A short tie-in story I've been working on for a future scenario involving brave nobles holding off never-ending tides of the alien.
The bark of the stubber abruptly ends with a harsh click as the hammer strikes an empty chamber, leaving the wounded beast to shriek on its own into the night. I advance on the thing, a horrible monstrosity made up of chitin and claw, a ruined maw drooling corrosive bio-plasma with every thrash of its destroyed body, still a slave to the mindless directive of needing to end me. With a deliberate slowness I put one armour shod foot on the head and press down, crunching chitin and squelching meat into paste until it stops moving.
With a blink-click I order the auto-loader to eject the empty ammunition container, it bounces once against my arm, then falls down, landing with a soft thud in the morass of mud and gore I am standing in. A fresh box is swiftly slotted in place and the auto-loader feeds the first round into the breach: readout green once more.
A soft wink of red tells me that this is my last reload. Taking a moment, I quickly check up on my other weapons: main gun almost out, the coaxial stubber has been dry for some time now. Next time they come at me, I will most certainly empty every gun I have.
Problematic. I should retire and report for rearming, but as I absentmindedly rev the massive chain blade that makes up most of my left arm, freeing the action of clotted chunks of gore, I cannot help but smile. Swords do not need ammunition, just an endless supply of foes to fell.
I am standing in the clearing of a forest, surrounded by the mangled remains of enemy dead, my lower legs and feet slathered in mud and the ichor that passes for blood with their kind. They had tried to swarm me, bring me down with numbers and a mindless brutality that the hive minds of the devourer are known for. It was a good effort for their kind, but one ultimately doomed to failure, for I matched them with the skill and ferocity my house is known for.
But even as I stand triumphant over their dead, I can feel in my gut that more are converging on my position even now, scuttling about out of sight, massing their numbers for another charge. I sweep my auspex across the dark undergrowth ahead of me, the powerful sensory systems quickly picking out and assigning target numbers to every foe spotted. It stops any attempts at classification after reaching “99” and blurts out an error message which I blink-click away with mild amusement.
The mortal side of me baulks at these numbers, I am alone and running low on everything, I was only supposed to hold them off long enough for the convoy I had been protecting to get away, but hours have gone by since then. I should make my retreat, but at the same time, every wave I can fend off and keep away from the landing fields buys precious time for more souls to flee from the onslaught.
My ancestors, their ever-present whisper at the back of my mind, are at war over my current predicament, some imploring me to seek safety in numbers once more, or to at the very least fall back in the general direction of friendly lines, for am I not in danger of becoming completely cut off?
Other voices are less afraid of the coming fight, they are welcoming it as a new challenge and some, as pessimistic as they are, are already calling this a death worthy of remembrance, an epic last stand for the hall of records, should anyone be able to recover our remains if we fall.
As amusing as their constant bickering can be, I am grateful when they are all silenced by another voice, one more ancient and powerful than any of them.
I AM READY.
The spirit of my armour has spoken with the kind of absolute authority that brokers no dissent. I can feel the corners of my mouth inadvertently tug into an ugly rictus grin, an unbecoming trait of mine that my consort so despises. But I cannot help it, I feel myself falling into agreement with the spirit of the machine.
WE WILL FIGHT AND THEY WILL DIE.
There is no arguing with such a simple statement of intent, even though I am in control, when the spirit of the machine is so bellicose, you do not disappoint it with thoughts of cowardice or other such unchivalrous actions. This is a dangerous mindset, but at the same time so damned intoxicating and the warrior in me wants nothing more than to grab this with both hands and accept it, consequences be damned.
Yes.
We will stand and fight. We will crush these vile creatures beneath our armoured tread, we will fell them with our guns, we will tear them to pieces with our blade. We will make them regret the day they tried to attack those put under our aegis.
Yes.
I run a final check on my systems, another auspex scan as well, more out of habit than necessity, as I can now see them stare back at me from the darkness. Little pinpricks of light caught in the faint moonlight, it is probably my imagination, but their gazes are filled with the kind of malevolence for our kind that only the alien could muster.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I am reminded of the fact that these beasts possess an intelligence that should not be underestimated. They have brought down our kind before, these were not noble or heroic deaths, swarmed by the vermin until cockpit is breached and the noble is torn apart, or to override and detonate the reactor, taking down as many as one can when dying.
But right now, I feel like I am immortal, like an ancient hero of house myth, for I am a colossus who towers over ordinary men, I am clad in adamantium through whose veins courses the
raw power of a plasma reactor, my right arm spits death, my left arm rends everything it touches.
The quiet of the night is pierced by the sound of my clarion blaring, ear splitting noise to unprotected ears, but a symphony of such beauty to my kind, as I announce to friend and foe alike that I am about to charge. My horns are answered by the shrieks and screeching of the foe as they begin their own assault, perhaps drawn out by the noise.
That’s right you bastards, I want to fight you.
I crash the flat of my blade against my cuirass in salute, a warrior greeting a foe with honour.
I will kill you all, vile vermin.
A tide of chitin and claw erupts from the forest on a direct course towards me, hordes of the smaller creatures advancing with great bounding leaps, following in their wake are the larger organisms, lumbering monstrosities dubbed “Screamer-killers” by the soldiers who had faced them before.
I open my vox link, unsure if the message will get through the thrice-damned interference these monsters have been putting out, but I have to try, I have to let someone know that I was still out there.
‘This is Bellator Aeternus, still engaging the enemy. For the Emperor and the glory of House Terryn, victory or death!’
With a final blast of my clarion, I power myself into a charge of my own, armour-shod feet thudding with a steady rhythm as I thunder towards the enemy, my stubber scything into the front ranks as my cannon pumps the few remaining rounds left into the larger beasts, my reaper revving angrily, eager for another taste of foul alien blood.
I am laughing now, swept up in the moment of glory. Though it feels like I am charging headlong towards certain doom, to die a horrible death unremembered, my blood sings and my spirits are soaring.
With a broad sweep of my Reaper I cut into the enemy horde, letting it crash over me.
