Divine Wrath (Titanicus)

[Imperial Overlord]

Lieutenant Kress waved the pair of Leman Russes forward. It was almost impossible to be heard over the din and jamming made voxes almost useless. Ahead of him great columns of flame clawed at the sky and filled the air with black, choking smoke. If his troops hadn't been equipped with respirator masks they would probably have already succumbed to the toxic smoke.

Corporal Indiq tapped him on the shoulder and held out his auspex. It was showing a massive return, just ahead. It was hidden by the fire and smoke from the destruction they had unleashed upon the refinery field, but that wouldn't deter it. They had already hit it with almost everything they had and it had just kept on advancing. Advancing and killing.

That left Kress to rally and take charge of the remnants of three mechanized companies, since it appeared no one senior had survived. He hand gestured to Sergeant Huan, the most senior of his surviving tank commanders, the direction of the enemy. "He's coming up. Not taking his time, but not rushing," he shouted over the vox.

The Russ swung around to bring its guns to bear on the enemy. Throne, how could something that big be so hard to spot? The huge refinery towers and tank farms did provide cover, that and the choking smoke of the burning promethium, but still, how could it hide?

His men were taking cover behind the tangle of pipes and machinery and hastily digging shallow firing pits. A few inches of earth were often the difference between life and death, but how much protection would that give now?

Two lascannons, an autocannon and a half dozen missile launchers covered the path of the enemy's advance. The ground shook, although whether that was from the enemy's strides or the shelling he couldn't tell. "Auspex," he croaked. Indiq showed it to him. So close. Throne, why couldn't they see it?

A rumbling, subsonic roar struck Kress almost with the force of a physical blow. It was the cry of some maddened and insane beast. There was another layer of sound, an eerie screech, that it almost blocked out. As the howl ended, only the screech remained. It sounded like a debased version of Lingua Technis. Kress's teeth itched and he could feel a pounding headache come one.

Then the enemy Titan stepped through the curtain of black smoke and into sight. It was lean for a Titan and as tall as a Warlord. It's head was a saurian nightmare, that of a crocodile or dragon and from it's jaws projected a twinlinked lascannon. It's left arm was a distorted plasma weapon. It's right arm was absent completely, replaced by a cluster of mechanical tendrils that ended in a lascannon. Two rows of autocannon blisters lined the abominations chests like the breasts of some obscene monster.A tail tipped with a spiked mace swung behind the hunchbacked abomination.

Cannons roared and missiles streaked towards the Titan. It sidestepped with shocking speed and surefootedness as high energy laser beams impacted on the shimmering screens of its voids. Explosions marked missile and cannon impacts. The voids held.

The cannons on it's chest opened up, sending streams of explosive shells to rend earth and occasionally flesh. The lascannons in its head, each barrel altering shooting as it sent beams of searing ruby light at a weapons team in cover at a pumping station. The beams vaporize steel in brilliant white flashes accompanied by rapidly expanding air. A violet-white flare marks the discharge of the plasma cannon. It barely misses on of the Russes and blasts a crater in the earth that sends goblets of molten glass high into the air. The cluster of lascannon tendrils open up on Huan's machine. At least four ruby teams strike the tank and it explodes, sending shrapnel flying through the air.

The traitor Titan strides forward, howling more scrap code. A blast of blue-white light flies over its shoulder and another strikes its voids with an intolerably bright flash. There is a the continuous roar of thunder as explosions flicker across the Titan's voids and then the flash of void collapse and the shells are chewing into armour. An inferno of white light accompanied by a howling rush of burning air smashes into the Chaos Titan's gut. It topples over backwards into the black dirt as it falls.

The eyes of the Guardsman dart back towards where the killing shots came from. Vae Victis advances slowly but surely, smoke rising from the muzzles of its discharged guns. "Engine kill," remarks Princeps Dominus Halk. "Tactical, find me another."

[Vehrec]

Feeling the urge to write a different Titan combat story?

[Ford Prefect]

Though still featuring the Vae Victus.

[Imperial Overlord]

Twenty-two hours earlier

Legate Mordechai Sung looked across the gulf of the cavernous repair bay to the berths where his legio's Titans rested. Servitors, tech priests, and cyber augmented initiates to the ars technis attended to wounded gods and rearmed them for new battles. New battles that would not be long in coming.

Two men wearing the black bodygloves and heavy coats that comprised the Legio Divine Fury's enter the observation booth that Sung has taken over. The datalinks that connect this room allow for communication with the great repair bay in front of him, to the farthest part of the star system, and the astropathic choir a thousand kilometers away. From here he can watch over his legio's wounded and remain in contact with the noosphere.

Sung is a tall, lean, and pale which is to say he is typical of princeps. Excellent nutrition in childhood and early adult years but too little sunlight and an appetite that atrophies once one is linked with a god-machine. Princeps Senoris Ardeth Sunatra is taller, but possesses a healthier skin tone and whipcord muscle. He was strict about maintaining an active physical fitness regime, to the point of eccentricity even in a legio that rarely used amniotic tanks and mandated exercise for all princeps and command crews.

Princeps Senoris Lionus Paulin was short and almost stocky, an almost colourless man full of restless energy. "News legate?" he inquired, sliding passed his colleague to look down on Titans below.

"Yes," said Sung. "The archenemy is continuing their advance, but have diverted some of their strength away from their main force."

"Engines?" asked Sunatra, the scoutmaster.

"Five confirmed, probably more," said Sung.

"Overconfidence?" asked Paulin. "Did they read too much into our withdraw at Madlin and have now started to grab the prizes? Are we to counter attack now that they're weakened?"

"No," said Sung. "Their numbers and support are still superior. Here we have the advantage of the forge's defences to augment our own strength. Unfortunately, the enemy force went southwest."

"The refinery industrial-plex at Brennan," said Sunatra. "Once they overwhelm the defender and pass through, they can threaten to flank the forge and attack the defence laser silos at Connarch. It will make our position even less tenable."

"So we bog them down," said Paulin, "if we can't stop them. Brennan is a significant prize. The promethium fuels dozens of planets and regiments in this sector. If they enemy gain possession of even a fraction of the plex's stored fuel it will considerably improve their logistical situation."

"Indeed," said Legate Sung. "The strategic position is, however, the prime consideration."

"The enemy already fields a superior number of engines," said Sunatra. "It was the danger of our flanks collapsing that forced us to retreated at Madlin. If we over commit at Brennan, the enemy will attack our weakened position here."

Sung nodded. "You see the position our legio is in. What force would you recommend to deal with this problem normally?"

"An enemy force would rely on Wolfhounds to move within the plex itself and clear away skirmishers and ambushes while identifying the strong points. Battle Titans would then be deployed to attack those positions while Wolfhounds attack from the flanks and the rear. Under these circumstances, attempting to repel the enemy in the open would be folly. By the book counter force would involve a similar compositions. Wolfhounds to deny the enemy's scouting efforts and to guide counter attacks by larger engines while harrying the enemy."

"Princeps Paulin?"

"I concur. We all know that isn't what you have in mind, especially since after the losses at Madlin we're low on Wolfhounds and the enemy has too many fast engines."

"Three engines. No Wolfhounds. Each princeps a good match for close quarters, limited visibility, limited maneuverability warfare."

"Which engines?" asked Sunatra.

"Carnifex Maximus. Constrained line of sight means dueling and no one duels like Myer. Her snap shooting skills will be hell on enemy light engines." Both princeps senoris nodded in agreement.

"Lupus Rex," said Sung, naming Paulin's Titan. "I need a good commander there. You hit fast and hard and you know when to fade. Plus you handle the Reaver like it was a Wolfhound."

"I will not fail the legio," said Paulin.

"The third?" asked Sunatra.

"Vae Victis," said Sung. "A tenacious engine and a princeps who has a good feel for his enemies' weaknesses and his own limits."

"Three engines against at least a half dozen, probably more," said Paulin.

"Three of our best," said Sunatra.

"If the enemy take Brennan, legate, it will be after a long and bitter battle and after they climb over a mound of their own dead. We shall remind them that they should fear Legio Divine Fury."

[LadyTevar]

How many battles has Vae Victus participated in at this time. We last saw him as a 'baby'.

[Imperial Overlord]

How many battles has Vae Victus participated in at this time. We last saw him as a 'baby'.

Many. Not enough for Halk to be princeps senoris, but enough for Victis to be recognized as one of the more capable Titans in the legio.

[Imperial Overlord]

Princeps Senoris Lionus Paulin sat in the command chair of Lupus Rex, linked by the Mind Impulse Unit directly to the Reaver's mind. Within the Manifold he saw the jamming beacons and pict transmitters seeded throughout the area by the legio's skitarii. The former interfered with enemy scans, forcing them to deploy scouts or advance half blind. The latter gave Divine Fury eyes everywhere.

Data flowed into the Manifold, a gun camera transmission showing an archenemy machine assaulting the outer perimeter of the Brennan Industrialplex. The machine was too warped and distorted to be categorized as any of the standard Titan designs, although it could have be based on the rare Great Knight design that was built on several forges in the Ninmar Cluster. Whatever it might have been, it didn't last long under the lash of Vae Victis's guns. "Engine kill," reported Dominius Halk.

Paulin urged Lupus Rex forward. Halk was the youngest of the princeps in this detachment, but he had proven himself in the only way that mattered. No matter how many kills or battles a princeps racked up, it was engine on engine engagements that truly determined their worth. No princeps or crew was considered truly experienced until he had multiple engine engagements under their belts. The casualty lists were always full of the inexperienced, no matter how many tanks and infantry they had under their belts. It was Titans that mattered and the veterans did most of the killing and the new recruits that did most of the dying.

That was always important to keep in mind when facing the archenemy. Some of them were survivors of the Heresy, when mass engine engagements had been common and continuous. Even with their judgment eroded by insanity, their was no way to match that skill. Paulin could only hope that those veterans were few and that most of the engines were commanded by less experienced warriors.

A spot on the Manifold map flared. The enemy had found and disabled a jamming beacon. Paulin urged Lupus Rex over a tangle of pipes and between two factory plexes to close on the enemy's advance. "Tactical, feed me a pict image from the scene."

Data hit him immediately. A wild horde of hundreds was running through the processing plant. The vast majority were armed with lasguns or autoguns and wore piecemeal or salvaged armour. A few of them carried the hideous stigmata of warp mutation or Dark Mechanicus augmentation. With them, driving them forward, were Dark Mechanicus skitarii. What little flesh they had left was entirely corrupt, bearing the monstrous stamp of the Ruinous Powers. The rest of their bodies was given over to disturbingly organic technosorcerous abominations.

Massive two and a half meter tall servitors were bronze daemon masks and heavy weapon limbs scuttled about under the direction of the warped skitarii. One aimed a heavy plasma gun at the pict transmitter and the screen dissolved into static. "Tactical," said Paulin crisply. "Mark the location of that transmitter on the Manifold."

"Marked princeps," said Scollen. "It's just up the main-engine!" He finished the thought in a burst of MIU transmitted data. <Ahead right, two hundred meters closing!>

Paulin slewed Lupus Rex hard to the right. With the fires and smoke from the artillery bombardment, the concentration of metal in the industrialplex, and the jammers getting a clean reading on anything was a hard job even for a Titan. That's why they had chosen to let the heretics come to them. Now it was biting Lupus Rex in the ass. Or maybe not.

Turbolaser fire slammed into the Reaver's voids as the arch-enemy Warhound emerged from behind the tangle of silos and into clear view. The megabolter on the other arm sprayed the area with high caliber explosive death. Lupus Rex's voids held.

<Moderatii,> Paulin ordered with a data squirt, <arm weapons only>. Titans had minds of their own, minds patterned after predatory beasts in order to comply with the ban on blasphemous intelligences. These minds, linked directly with those of its crew, combined the guidance and skills of human intellects with the reactions and predatory instincts of the Titan. This, among other things, allowed the crew not to focus on mundane activities like walking or maintaining balance and gave the engines reaction times that conventional vehicles of their size simply could not match.

Lupus Rex twisted his torso to the offending archenemy machine. The Warhound, a hideous crimson monster encrusted with brass, continued to fire its megabolter and bellow scrap code at them. Lupus Rex's arms aligned with the smaller Titan. The beetle backed Reaver design carried three heavy weapon hard points. The one on Lupus Rex's back housed a huge missile pod. The ones in the Reaver's arms housed turbolaser destructors.

Blasts of eye searing light flashed out and tore into the Warhound's void shields. Brilliant flashes marked direct impacts and imminent shield collapse. The Warhound ceased firing as its voids lost cohesion and instead lurched to its left and darted behind a refinery tower.

The ground shuddered as Lupus Rex loped off in pursuit. "Overrun building should come into view in five seconds," Paulin remarked. "Destroy it." The left turbolaser swiveled as the Titan thundered down the main thoroughfare. For two seconds the overrun plex came into view. The turbolaser howled.

White flashes marked the lasers' impact as steel and concrete was flash heated to vapor and exploded. The whole building collapsed in a rising ball of flame and dust, burying hundred of archenemy troops in a fiery tomb. Lupus Rex turned hard and entered a field of tightly space fuel silos.

"Tactical?" Paulin inquired.

"I'm sorry my princeps. I've lost him."

"Voids?"

"No signature off them. He must have shut them down completely."

Lupus Rex started walking backward. "Arm three missiles. Have each one target one of the major heat flares in the tank farm." One would have to be the Warhound's plasma reactor.

"My princeps, said Scollen, "some of those tanks contain promethium. "The missiles that do not hit the enemy could cause a fire or even an explosive chain reaction."

"I'm aware of that," said Paulin as he continued to back Lupus Rex away from the tank farm. "Moderati?"

<At your command my princeps.>

"A burning tank farm is a bad place to be a wounded, unshielded Titan. Especially if it blows. Fire." The titan shuddered with the missile launch. They streaked up, going more than kilometer into the sky before they came down. A thunderclap almost knocked the Titan over as mushroom clouds climbed into the sky. Lupus Rex growled as the machine mind helped the princeps keep the huge warmachine steady.

"Secondary explosions," said Scollen unnecessarily. "The tank farm is going up. The Warhound will definitely be out of commission, if it manages to survive, but the enemy have a route through the outer defences now."

"A route of our choosing," said Paulin.

[Ford Prefect]

Sucks to be the dude standing inside the gigantic explosion.

[Jonen C]

Sucks to be the dude standing inside the gigantic explosion.

Valuable lesson learned: If you have to retreat, do not do so through an area filled with explosive barrels.

[Imperial Overlord]

Carnifex Maximus was an impulsive god. He strained constantly at the leash, filled with the urge to rush into battle and destroy all those who opposed his might. Reigning him in and not let his passions rule the Manifold was a demanding task for any princeps. When they had first bonded there were those who thought Daniella Myer was not up to the task. They had been surprised. For the last hundred years Carnifex Maximus was known throughout the legio as a relentless, ice cold killer. Myer did not get angry. She did not take bait. She did not take foolish chances. She merely killed. Quickly and skillfully.

A heat bloom on the display alerted her to the destruction of storage tanks in Lupus Rex's sector. "Lupus Rex, status?" she inquired. Other data marked a possible engine contact moving toward her position. She pushed Carnifex Maximus forward at walking stride as she attempted to contact the princeps senoris.

"Lupus Rex here," came the static filled response. "Enemy attack repelled. Continue execution."

"Affirmed," replied Myer. She let Carnifex Maximus take them past a PDF position and down a wide, beaten earth track between industrial complexes. They neared the edge of the row and she swung the Warlord left, through a comparatively narrow passage between chem factories. Myer's attention was riveted on the auspex data flows and her mind gripped the firing controls for the carapace mounted turbolaser destructors. Most princeps didn't touch weapon controls, delegating the actual firing to their moderatii and servitors. Daniella Myer wasn't most princeps.

A crimson and brass engine darted down across the passage. It was hunched, humpbacked, and bipedal with a cluster of bell mouthed cannons on its back. It had clearly begun its life as a Warhound pattern and was still somewhat recognizable as such. Brass eight pointed wheels and stylized skull insignias taller than men had been bolted onto the bestial machine's red hide.

Zacharius, her moderatii, swung the Carnifex Maximus's six barreled gatling cannons around to track and kill the archenemy Warhound, but he wasn't fast enough to get a target lock. Daniella was. Blinding bolts of ruby destruction flashed from the turbolaser's mounted on the Warlord's "shoulders". Brilliant white flashes marked their impact on the darting enemy Warhound as the hits pushed the enemy Titan's shields towards overload. Then it was gone, having reached the cover of the chem plex.

<Tactical, keep a lock on that engine,> she ordered as she pushed Carnfix Maximus to full stride and shifted the Titan's course fifteen degrees right.

<Affirmed princeps. He's shining bright on our auspexes. He's not going to hide from us.>

<Princeps!> Zacharius practically shouted through the Manifold. <We're going to collide with that building!>

<Ready all weapons moderatii,> Myer replied as she released all weapon controls to Zacharius. The chem refinery loomed directly ahead on the viewport, but Daniella wasn't looking at it. The data feeds of the Manifold pinpointing the Warhound's position had her attention.

At full stride Carnifex Maximus smashed through the chem refinery's walls as if they were made of wet cardboard. Inside massive pipes burst and belched gouts of steam and streams of toxic liquids. Maximus's legs smashed giant vats and spilled caustic chemicals everywhere as the Titan stomped through the building and smashed through the other side.

Myer guided the massive Titan across another open stretch and twisted the huge machine's torso ten degrees to the left. Carnifex Maximus stomped through a cluster of giant pipes, crushing them underfoot and emerging on the other side. The Warhound was faster than the Warlord, but by guiding Carnifex Maximus to a interception point through a straight line, and Throne help any obstacles, Myer had gotten them into position.

<Fire!>

The gatlings spun and one hundred fifty millimeter shells flew from their barrels and crashed into the Warhound's voids in a stream of devastating explosions. Already taxed void shields held briefly and then collapsed in a blaze of light. Then the destructors fired. Ruby beams stitched passed the Titan and then corrected to strike the Warhound's right arm and leg, punching through armour to slag internal systems. Oil gushed from the wounds as the Warhound hobbled out of the line of fire.

<He's at half speed princeps,> said her tactical officer.

<Noted> replied Myer as she moved Carnifex Maximus forward at normal combat stride. The Warlord's feet ate up the distance. <Prepare to finish him.>

[Ford Prefect]

I'm hoping for a power fist coup de grâce.