Entry #029.3.Supplemental.Demeter
--Recovered from the Archive of Engagements aboard the Tsiolkovan--
--Official Action Report, originally created 963.M41.--
+The Demeter Campaign:
Shargen Aurastra and newly-promoted Second Captain Samas Tenebra are called upon to mop up remaining traitor presence in the Demeter sector following the War for Pandorax, encountering a Black Legion warband styling itself “The Obsidian Blade” carving out a domain for themselves in the ravaged Avaricum system, led by former Justaerin member Vayxin the Ravager. Tenebra leads a select cadre of forces to defend a critical mechanicum outpost but is forced back by a short-lived but bloody daemon incursion summoned by Dark Apostle Kabrius on the outpost’s upper levels, at the loss of most of Squad Octavian and the company’s attached librarian. The loss atop the manufactorum buys the warband time to reactivate an old Shadowsword within the manufactorum. Determined to ensure such an asset does not make it offworld, Aurastra leads a daring assault on the manufactorum to end Vayxin and his new toy. The battle is fierce, and Aurastra is almost killed when his command vehicle takes a direct hit from the Shadowsword’s main weapon. Despite the long, storied careers of both Aurastra and Vayxin, the battle is decided by youngbloods:
Neophyte Sergeant Trazis, who despite coming under heavy fire had successfully outflanked the Shadowsword, ingressing through a hull breach in the rear to plant a meltabomb on the Volcano Cannon’s primary capacitor bank.
Savant-Initiate Hastel Glademan, who provided air support from the Stormtalon Hurricane Dragon, catching Dark Apostle Kabrius in the open and flattening his position with a barrage of cyclone missiles.
Brother Cosrau Yandin, who followed Aurastra into a direct confrontation with Vayxin the Ravager. Despite losing many battle-brothers and taking a near-fatal wound from the Ravager’s chainfist, Yandin was able to slay the warlord alone, exploiting a breach in his Terminator armour using nothing but a well-placed meltagun shot and a combat knife to Vayxin’s exposed eye.
--Unofficial Interpretation Fragment #3 of 12# (Please Confirm?), derived from tactical data logs recovered from Redeemer-Pattern Land Raider Tvashtar's Fire during subsequent restoration--
"Sable Exact, this is Tvashtar. We are coming to you." Keldek Mormys clipped over the vox channel and spurred the Land Raider forwards. The turret bustle next to him rattled and shook as the tank’s machine spirit assumed direct control of the twin assault cannons. Mormys watched the weapons' target reticles track jerkily across the pict-feed wired directly into his helmet, just one of a dozen sensor inputs feeding into the cocoon-like driver's position high in the vehicle's interior. If he hadn't been controlling the tank though direct nerve impulse, he wouldn't have needed to lift a finger more than an inch off the controls before he'd be touching the glacis plate, such was the tightness of the confines of the position. All the better to allocate space to armour, armament and passengers.
In truth, given the potency of the machine spirit within Tvashtar's Fire, he was barely more than a passenger himself. The tank was an old one, with a bombastic, eager character. He could feel it every time the Land Raider’s treads dug into a rise, like a mountain goat scrambling up a spoil heap. According to the stories, it was fully capable of operating fully autonomously when circumstances were particularly dire. It was only the narrow advantages of the organic mind in pattern recognition and data processing that warranted his presence at all. That and the vox link to the battleforce command network that dispersed its constant stream of data packets in clicks and growls directly into his ears. And right now the network was alive with a hashing, maddening overlap of information,
The Mechanicus outpost was a slowly growing silhouette on the horizon, a squat monolith of fortified stores and workshops. The nimbus of warplight had crackled into existence around the outpost’s summit at the exact same time the aetheric interference had started filling the vox-channels, but enough of Gygar Octavian’s final broadcast had made it through the hissing static. It was that broadcast that had spurred every Iron Fists asset on the planet to converge on the outpost.
“Captain Aurastra,” Mormys called on the tank’s internal vox. “We have uplink with reconnaissance elements. Glademan and Trazis are joining formation. We shall reach engagement range in six minutes.”
“Noted, Keldek. Maintain flank speed and mark targets as they appear. Please keep the network link open while I inform our comrades.” The captain’s tone was relaxed, as was the tone of the data packets that briefly flashed through Mormys’ perception on their way from the Land Raider’s internal systems to the other vehicles in the formation. Mormys caught a brief snippet of off-network speech in that same tone beneath him in the passenger bay. A rousing speech, no doubt. That was beneficial. Tvashtar’s Fire was used to hosting terminators, not tactical marines, and the unfamiliarity of their cargo was reflected in the machine spirit’s disposition.
Mormys reached for the panel on the communication terminal, to patch into the squad-level vox net and see if First Captain Aurastra was as good as marshalling those of another company as his own. His finger was on the switch when the Land Raider’s external sensors lit up with alarms. Mormys hammered the switch into the on-position and felt the marines in the passenger bay flinch at his interruption.
“Captain, we have a massive thermal signature reading from within the outpost.”
“More information, please, Keldek.”
Mormys strained closer to the pict-screens, flicking through view options, focusing in on the bloom of heat radiating from the lower portion of the outpost. The metres-thick shell of reinforced ferrocrete yielded precious few answers, but there was a horrible sense of familiarity that was starting to creep out of the more organic parts of Mormys’ brain.
“Uncertain, captain, but the readings align with macro-grade weaponry. Will continue to observe.”
“Understood.” There was another click as the Captain plugged directly into the Land Raider’s internal systems, his next words ringing well-beyond the confines of the tank.
“All elements, this is Shargen Aurastra. We have a potential grandis-level threat spooling up in the bowels of that outpost. Make all haste and stay vigilant. If we see it before it sees us, the advantage will be ours.”
The message was met with a flurry of confirmations from the other force elements. Mormys sent his own brief confirmation and urged Tvashtar’s Fire to go faster, eyes glued to the rattling pict-screens as the tank ground through the remnants of a walled-off courtyard and summitted the lip of a crater.
“Hurricane Dragon to Niveus Exact, this is Glademan!”
The signal spiked almost painfully through Mormys’ senses, thick with static and interference as it shot into the Land Raider’s vox network. He didn’t even hear Aurastra’s response before the signal continued, and Mormys was just about to start work on a scolding reminder about vox-procedures that the pilots of the Fifth Company were in clear need of, before the rest of the signal drove a pulse of shock up his spine.
“I have my sight on the facility. The lower bay doors are open, we have super heavy armour, I repeat, super heavy armour emerging.”
The Land Raider’s momentum carried it down into the crater and up the other side, its machine spirit taking advantage of Mormys’ momentary paralysis to dig its treads in and climb. It was still moving at speed when it reached the crater lip, so it took a few moments for the tank to come to a stop. A few moments that Mormys spent staring at a gargantuan, slab-sided nightmare of riveted metal that had clawed its way from some unholy bowel of the fortified mechanicus outpost and was now rolling straight towards them. In the face of ordinance designed explicitly to fell titans, vox-procedures went out the window. Mormys’ words were heard in the ear of every Iron Fist within ten kilometers as he jammed the tank’s motors into reverse and screamed “SHADOWSWORD!”
It was too late. Keldek Mormys was imparted with the acute sensation of the Land Raider’s glacis plate, rendered red hot by a billion watts of laser energy, peeling back like the lid of a sardine can, before his world became a unitary point of infinite light and heat.
