Shas’El. Our next Noble Knight.”
Applejack felt her chest swell with pride as she brought a hoof slamming into her chest, saluting the Shas’O, before turning and heading off of the parade square, the rest of the Fire Warriors also beginning to disperse.
“Ah must say, lass, ya gave us a right scare back there,” Koghad chuckled as he approached her, putting an arm around her neck and pulling her into something that was a cross between a hug and a headlock. When they said that ya cadre had been jumped, ah thought…”
“What, that ah’d be dead?” Applejack scoffed back. “Will take more than a few metal men ta take me down. Now, ah have twelve or so hours before ah have mah second Trial by Fire, so let’s make the most of tonight. Tomorrow you’ll have to learn a new title to refer to me as.”
“Ah don’t think ah’ve ever called you by yer title, Applejack,” Koghad chuckled.
“Well, maybe y’all should start, Sugarcube,” Applejack winked, walking past Koghad and flicking him with her tail. “Come on, first round’s on me.”
***
Applejack looked at the other Shas’Vre who would be undergoing the Trial by Fire alongside her, each one looking far older than she was, although most of them didn’t come anywhere near as close to her in number of scars. There were six of them in total, each armed and armoured in their standard gear, from Pathfinders to Stealth Suits, and even a Broadside Battlesuit. Applejack just thanked her luck that no Crisis Suit users had been chosen to undergo their trials at the same time.
“Ok, our first drop point is coming up soon, so allow me to go over the rules one final time,” Shan’Ta called out over the roar of the engines. “Each of you will be dropped off within a one hundred kilometre squared area. Once you are dropped off, you are to wait until you hear the signal before moving. Once the signal has been given, you can open your packs, which will have the final pieces of gear you need to find a single drone within the same area as you are in. All of you have been provided with weakened power packs for your weapons, that will stun, not kill those they hit, you are all fair targets to each other. Once one of you has found the drone, it will transmit a signal to me, and to all of you, and the Trial will be over. Six of you will leave here as Shas’Vre, only one of you will return to become as Shas’El.”
The light in the back compartment of the Orca suddenly turned to a dull red, Shan’Ta pointing directly at Applejack.
“You’re up first, pony. And remember, we may have eliminated the Necron tombs, but there still may be remnants out there. You have live power packs for your weapons, clearly use them if you are pressed, but remember to swap them out before continuing the Trial. If you feel unable to continue at any point, activate your distress signal, we’ll come pick you up.”
Applejack nodded, doing one final check of her helmets systems before the ship touched down, Applejack hopping off into the arctic environment of the world. As soon as she had left the ship, the Orca sped off once more, Applejack getting ready to receive the go signal.
Time passed slowly, Applejack keeping an eye on the surroundings for any movement, before her comm unit was activated, Shan’Ta’s voice coming across loud and clear.
“The Trial starts now, you have seventy-two hours to track down and locate the drone, if it is not found, none of you shall be advancing in rank this day. Shan’Ta out.”
The radio went dead as Applejack swung her pack off of her back, grabbing out the small scanner within. At a glance, she could tell that it was set to track down the drone they were hunting, but it was only calibrated for a 2-3 kilometre radius. She briefly wondered if everybody else had the same scanner, before deciding that it didn’t matter, and setting off at a run, syncing the scanner with her helmet for ease.
All she could see around her was the same bleak, snow swept landscape, glaciers and ravines blurring together the further she tried to look, until all she could see was a white blur. Breaking into a cautious canter, Applejack began angling towards the beacon locator, ducking into one of the many natural trenches carved into the ice.
All of the other Tau on this Trial had far longer ranged weapons than she did, the Broadside in particular could probably get a kill shot on her before she even saw it, and the Stealth Suit could be beside her and she wouldn’t even know it, meaning the only way she would win this would be to hide, and to be fast.
Her armour blended her into the surroundings, unlike her last trial that had taken place on a desert world, which would only end up helping her. Pushing on, not paying attention to the cold blowing through her, until she finally reached the area where the scanner had led her to.
“Alright then, old fashioned way it is,” she sighed, powering up her fusion blasters, her helmet registering that all three were now powered on.
Without even thinking, Applejack threw herself to the side, just as a flurry of fusion energy slammed into the ground where she had just been, the ice vaporising instantly and filling the area with steam.
Twisting around, Applejack let loose a few shots of her own, spraying wildly in the general area the shot had come from, before scrambling into cover.
“Stealth suit?” Applejack called out, before adjusting her helmets sensors. She couldn’t pick up the suit itself, but she could find everywhere the suit wasn’t.
Stealth Suits disguised their signatures from all types of scanners, and normally that was enough to fool anyone, but Applejack knew a thing or two about Stealth Suits after running Farsight contingency plans. She could scan for normal air, and the one spot that didn’t have any of those was her target.
“Got you,” she growled, before diving out of cover once more and firing everything she had.
Her shots were met with a grunt of pain as a Stealth Suit suddenly became visible, the pilot letting out another groan as they fell forward, their lifeless suit hitting the snow with a dull thump.
“Sorry Sugarcube, but yer gonna have to get up a mite earlier if ya want to sneak up on me,” she chuckled, walking over to the Stealth Suit and beginning to search him.
The stun ammo she took, figuring he wouldn’t need it, but she left the live ammo, just in case. What she was really wanted was whatever he had got in his pack. It was another scanner, this one displaying five exact sets of coordinates. It was not difficult to figure out that this was what had led the Stealth Suit right to her, but now, it would lead her to all of the others. True, she didn’t have to hunt them, but a two kilometre area with a fast drone on the move was still a difficult hunt. With luck, one of the others would have additional data for hunting it down.
***
It took Applejack almost forty hours of near constant searching to find what she was looking for. Both of the Fire Warriors had found out that she could set a short ranged and deadly ambush with ease. Each of them carried a scanner that displayed parts of the drone’s location, and now she had enough parts, she had its exact location. She just had to hope she didn’t run into the Broadside before she found the drone, she wouldn’t be able to sneak up on its sensors.
“Come on come on, where are you?” Applejack muttered to herself as she closed in on the coordinates for the drone, scanning the horizon for any sort of visual contact, before freezing.
The Broadside Battlesuit appeared from behind a distant snowdrift, it’s railguns flush with power as it scanned the horizon. Applejack knew that she was in the open, but if he hadn’t seen her yet, then movement would certainly draw his attention, and then he’d simply wait her out. She had to wait until it moved on, then…
The drone appeared from within a ravine as she stood still, barely a hundred meters in front of Applejack, and more than three hundred from the Broadside. The Broadside had seen the movement however, turning around in an instant to track the drone, before beginning to turn around, slowly pacing through the snow. It hadn’t yet seen Applejack, but if she didn’t move, she’d watch as the Broadside got the drone and the promotion. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Hey!” She roared, before breaking into a gallop, her armour and natural athleticism eating up the distance between her and the drone.
The Broadside turned towards her as Applejack zig-zagged between snowdrifts and ice walls, trying to get a lock on her. If it fired, it would take at least ten seconds to fire again, and in that time, Applejack would have already got the drone.
The crack of a railgun firing split the air, as Applejack threw herself into a mound of snow, praying it would throw off the aim of the battlesuit just enough to not completely stun her. She was mostly right, the shot slamming into the ground where she had been, the resulting explosion catching her back leg.
She let out a scream of pain as the stun round engulfed her leg, fusing the armour and numbing her leg entirely.
“Ten…seconds,” Applejack grunted, forcing her way out of the snowdrift and hobbling towards the drone. It was so close now, but with a hobbled leg, it felt like a mile away. Even so, she made her way towards it as fast as she could, counting down every second before the battlesuit would fire once more.
Five
She stumbled slightly, almost losing her balance once more.
Four
The drone turned to look at her, hovering still as if to taunt her that it was still out of her grasp.
Three
She heard the Broadside letting out its own cry, and could feel it readjusting its aim at her.
Two
Applejack let out a roar of pain as she leapt into the air just as the Broadside fired.
One
She landed on the drone as the Broadside hit her. Her entire body went numb, but the drone was beneath her, a small globe on its top beeping, and Applejack just hoped that it was transmitting her signal of victory.
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like always, great job!
Made my day, thanks!
Extra apostrophe marks here.
Forgot to capitalise.
Ensure, in this case.
The.
Morale, in this case.
Bare, in this case.
Blowing.
Way.
He.
Despite the destruction of my beloved Necrons, I was okay with what you put here, mostly, there is one problem I have here with your portrayal of the Necrons.
Wraiths in a tunnel, that is a recipe for absolute murder for anyone the wraiths are facing. They phase through solid matter, in a tunnel that means they'd be phasing through the floors, walls and roofs right into the middle of the squad, and these are Tau. Even with pulse carbines they are not capable of taking wraiths in a melee. They wouldn't even bother fully revealing themselves, they'd just phase partially through the floor, stab some people, then phase back into the ground.
You also seem to severely underestimate how tough wraiths are, you don't take them down with powerful shots, you need lots of shots to get past their phasing abilities. Anyway that was really the only gripe I had here, nice to finally see some Necrons, even if they where just getting beaten.
Awesome chapter!
7260829
They weren't using pulse carbines, they were using pulse blasters. Think shotguns, then think a plasma version of that, then make it more powerful at the cost of range. Those things are awesomely powerful, but their range is shit. Yes the Wraiths could have done that, but I wanted to portray the fact that they were on the back foot and desperate to kill them quickly, even if it meant simply charging them head on. Like you said, no one expects the Tau to fight well at close range :P
7260829
But also, changed it to Tomb Spyders, they don't phase out like Wraiths do
Fuck yeah more AJ. Hope she gets the promotion, that'd be awesome.
7261713 Wraiths are entirely machine, all Canotepek forces are entirely machine, they have no emotion, they don't panic, they would asses the situation with a cold, emotionless machine gaze. They wouldn't panic. There's a reason the Canoptek units are all fearless, they aren't converted Necrotyr, they are completely machine.
And you can't just be "good" at close quarters to fight wraiths, you need to be great, three wraiths can reliably rip apart a squad of 10 space marines in melee, and shotguns or no, no Tau can compare to space marines in close quarters. And again, the Wraiths wouldn't even need to engage in melee, they could just partially emerge, take someones head off, then retreat before anything could be done about it.
Again, the Wraith portrayal was my only gripe, and a spider makes much more sense than wraiths getting shot up like that, so that fix works fine. And with it my main problem with this chapter.
7262567
Yeah, to be fair the more you point it out, the more I see it was probably a mistake :P
Yey,
finaly an Applejack chapter.
Rainbow sinking to the lowest depths is interesting to watch, but kinda depressing.
7286268
I've got more AJ chapters coming up, they should be good
7286268
I hope she can be saved, I hope she can look at herself after all she done, if she was able to be saved, If non then I pray applejack will put her out of her misory.