Retrieval Mission - Fate IV

chrispcarter wrote:as the insane daemon-machine charged forwards...

And killed adam

Awsome as allways keep it coming.

z4carlo wrote:

chrispcarter wrote:as the insane daemon-machine charged forwards...

And killed adam

Was that when he burnt fate point number 7?

Good work as always mate, your descriptive writing of the battle is very good. Now.... more!

More indeed!

***

A quick glance behind him caused Cristus to curse his ill luck; the Defiler’s explosive entrance had caused the corridor roof to collapse behind them, separating the Kill-Team from the Inquisitor and the other team. Greywolf’s lascannon would have been particularly useful right now.

Hearing a howl, Cristus spotted Haakon, who was closest to the Daemonic war machine, bounding towards it. The young Sky Claw fired his jump pack, powering through the air towards the lethal construct. He managed to land on the machine’s armoured knee, and leaping off it, attacked the Defiler with both his chainsword and power sword, succeeding in causing a little cosmetic damage but not slowing the behemoth down.

Twisting round, the Defiler brought round one of its forearms, lashing out deceptively quickly. The blow hit the Space Wolf like a wrecking ball, smashing his armour open and parting the flesh beneath, the impact sending him spinning away. Haakon’s jump pack misfired briefly, and he was sent rocketing into the far wall, where he hit with a tremendous crash and fell to the ground, silent and still.

Cristus’ ignored his brother for now – there was nothing he could do for him at the moment – and turned his attention back to the Defiler, readying his weapon.

Before he could fire, Cristus saw Memnon drop to one knee and bring his bolter up to his shoulder before unleashing a torrent of fire from the weapon. Round after round of kraken ammunition hammered into the Defiler, The specially crafted bolts punching through even the accursed plate of the war machine. Initially it appeared not to harm the machine, but as the stoic Scythe maintained the barrage, the damage began to show, parts of the Defiler’s foul mechanism blown off or punctured by the successive impacts.

As the Defiler’s charge faltered to a halt, the machine began to list to one side, and one of its legs collapsed beneath it. Memnon’s aim switched to the twisted helm that surmounted the dread machine, the Kraken rounds smashing into the leering daemonic visage is had been crafted into. Cristus readied his weapon as he saw the Defiler’s oversized cannon coming to bear on the Scythe, but before it could draw a bead on him, there was a sudden bang, like an inrushing of air. The helm atop the machine was breached, and suddenly seemed to implode, crushing into itself. The Defiler’s frame jerked spasmodically, and then fell, collapsing slowly on suddenly lifeless limbs, parts of it falling away from the bulk now that the daemonic essence binding the machine together had fled back to the aether.

Everything suddenly went silent; none of their foes still lived. Cristus was almost in a state of disbelief that any of them survived, and a quick look around showed that Haakon was the only one of them off their feet. As Luthor moved to attend on the Space Wolf, Cristus walked to where Memnon was standing up, and clapped a hand onto his shoulder guard. The other Space Marine turned quickly, locking Cristus in his eye lenses.

“A most impressive Kill, Brother Memnon. I can see how you earned that.” he said, gesturing to the Marksman’s Honour the Scythe wore. For his part, Memnon just nodded, turning his Mark 3 helm to regard the shell of the metal beast once more.

There was a crash behind Cristus, and he looked round to see rubble blocking the corridor partially cleared; the other team managing to move enough of the obstruction to see through.

Cristus strode over to the blockage. “Area clear.” He reported, and left it at that, smiling underneath his faceplate, relishing the fact that for once they were the only ones in possession of the knowledge of what had just transpired.

Although the other team were not yet able to get through, Badwolfe and Storm clambered through the space they had cleared. “Proceed, Ultramarine. Take your men down to the next level and secure it. The others can follow once this… obstacle is removed. You must secure the area.”

Lip curling, Cristus nodded his assent nonetheless and turned on his heel, gesturing for the others to fall in. He strode over to where Luthor was helping Haakon to his feet. The Space Wolf was a complete mess, his plate in tatters and even his Astartes physiology unable to complete quench the flow of blood from his wounds. Cristus had learned enough about the Sky Claws’ mindset to know that ordering him to remain behind would just waste time with an argument, so he allowed him to fall in with the others. The Dark Angel had already received Luthor’s assistance, and he was moving without impediment, apparently little the worse for wear, even though he bore impressive burns to his armour and his flesh.

The recovered and reloaded squad took up position on the elevator, and Cristus inserted the three key cards into the slots on the control panel. Once they were in place a green button with an arrow pointing down depicted on it lit up. He pressed it and the large platform shuddered briefly and started moving downwards, squealing slightly from lack of maintenance, but proceeding smoothly enough.

Looking over the squad, Cristus noticed that Haakon was swaying slightly from side to side. He wasn’t sure the Space Wolf would last long in a fight, and he resolve to keep an eye on him – he didn’t want to lose anyone from the squad on this fool’s errand to satisfy the Inquisitor’s cryptic whim.

The rest of the squad had fared much better, no one else taking much of a mauling - Jorvick, Memnon and Cristus had been spared the worst of the fighting, having used their guns for the most part. Cristus hadn’t even noticed Errata contributing to the fight, and the Blood Angel stood as smug and superior as ever, looking very pleased, for reasons that would probably never become apparent.

Amazingly, considering the number and type of foes they had faced, the two assault marines were the only ones who had taken much damage, but that was the way things went when one fought in such a way; Cristus remembered it well enough himself from his time serving in an Ultramarines assault squad. Of course, just using a jump pack increased the risks of combat greatly, the added mobility allowing the wearer to close in to close range with incredible speed, putting the marine where they could do the most damage – and straight into harm’s way.

Slowly, the lift ground to a halt, and the squad found themselves looking out on another mostly empty, dimly lit storage area, similar to the one they had just fought the traitor forces in. The area was abandoned, though it showed signs of recent occupation – likely the traitors had been holed up here before they have moved to intercept the Deathwatch teams.

Quickly and quietly, the Kill-Team spread out as they crossed the space, alert for any further enemies. It was deathly silent, the only sounds the heavy footsteps of the marines as they crossed the room. Opposite the lift was a large, heavy door, and it was this they moved towards, taking up positions either side of it. The door was thick and heavy, built on the same scale as the rest of the facility, wide enough to allow the passage of cargo, even large enough to allow the passage of standard sized vehicles, if not those of the Astartes.

The controls of the door seemed to be active, and Cristus gave the signal for the team to hold, then once they were in position, he signalled for Jorvick to throw the switch. The old Wolf did so, and the doors ground open.

Whilst the next room was smaller, it was still a large storage area. It was barely lit at all, the facility lights seeming to have died in this room. As Cristus moved slowly into the room, and away from the illumination of the main storage area, he saw that the anteroom was bathed in a sickly green glow. The source was in what appeared to be the centre of the room. It was an upright slab, made up of a black material Cristus recognised with dread; it was the same matter that made up Necron monoliths and their structures, the same living metal as that which made up the world sphere his team had so recently destroyed. It seemed to pull in the light from the luminators in the main room and radiate an aura of menace, and Cristus felt ill at ease.

He was about to order the squad to prepare krak grenades to destroy the object when Badwolfe strode quickly out in front of him, tailed by an upset-looking Harriet Storm. The Inquisitor was virtually running, and it suddenly became clear to Cristus that this Necron item, presumably a device of some kind, was what he had been after all along. He must have somehow discovered that it was in the abandoned facility, and had sent down the Deathwatch to fetch it for him, then ventured down himself to ensure its capture once contact with the original team was lost.

Calling for the team to hold, Cristus watched with barely contained disgust as Badwolfe ran his hand over the surface of the Necron artefact. He was still formulating his questions for the Inquisitor as a feeling of even more intense wrongness fell over him. His bolter snapped up.

“Something is here.” That was a whisper from Errata, his witch-sight obviously granting him some insight into what was going on. Before Cristus could tell him to clarify, a low, ominous rumble started, little more than a breathy susurration. It grew in volume and pitch until it was a booming, malicious laugh, though it sounded too deep and loud to be that of any mortal set of lungs.

There was a sudden feeling of displaced air as something huge came into view from behind the Necron artefact. The sickly green light of the device seemed to shrink and twist, as though it was fighting against another force. Into the light came a gargantuan form. It must have been a Space Marine once; there were blood-red armour plates that must have started as Astartes power armour, though now twisted almost beyond recognition – apart from the symbol of the Word Bearers. The skin of the creature was translucent and white, pulled taut across unnaturally writhing muscle distorted to ridiculous proportions, and covered in passages of text in some runic script that hurt the eyes to view.

It was truly massive, and warp energy visibly bled from the creature in an aura that appeared as flame. The head of the creature was the worst part of it, a leering vision straight out of the worst depictions of such creatures; the eyes soulless orbs of deepest black, the mouth a maw filled with razor sharp fangs, the head surmounted by gilded horns some two feet in length. Cristus steeled his soul, reciting lines from the Codex in his head, an action which always helped to strengthen his faith against such evils. It was a Daemon Prince of Chaos, a traitor who had been corrupted entirely into a daemon as a reward for faithful service to its vile deities.

When it spoke, the voice was one of nightmares, somehow being both a whispered promise that a lesser man might hear as the dark side of his personality tempted him and the bellow of a fiery orator as he held thousands in his sway. “This is not for you, little plaything of the gods.” With no further preamble, the daemon swung his arm and a huge, impossibly wide blade covered in debased sigils flashed out with impossible speed, the savage edge smashing into Badwolfe, sending him spinning into the air until he landed in a crumpled heap next to the door they had entered through. The blade’s return arc clipped Storm as well, and though hit with far less force than her apparent superior, she was still knocked unconscious to the ground.

The Daemon prince laughed again, then spread its arms and roared a clear challenge to the Space Marines. “Killing you is a blessing to the true gods, servants of the unworthy. Perhaps you are not deserving of the honour, but I have made many such devotions in my time. Come - receive my blessing!”

Nice work as allways, get it finished!

Fantastic mate really good!

Thought you may have streched the defiler fight out a bit tho and I set a marine on fire!

I do remember that now that you mention it but at the time of writing my recollections were fairly hazy, Aslan even featured briefly before I remembered he wasn't actually there!

Also to be honest Jorvick flame-shotting the marine happened behind Cristus whilst he was in a melee anyway so I doubt he would have noticed!

I did consider stretching the Defiler combat out longer but it did literally happen that quick, to make it more realistic I should have just said "Memnon shot it with a single full auto burst with cheating criticals and killed it".

Trying to remember the DP fight (apart from how it finished) is going to be a real challenge for me, I'll tell you that right now.

It's hardly cheating critcals, when that's what's in the rule book. (with an example)

No one had read the FAQ at that point & no one has a copy of it now.

At the time it was legit.