Splinter
Team “Second Heart”
Splinter Leader:
Shas’ui Gor’d’gon
Crisis Suit pilot equipped with a
flamer, burst canon, missile pod, Stimulants, and a hard-wired multi-tracker.
Gor’d’gon is a masterful athlete among tau warriors. Though it may be seen as
pointless, his ability to maneuver through combat zones is invaluable – he has
the ability detailed in the USR hit and
run, without the assistance of vectored retro thrusters.
Splinter Machina:
Shas’ui Ramet
Veteran fire warrior equipped with
pulse rifle, marker light, and 2 Marker Drones in tow. His skills at
recon-then-destroy operations translate as him being stealth.
“Second Heart” First
Rank
Shas’la Fid’al: Pulse Rifle
equipped fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades
Shas’la x’Avi: Pulse Rifle equipped
fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades
Shas’la H’Tsa: Pulse Rifle equipped
fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades
“Second Heart” Second
Rank
Shas’la Derio’us: Pulse Carbine
equipped fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades & EMP grenades. Derio’us is
an impossible character – his talents parallel those of his commander, shas’el
Taros, as a field combatant. He has the USR feel no pain.
Shas’la Stt’e: Pulse Carbine
equipped fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades
Shas’la Ytt’e: Pulse Carbine
equipped fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades
Shas’la Btt’e: Pulse Carbine
Equipped fire warrior, armed w/ photon grenades
IMPERIALS
Combat Host “Schnick’s Errant”
Combat Host “Schnick’s Errant”
Host Commander:
Alfarius Dunk
Storm Trooper Sergeant armed with
hot-shot laspistol and power weapon. Sergeant Dunk is a furious warrior,
dedicated to his commander and his men. He will fatefully give his life for his
men, and they for him. He has the furious
charge special rule.
Host Specialist:
Bavlich “Reindeer” McClay
Storm Trooper armed with hotshot
laspistol and grenade launcher. Reindeer is a specialist of his own class, his
abilities to break the enemy lines is un paralleled. He is thus given the scout special rule.
Host Specialist:
Luscious “Nadir” Anchor
Storm
Trooper armed with hotshot laspistol and flamer. If there ever was one to parallel Reindeer’s skills,
it would be his best of mates, Nadir. Nadir is an expert at trench and battle
line warfare; lo he is detailed with the infiltrate
special rule.
Host Riflemen:
Storm
Trooper Aleaf: armed with hotshot laspistol and rifle
Storm
Trooper Snek: armed with hotshot laspistol and rifle
Host Support:
Devil
Dog “Broke Bitch”
 |
| What Jct. West might look like. |
Nadir
envied the drudgery of the Bitch’s
essence: jealous to none, no real fear of the unknown – truly nothing could be
so glorious as the war machine’s beastly pessimism. The night overtook his
lurching heart. Calm stilled his aches, his shivers and misgivings. Night,
though illustrated with bombs and hellfire, was the blanket of all sorrows.
Ironic as it was that night - whose utter essence was consumed by sorrow – was
the warrior’s sanctuary to the gloom of the day.
Digging
himself a patch of ashen, bloody grime Nadir began the dreary and treacherous
work of advancing upon an advanced Tau emplacement. His crew, numbering five,
including himself – known as Schnick’s
Errant – were obligated to escort the Broke
Bitch to her final resting place; a forward artillery emplacement. This
would be the final counter assault on Taros – one of the last ditch efforts to
force the Tau strike force back and ultimately infiltrate their defenses – if
the Errant fail, total retreat is
inevitable.
“R-3 to
One, blasted fuel station on south easterly flank – opposite Junction West by
40 metres – appears to be occupied. Looks like less than a half dozen xeno foot
warriors, and a suit. No definite read as of yet – I may be able to get closer,
they seem to be erecting some sort of com’s tower. Over.”
Over the static; “Roger, R-3, hold your position. Bitch is in transit – headed for you locale. Dual
bombardment from Two and Bitch will begin the assault. Far side of the station
is our objective. Over.”
A
flicker – a distortion of reality – some slight misgiving of his surroundings
wrapped Nadir’s attention elsewhere. Directly west of the station – a shimmer –
atop a blasted, smoldering heap of rubble, carcass, and ash not a dozen metres
from the Tau encampment. Gone.
Batting
himself, R-Three returned his disciplined focus upon the obstacle at hand.
“Aye,
Sarge - holding position. Out.”
***
“Markers
in place, unarmed - awaiting further instruction, Splinter Leader.”
 |
| Jct. West |
And
this was the only way out.
The
only place that wouldn’t be shelled, the Splinter leader had theorized, would
be one of their artillery caches – thus Shas’ui Gor’d’gon deigned the ruined
miner’s town (just circling the empty artillery outpost) as their new
operational headquarter. They were to set up their makeshift communications
pylon and devise some sort of escape from the impending assault. While Shas’vre
D’arnath, the commanding officer of the infantry Guard (regiment equivalent in
the Splinter Cadre) remained with the wounded and reserve teams, Splinter Team Second Heart were the only ones able to
conduct such an operation.
Movement
to his left flank and rear told Ramet the his fellow warriors – Derio’us,
Fid’al, and Stt’e – were in position. They were preparing a defensive against
an inbound Imperial caravan. Shas’ui Gor’d’gon assumed they would be passing
by, most likely to scan the battleground – the team was unaware of the artillery the escort
had in tow, the night blanketing much of the lowland, ruined township.
A
response, “Understood - advanced enemy
infantry training sights on our position – arm targeting arrays. On my
mark: eliminate the threat. “
“Arrays
armed – Leader, targets spotted in high rise opposite your position. Within
carbine range. Solutions?”
“That will be your obligation, warrior, deal
with them as you must. Terminate audio communications, now.”
Making
jagged, sharp gestures to the two infantrymen on his left, Ramet initiated the
order to execute the two riflemen manning the high rising building adjacent
their position - a broad billboard labeled it Junction West. Armor clanked faintly amidst the hum of airborne rockets
criss-crossing the blood red sky as two of the Fire Warriors adjusted their
positions accordingly.
A
scrape – molten shells exiting worn barrels – a thud – a crash. Eruptions, screams, telecom static, hushed rustling of armor and weaponry – one faint,
ragged call:
“Mark”
***
Nadir
clambered over the dun colored hilltop and began a hasty scramble down the
other side. Clanking of armored plates and crunching stone and littered bones prefaced
the groaning advance of the glorious Broke
Bitch just behind the Weapons Specialist.
All at once his squad-mate came rushing past him, not 3 metres to his right, grenade launcher coming to bear. Weapon Specialist Reindeer flung himself from the putrid pile of carcass and waste to land, rolling, across the open broken street.
All at once his squad-mate came rushing past him, not 3 metres to his right, grenade launcher coming to bear. Weapon Specialist Reindeer flung himself from the putrid pile of carcass and waste to land, rolling, across the open broken street.
He
brought his launcher around and unleashed a volley of high explosive rounds
upon the battlesuit and flanking infantry. The explosion was fierce, sudden,
and followed nearly simultaneously with a much larger, crashing thud of a melta
charge. The Bitch unloaded her
glorious bile upon the enemy, engulfing the two smaller soldiers in terrible tendrils
of flame and toxic explosives.
The
heat rolled over Nadir from all directions: striking his nerves, slowing his
already lumbering, exhausted motions. His flamer rounded the peripheral of his
view, and with such he sent its venomous tongues lunging upon the remaining
battlesuit, engulfing it in the rage of a thousand souls.
Clambering
alongside Nadir came Sergeant Dunk, his breath raged with boiling rage and
fatigue.
“Charge,
we will decimate this bastard. Come Nadir, with me!!”
The Errant’s leader raised his sword –
engulfed in lightning – and surged toward the besieged Tau warrior.
Nadir
followed suit.
***
“Mark”
Gor’d’gon whispered over the
telecommunication system.
He embraced the first blast. He
could see it coming. Anyone could. The novice gunner sprinting haphazardly
across the bloodied war-scape. Idiotic, at best. The shell erupting from his
side slung canon merely proved all but cliché, however.
Far
from it. T’was a screen, that is, for a second volley - volley that the Shas’ui
couldn't have predicted. And here he stood. Flanking him had been two of his best warriors
– incinerated. He was all that remained: save a finger bone, scarred and ashen,
which lay with flailed flesh and peppered armor fragments across his breast
plate. Two of his warriors.
At this, Gor’d’gon felt, they had already lost.
His
hard wired machinery and arrays flared in alarm then, alerting him to the two
oncoming figures, one a stride slight from the other. The leading charger
wielded a weapon of lightning. The other, slung about his shoulder, wielded a
metal dragon. Its movements lethargic, lonely.
Despite
his absolute athleticism and cunning, Gor’d’gon could not feel himself move - could not will himself. For he was alone.
***
The
onlooking riflemen never saw the shimmer – the slight distortion that seemed
to ripple through the night. Such was this apparition, as it may be detailed, that it
tore a hole into the truth of that night. Its ultimate oblivion held nothing
for substance, yet weighed heavy upon the eyes of those who did bear witness – the sorrow spilled
from it like emotion on a painter’s canvas.
 |
| Ramet deactivates his stealth generator |
Untimely was his charge. Unprepared
had the poor soul been. Ramet reflected on this for but a moment – how fleeting
their lives were, how ultimately useless they were as warriors. Warriors. Ha! What sadistic comedy, he
thought. It was gone. His hesitation –
his flirtation with betrayal swept aside, much the same as the hapless
grenadier who was blasted into oblivion upon the open battle field.
Shas’ui
Ramet returned his steady, disciplined hands to his previous occupation – the elimination
of the riflemen.
They were
gone.
The
stone and wooden structure, Junction West, where the flanking gunners had taken position –
coated in marrow and molten bone – was alight in frightful streams of flame and
energies.
His
attention swerved once more to the events on his right.
Flashes of lightning. Screeching of
plated armor, parting unnaturally. The crunching of bones - the squirt and splash
of blood, adorning the war-scape.
…and
the buzzing of an active telecom tower. A star in the gloom.
***
They
had been like childhood memories. Carving the foundation of the child, the child
who would eventually sweep such memories aside for the sake of convenience.
Nadir reflected on this.
He lay
on his back, slowly succumbing to the sucking ooze of bones, rubble and
carcasses beneath him. The right of his skull was cracked, somewhere. Or maybe
it was his shoulder. Ribs seemed to be snapped, as well. He was broken, all the
same. He looked at the Bitch, her
crew leaning from the hatches – screaming … for him. The lumbering behemoth –
far beyond her prime, no longer the nimble hellhound chasis she once was, more
a Russ – seemed to cry. For him. Broken, in the measured grips of death, both
of them lay upon the blood soaked, ruined township – their tears razing the
night in silent acceptance.
His
blurred vision returned to the behemoth in front of him - to the battlesuit, or
so they were called. Apt, he noted. So brutal its fury. So resolute its design.
Bloodied as it was, it held this dark, saddening, pristine presence on the
battle field - dominating the wreckage as if an obelisk – towering over shattered bodies.
The fight
had seemed in their favor. Nadir had charged, stirding a step yonder his
sergeant – who landed the initial blows upon the battlesuit.
Which had been swept aside.
A single slash penetrated the
intense agility of the Tau warrior’s defense, setting him aside for but a
moment.
Then the armored, missile wielding
fist of the suit slammed Nadir to the ground – before he could bring his
flaming dragon to arms.
Now, oozing mud and blood burrowing across
his person, he lay admiring the desolate victory of the Shas’ui. He admired his
strength in solitude – jealous of his fortitude.
Sudden urgency gripped Nadir. Pain
flashed as light in his eyes – beacons of intense, primal clarity. He lost conscious awareness. He lunged forward, his
right arm falling limply away from his body: bone, tendon, marrow and blood
oozing from his injury. Shifting plates of crushed skull sliced the surface of
his brain. Memories were cast from his essence - ragged edges of shattered bone
cut into his brain matter – as he begin his grating escape from the fierce,
metal beast that had slaughtered Alfarius Dunk. He turned once more, looking to
his left – to the carnage in the high rise, Junction West. They were gone.
He was broken – breaking. A
lumbering behemoth of flesh, nothing left to him.
No longer was he the agile scout - rather
a melting person, soon to be another addition to the scenery.
***
He
blinked.
It was
over.
They
were gone.
They were all gone.
Shas’ui
Gor’d’gon edged the optical display towards his left. Ramet and his men stood
ready upon the crest of a pile of rock and bodies. They were hunched, crouching
in anticipation of a second offensive. They couldn’t see what he could see. No
one could have.
He saw
himself.
Dying,
alone, scrambling from the devil, the monster – the unknown thing that brought
the gift of death.
Gor’d’gon
didn’t know what happened. His mind had cast these recent, nascent memories
aside. Two warriors had charged him. Now one was running away from the Shas’ui:
missing half a head and an arm – but alive.
The
other lay beneath the warrior’s two cloven feet. Shattered.
It was difficult
to stomach. Organs, or rather some mess that once had such a name, lay strewn
about the pit. Ribs ejected themselves from where the Crisis Battlesuit had
ripped a rift in the dead man’s sternum.
Gor’d’gon
thought on this. How small he was, how empty this person was. How empty he was.
His
gaze returned to the terrifying figure, some 40 meters beyond now. He could see
that the soldier’s right collarbone had been dislodged in the combat, and had
fallen from his shattered person in his desperate flight.
More
than that, he saw himself. Again.
He saw
a living being, broken, flawed, running towards his teammates – his friends,
family. What was left, that is. Those that hadn’t died at his side already.
It was
over. Gor’d’gon could return, flee this frightful landscape – as the Broken Man
had also done – and return to what was left of his command, his family.
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