Hello again all,

It has been awhile since I've been able to work on my Tau modelling projects, they sit waiting for attention in my display case safe from feline shenanigans. In the meantime I have expanded the scope of fiction found throughout my project log (link in signature) and decided to break it away from that effort and start a new thread to capture my thoughts.

Here is the beginning of a short parted story:


BOOK I
Part I - A Genesis in War


Stilt legged Imperial quadruped mechanica roamed a forgotten battlefield. Where uncounted remnants of conflict and anger lay scattered amongst the remains of the fallen. High Gothic characters stamped to their hulls provided identification, and to some, protection. They sniffed with chemical sensors capable of breaking down the smog-stink and filtering out the stench of decay. The utilitarian cylindrical bodies rose and fell rhythmically with their mechanical gait. Carrion reptids with their glossy shells were paid no regard in their scavenging and gorging. They were either stepped over, or stepped upon. The blood of the unfortunate mingled with the rank fluids issued from the compressed corpses.

They searched for their quarry with optical spectrum analyzers and sonic detectors. They utilized worm-like probes which extended from sockets in their feet, to taste the soil around their plotted path. Squelching forward as if through muck, they were not looking for weapons. Nor did they search for armor, relics or even survivors.

They cared only for oils.

The lubricants of war shed by dying machines. From synthetic and petrol based liquids found in engine pans and motor sumps, and semi-solid greases that kept large guns firing smoothly, to inconsequential items like clasps and carbine slides. Oily bayonets and sweat drenched helmets also were collected and sorted in the vast, lumbering hoppers trailing the quadrupeds. The air here was grey and opaque. The smoke and soot of a billion gunshots hung in the air, never dissipating.

These fluids, these greases and oils would be delivered to a bulk tanker waiting in the semi-atmosphere. Vast quantities of lubricants would be pumped to this giant star-ship for a voyage to a special Forge, hidden from the enemy. Throughout the journey the tanker would pass through real space and the warp. It would witness time and space move about it. Other vessels were tasked with similar missions; some to reclaim massive cannons and others to salvage armor plating from stellar battles. Great men and greater minds would take note.

Awaiting this payload stood sleeping a monster. Moored to a great permacrete casket, it slumbered dryly. It’s cogs and pistons preserved by a delicate thin magnetic field. Devoid of armor it seemed almost frail, the skeletal framework and bundling exposed. The mooring casket rested on a million bogie wheels, ready to turn, lift, and drive at the behest of the architects. The scale was too ponderous and overwheming for some. Minds were shattered by the scope and meaning of this creation. Accidents happened, lives were lost and forgotten by men. But behind lifeless lenses it took notice.

Upon arrival the oil was processed through multiple filtrations and screenings. Bulk scrap materials were compacted and ejected towards the nearest star. This monster would live, kill, and sleep with eons passing before these scraps found an end in the threshold of the sun. Mechanical shredders disposed of organic remains suspended and ultimately preserved in the mixture. Human, alien, daemon and reptid flesh were emulsified and processed. Ultimately this slurry found its way to cellulose extrusion stations responsible for supplying the Imperium with combustibles.

Great quantities of metals were reclaimed from the vats, magnetic discs attracting and capturing them. These were analyzed and ultimately discarded, given the unknown origin and potentially harmful nature of the scraps.

And finally came the oils themselves. Stripped of impurities and filtered uncountable times, lubrication orders were issued and found use. A mere fraction of the bulk that arrived actually passed this far. Only the purest oil, which had seen war, felt hate, lived anger and rejected fear could be used to lubricate this Titan. These fluids would anoint and feed the furious spirit of this great warmachine.

It read ULTRA FACULTUS upon the brow, reaching so high that one standing at it’s feet could not make out where it ended. Weaponized arms protruded from carapace shoulders and the sensory head sat squarely centered in the torso. The internal cage armour gleamed in the star light, newly polished. Massive laser barrels rode shoulder mounts, and an extremely ponderous but smoothly rotating gatling cannon turned slowly under cycling directives beneath each shoulder.

It would see battle. It would best others of its kind and still greater. It would kill millions in the name of the Imperator, and would itself fall like they had before it. Slumbering forgotten for an eternity, the noble spirit within slowly eroded into a future of insanity.

Part II - A Brotherhood to be Sundered

CRUDELIS CRUENTIS and MALUM CUNCTATOR of House Pansior strode ahead of the Titan force advancing past the canyon cluster on Doco Moon III. The four Knights in the squadron were tasked with sensory recon, the others, CAECUS FIDELIS and AUDAX AUCTUS were flanking radar contacts up ahead. The Moon itself, of five in orbit of the gas giant Splephexis was a tundra orb of permafrost, sparse coniferous forests and jagged slate features permanently lit by the ambience of the parent planet. Where yellow green semi-frozen peat gave way to rock formations and boulders, rusty lichens and small hardy flowers clung to the hard surface. The odd cream colored rock formation jutted out of the landscape, no doubt slowly ejected from the mantle by natural tectonic forces. There was no indigenous fauna here save for the rare territorial moss raptor, which soared on eddies created by howling winds and preyed upon lichens pried loose from their rocky holds by the turbulent air flow. The Cerulean painted Knights stood out against the landscape. They had been redressed in blues to honour the Titan Legion they were attached to in this massive crusade, Only their sensor heads remained the original household, proud white.

Following the two Knight class scout heavy walkers more than two kilometers behind, was a formation of five Warlord class Titans. In vivid cerulean of the legion, these giants strode forward to meet their enemies. Each Titan was unique in it’s own right, having each been manufactured at various Titan forges across the segmentum. Mars orbital surveys had a cluster of four Titan class enemy units picked out on scans by parent star ships. Pilots of the Titans had been informed that the enemy formation had an oddly symmetrical pattern as if guarding an area with posts equidistant and placed facing the four points of a Terran map. But this was no Terra.

As the pair approached the enemy formation the distance closed to a point where detailed sensor scans were possible. Duke Gobios scrolled through data annotated by ancient processors aboard his mount. Optical and thermal sights on MALUM CUNCTATOR indicated dormant upright bipedal constructs of a smooth exoskeletal material. He almost laughed with cynical impatience as yet again they had failed to make any combat contact with the elusive alien forces guarding the system. Statues, nothing more than statues… He had barely finished the thought when a pink beam lit up the sky on the eastern horizon. Parallel to the ground, it reached out from some unseen source and terminated in an explosion. Fire raced down the line as if the air ignited following the beam in the same direction of travel. Debris and bulk pieces erupted from the fireball at terminus of this fiery lance. AUDAX AUCTUS disappeared from the unit scope. CAECUS FIDELIS’s pilot Duke screamed amidst the crackle of the incoming unit vox: Enemy detected, Audax down, Audax down. A squeal of static over the channel escalated into a buzz and finally a roar as another pink beam chased with fire lanced eastward on the horizon. Gobios coldly cut off the noise. CAECUS was gone. Another fireball emerged. Smoke trailed heavily now from the two points where AUDAX and CAECUS had been. Dark spindly shapes resolved on the horizon where the two beams had originated.

In CRUDELIS CRUENTIS, Duke Enger looked on slack-jawed and stunned. No training, no exercise, no enemy had been quite like…this. Two of his stable mates were likely dead, no doubt vaporized by what he could only imagine was an alien energy lance. CRUDELIS and MALUM instinctively stopped and crouched to asses the contacts heading their way. Each Knight carried a multi-barreled large caliber rotary cannon capable of firing most Imperial munitions of varying purpose. These cycled and fed respective shells in determined order into separate barrels. Some Knights would load sabot rounds, others high-energy electrical discharge capacitors which would short and sometimes heat-fuse an enemy vehicle, leaving it disabled. Duke Gobios cued a blunt practice round. Enger, a cluster-frag.

Bone-hued gangle limbed contructs shambled towards them at uncanny speeds. Weapon frames illuminated on vision enhancers and reflexive sensors activated the chain blade on each Knight. Simultaneously, the Knights braced and opened fire on the incoming alien walkers. Gobios and Enger had worked together long enough to make unspoken team decisions and act in concert where needed. This was one of those instances. Enger’s frag round blasted from the cannon, the recoil action swinging the next barrel around into firing position. The round traced a gentle arc towards the nearest enemy unit and detonated the cluster frag deployment charge. Hundreds of bomblets peppered the distant form, and from a zoomed vantage Enger witnessed it shudder and splinter under the onslaught.

It appeared that there were four more striders, racing fast through the smoke and debris of their fallen comrade. They used it as cover, thought Enger as the next round slammed into the cannon breach, lighting a green lamp on his firing contoller and extinguishing an orange one. As they neared, it became obvious they were meant for close quarters fighting. With long articulate arms ending in energized claws, and shoulder mounted weapons, each appearing unique from this distance. Legs hinged at hips and knees propelled the fiendish walkers forward at break-neck speed. They weaved back and forth in erratic patterns, confusing tracking systems and appeared to generate incandescent energy around the shoulders and head. They drove forward dragging claws on rocks they passed, throwing up sparks and dust clouds of atomized slate. Head down, as if to ram, the first in the group charged ahead of the others as if barely able to hold back from the murder to come. It was felled within mere steps of its charge and crumpled, somersaulting, arms and legs shearing off under the stress. MALUM had fired a practice dummy round. A blunt, solid slug of fibercrete with a thin metal shell intercepted the alien form, ending the momentum gained in the rush and crippling the machine.

Gobios laughed triumphantly and turn his attention to the next alien filth to die. He selected a mag-sabot from his magazine and smiled mirthlessly as he felt the slight shudder of the breach close. At this range, he could only imagine the carnage. With malicious patience he waited for the right moment… then squeezed the firing trigger on the magnetic activator console with white knuckles. There was no thrill greater than releasing this sort of power on an enemy. The shell left the barrel, heading straight and level on a rifled trajectory and then the mag-sabot did it’s thing. Breaking away from the dart, capacitors built into the sleeve charged a core – propelling the dart forwards under magnetic thrust on a trail of fire. A sonic boom and shock wave were at once released and extinguished as the dart created a vacuum in its terrible wake. It passed cleanly through the center torso of the third walker and then through the head of the fifth. Both were shattered to molecules by the event, leaving burning dust and a swirling tornado of debris where they stood. The sabot dart, presumably still intact then left the atmosphere. He had lined them up, and killed two with one round. Duke Gobios was a genius. He would ride this glory for decades. He was thrilled to the point of shaking, trembling in his cockpit with adrenaline.

Enger in CRUDELIS CRUENTIS was amazed, but not so much so that he forgot where they were, what they were doing. Later he would review the footage from this engagement and ponder the results. But now he simply emptied his cannon of a hefty battle cannon shell and obliterated the last alien construct striding towards them. It was a simple kill compared with Gobios’s artful interception, but none the less satisfying.

The pair advanced towards the fallen aliens, securing the site and inspecting the remains of the shattered walkers. The first victim weakly activated the sheared stumps of the arms and legs it was missing in either a feeble attempt to get clear of the advancing Knights, or to inflict damage as they approached. MALUM swiveled to face the cripple and let loose a drum from each of the torso mounted heavy bolters. It stood over the victim in such a way as to resemble a man chastising a beaten child. The enemy strider shuddered and shook as it was punctured under the onslaught. Gobios then cued the drive motor for the chain blade and MALUM roughly bisected the remaining bulk of the alien machine’s torso. Blood could be seen whipping off the blades, spattering the cerulean armour of Gobios’s mount. Blood hissed off into steam where it landed on the super hot components of the Knight. The brilliant white sensor head cockpit flecked in blood looked on impassively with narrow eye slit cameras.

Part III - Phantoms, Friends


Enger recovered from the sight of carnage quickly and scanned the area for more threats. CRUDELIS CRUENTIS swiveled on its torso axis as it swept the area beyond the engagement towards the direction the bone walkers had come from. MALUM, returning to a fully erect position quieted the chain blade and joined CRUDELIS in the sweep. Both machines locked up a sensor fix just beyond the engagement zone. Once again autoloaders slammed rounds into the empty barrels in anticipation of conflict.

A small pink orb of light appeared on the tundra surface where their vision enhancers bracketed an anomaly. Magnetic and distortive interference prevented scanner systems from identifying what it was, but Enger looked on through his display screen at what appeared to be a small globe of pink fire. It buried itself without displacing the earth around it with half a hemisphere exposed before extruding into a pancake shape which grew thinner as the circumference expanded to envelope the surrounding area. I wispy outline formed in the fire, of a colossal humanoid head and shoulders with what looked like wings sprouting behind. MALUM reacted first, Gobios’s blood heated from the previous engagement and thirsty for another victory. He loosed two battle cannon shells in quick succession which streamed toward the emerging construct. The torso was rising now from the pink disc of light, as if it stood on some unseen platform elevating it through the soil and tundra. Not fully formed, the battle cannon ordnance whizzed through the semi-corporeal phantom form and detonated in tundra after arcing through the cold sky. Bits of moss and frozen peat landed at the feet of MALUM and CRUDELIS. Enger noted that with the alien machine infront of them by now fully raised and starting to solidify in nature and form, bits of debris from the blast were atomizing against a void field. This would be a struggle. Enger raced through his catalogue of experience to resolve a solution to ending this foe. CRUDELIS shifted backwards in response to the Duke pilot’s stress.

Cloaked in eldritch energy, the Titan in front of them bowed to regard the two Dukes in their dwarfed Knights, no doubt aping a formal gesture. Gobios cursed and selected a barrel with a capacitor shell from his arsenal. It rotated to the firing breach with haste and the breach slam-locked against the shell. He quickly analyzed the void field with anomaly sensors and targeted a joint near the hip of this heinous foe. Gobios was barely aware he had pulled the trigger when the round slammed into the field protecting the Titan. It discharged against the field, hung in the air for a brief moment and then fell to the giant’s feet. Ripples of electricity marked the point of impact in retreating concentric circles. “ENGER! Why are you not engaging?!?!” he screamed into his vox mic, but Enger was unconsciously maneuvering his mount in a lateral fashion to test the field with his heavy bolters. He spent three drums, one hundred rounds each, while resolving visual data from a vibrant anomaly viewer. It seemed the field would detect and even predict impacts of the high rate of fire weapons, strengthening and dissipating before and after each hit respectively. It was no use firing large caliber weapons until they had breached that field.

The bone colored alien Titan by now recovered from the sarcastic gesture of bowing before the Knights, and was slowly, ponderously, bringing a lithe stiletto weapon suspended under each shoulder to bear on both Knights. Enger and Gobios had less than a breath to react before this giant would annihilate them.

A flash image of the standing foe seared itself into Duke Enger’s mind as a shell that would dwarf a battle tank slammed into the void field of this spindly giant before him. It was a round from a Warlord. It detonated where it was held in place by the shield and threw the three combatants backwards and away from each other. MALUM and CRUDELIS left the ground engulfed by plasmatic fire, their void fields snapping out to shield them from the blast. The bone Titan left the ground in a backwards flip but amazingly landed upright, weapons folded inward and on one knee. The bone surface of the thing was scorched in areas where the blast had touched it. A fitful snapping field tried to reform itself around the Titan, cocooning it in safety, but back in the line of advancing Warlords, a firing order solution had been assembled and executed.

Regal Princeps Devis Bonh Fulkyinsi sat restrained in a command shell of his precious mount ULTRA FACULTUS. To his left, strode two Warlord class Titans of his legion under his direct wing command, to his right, another Warlord of his wing, and a Warlord on loan from his peer Regal Princeps Hanhe Antriusk. Devis watched uncaring as the two Knights under his command toppled backward under the sheet of fire and pressure. He had loosed two rotary cannon shells at the Phantom these to youngsters were nipping at, the first disrupted their party, the second…

The Phantom Titan raised itself from the position it had landed in. Respect would later be paid to the pilot of this machine, for gracefully recovering from what should have an apocalyptic event. The second round, meters long and in diameter, tons in weight decapitated the Phantom. It flew backwards, limbs flaccid with no pilot to guide them. It crashed to the tundra earth and crumpled into a steaming pile. The giant cannon shell, shockwave in pursuit, slammed into the earth some distance past and detonated. A crater left by the explosion would reveal a shattered labyrinth structure beneath the permafrost.

One-thousand flares went up as ULTRA FACULTUS marked its one-thousandth Titan kill. A veritable fireworks display in celebration of this victory. The sensor head crew cheered and rotated in swivel stations to commend their Regal Princeps. Devis allowed a minute of cheer before ordering a weapon safety lock and sped up the unit's advance on the two prone Knights. He would salvage what he could and then retire.

In MALUM CUNCTATOR, Gobios tried desperately to raise his mount. He had been taken by surprise and would not be caught like this. Enger merely shut down his Knight, ending the profuse cursing issued over the vox link by Gobios and killing the multiple warnings flashing across each system display. Most of the components aboard CRUDELIS had been rendered useless by the blast; a Knight of this size just could not hope to return to combat after enduring such an explosion. He unclasped his safety restraints and let his head dangle backwards off his command seat, filling with blood and pressure. Vents opened letting in tundra air and he breathed the cold sulfur stink of combat.

Four Titans flanking ULTRA FACULTUS held their position as their leader approached the Knights ahead of them. The flares landed about its feet and hissed as they found the octagonal ponds left by its tread. The massive weight of the Titan left stories-deep broad symmetrical depression in the peat, ground water and ice sloshed in to fill them. The feet steamed like cauldrons, like a man walking over coals in primitive ceremony.

Devis ordered a speaker unit deployed, knowing likely that the Knights vox systems would be dead. Likely more than that was dead he mused to himself. The Warlord group lowered their void fields and looked on. “House Pandior, do you persist?” came the challenge from the Warlord. Enger snapped back to attention and punched the sensor head cockpit release. He climbed out onto the chest of the Knight and waved to the camera ports in the Warlord standing impossibly tall over them. Gobios thrashed MALUM in the muck and finally resumed a standing pose. MALUM’s chain blade arm weapon had been torn off in the explosion, and it took all of his focus to keep the machine balanced. He fired a flare in response to the challenge, as if just standing wasn’t enough.

Devis rasied an eyebrow. “Pilots” boomed the speakers on ULTRA FACULTUS. Exposed, Enger winced at the intense volume. “Scuttle your machines and proceed to board me.” Enger activated the stud hanging around his neck and started a destruction timer on CRUDELIS. “Goodbye friend” he muttered, patting the skin of his Knight before hopping down onto the tundra plain and advancing at a run towards the magnificent and terrifying Warlord ULTRA. Through the whipping wind he could see a boarding ramp extend and drop from the right foot assembly of the Titan to accommodate his rescue. Armed figures awaited his ascension.

Gobios sat in his cockpit, furious. Indignantly he did nothing like abandon his mount. He stepped backwards and tilted the torso back to face ULTRA towering over him. “I WILL NOT leave MALUM here to rot you arrogant socket brain!” he screamed . MALUM echoed his sentiment by reflexively spreading it’s unequal arms and causing a shower of sparks from the sheared cables. As if that wasn’t abusive enough, hydraulic fluid spat out of broken pistons and slopped to the earth around the Knight.

Devis couldn’t hear what Gobios was saying but he certainly felt it through what ULTRA fed him. The machine spirit growled at the defiance and flooded Devis with retributive impulses. Enger, ascending the ramp towards the waiting guards, turned to see the display of mutiny. Oh High Lords, what are you thinking Gobios? He thought. He didn’t see the outcome as the guards roughly ushered him inside the Titan.

Devis, high above, addressed this insolent Duke. “You have acted most unhonorably today. You have taken risks to assert your bravado and defied imperatives to which you spoke an oath to. You have endangered this company and that of your fellow. Most unfortunately though, you stink to ULTRA FACULTUS of unearned pride and an rank energy not befitting a noble Knight pilot. You are corrupt, and your life is through. May the Universe have mercy.

With that, Regal Princeps Devis Bonh Fulkyinsi delegated the distasteful task at hand to his peer’s subordinate Titan DEXTERA DEVOVEO. He would order DEXTERA to destroy MALUM. The blocky Warlord Titan proudly moved forward under the order and depressed a single turbo laser barrel. With a reactor load of energy coursing through the barrel, it spat a ruby burst of light energy which tuned raw elements in the tundra floor to glass, cooking through hundreds of feet of earth and created an artificial shaft, which melt water quickly filled. MALUM CUNCTATOR was incinerated and Gobios’s treachery extinguished. But not before he fired a mag sabot through the reactor heart of DEXTERA.

The Titan was stricken, quickly dying. The machine spirit mewled pitifully to the others in the group and they realized its fate. It slumped, then started to lean backwards. Warning sirens in the remaining four warlords wailed as they activate their mounts. They must get clear! Devis thought, and the spirit yelped in assent. It strode forward, trying in vain to gain speed and clear the imminent blast radius. The others split in all directions, clearing the area and igniting their void fields. ULTRA FACULTUS staggered under the panicked jolt, and too late to recover, crashed into the shaft left by the turbo laser discharge. The foot of the magnificent Titan plunged downwards, the opposite knee bending in automatic response to the lack of stability.

Devis jettisoned the weapon arms and via mind impulse rerouted all power to the void fields. But DEXTERA exploded. With the super hard dart fired from MALUM wedged in the core, overload and critical mass were achieved. The blaze was spectacular. The white ball of energy was everything Devis had expected it would be. The command head was illuminated, his subordinates on board were transparent in this light. Never did he expect to be at the heart of a reactor explosion, this was certainly a rare thing to experience.

They all died.

Devis and his command retinue were burned by the light, cooked by intense beams. They were preserved as ashen statues. Enger and the guards were immersed as the plunging foot was penetrated by sharp moon mantle and icy black tundra ground water filled the limb.

Another Titan, third in the group, EXITIUM PERLUSTRO was knocked over forward by the blast, crushing the command head and killing all onboard with the impact. The shattered void field exploded and mircowaved the ground around it. The dust remained visible from orbit for many days.

Enger panicked as water rush over him. Before it flashed to solid ice, a lingering thought passed through his mind: CRUDELIS CRUENTIS was a terrible name for such a noble friend.