Deceits of the Deceiver, Rebirth of the Believer
December 16th, 2005 by ApocolypticaChapter 5 - Twelve days after the arrival of the necrons, the surface of Cadia was still molten. If there had still been anyone alive on the planet at this point, they would have been able to see something that no other being has seen before, a Warp rift large enough to be seen from the planet. Out of the warp 12 battle barges of the Black Templar Space Marines Crusader fleet Vindication emerged and moved into high orbit above the planet. Marshal Victor Crustove stood aboard the bridge and looked at the devastated planet. Out of the shadows of the dark side of Cadia’s 3rd moon, a lone space marine Land Speeder flew and docked with the awaiting flag ship, Destucticous. The pilot docked and immediately went to the bridge. “So, was it him?” asked Victor. Without hesitation, the pilot responded “yes sir”. “Very well do you know where they are going?” asked Victor. “Yes sir, I picked up a transmission just before they left”. “Good where are they coming out of the warp?” The marine hesitated briefly before responding, “they!they’re not sir, their target is in the warp” he handed the Marshal a data slate with the destination of the necron ship. The Marshal nodded to the pilot to dismiss him, which he did without haste. Now alone, the Marshal sighed heavily, “So no matter what you have become, you are still what you once were, despite your knowledge”.
He touched a rune on the computer terminal, the ship to ship Vox crackled to life; he could hear the same sound faintly in the corridors outside his room and knew that now all of the fleet was listening. “Attention my battle Brethren, this is Marshal Victor Crustove, from this point on, until further notice, Brother Chaplin Nerio is in charge of the crusade fleet. I along with the crew of The Helbrecht, and The Grimaldious will proceed to pursue those who did this to a world of the Emperor” he paused for a moment, all throughout the ship, every Marine had stopped what they were doing to listen to their Marshal, the only sound the only being still moving about were the servitors. “Fight well in my absence” the Vox clicked off. An hour and a half later, the fleet moved into the warp to finish the trip to planet Armagedon to meet up with High Marshal Helbrecht and once again defend the planet against the Ork menace. Shortly after, the two remaining ships moved into the warp however towards a different destination. For the first time in ages, the guns of countless worlds, the cries of numerous daemons and other occupants of the Eye of Terror, hidden away in the warp, all converged on one target. The intruders pushed unfazed through the miasma of death and evil on towards its goal. 2 hours after starting on its path the great tomb ship arrived at its destination. Vizzadrix, a planet of epic proportions. The planet itself being 7 times the size of the star around which Earth orbits, is not light by one star, it is light by 5 stars from nearby systems, the effect of which causes the planet to be in a permanent, haze, the sky orange and everything covered in a reddish light. The shear size of it so immense that it even has 8 moons orbiting it, all of which are about the size of the earth, three of which are populated, they are in essence orbiting fortresses. As the tomb ship approached the planet, nearly 4 dozen Chaos Battleships, and 2 dozen Cruisers sped to meet the threat. The biggest space battle ever since those of the Gothic Wars had just begun. Fighter on both sides scrambled and engaged in vicious dogfights. Out from the bowls of the tomb ship, large ships the size of imperial cruisers rocketed out of from beneath it to engage the incoming vessels. The enemy now thoroughly distracted, the tomb ship began again on its approach to the planet. It was however, intercepted, by a behemoth of a ship that rivaled its own size. It was a Black Stone Fortress, one of but a handful in the entire galaxy, left over from the dark age of technology; it was a monster which powers had not been rivaled in battle since the Gothic War in which it was won. The tension grew as the two monoliths drifted through space, as if to size one another up, and analyze the competition. Aboard the Black Stone, Admiral Sindri sat in his throne, though he was a follower of chaos, he was not stupid. He sat and waited, anxious to get to fight the ancient war machine that he was now staring down, but knew that to win; he would need to be patient. As the two titans floated motionless, the tension grew, all guns aimed at one another, ready to strike. Without warning, and without orders, one of the batteries on the Black Stone fired, a demolisher cannon light gun, all batteries on the Chaos Ship followed opened up in support of their fellow. Aboard the Chaos ships helm, Sindri was furious, but realized that this was not the time to give into anger. Only moments after the first shot was let off, he began to give orders to the control servitors. “hard to port, down trim 40 degrees, bring all lances to full power and fire on the bottom of the ship”, a grin grew over his face as he saw in the main screen that the enemy made no attempts to evade, its own guns firing unmercifully at his own ship. Much of the incoming fire he noticed with relief was merely scorching the paint; indeed, the most damage they had taken so far was a few penetrations in the docking bays, as well as some fires on the lower decks caused by glancing hits. The other ship, while not to badly damaged, had many times more penetrations, green fire spewed out of holes in the ship nearly 80m in diameter. Some of its more powerful guns were he noticed with more glee were completely blown off. “Now, up trim 130 degrees, all lances fire at will, torpedoes away”. As the main lances of the ship as well as all 300 loaded torpedoes were unloaded at the enemy ship, they exploded against the bottom hull of the Necron vessel, smoke covered the entire ship. As the smoke cleared, he saw with terror that there was no damage at all, he then upon looking more closely realized that the ship appeared to be moving, not the whole ship just the bottom of it, as if there was something alive on there, swarming almost over the entire surface. Klaxons wailed as the threat was identified, as he read the reports, his eyes grew wide, the ships surface was not moving, some on it was moving. More klaxons blared and the ships proximity warning was going off, yet the enemy was not getting closer. The vox on the bridge cracked to life as Sinrdi switched on the ship to fighter frequency, “Captain are you still alive out there?” a few seconds passed before they received a response. “Yes my lord” it Vladimir, his flight commander for all the ships fighters. “Captain, fly under the enemy vessel, external cameras on, I want to see what is going on there” the response was silent but evident. Vlad’s onboard camera view came into view on the viewing screen; he was doing a strafing run with 12 other fighters, just below the enemy ship. Without warning, Vlad’s Fighter Exploded, over the vox Sindri could here the voices of the other pilots. “Holy crap what the hell was that!!!!” “I don’t know but! wait what the!shit they are all over me, so many of em, where the hell did they come from? Shi!..” “Crap they got Greg, watch out they’re more of them” “they are everywhere!” “I can’t get them off cant shake em, fuc!” after that he only heard static. “What got them, fighters?” he demanded of the radar servitor. After a moments pause, it responded in its usual monotonous voice, “no my lord, there is something approaching the ship, the same thing that took out the fighters, but they are far too small to be fighters”. Unbeknownst to anyone on the Black Stone, millions of scarabs, metallic spiders the size of a small dog approached the large ship. When they finally reached it, they swarmed over the entire surface of the ship looking for any crack or crevice they could find in which to latch themselves. Within the ship, the crew could hear the sound of billions of small metallic legs clattering on the outside of the ship. Over 100 thousand scarabs covered the ships armor plates, then without any warning at all, they preformed the task they were made for, they exploded, each with the power equal to two pounds of C4. The explosion rocked the ship to its core, the reactor core began to crack and all external compartments depressurized in an instant. The once unbeatable goliath lay floating, dead in the water for lack of a better description (after all this is in space). The Tomb ship however did not escape damage during the fight; it was for the most part unusable until the scarabs could repair it. As the large docking bay on the great ship opened once again, 13 Cruisers exited their mother vessel; they set forth towards the planet itself, they slipped undetected and unopposed through the continuing battle still being waged by the Chaos fleet and the Necron cruisers. As the crafts made their decent towards the planet, the defensive guns on the surface sparked to great the new targets, and as Apocolyptica sat and waited, he knew that this was it, the end of the trip, he would either die here, in the name of the C’tan he served, or leave the planet victorious and the planet itself very much dead. The whole time however a thought went through his mind, the memory of the dream he had had, and the feeling, after all he was a Necron lord and was not capable of feelings. Yet he argued with himself he had. An artillery shell smacked the outer hull, not enough to do any damage, but it snapped him back to the point of the matter, he was here now to do a job and he was going to do it one way, or the other.