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***
Melchoir almost smirked with glee. He didn't see himself as being spiteful or vindictive by nature. Such things betrayed an inner pride that the officer had always kept under check.
Well, almost always. Everybody was preparing for the inevitable grand attack, but the inquisitors were still taking a volunteers for a few last missions. When he heard there were Eldar afoot, Melchoir could scarcely contain his reckless loathing and had volunteered immediately.
Marshal Theleos held the general disdain for xenos befitting an imperial officer, but it went much deeper than that with this particular breed. He hated witchcraft and sorcery in all its forms. Furthermore, it was an Eldar pirate with a toxic blade that had nearly cost him his left arm, and required him to wear his power fist just to have any grip strength in that hand. He had also once been showered with shurikens - the tiny broken shards taking years to finally finish un-burrowing from his skin (if they were, in fact, finished). Recently, it had been the fault of Eldar witchcraft that he had woken up naked, freezing, and upside-down in a ditch somewhere.
No, Melchoir wasn't a proud man. He just hated these stupid pointy aliens and everything they represented. That's all.
And now he'd possibly get a chance to start some of them on fire with an inferno cannon.
Melchoir continued to stifle a smirk as his armored column drove up onto the target. He could see it ahead of him. Tucked into a hidden spot in the ruins, a gracefully-curving white structure was being constructed. They could easily have destroyed it with artillery, but Inquisitor Druxus wanted to know what the Eldar were up to. That required a more hands-on approach, and a strategy that minimized collateral damage.
The officer reached down and activated a teleport beacon. Yet another of the nifty toys and gadgets he'd gotten access to since coming under the command of the Inquisition. A few moments later, the air began to crackle in front of him. The air snapped out a flash of light as a unit of terminators led by Inquisitor Amns appeared onto the battlefield.
The vehicles began to slow down as they approached the white structure before them. The paladins marched forward to cover them.
It was quiet.
Melchoir frowned. He didn't know what bothered him more, the fact that the enemy had escaped, or the fact that they might be lying in ambush. You never knew with these type.
"This is Melchoir," the officer sad into the vox net, "All vehicles halt and prepare for orders."
The fire tanks and chimeras slowly ground to a stop, their engines idling softly.
The air around them was dead. Breathless and silent. Melchoir began to take out his magnoculars.
"Approaching xeno structure now," clicked the smooth voice of Amns over the vox. The heavy armor of the terminators crunched on the grass and gravel in front of them.
As massive as the tactical dreadnoughts were, the alien construction towered over them. It was smooth and graceful. Its shape was organic and somehow pleasing to the senses. It raised into the air amidst the ruins like a shoot of new life amongst decay.
It shimmered with almost fragile detail. It begged the observer to speak in a hushed voice, almost as if out of reverence. As if this place was holy ground.
The paladins approached and then stopped.
What was this?
Why was it here?
The terminators parted as inquisitor Amns came up between them. His helmeted gaze swept silently up and down the artifact in front of him.
"Lord Druxus," Amns continued over the vox, "I can confirm its construction as wraithbone."
The inquisitor took another step forward. He reached his hand out to touch the smooth white surface. Melchoir lifted his optics up to his eyes.
A sharp crack filled the air. The magnoculars exploded in Melchoir's face.
The officer jerked backwards, stunned.
"Snipers!" someone shouted.
Melchoir flinched automatically just in time for gunfire to patter off the hull of his transport. He hazarded a quick glance.
On the other side of the objective was a wall of ruins that were alight with sniper fire like a box of firecrackers. There must have been at least two dozen snipers hiding in the windows, maybe three. The officer leaned back behind his chimera turret for cover as he watched the paladins near him burst out in refractor field field sparks.
Dammit, it was a trap after all. Good thing it was just snipers, and he was in command of fifty tons of
raw steel carnage. A proper vehicle charge would sort them out.
Just as Melchoir prepared to give the order, he could see from his concealed position something... purple lift up into the sky. The sleek forms and gentle curves bespoke of only one thing. The Eldar transport gracefully lifted itself from its hiding place and lighted forward, disembarking its deadly cargo in front of the paladins.
The enemy warriors burst on the paladins with their anti-tank weapons, causing the air to explode in a spray of energy. Their power fields were nearly useless against the awesome hand-held power of the Eldar weapons. Sniper fire continued to rain down on them in a deluging torrent from the ruins. Despite being paladins, they were quickly getting wiped out.
"This is Melchoir," the officer shouted into the vox, "All units, attack!"
With a great revving of their engines, the motor pool sprung into action. The Hellhound burst forward and fired its cannon in a high arc, splashing its deadly stream of flame against the front of one of the ruins. Snipers inside began to fall, burning from the windows. The Devil Dogs opened up against the transport, pounding murderous multi-melta counterfire against the eldar transport, its shimmering energy field straining against the onslaught.
The wall of steel continued forward to crash into their enemy.
Melchoir, still peeking his head out of the hatch, looked on with way too much satisfaction as a chimera lined up with its heavy flamethrower and blasted the Eldar infantry with burning fuel. Their armor peeled and popped as the ancient enemy met the most horrific death of screaming immolation.
As the flames began to die down, Melchoir's mind turned to the rest of the task at hand. Rooting out these snipers.
All they had to do was -
Suddenly the air around him flashed with light - one and then another in a quick succession. The cluster of crackling brightness disoriented him for a moment.
He leaned forward to look around.
Words caught in his throat.
The world exploded with violence.
Steams of heavy shurikens and bolt weapons flew everywhere. Eldar mesh weapons scythed through them and sniper weapons crashed down. The air was instantly perforated with weapons fire in a blast of sound and flying death.
In front of him, striding walkers took aim at his fire tanks. Their cannons ripped into the massive fuel tanks on their backs, pounding and pummeling them with an insane rate of fire.
With a cataclysmic blast of flame, one tank went up followed by another, and then the third in lightning succession. Suddenly, Melchoir was surrounded on all sides by towering pillars of roiling smoke spitting fireballs into the air.
Gunshots poured in through the smoke, bouncing off everything everywhere. Zips and pings of richochets and near misses buzzed angrily over the explosions, like a hailstorm on a tin roof.
Melchoir's head snapped back as one of the swarm of flying bolts hit him in the helmet. The missile flipped up into the air as the officer crashed back into the side of the hatch, stunned.
With hardly a moment's notice, the enemy charged.
The gunners beneath the officer frantically began to fire their meltaguns out of the hatches. The enemy tried to push their guns back in and then slash in with their own chainswords. Melchoir turned as a space marine attempted to climb up the side of the chimera. The marine vaulted part-way up the side and leveled his bolt pistol at the officer. He fired once, then twice, the shots going wide as he made it up onto the wheel well.
Melchoir shouted as his own pistol jutted out in outstretched arms. He fired the plasma weapon frantically, catching the marine in the shoulder and arm. The genetically-engineered super-soldier teetered on the side of the transport. Melchoir fired again, hitting the marine in the chest. The mortally-wounded enemy collapsed backwards over the treads onto the ground.
He looked down as more sniper fire pattered on the top of the vehicle around him. Another marine was grabbing onto a meltagun barrel poking out of the side hatches. A brief tug of war followed before the veteran opened fire, exploding the marine in a shower of molten power armor and gore. Melchoir pointed his pistol down at another one when he caught sight of its hands.
The plasma pistol went off in one snap shot after another, but the plasma bolts went wide and collided with the ground. His target reached its arms forward. In hand was a primed meltabomb. The grenade bounced into the hatch.
"Look out!" Melchoir shouted an instant before the detonation, trying to jump out of the top hatch.
The shouts of surprise were stopped by a muffled, pealing thud. The meltabomb exploded, the internal space inside channeling the blast out, ripping off the back door and blowing out the wheel wells. The officer was lifted from his feet for a moment before the rungs gave way underneath him causing him to collapse into the semi-darkness of the suddenly shredded transport.
Melchoir landed hard inside, collapsing into the sticky smear of blood on the floor. One veteran had miraculously survived where the others had been melted into a bloody slick and chunked to body parts. The roof of the chimera suddenly started to collapse in on them as the wheel wells gave way. A great crack of light opened in from the collapsing roof, swirling the building smoke around the transport as it burst into flames.
The officer lifted himself to his feet and grabbed the remaining guardsman as the wrecked vehicle collapsed in on itself behind them.
He looked around. In no more than an instant, almost everything around him had been completely destroyed. Smoke and bullets flew wildly around him. There were enemy soldiers everywhere. He was a moment away from annihilation.
Melchoir frowned.
The only way out was through.
He switched on his powerfist and began to charge towards the nearest enemy. All around him, the gunfire pattered, but he took a moment to notice that not all of it was from the enemy. From somewhere, and autocannon pounded into the nearest walker, hacking and ripping apart its graceful limbs with flying hunks of steel. His own meltagunners were doing the same thing to another.
Everywhere, the surviving guardsmen desperately attempted to defend themselves as the enemy closed in around them.
Friends and enemies dissolved into each other in the chaos as guns were volleyed at point-blank range. In the chaos of gunfire and smoke, the desperate guardsmen fought off their attackers into a swirling melee of close quarters combat.
It was complete, maddening, violent confusion. Melchoir was determined to escape.
Before him stood a space marine of some rank. A captain, perhaps, but it didn't matter. He was directing the combat, and needed to go down.
He charged in through the burning battlefield air, ready to crush the enemy before him.
The space marine was ready for him, its long blade throbbing with a glowing, otherworldly power. Melchoir pushed his attendant out of the way. He would just get himself killed. This was the time for professionals.
With blinding speed, the space marine chopped down at Melchoir, followed by a backhand thrust. The first attack bounced off of his refractor field in a spray of light while the second one only narrowly missed his abdomen. Melchoir snapped a kick, landing hard on the power armor and pushing the marine back for a moment. Melchoir lunged in, but caught air. The arcing blade slashed down, slamming into his refractor field, shooting sparks into his eyes. The blade suddenly gave, slicing over his shoulderpad and gashing him on the left arm as it passed.
The officer seethed in pain. The marine was just too fast for him. He lurched back and fired his pistol. The marine dove to the side just as the officer's powerfist came up to meet it. He hadn't had a chance to really swing it, though, and the enemy bounced nearly harmlessly off of his slowly-moving gauntlet. The marine recovered with a sloppy attack that widely glanced off his refractor again.
"Melchoir!" his aide shouted towards him. The officer gave the briefest of moments to notice. They were no longer alone.
Melchoir flinched backwards as another sword blow landed on his energy field. His mind raced. The marine was fast, but too fast. His attacks lacked direction, but, most importantly, they lacked power. All he needed to do...
He lunged straight forward at his enemy. The marine tried to sidestep him in vain as the guardsman tackled him to the ground. The marine spun his blade at the man on top of him, but the swipes were batted away by the energy field. Melchoir came up, pinning the marine down with a knee. He lifted up his fist.
The sword blade came straight at him. The energy blade hissed and writhed against the officer's chest, the refractor screaming sparks out around them. With a grunt, the officer twisted against the weak thrust. The blade skipped off at an angle, punching through the field and slamming into his other shoulder. The officer's full weight came down on the marine, his powerfist crashing into the helmet below. With a thud, the helmet popped a bloody smear onto the ground below him.
The officer whirled. Already on top of him were more marines. The came at him hacking with chainswords, the spinning blades chopping and searing at the refractor and at his flak armor. He desperately grabbed at one of the blades, the spinning teeth screeching to a halt in his armored palm. He twisted the weapon free from its owner as another one crashed down onto his shoulder pad.
Melchoir cried out as the brutal chopping threatened to overwhelm him.
The disarmed space marine before him seized the initiative. Melchoir looked up as an armored leg lifted from the ground, moments away from a kick to the side of his head.
With a sick thunk, the massive armored greave collided with the side of his head, ripping his helmet off and collapsing the officer to the ground.
***
Druxus frowned violently. Leave it to guardsmen to be late.
He was pinned down by sniper fire, but he could still see with his mind. Around him was the ruined remains of his retinue. Somehow, the enemy had clouded his extra-sensory vision. Had blinded him to the trap.
He could feel the mind of Marshal Theleos. He had survived the battle somehow, and was laying as if dead on the ground, too terrified to move. But that wasn't the worst of it. There was something else. The officer had seen Eldar before. He had seen Blood Angels marines fighting side by side as allies with the Eldar. Recently. Something about being naked in a ditch somewhere?
The inquisitor was furious, even moreso because there was some sort of plot afoot. A plot he could not uncover due to constraints on time. He felt a burning sense of shame at being an inquisitor who couldn't get to the bottom of something mysterious.
But at the fringes of his perception, he could feel it. The real enemy - a host of traitors, demons, and those wayward brethren of his own order were amassing. They knew that he was weak. They knew that it was only a matter of time before he wasn't. More reinforcements were slowly trickling in. They needed to make an end of things, and do it quickly.
Druxus was ready.
But now, as much as he wanted to stay and investigate, he was forced to retreat. This was a mere sub-plot, and the main action was about to begin. All he needed now was to exfiltrate.
But the guardsmen were late.
Begrudgingly, he had sent the order to bring up some of the planetary defense force to rescue them. They would be badly needed on the line, but the line would need their commander more.
Then his mind caught it. They were here. He reached out to them and tugged them forward. From around the ruins, the guardsmen began to pour out into the open field. A great mass of humanity began to stampede forwards towards the wreck of their expeditionn.
With practiced speed and grace, the enemy snipers shifted fire. Sniper rounds began to snap down onto the guardsmen as they charged. The guardsmen were slow and unsure over broken ground. They made very, very easy targets for the snipers.
Druxus turned and watched the scene with his corporeal eyes. The mass wave charged forwards against the impossible slaughter. Guardsmen began to fall by the dozen as the second wave pushed in behind the first. Soon the enemy would run out of ammunition. Or perhaps they wouldn't.
He projected to whoever was still surviving of his retinue to use the chaos and confusion of wave after wave of guardsmen to make good their escape. With a shouting mob approaching them, no sniper with sense would shoot at the few going the wrong way in an assault.
The inquisitor cleared his throat, imprinting his orders on his command squad. They began to pick their way out of the ruins as the planetary defense force casualties spiraled out of control in the empty field behind him.
***
