THE PACT OF CHAOS: BURN
"We are the servants of Anarchy and the messengers of His justice.
We are the instruments of his divine wrath on the mortal plane.
We are called upon to cleanse his Empire
And spill the blood
Of thine enemies.
Of thine false gods
Of thine heathens
Praise to our Lord!"
Location: Disruptor Vessel at the forefront for the AOC fleet
Unit: 40 troopers of The Death Brigade of the Chaos Pact
Actions: Katarn Boarding Ships breach the crippled Vagaari ship and Brigadiers clear the hangar.
Tags: Dimitri Lindzinsky
Domino
Scherezade deWinter
Aurelia deWinter
Vernan Holt
Engines burning pink hot as the two Katarn Boarding Ships ripped through the void, they came closer and closer to their target, like a predator closing in on its wounded prey. The battle raged all around them as the fleet began to grip the tail of the raiders, slowing tearing them apart. Sometimes, stray rounds would skirt by close and force the pair to adjust their course. They were forced to add seven minutes to the estimated time to arrive due to such delays.
The two pilots in the climate-controlled cabins began to fidget nervously as they announced their status to the Pact commander attached to the fleet. They were very well aware that that the insane cultists in the bay below them were not pleased with all.
Within each Boarding vessel was the Arlurk, the basic squad commander of the Pact. They lead the seated troopers in one last prayer of Victory as they began to near the crippled bulk of the Vagaari ship.
It looked to be from the scans, a cruiser, or transport or some sort. The engines had been blown clean off from the ship by the missiles launch by Disruptors, leaving it without any propulsion. Much of the armaments had been stripped clean by accurate strafing runs. A few were still left, pitifully sending out lines of tracers at the enemy ships bitting at it. Shields were down, the projectors blown out by surgical strikes. The scans also noted the presence of individuals trapped in sealed bubbles on the outside of the ship. The platoon leader was not concerned, his battle was on the inside.
The two boarding shuttles turned in and pointed their armored noses at what had been identified to be the main hangar of the enemy ship, looking the cliff-face of a metal wall. Within the compartments, the lights turned red. The Brigadiers clamped tight in the cages barely acknowledged the notification. But their fists tightened around their weapons.
The pilots increased the strength of the scans. The gates to the hangar were shut, though the local shield was down, and there were several blackened dents from strikes. A weak point was identified in the absolute center. The two pilots looked at each other through the void of space, their craft barely fifty meters apart, and nodded.
The afterburners of the two ships were activated and the Katarns lurched forward violently like it had been kicked in the behind by a giant. The engines screamed as they were pushed to their utmost limits. There was nearly three thousand kilometers between them and the target. Calculations stated they would clear that distance in twenty seconds. Eight seconds from the cliff-face, their laser cannons began accurate strikes against all the identified weak points. Their ruthless blasts puckered and warped the metal cliff. The hatch bubbled and then liquefied, spurting geysers of molten white-hot blobs into the void like miniature volcanic eruptions. A dozen more laser rounds found themselves uninterrupted as they passed through the punctured points, detonating inside. Still, the doors refused to be fully breached. A Katarn took the front while the other lowered it’s speed, dropping directly behind the flaming engines of the other.
The first Katarn struck the gates.
Now they breached.
The impact stove the gates in. The Katarn punched through the wall like it was wet tissue, traveling into the ruined bay, spattering the vessel with molten metal. The bay explosively decompressed for a second. Droids, loading vehicles, containers, crew, and star-fighters were sucked out, carried on the rid-tide of the awesome power of the vacuum of space. Then the atmospheric shields activated the sealed the breach but nearly everything was gone, dozens dead in just a second.
The first impact had robbed the first Katarn of most of its forward momentum. The expert pilot stabilized the guttering vessel with great difficulty. It crashed down onto the bay, digging a trench behind it as it dug into the reinforced skin. Part of its right-wing was ripped off. A Vagaari star-fighter that had not been evacuated met the stabbing ram of the Katarn. It tore the star-fighter in two like it was nothing, tossing wreckage everywhere. It, at last, came to a stop as it slew sideways and struck the bulk of a heavy container. Its sister was much more elegant, slowing down majorly as it entered the hangar. It extended the landing ramps and landed pillow-soft.
“For Khaos! Hail!” The Arluk’s barked through their comms. The front ramps of the two Katarn’s dropped, the clanging it made as hit the floor echoed through the bay. They emerged into the wracked, unstable atmosphere of the Vagarri hanger. It was a large hanger that contained dozens of other ships with a high roof and walkways.
Huge fires were blazing all around the bay, parts of the roof were collapsing from battle damage, crashing with earth-shaking might. Some form of fuel oil had been spilled from a punctured tank and was rapidly spreading across the deck. It was alight, like a field of bright yellow crops: blazing golden flames and their reflection on the black mirror reflection of oil. Apocalyptic wind swept through everything as the atmospheric shields barely kept the death of the void out.
“Hail! Hail! Hail!” The Brigadiers chanted in unison, as one, as they pushed forth. They strode through the fire, heedless and uncaring. Flame light glittered off the Holy Symbol upon their chest and off their iron masks and sparkled off the boarding shields.
Almost at once, weapon fire began to whip down into their ranks from launch control room two stories up, it’s windows shattered by the pressure wave generated by the breach. It was small-arms, the service pistols of the bridge crew that had survived the blast or the snub carbines of security troopers.
Almost at once, those with the shields took up the front ranks, forming a wall of metal advancing forward. The forward elements hugged the wall for protection. A mixture of slugger and blaster fire spanked off the shields, feeling like someone was just slapping it. It was slowly but surely intensifying as scanners from the Katarn’s scanners detected more and more living entities. Their first strike might have been mighty and killed many in seconds, but their foe was reacting efficiently and swiftly. It only strengthened the Brigadier’s resolve, they seemed to have met a worthy foe.
“Grenadiers, forth!” The Cornithim, the Platoon Leader, and overall leader of the incursion orded.
“Target the high points.”
“Hail! Hail! Hail!” The Brigadiers once more chanted in unison. Four grenade launchers were raised and spat out grenades in a relative thump! thump! thump! in an incessant infernal repetition. Several rounds went through the broken windows of the control room. Fire and grit slammed out of the windows. A walkway grating above was dislodged, falling from the heavens with the enemy troops following close behind, arms flailing like they believed falsely they had wings. Immediately, the fire falling upon their heads ceased forever.
The forty Brigadiers quickly crossed over the other side of the hangar, their steel boots crushing blacked bones below their stampede, to the main blast door that lead to the heart of the ship. It was locked firm, the control panel refusing any attempt to open it.
It was futile, the Angels of Death would not be so easily halted in their duty by a puny door.
The troopers re-organized themselves so that the shields formed before the entranceway. Small gaps were made so that those with the heavy Repeaters could poke their barrels forward while maintaining protection. Grenade launchers were kept to the rear if they needed indirect fire support. The elite Pioneer trooper attached went forward and began his work on the blast door.
“Cover and clear!” yelled the Pioneer as he hastily retreated behind the shield wall from the bundle of plastic explosive he had glued to the shield hatch. He squeezed the remote detonator in his fist. The channeled blast tore the doors inwards like paper. There was barely a shockwave on their side of the hatch.
In a fog of choking black smoke, the shields advanced with absolute unity and discipline, making sure that there was no breach in their formation. They moved into a hallway, the main access corridor by the looks of it. There was streaks of blood on the floor where personnel had fled the first strike, dragging any wounded with them and then sealing the door behind them.
The shields tightened up, eight abreast in a formation that filled the corridor from side to side. A moving wall, resilient and formidable, they advanced step by step forward. Blaster-fire began to snap at them, smacking off their rigid shields with no effect.
It was near pitch black, many of the lights having been knocked out by the destruction of the engines, but the visor-scanners implanted within their masks switched on infra-sight, bathing the entire scene before them in blood red. They saw that their foe had set up a makeshift barricade at the end of the corridor, using benches and lockers they had dragged forward.
Included, there was a more organic barrier, un-armed individuals. Several of the Vagaari had citizens held in front of them, using them as shields in brutally tight head locks. Their clothes were torn, ragged, much of their skin whipped raw by the slave drivers to force submission onto them. They were wet-eyed, tears driving tracts through their dirty skin.
“Cornithim, I ask for advice for actions to take upon the citizens. High command has stated their maintained integrity is part of the mission goals.” Arlurk Mira asked as she braced her shoulder against her shield, grunting with each impact. The level of firepower falling upon the shield was starting to become torrential, like horizontal rain.
“Fire, they are acceptable casualties within established parameters.”
“Your will be done, Cornithim.” The Arlurk replied without an inkling of doubt and hesitation. She nodded to the heavy gunners.
They opened fire, the six repeaters rapidly crescendoing into a rolling thunder of noise as the shots followed each other so quickly they became a single wall of noise. Stitching lines of blaster-bolts filled the corridor and cut everything that stood before the Brigadiers apart. Bodies dropped or exploded. Wall panels blew open and parts of the ceiling collapsed, crushing the corpses, civilian and raider mixed so that none could tell the difference.
The gunners pulled backward, raising their glowing red barrels up as they tore a new strip of ammunition from the power-packs in their back.
“Advance brothers! Clear out each and every room. No mercy! No respite! No doubt! In the name of Khaos,” The Cornithim howled through his mask’s voice amplifier, coming out as fiercely augmetic and full of rage.
“purge these filthy heathens, cleanse them with Holy Fire!”
“Hail!” They all oathed.
Outside, in the cold void of space, escorted by two fighters, a shuttle began to near the crippled ship. Within its climate-controlled passenger bay, flanked by a dozen honor guard, the High Seraphim... slumbered.
