Week 1 Prologue - Imperials vs Necrons - Lord Commander Augustus

Commander Augustus raced out into the valley, responding to a distress signal from an imperial patrol.  They had encountered the rumoured metal men which have been plaguing the plains for the last cycle.  When will it stop?  What will we find out there? Are the rumours true?  Why is it we have not found anything except the carcasses of our men?

These thoughts raced through Commander Augustus’ mind.  He sat in his command chimera, with his retinue around him, pensive.  I need to show strength.  We are all tired, after being assigned to this backwater planet.  Nothing really happened here until the rumours turned up.  And yet, no one has seen anything.  The uncertainty has been taking a toll on everyone.

Commander Augustus could take no chances.  This patrol was special.  Attached to it was a platoon of Adeptus Mechanicus, lead by a Tech Priest Dominus.  Other than him, Commander Augustus couldn’t tell any of the cogheads apart, their bodies always hidden, always seeming more machine then men.  They sent chills down his spine, but he had no choice but to work with them.  They had grown excited after hearing about the metal men, and wanted in on the action.  It seemed like they knew more than they were letting on, but they weren’t sharing, just demanding be included on the recent patrols.  As an Imperial citizen, he was bound to the duty to protect them and yet accede to their requests.  If they were still alive, he would save them.  If they were gone, he would not lose any sleep over them.

Arriving at the source of the signal from afar, nothing, no one could be seen.  As they crossed the bastion, they finally saw something.  The silhouette of skeletal forms standing over what was left of the bodies of his patrol men, their Sentinel walkers crumpled in the dirt, with large chunks of their superstructure gouged out, like chunks of meat eaten from grox hides.

Green beams light started arcing through the air towards them as the skeletal forms turned to face them.  There was a signal, but it was weak.  But it was still active.  The imperial patrol was  decimated, but the Dominus was still alive, or so it seemed.  He was clearly injured, but holding his own against the horde of the metal men, as they pondered towards him, slow, steady and intentful.

‘Necrons… save me…,’ garbled the vox before it cut off.  There was interference, probably generated by the metal men, now with a name.

‘Men!  We approach!  Set up a firebase upon that hill.  Hold the high ground until the reinforcements arrive!’  commanded Augustus.  His men fanned out, the accompanying platoons taking point, one upon the nearby hill while the other holding the base.   Fortune had it that they had disembarked in time, as their chimeras blew up behind them.  Sitting targets, their chimeras were unable to withstand the onslaught of green gauss light.

Commanding from the flank, Commander Augustus and his retinue disembarked and took shelter by the Bastion, intent on making the building his command point, but the door controls were damaged in the recent firefights.  Their ingress was denied.

From range, they saw the Dominus being taken captive by the Necrons.  Is that what happens to the survivors?  How do they get away?

The Necrons formed a cordon around the Dominus, and what looked like a leader.  It seemed like they were protecting them with their bodies.  Shots poured in, but the Necrons refused to fall.  Suddenly, from the flanks, sped 2 fast moving units.  One seemed like a hover bikes, while the other had the metal floated above ground on gravity displacement packs.  Both seemed eager to take down the offending imperials.  2 of the bikes went down with fire, wit h the 3^rd one falling back to join the cordon.  The hovering infantry, the Triarch Praetorians, made contact with the men on the hill.  The guardsmen held well, but were ultimate routed by the Praetorians, but not without taking down most of the attacking Necrons.

Reinforcement arrived in the forms of a Leman Russ lumbering to the battlefield, while Basilisks rained fire into the Necron cordon.  ‘What…..doing…..will hit me…’, screeched the garbled vox as shells pounded the ground.  ‘We can’t let them live, for the Emperor.  Better you be destroyed with them than what you can give them,’ was Commander Augustus’s terse reply before he cut off the vox.  He looked at his retinue and saw them looking at him in agreement. ‘Men! Fire at will!’

Shells rained from the sky.  The Leman Russ fired, its battle cannon finding its mark.  Lascannon shots blazed in from an approaching Vendetta Gunship, arriving to extract the survivors.  Green gauss returned fire from the smoke clouds but failing to find their marks.  As the smoke cleared, many Necrons remained standing, with a substantial number of bodies slain.  They had died protecting the Necron Commander and his retinue, and the Dominus.  One of the retinue raised an arm, clutching an orb that glowed brightly surrounding the fallen Necrons.  Slowly, but surely, the fallen Necrons started rising, reassembling themselves.  When they were whole, they resumed their place in the cordon.

Commander Augustus and his men stared at the aliens blankly as green light then enveloped the Necrons as a whole and they disappeared.  The report would have to be carefully worded...