Fate of Ganthi: Breakout

 

It would seem that for the Kabal of the Liquid Sword, one scientific law reigns supreme: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The Jade Emperor expected an equal and opposite reaction, but not from his opposite equals.

With the Imperial Guard army broken, taking over the colony was a piece of cake. The colony's defenses were minimal at best, and it was obvious that they hadn't been there for long. They tried to sneak in and set up shop while everybody else was busy fighting. Since there were Space Marines in the area, they thought that no one would know or pay any immediate attention to them. They were wrong, dead wrong. As the Liquid Sword gathered up supplies, slaves, food stocks, etc., they became a tad bit overconfident. The Kabal of the Liquid Sword assumed that no one would know what they had done to the Imperial Guard until it was too late and they were long gone. They were wrong, dead wrong.

Strangely enough, reinforcements arrived en masse. The Leopard Squad, upon scouting the area, reported Eldar activity. Craftworld Eldar activity. It turns out that the Biel Tan decided out the blue to help out the mon kei for reasons unknown. This pissed off Archon Shaka to no end, he really wished that they would mind their f*cking business. This was getting way out of hand. The Biel Tan appeared to have a grudge against the Liquid Sword. There was no time to find out why, however, because the loot that was captured had to be sent into the warp gate as soon as possible. The Jade Emperor gave a specific order to make sure the loot got through first, and then the army could go home. Shaka did a well enough job of making sure this happened, but there was a small problem of getting home safely, as the webway closed as soon as the loot all went through. Shaka was given the order to retreat to the other side of the planet, where another warp gate would open up and get them to Commoragh. Since Dark Eldar in general aren't used to defending what they have (at least outside of the webway), this left the Liquid Sword at a slight disadvantage as the Biel Tan closed in and completely surrounded the colony. Now they had the challenge of trying to escape to the rendesvous point.

It was a slaughter. Shaka determined that the easiest way to escape would be towards the northwest and southwest respectively, at the Biel Tan's weakest points. At the right moment, the army would split up and take off in both directions. It was a controversial decision, since the obvious solution to the problem was to have the entire army swarm in one direction. After all, since the Biel Tan had them surrounded which also meant that they were spread out kind of thinly. Shaka didn't like to do the obvious thing; he liked to confuse his enemies. With this in mind, He instructed his faster units to move southwest and everyone else provide them cover and then move to the northwest. Everything that could've possibly gone wrong did. It would appear that Murphy's Law was in full effect as well. He instructed the southwest targets to move as fast as possible. Imhotep had other ideas though. Directly disobeying the order, he tried to position himself to shoot down the Warp Spiders to the south. His intentions were actually benevolent though; he tried to provide cover for the others (so that he could get credit for being innovative. He learned the hard way why Shaka is in charge and he is not). His unit was just out of range and now vulnerable to the approaching vypers and wraithlord. Imhotep was the only one to survive the hell of fire, lazers, and discs that assaulted them. Meanwhile, The Curse of the 'Lance was in absolute rare form. It seemed like every single shot either missed or failed to penetrate. This left the Reaver Horns and the Zulu Raider totally vulnerable to the Warp Spiders, the Grav Tank, and the Howling Banshees that emerged from it.

To the north, the other half of the Biel Tan advanced steadily, and the Talos decided to run some interference. The good thing about artificial intelligence powered by a battery of pain is that it has nothing to fear. Since the snipers in the warrior squads were pretty useless by now, The Obsidian Squad decided to run for it with the Scourges providing a meat shield flank. The Emerald Squad wanted to follow suit, but not without their grotesque shield. The other unit of grotesques just stood there like idiots. Sybarite Xhosha gave the order to continue to snipe the more dangerous units with the lances. This time, he had mildly better success, as a Vyper was taken down. Once the Zulu Raider was obliterated by the Grav Tank, the Howling Banshees jumped out and assaulted the Reaver Horns and cut them down. In fact, their Exarch almost completely sliced through a jetbike to get at one of the Reavers. These chicks were crazy to assault Reavers moving that damn fast, but they made it look easy. Once the Banshees made short work of the Reavers, they fell into the Zulu Knights. The Zulu Knights would not fall so easy. The fact that Shaka's shadowfield failed and short circuited only encourged them. When he was cut down by the Exarch and a Banshee, it only pissed them off. It was a bloody and horrific battle, and Jade Emperor could only sit and watch the holo cam. If he gave spoke to anyone in close combat, then he could distract them. When the bloody brawl was done, only Jedi was left standing. He signalled Imhotep, who swooped by to relative safety. In the time it took Jedi to place warp markers on the bodies of the Banshees so that they could be teleported back to Commoragh as slaves, he gained the attention of the Warp Spiders. They shot him to peices, and his armor could do nothing to save him.

Jade Emperor was wondering how much worse things could get, and when he shifted the holo screen to the Obsidian cam, he found out decidedly. The Obsidian Squad was breaking towards the northwest, and there was a group of Striking Scorpions trying to engage them. Sybarite Edea instructed the grotesques to run interference. They did that, only they did it wrong. Edea had to learn the hard way why one must give grotesques very simple, very specific instructions. They ran blindly and wildly towards the 'Scorpions and were easily cut down by the maniblasters. J.E. saw this and got very worried. He considered the fact that sooner or later his Incubi would square off against them. He didn't doubt the fighting ability of the Soul Harvest, but those mandiblasters made approaching the Scorpions very, very difficult (strength 4, initiative 7!). As the grotesques were easily cut down, there was nothing to stop the Striking Scorpions from shooting and assaulting the Obsidian Squad. J.E. shifted to the Talos cam, and the Talos appeared to be doing a decent job, it shot down 2 Fire Dragons that were shooting at it. Apparently, they had come out of another Grav Tank, that was now moving towards the center of the colony. It assaulted the Fire Dragons in order to slow them down. Then it did...nothing. In a hyper-fast maniacal fury, it demonstrated all fury but accomplished little [6 attacks, 5 hits, wounds on a 2+. rolled four 1's and one 2]. It is no wonder, then, that the Farseer had the confidence and the audacity to assault it. After all, it couldn't even take out Fire Dragons. Fire Dragons are well known for several things, but fighting toe to toe isn't one of them.

Another cam shift showed the Obsidian Squad getting spanked like little children by the Striking Scorpions. They were truly impressive in battle, forcing the Obsidian Squad to retreat close to the Emerald Squad. This put both squads in danger, since the Scorpions chased them diligently. To the east, a Grav Tank, Wraithlord, and Jetbike was closing in. It would appear that Imhotep would be the only one getting out of the battle in one piece. To make matters utterly worse, the Leopard Squad never showed up. Never. Showed. Up. Those bastards must have gotten comfortable because they had J.E.'s favor. That favor would now be recalled in spades. The Jade Emperor sighed, and turned the holo screens off. He didn't want to see anymore. He thought to himself, "At least I have many more soldiers where they came from. For every one that falls into battle, he had ten more ready to take their place and another 90 in training. If anyone survived this battle, they'd find their way home anyway.

LOSS: Slaves Captured - 1 Banshee Exarch, 4 Howling Banshees