The Last of the Space Marines

[b3n|<3r|\|]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Good times...

1

Mephiston awoke suddenly and squeezed the trigger of his bolt rifle. The pantherfolk that had been standing over his sleeping body so pleased with the find fell to the ground, smoking. The marine sighed with what was left of his lungs and got to his feet before brushing the tiny creeping vines from his suit of armour. The bloody things grew like mad whenever you went to sleep, or so it seemed to Mephiston.

Mephiston. Yes. That was his name. He said it out loud a couple times. He did this on a regular basis to ensure he didn't forget it. A marine in the... at this point he looked down at the crest on his shoulder. Oh yes, the Optimarines. Sent by the highest authority imaginable - the Emperor himself - to... to... to guard and ensure the continued operation of the Machine of Xultan! YES! The Machine of Xultan! That was his mission. Oh yes, when he went to sleep he had been looking for it... he had found something, a clue... but his eyes had been so heavy, he had to sit down for a moment and rest...

He looked around. What he saw had become so familiar by now. Thick jungle, vines hanging from the trees and protruding from the roots, the occasional sweet-smelling exotic flower, and of course - rarer and rarer these days - a dead pantherfolk. He hadn't seen a... Myconid in what... 10 years it must have been. Perhaps the Brothers of the Chapter House had finally captured them all and sent them back to the Emperor for analysis. He picked up the still smoking pantherfolk and threw him into a nearby tree. Yes, here it was. Exactly what he had been searching for for so very long. A red arrow in the ground, still emitting a tiny amount of light, half-obscured by dirt and fern. He bent down to brush away the dirt.

Suddenly he felt something heavy jump onto his back and something clamp onto his helmet, and saw the familiar claws on the front of his visor. He jerked his arm up and felt bone crack against his armour before whipping around to view the attacker. He drew his rifle and aimed it at the cat. He paused. It stood, staring at Mephiston, bleeding from its jaw. Its gaze flickered between the marine and the dead pantherfolk at his feet. Mephiston squinted before changing his stance and putting away his gun. "I don't eat your kind." He picked up the dead humanoid and threw it before the pantherfolk. It snarled loudly, and more cats moved out from the thick jungle and helped to carry the dead one away. He turned and looked at the arrow once more. It pointed South-West according to the compass in his helmet (though those things are only guaranteed to be accurate for 50 years). That would lead him to the heart of the island, towards the mountains. He set off.

[hypatias mom]

Good story. I can't wait to read another chapter. Very inventive setup.

[b3n|<3r|\|]

Thanks Carol. Another episode should appear shortly.

[Prodigy Almighty]

THE DUKE APPROVES OF FUTURISTIC SUPER-SOLDIERS.

[b3n|<3r|\|]

It doesn't get much better than futuristic super-soldiers does it?


Welcome to the jungle...

2

So far, the trip had been uneventful - strangely so. The mysterious disappearance of wildlife made Mephiston cautious, but it was not too surprising. A trickling stream had been his guide through the thick Kaggan forest, though what pathetic creature drank from it Mephiston could do nothing but feel sorrow for - with thXultan out of action, there was nothing to purify the waters and make them safe to drink, leaving them dark in various shades of green. The occasional dead body - man or cat - floating downstream cemented his belief that Mar Sara's waters were to be avoided at all costs. He walked away from the river to find a hill to survey the area.

The northern side of the island was somehow still clinging on to the old climate zones, but already the change in temperate was noticeable. The tundra grew, the Zhogul forest in the South was threatened and faced annihilation, the Azjol desert in the north was too shrinking, and the swamps and jungles were becoming intermingled with the Kaggan. The great mountains of Tyrelia in the centre of the island, whose tips only were graced with pure snow while the Machine was operating, were now covered in fierce snow storms.


Mar Saran Climate Map, 3070ASC

Of course! The climate zones! The primary objective of his mission here on Mar Sara. That's why he was guarding the Xultan. It was... part of some scheme to make Micras habitable. And to sustain life on the island, many separate ecosystems had to be created for the creatures within them to flourish. That's why he had to find the Xultan and get it working again... worse than that, there was something... something about the Xultan, something he was forgetting that was of dire importance...

Still thinking, he went back down into the jungle, found the river, and continued upstream towards the mountains.

[Jess]

Beautiful

[Prodigy Almighty]

I had no idea Mar Sara had such a diverse set of climates!

[b3n|<3r|\|]

Oh yes. Zurvan bless Ryan for coming up with the whole Machine of Xultan thing. Otherwise I'd have a hell of a time explaining why Mar Sara isn't antarctic tundra.

3

"Damage report please." Count Benkern looked at the communique that had been placed before him with dismay. Who could have bloody known Mar Sara was such a violent little island? It seemed so nice from so far away in Novi Nigrad... nice and calm and not much trouble to govern... he could do a bit of fishing, or maybe write a book. That would have been nice. It wasn't meant to be like this.

In the last week, another small town raided by those pantherfolk. 8 dead, 5 seriously injured. An attack of that magnitude hadn't happened for hundreds of years according to the Countal records - sure, the occasional cat would go all nuts and savage, but this was a coordinated attack. Witness statements indicated that several small groups of pantherfolk were working together. The Pantherfolk Liaison Officer (PLOff) had nothing to say for himself; apparently, the local chiefs had refused to talk with the County Government for the last 6 weeks. Every cat on the whole island was batting gongs and howling at the moon. It wasn't meant to be like this.

And as if he didn't have enough to worry about, reports were coming in about severe seismic activity across the island. From the highest mountain peak to the lowest forest floor people were panicking about the concerns of Terra or Fiero or Gahg or some other truly innocuous deity fresh from the latest imaginings of a prophet in Shirekeep. Why was it always Benkern's people who overreacted? He hadn't word of a Brookshirean revolt in... ever! Sure, the Kildareans were fighting over that island but that's only Kildare. The Straylightians didn't have any land to fight over, so they were calm. And Elwynn... the less said about Elwynn the better. No, it was always Benkern's people. Didn't matter if he was Duke, Count or Brigadier. Now they were raving about some non-existent gods who were supposedly causi--

B0O0/\/\!11!!1!

Benkern walked out of his office to find his whole Countal Office frozen looking out the window. "What the hell was that?" said the Count, pushing through the crowd of ministers, secretaries and bureaucrats. He finally got to the front. "Oh... my."

[Prodigy Almighty]

Aww, a cliffhangar? You're killin' me, buddy!

[b3n|<3r|\|]

Sorry, been busy with school and stuff (THAT IS A VALID EXCUSE!) and though my activity generally hasn't suffered all that much as far as I can tell, I haven't been able to work on any projects that are going on. That said, I don't forget about these things, so there will be an update soon.

[b3n|<3r|\|]

4

"This... this is very interesting. Now someone explain what the bloody hell just happened before I... I..." The Count collapsed into his chair. That mountain... that mountain... that mountain was not a volcano. It wasn't meant to be like this.

---

Mephiston had been knocked to the ground by the sheer deafening sound. And what a sound! An impossible sound, the loudest crack and B0O0/\/\ an Optimarine had ever heard no doubt, a sound that even the largest gun on the largest ship of the largest fleet of the Empire could not contest with, a sound of such strength it was tangible in the air. Mephiston got up immediately and looked up at the mountain. "My Emperor, it's already started!" He groaned. It all came back with that sound. Half a century of distraction could not oust those key mission objectives from his head.

The Xultan was a prototype of machine which essentially transformed an inhospitable region into a hospitable one. Only the master engineers who produced it could understand how exactly it worked - a gigantic reactor at its core, the fortress which housed the machine would be installed into the face of a mountain or the bottom of a lake or anywhere out of the way and then would set about generating a climate favourable to the Emperor's cause. The only problem with the early prototypes is that the interface refused to comply with the comm given it, and the machine would instead produce all sorts of different climates in an attempt to fulfil its use, with the kind of completely logical thought process that only computers and madmen can comprehend. First, it would produce forests and jungle; second, swamps; third, plains and grassland; fourth, deserts, both icy tundra and sandy desert. However, this wasn't really a problem if the planet you installed it into for testing was Class E - which is to say, incapable of sustaining meaningful civilisation. Indeed, when the reactor ran out of ??? energy and instead started tearing up the landscape to sustain itself, this again was no problem. Planet#007942D, which some clever chap had designated as "Micras" (better than Holy Terra XXVII or whatever they were up to by now), was Class E. It was not a priority for any Imperial Official to give a damn.

However, that said, Mephiston had no intention of dying as this rock ate itself up. Get to the reactor, turn the blasted thing off, and head back to base for tea, medals and a telegram of congratulation from the Emperor. Simple.

---

"So what you're saying is, this mountain, never showed any signs of any kind of volcanic activity-"

"Technically we STILL haven't experienced any volcanic activity, what we just experienced was-"

"Shut up! Anyway, no signs of any kind of explosive activity or indeed anything out of the ordinary - it's just a pile of rock on an island - has... experienced a large explosion? Fire, ash, rocks, the whole shabang?"

"Yes sir. We don't know why or whether it will happen again. Investigative teams have been sent out, but we've been unable to contact them. Some kind of interference is interfering with our communications devices."

"I see. This is one of those times where I have to do everything myself isn't it?"

"Seems so, sir."

Benkern sighed. "Get my coat. And be careful, there's a ham sandwich in the pocket."

[Prodigy Almighty]

Excellent work!

[b3n|<3r|\|]

Thanks!