999
m41
98,120,112,002,982 kilometers away from Thedias Prime.
Whomp. Whomp Whomp.
Click.
Clack.
The sound of the fresh magazine slamming directly into Brother Theoboldius' heavy bolter, full of acid tipped hellfire bolt rounds. Each was loaded with countless thousands of microneedles, filled with a mutagenic acid that flooded the bodies of the chitinous horrors that swarmed down the metal corridors of the
Price of Redemption. The once gaudy and gilt starship was splattered in the blood of both acolytes, serfs, servants of the Rogue Trader, and two brothers that Theoboldius had fought with in the Deathwatch for almost sixty years. He knew that his blood would be spilled soon - either here, under claw and fang, or in a few minuets, if the Adeptus Mechanicus had not been speaking pure binaric drivel.
Theoboldius was not particularly happy to be here.
Theoboldius, in fact, had not been particularly been particularly happy ever since he had been plucked from the underhive by the stern faced, black and yellow clad angels of the emperor. He had had a life, a family, a home, a distantly remembered sweetheart. The angel of the emperor had kicked in her face when she had tried to keep Theoboldius from being taken away from the hive after the trials. Then had come the pain, and the changes, and the training, and war.
Endless war.
Being detailed off into the Deathwatch was an honor for most chapters. For the Marines Malevolent, it was a matter of drawing lots - the Chapter Master had actively spat on the inquisitorial order, and everyone in the battle barge had been mocking those who had been chosen to be sent off to serve someone who didn't stand within the hierarchy of the chapter. Theoboldius had been glumly certain that his Deathwatch compatriots would see him as most of the galaxy did: Yet another member of the Chapter that worked the hardest to be the most hated.
Let them hate, so long as they fear.
That had been tattooed onto his back on his fifth decade in the Chapter, a reminder when he had only used half of the ammo he had been given - because they had run out of targets in the crushing of the insurrection on Lexa. He had been reminded the old axiom:
The Administratum Only Feeds the Hungry Heart. With spare bolt shells, how could they demand more from the vast munitoriums of the Imperium? Use all the shells. So, he had used all the shells the next time, when they had run out of targets. They had blown apart farmhouses and burned fields, and his Captain had been pleased. The Chapter's requests for more resources was met, and the Malevolent had been redeployed alongside several small squadrons of Space Wolves. The bolt shells had been procured from the Wolves, who had gnashed their teeth and threatened retribution.
Theoboldius was sick of the thought. He hated his Chapter. He hated his brothers. He hated the Imperium.
And so, he had expected to be hated in the Deathwatch. But with his armor painted black, and his battle brothers being from many chapters, he had found something that he had never thought possible.
Family.
And now that family was dying. And despite the teachings of his instructors during his days as a scout in the 10th, who had told him over and over again that
Death Is to Be Handed To the Weakest, Not Taken by the Strong ...he was glad. He felt a fierce, burning pride in his chest as he worked the receiver on his bolter and started to loose a series of quick, hammering barrages. The tyranids that were trying to push up the corridor writhed and died, screeching and howling. More were coming behind them. Over the vox, he could hear Brother Raxian speaking in his bland, calm voice: "It appears that we have slightly more of the bugs on this deck than previously anticipated. You may need to watch your back soon, Theo."
"If there weren't so many fucking bugs, would they even want us here?" Theoboldius snapped back, his voice dripping with acerbity. He felt a twinge. Big Ulnif had always laughed at his propensity towards 'human profanity' - but Ulnif had been ripped apart an hour ago in the fights on the outer skin of the ship.
"I suppose -nngh!"
The soft grunt of something striking home, a squeal of metal, and then the biosigns on Theboldius' headset went red and dim, the machine spirits of Raxian's armor carried off to the Grim Blackness with the rest of him. Theoboldius snarled, then glanced back. This position was going to go down swinging. The men and women around him glanced at him, then went back to firing the lasguns down the corridor.
Theoboldius hissed. "Fuck. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He punched a wall. "Fall back! I'll cover you!"
The serfs, the sailors, the lexmechanics who had signed up for this death march, looked at him in complete, total shock.
"Are you fucking deaf!?" Theoboldius bellowed.
They stood and ran.
More Tyranids were coming. Theoboldius slammed the door shut between where he stood and the rest of the compartment, where the Pixus and the mad magos who had invented it was working frantic sorcery. Theoboldius hissed as a hail of snarling, biting creatures rained down on his armor, snapping, biting, wriggling, trying to get through his armor and into his flesh. He shook them off and fired another round of bolter-fire down the corridor, splattering more nids. But they were coming faster and faster now - the lasgun fire had, he supposed, help slow them. He fired, fired, fired-
Click.
He threw his empty bolter at a snarling termagaunt. Its face crunched in as he drew his roaring chainsword from his belt, swinging it up and cleaving three 'gaunts in half with a single blow. A claw rasped against his armor, showing silver damage under dark black paint. "Fuck you!" he shouted, punching the tyranid in the head. He had stopped even trying to identify the bioforms that swarmed downt he corridor. "Fuck you! Fuck you!" he brought the chainsword down, splitting a head, then cleaving another's chest open. Blood splattered and his cameras almost missed the sight as a claw swiped up. Theoboldius staggered backwards, his helmet flying off his head and carrying with it chunk of nose and lip. He fell against the door and the tyranids slowed - drawing aside as a massive, corridor filling beast stepped over the piles of dead, looking into his eyes with cold, pitiless fury.
Theoboldius spat some blood on the floor.
"I'm...Brother Theoboldius...of the Marines Malevolent," he said, panting softly.
The massive hive-creature roared.
"Fuck you too," Theoboldius said, then severed a fuel line running along the ceiling with a smashing blow with his power fist. Gasses gushed directly into the hive-beasts face and Theoboldius, with his final act, drove his foot directly into the creature's groin. He didn't know if Tyranids had genitalia.
He prayed to the Emperor, an Emperor that his youth and his life aboard the battle barge
Vindictive had drummed into him was nothing but a withered corpse, an excuse to get funding and recruits and enemies, that they did.
The hive tyrant let out a croaking wheeze.
Theoboldius felt his first, actual, genuine smile in almost three centuries.
And the Magos Thepselion XVI-Alpha Two flicked the last switch on the interlocking shell of rapidly spinning cubes and verticies while tapping her fingers together. "I wonder if this-" she said, her grille buzzing with excitement as her optical implants and mechadendrites both recorded the flow of energies that she had started to gather.
The
Price of Redemption turned into a rapidly expanding shell of high energy particles, several hundred thousand megatons of adamantine and ferrocrete and steel turning into undifferentiated quarks and gluons. The blue-white haze of radiation was nearly eclipsed by the oscillating, interlocking gridwork of purple lines that flared outwards and swept through the two billions, six hundred million nine hundred and fifty six thousand hive ships of the Hive Fleet Umbral - which itself was merely a fragment of a fragment of Hive Fleet Levithan. The purple fire caught, clung, and flared. But it did not burn the flesh.
It seared the mind.
A singular mind, threaded and immense, and hungry. Oh so hungry.
Then it was in pain.
And then it was in fear.
And then?
It was dead.
***
On the world of Thedias Prime, a great many people woke up with a feaverish sweat, a pounding headache, and a sinking feeling in their bellies. A single question flickered in their minds, all of them spread throughout layers of the rotting edifice that was Imperial society.
...what the hell were we doing?
---
Welcome to Thedas! It...
[ ] Is a sleepy agri-world
[ ] a bustling hive world
[ ] a glittering capital of a sub-sector
[ ] a naval research outpost
[ ] an Adeptus Mechanicus forge asteroid
[ ] a Rogue Trader's newly founded colony
[ ] Write In
...and it has a Genestealer Cult. Or. More accurately. It had
a genestealer cult on it. Now, it has a bunch of people with psychic powers, genetic aberrations, revolutionary politics and a complete freedom from the hive mind that had been puppeting them from a distance! The Cult was...
[ ] Relatively small (4 points, not discovered)
[ ] Modest (8 points, rumors abounded but no serious investigation)
[ ] Large (12 points, Inquisitorial agents are sniffing around)
Being disconnected from the hive mind has...
[ ] Left the genestealer cult mostly unchanged, save for mental alterations (Normal Genestealers)
[ ] Left the genestealer's genetic structure wildly unstable (Rogue Trader fandom Genestealers)
Rogue Trader fandom is "freed genestealers lack the hive mind to keep their biology stable and, so, gain the ability to shapeshift but have to drink blood to sustain their biology or else they start to randomly mutate into puddles of goop."
The name/form of the cult will be determined once we know how many points we're working with!
EDIT: Oh, also, plan vote, duh
