Beautification of the Inner Sphere 6 (Patreon)

Commissioned

Beautification of the Inner Sphere

Chapter 6

-VB-

The Broken Knights possessed a certain presence in the periphery worlds of the Federated Suns. 

Part of it had to do with the fact that most of their members were originally AFFS who were either burned or dumped for one reason or another. They were those who were disillusioned with the Federated Suns as a whole. It wasn’t merely losing confidence in what the Federated Suns was but losing faith as a whole of the nation that proclaimed to be most righteous and just people in the Inner Sphere. 

It helped that they also only raided the Draconis Combine and the Outworlds Alliance while rarely running fades with the FedSuns. 

The Broken Knights have been around for three generations at this point in Wittington, and the AFFS had left them alone for the most part because they weren’t considered high priority. After all, for every ten raids they performed, eight of them were aimed at the Combine, so removing them would hurt the strategic aims of the AFFS more than their removal would. 

And so they were left alone.

Or that used to be the case. 

The newest “captain” of the Broken Knights, Antonio Falkner, changed the direction of the Broken Knights, increasing the raids on Federated Suns worlds more and more over the years. It had made them rich from striking worlds that had not been prepared for the pirates. 

But it also drew attention. 

Right now, the Federated Suns disliked the Broken Knights enough that strategic aims of the border could allow their removal before a new more Federated Suns friendly captain took over and changed that again. This was why they were my first target. They were large enough that the AFFS couldn’t afford to divert a full regiment to remove but they were small enough that we could take care of them.

While nations might allow such pirates to exist, I/Fulgrim decided that the Broken Knights would be removed as soon as possible because allowing them to continue to exist was the opposite of justice that we wanted to reach. 

Which was also something we noticed. 

Fulgrim did not care too much about justice, only that he strove toward the perfection that was the Emperor of Mankind. I, on the other hand, did absolutely care about justice. And since pirates were antithetical to the united humanity that the Emperor sought, Fulgrim had been accepting of my aims to use the Emperor’s Children to pursue that.

Of course, pirates were not the only ones we would be going after…

But right now? 

The Broken Knights were our first target. 

“Navigator, are you ready?” I asked through the vox. 

“Yes, my lord.”

The Pride of the Emperor silently rumbled in space at the edge of the Tancredi system. 

There was no warp here, yes, but over the last few weeks that we have been in space, the navigator and I have been looking into the Warp, or lack thereof. What confused the both of us was that despite the fact that there didn’t seem to be a warp, the navigator could still see nothing.

As in she could “access” her sight to see something that presented itself as nothing. 

Which made us question whether or not if the warp was truly absent or if there was nothing inside the warp, so it appeared to be not there. 

The sight distressed the navigator as much as looking at the warp itself did for a whole different reason. To her, the lack of the warp felt like something missing from herself. Gone but not absent. The best word was … empty. 

This was a feeling that I also experienced… or rather a feeling that I have been experiencing but have not been able to put words to. 

Having heard her acknowledgement, I turned on the vox for the entire ship. 

“I am Primarch Fulgrim, and we have taken upon a mission to rid a world of pirates that has been plaguing nearby worlds. Limited as we are, we will be carrying out the will of the Emperor who wished to unite humanity against those who wished it divided and gone. Pirates who thrive upon weaker worlds is one such force. But to get to them, we must make another jump through the warp… or what passes for it. I do not expect you to understand my decisions. I expect you to hold yourself to the standard of the Emperor’s Children… and brace yourselves for the jump.” Then I switched the channel to the navigator’s. “Initiate warp jump.”

For a moment, nothing happened. 

And then …

The darkness of space in front of the Pride of the Emperor grew even darker. 

As the Gloriana battleship rumbled forward into the emptiness, I felt a chill run up my spine. 

It was a different kind of chill compared to what Fulgrim remembers of the warp. 

It was the kind of a chill that came from standing alone and knowing that we were alone. 

The chill of emptiness. 

We gritted our teeth but also kept an eye out for the reactions of our children and the menials. 

They too felt the pull but less than we did. 

They simply shivered. Like they were cold. 

“How are you holding up?” I asked the navigator over the vox.

“I-I-I-I will b-be a-a-able to handle this,” she reported, her jaws clacking audibly over the vox. 

I grunted. “And our speed?”

“S-Slow, m-my lord,” she hissed out. “It is like moving through a sea of bodies. E-every m-movement saps energy from us.”

We shivered almost violently. It was only Fulgrim’s iron discipline and burning need to maintain his own “pale imitation” of perfection that kept him from clattering like a giant metal chime. 

And then the deeper darkness broke away to reveal “regular” darkness. 

We took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. 

We could tell that we were no longer in the “warp.” 

“W-We have left the warp,” the navigator’s voice echoed out on the bridge. 

“Good. Then we begin our operation.” 

The Pride of the Emperor rumbled forward towards the only planet in the system. 

And that was where the pirates were. 

-VB-

Nobody saw it coming until it was almost in orbit of the planet. 

Even when the warship entered orbit, no one believed it. 

Then the orbital strike came. 

A single strike aimed at the heart of their base.

It was a beam of light that came down from the sky and slammed into the ground. It wasn’t even aimed at a facility or workshop. It was just aimed on the ground. But that was still enough to liquify the ground and send shockwaves that rippled the earth like ripples on the surface of the water. 

And in the midst of the ensuing panic, they came like meteors. 

Emily shrieked as something landed near her on the other side of the ruined wall of a house she had been in. The brief burn and then the impact drowned out all other sound. It was less a sound and more an impact, actually, and it made her chest squeeze and her heart thunder just seconds after as dust, dirt, and air blasted around and over her and the ruins of the wall she had hid behind. 

While her ears were still ringing, she heard clanks of metal plates slamming into the ground. 

That was quickly followed by heavy boot steps that was both heavy and light. It sounded like … tiny battlemechs?

Even though she felt like she was having a headache, she peaked over the now low wall.

And there, standing next to some kind of a pod, was a purple monster. It wasn’t a battlemech at all, but it was definitely not a regular soldier. 

Was that … power armor? 

The dust billowed around him and then there were suddenly gunshots. 

Bullets struck and ricocheted off of the pauldrons and armor, and she winced at the sound and bursts of metal sparks. 

Yeah… yeah, those things weren’t just thick; they were also basically immune to small arms fire. 

Then the supersoldier - because what else could he be?! - lifted his right arm. There was a bulky gun that had to weigh more than her in the right hand of that soldier. 

Then he fired. 

Precise. 

One shot. Two shot. Three shot. 

Each shot was aimed quickly and precisely like he was a machine. 

He didn’t even spare a glance as he strode forward while continuing to fire, and Emily heard screams from outside the billowing dust around them. He could see through the dust?

She shivered from where she hid… until she heard thumps behind her. 

She slowly turned around and found herself looking up at another one of those purple supersoldiers. 

And it was looking down at her with baleful red eyes. 

Her shiver turned into full trembling and she sobbed. 

It reached down, and she curled up.

It hesitated before gently gripping her iron collars and -.

SNAP.

Her eyes shot open and she looked down at herself as the iron collar that had been around her neck fell away from her. 

After a moment of silence, she looked back up at the supersoldier. 

The supersoldier … looked hesitant? Like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

“The Emperor protects,” he said with a modulated voice and a nod before stalking off. Moments later, he joined his comrade in shooting the pirates. 

---

Abdemon looked around as he reloaded his bolter. 

‘Not a single fortified structure,’ he thought as he took in the chaos around him. ‘Is this the norm for this era or are these pirates just pathetic?’

Click. 

Without hesitating or stopping, he leveled his bolter at a would-be sniper half a kilometer away and three stories above on a building that had somehow survived the shockwave of the orbital strike and fired off a single shot. 

His shell boomed and slammed into the sniper and tore the man apart. 

Then he stopped when he saw the giant doors underneath the sniper’s position open up and a Titan walked out. 

Ah, that must be why the building had survived; it was meant to keep Titans safe. 

‘Let’s test how tough these Titans are.’

Then he took off on a run before firing off a single shot at the cockpit. The shell exploded on the reinforced cockpit window and the Titan turned to look at him. 

His helmet’s interface quickly identified the Titan. 

Firestarter, light mech.

35 tons.

Anti-Infantry specialty.

As he ran toward it at his max speed, he narrowed his eyes. Firestarter. The name definitely meant that some kind of plasma attack would be involved. He -.

The “mech” brought its arms to bear and … spewed regular fire. 

Though it caught him offguard, Abdemon plowed through the fire like they weren’t there and fired at the hip joints. 

The bolter shells splashed against the armored joints, causing very minimal damages. 

Seeing as his bolter was ill-equip for this job, he stowed it away mid-run … and jumped up. 

He latched right onto the knee and quickly gripped his way up. 

The pilot panicked and began to flail around, but that just gave him more time to climb his way up. 

And then he was right in front of the cockpit. And he could see the pilot inside. 

Without hesitation, he slammed his fist into the cockpit. 

Once. 

Twice. 

Thrice.

On the fourth strike, the cockpit glass shattered inward. 

Then he pulled out his bolter and fired twice inside.

The pilot splattered all over the inside of the cockpit and the mech lurched side ways. 

Seeing as it was going to fall, Abdomen let go and gracefully fell to the ground. 

The mech tipped over behind him and crashed into the ground. 

… He sniffed. 

“Jump packs will be useful against mechs,” he noted before he walked over to join his brothers in cleaning up the pirates.