Chapter Twenty-Eight: Death in Calixis (Part IX)
Location: The Vindication, Night Lord Strike Cruiser
Date: 893.M30 (Shortly after first strike against the War-Moon)
"If it bleeds we can kill it." An age old adage adopted by warriors across a thousand cultures and eras. Morbid comfort for those confronted by a foe beyond their understanding. Considerably less comforting when something that should not bleed, does. The frantic attack against the War-Moon had torn holes in its surface. Holes that welled up with oily ichor. False-blood that flowed like rotten milk, pouring out of the War-Moons wounds. Scabbing over into plates of mottled grey. Their unnatural smoothness contrasting with the surrounding landscape's biomechanical patterns. The Night Lords could indeed make the enemy bleed, but for once that was no guarantee it could be killed.
The Vindication along with its fellows had entered into a strange and deadly dance with the War-Moon. Imperial ships slingshotting around the megastructure's gravity well, all guns blazing but never staying still. Always changing trajectory, velocity and rotation. All in a desperate attempt to keep the Rangda weapons from locking on. The War-Moons shifting gravity ironically made this easier for the Imperials. Its slithering, wriggling movements across space/time jostled the Night Lords, like the wake of a great sea-beast.
Across the Dyatlov-Rho system, the Rangda fleet was rapidly turning its attention back towards the War-Moon. Abandoning attacks on the last straggling elements of the resupply fleet, to deal with the more immediate threat. Reacting just as Fenj had hoped. The original Rangda screen they had jumped past had turned quickly and would catch up with them in moments. With the War-Moon in the way, the Rangda fleet could not open fire until they got closer. Giving the Night Lords a small opportunity to rain destruction down on the War-Moon relatively unmolested. An opportunity they were exploiting to sadly little effect.
The accursed biomechanical Xeno-tech of the War-Moon shrugged off virtually everything the Night Lords threw at it. Layered shields formed a strange eldritch atmosphere across the Moon, muting the Imperial bombardment to almost nothing. Another strange hazard presented by Rangda design was Moon's active defenses. Defensive turrets, weapon batteries, and launch bays covered the War-Moon. The number and nature of the defenses shifted constantly. The Moon's surface rippled with movement as its pale flesh wriggled with movement. Orbital defense spires could shoot up from empty wastes that could just as easily open up to disgorge swarms of attack craft. Casualties among the fleet were mounting, the Night Lords needed to strike an effective blow quickly.
Lances of monochromatic energy sterilized Imperial ships in great volleys. Whitehart and Nemo Thrax both crashed into the War-Moon. Their burning wrecks ironically doing more damage than their guns had managed. Tyrannos Umbra, Iron Wraith, and Napoca were all suffering badly from enemy boarding parties. It would not be long before the perfidious Rangda stalker drones turned their ships into cold husks. The Vindication had even taken a few hits, hard radiation punching into some unlucky decks. Grim reports had filtered up through the ship's Medicae. The Emperor's Peace was being administered on a virtually industrial scale. Hundreds of burned, melting Ratings awaited last rites and the quick kiss of the reductor.
"The Emperor's Peace" a curious phrase adopted across the Imperium referring to euthanasia. Konrad Curze supposedly coined the term semi-sarcastically after executing the warlord of an unsanctioned abhuman tribe. While literal meaning and etymology were accepted, interpretations of the phrase's nuances varied. Cynics claimed it referred to how only in death could a human find peace in the Emperor's galaxy. Others believed it referred to the Imperium of Man's unofficial motto. "Only in Death does duty end" Superstitious folk claimed it was connected to the Astronomican's effects on human souls. Which protected human souls from the Warps predation. Some even go so far to claim it provided an afterlife of sorts, created by the Emperor's own hand. A nearly heretical and frowned upon belief.
Fenj knew only one thing in the Night Lords arsenal might truly wound, or even kill the War-Moon. The small payload of exterminatus-class weaponry the Expedition Fleet held securely, locked away in the deepest bowels of the ships. Use of such dreadful weapons required the explicit permission from multiple commanding officers. Fenj and his fellow officers had agreed to unleash the tools of planet-death but now needed an opportunity. The Night Lords are murderers and enforcers, not tools of genocide. They did not carry arsenals of apocalyptic weapons like the dreaded Seventh Wing of the Black Knights or the Reaper Fleets of the XIV Legion. A pair of Cyclonic Torpedoes, two Virus Bombs and most dreadful of all a single Modalis Atmospheric Missile.
All five weapons would see use if Chapter Master Fenj got his way, but the Atmospheric Missile was his ultimate weapon. Rangda are not the only ones who give unassuming names to nightmarish weapons. The Imperium of Mankind used the Modalis pattern sparingly, because its innards carried arguably the worst weapon constructed by Martian hands. Phosphex, the crawling death. The ignorant and willfully ignorant might assume Phospex is as its name implies a phosphorus weapon. Which is true to an extent. The engineered microorganisms that make up Phosphex excrete White Phosphorus in huge quantities. Engineered microorganisms combining the darkest bio-sorcery and replicator arts available to humanity. Phosphex is as the few living witnesses of the weapon describe it, alive.
It is a designed creature akin to the amoeba, that eats through virtually any material, particularly carbon-based elements. Producing a horrific miasma of Phosphorus, oxygen, heavy metals, and a few more exotic elements as a digestive bi-product. Phospex devours its prey, shitting out white-hot contaminated fire, and leaves nothing but death in its wake. The most ancient texts on the art of Replicating creations speak of "Newman's Alkahest" or the "Grey Death" Describing dreadful visions of ravenous machines eating entire worlds. A vision come to terrible life in the biological horror of Phosphex.
Master Fenj was certain if the Atmospheric Missile struck true, even the War-Moon might die. Now the problem was ensuring it was not intercepted by the Megastructures defenses. Fools and cowards suggest Exterminatus as the answer to every threat. As if habitable worlds were so common they are worthless. Even if that were true, nothing special protects a Torpedo carrying a weapon of Planet Killing over a Torpedo carrying mundane munitions. Weapons of Exterminatus could be intercepted or nullified, sometimes resulting in the destruction of their original wielder. An opportunity must present itself or be made. Something the Night Lords are very good at doing.
Another Cruiser was pulled from the void. Its shields sputtering like a guttering candle, turned off by stalker drones most likely. The War-Moon did not waste time, its weapon batteries ripping open the Cruiser with ease. The directed radiation cooked the ship's innards and burst it like burnt maize. Imperial ships were dying faster and faster. The returning Rangda Fleet joined the melee above the moon. That is not to say the battle was one-sided. The Night Lords fought with the ferocity of a cornered beast. Ripping apart War-barques and leaving trails of scabs across the War-Moon. Fenj and his brothers only needed to hold on for a little longer, until the final elements of the Resupply Fleet were safe. Then the secondary Battlegroup could join them and relieve some pressure.
As if some cruel god had heard the hopeful thoughts of the Expedition Fleets command staff. (and perhaps some did) The next disaster struck. Since the War-Moon's arrival, the level of ambient radiation in the Dyatlov-Rho system had been steadily increasing. Imperial analysts had assumed this was a side effect of wide-scale rad-weapon usage. Which was true to an extent, but not entirely the cause. The War-Moon's main weapon systems were warming up. Ironically the great Worm-Ships of the Rangda-Kindred cannot handle the War-Moons radioactive exhaust while in transit. Requiring its primary tool of death to be totally shut down during transport. A critical weakness, one the massive fleet of War-barques existed to counter.
A sudden and drastic spike in radiation erupted across the system. The War-Moon suddenly oozed with planet-sterilizing levels of radiation. It was like the guts of a million atomic reactors had been smeared over the megastructure in some parody of Haruspex. Such levels of radiation should have been crippling for whatever mechanisms making up the War-Moon, let alone its crew. Another impossible and terrible secret of the Rangda Kindred. The Imperium and humanity had long since stopped questioning the impossibility of things, only acknowledging their potential danger.
The radiation surge suddenly disapated as quickly as it came, the levels of Radiation across the system actually decreased dramatically for a moment. Like some great Wyrm preparing its fiery breath, the War-Moon held itself after its deep inhale before unleashing hell upon Dyatlov-Rho and the Night Lords. There was no time to respond, no time to react. One moment the void of Dyatlov-Rho was its usual ugly crimson and black. The next it was white with the afterglow of a god's wrath. A singular point on the War-Moon's surface had opened up, exposing eldritch machinery to the Void and unleashing its might. The Rangda had created an artificial relativistic jet. It was an energy weapon comparable to a natural Gamma Ray burst. For two seconds the War-Moon barred its exposed heart and vomited death. This weapon, this nightmare, what Imperial scholars would document as a "Corpse-Star Ignition '' had been aimed at the final elements of the resupply fleet and second battle group. Nothing remained of the Imperial ships, nor of the icy rock of a planet near them in the void. In fact the Gamma Ray Burst would continue on into the darkness between the stars. Eventually triggering a Supernova three hundred and twenty six years in the future.
Nearly a quarter of the Resupply Fleet and half of the Night Lords force was gone. Deleted from existence by a destructive force native to dying stars and black hole collisions. Even ships not hit by the Burst were damaged. The radioactive backscatter frying shields and machinery with contemptuous ease. A dozen Night Lord ships were reduced to dying hulks, crew burning and soon swarmed by Rangda attack craft. The small wasp-like xeno ships made sure to tag every slain Imperial vessel. Injecting them with Rangda attackers who would scavenge anything useful from it.
Screams filled the Vindication's bridge as crew unlucky enough to have witnessed the Gamma Ray Burst went blind. Fenj and his fellow Astartes were saved by their augments and helmet systems. But even they winced in pain as a needle of light rammed into their optic nerve. As the final streams of radiation and plasma faded, the situation across Dyatlov-Rho became clear. The great crimson clouds of cosmic detritus had been blown away. Half the system, the half the weapon had been fired at was pitch black. Heavily irradiated hunks of metal and stone spinning through the Void. Virtually every probe and scanning system the Imperials had was destroyed or overloaded. The blinding flash of a dying star had mortally wounded the Expedition Fleets Battlegroup.
Staring out into the Void, Chapter Master Fenj felt pieces of atemporal memory slide into place. Split-second tableau of destruction coming true before his eyes. His visions had shown him this, a glimpse of the madness the Rangda would unleash. This War-Moon was more than a mobile fortress world. It was a system killer. It was the type of weapon the Imperium dared not make, and destroyed when they could. This was not the first of such a weapon mankind and the Imperium had encountered. Aeldari Star Catchers had been dumped into a Black Hole after the raid on the Webway port of Tor'Divilia. The ruined hulks of horrific tools of the Iron War such as Sun Snuffers had faced similar fates, and anything capable of opening up a system sized Warp-rift was destroyed out of hand. The War-Moon was insane, utterly insane. Something no human could design or make, a tool of destruction beyond even the ken of Human malice.
Such a weapon was the very definition of overkill, nothing could withstand it and live. This was the type of tool meant to kill a god. Which is exactly what the Rangda intended. The pieces clicked into place for Fenj, the visions and Solomonari's actions. The Night Lords had sprung a trap meant for a Primarch. This War-Moon was an anomalous nightmare engine created solely to kill things that defy reality. It was a topic of morbid curiosity among the Legions, what could harm let alone kill a Primarch? Staring out at the marred void of Dyatlov-Rho, Fenj felt he could say with confidence that this unique and specialized War-Moon could do the job.
Grinding his teeth together, the Chapter Master made his decision. They could not win this fight. At least part of the Resupply Fleet had escaped and the Rangda trap had been sprung. Now the question was not if they would survive, but how useful their deaths would be. Tactical and sensor data was packed into an Arca-Tenebrae, a virtually indestructible and invisible cube of Adamantium. It was designed to survive virtually anything and be recovered by Imperial hands. After all the horrible luck the Night Lords had been dealt, maybe fortune would keep the Arca-Tenebrae from Rangda hands.
With those measures in place Fenj opened a fleet wide Vox hail. Even a Lord of the Night found it unbecoming to initiate a suicide mission without some fanfare. "Citizens and Soldiers of the Imperium. We face a foe we cannot defeat, our mortal lives are coming to an end. I will not mince words or speak in half-truths. Death is coming and we must all face it together. Pull your minds from the future and the weakness of fear. Know what we do here today will not be without purpose. It is our duty to fight and die so others might live. Every moment we hold the Xeno curs off, every drop of their blood we spill, buys mankind time and resources to survive. We will prevail against this threat, that is certain. But a cost must be paid, one I am loath to ask but must. Children of Sol, only in death does duty end, and our duty reaches its terminus."
Silence, cut only by the sounds of battle, filled the fleet. This was not a speech to be celebrated or applauded. It told the truth and offered morbid hope that life would not be wasted, only spent. There was no mutiny, mass-hysteria or other weaknesses. Desperation and the certainty of death hardens any soul. The battle continued, with blade, bolt and blood the Imperium struggled against the Xeno horrors. Ships died in droves, the Tyrannos Umbra finally succumbing to its invaders, overloading its plasma drive as a final act of defiance. The orbit of the War-Moon was thick with wrecks. Both Imperial and Rangda filled the void as the battle raged.
Fenj had hoped the War-Moon might sleep after its deadly attack. Thankfully it did not fire its Corpse-Star Ignition, but all of its systems were fully online. Storms of munitions poured off the War-Moon. Bolts of Necrotic power, Radiation waves, Gravitic pulses, Attack Crafts, and streams of liquid flesh-plastic killed ship after ship. The moment of truth was at hand, the Night Lords were quickly running out of bodies to delay the Rangda megastructure and fleet. A decision was made, they could not wait for an opening, one must be made. Normally such a requirement would be met by Astartes drop pods and Stormbirds, delivering Angels of Death to key targets, letting them strike as Space Marines ought. The Rangda orbital defenses made such an attack virtually impossible. Numbers, overwhelming firepower or trickery would be needed to punch through the radiation beams and flesh-plastic gobbits spat into the void. Naturally the Night Lords would use all three options.
Officially what Master Fenj ordered, the crew of the Vindication to prepare for was called "Ultra-Massive Rapid Planetary Insertion" But nicknamed by the few fleet officers familiar with the maneuver "Falling Skies." And further colloquially known among those about to use the maneuver as "What the Fracking Shit?" Under Fenj's order the Vindication would crash land into the War-Moon.
Power diverted to gravity compensators and shields, the Vindication pulled away from its fellows in the Imperial fleet. Giving only an order to cover their rear as they moved. To an observer it at first would look like the Strike Cruiser was running, attempting to use the War-Moon's gravity well to slingshot to safety. A skilled Voidsmen would quickly recognize the angle was too low and the momentum slower than needed. Easy errors that could occur in the heat of battle, but costly ones to make. The Vindication screamed through low-orbit, riding the pull of gravity and its own momentum. Its shields and speed protecting the ship from rapidly refocusing enemy defenses. Moving with speed unnatural to such a low-orbit the Strike Cruiser fell as it flew forwards. It's belly parallel to the rapidly approaching War-Moon's surface.
All across the Vindication crew braced with anything they could. Shock-couches, impact drugs and prayers to half forgotten gods of Old Earth being common methods. It did little good when the Night Lord flagship started to clip into the tallest spires on the War-Moon. Smashing apart biomechanical towers like trees in a forest. Metal screamed and flesh-plastic cracked as the Vindication bottomed out, smashing its belly onto the surface of the War-Moon. Momentum carried it forward as the Strike Cruiser left a trail of devastation and its own innards. Scraping across the War-Moon like a skipping stone. Tearing a shallow canyon into the pasty meat of the Megastructure. For a hundred kilometers the Vindication cut its path before finally stopping. Its hull ripped open and armor cracked. Nestled in a furrow of biomechanical tissue the size of a large hill.
Much of the mortal crew was injured, many dead. Still those that could stay at their posts did. It was expected and they would not be found wanting, even as death came calling. The Vindication was not the only Imperial ship to engage in this act of wrathful self-harm. Battle Cruiser Wrathful Black had smashed itself into the War-Moon's far side. It carried nearly half of the Night Lords complement of Exterminatus weapons, holding a Virus Bomb and Cyclonic Torpedo. Both ships, Vindication and Wrathful Black would detonate their weapons. Doubling the chances of killing the War-Moon. All while the remaining Night Lord ships bought the crashed vessels time to work.
After everything the Rangda had done, every impossible act, every unimaginable Xeno horror, Chapter Master Fenj was not going to leave things to chance. Surface level detonation of multiple Exterminatus class weapons should be able to kill anything, this was not a situation for "shoulds" The Night Lords were going to jam the planet-killing weapons into the War-Moons innards and then twist the proverbial knife. Time was not on their side, Rangda forces were already approaching the canyon carved by the Vindication. Swarms of Slave Soldiers accompanied by Rangda Warriors and larger yet unidentified threats.
Every working weapon system on the Vindication was armed and prepared. Forces of Astartes and Voidsmen assembled, preparing to turn the ship into a fortress. Shields were taking time, the impact had overloaded many of them and power was being diverted for another task. Like most Astartes ships the Vindication came equipped with bombardment weaponry. Special care had been given to ensure the primary Bombardment Cannon of the Night Lord ship survived the impact. A Cannon now prepared to fire a Magma Torpedo at point blank range into the War-Moon's crust.
Like muffled thunder the Bombardment Cannon roared, launching the magnetically accelerated super-heated projectile straight down. Instantly destroying the Cannon and rocking the beached Voidship. Toxic fumes poured out of the impact site as the Magma Torpedo burned its way through the fleshy plastic of Rangda construction. Clouds of acrid smoke billowed up from below the Vindication and formed a miasma around the wrecked ship. The Torpedo was designed to burrow through enemy fortifications and burn away defenses. So far it was working reasonably well, it just fell to the Night Lords to defend until the Torpedo had finished its digging.
The War-Moon's atmosphere was surprisingly thick for such a small planetoid. Energy shields and the constant discharge from the War-Moon's own internal workings formed a heavy layer of gas that glowed with the telltale flickers of electricity and ionizing radiation. By no means breathable, existing most likely by accident or to aid heat exchange, the pseudo-atmosphere could carry sound. Screams, shouts, roars and more hideous warbles carried through the air. Audible even over the roar of the Torpedo melting its way into the War-Moon was the cries of the Rangda defenders.
Wasp fighter craft flitted about on turbines and ion thrusters, observing the Vindication through beady eyes, dotting the insectoid hull. Transmitting data to far off Alien masters who orchestrated battle like a game. The first wave to crest the canyon lip was the slave soldiers. A living tide of possessed flesh driven forward by Neural Collars bolted into their nervous system. From three directions, port, starboard and bow they came. Charging down the still smoking slope of the impact canyon, firing shadow blasters wildly and screaming constantly. The strange series of tubes snaking out of the slave soldiers mouth and throat protected them from the toxic atmosphere but still let the piloted meat wail in pain.
Anti-air turrets and jury-rigged las-cannon mounts poured fire off the Vindication. Ripping open scarlet crater in the Rangda lines, holes quickly filled by the constant press of bodies. Servitors and Cargo haulers worked quickly, turning hangers and storage bays close to the War-moon's surface into makeshift forts. Rapidly roused war-machines and stacked cargo-crates made strange bedfellows as Imperial defenders worked to prepare the Vindication for a type of warfare it was never meant to see.
The damage across the Vindication was severe, much of its stored terrestrial weaponry had suffered in the Void battle or impact. A single flight of Land Speeders had been salvaged to aid the Anti-Air guns and scout the surrounding area. Tanks and some artillery had fared better. Enterprising Tech-Priests had turned ripped open sections of hull into murder-holes large enough for Imperial artillary to fire through. Across the ruined starship a thousand acts of ingenuity and heroism went unrecorded. No monuments would be built in their honor, no sagas sung beyond a mourner's dirge. Cowardice, panic and shock did not grip the mortal crew as one might expect. They stood strong and did what mankind required of them.
Death itself does not drive men and women into blind panic. Death is an old friend we must all eventually acquaint ourselves with. Uncertainty, pain and fear are what break mortal minds. A weakness every horror in the cosmos seeks to use against humanity. One that the Master of Mankind had long hoped to excise from his species. The Corpse on the Golden Throne had used Faith to free mankind, by shackling them with even greater chains. Originally the Emperor had hoped to use the zeitgeist of his Crusade to unify humanity under an aegis of perceived invincibility. Invincibility that might become real if none dared pause long enough to test it. Neither method proved perfect, but both held an element of something greater. Citizens of the Imperium were commanded to have faith, not in a god, or even the Emperor, but in humanity itself. The seed planted onto a half-mad Psyker Saint on Luna decades ago was growing.
The brave mortal crew of the Vindication did not fight and struggle for the attention of some distant god, or for their own survival. They fought so others would not suffer. They fought because those beside them fought. They fought for a future they would not see but a future worth fighting for. Fighting and dying for a dream older than civilizations, and more powerful than any weapon. The dream of a better universe, one where mankind might not just survive, but thrive in. When the Astronomicon lit upon the Hollow Mountain it shared this dream to all in its light. The Imperator's will spread out across the galaxy and subjugate all before it in the name of a dream.
Noble hearts and sturdy souls prepared themselves for the coming tide. The Rangda slave soldiers pushed forward, scuttling insectoids the size of Equines accompanying them. Organic gun-carriages mounted with heavier Shadow Blasters and Shield Generators. Protecting the densest packed throngs of slave soldiers from Imperial fire. The sound of thundering guns and screaming meat formed a steady cacophony only broken by the warbling cry of great battle beasts cresting the canyon top. A War-Moon like any mobile battlestation is meant to spearhead any military task force. It was capable of hosting the soldiers and weapons needed to wage interstellar warfare. Assets the Rangda could now unleash with impunity seeing as the Vindication having delivered itself right onto the War-Moon's surface.
Hulking quadruped war beasts/machines settled on the canyon's heights. Easily the size of a Baneblade, the Rangda warforms took position. Physically similar to a beast of burden or great simian, walking on armored knuckles and covered in milky-white armor. The trademark heptapod limb structure of the Rangda manifesting in four over-muscled legs, two long manipulator tentacles bursting from its side and a colossal tubular structure sticking out its back. It lacked a head of any noticeable form, slits in the armor between its forelimbs, holding sensory organs and feeding tendrils. The massive Rangda-things were covered in incredibly thick exoskeletons, forming bulbous plates of bone that had been carved with eye-watering patterns of unknown significance. In the coming years the trademark warble of this beast/machine and its kin would strike fear in Imperial soldiers. Signifying the arrival of Rangda Osseivores.