PDA

View Full Version : GK short story



DarkLink
05-22-2010, 09:44 PM
Started writing this for fun... quite some time ago. Finished it recently, after finally getting around to it, and figured I'd post it. Hope you enjoy:


“I am the Hammer.
I am the right hand of my Emperor, I am the instrument of His will.
I am the Hammer.
I am the point of His sword. I am the tip of His spear.
I am the gauntlet about His fist. I am His sword just as He is my armour, I am His wrath just as He is my zeal.
I am the Hammer.
I am the hate. I am the woes of daemonkind.
Let us be His shield as He is our armour. Let us speak His word as He fuels the fire of our devotion.
Let us fight His battles as He fights the battle at the end of time, and let us join Him there, for duty ends not in death!
I am the Hammer!
I am the gauntlet about His fist! I am the spear in His hand!
Though we are lost, I am the shield on His arm, I am the flight of His arrows!
I am the Hammer!
I am the sword! I am the soldier of the battle at the end of time! I am the bane of His foes and the woes of daemonkind!
I am the end, for I am the Hammer!"

Grand Master Titus raised his head and made the sign of the Aquila, ending the battle rites. At the symbol, the Grey Knights kneeling in front of him responded with their own signs. Titus rose, giving the other Knights leave to prepare to teleport into battle. They had spent the last hour carefully preparing for battle, performing blessing and cleaning rituals on their equipment, and double checking the final details of their battle plan.

They had very little intelligence to go off of, so Titus was particularly concerned for this mission. Inquisitor Tiberius had uncovered information leading him to a widespread secret society dedicated to chaos, possibly created by Traitor Marines, probably Alpha Legion. That was even further cause of worry. Even though there would be no way for the coven to know the Grey Knights were coming, the Alpha Legion was notorious for its ability to make the unexpected happen.

So Titus had made sure to take extra care in planning this assault, and had called in an extra squad of Grey Knights, led by Justicar Altarius, who had been operating in a nearby sector. The chaos cult had a wide influence, and had begun to summon daemons for Emperor knows what vile purposes. Had Inquisitor Tiberius not uncovered the cult, they might have been able to gain enough daemonic support to corrupt and overthrow the planetary government, especially if they had the aid of Chaos Marines.

The mission was fairly simple. They had uncovered the coordinates for the main altar used by the cult, though there were certainly other. Tiberius was in the process of tracking down several leads, and would requisition the necessary troops to destroy the other altars. But this altar was in a chaos stronghold. It was a large palace, owned by a wealthy citizen, part of the local nobility. He owned massive tracts of land, providing food for large parts of the planet. Tiberius had been unable to discover whether or not the lord himself was involved in the cult, but that was not Titus' concern. He merely had to destroy evil where he saw it, for he was the hammer. He had no time to consider whom was innocent and who was guilt, only to destroy the blasphemous rot of chaos wherever he found it.

In total, Titus led a force of 21 Grey Knights. He would personally lead the four man Terminator squad into battle, teleporting directly into the chamber containing the altar. Justicar Severus would lead four other Grey Knights in behind Titus, and immediately perform sanctifying rituals on the altar, and any other chaos artifacts they found. Justicar Altarius and Justicar Gaius would teleport into adjacent chambers, cutting off any enemy in the altar chamber for Titus to deal with, while securing the perimeter from any enemy counter attack. This would be one of the largest assaults that Titus had lead, second only to the final battle at the Siege of New Odessa, where he had fought alongside a detachment of Blood Angels led by Mephiston and personally banished the Daemon Prince Abraham to the warp. It had been during that campaign he had been promoted to Grand Master, and he had immediately been thrust into responsibilities of the rank.

“Prepare to teleport. Get into position, and begin your squad's psychic link. Remember our mission, and fight with the Emperor's strength.” Titus and his retinue of terminators stepped up into the teleportation platform. Titus extended his psychic senses, touching the minds of his fellow Grey Knights. He automatically dropped into the instinctive psychic chant of the Shrouding, steeling his mind to the warp powers flowing through him. One of the Grey Knight's greatest advantages was their immense psychic power, and a full squad of Grey Knights could emit such a powerful psychic aura that their very presence would be painful to their enemy, especially to Daemons. The ability had saved Titus' life many times before, as enemies would falter and stumble in the middle of combat from such a powerful psychic distortion.

“Teleport in five,” said the Mechanicus crewman manning the teleport equipment. “Emperor be with you. Two... One... Go.” Titus felt the very fabric of reality rend, and through his psychic link to the warp he felt himself thrust through into the psychic plane. The corruption threatening his mind suddenly surged, pressing his will from all directions, physically now as well as mentally. But he redoubled his concentration, and focused his mind on the coordinates of the altar chamber. Wielding his full psychic might, he reached out and anchored himself and his squad to the physical position of the chamber, preventing the squad from appearing in the middle of a stone wall. Then, almost before he could feel the tentacles of warp entities wrap around him, he reappeared in the physical world, in the center of a grand but obscene chamber, facing a congregation of chaos worshipers in the midst of dark prayer.

“WE ARE THE HAMMER,” Titus yelled, raising his storm bolter and depressing the firing stud. The stiff recoil of the fully automatic weapon was easily controlled by his suit of terminator armor, and he swept his sector of the room with high explosive bolts. Bringing his blessed Nemesis Force Sword to bear, crackling with blue lightning, Titus charged forward, moving swiftly for being in such massive armor. Several chaos worshipers had drawn weapons, knives and pistols, but Titus hit the small mob like a raging bull, crushing several with the shear mass of his armor. He felt las pistol bolts and knives bounce of the near invulnerable terminator armor, but ignored them. Simultaneously firing his storm bolter at point blank range and slashing powerfully with his sword, he cut down the few remaining worshipers in a heartbeat. Spinning while reaching out with his psychic senses, he saw that the rest of his squad had slain the rest of the worshipers. Most had been killed by either storm bolter and psycannon fire or the flames of Brother Iilias' Incinerator, before they had even know what was happening. Titus felt no pity for them, though, for they had brought this upon themselves.

“Gaius in place, Grand Master,” came crackling over the vox system built into his suit. A split second later, he heard Altarius call in, and felt the air next to him shimmer and warp, with Justicar Severus and his squad appear, just as Titus had arrived. Nodding to the Grand Master, Severus immediately sprinted to the altar, starting the cleansing incantations and rituals. Severus was as courageous a Knight as Titus had ever know, and had served under Titus for as long as Titus had held a commanding rank. Titus had even granted Severus a position in his personal retinue after a battle at the Siege of New Odessa, when Severus led his squad to kill a twisted Daemon Prince, then had personally banished a Blood Thirster shortly thereafter. Severus had graciously declined the honor, feeling his place was leading a squad of Grey Knights, rather than following Titus into battle. Titus was almost glad he had declined, as Severus was his most skilled squad leader, and it would have been a loss to take him out of the chain of command, though Titus was certain that Severus would have quickly earned the honor of the rank of Brother Captain.

Then, Titus heard Gaius' voice come in over the vox. “Grand Master, I'm sensing a powerful presence nearby. I think they have daemon-bound warriors.”

Titus nodded to his squad. They had planned for a counter attack. Aldric and Caldus took up position to defend Severus' squad, while Titus led the rest of his squad into the next room. Not even bothering to use the door, Titus smashed straight through the thin wood wall. The nobleman who owned the palace wasn't so rich he could afford the marble to make solid stone walls.

Stepping into the next room, Titus saw several dead bodies, torn apart by Nemesis Force Weapons and Storm Bolter fire. Gaius' squad was deployed in two three man teams, each with a psycannon, covering one of the two doors on the other sides of the room. One of the doors was little more than a crumbling hole in the wall, as the Grey Knights had cut down several cultists either entering the room or fleeing it, Titus couldn't tell.

Seeing Titus, Justicar Gaius pointed. “Through that wall, Grand Master.” Extending his senses, Titus explored the other room mentally. He could sense more clearly what was there than Gaius, but he knew instantly that Gaius was right. Motioning to Gaius, Titus nodded at the wall. “Spray down the room, and I will teleport in.” Reaching out to the other Knights in his squad, Titus focused his mental energy. Normally, specialized equipment was needed for teleportation, but Titus was an immensely powerful psyker, and could control the teleportation rift well enough to travel short distances, as well as prevent himself from mishapping and materializing in the middle of a solid object. He concentrated over the hammering firepower of the storm bolters and psycannons tearing through the wall, raining bolts into the other room. Despite the hailstorm of psychically charged high explosive bolts, Titus still felt the chaotic presence. Then, in a disorienting split second, Titus and his squad stepped through a portal in reality, another short travel through the warp. Well disciplined, Gaius and the rest of his squad stopped firing, returning to their defensive positions.

The instant Titus felt himself materialize, he spun, focusing in on the chaotic presence. He found himself face to face with a hulking mutation, covered in warped muscle and overgrown armor. Possessed! There are Chaos Marines here! The possessed marine roared, dashing forward in a rage at Titus. Titus brought his sword to bear, spinning expertly to avoid the possessed's slashing claws, simultaneously sweeping his sword up, severing one of the possessed's warped arms from its body. A split second later, its face was shredded by point blank storm bolter fire by Lucius, while Iilias impaled the beast with his Force Halberd. Even then, the warped creature continued to convulse, until Iilias ignited with a burst of purifying fire from his incinerator. Looking up at Titus, Iilias spoke. “Chaos Marines. Unknown armor markings.” Titus nodded.

Opening a line on his vox, he signaled his men. “Chaos Marines, probably Alpha Legion. Mission priority change, Sierra Delta. Severus, finish up, then we are changing the plan to search and destroy. We now have a bigger target. Titus out.”

DarkLink
05-22-2010, 09:46 PM
Before the assault, each Knight had memorized the layout of the palace. They had laid out plans for various contingencies, including this one. Each squad knew its purpose in the new mission, to cleanse the entire palace of any threats to the Imperium.

At each end of the palace was a large atrium several stories tall, containing stairs and lifts to change floors. At several other key points, one level overlooked lower levels from interior balconies. Between these, there was a maze of rooms that the Knights had to clear.

The process took mere minutes. The autosenses in the suit, combined with the Knight’s psychic sensitivity, allowed them to clear rooms as fast as they could run through them. They killed everything they came across, but they did not see another traitor Marine in their search.

Justicar Altarius and several Knights from his squad were the first to reach the cellar entrance. They had little information on the layout of the catacombs beneath the palace, just that there were several large chambers linked by tunnels.

“Grand Master, we’ve reached the catacombs.”

Titus’s voice crackled over the vox. “Understood. Hold position.”

Altarius agreed. It was likely that any traitor Marines in the palace had fallen back to these cellars. While they may have used the opportunity to escape, it was just as likely that there was a sufficient force to create a lethal ambush.

With a quick series of hand motions, the rest of the Knights with Altarius formed a security perimeter. Altarius himself covered the entrance to the cellar.

Long seconds began to pass. It wouldn’t take long for the rest of the force to arrive, but anything could happen at any time.

And it did. There was hardly a split second of warning as Altarius suddenly felt a surge of corruption seep into the room, vile pulses of warp energy pulsing against his psychic senses.

“Away from the doors,” Altarius started to shout, but as soon as he started to speak the door burst open, smoke and dust exploding into the room. Disciplined and focused, each Knight instantly jumped back, pouring Storm Bolter fire into the clouds.

Over his auto-senses, all Altarius heard was a low growl. The sheer wrath behind it tore at his mind. He centered his mind, walling off the corruption that would have driven a lesser being to insanity.

“Grand Master, they’ve-”

Altarius was cut off by a sudden surge of psychic energy next to him. Titus appeared next to him, stepping in from the warp. The ease with which Titus could travel through the warp never ceased to amaze Altarius. Even amongst the Grey Knights, few others approached Titus’ mastery of his psychic disciplines.

The Grand Master stood, gazing into the haze for but a second. Without turning, he spoke.

“This foe is beyond any of you. I will draw it out. Take your squad and slay those that hide behind it.” Before he could respond, Titus stepped forward, voice echoing through the smoke.

“Show yourself, slave of the blood god. I shall send you back to the hell from whence you came.” With that, the Grand Master began a solemn, quiet chant.

The reaction was immediate. The low snarling and growls turned into a massive roar, and from the smoke strode a giant form, wings scraping the ceiling and shoulders hunched over. In a few strides, a Blood Thirster of Khorne appeared, in full, horrible glory.

Grand Master Titus merely raised his sword before him, crackling with lightning and coursing with psychic energy.

“Come,” he said quietly.

With a second roar, the beast moved with impossible speed. In a split second, it crossed the distance between itself and Titus, massive axe swinging low while its whip lashed out.

Drawing upon his psychic abilities, Titus twisted to the side only slightly, and planted his sword. The whip whistled past his shoulder as he shifted out of its path almost before the Blood Thirster had even struck. In a flare of sparks, the axe met the Grand Master’s Nemesis Force Weapon and stopped cold.

Seeing his opportunity, Altarius cut past the Blood Thirster into the catacombs, along with the rest of his squad. The Blood Thirster was in too much of a blind rage to see but the single figure of the Grand Master, a mere mortal so arrogant as to think he was a match for its eternal might.

The second Altarius entered the tunnels, he had to duck aside to avoid a hailstorm of fire. Dozens of lasgun bolts cut through the air, blindly firing through the smoke. Altarius and the other Knights replied with their storm bolters, tracking the sources of the fire and cutting them down one at a time. There was not time to think, only to act, as Altarius and his squad left behind their Grand Master to face down a Greater Daemon of Khorne in single combat.

DarkLink
05-22-2010, 09:47 PM
Titus danced back from a sweep of the Blood Thirster’s axe, unnaturally quick despite the bulk of his Terminator armor. He started to dart in behind the swing, but the Blood Thirster twirled the weapon with incredible strength and dexterity, instantly thrusting with it straight towards Titus’ chest.

Titus had mentally surrendered himself to the carefully controlled flow of the warp. Time seemed to blur, as he saw what had happened, what was happening and what will happen simultaneously. Each time the Blood Thirster swung its weapon, Titus had already moved a handspan out of the way of the blow, allowing it to whistle past, or had drawn upon his powers to stop the blow dead in its path.

As Titus twisted out of the way of the axe thrust, he cut low with his sword, catching the whip the Blood Thirster had attempted to slip under the blow and tangle his legs with. The daemonic material of the whip proved too weak for the massive psychic power flowing through the Nemesis Force Weapon, and the whip sheared off, leaving the enraged Blood Thirster with little more than a hilt.

Continuing the momentum of the swing, Titus brought his weapon upwards, driving the thrusting axe to the ceiling of the room. The Blood Thirster’s weight drove the wicked barbed blades into the stone of the roof in a shower of sparks.

Taking advantage of opening, Titus ducked forward, thrusting with his sword. The weapon sheared through the Blood Thirster’s baroque armor, cutting deep into the Daemon’s torso. Drawing upon his full might, Titus poured a wave of psychic energy into the beast. But such a mighty servant of Khorne was far too powerful and favored by the god of blood to fall so easily to tricks of sorcery, for the blood god despised psykers. The Daemon roared in pain, ripping the axe from the ceiling. Titus was to close in for it to use the axe, so instead it gathered its weight and shoved back, swinging the hilt of its whip as a short club.

Knowing it would take more than a single blow to fell the Daemon, Titus had moved with the Blood Thirster’s thrust. He retained his feet well enough that he was able to catch the swinging hilt on the shoulder of his armor, rolling with the blow and allowing it to throw him back from the beast. He smashed into a wall with incredible force, smashing through it as if it were paper.

Lost in the flow of time, Titus somehow landed on his feet, absorbing the full energy of the attack with little more than a dent in his armor. His eyes never left his foe.

Still in the other room, the Blood Thirster looked down first at the whip in its hand, then at the wound in its side, leaking unholy bile and gore. It slowly returned its gaze to the Grand Master.

Then, as suddenly as it had paused, the beast threw its head and arms back in an earthshaking roar. Before the sound ceased echoing through the palace, the beast charged at Titus, smashing through the wall as easily as it had thrown Titus through it.

Titus met the charge with a grim smile.

DarkLink
05-22-2010, 09:48 PM
Justicar Gaius was the first to realize the palace was not as secure as they had first thought.

He was leading his squad towards the entrance to the catacombs, when the slightest tug at the edge of his senses caused him to call the squad to a halt.

Scanning the room, he saw nothing out of place. He tried to focus his senses and detect what he had felt, but could focus on nothing in particular.

He was looking through the next door down the hallway when he realized something. Some of these walls are too thick.

“Fall back to the atrium,” Gaius shouted. Instantly, his Knights responded, leapfrogging through the chambers in perfect coordination.

It was none too soon. Mere seconds after he gave the order, several sections of the wall collapsed, hidden doorways opening to reveal numerous cultist. In their midst stood traitor Marines clad in despoiled power armor.

One such passage opened directly in front of Gaius. Several humans stepped in front of him, shotguns and lasweapons pouring fire into his Aegis suit. He ignored it as it glanced off the holy armor. A bolt shattered the skull of one, while he cut a pair of them in half with a lighting flick of his halberd. A traitor Marine stepped out, opening fire with a bolter.

Gaius ducked, catching the bolts on the shoulder of his armor. He picked up his speed, smashing into the traitor, slamming him into a wall. In the split second the traitor Marine was distracted from the blow, Gaius shoved his storm bolter up into a thin gap in its armor, just below the ribcage. He pulled the trigger.

Even the superhuman constitution of a Space Marine, mixed with the unholy mutations of Chaos, could not withstand a burst of sanctified, psychically charged bolts shredding its entire chest. The traitor Marine collapsed to the ground, dead.

Spinning, Gaius sprayed fire into the opening, dropping more cultists. Behind him, he saw his squad engaging the rest of the newly revealed enemy. He saw another dead traitor Marine, and the bodies of a dozen cultists already. As he watched, Brother Corvus brought his incinerator to bear on one of the exposed passages. A split second later, a cacophony of screams echoed through the halls as cultists burned alive.
Yet still more cultists poured from the walls.

“Back to the atrium,” Gaius voxed over the noise of the melee. He opened a link to the rest of the strike team. “Under heavy attack from enemy reserves. Cultists and traitor Marines. Falling back to east atrium to form a killzone.”

True to their training, the Knights fell back with impeccable precision. A hail of storm bolter rounds covered their retreat, while Gaius and Corvus cleared a path through the foes between them and the atrium. In short order, and some dozen more dead cultists later, they reached the atrium.

Entering the wide chamber, they saw Brother Lucius of Grand Master Titus’ retinue engaging a similar horde of foes, along with several other Terminators.

“Draw them to us, and we will slay them,” Gaius heard over the noise of battle. He transmitted a signal to his squad, who split up upon entering the room. They turned from firing to their rear, and instead charged into the crowd of cultist pouring at the Terminators.

The weight of a half dozen fully armored Grey Knights slamming into the crowd itself caused it to buckle. Then the Knights opened up with Storm Bolters, and started cutting through cultists like toys with their halberds and swords.

Simultaneously, the Terminators spun as one, turning to the charging cultists that had followed Gaius’ squad. As one, they drew upon the powers of the warp, melding their minds into one. For a split second, there was a sudden silence.

Then, a massive blast of sheer warp energy blasted out from Lucius’ outstretched hand. The shockwave ripped through the crowd, shattering the unarmored cultists where they stood. Though still rocked by the blast, the Grey Knights stood strong through it.

In the wake of the blast, there was a sudden silence. The Knights stood over the bodies of the dead, facing the entranced at which cultists crowded. For the first time, the cultists paused. For the first time, fear of something other than their vile gods gripped them.

Then, before anyone moved, a section of wall on the second story of the atrium exploded.
Spinning, Gaius saw a massive Blood Thirster falling, wings shredded. Above it, helmet torn from his head, fell Grand Master Titus, sword raised and feet planted in the Blood Thirster's chest midair. For a split second, the seemed to hang in midair, frozen in combat.

Then, the beast struck the ground with enough force to shatter the stone flooring. A sudden blast of smoke and dust filled the room, and Gaius instinctively stepped back, crouching into a defensive position. The rest of the Knights did the same.

As they watched the smoke for movement, Gaius received a voxcast from Altaruis.
“Catacombs are cleared, as is the west atrium. We have the entrances guarded. None shall escape the Emperor’s wrath.”

As he spoke, Gaius caught movement in the haze.

Titus rose from the smoking ruins of the dissipating Blood Thirster. Covered in gore, exposed face stone hard with holy rage, all eyes were upon him. Justicar Gaius heard the Grand Master’s voice cut in over the vox.
“In the Emperor’s name, let none survive.”

Not a single cultist or traitor Marine caught in the palace that day did.