Bad Dreams

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Codename: Renegade

The CIC's Most Wanted
His communications officer gave one last shriek, before the stacatto crack of his sidearm cut him short, spattering the crewman behind with blood, skull, and pieces of brain. After the thirty seconds or so of frantic throat-shredding screams, the bridge seemed almost quiet. The brain-smeared crewman looked at the earpiece the comms officer had tossed to the deck as he started screaming, looked at it as if it were some kind of deadly creature poised to strike. Sweat ran through his crewmates blood on his face, and the man's breath was coming in short gasps.

Captain George Foxton darted from the small podium his command chair occupied, and with a swift kick, sent the earpiece flying across the bridge into a bulkhead. He had no desire to hear whatever had caused his comms officer - Richard. His name was Richard - to go mad and blast his own head open. Turning to the blood-smeared crewman, he took him by the shoulders, and pushed him towards the secondary comms console "I need you to get me a channel open to the Vigilance!" he had to yell to be heard above the wailing alarms, the roar of detonations elsewhere on the ship, and the screams of his crew as they fought and died.

The man stood there, now staring fixedly at at the corpse of the comms officer. George felt for him, but he had no time. Drawing his arm back, he delivered a sharp slap to the othe mans face, smearing blood over his hand. The crewman turned to the Captain, his face pale beneath the blood "Dammit, hail the Vigilance! NOW!"

The man looked dazed for a moment, before nodding "A-aye s-sir...". George waited until the man had turned his attention to the comms controls before he turned back towards his command chair. His eyes skipped over the corpse of his first officer - Harry, friend of ten damn years, and a damn good officer - who had been the first casualty on the bridge. Something had risen through the deckplates in front of him, reached into his chest, and before George could move, his friend and first officer was dead, the blood seemingly sucked from his body. His killer had sunk back through the deckplates as sidearm rounds had spanged from the floor and bulkheads.

Through the cracked and faultering main viewscreen George could see the forward sensors view of the battle that had started so suddenly. The Nerimian ships were easily out maneuvering the few outnumbered ASC vessels, but the Athos still spat lances of laser-fire at the enemy. Further away, he could make out the blasts of the Imperial vessels firing. Slowly drifting into view was the bizarre ship that had dealt the Cains Memory such a critical blow - and had caused nightmares to walk the halls of his ship. It appeared to be a wooden, ancient nautical sailing ship! Against all probability, it was there, spewing arcane fire and heaven-knew what at his ship.

In the moments before it's attack, the ships sensors had identified it as being made of wood, and being filled to the brim with some kind of energy source... then they'd started firing at the Memory, and everything had gone to Hell...

The starboard bridge doors opened, and a grimy, blood-smeared bridge officer half-ran, half-fell through the door, blasting wildly back through the closing door with his rifle, teeth gritted, and a desperate shout issuing from his throat. In the corridor something screamed - a guttural, piercing scream, just as something crashed through the closing doors. It appeared a jumble of flesh, bone, and teeth. It thrashed, caught in the doors as the officer continued to blast at it with his rifle. George joined him with his pistol, as did the handful of other surviving bridge crew.

The thing pulled itself free of the door, and stumbled back into the red-lit corridor. The doors shut, and George slapped the lock button, before spinning to face the newly-arrived bridge officer "What the Hell's going on out there? What's happening to my bloody ship?" he demanded of the man.

Between pants, he shouldered the rifle, and began speaking "It is Hell out there!" he cast an uneasy glance at the sealed door. It sounded like something was clawing at the other side of it "Sir, there are... things out there, I can't even begin to describe... corpses are getting up and eating people, the floors are melting and swallowing people.... I can't..." his eyes unfocused for a moment, then with a shudder, his training took hold again "The ASTC barracks is a slaughterhouse sir. Every trooper that was in there has been... torn apart by something. There are scattered handfuls of ASTC troopers left, and a few more crew members. Half the weapons points are gone, the others are being used.." he paused for a moment "and the starboard pylon has been... has been turned to stone."

For a moment, Foxton wondered if the officer had lost his mind. But they could get no reading or response from anything from over halfway along the starboard pylon. Starboard engines were dead, hence the drifting planetwards... "We can't stay here any longer. Give - " he was cut off by a direct hit on the bridge. The armoured shell held for a long moment under the sustained arcane assault, rattling the bridgecrew around like dice in a cup, before it began to give way. Flames washed over half the bridge, and Foxton found himself lying in front of the main viewscreen that had stopped his flight across the deck.

Cains Vengeance had shields, but whatever was being fired at them ignored them as if they weren't there at all, and the only ship he knew that stood any chance was the Vigilance...

Dragging himself to his feet, he dimly noticed that the starboard doors were starting to buckle under the assault of that thing outside, and that the officer with the rifle and most of the other bridge crew were pouring fire through the multiplying holes. But he had eyes only for the comms officer.

"S-sir, I have the V-Vigilance!" called the crewman, frantically working his controls "But we're l-losing the signal. I-i-interference"

Foxton threw himself into his scorched command chair. His chair display told him the main viewscreen was offline - probably thanks to his impact with it - so he punched in the commands to bring up the link on his arm console. Moments later he was greeted with a jittery, shifting image of his friend since the Academy, and captain of what passed for Ayenee's flagship, the Vigilance.

"Alex, we need help. Most of the crew is dead, the rest are fighting for their lives.... this whole ship is a nightmare... we're crippled, and fighting nightmares made flesh... God, help us Alex!" Behind him, the door finally collapsed, and something burst onto the bridge. The shouts of his officers turned to screams as it cut into them.

"Alex, help me!"


***

With a shout, Captain-General Alex Coburn woke in bed. Sweat matted his greying hair, and soaked the sheets of his bed, making them cling to him. He was panting, and the echoes of his waking cry were fading in his cabin. But his friends cries never faded in his ears.

"Alex, help me!"

He ran a hand across his face, and drew a deep shuddering breath. Pulling the sodden sheets off of him, he swung his legs 'round on to the deckplate, not quite as easily as he'd have liked. For a moment he sat there in the dark, his friends desperate, bloody face filling his head, his last, pleading words loud in his ears. Then he pushed himself up, and padded to the sink, activating the small light above it. He very deliberately didn't look into the mirror. He was almost afraid of what he might see. Turning on the faucet, he splashed the cool water over his face, and swilled some around his mouth. Spitting it out, he lifted his head again, and met his blue eyes in the mirror.

There was nothing I could do! he silently screamed at his own accusing eyes By the time they hailed us, they were only moments away from a core breach! And we were taking heavy fire from the NDI... There was nothing I could have ------- done!

But still his own eyes stared silent, damning accusations at him.

He tore his gaze away, making his way to the shower. He already knew he'd get no more sleep tonight, not without the whisky. So, he may as well head to the bridge. At least when he was on duty, he could almost escape the silent damnations of Captain George Foxton.
 
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Western edge of Imperial Republic of Ayenee controlled space
1st Battlecruiser Flotilla, operating throughout frontier, suppressing pirate activity


Ensign Bornhal was getting nervous. It was late in the ships night-cycle, and he was still technically a cadet. He was being broken-in to operational duty by serving here aboard the Vigilance on what was supposed to be the quietest duty. There was little going on shipboard due to it being about 4am in realtime, and the pirates that had been causing problems in this sector seemed to have scarpered at sight of the Flotilla patrolling alongside the smaller local in-system ships.

He was getting nervous because the Captain was pacing the bridge, checking on every station, and Bornhal got the impression that the old man was watching him in particular. Having him stare at you is enough to make a damn Draconian nervous! he thought bitterly. In truth, 'pacing' was not the right word to use. He was calmly, methodically, patrolling the bridge. The other bridge crew seemed to take it all in their stride, even the other 'cadet', an Eldar by the name of Rashlinesh.

Bornhal could hear the Captains boots moving closer. The footsteps paused, stopping at a station behind Bornhal. He waited, barely breathing, knowing they would start moving any second. What was the old man doing there? He wasn't on duty for another -

A bleep from the console in front of him make him jump, and he inhaled sharply, realising he hadn't been paying any attention to the sensor display in front of him. The officer training him was suddenly at his side, a frown creasing his forehead "What is it Bornhal?" the older man asked. Bornhal silently hoped the Captain hadn't seen him jump too...

"Uh... uh, a sensor reading sir" Bornhal replied. His hopes that the captain hadn't seen were dashed as the mans gruff voice spoke from directly behind him.

"Sensors scaring you?" said the Captain "And here I thought you cadets all ate Bulrathis for breakfast and spat torpedoes for fun" The captains voice carried a trace of amusement which did nothing to placate Bornhal. Nor his instructor, who shrugged at the captain "Kids today sir. What can you do with them?" The instructor shot Bornhal a hard look that promised a stern retribution later. He didn't like to be shown up by those under his instruction, especially in front of the Captain.

"Sorry Captain, I - " Again Bornhal was cut off, this time by the strangled, enraged look his instructor was directing at him. Shit! Don't call him Captain. "General... uh..." Bornhal gave up on appologising, thinking he could feel waves of anger radiating from the khaki-uniformed Captain-General behind him. He bent his head over his display "It's a faint signal sir. intermittent, varying in strength. Could be an echo. Sir"

Sudenly the Captain was there, filling the left side of his peripheral vision as he looked harder at the screen, adjusting controls "Could be...." he said, then looked across at the instructor "... but possibly not. Could be a ship trying to hide it's emissions, and not doing very well. Keith?"

The instructor was also studying the display "It seems likely sir. It's too constant to be an echo. There's something there.". The captain stood so suddenly that the rush of air stirred Bornhal's hair.

"Helm, track the signal, and plot an intercept, all ahead full. Weapons systems on-line" the Captain barked orders as he strode back to his command chair "Comms, hail the Cynit, and Ash'avel Squadron, and have them rendezvous with us."

The officer in charge of Bornhal directed one last scowl at the younger man, before slipping into seat of the secondary sensor console. Bornhal suddenly felt a lot more nervous.

***

Captain-General Alex Coburn dropped into his command chair, and immediately activated the holographic projector set into the deck a few feet in front of him. Pinpoints of coloured light swirled, as he selected the view he wanted, then materialised into a tactical display of the area the signal was coming from. A large, immobile asteroid, almost large enough to be considered a moon, was the largest item of note in the area. The computer scrolled data on the rock across Coburns chair display. Mining and refuelling outpost. abandoned during the First War. No official reason for anyone to be out there.

"Could be some kind of waypoint for the pirates" said his Eldar first officer. Tall and graceful like most of his kin, Aldenar didn't look up from his own chair-arm display. He was viewing the same information as Coburn, but probably a lot quicker if Coburns guess was right "Ammo dump. fuel reserves. Looking at the mining base layout, it would be ideal"

Coburn decided to trust his first officers judgement. The Eldar was viewing the schematics of the base whilst Coburn was still reading preliminary data "If it is, we'll make them sorry they dared come this close to us, and we'll blast there little base to dust". Aldenar gave Coburn a brief, puzzled look before turning to the holo-display. Icons were now maneouvering within the sphere of the display, a pulsing red for the signal they were tracking, and solid blue for the ASCV Cynit and Ash'avel Squadron, converging on the red.

The icon marking the Squadron of Hemlock class destroyers fanned out into it's three component vessels as they neared, and looped beneath the red icon in a graceful arch. "My recommendations captain". The display was Aldenar's attack plan. Coburn shook his head slightly, and tapped commands into his own consile. The vector of the destroyers changed, taking them beneath the shadow of the rock, and put them at a much slower pace than Aldenar's predictions. The Eldar shrugged. Ciburn knew the Eldritch vessels were fast, he'd seen it first hand, but still, he'd feel better if they took it easy. He didn't want his first hostiles escaping because the Eldar captains weren't quite as fast as they should have been. With another handful of keystrokes, Coburn transmitted the strategy to the Squadron and the Cynit.

Now, he waited, watching as the distance counter clicked down...
 
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Forge World, Praxia
Praxia System

Tech-adept Sessirach moved with a steady, measured gait through the dim corridors of Research-Manufactorium Beta, two miles below the surface of the dimly-lit world of Praxia. he passed other adepts, their robes and trailing servitors and familiars strikingly different from the few non-adepts that wandered the halls of the Forge World. The latter were scientists , technicians and engineers from throughout the Republic, assembled here on the largest and most efficient manufacturing planet in the Republic - and on several other Forge Worlds - to aid the Tech-adepts of Mars in their holy crusade to gather knowledge, and produce the technology that lifted mankind closer to divinity.

He paid little heed to this that he passed, be they the mechanically augmented adepts, mind-wiped servitors, or the un-improved non-adepts. They were all involved in their own researches, whether travelling in chattering groups, or in silent solitude, and none of hem had anything to do with the errand that had drawn Sessirach from his own researches.

The respirator unit that replaced his lungs and terminated in a metal grille embedded in his throat purred gently and steadily as it carried out the vital inhalation of oxygen, so that his 'breathing' remained steady, and his artificial heart maintained it's steady rhythm, but he was confused, and if he would admit it, perhaps a little worried. The augmented nature of his thoughts segmented and analysed all thought processes, and he had to admit that their were traces of worry colouring his thoughts. But that wasn't so strange, considering the subject matter of his current errand.

Since the now infamous 'Sempers Standoff' as the naval forces referred to it - the short and unnecessary battle that had taken place above Ayenee Prim at the outset of the Chaos Wars - the collected parts of the ASC battlecruiser Cains Memory had been stored here on Praxis, being studied and investigated. The methods used to attack and cripple the vessel were unique to the attackers, the so-called 'Defenders of Ayenee'. One of Sessirach's duties was to oversee several aspects of the ongoing investigation into the attacks on the ship, and the changes that had been wrought on the vessel - such as sections of it being turned to stone - with the possible goal of incorporating them into the Republic's arsenal.

However, the project had been plagued with... problems, since it's inception. Many of the non-adepts, and even some of the lesser Tech-priests refused to be assigned to the project, or enter the hangar in which the recovered parts of the vessel were stored. Without realising, Sessirach muttered a prayer to the Omnissiah. Rumours claimed that evil spirits and daemons infested the remains of the once-proud vessel, and cursed and devilled those assigned to work on the project, or even those that entered the hangar. The senior adepts dismissed this, stating that the vessel had no Machine Spirit to be angered, as it wasn't an Imperial construct. But still, the mis-haps continued. Accidents, from the loss of data files to the death of several adepts. Numerous Servitors had 'malfunctioned', and had to be forcibly deactivated or destroyed. Although perhaps in retrospect 'malfunctioned' didn't really cover a mind-wiped mechanically augmented cyborg running amok with a hull cutting blade...

So the project had been lowered in priority. A bare handful of adepts did any work on it, whilst the main hanger awaited the arrival of a member of the Ecclesiarchy to sanctify and benedict the hangar and it's contents. Which is why it seemed strange that the sensors in the hanger monitoring the ruins of the ship had lost pict-recording, recorded some strange audio signals, a spike in energy, and now nothing. Not even background radiation from the ships surviving systems. Almost as if the ship were gone.

Lexmechanic Sessirach approached one of the man-sized doorways to the hangar, his snake-like mechandrites shooting out to manipulate the entrance console. The door hissed open, and lights dotted around the hangar and suspended fomr the ceiling far above flickered into life. Revealing the barren, empty hangar.
 
Streams of tracer fire reached up from the asteroids surface as defence turrets tried to hit the fleet Eldar vessels of Asha'vel Squadron. The Hemlock class destroyers were among the smallest independant vessels in the Ayenee Space Coalition, their size, speed, and incredible agility making them ideal for defending the slower ships of the line that usually commanded their Squadrons. The pirates on the asteroid were stitching lines of light and solid rounds across the void, but they never even came close to the sleek vessels raining fire down upon them.

Coburn could tell that the defence turrets on the surface were not ASC units - the weapons were too low powered, and the targetters they were using were well below military standards - and he was glad to see that in the gradual decline of Ayenee's first space-faring domain, at least some of the military hardware had been removed. He'd seen the reports from across the Republic of old ASC military hardware turning up in the hands of all sorts of undersirables due to the way it had been left behind as outposts were abandoned.

Even as he watched, another of the substandard pirate turrets dissapeared in a flash of plasma fire from one of Asha'vel Squadron, the ship arcing away in the haze of it's Holo-field. He knew he had nothing to fear from the turrets, even had the Squadron not been dealing with them. His battlecruiser was far too heavy to be troubled by weapons of that calibre, but the shuttles and launches they would use to secure the asteroid were definitely susceptible.

He turned his eyse from the surface assault showing on his chair terminal to the larger tactical display on the main screen. One quarter of the screen showed the view from the bow cameras, and he stared hard at the void filled image. According to the sensors, whatever was emitting the energy sources that had alerted them to the bases presence was close, and the Vigilance and the Cynit were dealing with it. Whatever it was, two battlecruisers could deal with it - and quickly enough that it wouldn't escape them.

"The Cynit reports Yamato cannon charged. All systems green" called the comms - Vox. they're Vox officers now, he reminded himself - officer. Coburn acknowledged with a nod.

"Confirm with the Cynit, and affirm likewise" he replied. It was nice in some ways to have the time to follow all the naval formalities, formalities that had been ignored almost continuously over the last few years of unceasing conflict.

A strident chime split the background hum of the bridge, and streams of data began scrolling along the edges of the tactical display. The source of the energy readings was suddenly putting out much more energy. Coburns eyes flitted to the tactical display, then back to the forward view. Without looking, he punched in the commands to transfer the image on his chair console to that of the forward cameras. As his eyes settled on the smaller screen, an ochre swirl of light, like dust caught in a sudden twisting updraft of air appeared in the darkness of the void. The tendrils of light writhed momentarily, stark against the black of space, before fading.

Automatically, the onboard computer zoomed in on the object that remained where the ochre light had been. Coburn looked up at the main screen, then back to his own smaller screen, open-mouthed.

Hanging in the black, just inside extreme firing range of the Vigilance was the Cains Memory.

Coburn swore loudly.
 
"Raise the shields. Targeting solutions on the.. the ship!" despite the IFF tag clearly designating the vessel ahead of them as Cains Memory, Coburn refused to believe it "Bring the Yamato reactors online and begin charging"

The IFF tag assigned to the Memory on the tactical display changed from amber to red as targeting solutions were acquired. Telemetry received from the Cynit indicated they were also targeting the vessel. Coburn noted with some satisfaction that the Cynit had locked on with her Yamato gun.

"Vox, issue standard trespass challenge" Coburn glanced at the sector tactical, seeing Asha'vel Squadron still neutralising the asteroids defences "Tactical - Tell Asha'vel to neutralise and secure the asteroid. I don't want any nasty surprises from it while we're dealing with this!" he gestured at the main screen.

It was impossible that this ship could be here. It was scrap, sections of a dead hulk sitting in storage somewhere on one of the forge worlds. And yet here it is, floating in space in front of me! He studied the image of the Memory and found himself ever more surprised.

"It... it is still in pieces..." Aldenar's soft voice echoed Coburns own thoughts. Auspex sweeps and direct camera views revealed that although it looked like a solid Behemoth class battlecruiser, it was in fact the remains of one. Sections of hull hovered in place, whilst sections around them were gone, vaporised during the battle that had destroyed the ship. The starboard pylon was reading as being solid granite, exactly as it had before the reactor had breached above Ayenee years ago.

It was impossible. But there it was.


***

"Unidentified vessel, this is the ASCV Vigilance. You have violated Ayenee Republic space. Come to full stop and identify yourself immediately, or you will be considered hostile. I repeat, Unidentified vessel..."
 
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