"Dawn shines a light on pain untold
Scarred from the millennia
The heart that beats inside my chest is
cold"
--Excerpt from
Iced Earth's Im-Ho-Tep (Pharaoh's Curse)
. . . . //File Call 67.3, Sub-clause: imp.his.//
//File Imporig66.6//
// Enter authorization code: . . .
* * * * * * * * // Validating//
//Thank you, Lord Inquisitor//
//Downloading Data//
//Decryption under way, Please Wait//
//Data File decrypted//
//You may proceed, milord//
"Precious little is known of the
demi-god race of the C'tan. What are known are tiny excerpts from Imperial
Chronicles from the pre-Imperial times and the small scraps of information
Inquisitors have been able to gather from alien Eldar captives.
But what they tell is uniform.
The C'tan are the creators of humans and Eldar
alike. They are a race of such power that they traverse the stars in blinks of
an eye and deamons tremble in their shadows. They are not of a single shape, as
most records tell that they are a race of pure energy. They can, however,
assume mortal shape, and when they do this, their powers dwindle, but they
remain nonetheless formidable. In mortal shape, they appear most often as
crested and androgynous lizards, but they can assume the shape of man or Eldar
as well.
The records say that the C'tan had been
around for what the Eldar call twenty aeons, when their first-born were
created: the Eldarain.
An aeon is, by human measures, about ten
million years. That means that the C'tan had been in existence for two hundred
million years when the Eldar were created.
The Eldarain were taught speech and
culture by the demi-god C'tan, and the Eldar soon developed something typically
mortal: religion.
They started to refer to the C'tan as
Phoenix Lords and soon gave names to the C'tan who frequented the Eldar the
most. They became Asuryan, Isha, Khaine and Kurnous amongst others.
But, with religion came beliefs of their
own. The Eldar started to look to the stars and, with C'tan technology to help
them, they soon flew between them.
Eldar records are here quite uncertain of
what happened, but it is all clear that the Eldar, with their Phoenix Lords,
fled from the other C'tan and founded the Eldar Empire.
This was roughly seventy million years
ago.
The C'tan didn't let go of their sons and
daughters so easily and a bloody war erupted. The Eldar soon enough came up
with a weapon that could kill the C'tan, and broke free. Together with their
Phoenix Lords, they built an empire.
It was not an empire to last, but that is
another story.
The C'tan regrouped and created a new
species: man. Man was less long-lived than the Eldar: barely a fraction of an
Eldar lifespan. He was shorter and less graceful as well as less psychic, as
the Eldar psychic ability had proved quite hard controlled.
But man multiplied quicker and was, if
such a word could be used, more durable.
The C'tan, wise from the damage caused,
refrained from appearing early to man. Some old chronicles states that the
C'tan took Eldar blood and mixed with the Galaxy's only true race, the Orks,
but this is probably nothing but insane ravings. To claim that man is part Ork,
part Eldar is ludicrous.
However, the
humans quickly developed a language and a culture without the C'tan, though
they proved more prone to violence than the Eldar had. The C'tan showed themselves
to the humans and as with the Eldar, they were soon worshipped as gods.
But, just as with the Eldar, as soon as
the humans had developed spacial flight, they fled. This time, the C'tan left
well enough alone and let the humans, together with a handful C'tan, by humans
called Paladins, go for their own future.
The rest is Imperial History.
Little is known what happened to the C'tan
after that. They were still weak from the Eldar war. No one truly knows.
But the Imperial scientists have found
numerous pyramids in various places that display a certain likeness in
artisanship to the Eldar constructions.
Still, though, the question remains if the C'tan are extinct or if
our former masters only are biding their time until they come back and claim us
as theirs."
--Excerpt from 'An
overview of Imperial pre-history' by the Heretic Felix Rovannion, burned at
the stake for his heresy by Inquisitor Lesch Sparda.
McKenzie opened his eyes and looked around. He was stripped of his
armour, naked except for a loincloth. All around him, a vast wasteland spread
out. It was completely devoid of features. Just flat, brown ground.
And the worst was, he was all alone.
"Where is this?" McKenzie thought silently
to himself.
The sky was dark. McKenzie called out, but received no
answer. Not even an echo.
He looked around again and saw a figure in the
distance. As there was no sun, he couldn't even guess what direction it was.
McKenzie started to walk towards the figure. As he got closer, he saw that its
outline resembled Johnny a lot.
By the God-emperor! It was Johnny!
"Johnny!" McKenzie called out. "Are you
okay? Where's Edd?"
Perhaps Johnny hadn't heard him, because the figure
made no attempt to show it had noticed him. Most surely he hadn't noticed
McKenzie, so McKenzie started running towards him instead, the soft ground
meeting his bare feet gently, with no hint of giving him a surprise.
"Johnny," McKenzie called again,
"what's wrong?"
When McKenzie was a few metres from Johnny, the boy
turned round and looked straight at the Space Marine. McKenzie stopped dead.
Johnny's face was distorted, his nose and mouth growing into what could
resemble a beak and his skin pulsed with all the colours of the rainbow.
"Johnny," McKenzie breathed,
"w-what?" This couldn't be!
Johnny started to walk towards McKenzie and for every
step Johnny's face became more and more beak-like. His hair turned to
multicoloured feathers and the feathers sprouted elsewhere on his body too. Two
vestigial, feathery wings were starting to grow from Johnny's back.
And during this mutation, the eyes remained human.
McKenzie backed up, trying to keep the distance from
the creature that was Johnny and still not. There was a lot of the greater
deamon of Tzeentch over Johnny now.
"What's going on?" McKenzie silently asked
himself. The Johnny-thing had heard him.
"Isn't it obvious, McKenzie?" the thing
hissed, its snake-tongue slithering around the word in Low Gothic, as if unused
to speak it. They voice had been low, but very loud at the same time. McKenzie
thought he felt blood running from his ears.
"Johnny, what are you doing?" McKenzie
asked. He felt panic crawling in him now.
"Don't you see, McKenzie?" the Johnny-thing
hissed. "This is how I was supposed to be, before you blunted me. I can
feel the raw power of the Warp growing inside of me every second. It's just so
wonderful, don't you think?"
"Johnny, stop!" McKenzie shouted, unable to
hide the horror in his voice.
The Johnny-thing just laughed, deeply and coldly. No,
it wasn't laughter... The thing was giggling with glee, not laughing.
"No, McKenzie," it said after its fit of
glee. "You can't stop this. You can't protect me, not anymore than you
could protect George McKenzie."
McKenzie stumbled and fell on his back. The Johnny
thing was truly a Lord of Change now, standing well over three metres.
"Johnny?" McKenzie silently whispered.
The thing had gotten a sorcerer’s staff from somewhere
and raised it high into the air. It spoke again, but McKenzie knew it wasn't
Low Gothic anymore. This was the deamon-tongue. And damn him, he understood
all. What had he done?
The Johnny-thing focused power into the sorcerer’s
staff and a ball of lightning was forming at its top now.
"You'll never protect anyone again," it said
slowly in its cursed tongue. McKenzie didn't want to hear more. This was how
the Emperor punished him for his treason and heresy to study the Dark Arts.
The Johnny-thing turned round its staff and directed
it at McKenzie. The lightning gathered and a bolt of pure energy shot at him.
No!
McKenzie sat bolt upright and gasped. He fought hard
not to scream. Damn him! He was a Space Marine! They knew no fear! They knew no
fear!
He looked around. He was in the medical bay of a
spaceship: that much he understood from the interior and the view port that
showed the glitter of distant stars.
He sat in a medical cot, sweating and panting. It took
him a minute to realise that he wasn't alone. McGranth sat next to his bed on a
stool, stripped of his armour. McKenzie stared at his commander. McGranth just
smiled back.
"About frekking time you woke up, pal,"
McGranth said softly.
McKenzie took another look around. He was definitely
in the medical bay of a star ship, probably a battle cruiser. He looked back at
McGranth.
"What?"
"We picked up a distress signal from somewhere
around that Warp-gate you visited and found the Thunderhawk you'd borrowed
drifting around by itself in space. That was two days ago."
"Two days?" McKenzie said in shock.
McGranth nodded thoughtfully. "What the frekk
happened out there anyway?"
"We located the Necrontyr Mothership, or whatever
you could call it, but we were ambushed." McKenzie was silent for a while.
"They took Johnny with them."
"I figured that much," McGranth said softly
and nodded. "How many were they?"
"It didn't matter, Eddie. They were Untouchables.
And their leader used some sort of anti-psyker weapon. Knocked us out in a
flash."
"Big scary monstrosities with strange
scythes?" McGranth asked.
"Yes."
"That would be Pariahs then. Encountered one on
Callidus after you left."
"What?"
"Long story and it doesn't matter," McGranth
said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He leant forward and sighed heavily.
"Great. Now we have to rescue Johnny too. As if we didn't have enough to
do already." He sighed again.
There was a pause.
"Eddie, what has happened in the last two
days?" McKenzie asked.
"Well, after picking you up, Tanya was nigh on
hysterical. The Necrons had never dared something like that so early after a
failed raid. So we all came up with this plan to gather sixty per cent of the
remaining Imperial forces for one last big blow. You'll get the details later,
okay?"
McKenzie nodded his assention. "Is Edd
okay?"
"What? Double D? He's fine. Came to earlier than
you, anyway."
McGranth got up. "So, as soon as you feel that
you're all here, Edward, hurry up and get ready. I need your report of what
happened, officially, because we have a lot of work to do."
With that, McGranth left his friend alone on the
medical bay.
A few days later, when all information available had
been gathered, the highest-ranking officers in the Imperial force gathered
aboard Mishkin's Pride. The briefing was held in one of the transport bays as
there was so many present. Canoness Alyssia Demontfurt alone represented the
highest will of the Adepta Sororitas, though several Sister Superiors
accompanied her.
Commissar Cadet Jorun was there as well, on
Masterson's instruction.
Tanya Yarrick stood before a hololithic display of the
sector they were passing through and used her finger to show the places she
referred to.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she began.
"Master Lexicanum McKenzie of the Death Angels Space Marines Legion has
declined to go into specifics, but he has discovered the current location of
the Necrontyr Mothership. Due to its shape, we've coined the call sign Sphere
on it.
"We have strong belief that the Sphere is the
core of the Necron's strength. If it is taken out, then we surely will be able
to destroy the Necron forces for good, with little or no opposition."
Tanya touched a few runes on the hololithic projector
and the picture zoomed in on a lone planet. It was situated at the fringe of
the Imperium. A lone, green planet.
"This is Arborkar, once a Jungle World made
training site for the Space Marines. No longer in use, the people of it has
abandoned it since long. However, it is the perfect place to have a base, as
nobody would look in an abandoned system, right?"
There was some laughter from the assembled.
"Jokes aside," Tanya hushed them. "This
will be a three-pronged assault. For those of you who don't speak the language
known as Army, that means a simultaneous attack on three fronts. I scarcely
believe even the inhuman Necrons can handle something as that.
"Now," Tanya said and showed a picture of
the Sphere, "Admiral Ourmnoff, under the scrutiny of Colonel-commissar
Demontfurt, will lead an assault that will combat the Sphere and its protecting
Harvester-ships. Keep your ships in one piece, Admiral. We'll need them later
on."
The holo-display changed back to Arborkar.
"The Necrons also have a very sizeable force on
the ground as well. The idea is to lure them to send at least eighty percent of
their forces to Arborkar's surface, where Colonel-commissar Masterson and
Canoness Alyssia will meet them with las and bolters. May the Emperor protect
you in your work.
"However, these two massive assaults are only
there to distract the Necrons from the true... incision." Tanya shifted
the screen back to the Sphere. "Grand Commander McGranth will, together
with me, lead an assault team to infiltrate and destroy, or disable, the Sphere
from the inside."
"Excuse me, ma'am," Jorun said and raised a
hand, but lowered it when he saw Tanya's urging look. "How are you going
to get inside the ship?"
Tanya smiled softly. "This is how."
She touched another rune and a Necrontyr pyramid, on
Arborkar's surface, came into view.
"This appears to be a Necron structure and this
is but one of four on Arborkar's surface. They are small but we have strong
reasons to believe they contain phase technology that we can use for
teleportation. The plan is to secure one such structure and use the Necron's
technology against them.
"The Terrans and the officers of the Adeptus
Astartes stay here, you others are dismissed."
The large group of men and women walked out and left
Tanya alone with the Terrans. She turned off the holo-display and then turned
to the Terrans.
"The High Council doesn't support this mission,
as usual, so it is entirely voluntary. If you don't want to go, then do so, but
nobody will think less of you for that."
None of the Terrans moved a muscle.
Tanya smiled wryly. "As I thought. Very well, we
leave in two hours for ground-fall, so get as ready as you can. You all seem to
want to go, so if you're not aboard a transport within two hours, that's your
problem."
The Terrans fell out and left Tanya alone to talk some
matters over with McKenzie, McGranth and Charleston.
The young Terrans walked together to the transport
bay, Eddy walked up beside Nazz. Her tight-fitting power-armour only served to
make her the more beautiful. Sadly, for Eddy, Nazz wasn't one bit interested in
him.
"So, Nazz," Eddy said and applied a soft
smile, "are you coming with us to the Commissar General's ship?"
"Actually," Nazz replied and looked Eddy
straight in the eyes, "the Kankers and I will be fighting on the ground,
together with Commissar Masterson and Canoness Demontfurt."
"Why's that, Nazz?" Kevin asked, coming up
beside her, much to Eddy's chagrin.
It turned even worse for him as Lee Kanker moved up
next to him, so that he had Nazz on his right and Lee on his left.
"What? Are you nuts?" Lee asked caustically.
"No way we're gonna let some machine pull us apart, piece by piece, and
send us shooting into space. We'll be just fine on the ground, thank you."
"What is this?" Eddy asked with a wry smile.
"Are you actually afraid, Lee Kanker? Hmmm?"
"Heck no!" Lee replied, sounding hurt.
"I just wouldn't want to ruin my good looks for you, dreamboat."
"Touché!" Kevin smiled and he and Nazz
chuckled together over Lee's deft reply. Eddy just blushed and rolled his eyes.
"Oh, brother..." he muttered and moved away
from the other three to find his two true friends.
Two hours later, the Imperial Battlefleet Moskva
engaged the Necrontyr ships defending the Sphere. This was enough distraction
for the transport ships to get close enough to send off their cargo of drop
ships. If one had been standing on Arborkar's surface and looked up, one
would've seen the sky darken with Imperial drop ships, carrying nearly one
million Imperial Guard, one Demi-order of Sisters of Battle and two squads of
Space Marines that had been called together for this last stand of Humanity.
Strapped up in the drop ship, Tanya spoke to the
volunteers for the incisive mission over the inter-com of the rebreathers that
they had to wear during the decent.
The Volunteer group consisted of McGranth, McKenzie,
Charleston, the Eds, Rolf and Kevin.
"Right," Tanya said, addressing them all,
"Once we get inside the Sphere, there will be three main objectives:
"One: Fine, and rescue Johnny, and any other
prisoners that the Necron might still have. Also, destroy or neutralize this
new weapon of theirs. Hold on; make that 'psychic prisoners'. The others might
be too many. Remember this well! This is a last stand for Humanity, not some
liberty front for slaves! There just isn't the time for everybody. So, only the
psykers, because they are the greatest threat to us.
"Two: Find the Sphere's engines, or similar and
attach melta bombs to them. These can be detonated as we leave.
"Three: Find whatever it is that this Metallix
uses to control his hordes and destroy it. Don't neutralize, but destroy
it!"
Tanya looked around as to see that everybody had
understood. They all nodded their assention.
"Master Lexicanum McKenzie and Epistolary Edd
will handle the locate and rescue mission, Eagle One. Commander Charleston and
Lieutenant Commander Ed will deal with the engines. Thus, that leaves the seek
and destroy mission for Grand Commander McGranth, Commander Eddy, Captain
Kevin, Commissar Rolf and myself."
"That'll be all for now. Keep radio silence until
we've hit the ground, which will come with a blast, so keep you eyes on the
altitude meter and brace yourselves when it goes down to zero. All right? May
the Emperor protect us all."
He hadn't been able to move for days. And all he
remembered before being strapped to this cold, metal gurney was a bright
stabbing lance of pain in his head.
Johnny Two-by-four looked around. He couldn't move a
single centimetre but his head was free to turn. He saw Plank lying by one of
his sides. There was no use trying to grab him, Johnny knew that much. He
turned his head to the other side and got a look of abject horror on his face.
He saw two huge figures: one broad and powerful, the
other one slim and lithe. Both were almost thoroughly made of metal.
Johnny knew all too well whom both were. They spoke to
each other in a language Johnny couldn't understand, but it scared him
infinitely more than the deamon's voice he'd heard on Secondus.
"How soon will it be ready?" Metallix asked
his kinsman.
"In short," Damion replied. "Just a few
more connections to make. You must understand this is delicate work!"
"Of course. Is it going to work, though?"
"Surely," Damion replied with confidence. "The Boy
has reserves of psychic energies that I've never seen before. This will be like
trying to empty an ocean with a spoon. He's the perfect power source."
Metallix glanced over at Johnny and grinned. The
biological part of his face contorted into something malicious and Johnny
immediately looked away.
"Soon," Metallix purred, "very soon I
will rule them all, as it was destined to be."
Metallix suddenly extended a finger and plugged
himself into the Sphere's senses. Before his eyes, he saw how the Imperial
Fleet came out of the Warp in a rainbow of colour. As the Warp-glare died away,
he saw the scale of the attack. He ordered his Harvesters to engage and
dispatched a good two million Necrontyr to the surface. Thanks to the phase
mechanics, they'd be ready for those foolish humans. That they never learned
that they were created to obey and not to lead?
"So," Metallix said to himself, ignoring
Damion's presence, "they choose to fight. I knew they would. That's how
they function. It doesn't matter, they will only die that much sooner. They're
after all only mortals."
Metallix disconnected and turned to Damion.
"Contact me the moment it's online."
With that, Metallix stormed off to his 'chambers'.
From there he'd watch the slaughter of the last vestiges of human defence and
stubbornness.
As he strode through the corridors, a soft smile cleft
his biological face-half. "This is what I was meant to do," he said
to himself. "This is my destiny!"
As Battle Fleet Moskva engaged the Harvesters, the
drop pods were ejected and begun their screaming descent to the surface. Like
flaming balls of death, the drop ships slammed into Arborkar's surface, opening
and disgorging hundreds of thousands of Imperial Guardsmen and a good two
hundred Sisters of Battle. Now or never, the human's were prepared to sell
their lives dearly.
Tanya and McGranth led their group to the pyramid
after wishing Masterson, Canoness Demontfurt, Nazz and the Kankers good luck
over the vox-link. The sheer force of firepower they rained down on the Necrons
as they approached the pyramid was frightening for coming from ten people. They
avoided close combat with the many more Necrons and relied on blowing their
head's to bits, effectively making it impossible for the iron men to
self-repair.
After fifteen minutes they reached the pyramid and
gained access.
"Finally," McGranth sighed. "So, how do
we do this?"
McKenzie looked around. "I have a bad feeling
about this..."
McKenzie's hunch proved right. A large, peculiar
Necron appeared from inside the pyramid. It's fingers were long, sharp claws
and it's lower half was that of a giant robot serpent.
Charleston raised his plasma pistol and fired.
Nanoseconds before the shot would've hit, the Necron went out of phase and
shifted itself out of harm's reach.
"What the frekk..." Charleston mumbled
silently. He never got chance for a new shot as the wraith-Necron knocked him
flat with its tail.
"Deal with it!" McKenzie shouted as he dove
for what he took for Necrontyr controls. He needed to get the data-wires ready
and the Emperor-damned data-slate to be able to do anything.
Edd was quick to respond to McKenzie's order and drew
his force sword. He saw McGranth attack the Necron-wraith with his power axe,
only to see it shift and knock McGranth over the head. It toyed likewise with
Kevin, Ed and Eddy. By then, Edd had placed himself between the Wraith and
Tanya. He registered a tiny tingling feeling as the Wraith shifted and knew
what to look for now, or rather what to feel for.
Edd squared up with it and charged the force sword
with psychic energy, but instead of releasing it in one big blast, he
restrained it and spun round just as the Wraith shifted.
The psychically charged sword connected with the
Wraith's head in a spray of sparks and metal shards.
The beheaded body of the Wraith fell to the ground
with a heavy thud.
McKenzie hadn't even looked up from his work during
this. He keyed in a short sequence and looked up.
"I think I've got it. Put your helmets or
rebreathers on."
They all did as they'd been told, but as Kevin locked
his beak-like helmet in place, he suddenly asked, "Wait! Whaddya mean you
'think you've got it'?"
McKenzie never replied as a greenish light engulfed
them and swept them away from Arborkar's surface.
The green light reappeared on the Sphere, close to
another teleportation site.
"Dude," Kevin said weakly, "We have go
to stop doing things like that." There was a slight green colour to his
face.
McGranth gave him a quick glance, but otherwise made
no notice of Kevin's comment.
McKenzie seemed puzzled by something and reached up
and removed his helmet. "There's a stabile atmosphere here.
Nitrogen-oxygen. Highly breathable, but a bit thin and stale." The rest of
the group followed McKenzie's exampled and removed their helmets and
rebreathers.
"Let's get on with it, before we're
detected." McGranth said to the assembled people. "You all know your
objectives, so get to it. We'll meet back here once the objectives are
achieved, not sooner. Try to stay in vox-contact. Use channel
Epsilon-Delta-Sigma."
With that, McKenzie and Edd headed off in one
direction, Charleston and Ed took another, whilst McGranth, Tanya, Rolf, Eddy
and Kevin headed a third way.