For a moment, I panic. Spreading from my second heart, I feel ice spread within my chest and immediately begin to calm as E-SIM pumps drugs into me. Subjective time around me slows as I engage all my minds in calculating a path to victory, or at least survival. As the Wyrms come to a halt, I realise that it is not force of arms that will carry the day, but what carried those arms in the first place. I still don’t expect to destroy the Tesseract Vault though.
I vox all units, “Disembark.”
“Are you sure about this, Magos?” voxes Odhran.
“The Monoliths are still sleeping. Our initial objective might not be feasible, but we have over a battalion of elite forces and five boring machines in the heart of the enemy's base. How could I fail in my duty now?”
“Agreed, Magos. I have died in service to the Imperium. A second chance to feast in the Emperor’s halls should not be missed!”
All twelve companies disembark as fast as they can. I order every Herald with a flamer to sweep over the Wyrms, clearing off the scarabs as fast as they can. They won’t get them all, but we need the Wyrms to remain functional for as long as possible.
Necron infantry and scarabs stack and clamber over each other, up through the huge holes we’ve punched through their tomb, immediately firing on us as we try to organise ourselves.
I order the Kataphrons and two penal companies to hold the line while we spread through the huge room. My Praetorian Servitors form up around me, sheltering Odhran and I from any stray shots.
The Monoliths begin to stir, green lines lighting up their sides and Necron symbols flicker to life around the Eternity Gates on all seven Monoliths. Hideous laughter echoes through the tomb from the Tesseract Vault, the C'tan within unhindered by the airless room, the soundproofing on our helmets, or any other barrier one cares to think of to get its voice across.
“Free me! Free me and I will give you everything you could possibly desire! Little fleshlings, do you not crave the solidity of metal? The cold caress of steel flowing through your veins? To ascend to the blessed heights of your amusing faith? Free me!”
“Initiate Bad Penny protocol,” I vox.
Odhran unslings his bolter, “I am unfamiliar with your codes, Magos.”
“Speak only to me for now. I can’t vox you with the exact protocol in the middle of a base of technologically superior foe.”
“Understood, Magos.”
It takes us ten minutes to disembark and the firefight growing around the five holes in the floor has become quite heated, with MOA shields being jammed between dead Kataphrons, Heralds and blackstone rubble for barely adequate cover. I send a trickle of squads towards the firefight to keep our numbers up and the Necrons from overwhelming us.
The moment we’re all disembarked, the flamer infantry halt their purge over the Wyrms’ hulls and jump off, then I send all five wyrms at the glowing Monoliths. As they accelerate, the Monoliths shoot the Wyrms with sporadic fire from their Gauss Flux Arc projectors, further pitting the Wyrms’ hulls, but little else.
At the peak of each Monolith hovers a putrid green crystal the size of a house. Energy builds up within the crystals, filling the room with bright green light. The crystal flashes and a whip of cohesive, unidentifiable particles, strikes each Wyrm, the closest two Wyrms are hit twice.
Each strike cleaves right through the wyrms’ hulls, wrecking huge chunks of their internals and sparking many fires that burn out almost instantly. Although damaged, the strikes are not enough to halt the Wyrms, whose vast bulk and redundant mechanisms are not so easily stopped. The maws close in on the Monoliths and chew right through them, the overlapping powerfields of their rotating jaws rendering the Monoliths to dust. The Wyrms thrash their bulk as they pass through, splitting the Monoliths asunder.
“By the Emperor!” voxes Odhran. “Such might!”
“It’s not over yet.” Watching the energy readings coming off the Monoliths, I override everyone’s vox and yell, “Go prone!”
Everyone dives to the floor, even the Praetorians lower themselves as much as possible.
Two of the five Monoliths detonate with enough force to rival a small nuclear bomb. Only the thick coils of the Wyrms wrapping around the Monoliths and our robust armour saves us from annihilation. Even so, hundreds of Heralds are thrown into the air, the ceiling cracks, and rubble plummets from the ceiling, crushing dozens of people. Many are tossed into the pits alongside the Necrons and fall Emperor knows how far into the ground.
Huge chunks of metal are ripped from the two Wyrms that were in the heart of the detonation, sending lethal shrapnel through the air, destroying three Praetorians and killing over four hundred Heralds in a tide of splintered steel. The two heavily damaged Wyrms collapse, their hulls white hot and sagging into an expensive puddle of twisted gears and sparking motors.
The remaining three Wyrms wriggle on chasing down the last three Monoliths catching and destroying two before the final one teleports out in a blinding flash. Only the Tesseract Vault remains, the C'tan continuing to cackle throughout the destruction, without so much as a single mote of dust touching his almost invulnerable prison.
I vox the company commanders, “Gather the wounded, leave the Servitors and the dead. We’re retreating.”
The laughter ceases.
“No, I think not,” mutters the C'tan. “If I cannot escape, then neither will you.”
I am annoyed, but not surprised with how easily it infiltrated our communications.
In the dusty murk of the ancient tomb, tiny stars form near the ceiling. They rapidly expand and brighten until the grand room feels like a bright morning, buried in fog. The bright sparks drift downwards and my armour screams temperature warnings at me.
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Fire falls upon the Wyrms, like magnesium snow. Our transports seize up as the C'tan’s transcendent power falls precisely, burning through vital components, rendering all three remaining Wyrms non-functional.
“Well, go on then,” says the C'tan. “Run.”
I shudder, the C'tan’s contradictory statements and behaviour reminding me of a cat, playing with live food.
As if waiting for the perfect moment, the Necrons strike back. Rising from the great pits crawl mechanical horrors, great centipedes with a pulsing, spinning weapon for a mouth. Each Canoptek Tomb Sentinel varies in size from six to thirty metres in length, though each has ten pairs of legs and clacking pincers at the front end.
They push right through the defences, phasing through stone, metal, and flesh with equal ease and hack through the remains of the two penal companies, even as the Kataphrons fire at them continuously, catching everything and everybody in the crossfire.
For many of the Heralds, this is too much and they panic, scattering into the darkness. Between the casualties and the deserters I have eight of my twelve companies remaining. I order the captains to rally their companies on me and we run towards the closest corridor.
Behind us, floats the C'tan in his Tesseract Vault, zapping every Herald who lags behind with his Tesla Spheres, killing them instantly with great bursts of lightning. I’m not sure who is in control of the Tesseract Vault right now, as the C'tan should not be able to direct its prison where it pleases, but that’s exactly what it looks like it’s doing.
“What is the mission, Magos?” voxes Odhran.
“Fight through the tomb and escape, while destroying absolutely everything we come across, should the opportunity arise.”
“Next time, I want a pack of gun dogs.”
I laugh, “I do not think we could have fitted enough dogs on the Wyrms.”
Odhran grunts, “How far are we underground?”
“Eight kilometres, approximately.”
“Then we must destroy, or at least disable, the Tesseract Vault, otherwise we will all be dead at the rate it’s picking us off.”
“It destroyed three titan sized vehicles with a sadistic giggle and a wave of its hand. At the very least it counts as an Alpha Plus class psyker in power equivalent, even if it is restrained and not actually using the warp. It is also riding the most robust vehicle a race of soulless, ancient automatons, the ones who imprisoned it in the first place, could conceive. I’m pretty sure the C'tan has hijacked its own prison too. Even the Emperor, before his ascension to the Golden Throne, might struggle to destroy a C'tan of such power. I don’t suppose the Codex Astartes has a solution?”
I really wish I hadn’t spent almost all my souls on Full Bionic Conversion right now. A miracle would have been handy.
“There is little point in speculating what the Emperor can and cannot do. The Codex would have us disregard all ground assets and declare Exterminatus. It’s the only way to be sure.”
“When that isn’t an option?”
“Fight and die.”
“I’d prefer a less final solution.”
“Then we’d best keep running, and keep thinking. Perhaps an opportunity will appear.”
Another vast hall opens up before us, although smaller than the last, it is more than large enough to house the Necron army awaiting us. In the centre, surrounded by Canoptek Spyders is a Necron. A spear hovers to one side of him and a casket on the other. Four white circles, all inside each other, but not touching, shine with a blue-white light on the surface of the casket.
Over a hundred weapon platforms immediately open fire, as well as thousands of Necrons.
“Keep your shields up, return fire, and run right for the centre,” I vox.
Hundreds of infantry on each side are destroyed as we sprint like dead men towards the Necron lines, behaving more like Orks than Humans. There is no cover, no respite, and no room for anything fancy.
When the Tesseract Vault floats in behind us, all the Necrons stop firing for two whole seconds and somehow, the motionless, expressionless automatons manage to look stiff, even afraid.
A burst of data flies through the air from the Cryptek to the Tesseract Vault and the C'tan screams, though in pain or anger I cannot tell. Then it laughs and brings both its hands together. A small vortex forms between its hands. It moulds the vortex, pushing it onto its left hand, then it pushes its left arm outwards and flicks the vortex with its right hand.
The vortex of strange grey energies ploughs through the back of my lines and rushes right past me, taking half my Praetorian Servitors with it and straight towards the Cryptek. Every Herald and machine the vortex touches blinks out of existence, banishing hundreds of people to random dimensions.
If I wasn’t running for my life, I would stop and stare at the sheer power of this creature. Even the almighty Truck-kun can only banish one person at a time!
The Cryptek grabs the casket floating by its side and runs, plucking at the strings within as it tries to avoid the vortex. The vibrations from the strange instrument send odd waves to the ceiling, transmuting the blackstone into brittle porcelain that immediately subsides beneath the crushing weight of the stone above.
The ceiling rains down upon the Tesseract Vault. The vortex disappears with a clap of thunder and the Tesseract Vault phases through the falling stone like the Canoptek Tomb Sentinels, straight towards the Cryptek.
The Cryptek starts strumming like an impassioned heavy metal guitarist with little thought of the destruction it’s playing will cause to the ears of its listeners. It also sends ever greater bursts of data towards the Tesseract Vault, forcing it out of its phase state and back into realspace. The Cryptek’s panicked strumming, however, is wildly successful and more and more of the tomb crumbles, pummelling Human and Necron without discrimination.
The Heralds plough through the disorganised Necrons. They quickly lose momentum as the falling rocks split and squash squads as they please, forcing the Heralds and Necrons closer together in an unfocused melee.
Rocks bounce off the Supreme Shield Matrix surrounding the Tesseract Vault and the four corners of the hovering prison close in on each other, restraining the C'tan and protecting the more fragile interior of the Tesseract Vault from the rapidly progressing cave in.
At last, the C'tan has been mostly neutralized, but the ceiling is fucked. The Cryptek directs many warriors towards Odhran and I, even as the Tesseract Vault is buried in rubble. We cleave through the Warriors quickly, their clumsy movements unable to hold us and my seven remaining Praetorians back. The last half of my forces are equally effective ripping apart the Warriors with desperate fury having learned much from our first encounter with the Necrons.
We push towards the Cryptek and, with less than thirty metres to go to the exit, Odhram manages some impressive shots with a krak missile launcher. They slip through the Necron lines and slam into the energy shield around the Cryptek standing in the exit.
Immediately, the energy emissions around the Cryptek spike, suggesting he is about to teleport away. I really can’t afford to let him escape. I push through the warriors, ignoring their blows and, the moment I’m close enough, I open a portal to the warp right beneath the Cryptek’s feet and he drops right through.
I hear Odhran chortle over the vox, “Well played, Magos.”
++Enemy destroyed. Portal is non-functional.++
Unfortunately, I don’t get a crown kill. Cheapskate soulless abomination that it was.
With their Nodal Command disrupted for a short moment, the Necrons fall into disarray. Our remaining forces push through the Warriors, trying to escape before the room collapses entirely.
Most don’t make it.