Sneaky Striking Scorpion
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"If you will not submit to our demands, Gue'la then we shall remove you by force..."
“The Ethereals will be proud of our mighty efforts!” Fire Warrior Faol exclaimed aloud to no one in particular, as if mocking the dead masonry surrounding him.
“How dare you proclaim the name of our great Ethereal with such informality!” Shas’la Ul’na rebuked.
“My apologies, I am just proud to serve the Greater Good this day, Shas’la.”
“You can be proud some other time, Faol. Your eagerness towards this mission concerns me.” Faol lowered his head with this remark and remained silent. Ul’na’s loyalty to the Ethereal Caste and her draconian leadership was notorious, but even she despised the orders that she had been given, made clear through her disinclined tone of voice. This was highly unusual for her. Remembering his mission, Faol once again began surveying the area surrounding him for any signs of movement. Unlikely. The streets were covered in the corpses of the human militia and civilians. The once proud-standing Hab-Blocks now lay in pieces, barely any taller than the XV95 Ghostkeel surging behind him. Faol turned to observe the Battlesuit; it was leaping across the wreckage of a once living city with minimal effort, barely needing to walk, smothering the fragile rock and rebar with waves of sickly orange flame. Faol could not smell the chemicals of the artificial flames and smouldering ash of the rubble around him, and he was not sure that he ever wanted to. The three XV8 Crisis Battlesuits accompanying it did likewise, the heat rising from the funeral pyre of an ignorant world. It was then that Faol saw a sight that made him shudder. Gue’la, Humans, five of them ran out from the remains of an Imperial building, alight with the cleansing flames of the Greater Good. Faol heard their screams of agony and decided to let them regret their actions for longer, as did the rest of the execution squad. Their faces bubbled and liquefied from their skulls, their screams died as their vocal chords disintegrated. A female took a last look at her already dead child, and collapsed as her legs snapped like burnt twigs.
Faol turned back to catch up with the rest of his Fire Warrior squad, hopefully he would not have to witness something like that again on this mission, he doubted it though. He jogged his way towards Ul’na and her marker drone, if the drone saw any more humans then he would be able to kill them before the rest of his squad even stood a chance.
Suddenly, a shaking cracking noise emanated from above, far above any of them, but Faol and his squad could not see through the shrouding smoke.
“Mal’yr!” Ul’na cried out into the comms-system contained inside her helmet.
“Identify where that sound originated from. Now!”
The Ghostkeel turned to the skies and stared into the plumes of smoke that it had created.
“Thermal imaging shows large heat signatures descending at rapid speeds, Shas’la...two of them...and another that resembles a gunship...”
“The Gue’la are inserting reinforcements? Do they not know that this fight was already won?” Ul’na sneered with fresh confidence to her squad, all sense of fear removed, to which her squad replied with discerning laughs and further mockery towards the humans.
“Form defensive positions! Standard gun line formation!”
The Fire Warriors scarpered into covered positions, using the rubble and wreckages to conceal themselves.
“The signatures should reach ground-level in approximately fifteen seconds.” Mal’yr reported over the comms.
Faol tensed, he crouched to one knee in the dirt.
“Ten seconds...”
Faol raised his pulse carbine towards his eye-level and aimed it down the street towards the scorched plaza.
“Five seconds...”
Faol breathed in...
“...Zero.”
Faol had no time to register the impact of the hulking mass of metal that slammed into the plaza. He fell to his back, the malicious rocks stabbing at his spine and neck. His pulse carbine fell in place, clunking onto the ground next to his foot. The noise of metal crashing into stone was penetrating. Pieces of fractured stone flew across the plaza and scattered towards the Tau line. Faol groaned in pain as he lay in the charred dust, Ul’na hurriedly pulled him back up by his arm and shoved his pulse carbine back onto him.
“It’s the Space Marines, Faol.” She dictated to him sternly. Faol had never fought against the Space Marines before, he had only heard stories from the Damocles War. Armoured humans, genetically enhanced by outdated science bred by a mad-man. They enforced the dying rule of the Imperium of Man through violence. Little more than hulking brutes. Faol quickly firmed his grasp on his pulse carbine and reassumed his crouched position, aiming down his sight. He saw two clawed craft embedded into the plaza’s stonework, burnt through entry into the atmosphere, their bases glowed red with violent intent. They had an olive green surface with yellow painted on the claws, the surfaces smoke burned from their celestial descent. What looked like the head of an insect adorned a few sides of each craft; the sable insect had bulbous eyes of purest red, and spiked mandibles.
A hiss of released pressure, and they opened like some war-born flower.
Ten ramps fell to the ground, kicking up great amounts of ash as they did so, and out of each door bolted two hulking marines, around twenty in total. They had radiant red eyes, and bulky suits of olive drab armour. The very earth shook with the force of each footfall. It was hard to believe that they were human.
The gale of gunfire began in an instant,
“Fire at the marines! Aim for the neck and the eyes!” Ul’na bellowed, but the warriors had already begun firing regardless. These monstrosities needed to be stopped. Faol fired his pulse carbine towards the first marine he saw, the blue plasma shells screaming their path down the street. The marines bolted into the collapsed ruins around them, avoiding the open streets, crashing through stone and metal. Not even Ul’na’s marker drone would be of much assistance now. The firefight had quickly become a deadlock, neither side dared to risk the open streets. Faol could hear something getting rapidly louder over the scattered gunfire, the calls of a weaponised raptor.
“Gunship inbou-” Mal’yr was cut off by two lances of pure white energy piercing the smoke above, burning straight through the left leg of the Ghostkeel with no signs of resistance. The battlesuit collapsed under its own weight with a mechanical cry and fell to one knee. Faol looked up to see the smoke clouds part in the way of the human gunship as it hovered down. Mal’yr tried to boost away on the Ghostkeel’s soundless thrusters and aimed her fusion collider towards the gunship, firing a searing blaze of energy. The bright light vapourised the top mounted turret. Mal’yr activated the suit’s stealth field generator mid-jump, the matte finish of the suit shimmered and blurred, mimicking the ruins behind it. Mal’yr felt safer now, “Pathetic Gue’la.” She spat defyingly. The gunship lanced after the Ghostkeel, unperturbed by the stealth field. Two streams of molten flame leapt from two gun barrels on the nose of the gunship, piercing the torso of the Ghostkeel. Instinct had bested technology. Faol turned fully and raised his head to watch the Ghostkeel fly backwards, thrusters burnt out, and strike the ruins with its back, falling to the ground. The ghostkeel was impaled by branches of metal reaching out from the rubble, shrieking their way through the battlesuit, and then it fell truly silent.
With that a cacophonous war cry clamoured from the marines down the street,
“For the Emperor! For Redemption! For the Mantis Warriors!”
The force from the thunderous wall of noise frightened Faol, his muscles tensed with shock, with jagged breaths Faol now found that the marines were charging down the street towards the Tau line. He froze as he watched the roaring giants charge towards them.
“Keep firing!” Ul’na’s stern shouts drew Faol out of his trance, he quickly drew his pulse carbine back to eye level.
“This is a foolish tactic which will see them dead!” Faol had faith in Ul’na’s words; obviously this could only end in the deaths of the marines, they had abandoned their only cover now and were straight down the sights of twenty trained Tau Fire Warriors. How could they not see themselves that it was a fatal decision?
Then out of the corner of his eye he noticed something, the front ramp of the gunship swung down through the air, and from its maw came even more marines. They all leapt from the worn ramp, each with complete abandon. The marines descended on controlled blazing bursts, bringing more fire to an immolated world. The smoke parted in the wake of its saviours and cinders dared not touch their armour. Ten beings of highest purity: the dealers of death. Now that the Ghostkeel had been destroyed, the way was clear for these new combatants to join the fray. The XV8 Battlesuits took to the choked skies, keen to halt the marines before they could make ground-fall, the screeching of their thrusters colliding with the roaring of the marines’ wings. The air was clamouring with the prophets of war fighting amongst the decimated heavens; the ground ululated with the staccato roars of boltguns and the screams of pulse weaponry within the torn-up hellscape below. Each sound a singular note in a curs’ed concerto of eternal war. Faol resumed firing at the savages charging down the street. His first burst of shots ruptured a marine’s neck, scarlet blood spewed from the cavernous wound as the marine toppled backwards, his boltgun silenced. The marines unleashed the wrath of their boltguns onto the Tau, the interspaced shots transformed into a singular roar. Faol would have mocked the simplicity of their guns had they not been so powerful. Most of the shells impacted onto the rubble in-front of the Tau, exploding with blinding rage. Several pieces of shrapnel flew into the neck and head of the Fire Warrior next to Faol, he watched her claw at the glowing metal embedded into her disfigured helmet in futile shock, gurgling as she fell forwards into the dust. The next shell hit the Fire Warrior behind him, meaty brain matter and metallic mauve blood bathed Faol’s back and the rock around him. The marines were already more than halfway towards the Tau line. Then Faol felt the most excruciating pain he had ever felt, it spiked through his entire being in an instant, beyond torture. He spiralled backwards with the force of the impact, his feet leaving the ground. He landed face down in the ash, striking his head on a girder; thankfully the helmet took the impact of the blow. He went to push himself up with both arms, but only his right arm pressed into the dirt. Faol spun around using his the momentum of his torso to face back towards the sky and sat up. He looked down to his arms, his right arm was caked in blood and the fabric of his uniform was torn, showing multiple deep cuts; then he looked down to his left arm... It was practically non-existent, ending halfway above the elbow; the gory mess of sinew and muscle gushed violet blood. His shoulder plate had caved in at the bottom into a warped wreck where half of the shell had impacted it. He struggled for air as he raised the bloody wreckage of his left arm towards his eyes. His muscles had been shredded, his arm practically burst from the force of the shell, the soupy blood sickly oozed onto the ground with a nauseatingly wet dripping that reverberated in his head. Thick vomit and bile filled his mouth as it rushed up from his stomach, it stung at his teeth and cheeks. He suppressed the urge and swallowed it back down. He had to get out of here. Now. He willed his body to move, he wanted to run away, to leave this hellscape, but his body refused to obey. The shock had rendered him useless. This could not be happening, The marines were thundering towards them, he needed to move. He heard two powerful crashes in the near distance. He begged for it not to be the XV8 battlesuits, but he doubted that it could have been anything else. His fears were confirmed when he watched the third battlesuit plummet from the air at a sharp angle, plasma wounds glowing iridescently from its back, and then slam into the ground, skidding across the front of the remains of the Tau line, a dead husk. He had to get out of here. He slowly rose to his feet, barely containing his nausea once more, and began to scarper away from the anarchy.
His hoofed feet skidded on coarse rubble, and cremated ash crumbled under each rapid step. His right hand clutched at the bloody stump his left arm now resembled. His eyes hurriedly scanned the crisp cyan display in his helmet, trying to follow the path on the aerial display map back to the outpost. The Commander would surely be able to call for reinforcements. He ran back through the ruins of the Tau’s creation, he did not want to join the dead of the humans, not here. His breathing became rapid and rough, his helmet and armour were sweltering, combined with the heat of the nearby flames, he was drenching himself in his own sticky sweat. He had to warn the outpost. He couldn’t die. He couldn't fail the Greater Good. He had to live. He felt like he had not moved even a since inch, the outpost was beginning to seem like a forgotten dream to him now, his vision was blurred and his legs were feeble. A voice at the back of his mind calmly encouraged him to lay down and rest, one that barely sounded like his own. No. He had to make it.
And then he heard it again.
“Please... no...” He moaned. The jump packs of the space marines, but many fewer than last time. He glanced over his shoulder, one of the marines was pursuing him, soaring across the tops of the ruins. Faol would never be able to outrun it, he turned and faced the marine surging towards him from upon high. Faol released his grip on his stub of an arm and looked to the ground, surely there would be a weapon somewhere. He saw a human pistol, the once red paint charred and worn away. Faol snatched the weapon from the ground and aimed it towards the marine, hand unsteady. The marine landed around five metres in-front of him, slamming into the ground with unbridled strength, stone splintered with a resounding crack under his weight. The marine looked up at Faol, the death stare from his bloodthirsty red lenses transfixed him in place. The marine’s helmet was crafted into perpetual roar of rage, with the grill under the eyes acting like a vicious mouth that breathed maliciously at him. The marine rose to his feet. Trembling, Faol aimed the pistol at the marine’s head; the marine began to advance towards Faol. Fear clouded Faol’s mind at the crushing sound of the marine’s footsteps, his eyes remaining locked with the glowing lenses of the marine’s helmet. Faol fired the pistol three times only, each time the searing shots of the laspistol ricocheted pathetically off of the armour of the marine, leaving little more than minute burns upon the olive green paint, who was unfazed. After the third shot had cracked out across the ruins, the marine’s arm whirred out with exceptional speed and seized Faol’s neck with his hulking hand. Faol dropped the pistol and instinctively began clawing and striking at the marine’s trunk-like arm. The marine tightened his grip on Faol’s throat, to which Faol gasped in pain, he could barely breathe. Faol’s arm dropped to his side as the marine lifted him from the ground and up towards his eyes. Faol weakly stared at the bulky helmet of the space marine, the glowing lenses staring back at him.
“Are you content now, Xeno?” Faol did not understand the language the marine spoke in, even less so because it was distorted further by his helmet’s vox-caster. His voice was low and gritty, each word was full of anger and fury, the anger of a man seeking revenge.
“Your deluded kind came to this world and offered an impossible ultimatum to its people. Submit to the Greater Good or face annihilation?” The marine appeared to laugh grimly after this comment,
“And when its people displayed loyalty to the only good that they have ever known, a trait cherished by your foul leaders, you descended upon them and slaughtered millions?” The marine’s voice was getting louder and louder with each word. Faol could also feel the grip of the marine gradually getting tighter on his throat, he gasped for air, but none could break through the chokehold of the marine; Faol once again clawed at the arm of the marine in a futile attempt to break free. The marine halted his speech and observed Faol’s movements, staring at him for several long seconds in silence, the crackling of flames the only audible sound over the constant humming of the space marine’s power armour.
“Let’s even that out, shall we?”
Once again displaying his unnatural speed the marine drew a blade that crackled with barely controlled energy, bolts of energy like pure lightning leapt across the length of the blade. Letting go of Faol’s neck the sword swung upwards in an iridescent blue flurry of light, the air screeching at the blade cut through it. Faol fell back to the ground and ash rose around him. He heard a smaller object hit the ground just after and slowly rotated his head to the right to see his right arm limply laying on the ground next to him. Sickly blood pooled next to his newest wound, slowly spreading away from him, taking his remaining strength with it. He had no more energy, he could not even cry out again. There was barely even any pain, he was too weak to feel anything. The marine laughed loudly and regained his chokehold on Faol’s neck, raising him off the ground once again to resume the sick game.
“You, and any xenos that dares to burn Imperial worlds, do not deserve a swift judgement for your atrocities.” The marine said with an eerily calm tone that was discernible even through the vox distortion. He whirred around on the spot and began to march towards the flaming husk of a hab complex, Faol still in his grip. Faol was being dragged behind the marine, his cut feet scraping across the hot ash. The marine walked up to the raging inferno and held Faol closely to his helmet; Faol could see the eyes of the marine. They were open wide with wild hatred.
“You deserve far worse.”
Faol flew backwards, released from the adamantine grip of the space marine, cast into the embrace of the inferno behind him. The strong orange flames consumed him whole. His spine broke on the wreckage of the building, the crack emanating with the crackle of the song of the flames. The cloth of his armour caught alight, fire dancing up his legs and neck with glee. He cried out in torment as the flames melted his skin, his eyes, his organs. Blue skin charred and fused with blackened armour in one revolting amalgamation of pain. Every heartbeat was a surge of agony, every breath was choked and bubbling; his blood evaporated and his skin flayed. His screams echoed across the rubble, they carried on the promethium tainted winds, they made the flames flicker and the corpses shudder.
The fire carried out its cruel cremation.
Turning away from the pyre, the marine walked away without another word, the low humming of his power armour inaudible over Faol’s death-throes. He spared not another single thought for the alien that he had just executed.
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