This story is an unofficial story based, without permission, on the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.
Moref stepped back, looking on stunned at the beast before him. Its upper torso was vile in appearance; spores and abnormal warts covered its huge, bloated, filthy, green face. Above its stretched nose hung its large, bulbous, yellow-stained, freak eyes. The dreadnaught stepped forward, thudding its mighty foot hard on the ground. Its right arm stretched out to grab Moref. Hung from the metallic mechanisms of its joints, rotted flesh flapped about yet was stretched and pinned down. The loose bits flapped about with its every motion. Stained with a dried blood, its long fingers clenched tightly around Moref's waist and chest, squeezing the life from him. Horton hurled his knife into the metallic rusty arm, but all he'd managed was to annoy it. The large, vile-looking dreadnaught swatted Horton like a fly with the back of its hand, slamming the Marine into the wall, knocking him unconscious instantly, whilst releasing the crushed corpse of Moref to drop to the floor.
Sergeant Korde charged at the beast, swinging his thunder hammer into its left bulbous eye. The eye burst into mucus of greeny-yellow slime that dripped down its filthy cheeks. Stepping back, Korde took another swing at its face with the thunder hammer, but this blow was blocked by its long, rusted arm. Moments before it opened its large, slime-ridden mouth, revealing its long, needle-like teeth. From behind its jaws came its long green tongue. Without warning, it slapped the Sergeant across the front of his dark blue helmet, leaving a thick, gooey residue and knocking him off his feet with a crash. Syakotus raised his left arm, clenching his fist tightly to trigger his wrist mounted storm bolter to fire on full-auto into the dreadnaught's face. The bullets thudded into its grotesque face, releasing more dripping slime. Without warning, it stepped forward with its large, bulky, bulbously rusted legs, revealing its large auto-cannon for its left arm. Stepping over the corpse of Moref, it lunged forward into the squad, unleashing a burst of bullet fire from the auto-cannon, knocking two of the Marines back instantly from the shock.
Korde staggered to his feet from behind the vile smelling dreadnaught, watching the seven tentacles flapping about. Looking for targets to swat, he aimed his plasma-bolter-combi, taking a lucky shot and cutting one of them down with hot plasma. Judson and Linnex jumped to Korde's side, doing the same with their bolters. The sound became somewhat deafening.
Syakotus unsheathed his power sword, flicking it on. The low hum began with him swinging it above his head and then cutting through the side of the dreadnaught's arm. The severed arm dropped to the floor with a gush of yellow mucus.
"Feel the vengeance of the Emperor, beast," Syakotus yelled as he took a second swing, this time slashing into the beasts face, creating more slime of a black colour that spewed down the glowing red of his blade.
"You shall not stand before me again, beast."
The dreadnaught turned with its auto-cannon at Syakotus. But in doing so it left itself vulnerable for squad Korde, letting Fehr take up position with his heavy bolter, and open fire with a full burst. The burst smashed the auto-cannon open and clean off the dreadnaught's arm joint. Once the gun dropped to the floor Korde, Judson, Linnex, and Syakotus simultaneously slashed their weapons into the beast. The dreadnaught's tongue lashed out at Syakotus, yet only became stuck in the palm of his bionic hand. Squeezing the tongue tightly, he then yanked it from its mouth. Once severed, black slime splashed across the attacking Marines in a shower of vile and grotesque spores. Still flapping about in his palm, Syakotus tossed the severed tongue aside, whilst digging his power sword through the dreadnaught's mouth.
"Consider yourself cleansed, beast," he muttered out loud, pulling his sword from the mouth of the dreadnaught, and then kicking it back. Once on its back it began a terrible sound of a shriek, almost deafening to the ears. Linnex flung a krak grenade into its screaming mouth. The Marines pulled back to watch the dreadnaught combust with the explosion into a shower of rotted flesh and broken metal.
Graus stood at Syakotus' side. "I hope that was the only one."
"It appears we have under-estimated the threat," Syakotus added, stepping across the debris.
Korde stepped into where the dreadnaught had come from - the Imperial frigate's canteen. Korde put his foot straight into a puddle of wet blood. Then, from the echoing sound of what sounded like a dripping tap, he looked up. Syakotus followed him in looking up also. Above them, dangling head down whilst hung from their feet by chains, five women hung totally naked. Two of them had being disembowelled, with their intestines hanging past their ears. Another had had her face cut off. All of them had short, shoulder-length, white hair.
"Adeptus Sororitas," Syakotus said softly.
Looking back around the room Syakotus saw the canteen tables all smashed and broken across the blood soaked floor. In the centre of the room was a pile of burnt and still gently smoking bodies.
"I do not understand. Surely the Sororitas would have been able to over come the Reavers? They aren't exactly a match for their prowess," Korde questioned.
Re-cocking his storm bolter Syakotus looked across at the pile of burnt bodies. "It looks as though the Reavers had help. Have you ever heard Reavers using a dreadnaught?"
"Get to the engineering and power this ship up. There must be some records we can access," ordered Syakotus, turning back to Gauss
"No problem," Graus replied.
"Linnex, go with him," ordered Korde.
The Thunderhawk detached itself from the hull of the Reavers vessel. The engines revved up, moving the crimson coloured Thunderhawk back towards the direction of the Forge Hand. Grailin, Gevedin and Lenthos stood behind the two pilots, Jinn and Crispin, watching the Reavers' vessel become more distant, whilst the Forge Hand became closer.
"I sense something, something not right," announced Grailin.
Without warning, a green beam came from the darkness and slammed into the side of the Forge Hand, causing a gush of flames to pour from its side. Within seconds the Forge Hand combusted into a ball of flames, tossing pieces of bulkhead and broken metal across the stars.
"What the hell?" bellowed Gevedin.
Slamming his fist hard across the console set before him, Jinn managed to turn the Thunderhawk just in time to miss a second green beam slashing the side of them.
"Look," shouted Lenthos, pointing across towards the Reavers' massive, rusty, black-looking vessel. They all looked up to witness its explosion, spreading pieces of it across the stars. Crispin looked up at the cockpit's window to see a piece of bulkhead slam hard into the glass, causing a crack.
Grailin engaged the comm in his throat.
"Captain, Captain, the Forge Hand has been destroyed as has that of the marauding vessel."
"What? That leaves us sitting ducks...fly close to the frigate. We may need your cover."
"Understood, but we have been hit across the cockpit glass."
Graus stood over the frigate's engine's heart with his mechanical arm strapped to his red armoured back. The arm was trying to unseal some of the bolts across the oil soaked engine.
"Did you hear that?" asked Linnex, who'd heard the sound from the two exploding ships out side. Graus looked up at him and removed his red helmet, revealing his half cybernetic face.
"Hear what?" he asked.
With what sounded like a gush of wind, the engineering wall ripped away from the frigate, followed by a large gush of flames, throwing Graus and Linnex into the air and then back down. The engine shattered and crumbled before being sucked out into space. Graus had landed on his head, breaking his neck upon impact, taking his life. Linnex had been slammed hard into the wall, with one of the pips pushed directly into the front of his face, making his skull and brains crumble.
Syakotus and Korde, followed by the rest of Korde's squad, climbed back up the Thunderhawk ramp. They turned to bear witness to the backdraft of flames consuming the landing bay before disappearing, only to return just as quick.
"Close the hatch. Gillis, get us out of here - double speed," Syakotus yelled, pulling Frieh into the Thunderhawk.
With that the ramp was up and the Thunderhawk tilted forwards from the violent gush of wind from the oncoming flames that by now had engulfed the bay. With a loud bang from the ignition of the aft thrusters they were away in time to see what was left of the Inquisitorial frigate burst into another ball of flames. The explosion had damaged one of the aft thrusters, blowing it away from the Thunderhawk, pushing the whole craft hurtling forwards into the atmosphere of Proticou.
"Captain, I've lost all control. Brace yourselves. We're going in for a crash," Gillis blurted out.
Syakotus sighed whilst sitting into the co-pilot's seat, then engaging the comm in his throat: "Grailin, follow us, we're going in for a crash landing on Proticou."
Grailin pressed both of his crimson hands tightly across the back of Jinn's seat, trying to make out from a distance the incoming ships that had destroyed the battle cruiser. The closer they came, the more like half moons they looked. Just making out their features, Grailin noticed the all had golden coloured Pyramids atop.
Lenthos turned to look for himself. "I know them," he said softly, with a tiered tone to his voice.
Simultaneously, both Lenthos and Grailin said: "Necrons."
Hive World Terra