Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

HeroCooky said:

-Lamenter Tragedy #381560

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Lol. Tempted.

But honestly, this next one sounds like fun... if I can pull it off. A bunch of Hivers armed with hope, and backed by a choir and the Templars against the best the Imperial Remnants can throw at us. I will carry Voxx by the power of Omakes if I have to.

HeroCooky said:

-A Psyker-Lord and their Acolytes attempt to kill a Choir with the aid of Kasrkin Squads as Templars and local Fifth Column Elements stop them.

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"For the Star-Child, we will hold! If ever your faith was true -"

The strident cry was interrupted by a flash of blue light, and the power-armored figure crashed to the ground with a hole big enough to fit a fist punched through her helmet.

Beskin stared dumbly down at the corpse. He'd thought the Templars were immortal. But now he stood next to Sarissa's corpse on the bridge and knew otherwise.

The men and woman wearing white and black power armor had been a persistent rumor for years. They'd been seen from time to time by the followers of the Star Child, returning from the upper hives with armor blackened by las-fire.

But as Beskin had climbed the ranks, as his gang-turned-squad proved their competence and faith, they'd been brought behind yet another layer of secrecy. Beskin's squad had been assigned to clear a path through the sewers to the basement of an arbites complex, then told to wait for a 'special asset.'

That special asset had been a dozen figures in power armor that appeared out of the gloom of the sewers without a whisper. Their weapons were things of myth, plasma guns, power blades and other weapons unknown to the lower hives. He'd been terrified until he'd seen the candleflame on their pauldrons and known that he'd met the most elite forces the Star Child had to offer.

The woman in charge of the Templars had told him to hold that position and wait for their return. Then they'd gone in. Twelve fighters against an arbites fortress of thousands. The sounds of battle had started immediately, and continued. At one point an arbites heavy weapon squadron assembled around a las-cannon had tried to set up to block the line of retreat. Beskin had led his squad behind them, executing a near-perfect sneak attack on the weapons squad and seizing the las-cannon.

The Templars had returned not long after, crashing down the corridor carrying a pair of rescued prisoners and chased by nearly a hundred heavily armed and armored riot troops. As soon as the power-armored shapes had cleared the zone Breskin had ordered his squad to fire and he'd held the trigger on the las-cannon until it melted. Then they'd turned tail and fled with the Templars, returning to the underhive with zero casualties and two rescuees from the heart of the arbites' power.

After that adventure Sarissa had introduced herself, doffing her helmet to reveal a surprisingly young woman with a stripe of white hair mixed into bright red. She'd taken his measure, and from that moment onwards Beskin's squad had provided backup to hers. They'd come to know the hard-eyed men and woman underneath the armor, and been terrified and awed in equal measure.

Beskin considered himself a hardened killer. He'd shivved his uncle at age nine, and then discovered his talent for stealth and timing when the man's friends had come for revenge. More bloody work had seen him as the leader of a gang of lovable misfits until he'd first heard the preaching of a priest of the Five-Fold-Faith.

But the Templars were something else. They checked their corners every moment of their life, and he'd never managed to catch Sarissa by surprise. They moved with fluidity and grace that belied their strength, and every one was better shots than even dead-eye Pete.

They'd spearheaded a dozen missions that he would have called suicide, and they'd never lost a member. Their armor had needed occasional repairs, and there'd been some close calls. But no deaths.

Until today.

One of Sarissa's troopers leapt from cover to the same deadly position where she'd been standing a moment before and resumed the cry. His name was Talwar, and he faced the enemy assault fearlessly, plasma rife spitting death at the onrushing battalion of elite imperial troopers.

Baskin found himself roaring his defiance alongside the man, rising from behind the stolen barricade to fire his looted lasgun into the attacking horde. So did hundreds of his fellows all along the defensive line, braving the firestorm of plasma and hotshot las-blasts coming their way. Their new armor wasn't enough to protect them here. Many of Baskin's peers died to deadly-accurate fire, but they forced the enemy to pause and take cover as massed lasgun fire took down scores of carapace-armored troopers.

Above him Talwar was blown backwards by another blast of plasma, but the damage had already been done. The locals had seen the most elite troopers of the Imperial Guard fall to their weapons. The Kasrkin's aura of terror had been broken.

A blast of lightning built at the back of the enemy formation for a moment before being unleashed at the defenses like the wrath of an angry god. The psyker's attack made Baskin's teeth ache just to look at, and he couldn't hear his own yell as the magic reached to smite him from existence.

But then the cascading bolt of power wavered and deviated from it's flight, grounding itself among the Kasrkin troopers instead of destroying the defenders.

In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Baskin looked back to see the gates of the captured mansion had been opened wide. A dozen people in simple white robes stood there, flanked by another squad of templars in black-and-white power armor graced with the yellow candleflame. The white-clad choir gestured as one and a miniature sun bloomed overhead before starting a slow arc towards the attacking troops.

Given that Baskin could feel the heat from here, he smiled grimly as the orb of starfire descended towards the enemy. But it halted in its course as a distant figure raised a staff and several figures mirrored the gesture with open hands. One of the remaining Templars - one of the dog-like Zenos - raised his long plasma rifle and fired, the shot flaring off the psychic barrier. The follow-up shot punched through the edge of the shield and caught one of the lesser acolytes in the chest, blowing them backwards in a cloud of bloody mist.

The Kasrkin rose as one, unleashing every single weapon on their side of the field at the Choirs. The fire was intercepted by a pair of deployed ion shields, but the defenses sputtered under the onslaught. Baskin and his fellows reaped a bloody toll in those moments where their enemies were exposed and focused on a different target, but then the templars guarding the choir each grabbed one of their charges and hustled them back into the fortified mansion. The ion shields failed a moment later and the last templar was caught by a blistering barrage of fire that blasted them back through the reinforced door a moment before it swung shut.

Then the Kasrkin resumed their suppressive fire and bounding advances. They'd taken more than half of their number in casualties, but seemed undaunted by the hundreds of armored bodies scattered across the bridge of the mid-hive.

More worrying still, the orb of sunfire had reversed its course, destabilizing as the distant Imperial Psykers pushed it towards the Federation lines. Then one of last few templars shot it with a plasma pistol. Baskin was diving for cover the moment he saw the pistol rise, jamming himself between the ferrocrete barricade and Sarissa's body.

The explosion washed across the battlefield as a flood of fire, punching a hole straight through the defensive lines even as it annihilated the core of the assaulting troopers. Baskin was burned to the bone by the smallest fringes of the explosion, and he couldn't help but let out a sharp gasp of pain.

The sound was muffled by the screaming of every other fighter who'd survived the explosion. Then lightning crackled and Baskin felt electricity in his gums as the Imperial Psykers finished off the last pockets of resistance.

Strangely, Baskin was calm. This felt like his element, more than the battle had. He'd never been a man for pitched battle. He'd always done better in the dark, catching his enemies by surprise. He reached out for Sarissa's fallen weapon, carefully sliding the plasma rifle out of view underneath her body even as the heat of the metal burned his hands.

Then he pulled in his limbs, hiding himself underneath the armored corpse as heavy boots approached. He stayed still and silent as the remaining troopers - less than fifty - secured the area, finishing off any wounded they found and preparing an assault into the mansion.

"Captain, are your men ready to breach?" The voice was high and nasal, and was accompanied by the click of a staff striking ferrocrete as the owner strode through a nearby breach in the barricade.

"Yes, lord. We attack on your order." Came the reply, filtered through a full-face gasmask and helmet.

"Proceed."

A det-charge blew the ruins of the door wide open, and weapons thundered as the Kasrkin charged into the mansion and exchanged fire with its final defenders.

Baskin used the last of his strength to roll Sarissa's corpse aside, taking in the scene. The psyker-lord stood just a dozen feet away, directly in between Baskin and the door. The imposing man was facing the mansion with his staff raised and crackling with power.

It was an easy target. Baskin unloaded the plasma rifle into the man's back, many of the blasts continuing onwards to strike the troopers in the back as they piled through the mansion's entrance. The weapon flared red in his hand before shutting down, but the damage had been done.

At that very moment five templars leapt out of windows on the upper floors, firing downwards as they controlled their falls with jump packs. Baskin's lips pulled back in a rictus as he saw them scythe through the troops that had already begun to turns towards the sound of his weapon instead of watching every angle.

Then his consciousness slipped away, and he knew no more.