The Necron Wars, Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1- Defense of Morrkosis

-----1:41 P.M. TST/1-24-40,022--

    I don’t talk with big words because that’s not who I am. I am simple; I hope you can see that.
    The drone of the engine of the tank was loud, almost deafening. Fresh metal and paint could be smelled, and sweat from the heat we all endured.
    “How you doing, Deggor?” Byrun said to me.
    “Tired. Glad we didn’t get shipped off to different places,” I said through the link in my helmet. At least the Armor was cooled. The Rhino hit a bump in the ground, shaking the passengers. The guys looked around worriedly; myself included. The squads of fresh marines were eager to go.
    “Hey, this isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen before,” said another marine in the Rhino. “They pop out of the ground, they dig through your skin, they cut your skin off and wear it, and THEN they kill you. And if you’re real un-lucky, they should do it in that order.” I looked at him in a daze.
    Scars lined his face. Metal was scattered over his exposed body, not much, but it probably ran down over most of his body. He looked like he lost the will to live. His eyes were dull and in a blank stare. He must have gone through a lot.
    “Damn, what did you go through!” Byrun exclaimed.
    “Hell,” he said in a flat voice.
    The Rhino came to a halt. Through the helmet I heard other marines yelling and moving around. The back door slapped down, raising a cloud of dust and soot. We moved out of the Rhino and were in shock.
    The town was in almost complete ruin. Very few buildings stood, and all of them were shot to hell. Piles of rubble lined the outskirts of town, creating a low wall. We pitched in our strength and helped put together the wall.
    What I found was scortched, twisted metal and huge slabs of crematite. The bulk of the one building I sifted through had pieces of wire, cloth and fabric, and I even found a Holophoto, quickly looping a small scene of a family. It hurt.
    That would probably be the easiest part of war. Putting up walls.  The moderate part of wars was killing the enemy. And the truly hardest part of war is tearing down walls after it’s finished.

-----5:07 P.M. TST/1-24-40,022--

    The sun was gone for the last two hours or so. We found some power cells for some lights, but the light from the three moons were enough. The first was full, and a beautiful shade of red, directly overhead. The second was at 1/3 full and a pale blue, and in the southeast. The last was just a sliver and was a normal white in the west.
    This was going to be a strange night-fight. The light was plenty. What was the real problem was seeing the enemy, the Necrons.
    “EVRYONE!!  TO POSITIONS!!” Commander Jenks yelled to us. A sonic boom sounded in the forest. We ran behind the nearest pieces of rubble from the ruined city. We piled up the beams of buildings to make barricades and had our guns on the forest to the east, ready for anything.
    “Not much of a town anymore, eh, Deggor?” Byrun said as he heaved a beam back onto a stack near me and while I checked both of our equipment. His Bolter was slick, fresh from the forge world. His armor had our classes briggade number, 842, printed in Standard on the side shoulder plate. I knew mine was identical.
    “Yeah, but hey, what’s the worst that could happen?”
    We heard a horrific metallic screech. We got behind the barriers as fast as possible. We waited. Then, They were here.
I saw the metallic blue eyes of the Necrons walk through the Ionilian Forest trees. Their cold glare made me weak kneed, but I held strong. They marched in step, one solid movement as they moved forward. No living thing could achieve that kind of unison. Their skeletal looking bodies were supposed to drive fear into me. It did, for a second.
    “Cut the chatter.” Commander Jenks barked at us. The Predator Tank was brimming of Lascannons. The Devastator Squad was ready to rain their blue Las shots of death. I loaded my bolter and looked down the barrel. We were ready.
Blue flashes of Gauss flared around us. The tank got hit hard, but the crew was just shaken around. Every one of us fired whatever we had. I stopped and looked behind me because I felt a strange presence. A Daemon Hunter Terminator was walking toward us.
    “Get back to firing!” He yelled in a strangely automated voice. He took three shots with his Daemon Hunter gun, a Psy-Cannon, and two of the Necron warriors fell completely apart, but one was picking itself up. Our squad resumed the pressure and took down another two. Gauss fire was still pouring in from the forest.
    I was ducking behind the barricade, pieces of it melting and flying off.  I took a quick look up and, a flayer hit right next to me. I wasn’t afraid. I just kept shooting.
    By then the predator was up and firing, mowing down the Necrons. No one was moving a whole lot, Except for the tin men.
    The ground was now littered with shrapnel. About 5 men were down now, and the Necron Warriors have been beaten down to about 50%.
    And then the tank went up in flames.
    Fire erupted all around me. Hot metal scratched my power armor, the black paint and red flames melting and bubbling. The power armor was at full energy output for system cooling. I could barely breathe because the air filter system was down and smoke was coming into my helmet.
    The Daemon Hunter just kept on hurling psy-cannon shots at them. For about every 35 of our shots that landed, only one of them went down. But we held. Volley after volley, we lost another man. We held strong. No one moved a foot, an inch, to make way for the Necrons. Our faith was deep.
    We held ‘till the fire rained from the skies, ‘till the strong stood tall, ‘till there was only melted metal where our enemies once stood. Our faith was deep.
    Was.
    We were foolish to believe.
    Not anymore.

    Never again.