++ Force Omicron: Hail Hydra! ++

[Iron Father Ferrum]

They belly-crawled up the last two meters of the granite-gray slope, their armored fingers digging deeply into the scree as they pulled their heads even with the ridge line.  Slowly -- oh, so slowly -- they raised their heads above the ridge's broken crest until they could see down into the valley below.

 

The light in the burnt-red sky was dying, the sun around which this unnamed ball of rock orbited rapidly sinking below the horizon behind them, obscuring even their cautious peeking from casual observation.  Black-streaked stratus clouds were moving in from the north and colliding with the cloud cover over the facility; already a dull, battleship gray, the combination threatened not only rain, but ferocious thunderstorms as well.  A cold wind was rising, blowing loose scads of dust across the barren vista.  The whistling of the wind was all the sound there was; no insects buzzed in the warm, dry air.  There were no birds chirping as they swooped about, no rodents crawling from their dens to hunt in the assumed safety of the twilight.  Nothing moved in that valley of the dead.

 

Hive Fleet Behemoth had seen to that.

 

In the valley below, they could see the entrance to the facility.  It was a prison of sorts, a penal colony for offenders so violent, so corrupted, so powerful that they could never again be allowed to see the light of day.  Any sane society would have simply ended the lives of those they'd captured and housed there, such was the level of threat they posed.  Some however felt the need to retain them.  They had information, it was claimed.  They could be induced to give that information up, it was claimed.  The intelligence gleaned from the prisoners could be useful in the understanding them and their ilk, it was claimed.  They no longer posed a threat, after all.  They were held securely on a dead world, a cooling ball of stone stripped of all life and any useful future by the passing of the Great Devourer, in a subterranean fortress owned and operated, off the books so to speak, by a cabal within the Inquisition.  Even if they could escape, there was nowhere to escape to, and no one even knew the place existed.  No way to leave.  No way to call for help.

 

Occam felt a smirk trying to climb onto his face but he repressed the expression, forcing his lips to thin back out.  The Inquisition had done well here, had almost kept this secret squirreled away where he couldn't find it.  But he had found it, and that was all that mattered.  Getting into the system and, more importantly, onto the battle unnoticed had been more than difficult given all of the hidden defenses and sensor apparati that had been laced throughout the orbital space. . . but here they were.

 

The facility didn't bother to light up its perimeter, post guards, or even construct a wall.  The only way in -- or out -- was a simple hydraulically-locked door about ten meters square buried at the base of the cliff face on the ridge opposite their current position.  A large, blood-red stylized letter "I" was emblazoned on its surface.

 

"Why do these fools feel the need to slap their signature on everything?" Sergeant Oscuro's whispery voice, given form by his helm's external vox, barely carried to Occam's aural pickups over the wailing wind.  "For a group that so enjoys secrecy, they're not much for subtlety."

 

Occam frowned as he turned to regard Oscuro, knowing that while the monstrous muzzle of his Mk. V helmet prevented Oscuro from seeing his expression, the act itself would translate.  Oscuro gave a little shrug of apology and turned back to study the facility entrance again.

 

Occam waved them down from the ridge line.  Safely out of view once more, Oscuro summoned the courage to speak again.

 

"And besides, what are they doing here?  Hellfire, what are we doing here?"

 

This time, Occam allowed the smile to bloom fully on his face though again there was no one who could see it.  Such emotion was an indulgence, for himself alone.  He looked back up at the crest of the ridge, his hands coming to rest on the weapons belted at his waist.

 

"Sir?" asked Orram, one of Oscuro's troopers.  "Why are we here?"

 

Occam turned back, taking in his strike force one by one before answering.  "We're recruiting."

 

 

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

 

This thread is going to be my WIP for my small Call of Chaos contribution.  Similar to some previous projects by some other members of the boards, I'm going to delve into the character of each model as I build them on an individual basis.  This is partially to allow me to flex some of my narrative muscles which have been far too slack for far too slack, and partially because I'm short on Chaos models and bitz as the result of an unfortunate accident that occurred during the unpacking process of a recent move.  So I want to participate to the best of my ability, and a paltry few models seems less than what the Primordial Annihilator is normally willing to accept.  Ergo, I'm spicing things up with a little story-telling at the same time. 

 

In short, sit back, relax, and wait patiently for the pictures to come up as I progress.

[Dragonlover]

Sweet. I like the whole 'use a Nid scoured world for secret things' concept. Got any models started yet?

 

Dragonlover

[Dosjetka]

Waiting to see some models :D

[Iron Father Ferrum]

(Slowly coming together; Osrum's started, just need to get a picture up.  The 'Nid-wiped world was, I admit, a flash of inspiration that came to me while writing.  After all, if you want to build a facility where no one is ever going to look for it, go where no one has any reason to be.)

 

 

Othic pulled himself back above the ridge line and settled his custom-made long-barreled bolter across the dusty gray rock.  A flick of a switch tuned his helmet visor's right-side eye piece to the electronic scopes mounted on the bolter's top rail.  His closed his left eye and the opposite ridge immediately sprang into view as if he were standing just meters away.  He adjusted the zoom, pulling his view out a bit, and fiddled with the gain until the resolution was clear.  He panned his sights across the opposite ridge until he found Commander Occam's helmet sticking just barely above the streaked granite bedrock.  He raised his hand and flashed an "O" with his fingers; Occam replied with a count down.  He hand up three fingers, then brought each one down in turn.  As the last one fell, Othic gave a short nod, took a deep breath, re-centered his aim on the facility entrance. . . and clicked his vox twice.

 

The response wasn't immediate, but it sure was quicker than he had expected.  It took less than two minutes by his helmet chronometer before the stylized-I on the door was split vertically.  The two halves pulled back into the bedrock, opening a black maw, a void in the mountain, which was quickly filled by motion.  A pair of heavy combat servitors emerged, heavily plated with filigreed armor.  Each had its arms replaced with heavy weapon mounts, long-barreled lascannons mated to the spinning barrels of assault cannons and the solid mass of heavy bolters.  The servitors began moving out on track units, the caterpillar treads kicking up the loose gray dust as they split up into a search pattern.  Othic was over a kilometer away; standard Imperial gunnery servitor auspices were limited to about two hundred fifty meters effective, and their targeting systems started to lose resolution after about five hundred meters.  He was fairly safe where he was, at least for the moment.

 

Apparently, the Inquisition wasn't so confident about the security of the facility that they were willing to not investigate potential intruders.

 

He opened up his left eye, keeping the rifle aimed at one of the servitors while he followed the other by its dust trail with his peripheral vision.  The focus of his attention, however, was the door to the facility.  Which was beginning to close.

 

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

 

Occam and Osrum were at the top of the ridge, directly above the door to the facility, peeking over the edge.  The commander looked at Osrum as the doors began to roll open and nodded.

 

"You're up," he said, he voice whispering over the external vox.

 

Osrum's studded pauldrons rose slightly and slumped as he took a deep breath.  Then he threw himself off the cliff.

 

The high-capacity wire line spooled out behind him as he forward-rappelled down the sheer cliff face.  The line was cinched around his torso and his legs pumped furiously as he "ran" down the cliff.  Not that he was actually running; gravity was doing the hard work.  The line wasn't just there for safety, it also slowed the rate of fall of his upper body while the friction of his armored boots slowed the rate of fall of his lower body.  Without one or the other, he would basically trip, go head over heels, and end up telescoping his head into his chest cavity when he hit the ground.

 

His attention was focused wholly on the facility door, which was already beginning to slide shut again.  He willed himself to fall faster.  He was fifty meters from the portal.  Forty.  Thirty.  Twenty.  The door was over half closed.  Ten meters.  Five.

 

He pushed off with his feet and flipped them back, yanking hard on the belay line at the same time.  The move straightened him up and slowed his descent as his feet slammed into the rockcrete floor.  He took two steps into the room as the doors slammed shut behind him.  One hand slapped the quick-release on the belay harness while the other flipped one of his bolt pistols out.  The room he was in was a glass-fronted airlock, and on the other side was a very surprised -- and confused -- Imperial stormtrooper wearing the black and red of the Inquisition.  He remembered himself as the airlock automatically cycled, yanking up his hellgun and running for an alarm panel on one wall.  He never made it.

 

Osrum's bolt pistol coughed loudly, the normally cacophonous report dampened by the extended suppressor screwed onto the barrel, and the stormtrooper's head exploded into a messy cloud of blood, brains, and bone fragments.  Yanking out the second of his pair of pistols, he slid into the airlock control room, his head sweeping side to side as he scanned for more threats.  None were apparent.  He checked his chrono; one more minute, then he could open the door and let the rest of Doppelganger Squad into the facility. . .

 

 

(WIP picture of Osrum is forthcoming.)