*Transmitted: The Song of Hate
*Destination: Holy Terra
*Date: 8 237.M44
*Telepathic Duct: CLASSIFIED
*Author: Chris Stork
*Title: Into the Maw
*Clearance: Vermilion
*Path: 08274902136593165091.20398498-5
*Thought For The Day: Even A Man With Nothing Can Still Offer His Life
My brothers, do not make the mistake of thinking yourselves prepared.
I have stared into the face of our ruin, and it is not a face. It is a mouth.
A mouth containing a billion/trillion? teeth, and each tooth is a living thing, and each living thing is a horror built only to kill, and when the mouth closes it shall not be to honour the supreme Emperor, or sue for peace, or discuss terms. It shall be to swallow our Imperium whole.
We call them Tyranids as if they're a race; another xenos clan to be faced-down and cleansed. In the face of horror we cling to our sciences, out
We'd do better to call them a disease. There is no better analogy.
I've seen the hive ships, brothers. Barbed horrors scuttling forth to kill, bloated vermin writhing back to be absorbed, their bellies full. I've seen the forests picked-clean of life. I've seen the biofleets draining the waters of teeming worlds, the vortex-mouths guzzling the prairies. I've seen the shadows moving in the warp, the tentacles stretching out of the darkness beyond the Eastern Rim.
This is the End of Times, brothers. Death approaches, and it is not at the hands of a ravening hoard nor an army of contemptible aliens. Our enemy is a single intellect. A single gestalt consciousness, more ancient than we can conceive, more massive than we can measure, a single mind that has not one body, but a trillion. An all-seeing eye that has no shape and no form. How can we fight such a thing?
I will tell you: Until the last breath.
If we can delay that great maw from closing around us, then we will have achieved what countless Empires, countless worlds, countless galaxies, have not.
I say this not to terrify you. I say it simply so you understand, simply so you do not waste your time with such luxuries as hope.
There is no hope. The Great Devourer is upon us.
Let us see how long we may restrain her jaw.
-Inquistor Kryptmann addressing the Congresium Xenos
He had to hurry, the Saint must know!
Brother Svalik's boots crashed on the floor, disturbing the ancient solace of the hallway. This part of the ship was Hers. Few ever went here, the holiness of her sanctum a greater buffer than any kill-zone. The echoes crashed around, shattering the peace and tranquility. She likely knew of his coming by now.
Butshe was the Saint of War, She would already
/always know of his coming.
The hallways changed presence, from the great tapestries describing the victories of the Order
,banners of the re-founding on Holy Terra and its greatest honours, all the teeming undead cut down over the millennia to solemn candles and quiet shrines to those who fell in the Emperor's name.
Unconsciously he slowed,
awed and weighted down by the ancient and hallowed air
, awed by the presence from his surroundings. A voice in his head told him he trod on sacred ground and that he was fouling it merely by being there. His breathing quickened, this was a place for those holier than he. He resolved to offer penance on the coming battlefield for his trespass. He stepped lighter, more carefully.
At the end, her private sanctuary. A tremble ran through his body. He faced the most horrible of xenos, killed traitors without pause and even battled the vile undead and this shook him more than anything he could have believed
(attain/acomplish I feel that believed is the wrong word after a series of actions.). Svalik placed his hand upon the Glass of Entrance and recited
to the Litany of Opening. The massive doors clicked open and slid apart.
He saw her sitting on the far side of the room, her back to him. He knelt immediately at the entrance.
(actually surprised that the apparently spacious room isn't described nor its effect on Svalik.)
"Svalik?", he heard her ask.
"Communications have received a distress call from the Holy Fleet at the Cily intervention zone
(is the usal 'Your' missing by design or circumstance?)Holiness. The Holy Fleet orbiting the planet is broken. The Shadow has obscured the message badly. We are the only ones who heard."
She paused before giving her answer.
"Ready the Order. Advance at all speed."
"Yes, Beati."
He sprinted off, anxious to deliver her Will.
Cily. Almost another life. A better life. with Pip. They were married there. Under crystal sky and roses. The endless race ended there. The Tyranids would kill and consume everything on the world.
No, I will not let it/that happen!
Seras pushed out into the void. She could feel it, the demented consciousness that the entire race
/gestalt had
/consisted of. The Hive Mind. No thoughts, no feelings, no desires beyond eating. The shrieking, crazed need to devour everything and everyone echoed in the vast oceans of the Immaterium. She knew it distantly through reports of the shadows beyond the edges of the galaxy. A thing that stripped entire worlds to slake its gluttony.
It would not have Cily. It would never take something of hers. Not now, not ever.
Something behind the cacophony. Another war. Seras concentrated. She could fell it. The crash and thunder. She could not see them, but she knew them anyway.
The first of the Four. Its blood-soaked axe. Armoured in brass, its rage powered it onward.
The Second, ethereal and cunning, always seeking, always planning.
The Third, bloated, and diseased flesh underneath the pus and slime of its excrement.
The Last, willfully disfigured flesh with its perverse symbols craved into it.
They were driven against just one man. A warrior armored in gold, wielding a sword of fire and a hand of lighting
who/that fought them all. She wanted to be there, to do some
thing meaningful, to end the madness. But she was
too far away and there was nothing she could do.
Seras brought herself back into her room. She had a few moments to herself. Enough time to remember. The name Cily conjured up memories she wanted to relive again. She stood up and walked to one of
the/her cabinets. She rummaged through her things, the video-crystals, the holo-picts and artifacts of an age long dead. At last Seras found what she sought. She seized a blood-red crystal and brought it to her chest.
Pip had loved these things, every new technological gadget he bought and used until it either broke or he got bored
of it. Seras traced the lines on it, turning it on.
"Marche, stupid thing." a voice that Seras would never truly hear again.
This was the first Pip had gotten. Light spread above the crystal, painting an image, an upside-down Pip.
"What's that?", Seras heard her younger self ask.
"This, mignonette, this is the new Sycon image-crystal recorder", Pip said his voice filled with pride.
The image panned to her bemused younger self.
"You do know you're holding it upside-down, right?"
Seras watched, remembering the exact time, the exact place of the recording. She watched, wishing for things that could never be, uncaring of the tears the streamed down her face.
Beyond the serenity of Seras's room the whole of the
Song of Hate was a flurry of action and noise. Weapons were cleaned, loaded, sanctified and prepared. Pilots ran to their fighters and awaited launching, assault troops and ships were loaded into the bays. Officers gathered maps devouring them for plans. The bridge was a maelstrom, orders shouted, co-ordinates read off, ensigns rushed about inputting data and reciting litanies.
Thoedus watched the holo-chart. Cily system had seven planets. One outer planet was on the far side of the system. He stored that information. It might prove to useful, it might not. One meager planet first from it star was near Cily. Cily itself was the second closest to it sun. The last four were much farther out providing cover for the Splinter Fleet. The hive ships could not approach Cily without hours of forewarning.
Every half-minute the feeler-probes refined the image. They advanced at all speed. No other Imperial ship could
match Hellsing in the sprint or
the marathon. The blips that orbited Cily itself became less blurry. They had a full listing of all ships sent to the intervention zone. Even if all the blips were Imperial, less than a quarter survived.
Whatever remained
they still fought. Trapped by the Shadow, their last message unheard except to Hellsing, they still fought. Every ping cleared the field. IFFs could be made out.
"Sister Reglus, adjust the course by plus point 3 degrees and prepare to drop out of Warp."
"Yes Commodore."
He looked over to the chart, Dropping this close to a gravity well could
/should? destroy any ship.
The Dark Age technologyhe Song of Hate and all her escorts were forged from
technology born in The Dark Age and had
long since eradicatedthat problem
in the first place.
(I would advise redoing this sentence in the manner you want to do this)He needed to wait until the last second. The Hive Mind knew he was there. Giving it
as little time
possible to react to anything he would do was his best
/only viable option.
The battle inched closer. A contact flared out.
The Iron Hammer struck its last. Even dead it killed three hive ships.
The seconds ticking
the seconds by, closing as much as he dared.
"Drop."
And the world went mad.
Klaxons screamed out. Point defences roared to life. Main batteries tore out bright chunks of the black night. Torpedoes shot across the darkness and ripped into the obscured things. Fighters shrieked out of the bays, the bombers chugging along after.
"Get me comms to the Fleet." A rapid click of intonation of the machine spirits.
"Done, Brother-Commodore."
"Imperial Fleet, this is The Song of Hate. We are coming to your aid." A crackle and a response.
"-or, who sent you?"
"The Emperor. What is your status?"
"All ships heavily damaged, boarders on all of us. Almost out of munitions."
(there isn't any indicater to whom the next sentence is directed. It appears to command the invaded ships to evacuate to the Hellsing ships. Thought it can mean the oppisite if you assume the next sentence is directed towards his underlings, in which case there should be at least a hint to the readers what is happening.)
"Launch pods at the ships, cleanse orders. Ready Thunderhawks for planetary assault."
More ships tried to contact him, shouts and thanks and praise, but he did not listen to them. He was focused solely on the task at hand. The Tyranids did not break, did not fear. They just moved to combat the new threat. Smaller escorts flanked the cruisers that screened the hive ships. The smaller bio-ships would move to block all the weapons directed at the synapse links. This battle was over. Already bloodied the bio-ships would merely send back all that he did to kill them.
The Hive Mind would learn. It would adapt to everything he did, learn from its mistakes. Do everything to destroy all assembled against it. It would employ every tactic, any strategy to crush the Imperial fleet and consume the world below. It would throw countless hordes against them, employ subtle misdirection and overwhelming force to attain its goal.
By the end of the siege it would learn that he was better in all ways.
"May He guide you." he blessed the warriors sent to battle the creatures.
The torpedoes reached their targets. Spore fields intercepted few, many smashed into the side of the organisms. Bio-ships
bleed bled out in the void. Hunks of flesh tore from the bloated masses. Fighters cut
threw through the
battlefields, hammering the anti-ordinance measures for the bombers. The ships kept fighting.
(Which ships? Tyranid, Imperial or both? Or is the ambiguity intentional?) There was no change in their behavior.
(whose behaviour?)Caught in the crossfire all the ships would be killed. The Hive Mind viewed them as expendable as bullets. Every action taking against them paid for itself with information. The beleaguered fleet emptied the last of their weapons and the bio-ships died, their mission accomplished.
"Hail the fleet again comms, take us
into orbit, assault pattern.
(which assault pattern? From the little contact I have with Wh40K there should be "Assault pattern:'pretenious name' to indicate that there exist many plans of which the commodore/captain choose one from.")" A moment "Captain, what is the situation on the planet?"
"Umm, its-its Ensign actually, the captain's dead. A 'stealer got in."
"Their souls are with the Emperor now."
"We lost contact with Hive City Seventeen an hour ago. They should still be holding."
"Co-ordinates?"
"Yes sir, uh 23.06 by 12.56."
"The other cities?"
"All gone sir."
(still on the radio giving the orders to the wrong person. Also an opportunity is missed to give a nifty name to the assault forces.)
"Acknowledged. Launch the assault force at those co-ordinates."
It's hopeless, thought trooper Hensen as he fired another shot.
The outer wall was breached, the Tyranids had overrun the other cities, and the fleet was broken. The Emperor had abandoned them. If he stayed he
would die. Like Gul in front of him, the flesh maggots writhing around in his now empty skull. Clumps of half-digested flesh plopped down. The beast hit him in the face. He screamed so loudly before the insects ate his tongue and throat. He pitched over and they just kept eating him. He'd known the man for five years and he was gone that fast.
(the 'that' is pertaining to years making his death a very slow one. I would advise 'a fraction of that' or 'in a flash of movement'.)
"Stand fast! Faith and Duty! The Enemies of the Imperium shall fall before us!"
And if he tried to run Commissar Atrox would shoot him, just like Sergeant Zall.
(was Zall shot or the one shooting once again both can be read. Even with the context in this paragraph.) It was all they could do and the sarge knew it. If they stood they would all be ripped apart and devoured. No orders would change that. But he lay face-down in the dirt a hole through his head.
Shrieks. Another wave of those obscenities came running at them. The debris field kept all of the small ones hidden from view. Maybe fifty metres out they could be seen. The only saving grace was that the leader-beasts stayed back. The noise, that horrible noise increased.
(for more immersion try to desrcibe the sounds. Example: 'A noise like a million bugs floating in your head became even louder' or 'the cacophony of the jungle magnified a thousand thousand times'.) It felt like all the hord
es were running at him. His hands shook. Nothing would save him. He was dead. No-one would know and no-one would care.
They smashed over the wall next to him. Teeth, claws, and those hellish
/blasphemous weapons they used.
Hensen snapped around with the last of the fire team. He blasted at them. No aim, panic fire. No-one could miss at that range. His heart thundered in his too-small chest. Razor-edge fear sliced his nerves apart and the shots flared out randomly. Each one brought down only had five jump
down to replace it. A black streak. A scream from beside him. A flesh-beetle had found its mark. Hensen was glad he couldn't hear the chewing.
He back-pedaled, desperate to avoid those things. Empty, change mag. More and more shots into the mass. Closer and closer they got. Pain. He collapsed. A slasher he didn't see. He lashed out. It smashed down on his hands. Blood poured out. The adrenalin block the feeling. Instinct. A knife. It lanced through the creature eye. Dead. Gun. No time. A jerk. Wetness. A glance down. His belly open. Intestines coiled out. A black worm tugged on them. Smack. Another beast. Pain. It tore through his neck. Falling. His last sight
before been eaten.
They all fell. Slaughtered. Dragged and torn to shreds. Few were killed instantly. The rest were devoured alive. The commissar stood defiant. Life was the Emperor's currency. He needed to buy a few more xeno lives with it yet. He slashed madly. Gun roared. Hit. Keep fighting. Slash. Hand went flying. Kick. The Emperor protects. One jumped. Headbutt. Never yield. Blood in eyes. Snap head. Elbow. Slash. Crunch. No pain. No fear. Duty to the last. Weightlessness. Impact. Get up! Salvation.
The Cult of the Unerring Blade crashed to the earth. Fury, sound. Death. They launched themselves at the beasts still pouring in.
Contempt. Hatred. Kill. Bolt pistols roared and chain-swords screamed to life. The lines smashed together, pieces of the demented creatures being torn and flung in a dozen directions, the hormagaunts surged forward, but their claws and teeth could not breach the warrior's thick plate and they were butchered.
Without a synapse creature the attack was unorganized, clamoring over each other desperate to get at the warriors. The endless desire to eat, devour, consume all their minds
toconceive. Wildly slashing at the xenos the Blade
(s) cut their numbers down. Not once did the creatures try to flee. They all died like that. Hacking mindless at their food.
More teams slammed down. These bearing heavy weapons and armour. They advanced and destroyed.
Seras set aside her past, she had to. It was time to be 'Saint Victoria' the stupid patron saint of their stupid religion again. Seras had put away all her memories. Boxed them up and taken out her armour. Power plant attached. The plaster-casts were already fastened and tied down, her personal reminder
(s) of all those lost and how.
Pain.
She grasped the cuirass, put it around her and locked it into place. Everything she tried failed, everyone was gone, she was the only one left. She picked up the cuisse and greaves.
Distance.
She slipped her legs into the armor and clamped the pieces on. She knew and raised friends only to watch them die. She couldn't do it anymore. It hurt less this way. Everyone that she was connected to had been violently taken from her. The empty place in her being where Pip had once been still mocked her.
Fury.
She gripped the spaulders,
(not pauldrons?) lifted them and locked them into place. Everything was gone, everything good and right had been replaced with a twisted parody. It all ended because of the traitors. They turned their backs on all that they stood for, lulled by false promises they slaughtered billions and ended hope.
She took up her gauntlets.
Hate
The one thing that had not abandoned her, was always there for her, and kept her going for twelve millenia. The Traitors had taken everything from her. Pip, Earth, all her friends, everyone she had ever cared for gone. Her arms shot into the metal. Her cage, her prison, her role, her being.
She was ready now.
