What Hides In Darkness (40K)

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

Crassiros doubted that radio silence was necessery. The spirits of the armour of the Astartes were able to encrypt signals quite adequately, and the enemy would surely know where they were anyway. He kept an eye on the Auspex as they waited for the Mercy to arrive. "Tank Commander, be ready to bail out at a moment's notice if these dreadnought-constructs are armed with anti-tank weapons," he said. It made no sense to waste the lives of the Emperor's men needlessly, after all.

---

When the tank arrived, the captain moved up a little way, watching his battle brothers carefully, and treading exceptionally lightly, given his sheer mass. The tank was unsurprisingly ready with lasgun and battlecannon as it turned into a firing line of the dreadnoughts. The sound was deafening, and the flash of lascannon in the gloom disorienting, and at that moment, he opened up with them, storm bolter kicking in his hand as he held it outstretched, firing across the trackway at the nearest contact. There was another on the same level as him, but he knew he had less chance of hitting a sheltering opponent on the same walkway as he was on; and besides, his lightning claw needed to do something - he'd carried it down here, after all.

[Cynical Cat]

Debris flew through the passage as a direct battle cannon hit blew apart a Vanguard battle robot. A second fell, smoke billowing a gaping hole, as a lascannon seared through its armoured chassis. Heavy bolter rounds tore through machinery and soldier drones.

The xenos were not idle. Blue-white pulse blasts streamed from their weapons and blasting craters in the walls and floors. Small craters were blasted in the armour of the Emperor's Mercy, but none penetrated. Another pair of Vanguard drones further down the passage engaged the Imperial tank.

A Las beam fired over the tank and another struck the Russ's hardened front armour. The angle was poor and the weapon merely cut a glowing gauge in the armour instead of penetrating.

[Charon]

Vibius moved forward with a great speed built by hundreds of such charges over his many years in service of the Imperium. Holding up his Storm Shield he managed to either dodge or block the few shots that came his way, as most of the enemy fire was directed at the supposedly more dangerous tank.

Ducking behind a piece of destroyed machinery Vibius aimed his weapon and let loose with the Hellfire rounds. Time to see if the Magi Biologici had been right.

[Cynical Cat]

Vibius's rounds struck a pair of soldier drone,s puncturing armour to detonate within cybernetically augmented flesh. Ichor burst from the wounds and they fell fell convulsing to the deck, twitching and shaking before they died. It appeared the magi were quite correct.

[GeneralTacticus]

Halima and her retinue advanced at the head of the Stormtroopers, adding their firepower to the confrontation. Hellfire shells spat from the Inquisitor’s storm bolter, Sebastian’s shotgun and Theda’s bolter, dropping drones in convulsing heaps and spraying corrosive acids across the metal walls. Krak grenades lofted from half a dozen grenade launchers, launched more as a suppressive measure than anything else, but nonetheless reducing the occasional drone to a puddle of mangled flesh and shattered armour.

Behind the first line came the real threat: heavy weapons team manhandling their charges into place. Within minutes, the first of them began to fire, further adding to the cacophony filling the corridor. Lascannon beams stabbed down the access tunnel into Vanguard drones and other hard targets. Heavy bolters spewed Hellfire shells into knots of drones. Autocannon shells simply tore drones apart wholesale.

In the cramped confines of the access corridor, only a few could fire at a time, and already they were taking losses. With a full company moving up behind, however, there was no shortage of replacements.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

Crassiros jogged along the walkway, rattling it, his hand whipped out, storm bolter barking once and punching a bolter shell against the head of one of the drone troops. He hefted his hand upwards as a vertical stanchion approached. Blasts of energy glanced off his shoulder pad and he span in a way not dissimlar from a ballet dancer's pirrouette. The lightning claw flashed as it punched through a pillar behind which a drone soldier lurked, the power knives ripping into its armour. He dahsed its brains out with the butt of his other weapon, and drew back his claw, crouching and taking aim with the storm bolter again.

[Cynical Cat]

The Emperor's Mercy drove forward, weapons blazing. Another pair of Vanguards were blasted apart by its battle cannon. A laser beam from one of the two surviving Vanguards scored a direct hit on the Russ's hull. The beam penetrated the armour and the tank brew up, flames bursting out of its hatches. No one made it out.

The Vanguard fell a moment latter as a heavy weapon team scored a direct hit with a lascannon and detonated the battle robot's power core. Pieces of metal and ceramite rebounded off the wall and the armour of the drone soldiers.

Hellgun blasts penetrated drone armour, but the cybernetic organisms rarely fell without taking a half dozen hits. Their own pulse weapons chewed through cover and carapace armour and blew apart flesh. Added to this carnage were the heavy weapon drones carrying xenos heavy plasma weapon variants. Capable of sustaining long volleys of plasma bolts that would instantly kill a storm trooper as well as higher powered anti armour shots, they added to the ferocious hail of fire that the Guardsmen had to struggle through.

Behind them, Hand Leader !Klilik moved his Praetorians to secure the next strongpoint, where the mining facility actually entered the mountain. The night black combat drones were far superior to their regular brethren. They were armed with long barrelled plasma weapons, possessed heavier armour, and equiped with psi jammers. With endless patience, they waited.

[B4UTRUST]

Gravin radioed for his own guard forces to meet up with him. Once they had arrived he followed the others into the mouth of hell. Already there was fighting. More troops like they had faced before, they however seemed a bit heartier this time.

He motioned his guard forces forward. They came in behind Halima's own stormtroopers. He readied his own storm bolter, steeling himself mentally for the combat to come. Next to him he could see Damien doing similarly. Or perhaps it was simply him praying he lived through this to collect his pay...

As soon as they got openings to fire, the guardsmen took aim and unloaded with what weapons they had. Damien's lascannon likewise spoke a powerful litany of death as it fired into the xenos troops. After every shot he would drop back and find a new place to shoot from while the firing chamber cooled and the cannon recharged.

[Cynical Cat]

Halima and Gravin came under heavy fire from the drone soldiers. Storm troopers and ordinary Guardsmen were blasted apart by the hellish streams of pulse weapon fire. Fire began to be concentrated against the heavy weapons troops and the areas where the inquisitorial retinues could be found.

Crassiros nearly died. His error was simple: thinking he had killed the drone soldier his had buttstroked with his storm bolter. The xenos servitor was too well armoured and its systems were too redundant for the blow to do more than crack its heavy armour and send the creature to the floor. The xeno spasmed and seized the marine's leg, entangling the Deathwatch captain. Two soldier drones raised their weapons against the exposed marine, preparing to unleash a torrent of pulse fire against the Astartes.

[SirNitram]

Mal had been being stealthy, his primary function in any combat the Ordo Xeno tossed him into. When Crassius came under attack, the heretic dropped from his perch above, falling onto one drone and blasting the other in the face with an eye-torturing flare from his fusion pistol. The one he landed on received the full weight of an Astartes, and several brutal stomps onto where the medical Mechanicus had indicated where the vitals should be.

[Cynical Cat]

Armour cracked and collapsed under repeated blows from Mal's boots. Even redundancies could save the xeno construct from massive organ damage. The construct shuddered and died. The Marine push was inflicting heavy damage on the soldier drones, who died in place rather than retreat. The bloodied Guard and stormtroopers moved up and provided supporting fire against the xenos abominations.

[Pcm979]

Rause quickly assessed Crassiros's condition- Nothing wounded except his pride- and turned back to the Xenos position, carefully taking out drones with precise, controlled bursts of fire as he advanced dauntlessly. This was verging on... Easy. Hard-won cynicism assured him that this would get far more difficult in the near future, and he almost found himself looking forward to it. It was much easier to play your hand when all the cards were on the table.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

"Let's never speak of that again," Crassiros said, regretting it immediately - they'd probably never let him forget it now, and smacked another full in the chest with the flickering lightning claw, crushing his way through armour with its exaggerated fingers and raising clouds of vapours. He picked up the corpse of the xenos, and deactivated the power field for a moment to get a better grip, before tossing it bodily at another drone and letting his bolter spurt its lethal projectiles at several more drones.

[White Haven]

One black-armored figure is deeper in the mass of xeno drone-soldiers than the rest, and the flashbulb pulses of light discharging from the head of the half-visible figure's polearm easily identify him. Damon is surrounded, but by choice, rather than accident, whirling in place to slash with the blade of his halberd, ramming behind to send another drone flying with the ancient weapon's shaft, then releasing one hand from the polearm's grip to snatch not a pistol, but the power-knife he'd purloined from the Ordo armory. Bathed in the twin glows of blue from the knife and flashing white from the Nemesis halberd, his own wounds stand out visibly; his armor is punched through in several places, blood drizzling out for a few seconds each time before rapidly clotting.

[Charon]

Vibius saw the tank go up in flames and was quickly on the move again, bringing up his storm shield he deflected the shots that were coming his way. Charging into a knot of enemies Vibius emptied his clip of Hellfire rounds into them.

Vibius did not slow down at all as he smashed into their ranks, the brunt force of his shield crushing the head of one of the carapaced creatures. Vibius dropped his bolter, the sling catching his weapon and dangling it at his side as Vibius brought his now free hand up and grasped the hilt of his sword. He brought his shield around smashing into another of the creatures, sending it tumbling back into its breathren as the ancient powersword of the Omega Legion came free of it's sheath, a simple thumb placed on the activation runes and a blue field of death surrounded the weapon as it came down on it's first target of the day.

[Cynical Cat]

The soldiers drones fell, but did not break. The remaining drones shifted their fire towards the Astartes, unleashing hail upon hail of pulse bolts. Drones armed with heavy plasma gun equivalents fired upon Vibius and Mal, unleashing streams of star hot plasma bolts at the advancing Marines.

[SirNitram]

The soldiers drones fell, but did not break. The remaining drones shifted their fire towards the Astartes, unleashing hail upon hail of pulse bolts. Drones armed with heavy plasma gun equivalents fired upon Vibius and Mal, unleashing streams of star hot plasma bolts at the advancing Marines.

"Not good." Muttered the Heretic-Marine, dancing backwards and to the side, incredibly agile in his lightweight armour. Still, the Wraithbone was looking more and more melted from the plasma bolts. His return fire was swift and accurate; each discharge of the fusion pistol claiming limbs or torsos, the long roars of the shruiken rounds ripping into exposed flesh.

"Is the tank salvagable?" He spoke through his comms. "It may no longer run, but a lascannon would be real useful right now!"

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

"I don't fancy your chances of making it run brother Mal," Crassiros said, firing down from the railings at the surge of drone soldiers below, glancing for a target, and punching a hellfire bolt through the head of one of those with what appeared to be a heavy weapon, and breaking into a run for the nearest ladder-way, snapping another clip into the bolter even as he did so.

He grabbed the ladder, letting his bolter hang by the shoulder strap. The rung bent under his weight, and he snapped a boot into it below...

[Pcm979]

Calculating that his armour could take the punishment, Rause stepped out from cover and began carefully picking off the heavy weapon drones, another part of his mind noting the damage Brother Damon had already accumulated. Obviously the product of yet another Chapter more concerned with balls and glory than tactics or common sense. There was little to do with that type except let him soak up as much fire as possible before he dropped.

A Plasma bolt scorched his shoulder pad, the complex Deathwatch markings glowing cherry-red and running together. Siaides ducked back behind his cover and cursed to himself. He'd dusted three, maybe four heavy weapons drones, but it was taking too long. He reloaded, quickly glanced out from cover again, and tossed a frag grenade into the largest cluster of drones that wasn't also containing any Battle-Brothers.

[GeneralTacticus]

Still loosing bursts of Hellfire shells into the closest soldier-drones, Halima lashed out telepathically at the closest of the heavy weapon drones one after another, burning out their nervous systems. Her experience from the last battle indicated that they would continue functioning for a while, but their effectiveness would be substantially reduced.

[Cynical Cat]

The bolts from the heavy plasma guns could do horrific damage, even to power armour. Stray bolts blew apart the limbs and torsos of even carapace armoured stormtroopers and blasted holes in the the Russ's burning hulk. The Marines lightning fast movements, use of cover and surpressing fire had so far prevented any direct strikes on the Astartes or the Inquisitors, but the drone soldiers felt neither fear nor excitement and sophisticated electronics assisted their aim. If they were not neutralized soon, luck or the Emperor's Shield, depending on one's beliefs, would fail the Imperials.

Rauses frag grenade proved to be useless, the shrapnel imbedding itself in the soldier drone's carapace without any other apparent effect. Pulse beams and plasma bolts came from the drones' diminished ranks. Halima's telepathic assault was telling. The control electronics immediately fried the drone's brain, insuring its collapse from system failure in a few minutes to be followed by death. The xenos command net took control of the dying servitors, but they were now slow and clumsy things.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

A streak of plasma vaporised the ladder above Crassiros, and in his antique helmet, he grinned like a madman as the ladder dropped and fell back. He was far back enough to survive without much injury now. And this was bound to be fun!

With a ping of overloaded rivets shooting out of metal like bullets, the ladder toppled backwards, slamming a heafty marine in heftier armour into several drones busily firing at Hamila's stormtroopers. The fact that they weren't necesserily killed by mere impacts didn't slip Crassiros' notice this time. and the talons of his lightning claw shot out, cutting through one, burning before the fist smacked into the next one's head. powered-thumb crushed carapaced head to powered fist-surface. His free hand batted wildly at another, slapping it about the head, grabbing what passed for its mouthparts.

The third creature struggled back, and the marine pulled it around to face away from him by the neck, power armoured fingers pushing through gaps between the thick plates with remorselessness equal to the beasts own. Pressing it to him, it absorbed several shots from its comrades which the captain had been anticipating. It shuddered against him and rivluets of sticky liquid ran down its chest.

The alien fell aside, and Crassiros ran sideways, flicking the gore of his last victim's neck from his hand as a baker might flick dough from his fingers and catching the storm bolter's gene-scanning handle, bringing it up.

RAARK...

A normal bolt.

RAARK...

A hellfire bolt, fired at the impact of the first against a drone-soldier's armour. A rune on his visor flickered to yellow as one of the drone soldiers had the foresight or luck to shoot out an actuator on Crassiros' leg. Never one to mind a slight limp, he struck down the offending creature with the righetous fury of his next semi-automatic double-tap.

One left from the group he'd engaged. He slapped it in passing (with the lightning claw, decapitating it and slicing the head into a perverse mockery of the sliced bread, to persist with the baker imagery), running headlong for another stanchion that looked like it would provide an instant's cover from the plasma weapons. Dimly aware that those behind him were becoming disoriented, he praised the Emperor (not thinking for a moment of Hamila's witchery - he rather liked her anyway, and thus didn't dwell on that horrifically unattractive attribute).

Crashing to a half behind the cover, he looked around. Just out of his line of sight were the heavy weapons, but an equal distance away was Brother Damon. One or the other. The stanchion flashed cherry red.

Not even a remotely difficult decision. He burst from the cover, firing at (and missing) one of the heavy weapons drones, and crashed at full pelt into the drones mobbing the other marine, giant clubbing hand flying and flickering.

[Cynical Cat]

Crassiros's charge was devestating. The soldier drones around Damon were already trying to retreat while bringing up their pulse weapons to gun down the whirlwind of carnage that was the Nemesis armed Astartes. A single bolt from the heavy plasma guns would inflinct heavy damage on even a suit of Astartes power armour and, at the least, wound the occupent. The heavy weapons, if they could be bought to bear, would change the fight.

But they could not be brought to bear. Dying from the countermeasures against telepathic control and the targets of choice of the Astartes and stormtroopers, most of them were falling of fallen. Those that survived couldn't get a clean shot against the rapidly moving Astartes warriors.

The Astartes had broken the drone soldiers line and the few heavy weapon drones were crippled and dying. Tough Inquisition stormtroopers were leapfrogging forward, blasting xenos soldier drones with melta guns, plasma weapons, launcher propelled krak grenades, and the ubequitus hellgun. Adding the formidable abilities of the Inquistion and the Astartes to the mix made the sealed the xenos machines fate. The fought well. The asked for no quarter. They did not break.

And they all died.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

Crassiros stamped around, jumping on the heads of any drones that still twitched, bursting them like pears under his boots. His armour and purity seals were covered in the blood of the aliens. Reloading again, he quickly checked his storm bolter. "Any wounded?" he asked, reffering more to the stormtroopers than to his brothers, "We must be ready to move on quickly. Wounded should be returned to the surface."

[White Haven]

Damon's armor smokes. Rent in a half a dozen places, spalled with crack-patterns around patches of fused glass, it's taken a fearsome beating, but that hasn't stopped him, as is attested by the scattering of disemboweled, dismembered assault drones around him. As the last of the drones dies beneath the Imperial hammer, the battered Marine looks around, searching the wreckage of the dead...and then grunts, stomping over across the bodies. He bends down over one of them, yanking the still-active power-knife from one body, then slides its deactivated form back into its sheath. Straightening up, he turns back to his brothers.

"The xenos filth will reinforce soon. We should be elsewhere or be prepared."