Rapid Fire Challenge: Leadership - March 2019

[Race Bannon]

Prompt: Leadership

Maximum length: 500 words

Deadline: 31 March 2019

Where to post submissions: In this thread

Note - please make sure all submissions adhere to the forum rules. Any entry that breaks one or more rules shall be removed.

[Quantum]

"Command is ordering your men into the jaws of death. Leadership is having them follow you there willingly."

                -  Colonel Bran Garner, Catachan 56th. 

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

 

 

Shells rained down upon their position, throwing up plumes of dirt and grass into the air. These “Iron Warriors” were especially annoying, thought Lady Zetak. This artillery was giving her enough losses as to actually slow her advances upon this stronghold, which currently contained a lost doomsday cannon that she was attempting to recover.

 

A tomb moon under her control had been raided three millennia ago, shortly prior to her awakening two millennia later. It was an embarrassment to her, that one of her worlds had been attacked and robbed so easily. She’d been humiliated by another Overlady for that shame, and she’d resolved to correct it to save face in front of the Phaeron Sarnakh.

 

It had taken her seven centuries to track the thieves to their stronghold, and another one to muster sufficient forces to take this planet-sized fortress.

 

And that was how she’d found herself hunkered behind a forcefield embankment, surrounded by thirteen of her fifteen Lychguard and forty Immortals, two annihilation barges and a cryptek behind her, powering the shield.

 

She needed to do something, and quickly, otherwise the constant barrage of shells would overwhelm the embankment they were taking shelter in.

 

So, she decided to do something about it. Her meagre fleet (a mere twelve ships) was on the other side of the planet, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t do anything….

 

A thought-pulse later, and two of her monoliths flashed into existence before her. Immediately they began to lob energy pulses towards the fortress, particle whips shredding the outer layer of the fortress.

 

Zetak, with the efficacy of thought that only a machine brain could have, quickly calculated the time it would take before there would be a large enough opening for her to charge through it, how long it would take her forces to cross the killbox and breach the opening, and when they would need to step off to reach their target precisely when needed.

 

When she arrived at the correct time, she sent out a slave-pulse to her forces, alerting them to their imminent departure, then began counting down. When she reached zero, she raised her voidblade, signaling their advance.

 

The entire necron force, Monoliths and all, began to move into the line of fire, with no complain and nothing but adoration for their Overlady.

 

After all, why inspire your troops when they could simply be aimed?