Note that this does not seem like a story much taken from the Necron point of view, but it's still astonishing!
The night world of Hut-Ra Qwonus swarmed with dark, huddled shapes, slouching forward in the eternal twilight. Specters of death commanded by ancient and uncaring star gods, they silently swarmed forward, emitting bursts of killing green energy against the barricades set by human soldiers. Searchlights flickered over the miles of determined automatons that ambled forward, casting haunting glows over their golden skin. Artillery strikes and cannonades erupted before them. The shattering bursts and bright lights of artillery impacts hurdled thousands of their kind into the air. The brief orange bursts of firelight reflected tinny hides of copper-like material, dulled by age but fantastically resilient to punishment. Of the thousands culled before the feeble walls erected by mortals, hundreds arose again.
The forces of the Imperium, invaders upon this desolate world, began to waver. While their numbers were also vast, the enemy they faced was greater. To the horizon the inhuman monsters stretched, seemingly ambling from the rugged mountains rising in the vague distance. Soldiers poured lasgun fire over the parapets of their meager walls that did not stop the gauss beams from penetrating. Hundreds already lay fallen, some to mortal wounds that would kill them in time, others whose armor and flesh was boiled and stripped from their body; their charred skeletons grinning upward, as if in mocking amusement to the cruelty of fate.
Lord Commissar Talkum, staunch defender of the Imperium of Man, bellowed with all his might, surrounded by vox casters who relayed his orders along the length and breadth of the wall he commanded. Junior officers who lacked such means of communication ferried messengers to and from Talkum’s staff, redirecting orders to gunners and tanks to acquire new targets or reinforce walls that had the machine men banging on their walls, clawing to scale the fortifications that were only three men high. A squad of Ogryn body guards milled about nearby held back by high command as a last resort. Large, broad descendents of man, they were giants among their smaller genetic cousins, sporting large barreled guns with bullets the size of a man’s fist.
Talkum knew his position was barely tenable. But what choice did he have? Of the ten regiments sent to this planet, half were already dead. Three of the remaining ones were being pushed back on the opposite side of the planet. The two with him; the Skeleka 24th Tank Division sporting hundreds of Leman Russ tanks and Basilisk artillery platforms and the Cadian 1023rd, were grimly holding their own. Stretching miles across the barren plains, the whole front was being assaulted simultaneously by infantry that an Adeptus Mechanicus tech-servant said was called the Necron. Talkum knew vaguely what they were, but the little information that he did know of them screamed he should be thankful. The masses attempting to climb his walls were the least of the forces they wielded. While he pondered what else may erupt from the far-away mountains, he knew at some point the swarm of monsters before him would end. No horde was infinite. Besides, to retreat would invite slaughter. His back was to an ocean of acid that stretched a quarter around the globe. Extraction was impossible, as the Imperial Navy was called away to an Ork Waaagh! That brewed a few light years away in another troubled star system. If not for the order from Mars to locate a priceless relic on this bleak world with a dead sun, his forces wouldn’t be in a death-grapple with nightmarish horrors. But Lord Commissar Talkum was not a man to invite heretical doubt to cloud his mind and diminish his focus. His Emperor called upon him to command the forces straddling this world, and lead them he would.
So Talkum continued to order his men to fight with every ounce of strength. They had already held for hours, and the walls were not yet breached. Perhaps the Emperor’s luck would be with him on this sunless, forsaken world. He was about to issue a command to the eastern end of his wall when the ground began to rumble.
Violent fits of tectonic activity rattled his men. The firing along the wall stopped as soldiers fell to their knees and others held desperately to anything to remain erect. The Necron warriors were unaffected, continuing their onslaught as if unbothered by the world shaking around them.
Lord Commissar Talkum tried to continue relaying orders to continue the fight, but his words were cut short and drowned by the rumble that reached a crescendo of sound as the ground erupted behind the soldiers and officers surrounding their leader. An avalanche of dirt, men, and tanks flew into the air as a glowing monolith pierced the heavens. It pulsed with energy that eminated from an enormous crystal floating under a protective arch, and its base revealed a shimmering portal of green energy akin to the ones that the Necron foot soldiers belched from their unholy guns.
The structure floated above the gash of ground it tore through. Four cannons of arcane fury glowed brightly, shooting larger bursts of energy around it, laying waste to soldiers as they simply vanished before the rays of death seeking them. Tanks struck by the beams were simply punctured, their hulls laid exposed briefly before they exploded in fury.
The shaking from the ground over, Talkum grabbed the nearest solider with a vox caster. About to relay orders to have Basilisks open fire upon the monolith before him, his words were drowned by the chatter of frantic men on the other side, desperately pleading for reinforcements or orders as more of the things also appeared behind his lines. From the few seconds listening to the ocean of fear, no less than twenty more had arisen. The Lord Commissar looked further along his lines and saw the lurching constructions of doom in the distance. Worse, skeleton-like figures began climbing over the walls. Cadian infantry fought hand to hand in an attempt to repel the foe.
A staff officer tugged on Talkum’s shoulder; grabbing his attention back to the monolith barely a hundred paces near them. No, it wasn’t the war machine he was pointing to, but what was coming out from underneath.
Waves of skittering golden bugs began leeching out of the ground. At first hundreds, thousands, then numbers too large to guesstimate by sight that started surging around and outward from the hole. Ignorant to the pitiful shots made by nearby infantry, they simply climbed atop them and consumed them beneath a horde of clinking claws and tearing mandibles. Talkum’s Ogryn bodyguards were already pushing forward to repel the creatures from the vicinity, their ripper guns carving a swath through the storm. A few soldiers equipped with flamers began levying flames upon their numbers, scattering or scorching those that got too close.
The immediate position was lost, but Talkum could not afford to retreat. Rallying his tattered command to him, he followed behind the Ogryn spearhead as they crept forward against the wave. Talkum himself had to employ his powerfist more than once to smash away lone bugs that got through their line as they approached the monolith, which had also felled a score or more of his command and a trio of unfortunate Ogryn caught in a wicked flicker of green energy.
Reaching the base of the floating structure, Talkum commanded a soldier to hand him a melta bomb. Ordering others to ready theirs, he began the count to throw, his line barely holding against the onslaught of golden insects coming from the dark pit from where they came.
The count never reached zero, as all of a sudden his command was rent by scores of claws that brutally mangled those nearest to the hole. Ogryn holding the before the hole fell forward, screaming as their cries died into the vast chasm of darkness below. Chaos reigned as hovering Necrons with long tails and wide cobra hoods floated amongst them, rending men to bloody pulps or stabbing them with long tail spikes and flinging them away with rhythmic flicks of their body.
Melta bombs held too long began erupting amongst the soldiers, causing body parts both golden and fleshy to scatter all over. Talkum kept his sense about him as he flung his as hard as he could at the monolith, catching his melta bomb at the very end of its base before detonating. The screeching sound of gold warping before the massive explosion tore the air. Suddenly, the enormous tower began to flicker as its energy crystal dulled. It twisted in the air as it began to descend sideways, a hole jutting from one side of its pyramidal bottom.
The crash flung both Necrons and humans into the air, debris and torn gold scattering around in a wide arc. Lord Commissar Talkum ducked as a cloud of dirt rolled over him. Covering his head with his powerfisted hand, he waited until the dust settled before arising again to survey the carnage.
Almost all of his men were dead around him. The few who weren’t struggled to rise, caked in dirt and blood that made them appear like clay statues. Beyond their vicinity, Talkum’s heart sank as he saw how the rest of his army was fairing; the skittering insects had swarmed behind his lines. Greasy black smoke belched from tanks and vehicles caught by the swarm as they infested everything. Soldiers whose officers had died or given up the fight were running all over. Some were still fighting, others dying. Most were retreating where they could as the walls were finally breached; thousands of Necrons crawling over and shambling after their prey.
Dropping to his knees, spent and exhausted, he at least had the satisfaction of taking down the monolith, he turned-
And horror gripped his soul.
The crystal perched on the fallen war machine still pulsed with energy. Worse, a door appeared on the side of the fallen building, a slit of green energy that disgorged Necrons that skittered down the side of the upturned structure. With his keen eye, Talkum noticed these Necrons were bigger, grimmer looking than the ones that filtered over his fallen defense. Yet his attention was not focused on them for long, for what strode out from the portal drew his entire notice, and consumed his mind with both fear and dread.
Shinier and more commanding than any of the other previous Necrons he seen, this one towered a head above all the others. Still gaunt and skeletal like his other brethren, his green eyes were pits of both malevolence and intelligence. They scanned the area briefly before locking on the Lord Commissar’s gaze. Talkum could not tear away nor avery his eyes. The rictus grin he sported as he strode forth meant he found what he was looking for.
Unable to move, unable to unlock his sight, and barely able to think, the Lord Commissar remained slouched as the Necron lord stood before him. Reaching down with cold, skeletal hands, he cusped the chin of the horrified Imperial commander.
In a voice both tinny and commanding, it spoke.
“I see you are the one who leads these children, infants running about the stars pretending that their immortal Emperor gave them this galaxy to be theirs and theirs alone.”
At the mention of his beneficent ruler, Talkum found his voice, “Our deaths….are for his glory. He will arise and crush all who oppose him and the Imperium.”
The Necron chuckled, the sound of metal rattling around in a can. “You mean the corpse rotting away in a throne? Hardly what I call a leader. No….you do not know. Ignorance is your mantra; death your reward. We serve a power manifoldly greater than your dead Emperor. We gave ourselves to it eons ago, consumed by its glory in order to achieve glory of our own.”
”Impudent dog,” the Lord Commissar began to croak, but was choked off as the steely hands of the Necron lord gripped his throat.
“You still do not understand. Our master still hungers. What you have delivered to us is a small…morsel compared to what will be culled. What you consider this galaxy, your birthright, is simply a galactic platter waiting to be fed to our god.”
Talkum barely had the strength to remain conscious as his windpipes caved to the chokehold. His vision began to dim and his limbs weakly twitched.
He heard that chuckle one last time before drifting into eternal darkness. “I am Qi’Uoytoe Undecimus. This death I grant to you…consider it my gift…”