Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 16, 2017 20:00:38 GMT
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
--William Shakespeare
--oOo--
SIX MONTHS EARLIER
The landscape the men now inhabited was hardly hospitable by any stretch of the imagination. Purgatory was almost large enough to be called a moon, though its location in deep space well free from the confines of the light of suns made it an inhospitably cold place. It was a strange sort of cemetery, and a stranger still place to commence an invasion from.
As far as structures went, Purgatory consisted of a large atmospheric dome predominantly. It was not a fancy thing; unlike the more artful atmospheric domes of the Tenebraens for instance, the dome over Purgatory Station offered no view of the heavens. It would have been quite a view too; Purgatory was in such deep space that the band of the galaxy was brilliantly visible, only cutting off sharply to black where the horizon jutted unevenly towards the stars.
Connected to Purgatory’s dome by a serious of subterranean causeways was a very oddly built power station, a mechanics bay, extensive yet strangely vacant living quarters, and a series of industrial incinerators. Beyond these lay landing pads, now empty, which in the pale light of artificial fires flickered with a chilling lack of ominous intent. If anything, Purgatory’s emptiness was its defining feature. The barracks, capable of supporting just over 9,000 soldiers at a time, were empty; pristine, filled with well made beds and not a cockroach to be seen. Pests, for reasons that would shortly be reiterated, never survived long in Purgatory.
The base was strangely built with a heavy reliance on mechanical technology. The airlocks, for instance, were entirely things of gears and latches. There were no fancy automatic doors in Purgatory; no ponderous AIs with holographic avatars or impressive sensor arrays. It was all downright old fashioned here; just barracks, the dome, the garage…and the incinerators.
The power station was remarkably modular; the reactors were of a design which facilitated rapid deconstruction, refitting, and reactivation. A side effect of such a hands-on design was its low power output, necessitated by the radiation sinks and their limited capacity. Notably, there were no fuel reserves present at Purgatory Station; the base could not survive more than a week without resupply and refueling. The kitchen in the barracks shared a similar lack of excess foodstuffs.
But no staff were wandering the catwalks around the cores now; no soldiers played ping pong in the rec center, no toilets flushed, no boots clinked on the concrete floors. They had all packed their bags so to speak, all gathered their implements of war and assembled under the dome.
Their breath hung in the air there, under the pale artificial lights. They were not the first to stand so strangely underneath the dome; they were positioning themselves well differently from the neat rows and columns that armies tend to. Rather, they congregated unevenly around seemingly random points on the floor where paint strips outlined walls and tables doorways. Sandbags had been installed and machine gun nests erected; coils of nanowire were in position to be rapidly extended to close off imaginary avenues. Anti-tank obstacles were carefully placed too, and so were strange jamming implements that the director of this facility suspected were not entirely produced by the Immortal Empire.
“We have fifteen minutes to event time.” A voice boomed over the speakers, as soldiers shifted their weight beneath their armour. “Please check gas masks, weapons loads, fuel reserves, food rations…”
“Testicles, spectacles, wallet, watch.” One of the armored soldiers murmured breathlessly, leading to a brief chuckle from his brothers in arms. They were standing around a bright red L on the floor, representing the corner of an as yet imaginary structure. Beneath the red paint were very, very faint outlines of other structures, giving credence to this particular trooper’s theory that the fabled Legion of the Dead, the Death Corps as some were calling it, were a larger body…or series of bodies, he corrected himself drably, then they had let on.
“Troopers to combat positions. Stand by for final objectives recap. Prep vehicles, please.” The voice from the ceiling called out, and over the next minute or so almost a vast number of T-4 APCs, as well as other mechanized units, powered up. Head lights burst out of into the murky darkness of the room, and the rumble of hundreds of machines made the ground tremble ever so slightly.
“Gentlemen, good morning. Today we go to hell and back.”
--oOo—
Two days later, a collection of very large freighters arrived at Purgatory Station. Only one landed immediately, per the Overlord’s orders; while his soldiers were undoubtedly hardy men, it was rather unpleasant to clean up after a successful conversion, so machines did the work instead. Not a man would disembark onto Purgatory Station for the next twelve hours.
Inside, the machines crept quietly down dead corridors. There were no cockroaches, no mice, no bacteria even. Purgatory was a place for the dead.
The derelict hulks of the machines were drug through the pitch black towards the machine shops. Their fuel cells had been utterly depleted, and certain key components critical to the suspension system were utterly wasted. The ships, however, carried such components in abundance; testing had revealed precisely which components required replacing, and so they were packed in abundance. Parts such as these, such as ammunition by the thousands, such as food rations and other sensitive items, all were carried to Purgatory as sacrifices for the dead.
The dead.
The machines carefully removed and replaced the components for the reactors, much as the reactors had been designed to allow. Radiation was not a problem, for the event had sucked every last iota of energy out of them. You could have, should the oxygen have not been frozen, and should you have felt inclined to freeze yourself, stood naked within the core of a reactor which two days earlier had contained the heat of suns and been no worse for wear. Barring the frostbite, of course. And the suffocation.
So power was restored to Purgatory Station. Heaters beneath the floor of the dome would kick in shortly in order to melt the frozen oxygen which had fallen to the floor like snow. Before that could be done though, the bodies would have to be recovered.
The machines stripped them of their armour, and this armour was taken to be melted down and recyled. The guns were removed from their hands, and the ammunition, now pointlessly innert, was removed from the guns. Fresh ammunition would be installed once the fresh personnel disembarked. The dead rounds would be taken to the incinerator and melted down for recycling.
The bodies would be burned in the incinerators. They were empty flesh vessels now, without men’s souls or artificial AIs or any sort of spirit to them. The Legion of the Dead grew quietly. Few rumours escaped about what was going on in the dark back corners of the Immortal Empire; of the few rumours that did escape, few took them seriously. Months later, when one such report crossed the desk of Yvon-Rubicon Rourke, he dismissed it immediately. It was too insane.
So fresh personnel came, and the Legion of the Dead grew quietly.
--William Shakespeare
--oOo--
SIX MONTHS EARLIER
The landscape the men now inhabited was hardly hospitable by any stretch of the imagination. Purgatory was almost large enough to be called a moon, though its location in deep space well free from the confines of the light of suns made it an inhospitably cold place. It was a strange sort of cemetery, and a stranger still place to commence an invasion from.
As far as structures went, Purgatory consisted of a large atmospheric dome predominantly. It was not a fancy thing; unlike the more artful atmospheric domes of the Tenebraens for instance, the dome over Purgatory Station offered no view of the heavens. It would have been quite a view too; Purgatory was in such deep space that the band of the galaxy was brilliantly visible, only cutting off sharply to black where the horizon jutted unevenly towards the stars.
Connected to Purgatory’s dome by a serious of subterranean causeways was a very oddly built power station, a mechanics bay, extensive yet strangely vacant living quarters, and a series of industrial incinerators. Beyond these lay landing pads, now empty, which in the pale light of artificial fires flickered with a chilling lack of ominous intent. If anything, Purgatory’s emptiness was its defining feature. The barracks, capable of supporting just over 9,000 soldiers at a time, were empty; pristine, filled with well made beds and not a cockroach to be seen. Pests, for reasons that would shortly be reiterated, never survived long in Purgatory.
The base was strangely built with a heavy reliance on mechanical technology. The airlocks, for instance, were entirely things of gears and latches. There were no fancy automatic doors in Purgatory; no ponderous AIs with holographic avatars or impressive sensor arrays. It was all downright old fashioned here; just barracks, the dome, the garage…and the incinerators.
The power station was remarkably modular; the reactors were of a design which facilitated rapid deconstruction, refitting, and reactivation. A side effect of such a hands-on design was its low power output, necessitated by the radiation sinks and their limited capacity. Notably, there were no fuel reserves present at Purgatory Station; the base could not survive more than a week without resupply and refueling. The kitchen in the barracks shared a similar lack of excess foodstuffs.
But no staff were wandering the catwalks around the cores now; no soldiers played ping pong in the rec center, no toilets flushed, no boots clinked on the concrete floors. They had all packed their bags so to speak, all gathered their implements of war and assembled under the dome.
Their breath hung in the air there, under the pale artificial lights. They were not the first to stand so strangely underneath the dome; they were positioning themselves well differently from the neat rows and columns that armies tend to. Rather, they congregated unevenly around seemingly random points on the floor where paint strips outlined walls and tables doorways. Sandbags had been installed and machine gun nests erected; coils of nanowire were in position to be rapidly extended to close off imaginary avenues. Anti-tank obstacles were carefully placed too, and so were strange jamming implements that the director of this facility suspected were not entirely produced by the Immortal Empire.
“We have fifteen minutes to event time.” A voice boomed over the speakers, as soldiers shifted their weight beneath their armour. “Please check gas masks, weapons loads, fuel reserves, food rations…”
“Testicles, spectacles, wallet, watch.” One of the armored soldiers murmured breathlessly, leading to a brief chuckle from his brothers in arms. They were standing around a bright red L on the floor, representing the corner of an as yet imaginary structure. Beneath the red paint were very, very faint outlines of other structures, giving credence to this particular trooper’s theory that the fabled Legion of the Dead, the Death Corps as some were calling it, were a larger body…or series of bodies, he corrected himself drably, then they had let on.
“Troopers to combat positions. Stand by for final objectives recap. Prep vehicles, please.” The voice from the ceiling called out, and over the next minute or so almost a vast number of T-4 APCs, as well as other mechanized units, powered up. Head lights burst out of into the murky darkness of the room, and the rumble of hundreds of machines made the ground tremble ever so slightly.
“Gentlemen, good morning. Today we go to hell and back.”
--oOo—
Two days later, a collection of very large freighters arrived at Purgatory Station. Only one landed immediately, per the Overlord’s orders; while his soldiers were undoubtedly hardy men, it was rather unpleasant to clean up after a successful conversion, so machines did the work instead. Not a man would disembark onto Purgatory Station for the next twelve hours.
Inside, the machines crept quietly down dead corridors. There were no cockroaches, no mice, no bacteria even. Purgatory was a place for the dead.
The derelict hulks of the machines were drug through the pitch black towards the machine shops. Their fuel cells had been utterly depleted, and certain key components critical to the suspension system were utterly wasted. The ships, however, carried such components in abundance; testing had revealed precisely which components required replacing, and so they were packed in abundance. Parts such as these, such as ammunition by the thousands, such as food rations and other sensitive items, all were carried to Purgatory as sacrifices for the dead.
The dead.
The machines carefully removed and replaced the components for the reactors, much as the reactors had been designed to allow. Radiation was not a problem, for the event had sucked every last iota of energy out of them. You could have, should the oxygen have not been frozen, and should you have felt inclined to freeze yourself, stood naked within the core of a reactor which two days earlier had contained the heat of suns and been no worse for wear. Barring the frostbite, of course. And the suffocation.
So power was restored to Purgatory Station. Heaters beneath the floor of the dome would kick in shortly in order to melt the frozen oxygen which had fallen to the floor like snow. Before that could be done though, the bodies would have to be recovered.
The machines stripped them of their armour, and this armour was taken to be melted down and recyled. The guns were removed from their hands, and the ammunition, now pointlessly innert, was removed from the guns. Fresh ammunition would be installed once the fresh personnel disembarked. The dead rounds would be taken to the incinerator and melted down for recycling.
The bodies would be burned in the incinerators. They were empty flesh vessels now, without men’s souls or artificial AIs or any sort of spirit to them. The Legion of the Dead grew quietly. Few rumours escaped about what was going on in the dark back corners of the Immortal Empire; of the few rumours that did escape, few took them seriously. Months later, when one such report crossed the desk of Yvon-Rubicon Rourke, he dismissed it immediately. It was too insane.
So fresh personnel came, and the Legion of the Dead grew quietly.