The Siege of Kydonia

A Chronicle of Ever Present Chaos

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SCI-FI SPRING BEGINS!

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I wrote this in respone to the Lunar Awards Sci-Fi Prompt Quest:

Write a science fiction short story that takes place on an off-world colony amidst an alien invasion. Your protagonist embraces the chaos, utilizing reckless tactics in order to escape certain death. The other option is to save the colonists by activating an experimental technology or an artifact. What option will your unpredictable shadow figure choose?

Level Up!

(Optional) The story should be written in first person perspective and your protagonist is fighting the good fight with a missing limb.

Enjoy!

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Unending clouds of crimson swirl overhead. Pale blue lightening flashes above the crimson and thunder rains down upon me. I stand atop the battlements of the Kydonia Citadel, the last holdout on Magna Illyria. Before me are ashen fields thick with death, once golden wheat filled this fields as far as the eye could see but that was then, back when we thought this planet safe, untouched by Chaos.

We were wrong.

The corrupted husks feast upon their fellow man in gluttonous hunger. Some have begun to change, physically, the Chaos coursing their veins altering the form, the function, the soul. Crushing it, distorting it, corrupting it completely. The more that are turned, the more Chaos comes forth, the more Chaos comes forth the greater risk of some Ancient God of the Before materialising. I need a way to cleanse the planet before that happens.

'Strategos!' ArchPriest Tyrus calls. His staff strikes the obsidian as he hobbles up the steps. Hymnals bound with brass hang from his belt, clinking as he moves. Three theosdesmoterions accompany them, each, he claims, holds a falsegod. He is old enough to have accomplished such a feat. And faithful enough.

'Yes, ArchPriest,' I run my hand over my head. The stubble has returned and I am left wondering how long I have been awake. Shells explode against the lower levels of the Citadel walls. Smoke plumes up to join the crimson clouds obscuring the night, or maybe it is day now.

'The remaining Quiristers stand ready to chant should the enemy breach the gate. Their armaments seem unable for the task,' he is stooped, his hood weighing on his wizened head so much it pushes it down until his neck is vulture-esk.

'Begin the Hymn of Battle, if only to steel our own nerves,' my lone gauntlet is damaged, rivets are missing, the metal peeled back. Not enough to matter but enough to make me wonder if it matters. I feel the weight of the vibrosword on my back, the heft of the pulsecannon on my hip. The coming battle is the last battle. Either we all die, Chaos wins, and this system is lost to a falsegod or we win, the planet is cleansed and the system sealed and expunged from the Magisterium's archives. Only one way the colonists live, though how many are left I do not know. Less than a million for sure. A measly figure considering three days ago there were billions living in ignorant bliss. I say a prayer to the Agnostos Theos, not for my sake but for those of the colony. The weak and the helpless for I am their last bulwark, my sword their hatred, my armour their anger. The monstrous husks that come for them cannot be reasoned with, as I had first hoped a mere three days ago. A lifetime ago now. Back then this was a routine rebellion over... I forget, it was so long ago, but that was how Chaos manifested. A slumbering poison in the bones of the planet found a victim and from one corruption came the death of a world, the lives of three billion snuffed out as easy as a candle.

The harrowing warble of the tenors graces my ears and I am energised, incensed, and ready. I descend the tower and see the last soldiers of Magna Illyria form up along the walls and in the squares where children once played, in the markets where fishmongers sold the days catch and bakers competed for the finest cakes. Such idyllic living is rare and becoming rarer, even on Gaia I hear there are mutants from the Dark Ages emerging from the rampaging ice. Are we doomed?

The enemy are at the walls. Their wordless warcries echo to the sky. In the fields are mortars, anti-air cannons, pulsecannons, and worse. How husks remember to use such equipment I do not know, and ArchPriest Tyrus assures me I do not want to know. The metaphysics of Chaos corrupt just as well as Chaos alone. Ion shells pound the walls. They will not break. Incendiary shells, three times my size, arc overhead and reduce building to rubble. Fire pours out of them like water, engulfing men, women, children, animals, anything and everything. The molten liquid courses through the streets, melting the very stone.

To charge out is suicide. To stay put is certain death.

Our only hope is to open the gates and draw the enemy in.

As I stride before the lines of soldiers I catch a number eyeing the stump of my missing arm. Some have prosthetics themselves, legs, eyes, arms, one man has a jaw and if it weren't for the faint tan on his own skin you wouldn't be able to tell. I prefer the reminder of my mistakes, and the look of awe as I use a single arm to do what a regular man needs two for.

'Hoplites! I bring you terrible news,' I survey the men, their armour is battered from three days of fighting. Scorched, cracked, battered. Yet here they stand. If I could put each in a suit of Charge Armour, I would but there is only enough suits for the officers. 'Our doom approaches. Chaos has captured Magna Illyria and there is no means of exorcising it. We are all prepared for such an eventuality, I expect you all to meet fate with a smile.' Ion shells rattle the walls, the blue flames licking up and over the height of the wall to cast billowing grey-blue smoke overhead. An incendiary shell arcs erupts somewhere in the centre of the Citadel. The screams smother the explosion. 'We do not wait for death to come to us. We taunt it, welcome it, goad it on and make death work for its pound of flesh! Charge your cannons, power your swords, for we will not go willingly into the void!' I raise my vibrosword, its blue edge streaming with heat. 'OPEN THE GATES!'

To the gateman's credit he does not falter. The great spiked wheels turn, the chains grate and grind, and the two foot thick slabs of heavysteel part to reveal a hellscape. Lumbering husks, once men and women, advance. With each step they become more alive, the black pits they call eyes recognising a living being to kill and corrupt. With a heavy swing I carve the keenest husk in two, its halves seared and steaming.

'CHARGE!' Rage overcomes me and I sprint out into the killing fields. Ion shells splatter rubble and rot over me, pebbles ding against my helmet, fires the width of oceans burn along the horizon, the flames vainly reaching for the clouds. But all I see are the Chaos bearers, the husks, the rebels, my former soldiers, colonists, and the creatures they have become. Twisted monstrosities with leathered skin, oily feathers, their bones fused with their vibroswords, their pulsecannons, teeth transformed into fangs and tusks, legs with extra knees, and eyes split into six black dots filled with nothing but hate.

My hoplites stream forth, screaming and slaying. The ion shells cease to fall. Within minutes hundreds of husks lay dead, thousands more crash against us like the tides that once caressed the Huron Beaches. I loved this world and I hate that which has taken it from me. Three more fall to my sword, their rotten stench filtered out by my helmet. I turn the filtration off and bask in the musk of dead enemies. I gaze across to the burning horizon and to the east there is a sea of Chaos demons. Too many to slaughter. Too many. A few thousand men cannot fight three billion. I had hoped... it matters not what I had hoped.

'ArchPriest Tyrus, we need a plan,' I say through the commline.

A long silence stretches out. Husk after husk throws itself at me and I stage a fighting retreat. 'Back to the Citadel! We'll hold them at the gates!' The retreat costs us a hundred men, a hundred that will rise against their brothers.

'There is a way,' Tyrus's dusty voice replies, finally. 'It may kill us all too.'

'We don't have any atomics.'

'Not mere atomics, Strategos, something far worse and more ancient.'

The hoplites stand shoulder to shoulder between the slabs of heavysteel. Vibroswords whirl while pulsecannons fire overhead and from atop the walls. The enemy falls by the thousands yet it is not enough. One man falls, another shuffles forward to take his place. It is like watching an hourglass, but instead of sand it is my sons, my brothers, my friends, and I cannot turn it on its head to get them back. 'What do you speak of, ArchPriest?' I snarl.

'The Oploskias. It was found beneath the Citadel when the colony was first established. Priests have worked tirelessly for generations to understand it. We know to operate it, not what it does...'

'Then how do you know it is a weapon?'

'There are wall carvings that tell of its use in the deepest caverns. A story of a small tribe against ferocious beasts. I suspect they were like us, fighting Chaos. The final panel shows an empty world,' Tyrus's voice repeats and echoes through static.

He is there, I know it. He knew. Sometimes I wonder who truly commands. Three men die, raked across the face and chest by a monstrous clawed hand. A pulsecannon round turns the Chaos demon to ash. Three more hoplites fill the first ranks and the grains of sand trickle down the line.

'Strategos, our aid is not arriving,' ArchPriest Tyrus questions the honour of the Navarchos sent to assist. They were likely torn apart in the Void, a break in the hymn, in the prayers, an error in the co-ordinates.

'Activate it.'

Tyrus does not reply but I feel the air snap. Everything is drawn downward, as if gravity doubled in strength. My vision doubles, triples, colours split into their primary tones and swirl together never to combine. Thoughts grow heavy and slip from my mind and into my throat. I am on my knees, the weight of my armour too much to bear. The gravity has quadrupled.

The hoplites writhe and scream. The husks shriek and squirm in the mud. My Charge Armour growls with the strain, the joints pop. My vision slips from my eyes, I can still see but the vantage is not from where I was before. I see myself, kneeling on the wall, craters beneath my knees. I see it all from high above and then a force ensnares me and I am thrown back into my body.

I awake to crimson clouds and raging fires.

'The Spear of Saint Astrid to the Strategos of Kydonia, come in, over,' a voice echoes in my head. I blink up at the sky wondering how the clouds became red.

'The Spear of Saint Astrid to the Strategos of Kydonia, come in, over.'

'Strategos Lyceus responding,' I croak.

'Navarchos Maximus Polemos has sent transports to shuttle all survivors aboard The Spear.'

'Very good, Lyceus out,' I lie on my back staring up at the clouds.

Navarchos Maximus regaled me with a tale of his own brush with Chaos. It seems our enemy is coordinating, a worrying development. A thousand hoplites, one hundred priests, and almost twenty thousand colonists were rescued. A paltry number but more than what was expected. ArchPriest Tyrus survived, though he looks a century older, and assures me the Oploskias destroyed far more of them than of us.

A stream of atomics falls from The Spear of Saint Astrid to glass the planet of Magna Illyria. Then it will be sealed by the Priests so that the Chaos cannot escape, how effective it is I do not know but Maximus's ArchPriest assures me it is total. Knowledge of the planet will be quarantined by the Magisterium, and a new colony found far away from this one.

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