Iron Sisters: The Abomination Engines

Part 1

Once upon a time, Fastidius ruled a star empire. He was one of many local lords who had long ruled, and bickered over this region of stars after the Great Fall. He ruled with impunity, and strength, forging his clan into a mighty empire that conquered their enemies. He did this in his youth, and secured his family's position in his older years.

So it was when the 'Imperial Commonwealth' came demanding he bend the knee to the Empress he had never met, heard of, whose armies he had never encountered. He found the name to be silly, a contradiction, a star empire too afraid, ashamed to admit it was an empire. So it was he sent the 'Empress' a message of his own, the envoy's head in a box.

What he did not expect was her reply. It came swift, and it came hard. When the computer alerted him to several ships having translated in system, his immediate thought was guerrilla warfare, a strike to weaken their defenses before the conflict fully emerged. After all, how could a full battle fleet have arrived so quickly. His immediate presumption was proven wrong, when the ship opened fire. They did not fire on the residential areas, or government buildings, or the power plant, they fired down seemingly indiscriminately, but mostly on the larger buildings. When asked about a response, he saw the defense satellites falling, most in the distance, but one fell in the city, causing a death toll too high for him to want to know.

Then he saw them, the ships. They were not the fairly small frigate sized vessels his empire fielded. No, those were engine pods a habitation block connected by scaffolding and armor plating to the jump drive. No, in comparison to the vessels he saw, those were canoes, and compared to his own vehicles, the enemy fielded Greek triremes.

His soldiers came in, shouting about infantry, massive infantry, walking tanks. They came in talking about evacuation. No sooner said, 'they' came. Walking in large bulky power armor, a dark green tinge with large black pauldrons on their shoulders, their weapons, large 'rifle' a bit too large to called that, devastated his men. One man took a round to his chest, and his chest erupted, flesh, bone and armor, all together. Another one took it to his neck, leaving only a stump and the top half of his head flying. The last soldier, took a bolt to the shoulder, taking it off, and a good portion of that side of the head. They were all taken down in a single motion, by a single gun, by one lone shooter.

This giant walked in with several others behind them, Fastidius shot at them with his pistol, but the bullets did little but crumple against their armor. They held him, with no care, that they were cracking his bone, and forced him on his knees as one of them drew a sword. It was then that he understood. All of this was due to his slight, his arrogance, his ignorance. The Commonwealth wasn't some weak empire, it was brutal, an unwavering, the envoy was not an insult, it was their one bit of mercy.

His last sights of note, before the sword came down, was the insignia on their shoulders. An anthropomorphic bee, with a crown, a sneer, eye lashes on its rather large eyes, and a sword in hand as it bit down on a cigar. So ends the tale of Fastidius

The Actual Start

Upon the world of Gauis IV, was a large industrious metropolis, the key word being 'was'. Where once there was sprawling buildings and skyscrapers, there was destruction, death and tragedy. The mechanical monsters had emerged from the industrial sector and spread out like a virus, destroying all in their wake.

Upon one road, the colonial guard guided an evacuation of the people, a river of souls seeking salvation against the backdrop of a city aflame. The guards that watched over them wore black garments, with grey gunmetal black armor, and dome helmets that left them without faces to be seen. They were armor along their coat tails and sported long rifles. On their left shoulder was a strap to hold their radios and around their waists were belts with pouches for other items.

"Enemy incoming...!" shouted someone over the radio. That, did not help, there was nothing to give context for when and from where it was coming from. That was quickly made a moot point when a green beam of energy crashed into the middle of the crowd, making a burst of red mist, bones, and vaporized concrete in the form of dust.

In the distance it become visible, walking on a mechanical spider legs, the cylinder base was capped with a mismatch of mechanical parts, and weapons, all forcibly held together by metal tubes, tentacles that came from some unseen core, but it had what all the others had. On its chest was a circular monitor that showed the image of a grey face, with large cartoonish eyes, and a smirk, the face of something from a children's cartoon. Protecting the sensitive components was blue armor plating with a black chimney on the back, bellowing smoke.

The guardsmen opened fire on the dreaded machine with their blasters, firing red bolts of condensed energy at it, which started to heat up its armor plating, but not before the large barrel next to its head fired again, shooting another green beam into a group of soldiers.

Their deaths were just as cataclysmic as the civilians' and it appeared to them that they were doomed. They could run, but that blast would fire again soon. They did not have enough blasters to hope to pierce its armor. All hope seemed lost, and that was when there was a sound like silent thunder, and one of the legs of machine contorted as the metal warped, again and again, until it snapped and it fell on the side with the beam cannon, firing it into the ground in front of it.

'It' landed near to the guard, with a thud that would've killed him if he was too close. The figure in large, bulky power armor, was seven to eight feet tall, in a dark green, with large pauldrons, with a cartoonish bee on it, with sword, scepter, cigar in its snarling mouth, and a crown on its head. Its helmet with red triangular optics, had a snout, a beak, literally shaped like one, where a black connected from the collar. It had a large metal back backpack, with thruster ports on the bottom. It sported several pouches hanging from the side of its hips via a belt, and held in its hand a large rectangular rifle, for too large for the colonial guard of even civilians to hold, let alone shoot.

"Sweet Empress, who taught you normie how to aim..." said a bellow voice, with an electronic echo, still, the guardsmen recognized it to be the voice of a woman. His attention turned back to the machine, which was not struggling to get back up. "All those vulnerable spots and you chose to aim at the armor with your pea shooters, pathetic..." she said as she took aim and fired. Her gun gave of a small, short sonic boom, and the direction of her round was made clear only by the trail of sparks it left behind in the air, before it smash into the back of the beam cannon's barrel. It clearly hit something important as the piece exploded, sending the atrocious machine up and to the other side of the road crashing into the building from the explosion, while the guardsmen were knocked back.

The machine still function, though a good portion of half of its body was now gone. It struggled to stand up and stand up as it tried to face towards the warrior in power armor. Its monitor face was cracked and glitching, its exposed innards leaked black oil, and mechanical tentacles flayed about madly, as if in pain. Yet, it was neither pity, nor the desire to put it out of its misery that motivated the warrior to fire another bolt, directly into its face, and towards whatever power source animated it, as its main body exploded.

"So melodramatic..." she said.

"You're..." said the guardsmen in awe as the others gathered around "you're a member of the Iron Brotherhood, an Iron Brother is here?!?"

"Iron 'Sister'..." she said correcting him.

"Like it matters...!" he said ecstatically "This means we can push back these damn machines!!!" The others cheered. "Which Legion are you?!?"

"The Bee Three..." she replied with a sense of pride and amusement.

"The what now...?"

"The Bad Bitches Brigade!" Just like that more them began to land, seemingly jumping off the rooftops, and injuring one of the guardsmen from the shock wave of their impact with solid earth. It was then they looked up to see the drop ships coming down. Some of which had open hangar bays.