“Now ya know who an what the Forerunners were, lemme get to yer initial question bout the Ignis”, the deep voice of the Niodemanacer Johnathan Judas played while I ate. “Ya see there was a planet originally held by a house of Forerunners called the Meijillaann , it’s now held by the Meiji Shogunate . Meijillaann at that time was under siege by the combined houses of the Fraalleen and the Cosstaallan . Both formidable Houses of Forerunner society, ya have to understand that often Forerunners would war amongst themselves and absorb the losers into their own clans, which when they became big enough were known as houses. At any rate the Meijillaanns came under siege by the combined might of the rival houses. The planet was in effect quarantined, and frankly they were getting slammed hard by their enemies. Trade routes were cut off, gates were captured, and niobium was intercepted and stolen.
Day and night the attacks were continuous, vast army of beast machines rampaged through the cities and outer lands of the Houses central seat of power, the city of Torreth. In this city the House of Meijillaann was desperate to break the siege and send the invaders from their home, in pieces if at all possible. In their time of need they turned to their top ranking scientist named Kellek, commissioning him to come up with new and terrible weapons with which they would decimate the enemy. Only problem there was the Meijillaanns were getting their niobium stolen on a regular basis, and nothing short of a huge attack force could break the ranks of the enemy.
Oh they had tried before only to suffer terrible failures, huge casualties, and each time became a little more demoralized. Skriags, Nakshi and even the dreaded Gigus could only do so much against thousands of their own kind. For every one of the enemy they put down another twenty would be shipped in to replace them. As they say desperate times call for desperate measures, it was in this desperation they handed their own salvation over the scientist of the House. This Kellek had a reputation for being violent, and pretty far outta his head even by Forerunner standards. It was rumored he would even experiment on his own people should they displease him, just to see what would happen.
These rumors quickly became known fact when he took a small army of about one hundred Meijillaanns from the warrior caste and turned them into some kind of ferrite encased nightmare with miniature niode weapon systems. To do so of course lessened the overall niobium his house had at its disposal for making mechs, but he figured if he was successful the payoff would be worth it. If it wasn’t he would not be around very long to suffer the displeasure of his houses ruling class. He struck out at night and headed out of the city to the main gate area where he knew fresh shipments of niobium would be waiting.
He and his hundred struck hard and fast catching the invaders totally off guard. The night was filled with explosions; weapons fire, and screaming of beast machines and Forerunners alike. It was truly a horrific battle which stretched out until almost morning. In the end he had only twelve of his initial hundred modified soldiers left, and the entire enemy force was destroyed. The ground around the gate was littered with remains of both friend and foe. Blood ran together with various mechanical fluids, beast machines lie in ruins, it was a grisly site overall. Kellek and his dozen quickly scooped up the niobium shipments; they briefly considered trying to use the gate to get off world to rouse reinforcements. That thought died quickly as the gate started up and enemy forces started to gate in.
Upon arrival the invaders were shocked to see the carnage that lay about the gate. This gave Kellek enough time to get his troops and his precious niobium the hell out of there and back to Torreth. He was well received once he got back to the city but jubilation quickly turned to despair when it was seen that the captured niobium would only at best be enough to build one squad of mechs. Not enough for a devastating weapon of any kind, not enough to replace lost mechs, and certainly not enough to drive back the invading horde of rival Houses. But Kellek wasn’t taken aback by any of this for his plan included none of these things. Instead he intended to build a gate to a new world, a virgin world, one that had not been touched by any Forerunner and that contained enough niobium to fuel the war effort entirely. One he could gate to with a work force, build his weapons there if need be and have them be taken back to the central city itself. Kellek set his sights on a distant world we know as Earth…
To be continued….
Submitted by Pat Willis#224534