A Squelch of Empires (crossover)

[fractalsponge1]

Oh Shi-[message terminated at source.]

I second that. Lennart better get those Gellar field generators right the hell now, or there's going to be hell to pay

I eagerly await the next update

[fusion]

Oh Shi-[message terminated at source.]

I second that. Lennart better get those Gellar field generators right the hell now, or there's going to be hell to pay

I eagerly await the next update

I thrid that...
This chapter had much much better flow than the last chapter and the spacing and pacing is much more enjoyable also.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Fractalsponge, I think that 'or' may be entirely superfluous- borrowing a couple of guard regiments, ideally those with chaos- fighting experience, might be closer to the mark. Gellar fields don't help much after posesssion has taken place, after all.

It's mallet time again; not for the story, for me- the old saw about how every artist should have someone with a mallet standing behind them to stop them when they're finished. Strangely, it seems to be that the faster I type it up, the smoother it flows.

Probably my worst literary quirk is that I tend to write 'over the shoulder' of some of the characters- whoever is in focus at that time, the narration tends to take on a shade of their viewpoint and beliefs, and there could hardly be a less reliable narrator than a quartet of senior minions of the powers of Chaos.

it's probably not going to be as easy for them as they think it is; strategically, they're right, there are extremely few minds that Chaos could not devour if the powers stopped squabbling among themselves long enough to make it happen- but tactically, it's a more open game.

Oh, and Raesene, that suggestion was rejected, alas. Probably just as well for the Empire.

[Raptor_Pilot]

Greetings!

I just read the update, this is very good work. I must admit, the primary reason I check out the fanfic archive is to read your work ECR.
I think I'll need to go back to chapter one and read foward again to catch everything.

I look foward to an update soon.

- Raptor Pilot

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Short update again, the second half of ch 17, the initial contact with the orks.

Ch 17b;

Some days, Aron thought, the rancor gets you, and some days you get the rancor. Squadron Leader Jandras was having fun; he dimly understood that the things they were strafing made enormous use of the powers of the warp as a substitute for technical competence, and was deliberately playing on that.

In a species reliant on the powers of the mind- if that wasn’t overstating the case, not the reliance but that they had what could properly be called minds- then if the old saying was true, that surprise existed in the mind of the enemy…

It might have been mythically easy for them to strike down incoming fighters, they might have had what indeed amounted to Zen Aim- although Aron was beginning to realise they really didn’t- but a black streak against a black sky, moving faster than the eye could follow or the brain comprehend, how could they cope with that?


Not that it really stopped them trying, Aron grumbled. It wasn’t a new item on the resume, not the first time he had multi-teraton ship killers directed against him in person, but it had been hairier than a Wookie’s U- bend the other time as well.

He, the rest of Gamma and all of Delta squadrons, both in the new wing layout Hunter squadrons, were playing bait the large green angry thing. It was not a game without it’s hazards, although he thought he had the hang of it now.

The fungi had quickly got tired of being strafed, with green light yet, and had replied with what they obviously considered to be point defence- a magnificent fireworks show, so much so that the TIE pilots had started trying to get particular effects out of them.

Fly over that cluster, they do nice plasma, zig-zag to there, round the boring bit with the kinetics, see if you can get those strange ribbons of energy to form a knot, that ship has interesting missiles that are worth a look, what’s that, multicoloured tracer?

Apart from the damage, negligible at this stage, the space mushrooms had quickly realised that they were also being mocked. They resorted to lobbing everything they had at the zooming, twisting Imperial fighters, main guns and all.


The flag’s main sensors could see this, but the view was better from up close; when he started the telemetry, he had been told

‘Excellent, we’re getting a really good look at their armament layouts- are you sure you’re drawing maximum response from them, that they’re holding nothing back? Provoke them a bit more.’

So, that was what he was doing at the moment. The Hunter’s cockpit ball was only slightly larger than the /ln’s, and much more cramped; if he stretched out to his full extent- pretended to be Art Studies Man- he would be touching a missile magazine with each foot, a launcher with each hand.

Well, perhaps not; there was some structure in the way and he wasn’t the tallest of pilots. The launcher and magazine used to be the other way round, but launcher next to heavy fighter laser had led to a few unfortunate heat and sequencing incidents.

Six torpedoes, most of the squadron still had all of theirs- there had been a couple lobbed at ork fighter- bombers, huge bloody fire- spitting things that looked as if they deserved a torpedo. They were the size and tonnage of a corvette.


On the other hand, they weren’t nearly as robust. The only losses the Imperial fighters had taken were from debris- Delta Seven had snapshot from too close a range, flown through the debris cloud and hit something like a main engine head on.

Gamma Five had been forced to do almost the same thing, and he had hit the ejecting pilot, it had taken most of his shielding off- he said that the bloody thing had lived for at least a couple of seconds after impact, and tried to smash through his cockpit with an axe before it realised it ought to be dead. As absurd as that was, it was no more so than the craft it had ejected from in the first place.

Avoiding them was the main issue. The blankets of fire the big ships were laying down were gargantuan, but they were unbelievably full of holes- wide, wild, scattered, mostly missiles or tube launched missiles that could be seen coming seconds, even minutes away. They had even tried launching torpedoes, quickly labelled “Frangible Target Drone, Large.”


As for what a pair of fighter/light attack squadrons could do to them- this strafe was as much about testing signal interpretation software as anything else, most of it patched together from data stolen from the locals.

If my sensors are telling me the truth, Aron thought, their ship’s shields are different from ours, and from the locals’; a sort of energy wall that absorbed the hits, was weakened by them, regenerated slowly- it would take a lot of pounding to bring down, but once down would stay that way much longer than the made-of-rubber local void shields.

The hulls looked like something that had come out of someone’s garden shed. Insofar as they had been designed at all, they behaved as if they were built for a quick fight, charge to close quarters, lay down a massive blanket of fire, go in hard and nasty and hope to kill before they were killed.

They didn’t manoeuvre all that well, and Aron wondered how practical that really was- even what they had seen from the downloads of what the locals were capable of, fight a dancing, fencing style of fight, keep the range open and it should be easy.

Still, there were a lot of them, and they were huge- their smallest ships were about a kilometre long. One hundred and thirty Standard B torpedoes might kill a Dreadnaught medium frigate- if it’s point defence gunners were all down with the ‘flu. At any probable hit rate, it wasn’t going to be a kill.


Still, they at least ought to try to blow something up. What? The least covered ships were the biggest, at the stern of the formation. They were also battleship class, and unless they were made of cast iron, not fragile enough to be seriously damaged. They were primitive, but not that primitive.

The mobilised asteroids, gargantuan with bits of ship sticking out or more moderately sized- there was just too much of them, and they had the thickest screen of defending fighters. Not insoluble, but likely to result in losses more than a probing attack was worth.

That left the medium sized ships, medium? They were enormous. They were probably too big as well- a bomber wing might have enough torps to take them, but not their light strike fighters. By a process of elimination, that left the bowl of destroyer sized ships that was at the front of their formation. Where everything behind them could cover.

Glorious. For a moment common sense pervaded him, and he thought edge of the formation, one with the least escort and opportunities for mutual support, snap up a straggler. Then he decided, the hell with it. If these people live or die by mind games, I’ll damn’ well give them mind games.

Right smack bang in the centre of the formation, in the best mutual fire cover of the whole fleet, there was a ship painted in zig-zag red stripes over carbon- blackening and bare metal, that actually looked not unlike a kilometre long fighter- albeit one built out of large metal bricks.

Aron wasn’t exactly the galaxy’s most aesthetically sensitive being, but even he recognised that it looked hideous. Better yet, it was an amazingly easy target to lock on to, and those sharp angles should break apart nicely.


It was a very bad idea, on the face of it; but the whole point was that it ran so badly counter to sense- we’re going to reach into the sarlacc’s mouth, carve our name on it’s tongue with a rusty knife, and climb out again, he thought, just to show that we can.

Scare the crap out of them, make them fear us, make them think that we can do the impossible. Let’s see how well this confidence field of theirs works after that.

The ship itself resembled a bulldog’s head grafted onto a giant suppository, an image that took him back to basic training; it didn’t seem to have any rear firepower at all, it would rely on it’s friends, if there were such things, to shoot the fighters off it’s back.

Actually, given the way they shoot, Aron thought, we’re trailing a cone of fire behind us that we can make use of. Their fire discipline doesn’t exactly impress so far- would they make any effort at all to avoid raking a friendly? If not, and I think they wouldn’t…this could get entertaining.


‘Squadron, disengage and form up on me- yes, nine, that means you, you can kill them later. You know where I am, shift your backside. No point throwing these people a diversion, they’d take hours to react to it, we’re going in.

Basic plan is an S- shaped course, swoop down, tangent along the plane of the body of their fleet, see if they understand the concept of friendly fire, loose all torpedoes at my marked target.’ Aron designated the Slaughter attack ship he had chosen to go for, marking it for the rest of both squadrons.

We’ll be doing this under thrust, let’s make their eyes water- and don’t forget fire discipline. We go in at three thousand, closest to target fires first, empties the launchers and then accelerates out at full thrust. Ready? Loose order, follow me.’

He set the throttle to three thousand ‘g’, adding thirty kilometres per second to his speed every second- never mind enemy targeting, the wash of blind fire scared the crap out of him. It felt like he was flying over Coruscant at night, this sea of lights stretched out below him- except they were moving.


‘Keep your eyes open for old shot, their missiles run slow and they run long, there’s a lot of dead metal still in the air. Watch for constant bearings.’ Aron said, trying to reassure them without making them worry- being a squadron leader was harder work than it looked.

He had thought that it would be fun, being the leader of the gang on one hand and on the other having the rate to spin, finagle and horse trade- it didn’t work out that way, he had to play the part of surrogate parent and guardian for the crazed bastards.

He knew their stomachs would be churning as badly as his, if not worse, but it had to be somebody’s job to spread a layer of calm and tranquillity over them and tell them bedtime stories when they were feeling fragile, or play the part of Boss Looney and lead the berserk homicidal death charge. Frequently within a heartbeat of one another.

He wondered how Group Captain Olleyri had stood it for so long- he had certainly felt it too. ‘The problem with transcending human frailty and being like unto a god,’ he had said half joking, ‘is that nobody can keep it up forever- and when you have to stop, the comedown is a bastard.’

They were talking over beer, of course, the only way either of them could feel comfortable discussing such things. He somehow doubted the aliens had the same problem.


Then there was the Force. There was transcending human frailty, if you liked, and he was finding increasingly that he didn’t. Bollocks to Starfighter Academies and university- level education; Aron was a street kid at heart, and felt happiest running with the pack- even in all their mad, unsynchronised mood swings, killer to potential victim and back again.

That was better than being permanently out of synch with all of them. It just wasn’t possible to do that, with the dark side or the light. He was starting to understand the Commodore’s odder eccentricities now; the ebb and flow of the force, embracing and rejecting it by turns, wrestling to use it without it using him. More power to him, if he could manage that.

He had done some reading up, and while there had been a lot of things destroyed or hidden, it was amazing just how much wasn’t classified- or had been improperly declassified, more likely on Black Prince.

The long, long history of the twilight wars of jedi and sith, that really wasn’t supposed to be widely known, had never been really publicised; but between the active evil of the sith and the paralysis imposed by the jedi- was it even possible to have the force and to be sane, by normal human standards?

Aron suspected not. If he was right, no wonder so many of the Jedi had been crack fighter pilots. Except the problem was that they hadn’t seemed to enjoy it much- and doing something as stupidly dangerous as this without even the compensation of getting a thrill out of it, that was really nuts.


There were a few orks in the way; they barely seemed to be able to sense them, and they were absolutely pathetic at electronic warfare- there was a wedge of sitting ducks in the way. ‘Long shots, pick your targets and…fire.’

Aron opened up with laser and ion on the leader of the confused gaggle, bumbling about trying to catch sight of them; it felt somehow wrong, to be able to do this much damage that fast to that size of target. Then again, if it counted as a kill- a two second burst later, and it did.

The thing’s turrets had snapped off a few shots, some kind of rocket bullet, but they were wide and wild- he looked for another target, found only one left intact enough to be worth a squirt, applied it, but three other pilots had done the same. The ten craft of the ork shamble were wiped out in less than five seconds.

‘Now they know where we are, so they’ll start shooting at us again. Good. Any other targets of opportunity, give them a squirt, we want to encourage as much friendly fire as we can.’ Aron reminded them, leading them onwards, past the debris.


There was no warning of their fire; their targeting seemed to be almost entirely passive. Aron suspected most of it was naked eye. Made it much harder to dodge on ESM cues, but then again, they couldn’t hit a damn’ thing outside point blank.

Some of them- the big orksteroids right at the rear of the formation- did actually have meaningfully heavy lightspeed weapons. They tried using them, too. Some of them even had the wit to try to lead their target, even if they were firing essentially blind. They shot well ahead of the blue-green streaks, and-

‘Ah, crap. Change of target.’ Aron decided, as the destroyer-sized ship he had originally been planning to torpedo was caught in a wave of light and started to burn, secondary explosions wracking the structure.

What would the response be? Embarrassed pause? Errant gunners launched out of torpedo tubes? Or something along the lines of "I never liked them anyway, keep firing"? For the time being, a pause- some slowing down in the fire, anyway. Still millions, tens of millions of spent rockets and missiles floating ballistically on.


Aron pulled the smooth, scything curve short, going for the original target’s squadronmate, which either couldn’t read a course projection or just didn’t believe what it saw. It was unbelievably slow to react. Just before closest approach, it took the only effective evasive action that it could- went on to overload thrust.

The proverbial- actually, in this case literal- Big Red Button had been pushed. Not that it would be of much use- they were well within the no escape zone. Something that slow moving couldn’t outrun a proton torpedo.

The erratic gusts of plasma lashing out of the back end of the frankenship were probably the most effective area defence weapon they could have; Gamma’s fire wasn’t coordinated, no time on target, and as they reached out some of the leading torps were caught and melted in the engine wash.

The lack of electronic warfare meant the torpedoes could do all sorts of things that were not normally possible. Such as waypoint approach courses that took them out on the flanks of the ship, away from the flare.

The wave of torpedoes flashed out, flanked the attack ship making it look as if it was trailing ribbons of light. There were a handful of fire streaks, point defence missiles being launched- and missing.

Aron was expecting to blow off an engine, at most split the side of the ship open and leave it burning. He watched the individual torpedo impacts, feeling the mental radiation off the target, fascinated as the confidence field that was holding the ship together ebbed and flowed against the hammerblows of real damage.


The first couple of real hits were almost more destructive than he was expecting; shock and surprise had their effect. The next handful left smaller and smaller fireballs as the greenskins reacted, refusing to die- but there was a tipping point as so much of the ship was already being swept by concussion waves and heat.

The confidence field had to give, too much real damage and too many casualties- the last handful of torpedoes drew increasing results, more and more destructive, biting deeper and deeper as the greenskins panicked and died.

They did rally, at the last; they recovered their poise, started thinking that they were alive- there was such an invincible stupidity there, we iz da last wunz’ standin’, we iz really ‘ard, let’z kill sumfin’- they didn’t think, didn’t analyse, made no real attempts at damage control, it was just the brute fact of life and death.

Actually, they were wrong. The attack ship carried far too much in the way of ordnance, shells and missiles, which had far too much heat dumped into them for their miserable concept of secure storage to withstand. The Ravager burst apart in a sequence of secondary detonations.


Aron wasn’t really expecting that; for half a second there he had been empathising with the orks, willing them to live, caught in their influence field. He looked back at the blast, dazed and astonished, for long enough that any half- hatched rebel could have nailed him easily. The greenskins weren’t that good.

‘Flight control, gamma one. Ordnance check.’ He called in, pulling himself together.

‘Gamma One, this is Flight Control. We have you as loaded out with medium Standard B torpedoes.’ Flight control replied, slightly confused as to why he was asking.

‘Black Prince Actual,’ Aron commed the Commodore, making a deliberate effort to be confident and upbeat, ‘this is Gamma One. I think we’ve just encountered the first race to use Baradium as a structural material.’

‘Good.’ Lennart said. Something else that was less of a problem than he had thought. Not that the next problem was likely to be as easy. ‘Disengage and microjump back here now, because we are getting telemetry from the probes of a major Starfleet task force coming through the wormhole, and the local mind control society met it head on.’

[Kartr_Kana]

WooHOO!! Another update already!

If that's what a squadron of starfighters can do what's going to happen when the Black Prince, never mind the Bellators open up?

Speaking of the Bellators this could get really messy really really, really fast if Chaos can take control of them/subvert their crews. Good by Imperium and the God-Emperor.

Question... What would a space troopers mini-proton do to a Daemon? Or perhaps one of those composite lasers my Character was contemplating in Arc the First?

Anyways great chapter once again ECR, keep them coming cause we just can't get enough.

[LadyTevar]

To an Ork, all shots fired are Friendly Fire.

Either way, I was giggling like mad, especially at this image:

Fly over that cluster, they do nice plasma, zig-zag to there, round the boring bit with the kinetics, see if you can get those strange ribbons of energy to form a knot, that ship has interesting missiles that are worth a look, what’s that, multicoloured tracer?

Gods, that needs someone to draw it up, in technocolor.

[Count Chocula]

ECR, your idea of a short update makes most of the authors on FanFiction.net look like pikers! Fabulous as always, with a continued 40k depth of knowledge that startles me every time.

By the way, do you sometimes channel James Joyce? Your multiple perspectives and stream of consciousness remind me of Finnegan's Wake and especially, Ulysses, yet you make it all make sense. I anticipate your story updates on the same level as Stuart's fiction and fractalsponge's fantastic art. Congrats again.

[Simon_Jester]

It might have been mythically easy for them to strike down incoming fighters, they might have had what indeed amounted to Zen Aim- although Aron was beginning to realise they really didn’t

Indeed, there are few entities in the multiverse whose aim is less Zen than that of Warhammer 40000 orks.

It was a very bad idea, on the face of it; but the whole point was that it ran so badly counter to sense- we’re going to reach into the sarlacc’s mouth, carve our name on it’s tongue with a rusty knife, and climb out again, he thought, just to show that we can.

Scare the crap out of them, make them fear us, make them think that we can do the impossible. Let’s see how well this confidence field of theirs works after that.

Recommended listening for this update: "Dogs of War," by Dos Gringos. Alternatively, "Gunz," by the same band.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Well, first, thank you all, but specifically-

Chocula, don't tell Stuart you said that; I don't live all that far away from Britain's largest counterforce target... ( )

Kartr, when it comes to daemonic damage tolerance, we're really into the realms of obeying the laws of magic here- affinity, sympathy, contagion, all that jazz. The physics are often highly peculiar, and a good blanket answer is 'a hell of a lot more than they have any right to', with a lot of peculiar resiliences and vulnerabilities. (Not greatly helped by GW's rules changes over the years. I'm harking back to the original Realms of Chaos books, if you're wondering. I find them the best written and most genuinely wierd.)

Disrupting a daemon and sending it back to the warp, a sufficient weight of fire can do that, and proton heads certainly fall into that category. Their wierdness is the real threat, and it may come down to who gets who first, and with what.
Disrupting one badly enough that it spends centuries having to rebuild itself in the Warp, or sundering it so badly it can't reform at all and is permanently destroyed, that's Grey Knight work, Malleus work- you need to beat them on their own terms for that.

We'll see how much good a handful of force users with shiny sticks can do.

[Coop]

My dearest Remnant, I must congratulate you. By sheer luck I was linked to this thread, and in the span of a couple of days have read your work. I don't normally read fanfiction (never, to be honest about it) but yours has caught me. While my knowledge of both sources is scarce (all I know from SW comes from the movies, all I know from WH40K comes from Dawn of War) the story is simply amazing; I like it so much that, as an alternative to waiting for an update, I'm buying the Ciaphas Cain books hoping that your representation of the character fits properly to the official one.

Just wanted to say: Congratulations on your work.

[Simon_Jester]

My dearest Remnant, I must congratulate you. By sheer luck I was linked to this thread, and in the span of a couple of days have read your work. I don't normally read fanfiction (never, to be honest about it) but yours has caught me. While my knowledge of both sources is scarce (all I know from SW comes from the movies, all I know from WH40K comes from Dawn of War) the story is simply amazing; I like it so much that, as an alternative to waiting for an update, I'm buying the Ciaphas Cain books hoping that your representation of the character fits properly to the official one.

It does, and I'll assure anyone who's listening.

[Coop]

Splendid.

A quick question to Remnant (or whoever may answer, actually): Cain and his immediate co-stars (his aide, the female Inquisitor) are characters from a book, that much I get, but on the (Galactic) Imperial side, are Lennart and his colleagues original characters created by yourself or are they also "borrowed" from another source?

[Simon_Jester]

As best as I can determine they are purely a product of Eleventh Century Remnant's mind, which just goes to prove that ECR has a really cool mind.

Though I'm considering trying to put them together if I ever decide to collect Space Marines. I think you could get their actual order of battle laid out well enough using Codex Marines, even if you couldn't represent their more... unusual weapon loadouts.

[Singular Quartet]

Splendid.

A quick question to Remnant (or whoever may answer, actually): Cain and his immediate co-stars (his aide, the female Inquisitor) are characters from a book, that much I get, but on the (Galactic) Imperial side, are Lennart and his colleagues original characters created by yourself or are they also "borrowed" from another source?

They are from ECR's earlier fanfic Hull 721. He also has a direct continuation of that in Hull 721 plot arc the second. This takes place after both, I believe.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I didn't reply directly because I was trying to get a new chapter up today, before a weekend in the rain swept wilderness that is Largs; we're doing the Viking Festival. The chapter is about ninety percent done but I'm taking time out from packing now, chances are it'll be finished late sunday, my time.

First of all, thank you, but Simon, seriously. I'm going to have to rip the lining out of my helmet at this rate so I can still fit it on my swollen head.

SQ, yes, that is the way it is, and how the hell I'm going to bridge the gap from the confident, aggressive, upbeat Jorian Lennart here to the gloomy, hunted, corroding man of arc the second is going to be an interesting challenge. I'm looking forward to figuring out how I'm going to do it.

The Lions of Caledon are a very strange bunch; they're about as Codex orthodox as the Luna Wolves, to put it bluntly. They have eighteen line companies, because they make such heavy use of variant vehicles- Helios, Hunter, Razorback. A company consists, practically speaking, of ten half- squads, or full squads split between two transports, Lowland (quasi- Devastator) and Highland (full calibre bolters plus assault weaponry) and possibly a Borderer (bike/jetbike/landspeeder) squad.

Strictly speaking, they do actually have about a thousand front line battle brothers. However, the amount of metal they bring with them- the armour and artillery that deploy with the combined arms section of the company, and the space and aerospace lift all that lot requires, means that the biological total, of full grown brothers not necessarily serving on the front lines, when you add all the techmarines and other specialists in, comes to about fifty-five hundred.

Eating inquisitors; it's not a gourmet choice, it's a survival mechanism.

[Vehrec]

On the subject of the Lions, I'm surprised they don't use more of their serfs for that-they already us a lot of them in the fleets, so why not use them as drivers, pilots or at the very least maintenance crew? Their unique squads on the other hand, are very nice. I take it that Highlander squads actually have to switch between close combat weapons and guns as opposed to traditional Assault marines, and that the lowlands are only quasi-devastator in that they might fill out numbers with bolter wielding ammo carriers. Both perfectly acceptable alternatives, but not exactly Codex Approved. It would be quite ironic if when you twisted their arms, they'd finally admit to being an Ultramarine descendant chapter-just one that has come a long long way.

[Simon_Jester]

And that the lowlands are only quasi-devastator in that they might fill out numbers with bolter wielding ammo carriers...

A Devastator squad armed with bolters along with the heavy weapons is Codex-compliant as far as I know. Certainly that's a very available option for the tabletop game.

On the subject of the Lions, I'm surprised they don't use more of their serfs for that-they already us a lot of them in the fleets, so why not use them as drivers, pilots or at the very least maintenance crew?

Space Marines generally don't trust non-Marines with responsible positions in combat. For rear echelon work they can, but remember that if they want effective technical staff they need people trained by the Adeptus Mechanicus, directly or indirectly. Techmarines, if possible.

It would be quite ironic if when you twisted their arms, they'd finally admit to being an Ultramarine descendant chapter-just one that has come a long long way.

Heh. I kind of doubt it, but I wonder which Primarch they would be descended from?

[fractalsponge1]

They sound physically normal, and don't have a lot of the very obvious psychological or cultural tics of the other successor chapters - which pretty much rules out most of the primarchs besides Guilliman and Dorn. Though their thinking seem so completely out of the box they could be based off of any primarch that didn't leave dramatic and obvious physical changes to anyone with their gene-seed.

I will also second the assessment of the characterization of Cain. I've read all the Cain books except the in universe chronologically last one, and it's spot on, imo. I also like that the Tanith finally get a world in this fic (Caffran's a nice touch).

[Simon_Jester]

Do we have any instance of descendants of the weirder chapters who don't share those chapter's abnormalities?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Finally; that 'ninety percent' turned out to be closer to seventy percent, either that or being away from it for a while caused a number of rewrites to occur. I really ought to be more of a Space Wolves fan at this rate, but they're just a bit too OTT on the whole norse thing- and remind me to tell you about the Sacred Toe- Bone of Saint Humungo at some point. (nothing to do with 40K, part of the weekend.)

I'll ramble more about the Lions in some subsequent post, but it's close to 4 AM here, so I'll just post this for now.


A Squelch of Empires ch 18

‘All right, Shandon, talk me through this.’ Lennart said to his chief sensor officer. They were watching the condensed record of the incident, fighters dancing and weaving through the orkish formation, the wave on wave of rockets and rocket boosted shells reaching out.

‘Their firing power,’ Rythanor admitted, ‘is good. Their hitting power is execrable. There are some active radio frequency scanners, probably passive radio and thermal, but if they’re connected to anything more sophisticated than a pen and paper plot, then I’ll eat one. Their fire control is steam age stuff- at best.

I’ll let Ob go on about their weapons, their drives look like a cruder version of the local magnetoplasmadynamic, which should have made that a foregone conclusion, but- basically, they’re idiots. Not something you can normally tell from a long range sensor scan, but in this case I think it’s pretty damned obvious.

They have nothing remotely equivalent to IFF, except the paint job; their power outputs vary widely- two ships shut their weapon systems down when they ceased acceleration, somebody doesn’t understand the difference between drifting stations and running silent- and closed down the power plant as well as the engines.

Speaking of which, the number of drive instabilities, radiation and magnetic flux spikes, accidents and near accidents- when one of those strange attractors swings by, ask it who’s responsible for this shower, because their continued existence as a spacegoing people can be nothing less than an act of god.’ Rythanor said, perjoratively.

‘Closer to the truth than you know.’ Lennart said, feeling the dim, incoherent shadow of orky pressure in his head. ‘Can they achieve anything meaningful in the next, oh, two days? Ob?’


Obral Wathavrah, commander of the best gunnery department in two universes, considered the problem for about half a second. ‘Force notwithstanding, in theory yes. They have ballistic weapons of unlimited reach, and they clearly do not understand the concept of conserving ammo.

In practise, their shot velocity is so low their effective range is absurdly small. If lasers had never been invented for some arcane reason, if the development of conventional slugthrowers had gone on for another hundred thousand years, the result would look something like their armament fit.

Made even more inexplicable by the fact they actually have lasers. Light weapons scattered throughout their defence fit, but not of meaningful antiship weight except on the big asteroids. There are some magnetic drivers in there, some extremely exotic small energy weapons that were probably stolen, but…in theory yes, in practise no.’ He ended up admitting.

‘Right. Shandon, get me the Imperium flagship.’


From Commissar Cain’s Diaries;

We finally wrestled the little thing to ground, and I had vaulted out and pulled Jurgen after me; a cloud of Mechanicus and servitors descended on the thing before it had finished cooling, not a figure of speech judging by the scream as one of them stuck his head in an engine vent, and an honour guard squad whisked me off to the bridge before I had finished shaking.

I was starting to hate the sight of conference rooms, but just this once remembered not to tempt destiny by wishing for a chance of action, not even in mock, or in defence of my reputation. Not that I expected it to matter.

They were all there again, Canoness Palmyra glaring at me as if I’d let Jurgen loose on her roses, Ruaridh sitting on a side table- too big to fit any of the chairs- and looking deeply worried, although not as badly as the Admiral.

I had had half an hour, between flying lesson and crashing practise, to think about what had happened, what I thought was really going on, what ought to happen about it, and what I could do to try to make that happen.


Ruaridh robbed me of the opportunity to make an entrance, challenging me before I was fully in the room even. ‘Whit’s happened tae ma’ bra’ers, where’s ra honour guard?’

‘Alive the last time I saw them, and still on board. I thought the xenos commodore was unusually forgiving, considering the size of the bomb.’ I said, and judging from the glares directed at the big Marine by the rest of the assembly, I could see I was on to something.

‘It wis’ yer ain idea, mon.’ Ruaridh reminded me. ‘D’ye no’ recall comin’ up wi’ the plan, get in close, get inside if we kin, an’ take them face tae face?’

‘Suicide nuclear demolition wasn’t part of it, believe me.’ I said, and he had the good grace to admit that. ‘It was probably only the sheer ridiculousness of it that stopped us all getting shot or squashed. I crossed swords with the xenos commodore’s honour guard, but they used their ship’s environment control systems against us.’


‘Why, the canoness challenged me, ‘did you not fight until you were dead? They are xenos and therefore enemies of the Imperium, heretics and therefore enemies of the Imperium.’ She said with such lucid block- headedness I couldn’t quite manage to keep my temper.

‘Service to the Imperium consists of more than merely inviting death.’ I informed her, not that I really expected to penetrate that wall of ignorance. Or thought it was wise to attempt, except under circumstances such as these. ‘Any idiot can manage that. As far as I was concerned I was there as an intelligence officer, to observe and report.

‘I can tell you that the commander of the reconnaissance force, which took the Tyranids apart for us and just made the Orks look even more stupid and brutal than usual, is definitely playing his own game.’


There were exclamations and looks of surprise around the table. ‘Rogue traader, then?’ Ruaridh asked.

‘No, but about the closest equivalent in regular service. Discipline on board, the atmosphere-‘ I wondered how best to describe it, from what little I’d seen of it. ‘they’re not a conventional unit. Specially chosen for the job, and very idiosyncratic. Their commodore was of the opinion that a full scale war would be a disaster for both sides.

He thought they could win- which is nonsense of course-‘ I added that last bit specifically for the audience- ‘but that it would resemble a man with a vibroblade trying to carve an endless line of saurians.

Their sense of time is different from ours; they have far fewer, far faster ships, they would have to be in so many places at once- defeating the armed forces of the Imperium would stretch them to their limit. Defending their stolen worlds against the enemies of the Imperium, on top of that- they would need more time than they think in.’

Well, I was glossing a little with that last part. No doubt behind the forward force somewhere were fools that thought it could be done in the twinkling of an eye- and some of the madder strategic possibilities could be unleashed in that time.

‘What kind of political pressure there is behind him, I can only guess at- he’s too loyal to his own side to show me all their flaws and faults- but from other cues, they have their own orthodoxy. Which he happens to be significantly out of step with.’ I pointed out.


‘Ur ye suggestin’,’ Ruaridh grasped the idea, ‘we kin somehow make use o’ him fur wur ain purposes? Separaate him frae the rest an’ feed him shite data, steer them wrang through him, or ur they a’ready in too deep fur that?’

‘Never. He is too deep dyed in heresy to ever be of any use to the Imperium, save as a thing it is honourable to vanquish.’ Canoness Palmyra stated. Somewhere behind the mask of fealty, there must be a real person who can still count and estimate odds and figure military probability, and she must be screaming in terror about now, I thought.

No, it was unlikely. She was far too senior for that, any flicker of caution and common sense had been buried under the weight of devotion long ago.

‘Simulation engines, datastructures non-checksum- they grep sysop access, subtotal data volume prime.’ The Legate stated, to baffled looks from all of us, except Admiral Stone who guessed


‘That means yes, you believe they are in too deep and have found out too much.’

‘They are alien- perhaps so much so that what seems most normal to us would be horrifyingly bizarre to them.’ I pointed out, the seeds of an idea starting to form. ‘Lies could be pointless- the truth could scare and deter much more profoundly. Show them a hive, a full top to bottom tour.

As much as I hate to seem to step back from our own responsibility, the stalwart devotion of the ordinary citizens of the Imperium might be a better defence than professional warriors.’ I said- probably overacting, most of the people here were realists, if not outright cynics, the Canoness the only real exception.

‘We are obliging enough to stand up and shoot back, we’re an obstacle they can face head on, a wall; show them a morass, the common people and the common life of the Imperium, and I think they would realise they cannot conceivably win any kind of peace.’

Well, it got a laugh- chiefly from Ruaridh, who realised perfectly well that could be taken two ways- but it was also fundamentally true. It would probably have exactly the opposite effect on the recon force commodore, but confronted with the devoted and unwashed masses of the Imperium, anyone who could still think at all would think twice. Which ruled Orks and Chaos out, unfortunately.


‘As a strategy for dealing with the alien, that might be feasible.’ Stone said, without enthusiasm, ‘but the primary problem is the survivors from the main body of the fleet. As far as they are concerned-‘

The door opened, and a nervous- looking junior officer, holding a dataslate as if it was about to bite him, stick his head around the door. ‘Admiral? An incoming- the xenos are asking for you, personally.’

‘As expected.’ He said calmly, for the benefit of the young lieutenant, knowing the story would spread. He plugged the dataslate into the main hololith, but apparently the transmission was voice only.


‘Admiral Stone, this is Commodore Lennart. I’d like your help to sabotage my government’s attempt to declare war.’

Give him his due, he knew how to pronounce an opening line. That got all our attention. Stone was fairly severely boggled by that- as were we all- but he was the first to respond, stating ‘I appreciate your concern for the diplomatic niceties- but I was under the impression that we were at the moment in a state of armistice, in an already existing war.’

I came close to screaming at him over that, only really stopped by the fact that I could see what was left of his skin behind the augmetics twitch, making it obvious that he was almost as horrified as I was by what he was saying, but had no official choice but to say it.


‘Do you really want me to see what kind of counteroffer I can get out of the Orks?’ Lennart bounced back. ‘Never mind the already quite acceptable package the Eldar have on the table. Would you really be more comfortable with a galaxy spanning alien empire as enemies rather than associates?’

‘Yes, and do your worst.’ Palmyra said, over Stone’s demurral, Ruaridh saying something about short exciting lives, my comment about placing trust in the Eldar, and the legate’s prayers to the Omnissiah not to turn away now.

‘You haven’t explained to her about the balloons yet, have you Commissar?’ Lennart asked me specifically. ‘I would have thought that “By the way, we’re dealing with a man who claims to be able to puncture the universe” would have come fairly high on the agenda…’


‘I was working up to that.’ I said. ‘What specifically do you mean, declaration of war?’

‘A heavy formation just came through the wormhole, four hundred and first battle cruiser squadron. If they were supposed to liaise with deep field, they never got around to it- the chaos battle group incoming diverted to attack them instead.’ Lennart stated.

‘Given that those ships were sent here as the beginning of an offensive, their destruction would seem to be no bad thing from the Imperium’s point of view.’ Stone pointed out. ‘Unless that is the sabotage you have in mind-‘

‘It might actually come to that.’ Lennart admitted. ‘If this was gun to gun, I wouldn’t be worried, but I don’t think it is. We’re in long range comms and sensor contact with the 401st, and they’re drifting out of formation and spouting mostly random gibberish- I’m not convinced that would constitute a good thing from the Imperium’s point of view.’


‘We suffered heavy losses in your space, yes? Men I have known and worked with for centuries, ships that have served the Imperium of Man for millennia. Avenging them would certainly constitute a good.’ Stone said, and at least part of him was trying to disown the words coming out of his mouth.

‘Yes, there have been clashes, I trust the commissar has explained to you my position on that subject?’ Lennart countered. ‘In your position I know I would feel the same- and trust I would have more self discipline than to act on it, because taking vengeance now would be a sure road to escalation.

We can worry about guilt and reparations later; now, there is going to be more shooting, there will be more losses for you and for us, more broken ships, broken men and with Chaos involved, broken minds unless we come to some kind of solution.

Whatever combination of political imperatives lured the four hundred and first through the wormhole, I can surmise, but their loss, even to Chaos as long as it’s not directly in sight, is not necessarily going to stop more coming.

I believe this was an act of political bravado, someone trying to appease central authority by being tough on extradimensional aliens, and at this point casualties are only going to inflame that- much as it would for you, I expect.’


Admiral Stone nodded, briefly in agreement before he considered that considering the respective factions arrayed around him, he couldn’t afford not to play hardball himself. ‘It has. Most of the casualties were caused, in fact, by those very ships. Why should we not simply wish damnation upon you all?’

‘Two good reasons.’ Lennart said, unruffled. ‘First, do you really want your arch enemy taking those ships, taking the minds of the men on those ships, apart and learning from them?

Second, if they can be retaken, if I can tow a warp contaminated, half- mutated ship manned by the remains of a crew who have teetered on the edge of the abyss, back through the wormhole; if I can do that, drop it in front of the Grand Moff, and say “I told you so”, that might go a long way to changing attitudes.’


Stone was turning the situation over in his head, I could see that, wondering where duty lay. So was I, for that matter. Those big ships weren’t actually the real threat; they were brute force, and a frak of a lot of it, but they hadn’t done anything intelligent so far. If they were being jumped up and down on by chaos, rather the opposite.

The people who had run probes into the Warp, had started to do deals with the Eldar, had ravaged our machine spirits, were the reconnaissance group here, and if there was ever going to be a realistic chance of getting their own side to kill them all off for us, this might just be it.

That and I could see three ways out of this, and was wondering which of them gave me, personally, the best chance of survival. Committing to some kind of joint action- giving him the leverage he needed to turn this into a trading arrangement- seemed the best way out of a cosmic war both sides would likely lose, whoever was left standing.

Unfortunately, that would involve at some point, boarding and attempting to cleanse a chaos infested, much larger version of their ship. That seemed patently suicidal- which meant it was probably inevitable.


Telling them to go frot themselves could have unpleasant results- they’d leave us facing an ork horde that I had my doubts about whether we could take, with a chaos battlegroup nearby ready to prey on the weakened winner. And then the Galactic Empire might just come back to finish us off.

Dithering, buying time- what would that achieve? On the face of it it was an attractive option, letting things shake themselves out- but I didn’t think it would have been very well received.

Admiral Stone must have been thinking along the same lines. ‘A strategic decision like this would be required to be made in convocation, if there was any chance of it being upheld by the Adeptus Terra- it would take years, perhaps decades, to assemble a weight of authority and argue the issues through.’


‘In two days the orks will be all over you.’ Lennart pointed out. ‘We can deal with them relatively easily- you could lose the majority of your force, probably the planet, and then be rolled back across the sector.

That’s not the time limit. If I have to drag a crippled ship back through the wormhole, seared by the fires of damnation as it would be, and report that the locals did not do one bloody thing to help, then that would get you your inter- universe war.’ Lennart said, and for the first time I heard real anger in his voice.

‘The sooner we jump out to the wormhole, the better chance we have of salvaging anything. You don’t have decades, we’re out of time- this is the pressure of events, and we only have now to work with.’

Actually, he was obviously even more dangerously crazy than I had suspected. Four ships, each maybe fifty or sixty times his own weight, and touched by Chaos, and he was seriously proposing to attack and retake them? Clearly sanity was not a prerequisite for service in the Imperial Starfleet.


‘There is very little we could actually do,’ Stone said heavily, ‘even if your problems weren’t of your own making. Your wormhole has distorted the shape of the warp to the point where it would take us days to reach the mouth.’

‘We came through with two fleet tankers- the first shots fired in this whole incident hit one of them, as a matter of interest. They have retrieval rigs, we can tow maybe two cruisers through hyperspace, be there in seconds.’ Lennart said, after a glance at something off screen, probably a staff officer. ‘You still need to choose, are you willing to make that gamble?’

I looked around the table, trying not to think too hard about what precisely I wanted to happen, which was to let someone, anyone, else do the dirty work for a change.


The Legate’s metal face was hard to read, but his body language gave away impatience; there was a good chance he would volunteer the Miles Cinereus and make some sort of separate deal with the hope of leaving the rest of the Imperium out in the cold. Bloody cogboys- you can never trust them.

Ruaridh was thinking hard, I could tell. If they were ever likely to have a chance of taking one of those Galactic Empire behemoths for their own, and taking it apart, this was likely to be it. Sanity isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for the Adeptus Astartes, either.

I know I refer to them as warrior- heroes often enough in the rest of my diaries, which considering you have to be a little crazy to be a hero is entirely appropriate. Personally, I was always really just in it for the perks.


Stone glanced at me, the one who had walked among them, looking for approval or disapproval. Oh, crap, I thought. ‘Small price to pay for avoiding a much greater war.’ I said, gloomily certain of exactly who would be involved.

The canoness metaphorically exploded at that point, looked as if she was seriously considering doing so literally. ‘Admiral, stop this at once, in the name of the emperor!’ she shouted at him, stood up and levelled an accusing finger- her other hand on her bolt pistol. ‘How dare you deal with the xenos!’

Oh, frak. She was in power armour, which meant that none of us could really subdue her by any nonlethal means. She was beyond listening to reason, certainly. She drew her gun. ‘Disown this business now, or I will serve justice upon you in the name of the Master of Mankind. You are flirting with a heretic and an alien, and-‘


If it was an act of divine mercy that she keeled over about then, it was an extraordinarily well disguised one, coming as it did in the shape of Jurgen hitting her- on my nod- across the back of the head with the butt of his lasgun. She collapsed across the hololith, cracking the surface of it- which might improve it’s performance.

‘Ah suppose we’re at war wi’ the Ecclesiarchy.’ Ruaridh pointed out, entirely unruffled by the collapsing nun. ‘Ah, weel, ah’ve ne’er worshippit’ an eccles in mah life an’ ah dinnae’ intend tae staurt noo. Ah suppose we micht be able tae say, she had a kind o’ a seizure, an’ had tae be rushed tae’ a medicae?’

‘Probable/plausible factual concordance.’ Wu Y’leh said. For some inexplicable reason, I mean, he had seemed relatively normal earlier and capable of perfectly comprehensible gothic, then I noticed that several parts of the complex of metal pieces that made up his head and torso were looking much shinier. New augmetics, or refurbished ones.

In other words, yes. Two of the Astartes came into the chamber, picked the Canoness up, carried her out. ‘How long are you going to hold on to her?’ I asked, wondering if they could afford to let her live at all.


‘Until she develops somethin’ in the way o’ common sense, an’ maaybe a wee touch o’ survival instinct. Pro’bly a millennium or twa. Whit’ worries me is that, tae dae onythin’ wursels, we ahe tae gae in their transport, which means gaein’ wi’ their battle plan.’ That was only slightly more comprehensible than the Mechanicus’ cyberjargon.

‘Aye, right.’ The xenos commodore interrupted, in a wickedly precise takeoff of Ruaridh’s accent. ‘Do you think we expect you to be safe, convenient, trouble- free allies, especially at this point? From my point of view, asking for your help is a risk worth taking, not a safe option- I think you’d probably be insulted to be regarded as a safe option.

Insofar as we have enough information to develop a battle plan at all, it is take and cleanse, and I need experienced ground fighters, chaos fighters. Do you want to take a chance on joint action, or are we doing this on our own?’


Admiral Stone looked around all of us, and I felt a most peculiar sensation enter my head. Lennart had explained a few things about the force versus the warp, but he was clearly a more powerful psyker than even he knew, because I could feel his subconscious mind leaning on us all.

A very strange mind it was too, not that I can claim to all that much experience in probing other people’s psyches; I’m sure that if he knew he was doing it, he would have tidied up first. Predominantly it was an operant matrix of needs and assets and calculations relating the two, of operational imperatives and options.

He had a difference engine for a mind, flashing wildly across speeds and distances, human loyalties and failures and selection factors, feeding into a dance of probability that flashed out another set of arrows of thought.


I’ve had to fight off possession a few times, but this was so accidental, with no real malice in it, it was difficult to find somewhere to assert myself and start fighting back. That and it was mesmerising, every deliberate plan I came up with, every attempt to focus on my own identity and shut out the overspill of his mind was swept up into the mix.

I could feel it start to work, feel his way of thinking start to infect us- I dug my heels in, tried to think of something that was purely me, not professional at all, that would jar with his consciousness; concentrate on the schola progenium, that might do it, it was highly unlikely he had attended any similar thing.

There could have been many other images and memories, of course, but the only other thing that flashed immediately to mind, Amberley would have hit me for, so…

I was expecting a fight, but something extraordinary happened; I caught a stray flash of his childhood, him remembering that it wasn’t like that, and then there was what I can only call a deep sense of embarrassment, as he realised what must have happened, noticed there were alien thoughts swirling round his mind, and drew back. Voluntarily and willingly, in fact apologetically.


‘Did anyone else feel that?’ Stone asked, putting a hand to his head, wide- eyed. All of us except a bemused- looking Jurgen nodded.

‘That wid’ be yon Xenos Commodore, then? Ah’m no’ sure whether tae be mair wary o’ the fact that he thocht aboot’ it an’ decided no’ tae eat wur minds, or that he aalmost did it by accident.’ Ruaridh said.

‘If that was what he was really thinking, then he was telling us a surprisingly large amount of what he believes to be the truth.’ I said, hoping I had understood the dance of probabilities that went on in his head, ships and men, military discipline versus Chaos.

I had just about grasped some of the numbers. Their fleet was small, by our standards, but they moved and concentrated unbelievably quickly and reliably- and I understood some of his own problems with his command structure now. They would be glad to solve some of their domestic problems by finding an external enemy, and letting the darkness take them no longer seemed such a good idea.


‘Category alpha prime princeps material.’ Wu Y’leh stated, evidently in approval. ‘Metaprobabilities trend positive, cogitation overdrive. Subordinate that option, god-machine utilisation yes/no/cancel?’

‘What are you saying, Legate?’ Stone, already confused, asked him.

The legate reached round to the back of his head, there were a few small metallic sounds, and then he announced ‘Apologies- just refurbished my vocoder, very orthodox machine spirit, it has to be persuaded to translate from tekhne- dialect to Low Gothic. Will there be room for my Titans on this trip?’


There was a ping on the vox system that announced an incoming message, then Commodore Lennart came across the vox. ‘I’m sorry about that, warp eddies- is anyone hurt? Confused, even?’

‘Confused, definitely. I- justifying such a move before the Lords of Terra is going to be abominably difficult.’ Stone said, to my surprise at least. I was expecting another long, complicated argument. Perhaps he had experienced the accidental contact of minds differently, perhaps he was running on a different estimation of the situation.

‘You know your own system best, I’m sure, but considering that the powers of Chaos seem to be your prime enemy, in fact your only real existential threat, surely they can’t fault you too badly for taking action to keep fifteen powerful xenos ships out of their hands?’ Lennart said, optimistically but there could be some truth to it.


‘A high risk operation with a potentially great reward…the Imperial Navy concurs.’ Stone decided, thinking gloomily of all the hard headed junior officers, and of his own remaining doubts.

‘Start plotting now, what to do if we double- cross you.’ Lennart said, with an evil playfulness in his voice- he was looking forward to the fight. ‘Make it look like a clever triple cross on your part, get a defensive paper trail going- but unless I read your history files wrongly, victory is the universal career lubricant and bureaucracy solvent in your service as in ours.

We can use the help, ground forces above all- the tanker can lift two ships, Cittern and Custos Sempiternus are best placed. Anyone else who wants to fight Chaos, I can afford to give you ten minutes to shuttle across, no more. We’ll make up the battle plan on the way.’ He said, signing off.


I wasn’t in the least surprised by his choice; the 597th and the New Tanith, both crack infantry units- although I didn’t remember actually telling him anything about our order of battle, consciously or not. The Mechanicus escort cruiser really was pretty much central in the formation, and if we were going to do any fancy- work with shuttles it was a good rallying point.

Ten minutes, though, we would be lucky to get anything at all moving in that time, I wouldn’t be able to rejoin the regiment- at least I had a perfect logistic excuse for not getting killed, and a wave of carefully concealed relief flooded through me- but it was shortlived, replaced by a sinking feeling as I realised I could predict exactly how the next thirty seconds were going to go.

I would say something along the lines of oh damn, looks like I’ll be left out of this one, they would commiserate with me, than someone would come up with a bright idea that would mean I would be forced to go after all, in reluctant defence of my reputation as a hero, to my highly probable death.


Stone and Ruaridh and Wu Y’Leh were all grabbing for com terminals to start issuing orders from, and I was counting, with a grim and disappointed expression showing in case anyone asked. I had the glimmer of an idea myself, and I was trying to bury it under the thought that the regiment could do perfectly well without me.

I got to twenty-three before Ruaridh said, as an aside, ‘If ye’re worrit’ aboot rejoinin’ yer regiment, pop yersel’ oot in an escaape pod, ca’ ra aaliens, they seem tae like ye, they ocht tae’ swing by an’ gie ye a lift.’

Frak, I thought. Seven more seconds… ‘Good plan.’ I managed to say.

[Kartr_Kana]

Hooray!!! crazy cog-boys and barely inteligible Astartes always good for laughs. This is going to be one hell of a fight coming up and boarding actions look to be the prime element. Spacetroopers+SpaceMarines=Mega Awesome! I think the Astartes will need attachments that can keep up and know their way around an Imperial vessel. Maybe Lt. Kana? Great chapter as always ECR I always enjoy the WH40K perspective.

Sorry for the disjointedness of the post. I'm overly tired atm and not thinking in full sentances.

looking forward to more of your handiwork.

[Agent Sorchus]

I know I refer to them as warrior- heroes often enough in the rest of my diaries, which considering you have to be a little crazy to be a hero is entirely appropriate. Personally, I was always really just in it for the perks.

This is Cain distilled down to the essence of what makes him awesome.

[RecklessPrudence]

First off, I've just got to say that the phrase 'victory is the universal career lubricant and bureaucracy solvent' is just pure win.

I loved the Sororitas Canoness, how dogmatic she is. It's the fluff about them taken to its logical extreme. I'm glad for the Imperium that they've got officers there like Cain and Ruaridh, who can actually think, as opposed to quoting the Codecies - although Stone doesn't seem too bad at it either, and the cogboys likely are willing to do just about anything to have a chance at getting their fingers (Phalanges? Manipulators?) on some of the Empire's tech.

One thing I did notice, however, was that at the beginning of the transmission, you say that it's voice-only, but later you have Cain see Lennart glance at something off-screen - might want to change that in the final version.

Thank-you for the update, highly enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the next one, either here or in ArcII.

[Thanas]

Lovely update.