The Lightning Struck Tower - Part 5

Drystan was becoming more unnerved by the minute. Their journey upwards towards the command center had become routine; manually opening a door when necessary, cutting open the occasional blast shield door, performing systems checks of various terminals that they passed, but nothing overtly hostile. No traps to slow or whittle their numbers down, no hit and run ambushes, just a plethora of non-threatening obstacles. If the power wasn’t still down he would have thought the Custodes’ words were an empty threat. High Chaplain Omid had to have known that this bunker was the prize, but instead of fortifying the most defensible position on the planet, he had crippled it and left it abandoned. It did not line up with a Star Guardian’s traditional thinking, they tended towards fortification and grinding grueling forward advances almost to a fault, not this type of subterfuge. Drystan felt outmaneuvered, he needed to reassess and reform his plans quickly.

“This is wrong,” grumbled, although not loudly enough for someone to hear, and was surprised when he got a response.

“I agree,” said Llarawyn, with a slight, knowing smile at his surprise, that danced briefly on her lips as she looked up at him, before disappearing again. “I don’t know if I expected Omid himself, or one of the Custodes to bar our path, but I certainly expected something.”

“We will know in a few minutes what their plans are, and I do not intend to be caught flat-footed again,” agreed Drystan, pausing as he patched into his line of sight communications system with the captain at their head, their voices transmitted by an infrared laser system. “Captain, we’re splitting this force in half, I’m getting the feeling we’re going to need substantial numbers on the ground levels.”

“Your will, Honored Drystan,” rumbled the reply. “And I agree with your assessment, we will secure the control room and contact you when it is complete.”

“Do not bother attempting to contact me, the second we have the ability, contact our father, Captain. Let me know when he is on his way, everything else is secondary to that goal.”

“Sir.”

Drystan and his Flaenors made an immediate about face and started marching quickly to the ground floor of the bunker. Along the way various members of his host stayed behind at unpowered terminals, ready to activate the bunker’s defenses when the power was restored. Drystan hoped that moment would come sooner rather than later. Without power an enemy could encircle the bunker and let their foes rot inside with very little worry that those trapped inside would be able to fight their way out. Moreover, he needed to hold this building, both to make contact with his Primarch and the Silver Basilisks’ armada, and to regain control of the surface-to-space defenses from their local controls; so that when help did arrive, it could arrive quickly. He knew it, and Omid certainly did as well. Lacking the resources to fight against a full-fledged insurgency powered by hundreds of angry Librarians, he had abandoned the one position he knew his opponent’s main force would need to seize in order to achieve success; and in atypical fashion, he let them get in easily, ensuring that they would proceed slowly anticipating some sort of resistance. He squinted slightly at the bright floodlight that flared up as the front doors opened, before his helm quickly adjusted. He saw High Chaplain Omid, standing head and shoulders above what looked like his entire garrison of skull helmeted Chaplains, in his immaculately crafted Saturnine terminator armour. Four golden armoured Custodes stood behind the kneeling survivors of the men he had stationed at the room’s perimeter.

“Ah, *Revered* Drystan,” called out Omid, his smooth bass voice making the title an insult as he reached a gauntleted hand behind him to pull an only slightly trembling initiate out in front of him. It was one of those that Drystan had saved when this nightmare first began. “You Avalonians have a term for this sort of situation I believe, but I could never pronounce your tongue properly, would you do me the courtesy?”

“To damnation with you, Omid, and all those who stand with you,” rumbled Drystan, flexing his clawed hands.

“Manners,” chided Omid, his gauntleted hand gripping as he slowly crushed the boy’s torso, who, to his credit, did not cry out or whimper as he died. Omid’s slightly smirking face masked helm a mocking counterpoint to the boy’s death rattle, Drystan could feel the Star Guardian’s gaze boring into him as he continued in a prompting tone. “Well I believe the phrase goes something like this: *Enil Trw Gol*, which loosely translated is…?”

“Win, by losing.”

“Ah, yes… a shame you did not learn the same lesson.”

Gwynlais and his sole remaining battle brother were in grave shape. The younger sounding Geist was missing his left arm below the elbow, several gashes and holes marred his armor, his blood mixing with the suits mechanical fluids as they dripped onto the floor. He stood leaning against the wall that was within sight of the power core’s control room, looking at Gwynlais with his one remaining eye. He wasn’t really sure when his companion had lost it, but it was likely gone like the other half of his helm. Gwynlais fared little better, with several smaller punctures in his armor, and missing the two most distal fingers on his right hand, sheared off when the spear had plunged into his lower right torso. The spearhead was still in the wound, effectively holding his fluids in until he could get to an Apothecary...if that time ever came. Still the wound was well worth the cost, the Custode who had given it to him was no more, Gwynlais had mortally wounded him by turning the front of his body into little more than molten slag as the spear had pierced his kine shield, his companion emptied his bolter into the Custode’s head. Losing an arm to a person tended to create grudges rather quickly. Still, despite this personal victory Gwynlais was even more apprehensive than before. He wasn’t sure how many of the original fifty who went down into this abyss still remained, but he was nearly certain that he and his companion were the only ones left; and he was more certain there were still two remaining Custodes left in these tunnels, no doubt waiting for him and his brother.

His companion nodded slightly at him, turning to face the doorway, lurching from his place against the wall to stagger slightly towards their objective. Gwynlais wished that he could tell the last remaining member of his squad to stay there on the wall, watch his back, cry out an alarm if he heard something coming; but the awful truth was he needed him, wounded as he was. Gwynlais had two, maybe three attacks that would lay low a Custode, and those took time to gather, especially now. It had become apparent to both of them that this was a one way mission a long time ago, and it was their honor to sacrifice so that their brothers might live; that justice might be served here at The Tower, where it had been absent for so long. He needed no words to explain his plan to his compatriot, it had been discussed back when it had become just the two of them. Seal the control room, bring the power up, and then Gwynlais would kill every living thing in the room. Simple, easy to remember.

The Geist didn’t even bother attempting to move the opening levers of the door with only one hand, merely glowed with a brief shimmer of blue-violet flame as he used the Immaterium to do the work his physical body no longer was proficient in doing. The door swung open revealing a brightly lit room, blinding after the hours of near pitch blackness in the tunnel. They both immediately recoiled back, and Gwynlais felt the left side of his face peel as a plasma bolt blew right through his helm to graze his cheek, his kine shield snapping into place a moment later, hissing at the continuing barrage. The Geist returned fire, several small explosions rang in Gwynlais’ ears as the bolter rounds impacted against power armour. Through the flickers of his shield Gwynlais could see the Custode, his armour blistered with countless battle scars and missing his right hand below the wrist, a mass of melted metal where the joint should have started. As they marched forward into the room behind Gwynlais’ shield, the Geist abruptly stopped his own salvo and threw up a shield of his own, a golden-ivory mastercrafted claymore cleaving into about a third of the barrier before it jolted to a stop. Gwynlais saw a tight smile of satisfaction on his squadmate’s face as he emptied his clip into his ambusher’s torso. The golden armour held for a moment before bending and eventually cracking. His foe roared in defiance rallying to rend the shield completely, and sheared into the Geist’s chest, the blade biting deep. The Geist gave his foe the best burbling chuckle his ruined lungs would allow as a long wire fell from his now limp fingers; with at least half a dozen pins attached. All combat stopped as the string of krak grenades fell to the floor. Gwynlais dashed for the control room’s interior, quickly bolting the door, feeling the immediate impact of the Custode’s body as he slammed into the blast door, followed by a low thump as the grenades detonated, throwing him to the ground.

He staggered to the power controls and began the process of restoring power to the bunker, the reactor's low hum quickly rising in pitch. He moved to the main breakers installed along the far wall and heard the shriek of metal as the claymore started hacking an entryway through the blast door. Gwynlais began rapidly throwing the levers, green lights flashing across the displays as systems began successfully booting up.

The door crashed inwards, and the last remaining Custode limped through the hole. The man looked like death walking, his armour completely fused to his body where it wasn’t gone completely, the exposed flesh lacking skin entirely, showing the muscle fibers beneath. His foe’s face lacked any soft tissue at all, the lips, nose, and most of the eyelids burned away with bloodshot eyes beneath. Gwynlais prepared the last of the energies he could manage to muster, it would destroy him and his foe, but his foe was the last part of his mission, and felt only satisfaction.

“Traitor,” the Custode rasped, dragging his blade. “Finally, it ends. You will die, and your lives will have been for nothing.”

“You talk too much,” scoffed Gwynlais, releasing his attack. It erupted from him in a billowing vapour cloud, the caustic cloud ripping apart the cell membranes of any organic life within one hundred meters, including his own. It swiftly started consuming the Custode, his exposed flesh even more of a liability, the vapour swiftly turning it into a viscous paste of proteins. The Custode’s eyes widened in horror as his legs crumpled underneath him, flesh sliding from bone, before the bone itself crumpled into meal.

Gwynlais fell to the ground shortly afterwards, watching the Custode jerk, spasm, then let out a loud death rattle. He would have smiled except his lips were essentially gone, but managed to get out his last words, “For those who live, you f-”

Drystan flattened a Chaplain who had gotten too close, crushing the marine inside his armour, to his sides his Flaenors kept up a barrage of fire while using their own shields to augment his own on his flanks. Things had gone to hell quickly, as what was a sporadic series of offensive probes on the bunker’s defenders immediately turned into an all out assault when the last probe was eviscerated by the bunkers defenses. Drystan still had no word from the bunker, and all attempts to reach the Captain inside had been met by a squeal of jamming static, so he focused on keeping the Chaplains out of the bunker and away from those inside. Wreathed in dark smoke that arced and snapped with lightning as he channeled the powers of the Immaterium, he was the sole focus of most of those arrayed against them. High Chaplain Omid and the Custodes had not yet entered the fray, aside from the latter immediately executing their captives once the bunker had come online, but the waves of Omid’s forces continued to wear down the defenders, in particular their ammunition supplies. With a mental command, Drystan sent his Flaenors off to find what supplies they could reasonably salvage from those who had fallen, especially those who had returned to the lower levels with him. His defenses had more than enough power to sustain him at the moment, a mixture of void shielding, kine shields, and the surprising mobility of the unique Silver Basilisk dreadnought pattern. Drystan’s helmet crackled and the captain’s voice came through.

“Can you hear me, Honored Drystan?” the voice boomed in his ear.

“Yes,” said Drystan, twisting to grab another Chaplain as he went by in a rocket propelled slide, leaving a river of sparks in his wake. He used the unfortunate man as a mace, battering other nearby enemies in broad cleaving motions, before hoisting the now disturbingly boneless looking marine and hurling him into a group of enemies dropping in from above.

“My son,” came Artellion’s voice. “We are in-system and are making all speed to The Tower, but you *must hold* the command center, by any means necessary.”

Drystan watched as in response to his contact, Omid and the Custodes suddenly charged directly at him, they must have detected the jamming going down. He assumed a ready stance as the Custodes quickly outstripped the lumbering Star Guardian, the golden forms dancing away from each other as they began working towards his flanks, their own conversion shields coming into play as the bunker’s defenders started focusing their own fire on the Custodes. It wouldn’t last though, soon the fight would be too close for ranged defenders to assist. Drystan answered his Primarch the only way he could, “Your will, my hands, Father. For those who live.”

“For those who live, my son.”

Drystan spared a short thought to Corbenic as he cut the communication, he now had an inkling about what his friend had seen when he laid on the stasis table on his way to Mars. *I hope I do you proud...and I hope you’re not already dead,* Drystan thought, and then there was no time for anything else. Omid had arrived and the Custodes closed in.

If the Custodes were used to working in an organized fashion, as the Astartes were, the fight probably would have ended in moments; fortunately they favoured a bit of flair in their attacks, as all but one made supernaturally large leaps towards him. In the moment, Drystan couldn’t quite remember the ancient Terran author who had hammered this point home, but the lesson was a simple one: barring wings or thrust, once your feet left the floor you left control of your movement on the ground with it, no matter how fast or strong you happened to be. Drystan blasted three of the golden warriors back with a thought, not enough to kill them there hadn’t been time enough for that. He allowed himself a brief smile as one flew into the rubble created by a fallen wall. He pivoted, deflecting the remaining Custode’s Castellan Axe to one side with a shielded forearm, the shield emitter embedded there rapidly glowing white hot as the conversion field absorbed the disruption field’s energies, the energies letting off a shrieking cacophony. Drystan followed through, used his superior bulk to knock the man off-balance, then used one of fists to knock him flying as the conversion field could absorb the energy of his own disruption field, but not the momentum of the blow. He heard, rather than felt, the thumps of Omid’s plasma cannon hitting his rear shield, and instead of turning to face his slower moving foe, he instead engaged his jump pack. The Custode who had just gotten to his feet from Drystan’s earlier toss across the room, barely got his arms up in a warding gesture before several tons of Dreadnought plowed into him just shy of the speed of sound. The Custodes conversion field held for a moment before flickering out as the emitter gave out, sending him flying once more, but where Drystan’s physical attack ended there, his psychic assault immediately followed in his wake. Condensing the vapor cone that had been forming ahead of him into a lance, Drystan gestured at his airborne target. The man contorted mid-air, tucking in and missing all but the edge of the lance, his left arm not quite out of the way as it puffed into a fine mist that vibrated in the sonic boom as the Warp-infused sonic lance burned itself out into a hapless Chaplain behind him. Drystan did not have time to attack again, feeling the spear of another Custode burn its way partially through his rear shield, burrowing into the jump pack on his back. Red warnings flashed along his vision as his HUD informed him that the pack was critically damaged, so Drystan detached it and let it drop to the floor, dragging the Custode’s weapon along with it, before snapping a kine shield into place as the other two Custodes’ weapons buried themselves halfway into it.

Drystan sent another wave of force at the enemies in front of him, with much reduced success, as they only slid back a half dozen meters before stopping, Omid merely bracing his shield and riding the wave out without being pushed back at all. The maimed Custode took the opportunity to stab at Drystan’s right flank, and this time the spear fully pierced the shield, impaling his right arm. The Custode deactivated the disruption field, twisting his weapon to impair Drystan’s movement, as Omid fired his weapon around the kind shields Drystan had constructed, the plasma gouging into and through his armour. System integrity warnings flashed across his vision, as his HUD told him what he already knew: he wasn’t going to last much longer.

The tension applied to his right arm abruptly loosened simultaneously with a barrage of loud thumps and scream of pain. Llarawyn soared over Drystan’s chassis, her mechadendrites bracing her against his frame as she activated her own shielding, Omid’s blasts splashing against it in a kaleidoscope of colours. An enormous boom sounded behind him and the maimed Custode flew into his vision, his breastplate a ruined mass of Auramite, though it had clearly done its job at protecting its occupant as he screamed his entire flight, before tumbling across the floor. He felt a slight tug in his right arm, a slight tearing sound, and then the clatter of the spear, as Edessa ran into view, ejecting what looked like a modified plasma core from her rifle, and inserting another. After taking a brief moment to aim, her exosuits appendages peeled back to brace herself on the floor, before another thundering explosion came from her gun, clipping the axe-bearing Custode who dodged at the last possible second, the impact spinning him to the ground. This time the blast melted Edessa’s rifle completely, and she tossed it aside, using her heavy claws to anchor herself to Drystan’s form as she brought her welder to the fore to make a hasty repair to Drystan’s arm. Her attack had bought him the precious moments he needed to marshal his strength for another attack.

This time however, the dance was different. Drystan was exhausted, the fight lasting mere minutes, but taking so much of his energies to maintain. There was no young prodigy to hold the line while he supported him from behind, nor was there any respite in the frenzied attacks from his opponents. The black thunderclouds billowed around him again, and forks of eldritch lightning streaked out, piercing Omid and one of the still standing Custodes, the last dodging and striking right at Drystan’s sarcophagus, piercing its shell and driving deep into his ruined torso. To his left Llarawyn crumpled beneath Omid’s Thunder Hammer, unable to move away from his sudden rush. Edessa soon followed as she detached herself from Drystan’s chassis, and flung herself into the path of the axe wielder, and was promptly split up the middle, her viscera spilling onto the floor. Drystan felt his rage flare, but his body was already so broken, and it could not withstand the additional damage as the Custode ripped his weapon out of Drystan. He began to slump forward, only to be caught by Omid, who was oddly gentle as he held his mortally wounded foe.

“That,” panted Omid, a slight hiss to his speech as the breaths seemed to pain him. “Certainly took much longer than I expected. Such wasted, *futile*, gestures.”

“I...am not alone in this,” said Drystan looking up, wet coughs of blood staggering his speech. “My father is here...and you will *pay* for your treachery, Omid...*at long last*.”

Omid looked up and saw streaks of fire across burning their way through the central walls of the edifice, looking like meteors or comets, before he heard the massive clarion heralding the Silver Basilisks’ arrival. He brought up a vid feed from the top of the Tower and could see a massive ship that dwarfed the *Gloriana* battleships in size, while the Custodes were already running towards where the drop pods would land, the idiots. He looked back to Drystan and saw that the old psyker had succumbed to his wounds. With a thought, the siege drill slung under his left fist roared into life, mirroring Omid’s own roar as he brought the spinning heads into contact with the sarcophagus’ helmet, pulverising the exquisitely wrought armour entirely. Then he turned, deliberately stepping on the remains of the wing-suited woman who had fought by her Dreadnought’s side, as he waved for his forces to fall back from the bunker. He still had work to do.

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