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True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
303
   |
Posted - 2013.07.04 23:05:00 -
[1] - Quote
The wind howled beneath the eaves of the great overpass, a number of guttering fires down the line winked out, extinguished not by the sudden gust but the oppressive pall of tension.
The silence of the abandoned industrial zone was permeated by the chatter of small arms fire and the occasional high pitched whine of sniper fire, as a catechism echoed in his mind.
"The word of the Lord is pure, It is a shield for the faithful,GÇ¥
The air was unnaturally still, the ever present threat of a tactical strike from the orbiting fleets was at the fore in his mind, weighing his thoughts down as if they had been laced with lead.
Kador strode through the rubble noting the huddled forms of the militia soldiers as they pressed in close to the earthworks that composed the haphazard series of trenches and redoubts. Simple earthworks reinforced with a number of steel bulwarks and blaster emplacements gave the Amarrian lines a hurried almost unpolished look, which to the young soldier seemed more unnatural than his presence on the the claimed Matari world of Amamake.
GÇ£Brought unto men by the Angels, As a guiding light in the darkness "
He ducked low, underneath a section of collapsed plasteel beams, entering what was considered the central trenchline where a cluster of soldiers were hunkered down exchanging fire with hostiles from across the line.
The ground separating the trench lines was a shattered and charred nightmare, the ruined skeleton of a maintenance bay stood out to the south beside which the low pan of a river cut deeply into the escarpments drawing parallel to the wide concrete highway that ran directly beneath the overpass to his left.
As he drew upon the soldiers a number of them straightened rapidly throwing him a hasty salute before returning to the methodical task at hand.
GÇ£Ensign Ouryon?GÇ¥ came a thin, reedy voice. GÇ£ Section report Sir. Matari soldiers engaging us at range sir. Section command informs us fleet in orbit is holding steady despite pressure from the Slave scum, however armoured columns were seen pushing towards our positions. ETC estimates less than 5 minutes.GÇ¥
Kador nodded. He was mid breath when the sudden report of a Neutron Blaster tore the dugout apart. The shock of the shells threw him on his back, kicking up dust, and shattering the concrete above.
At least three of the militia soldiers were killed instantly, torn to shreds by the ferocity of the barrage, while another was tossed aside clutching at the crimson stump of his leg. The world seemed to shift suddenly. KadorGÇÖs vision focused, the ringing in his ears fell silent, save for the whiplash crack of rifle bullets, and the low sonorous rumble of massive engines.
He struggled to his feet; aware of the merciless suppressive fire being directed upon the Amarri lines, strode to the gaping breach where three comrades had sat defending their posts.
Sons of the Empire killed by heathens who could not appreciate the Will of God, who could not comprehend the glory of the empire, nor see the necessity of their subservience to the Amarr.
There was not higher honour than dying for the Empire, in service to the Sarum Family, in the service of Empress, but here treachery and ambush had sullied these menGÇÖs deaths.
The horizon with masked by a thick screen of dust, though through it he could make out the squat armoured forms of Matari Heavy Assault Vehicles, advancing slowly in twin columns.
One followed the main highway, strung out in the long line, it advanced rapidly against the Amarrian weak point, where only a few commands of Provost auxiliaries were stationed. The other was advancing more slowly, a sharp V formation, using the maintenance bays for cover while the lithe forms of scouts ducked and wove from cover to cover with surprising rapidity.
GÇ£Return Fire!GÇ¥ He commanded the two remaining guardsmen, hoisting them to their feet.
The scouts were only fifty feet from the dugout when they were greeted by a withering hail of gunfire as the militia concentrated on them with extreme prejudice. A score went down limply, great bloody gouges torn out of their flesh, only to be replaced by another wave which surged in towards the waiting guns.
Seconds later bursts of small arms fire sounded, as the Matar returned fire, their own rifles adding the gritty concerto that would only get louder as the day wore on.
********** |
True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
303
|
Posted - 2013.07.04 23:06:00 -
[2] - Quote
Explosions The thought passed through his head only a second before a red hot piece of shrapnel scored a bloody line across his face. The wound stung painfully, and with every beat his heart pumped more blood from the wound which soon got into his eyes, making it impossible to see.
The battle had raged on for near on four hours, the sun had dropped low in the sky casting the horizon in a malignant haze, while thick gouts of acrid smoke that stung the throat and eyes rose up from half a dozen Matari tanks.
Even overhead, in orbit, the battle raged, through the thick veil of clouds Kador could see every now and then the flash of laser fire or the immensely potent light as one of the ships was destroyed.
A slight buzzing sound echoed somewhere nearby, almost entirely drowned out by the sounds of explosions.
GÇ£Cover fire!GÇ¥ he ordered the remaining trooper, his partner having been picked off by a sniper earlier that day.
The soldier dutifully obeyed sending concentrated volleys of plasma sheathed rounds out across the field, where to KadorGÇÖs satisfaction he heard a deathcry.
Tucked carefully under a nearby bulwark, covered in thick congealed mix of drying black blood and grainy dust, was his helmet.
The crimson and gold armour looked worn, dulled by the combat. It was the same for the carapace of his armour, no more pristine and ceremonial, now the veteran of hours of bitter conflict.
I should have had it on He beratted himself. Across the comms system came the unmistakeable buzz of static, which mingled in with a very panicked voice.
GÇ£Artefact.... aboard....allus, Templars ....meadiate evacuation...... ground force.....expendable.GÇ¥
But the recording didnGÇÖt have to finish.
Overhead the clouds began to open up. Not of their own volition. But as something gargantuan pressed through them.
A cold chill settled across the battlefield. A titanic roar, so sonourous, so leviathan in scale drowned out all noise, sent Kador to his feet clutching at his ruined ears, as more blood pumped from shattered ear drums.
His screams were silent to his ears.
Above now peeking its bow through the clouds above was the unmistakable form of the Aurogor. Its length was wracked with a multitude of tracers, and great flames. Wreathed in a crimson trail it rose up from low orbit at an immense speed punching through the atmosphere far above the heads of the soldiers below as it warped out.
The tearing of the atmosphere was apocalyptic. The earth shook with a beastly vigour, mighty cracks appeared in the ancient concrete of the overpass, and number of sections collapsing altogether drowning out the screams of terror below. A vast corona if light burst in the sky above them, while a mighty shockwave ploughed across the landscape tearing apart mighty structures as if they were no more than a childGÇÖs plaything.
The wave of dust swallowed the entire line whole plunging them into darkness.
******** |
True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
303
|
Posted - 2013.07.04 23:06:00 -
[3] - Quote
The first thing he thought he noticed was that his section of the over pass had not collapsed, and for that he thanked the Empress and God himself.
The second thing was that whenever he opened his mouth no words came out.
Perhaps it was the thick run off of dust and blood that coated his throat, or perhaps it was that he could not hear at all anymore, and that scared him.
He blinked twice, noting a sharp pain over his right eye, he raised a hand, confirmed that his eye brow was only attached by a thin strip of torn flesh. His shoulder was awash with red pain, and he had lost his rifle.
Nothing moved along the trench line, nothing save the miniscule motes of dust, smoke, and slight tectonic shifts, then suddenly movement along the escarpment.
In poured dozens of Minmatar armed with a myriad of weapons. Advance scouts clad in the lithe, patchwork style of the Republic, bringing with them plasma shotguns, while the hulking bruisers hefted multi-barrelled machineguns.
He struggled to his feet, thrusting off a heavy layer of grit, standing unsteadily drew his side arm from its sheath. Just in time as three forms stumbled out from above the trench line.
With a cold precision he levelled the submachine gun and with a quick burst neutralised the first hostile. The second was quick to react, sending his own volley of shells at Kador, which were stopped dead by the combat armours thick plating, contact sparks flashing eerily.
The second burst caught the assault trooper in the chest, overbalancing the man sending him crashing to the floor, while the third blindly rushed him hoping to end the fight up close.
He was dispatched with a combat knife, hastily drawn, but accurately placed.
All across the line tracers and burst of fire were breaking the lull in combat as the Sarum Guardsmen were trying to get to grips with the close quarters skirmishers, though to little avail.
A heavy foot fall to his right alerted Kador to the presence of another hostile, this one clad in thick heavy plating.
He levelled the gun at the aggressor, only to watch on in horror as the small calibre shell ricocheted off the Matari soldiers visor in another burst of sparks.
All around him the world was silent, shattered ear drums condemned him to a slow hell as he stumbled, unbalanced toward his oncoming death. A burst of fire from the six barrelled heavy machine gun punched into KadorGÇÖs chest, tearing apart the armour and punching a fist sized crater in his chest.
He collapsed back against the ruined bulwarks, aware somehow a chattering gunfire coming to an eerie halt.
Above him loomed the Matari warrior, painted red with His blood. With a deliberately slow set of movements it removed the ghastly helmet it wore, revealing the smooth, dusky features of a woman. There was no pity in here eyes, no malice, just a pure unadulterated hate.
Her eyebrows were thin, dark hair cropped short over a scrawling patch work of tribal tattooGÇÖs and piercings. While dark eyes bored into his own with a startling intensity.
GÇ£Do you regret it?GÇ¥ He assumed she said, for she mouthed the words again. GÇ£Do you regret it?GÇ¥
The pain in his chest was reaching a pitch, and Kador could feel his life seeping through the clothes beneath his armour.
GÇ£NoGÇ¥ was all he could manage at this point. His own lips felt cold and stiff. GÇ£It was all for God. It was for Her....GÇ¥
The Matari woman shook her head. There was true pity in her eyes now, the combination of hate and pity hurt more than any wound he had ever felt.
"The word of the Lord is pure, It is a shield for the faithful,GÇ¥
She drew he pistol. Spat on the dented half Sarum Family crest that still adorned his cracked chest plate. Fired.
GÇ£Brought unto men by the Angels, As a guiding light in the darkness " |
True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
303
|
Posted - 2013.07.04 23:08:00 -
[4] - Quote
Just moving this into the Fiction Section, I'll try to update this will the continued story of Kador as I go along. |
Daedric Lothar
Tritan's Onslaught
RISE of LEGION
1191
|
Posted - 2013.07.10 19:56:00 -
[5] - Quote
I like it, It feels visceral, instinctual and emotional. In places the story feels clipped, but I still like it. |
True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
538
|
Posted - 2013.07.10 20:45:00 -
[6] - Quote
Daedric Lothar wrote:I like it, It feels visceral, instinctual and emotional. In places the story feels clipped, but I still like it.
Clipped how I would like to expand on that? |
Daedric Lothar
Tritan's Onslaught
RISE of LEGION
1193
|
Posted - 2013.07.10 22:17:00 -
[7] - Quote
True Adamance wrote:Daedric Lothar wrote:I like it, It feels visceral, instinctual and emotional. In places the story feels clipped, but I still like it. Clipped how I would like to expand on that?
it's hard to explain for me in detail, but I think its mostly the grammer and punctuation. Also in some places the 1 liners were difficult to read.,
Like here is an example
True Adamance wrote:
"He struggled to his feet, thrusting off a heavy layer of grit, standing unsteadily drew his side arm from its sheath"
I understand what you are saying, but there are multiple sentences here that seemed to be clipped and glued together. It breaks my imagination concentration to read the starts and stops.
True Adamance wrote:
Overhead the clouds began to open up. Not of their own volition. But as something gargantuan pressed through them.
A cold chill settled across the battlefield. A titanic roar, so sonourous, so leviathan in scale drowned out all noise, sent Kador to his feet clutching at his ruined ears, as more blood pumped from shattered ear drums.
His screams were silent to his ears.
For me, I like when you take just alittle more time, a little more length to really give the impression of what is happening. Even if that Titanic roar sentence was about as run on as humanly possible.
Before you thought about changing anything though, get a second opinion. The short nature of each line gives it the more visceral and violent feel, expounding upon it may break that feeling that goes with it. |
True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
541
|
Posted - 2013.07.10 22:37:00 -
[8] - Quote
Reserved for Part II |
True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
915
|
Posted - 2013.07.30 03:06:00 -
[9] - Quote
Truth
As the rock lizard crested the dune it let out a long ghostly howl across the desert, it echoes penetrating miles of barren rocky out cropping and wind blasted desert. Below it the featureless dunes fell away into the deep craggy valley, adorned by vicious struts of basalt, like daggers stained a deep ocher.
To the casual watcher the valley depression was nothing more than a dead canyon, a former spring or river bed carved into the depths of the early many eons earlier by some unknown natural aquifer or tectonic shift. Nothing special on Parnassus but another scar in the earth this planet offered up as scenery, a long dead trace of verdance that had no ceased to be .But to a trained eye it was more, much more.
Many hundred feet below the surface of barren planet, tucked almost claustrophicly between the narrowing side of the valley wall, and nestled protectively across the length of the valley floor was a dizzying array of windswept structures. Pillboxes lined the valley floor connected by long lines of rockcrete bastions, along the tops of which many heavy laser turrets protruded from the rough almost granite surface.
Packed neatly within the sprawling perimeter of the defences a grand spire pierced the still air, a grand catherdral of the Amarr its hulking gothic design spoke of an ages old construction template as buttresses spread wide like wrought iron pegs hammered into the earth. Dwarfed by this gargantuan structure were dozens of scarred and pitted habitation units, and barracks, armouries and manufactories, slanted dome like strictures cut into the sides of the valley, their original golden hue now a deep earth bronze. All buildings served one single purpose. The armament and housing of Empires military assets.
The valley ensured that that the facilities below experienced only three hours of direct sunlight a day, but even when the sun had passed overhead, casting the valley into an oppressive pall of shadows, the guttering valley winds still stung like hot air from a furnace.
Here cloistered in the eaves of the barbaric landscape could be heard the sound of close order drills, the buzzing hum of laser projectiles, and the holy litanies of preservation. Here below the earth mean clad in loose fitting tunics of roughspun synthetic wools toiled in the harsh labours off war. Muscled forms of men and women hurried to and fro at the commands of loud hailers, projecting the words of the Empires most revered holy prophets, as well as the occasional announcement from the Theological Council offices.
Along the outer perimeter of the complex a number of seething manufactories stretched out like a living conduit of haemorrhaging metal, their outlines blurred and discoloured by the intense heats that ran off of the struggling machinery. Massive pistons groaned under the conditions as the scorching desert winds slowly took their toll on the leviathan machines, bastardising the metals into malleable and debased components that would often have to be replaced.
Closer within the complex were the hab units, where the aspirants and Templars alike would spend their days in quiet solace in small Spartan cells furnished only with the basic necessities and small effigies of the benevolent Empress Jamyll Sarum.
However now these were empty, the inhabitants either milled about into the dusty training yards under the watchful eyes of their superior officers, or were engaged in ritualistic exercises in the chapels of the gymnasiums that dotted the internal structures.
The northern most aspect of the facility was as simple, yet functional landing pad, complete with retracting door that allowed access into one of three cavernous hangars able to store enough industrial and civialian ships to empty the facilties vast armouries in the space of hours. The first two hangars housed massive industrial ships, imperial class Bestower vessels, with this armoured hulls and gigantic thrusters for rapid take off and acceleration, while the lower hangar was subject to a number of smaller blockade runners designed to transport personell off world should the facility be found.
Yet the presence of such wind scarred and sand blasted structures as well as the archaic designs of the imperial cathedral were testament to the fact that for centuries this hallowed sanctuary had not yet been found.
High above the rock lizard let loose one last howl, its voice carrying on the winds until it became the ethereal tone of some blasphemous desert spirit, before climbing back into its burrow, knowing well there were no rivals here to test its claim to the area.
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True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
915
|
Posted - 2013.07.30 03:07:00 -
[10] - Quote
Reserved |
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True Adamance
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
915
|
Posted - 2013.07.30 03:08:00 -
[11] - Quote
Reserved |
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