We'd elected to abstain from going down on the planet at first, what with the necron tombworld currently lying dormant in it like a particularly gruesome diarrhea shit waiting to be unleashed upon the world, but after a few months passed without any necrons coming out we'd decided to go down and have a look for ourselves.
The pyramid is much more impressive up close than it is on a hologram. Tall enough to breach into the skies and wide enough to stretch through the horizon, even by imperium standards the sheer scale of this thing boggles the mind.
We've landed on an outpost right beside the closed gates, where ACM002 and his more trusted advisors are trying, and failing, to penetrate into the necron tombworld. They are in the midst of a strategy discussion when we reach them. A hologram of the deep scan of the planet is displayed for all to see.
The good news is that the tomb world is not a core world, or even worse, a fucking crownworld. The tomb is a fringeworld, the only necron presence is in this pyramid, which goes even deeper underground than it goes into the sky.
I can't tell whether it is a former penal colony, some mining colony, an outpost or anything else, but anything of real import would have had a much larger planetary presence than a mere building.
Going by how the discussion between ACM002 and his advisors is going, they seem to be somewhat unaware of what lies inside. The magos mettalurgicus points a mechadendrite at the gigantic closed gates of the pyramid. "This is clearly some form of relic from the dark age of technology, we have not documented anything else such as this. If something of this scale was the work of xeno's we would have encountered their species long ago."
ACM002 nods. "I concur. The likelihood of this being the work of xenos is unlikely. This does not match any known xeno technology, the only plausible explanation is that this is the work of humanity from the dark age of technology."
Joline, Anesh, Khaeyl, Dol and I all stop near them and wait for their discussion to finish.
The magos geologis nods enthusiastically. "Only humanity from the dark age of technology would be capable of such a feat, I agree with our lord explorator and our magos mettalurgicus. This can be nothing else than a relic from the dark age of technology!"
Going by the way that they're all talking in circles about there being no war in ba sing se I'm going to assume that they're aware that this is a necron tombworld, but their holding back from referring to it like that. "ACM002, can we talk in private for a minute?"
He nods. "Of course, we will revisit our discussion after the navigator and I have finished our talk."
I take him away from everyone else, caution is the better part of valor after all. "I know and don't care that this is a necron tombworld. You do-"
ACM002 forcefully covers my mouth, before whispering just barely loud enough for me to hear. "Take care friend, the very ground listens to us. The wrong listener can spell our doom"
I swallow nervously before giving him a nod, which makes him uncover it. "Is there anything else that you wish to tell me?"
I take a deep breath, thinking on how to phrase this. "This building was most likely not of much importance to humanity, if it was we would have had a much larger presence on the planet."
Going by the nod that he gives me, I think that I haven't tripped anything this time. "Are you sure of this?"
I nod. "I am sure."
He doesn't appear worried about me not disclosing my source of knowledge, which is something not that uncommon. "Thank you for the warning. Let us return to the meeting, there is much to be discussed."
—
We all stare as the turbocharged plasma cutter still fails to pierce through the gates. ACM002 uses a mechadendrite to scan the portion of the gate that was supposed to be opened. "No damage whatsoever. If this pattern is to continue we will be forced to begin utilizing heavy artillery."
In the end the plasma cutter still fails even after linking it with a building sized overcharger. We clear the area around the gate and prepare to fire artillery into said gates.
The first shot from a light lascannon does nothing, as do the following shots. ACM002 switches to the heavy lascannon immediately, which also does jack and shit respectively.
It's the eradicator cannon of an Onager Doomcrawler that finally opens a hole into the gate. We all stare apprehensively at the opened gate, waiting for the necrons to surge out. We only after five full hours, when we finally conclude that nothing has been awakened just yet.
The first to be sent in are teams of skitarii, to explore and chart the inside of the pyramid.
They were supposed to come out in thirty minutes, one hour later they are yet to come back. We wait for another hour to see if they will come back, which they worryingly don't. They haven't responded to any communications for the past hour and ten minutes either, so they're probably dead.
ACM002 sighs. "It appears that the defense systems are still functional. We are to assume full combat readiness and begin an invasion. Any remaining abominable intelligence is to be eliminated and destroyed."
I'm still not sure whether he's insisting on this being a dark age of technology human colony because of the inquisition, or to not alert the necrons.
Skitarii begin to rush into the pyramid as if they were a swarm of ants moving through a tight space. They kind of remind me of the civilians back on Kinja now that I think about it.
Skitarii continue to rush into the pyramid, with the sheer scale of them being sent it becomes apparent when resistance is encountered, since the rush slows down briefly before slowly picking back up. The surge of skitarii is stopped by the appearance of necron warriors on the pyramid, who immediately begin to fire their gauss blasters into the crowd of skitarri.
We're thankfully far enough away to be out of range from any of their weapons, which instantly kill a skitarii with each hit that lands and completely annihilates the offending victim.
Most of the skitarii are armed with galvanic bullets, which do almost nothing to the necrons when hitting. A few of them carry plasma rifles, which appear to do much more damage to their necrodermis. The only problem being that said damage is immediately rejuvenated in about three seconds.
I turn to ACM002. "We've seen that light artillery does almost nothing to them, why not just shell the pyramid continuously to prevent them from teleporting on top of it?"
ACM002 immediately turns to the magos in charge of the artillery. "Begin building as many heavy lascannons as possible. Continue bombardment until we have successfully purged the abominable intelligence."
The few lascannons that are already prepared begin immediate bombardment, each shot that lands immediately makes the stricken necron warriors get teleported out due to excessive damage. Interestingly enough, a few of them remain after being hit.
That's a good sign that the tomb world is either severely damaged or yet to properly awaken. Necrons continue to teleport onto the pyramid, only to be immediately destroyed by the ongoing artillery barrage. This continues way past the point where a general would realise their error.
That's another good sign. If they had started to act tactically from the get go that would mean that the overlord is already awake and prepared. The flood of skitarii continues to slowly speed up, indicating that progress is happening in the tomb, hopefully.
Enough time passes for Joline and I to become sleepy. Dol has enough implants to only need real sleep once a week and Anesh and Khaeyl are literal aliens. I yawn. "We're going to go to the ship and sleep. If anything happens make sure to alert us."
Dol nods. "Of course. We will wake the two of you up if anything of import is to occur."
ACM002 shrugs. "Our usual models indicate that successfully eliminating the abominable intelligence will take two years."
That means that they've looted necron tombworlds before. I'll have to bring up trading xenotech with them later. It also means that they came to this planet specifically for the tombworld, any rumors of STC fragments are probably just an excuse.
There is something that I still don't understand however. "How is it going to take two years with the skitarii literally flooding the damn place?"
ACM002 points at a hologram displaying the currently explored terrain of the pyramid. The skitarii have basically already cleared about a quarter of the pyramid going by volume. "The main bulk will not take long, the main issue will be reaching the replication vaults."
In other words, the main problem is going to be to get the necrons to stop from respawning.
—
We've decided to meet up with some of the natives while the skitarii are busy cosplaying the imperial guard. A few months of nothing much has led us to this.
We land right next to one of their settlements, an escort guard is already prepared for us upon landing. We are greeted by literal medieval warriors guarding what appears to be a priestess. The priestess immediately greets us when we leave our ship. "We greet the sky-peoples! It is an honour to meet the envoys of the great old one!"
So long as a world worships the emperor (The imperium doesn't really care about the semantics of the religion, so long as it looks to be big E) and pays its tithe on time the imperium doesn't care much about what it does.
For a medieval world like this one I'm pretty sure that collecting the tithe costs more than the value of the tithe itself. Joline gives the priestess a nod. "The sky-peoples greet the land-peoples! Please escort us to our dwellings! We require food and rest!"
We end up going back to the ship in about three days. There's not much to do in a desert village, which quickly led to Joline getting bored and asking to go home.
—
It takes eight more months for the pyramid to be mostly cleared, what's left is searching through and cataloguing everything, a process that's likely to take six months.
The tombworld ends up being one of those that completely fails to awaken properly. The overlord is found still asleep in his impenetrable coffin. Most of everything that is not bolted down gets taken out and looted, everything that's too large to be taken out of the tombworld gets disassembled, or more like roughly cut into pieces, and taken out.
ACM002, Joline and I are currently in ACM002's office. It's while I am trying to figure out a way to ask him about xenotech trading without arousing suspicion that he breaks the news. "My office is secure, we can discuss matters freely here."
My eye twitches. His face is too augmented for me to tell anything that's going on in his mind, but I'm pretty sure that he enjoys fucking with me like this. "We have some craftworld eldar xenotech we can trade, I'd also like to trade some of our favors for some of the necron xenotech."
ACM002 nods. "It is more convenient for us to trade some of our own xenotech for your own. That way it will attract much less attention."
In other worlds, buy black market goods using black market goods. I shrug. "That's all right for me. I'll need to inform Dol about this trade however, she's the one in charge of our tech. She'll be the one to decide what we want to trade for."
ACM002 says. "Ah, she is the magos that has always been in your company, correct? Feel free to inform her of the trade. She can contact me directly for further details."
—
With our business on KH009 complete it is time to leave the planet. Our first destination will be HK47, we'll stay there for a few days or weeks to finish hashing out our deals with ACM001. We'll see what happens with the negotiations before deciding where to go from there.
—
Shorter chapter this time, don't feel that good today >.>