The Siege of Ouran
-After the Fall of Indoi-
Orm pulled his legs in tight to his chest, distorted voices screamed through his headset. Even over the gunfire and distortion he could feel the panic in those voices. The cries for the second wave were among the most prominent of messages coming over the vox, followed in short order by casualty calls and desperate pleas for orders from leaderless units scattered along the beach.
He flinched as some sort of indirect shell landed nearby, showering him in sand and stone as he squinted out at the horizon. The second wave was ablaze. He thought his wave had had it rough on their landing, but it seemed that the defenders of Ouran had zeroed in their weapons on the approaches and the Imperials were paying dearly for it.
“Second wave---” the vox crackled, “Ineffective---”.
Orm cursed, leaning out slightly to let off a few wild shots from his stub rifle before he pulled himself back into the scant protection of the landing craft obstacle. Heavy rounds slammed into the beach where his head had just been, and a whine of superheated las melted an arm off his cover just to his left. Orm cursed, his eyes darting left and right for a better position, a ditch, another obstacle, a burnt out landing craft. Anything would be better than where he was. But all he found around him was death.
“Hold---” the vox crackled again, “Asta--- ing imminent.”
He hadn’t quite caught the message, the din of gunfire and the blasts of explosives making the vox nearly unreadable on top of the static. Even without the vox, he could tell something was coming.
A hundred meters offshore, the surface of the toxic water began to roil. The once obsidian surface boiled and popped, a thick miasma of iridescent toxic steam began to roll off the water's surface and onto the beach. The Imperials, so long as their environ suits had held during the ordeal of their landings, were unbothered by the steam flowing in around them, their attentions focused on survival in the face of crippling streams of fires from the defenders. But the defenders were not so lucky.
In the bunkers and the elevated trench lines, the defenders of Ouran lunged for rebreathers. They clawed at the masks in their pouches at their hips, furiously pulling at the vac-sealed masks within. The smart among the defenders had long ago unsealed the masks from their factorum packaging, and only the quick joined them in donning the masks.
Imperials took note of the slackening of las bursts and autocannon rounds. The brave among the attackers took furtive steps through the toxic steam, followed by small groups as units began to regain their cohesion and bound up the beach from cover to cover. But the reprieve was short lived. The defenders of Ouran opened up on the beach once more, wild weapons fire stitching through the steam at targets unseen, and the Imperials were forced back into cover once more.
In the water, the roiling ocean surface had moved forward to just before the beach. The defenders called out, and weapons fire was redirected to the ocean through the steam as three massive shadows rumbled out of the toxic waters.
Heavy stubber rounds that had previously torn landing craft to shreds and minced men as an afterthought panged harmlessly off the tracked beasts as they emerged from the toxic depths. Lascannon bolts left glowing marks in otherwise untarnished armor, and rockets exploded without effect across the tracked behemoths. Then the warmachines answered.
Lascannons on the side of the tracked machines let loose volleys across bunker emplacements and trenches. The turreted cannons atop the rear of the vehicles swung its sights across the defenders, raking them with heavy bolter shells and showering those out of the direct line of fire with shrapnel meant to down armored flyers.
The machines rolled forward with surprising speed for their massive size. As they neared the seawall, sponson mounted flamers swung high and gouts of promethium flame filled bunkers and set ablaze the battlements above them.
The defenders threw everything they had at the assaulting machines, but nothing slowed them down. A high pitched whine emanated from the three vehicles in unison, hull mounted barrels at the very prow of each machine began to glow red hot before superheated beams spat into the seawall. Rockrete and steel melted instantly, runnels of molten slag sloughed off the wall and down the beach as the machines pressed through the defender’s wall and out the otherside.
The interior of the Mastodon heavy assault transport was pitch black, the Astartes within rocking slightly as it punched through the seawall and out the otherside. A single alarm blast signalled that the next phase of the landing was beginning. The armored prow split open as the Mastodons came to a halt in the field beyond the wall. From the lead transport Astartes with “XVII” emblazoned on the pauldrons of their slate grey armor poured out of the open maw of their machine with volkite rifles firing.
“Second Company of the Seventeenth to all forces on the beach, we will secure the seawall momentarily. Prepare to advance.” a vox hail went out across all landing force nets as the Astartes of the seventeenth legion fanned out from the first Mastodon.
As if echoing the command over the vox, the second Mastodon broke through the seawall in a flurry of eye-watering molten beams. The forward assault doors slid open with a sickening crunch as rock was pulverized to either side of the transport. Forty red lenses pierced through the eerie darkness within the vehicle, emphasized only by the glint of bronze-on-black through the emergency klaxons. The mortals of Ouran on the lower seawall barely had a chance to react before they were preyed upon by the transport’s inhabitants.
“Gloria Scorpii!” The first of the Thirteenth screamed out through the vox-grills as they exploded forth from the Mastodon’s assault bay. They lashed out at the closest mortal with energized claws as long as a human’s arm coupled to a fist as large as a human skull. They disappeared into a vivisected mist as the superhumans rolled out in a tide of power armor and fury. Twenty of them sprinted into the fray, automatically splitting into squads of four to slaughter through the acidic mist of Ouran’s poisonous shores. Twenty and one remained behind, intentionally lagging with their volkite carbines momentarily illuminating the interior. The final of them orchestrated the mass with an elongated blade in one hand and lightning arcing in the other hand.
+’
Third Clade- Company of the Thirteenth! Begin Blade and Slaughter! Leave no route of escape for our enemies.’+ The hail from the Thirteenth boomed through the vox-net, ensuring their presence was noted and their duties were slated. The voice gave an Achaemenid impression, yet their tone was sweet as cinnamon across a raspy tongue.
The command was acknowledged. Those twenty that remained behind split into groups of five, systematically fanning out in a forty-five degree cordon forward of the assault transport. The commander, the only amongst them who dared to wear a tattered tabard and hood of black on their bronze armor, walked without support. He noted the relative position of the other Legiones, adjusting his angle of attack throughout his personal vox as the situation adapted.
A flicker of life struggled for succour nearby, bisected yet living despite their flaws. A single snap of his taloned gauntlets saw lightning reach out across the distance, conflagrating their skin into wretched charcoal. The commander, satisfied with his commands and executions, sprinted out into the field of battle with a toothy grin growing on their dusken lips.
The Astartes of the Seventeenth made quick work of the defenders at the seawall. Bunkers fell to volkite and chainblades, their defensive weapons pointed in the wrong direction for the onslaught of transhuman might that silenced their guns. Encrypted vox chatter darted back and forth between the legionaries of the Seventeenth, curt calls for direction and acknowledgement of orders flowing as quickly as the astartes did over the battlements.
Through the chatter of war, whispers were passed amongst the legionaries of the Seventeenth, for some had seen their cousin's entry, and witnessed the witchcraft of their commander as he struck out at the defenders of Ouran.
The Captain of the Second company let loose another tight volley of volkite, each beam finding its mark among defenders scurrying over rubble to escape their doom. She noted the arrival of her second on auspex before the lumbering form of the warrior entered her peripheral vision.
“Captain, the Thirteenth deploys warlocks, we were not informed of this.” Lieutenant Giovana voxed on a private net.
Captain Carvalho allowed a brief moment of thought in between her combat protocols to ponder the statement, “We bring an entire sisterhood from on high, and yet we fret over one of our cousins to our side?” she sneered, her volkite barking once more as a pair of Ouran defenders, or perhaps civilians, bolted from cover down the roadway.
She could see Giovana swaying where she stood, no doubt weighing her next words.
“And yet, we informed them of such. They did not warn us of our,
proximity with a witch-mind on this axis of the assault.”
“You will drop this Lieutenant. You and the rest of the company. The Thirteenth are here to assist. They have decided to deploy a warlock among us, no doubt they could have used him elsewhere. Now fall in to line, your platoon is falling behind schedule.”
Her lieutenant nodded and took off at a loping bound in the direction of her squads.
“Lo, Cousin,” Carvalho began as she keyed the inter-legion command net with a flick of her chin, “My squads make all haste to match yours, but I must apologize. This is our first deployment, and our movements and protocols are not as honed as yours, we--” her words cut out as the whine of servomotors noted a movement beyond the rated use of her power armor.
Carvalho dropped the vox line and swung her fist around herself, the face of an Ouran sapper caving in as she did so, the magnetic mine in his hands dropping to the dust and debris at her feet in slow motion as she turned to run.
An explosion rocked the earth from under her feet as the mine detonated, and Carvalho felt the force of the blast lift her end over end through the air before she was deposited into a crumbling habblock.
“Apologies cousin,” she spat as she wrenched her body from rockcrete and rebar, “if you notice my sisters are out of position or lagging behind, inform me and I shall correct it with haste. I will take what guidance I can from those more experienced, despite what my sisters may think of such.”
The response from the Thirteenth commander was immediate. Perhaps he had anticipated a cursory introduction from their gene-kin, or maybe he willed the wyrd the same as the witch-minds of Nordyc to foretell of her woes. Regardless of how, the cinnamon-sweet tone of the Achaemenidian-born Astartes roused the inter-legion command vox from its momentary lull.
“Apologize for nothing, Captain, lest your focus on platitudes results in your demise.” The commander of the Thirteenth replied, his own connection filled with vague noises of slaughter and mayhem. The warrior’s voice was a heavy mixture of solemnly dutiful, vagrant sarcasm, and chastly pious - a hedonistic combination that bordered on legionary infraction. His position on the local augur signalled that he and several others of the Thirteenth were actively moving towards her at a blistering speed.
The vox was momentarily silenced as the seawall outskirts exploded into a tidal wave of action. Those Ouran defenders that had successfully mobilized from their defenses attempted a routing retreat with their fortifications as explosive traps. Plate-lined reactive armor on the outer walls of Ouran’s curtain erupted outwards, spraying shrapnel as a final farewell to the oncoming Imperials from the toxic sea. Heavy stubber emplacements, howling hand-carried mortars, and roaring stationary flamers detonated in a contagious chain of horrifying ignition. The unexpected tactic would’ve stunned many, yet such tactics did little to delay their extermination.
While the licking flames of annihilation washed over the grey tide of the Seventeenth, peppering their armor harmlessly with aftershock and shrapnel, the swiftest defenders attempted to make their escape. Few managed to get through the iron grip of the Seventeenth’s terminal assault, many cut down by their volkite carbines or sputtering chainswords. Those few, running with high hopes, fell into the maw of the Thirteenth. Like vipers in the wavering sands of a high dune, they lashed out in a synchronized dance across the few escape routes. Flashes of black-bronze emerged from seemingly nowhere, diving into the escaping squads with lightning-infused talons and snub-nosed volkite carbines.
Although the Seventeenth were not dulled by the sabotage, the remarkable speed of the Thirteenth revealed itself in the explosive ashfall of the seawall. Where the open route out into Ouran proper had been chocked full of fleeing defenders, they were now replaced by the bronze-black Astartes drenched in mortal gore. Vehicles, tracked and bipedal alike, were skewered through with volkite beams or torn asunder by powers unknown. The one that led them, the warlock amongst their number, emerged through the ash with his right gauntlet tainted by bio-electricity and vitae. A pair of crimson lenses beneath a hood of black peered out to the Seveteenth’s Captain.
“Worry not for haste,” The warrior stated as he walked closer through the explosive gloom. His armored form was as stark a contrast to their own as it could be. Relics, chains, and other trinkets decorated the Astartes in a strange defiance to legionary standardization. His gauntlets were tipped in sharp points, armor embellished with umbral linen, and armaments taken from far outside the Imperial armory. The Astartes continued with a short, solemn bow of his armored form, “for the Thirteenth shall pave the way with stinger and claw. You may refer to me as Praetor- Captain Raamiz of the Third Company. Use me as you see fit, Captain.”
“A pleasure,
Captain.” Carvalho began, offering the raptor for only a moment as she trudged toward the Seventeenth’s next objective deeper inside the city, “I have no need to command your company, and I have no mind for it either,” she motioned with a nod to Raamiz’s talons and vaguely toward the carnage left in their wake, “you seem more than capable.” she laughed.
She blinked clicked commands through her display, clicking her tongue to herself as her squads began to withdraw from the wreckage of the seawall and make for their next target.
“We make haste for the hive’s central vehicle depot,” she stated “I was not graced with your tactical objectives Captain Raamiz, if we can assist each other enroute it would be most beneficial. Though I see little fight left in this city.” Carvalho spat in disgust as she and her sisters began to move through the carnage left by the Thirteenth.
As if to punctuate her statement, an immense report of autogunfire reported from ahead, deeper within the confines of the city; though it sounded as if a small army was unloading their magazines into some number of targets, not a round more than they had already faced came towards the advancing Astartes; the target of the sudden deluge was elsewhere.
Shouts of alarum and the bassier humming report of lasweapons mingled with the sounds, only belatedly joined by light handheld stubbers and the likes of those weapons they had already faced–something very odd was taking place inside the city of Ouran.
“The pleasure is mine, Captain, but our objectives are intertwined for this operation.” Raamiz said with a warm, toothy smile beneath his hooded helmet. He offered the sign of the Raptor in swift response before beginning to trudge alongside her. The split squads of the Thirteenth began to coalesce around Raamiz as the last of the seawall’s defenses were annihilated. The reports from within Ouran began to hum louder in his helmet, followed softly by a separate set from the inter-legionary vox.
“
That,” Captain Raamiz began to speak, receiving word from the vox-net of the sudden assault further into the city, “would be part of our tactical objective at this location, Captain. The invasion of Ouran has been graced by not one, but two companies of the Thirteenth. Our primary objective is to assist your spearhead into the Pan-Pacific Empire’s territory. Our secondary objective was to educate you, propelling you into the same territory as the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Ninth. The last was a coordinated strike with insurgents from within - headed by one of my fellow Captains.”
The last of the Thirteenth in the wall breach reconvened with their captain, each of their talons dripping or searing with blood torn from Ouran’s defenders. None blocked their path into the city proper beyond this point, the seawall’s sentinels slaughtered to the last man. The sounds of fat-bellied transports and heavier assault vehicles rumbled beyond the city’s crumbling, oceanic defenses. The mortal men and women of the Imperium were filling in the gaping holes that the Astartes had left.
Carvalho turned her head toward the distant staccato of gunfire, her furthest squad voxing a request to investigate and assist as needed as she did. She blink-clicked a denial to her squad, allowing herself a small grin as the confirmation ruin flashed back in her vision and she smiled as her squads began to make their way to regroup around the Mastodons on her auspex to begin their movement toward the vehicle depot.
“The Seventeenth appreciates the guidance, Captain Ramiz, Emperor knows we need it,” she stated flatly as the two captains took a few bounding steps in the direction of the last Mastodon, its hatch still closed. “I take it these insurgents know not to engage our own, and will ensure my sisters know the same.” she paused, inspecting the vehicle before her with confusion, “Our cousins are slow to the gate then, Captain?” With her question to Raamiz, she relayed a command not to engage irregular forces in the direction of the habblocks, instead allowing the Thirteenth and Imperial Army forces to sort the madness of friend and foe deeper in the city.
“Your appreciation is appreciated, Captain,” The Scorpion offered a short chortle, turning his hooded gaze towards the last destination of the Third’s Mastodon. A pair of his bronze-black Astartes started to move in the direction, but Captain Ramiz raised a hand to halt their movement. A pair of blink-acknowledgements saw them walking back into step with the Captain. He carefully listened to the voxnet, awaiting the request for assistance or declaration of escape. He continued, “but I don’t believe the Third will require assistance. Though they may be as fresh as your warriors, they have braved the jungles of Indoi. Let us join our cousins so that you may witness their strengths.”
Far beyond Ouran’s blood soaked shore, in the command tents and mobile structures that formed the nucleus of the campaign’s high command, the second most powerful man in the Imperium took in the sight of the unfolding carnage placidly. To most, the datafeeds and hololith displays of the landings would be sterile things, shorn of the horror and rage and pity and pain that each line represented. Malcador was not most men.
Snippets of lives passed through his mind with every update of the grand tables, lives that had been, lives that may have been, lives that now would be, each and every one catalogued and set aside by a mind that had withstood seven thousand years of death and sorrow and still endured. This was but another day, and one less dreadful by far than the battles his master yet fought against the cornered bull of Ursh. He had a job to do after all.
The ghosts of those his will damned vanished as he snapped his eyes open, the soft chittering that was the constant background drone of any campaign carrying on without regard for his brief indulgence.
“Loop our newest forces into the command circuit, let us see if they can fight as well as they bargain,” Malcador said softly, trusting in the swirling array of aides and attendants surrounding him to see it done. Ouran would fall, with or without these curious… auxiliaries, but it was as sound a place as any to test their mettle. “There,” the Sigilite said, pointing at an active voxcaster glowing with the runes ORM as its designation. “That is our closest forward deployed relay, patch it through to them.”
The crackle of the vox on the other side initially overwhelmed the voice on the other side, but after a moment a young man’s voice came through, “--in mac Cormac, we’re in–” a brief bout of static, then it cleared up, and seemed to stabilise that way “--town. Taking heavy fire, but we’re dug in well here. Relatively light casualties, but that won’t hold true if they manage to get us into close quarters. My men signed up as a diversion, Imperial, not as a suicide squad. Any help is appreciated, over.”
“Auxilia, maintain position. The Legions have begun their assault upon the city,” Malcador replied, his voice crackling over Orm’s vox as the message was bounced into the warrens of Ouran. “Continue with your objectives after being relieved.” The Sigilite made a motion with his hand to end transmission, before closing his eyes and seeking out the mind of one of his master’s children.
Captain Alim, continue with the evaluation. Do not unduly interfere with the gene-trial without a request from the abhumans. It is more than prowess that we must consider for Unity; if their pride prevents them from requesting your aid, so be it.
Another burst of stubber fire raked across the ferrocrete wall Captain mac Cormac was covering behind, sending shards of chipped stone into the air and causing him to grit his teeth, ears pinning back from the clangor, audible even through his aural dampers. He leaned his head up over the edge, spotting the gun emplacement right before another burst nearly lopped an ear off, and clicked his throat vox, “Radial-One this is Radial-Lead. Get nic Aiblinn on that stubber emplacement before it takes someone
else’s head off!”
He clicked off and turned back, crouch-walking past the mauled corpse of one of the rebels they’d outfitted. Fox, or something, she’d been called. He checked the charge in his longlas and growled as the report of another rifle cracked through the air–and then when the stubber fire turned away, he stood and fired at the gunner, vaporising half the man’s head and leaving him slumped over the gun a moment, before the servos turned the emplacement around and he slid off, a messy, viscous pool of gore spreading around where his mangled skull had hit the roof.
Lowering the rifle, he bared his teeth in triumph, tail flicking slightly as he looked for another target. He was extremely aware of the enormous gene-warrior nearby, but didn’t have anything gentle or reasonable to say to the man. The Meallan Legion had been formed on the promise that only the Astartes’ Legion-Masters, their superiors, and the Emperor himself could override the Legate, and here was some
Captain presuming to command them.
Still… he looked over at the man, one ear flicking. They’d all heard stories. Maybe he’d be useful. “Alim, was it? I don’t suppose you can take some of these rebels and deal with that AM battery?” The cannons hadn’t turned to face them–possibly because they couldn’t, or possibly because they had a better target in mind, but their responsibility was to divert attention–and firepower–from the two Legions’ offensives, and that big fuckoff cannon was going to tear a hole right through the gene-warriors’ lines if they didn’t take it out before it decided to join the fray.
Originally, the plan had been to deal with the garrison on the walls, then push toward it as the final strike, but the Pacificans here were much nastier than the ones the Legion had fought further east, and a lot more determined. They’d deal with them, but maybe not before the 13th and 17th were in range. A mistake borne more of underestimating their new allies than their enemies, but one with consequences nonetheless.
“Captain is sufficient. My name is unnecessary. The batteries have already been designated a priority target.” Alim had replied in a monotone fashion. Interacting with mortals had made him more aware that he would never be like his brethren. Especially interacting with those that chafed at coordination with genewarriors.
A thousand and one different projections and strategies crossed his mind in the seconds leading up to their assault; however, only the Sigilite’s words occupied his mind.
Shifting sands do not change the course of a serpent. Fresh words from the void that continued to plague his Legio.
He stepped back from the edge of the ferrocrete wall to a lower position, using the pommel of his thunder hammer as a walking instrument. The heavy volkite stubber swayed against his bronze-black warplate on a flexible strap. His view, to the eyes of non-Legio members, was perpetually facing forward with a bulky magno-lense over one side of his slanted helmet and a great antenna beside the other half. A black, half-tabard savagely snapped around him in the Ouran breeze. His shoulders proudly displayed the twin scorpions around an ‘
XIII’.
“My brethren have already seen fit to neutralize the most harmful resistance enroute to the objective. Further perimeter skirmishing is ill-advised.” He said, his voice breaking through the overwhelming sound barrier of violence nearby. His inter-legion auspex alerted him to his nearby brethren, beginning to rendezvous at his position at an accelerated rate. Their blink-communications were enough to alert him of converging Pacificans. The Astartes turned towards mac Cormac with no sense of urgency, “This position has been compromised. We will now advance inward. Follow after our ingress.”
The words were not given as a command as Alim ibn Sharif began descending down into the large, ferrocrete stairwell leading into the Ouran fortifications. Mac Cormac could hear the snap and sting of volkite carbines, accompanied only by the terrorized flaying of power-claw through carapace.
The man gawped at him. Their objective was diversion as much as sabotage. Abandoning this position would…he frowned. Abandoning this position would make the enemy question where they’d gone. Which meant they’d try to trace their approach–which meant the engagement would move with them.
He shook his head, ears pinning back in annoyance at the fact the gene-warrior was correct. The Meallans weren’t used to set-piece engagements, and sometimes he was reminded of that violently. He clicked his vox, “All forces, begin breaking contact. We push on the primary objective. Maintain flank security, we’re taking the diversion with us, over.” He leapt down from his position at the wall and hurried after the gene-warrior, annoyed at his shorter legs and feeling rather foolish as he practically scurried after the enormous man, “I’ve got our troops breaking to regroup. There’s still going to be fighting elsewhere in the city, but…” He shrugged, “We’re leading barely-trained rebels. Discipline was never going to be in the cards. But my men are with you, Captain.”
“You are incorrect, Captain, it is not that you are with me but that we are with you.” Alim corrected flatly as the felinid caught up to him. The monotone of his voice was prevalent, yet the message was easy to discern. The Imperium - and the Emperor - was here for them. He forced himself to endeavor a better manner of speech one day. He decided to continue, “our efforts will prove satisfactory and with minimal casualties.
By His will.”
The gangway leading out of the fortifications stairwell was a mess of ruptured ferrocrete, slagged stone, and gore. A group of genewarriors awaited the two of them as they ventured out into the wider sections of the wall. Each was a bronze-black giant of the Thirteenth; however, that was where their likeness ended. Unlike the gray warriors of the Seventeenth or Third, every one of them was a caricature of their own. One bore skeletal remnants from the Achaemenid Steppes, another with fresh trinkets from Indoi, and another with dangling chains forged from Nabatae. They bore a mixture of different cloth on their warplate from burnt tabards to torn robes to shredded hoods all of dark fabric. Volkite weapons were locked in their gauntlets for some, while others bore great fists with long, powered talons. Lastly, each was a macabre remembrance that the Thirteenth were reapers and slaughterers, slick with the ichor of their slain.
“Passage to the batteries is clear of the Ouran vermin, but they’re heavily entrenched around their weapon. We’ll draw the bulk away from your party, Captains. Raptor Imperialis!” The knight at the front, Hussan, stated. His helmet was decorated with a curious, serpentine ornament at the top and a thin laurel stretched around the base of it. He offered a salute in the form of his fist slamming against the Raptor on his breastplate. Alim echoed the motion before they disappeared from their sight further into the labyrinthine depths of Ouran’s defenses.
Cormac blinked at the macabre display, slightly disturbed by the nature of the allies they’d made, but adjusting his beret and trying not to let it show, “In that case, my men appreciate your support, Captain. We were worried this was going to turn into a suicide mission. It seems your peoples’ reputation was not overstated.”
A pair of blue-and-black-clad Felinids jogged out of a side passage, holding their rifles up in one hand to stave off a knee jerk gibbing. The leader–a lean, tawny-faced woman with a more catlike demeanor than even most Felinids spoke first, “Able company has pulled in our perimetre, sir. My recruits want to know what the plan is.”
“Aye,” said the second, an older man with a darker face and a dark beard mixed with the grey of age, “Baker as well.”
“The Imperium’s gene-warriors have the vanguard. We follow behind them, secure their flanks, and deal with targets of opportunity.” He checked his rifle, “Have your snipers watch the rooftops. That’s where the greatest threats will come from.” Not because of any particular danger–but because he had a feeling anyone on ground level wouldn’t last long against the gene-warriors. “To your stations. Move quickly.”
The two saluted and darted back to their companies, and Cormac’s command unit fell in behind the 13th’s vanguard, trusting the gene-warriors to eliminate ground targets while they concentrated on counter sniping and clearing any buildings the Emperor’s bloodsoaked envoys bypassed on their route.
Initially, contact was light, but the further they pushed, the more targets made themselves apparent–a light smattering of fire from the rooftops turning into a torrent that delayed them every other block as they had to dive for cover and flank or use smoke, losing more of their undertrained recruits with every ambush, until, as they neared the base of the gun tower itself–
“
TANK!! SCATTER!”
The soldiers dove out of the way quicker, their wiry bodies already moving before the command even came down–the rabble had a mixed reaction, some freezing, some bolting the wrong direction, some pointlessly trying to fire their autoguns. An explosion rocked the centre of the causeway as the tank turned those who hadn’t gotten out of the way into a fine red mist.
It wasn’t a heavy unit – one of the medium variants, he thought, though he’d only gotten a glimpse of it. But that didn’t matter, because this was an infantry force, and most of his ‘infantry’ were barely-organised freed slaves fighting for a shot at freedom and citizenship.
He cursed their rotten luck and clicked his vox, “Captain Alim, if your gene-warriors have some kind of trick up your sleeves to dealing with enemy armour, I’d be very keen to see it right about now!”
The command was given. Alim felt relieved that mac Cormac had freely requested their support. The Sigilite’s orders were absolute as he was an extension of his Master, but the very being of his geneseed bristled at not slaking an unbeknownst bloodthirst. Automatically, the Bronze Scorpion could feel the potent cocktail of combat drugs filtering through his system in anticipation of combat. If he had been anything like his brethren, then surely he would’ve worn the cocksure, toothy smile quickly becoming a normality for their legion.
+‘Second Company. Begin execution of
Battleplan Omega.’+ Captain Alim stated through the inter-legionary vox. The shaft of his thunder hammer rose and fell, pinging off the ferrocrete tile with a satisfactory noise. Over a dozen blink-confirmations were acknowledged through his helmet from squad leads. His auspex confirmed the location of his legionnaires spread throughout the Ouran parapets, causeways, and arterial passages.
In a manner of seconds, synchronized at an inhuman level, Ouran’s innermost defenses morphed into fields of chaos. Isolated locations of Imperial-Meallan resistance suddenly burst into levels of heightened activity far bypassing the original projections as genewarriors seemingly activated from a trance. Pacifican sentinels, elite cadre, and other potent warriors were forced to endure a reinvigorated assault by otherwise passive rebels. The battlefield shifted once more as the defenses around mac Cormac and Alim’s conglomerate squad were eased.
Alim’s vanguard warriors, consisting of Hussan and his squad along with himself, burst into action like lightning bolts shot from the heavens. Whatever had kept them locked into a defensive stance had been broken with mac Cormac’s request. Inhuman levels of flexibility saw a pair of Astartes systematically annihilate flanking Ourans, while the rest of the vanguard surged forward towards the armored vehicle. The Scorpion Captain unholstered the heavy volkite stubber from its sling, hefting the weapon in one hand while shifting the weight of his thunder hammer in the other. Heroically, they charged directly into the line of fire with their weapons powered.
Their adversary - a Pacifican Dume-pattern Quadraturret - quickly adjusted their aim for the onrushing genewarriors, aware of the destruction such forces could wrought on their infrastructure. Squads of support infantry manifested from behind the vehicle, hunkering down behind it adorn in padded carapace of dark blues and stark whites. Their sergeants hollered for their firelines to begin attacking, unleashing a devastating combination of stubberfire, lasbeams, and autobolts to fill the causeway with fresh death. Not to be outdone, the heavy stubber sponsons of the Quadraturret added to the storm of projectiles while the main cannons prepared another round of volleys.
Such projectiles would do little to phase the Astartes as they blunted the storm with their warplate and unshaking resolve. The long-ranged duo of the squad, intentionally lagging behind the vanguard, began utter subjugation of the enemy’s support squads. Men and women shouted in horror as their allies were reduced to ash piles or charred skeletons. The remaining Astartes advanced, faster and faster, unlike legionnaires of other legions. Hussan, along with three others, dove wildly into the mortal soldiers of Ouran with their claws. None were spared, each slaughtered at the atomic level through the advanced powerfields of their claws. Screams of terror, screeches of agony, and shrieks of pain filled the causeway.
As Hussan delved into the mortal defenders, Alim faced down the tank by himself. His volkite stubber shot twice, malfunctioning the sponsons with accurate snaps of his modified weapon. The center-mounted gunner, hidden beneath a wall of reinforced steel, attempted a response with the hull-stubber; however, Alim had accounted for this in his spread of shots. The gunner’s skull exploded into flesh-slag mix from a nigh-impossible shot through the oculus-slit. The genewarrior discarded his ranged armament, satisfied with his slaughter, and switched the thunder hammer to a two-handed grip. With the force of a newborn deity, the captain leapt into the air and activated the power-rune of his maul. The weapon came down with the might of the Emperor, shattering the main turret of the tank with a resounding crunch accompanied by the reverberating crash of thunder. Members of the tank’s crew screamed as the hull caved inward, crushing their bodies under the strain of both the hammer and Alim’s warplate. Flames ejected outward from either side of the vehicle as munitions detonated within.
“The enemy has been subjugated.
Begin your assault, Captain.” Alim spoke through his vox-grills, heightened enough for the unprotected felinid ears to hear him over the far-off staccato of gunfire. He leapt from the top of the tank, assisting Hussan clean up the last of the squirming defenders with brutal efficiency.
Cormac didn’t waste
too much time gawping before clicking his own vox into action, “All forces converge on the tower. Able, point, Baker, follow them up. Charlie, secure the rear. Place sentries at each landing as we ascend. I want demo charges up that thing’s ass and I want them planted
yesterday, people!”
The Felinids sprang into action, the professionals setting the example for the surviving recruits as they stacked on the entrance, a shotgun blowing the hinges off the reinforced steel door before a cordite charge blasted what was left of it inward, cutting off a surprised scream in a spray of gore as the defenders’ barricade was smashed to ribbons by the breach. Stubber and las-fire sprayed outward, dropping one recruit before grenades were thrown into the breach and the bloody work of close quarters fighting commenced, bayonets, shovels, axes, and knives meeting flesh and armour as long-ranged rifles were traded for pistols and shotguns. Blood and viscera mingled with the acrid tang of weapons discharge as the Felinids pushed relentlessly up, their numbers, superior training, and pure violence of action enhanced by their superhuman agility and dexterity to carve a bloody swathe up the stairwell, not trusting the elevators for obvious reasons. Each landing was a bloody engagement of ugly and inglorious violence, and each landing left a few more bodies behind as they forced their way upward, inch by bloodsoaked inch.
The Pacificans had made a tactical error; they’d assumed the main thrust of the assault would be from the beachhead, and that no threat could come from within. Likewise, once it became clear that that first mistake risked being fatal, they’d pulled forces from key outposts like this one to impede the uprising’s progress, rather than risk significant depletion of the curtain walls. And as a result, the bloodbath in the streets had paved the way for an inexorable push up the spiral stairwell as the Pacificans were cut down, until finally the Felinids of Able company—what was left of them—arrived at the summit, and prepared to breach onto the roof and thus the gun’s platform.
Cormac followed with Baker, dissatisfied with their losses but aware that this was do-or-die and they simply didn’t have the luxury of more nuanced tactics. Calling over vox again, he spoke to Alim again, “Captain, your men are the best close combat operators I’ve ever seen. Would you like the honour of being the first onto the gunnery platform? We’ll be right behind you with the charges.”
“You honor us, Captain.” Alim responded. A part of him had wanted to say more, to note how efficient their forces were despite how untrained they appeared. He felt it was necessary to state how unnecessary it was to compare genewarriors to unmodified soldiers; however, the Bronze Scorpion decided to say none of these things. Each landing of the tower they took, his Astartes hadn’t interfered in the Meallan’s duties. Instead, they had watched and defended where they needed to. This had led to some grumbling over the legionary vox.
The time had passed for further discussion. Each of the Astartes from the vanguard shuffled up through the quickly diminishing crowd of felinids to the summit’s ingress. Alim took the role of breacher, hefting the thunder hammer into a two-handed grip and thumbing the activation runes in preparation. As blink-acknowledgements confirmed the status of each genewarrior, the Scorpion Captain slammed the weapon into the reinforced portal. Nothing short of an armored vehicle’s shield generator could withstand the force of an Astartes’ hammerstrike. The gate crumpled like a wet tissue, crunching in on itself and exploding off of its hinges across the top of the tower’s surface. Each of the Bronze Scorpions moved out onto the gunnery platform at lightning speed.
What awaited them was a piece of machinery withholding great power. A single barrel coiled hundreds of times over with several long antennas scanned the horizon. It easily dwarfed a Stormbird and bordered on the size of the Excertus Imperialis’ super-heavy command tanks. Myriad grav-belts and micro-thrusters assisted in keeping the weapon aloft, pushing it as it needed and stabilizing as it required. Dozens of loud, thrumming batteries were connected to the device through cables as thick as the Astartes. Several non-combatants scurried back and forth with coolant packs, desperately assisting the machine’s lack of cooling options.
The impressiveness of the cannon was echoed only by the defenses surrounding the machine. Where the landings of the tower had been adequately guarded, it was here that the majority of the Pacifican elites had gathered in stoic defiance against the Imperials. A single, skull-faced warrior in slick, powered armor with a single-edged sword led a group of half-skull masked infantry with exosuit-assisted carapace. Plasma weaponry were fit into their hands, cabled into their bulky powerpacks, and already charged for maximum efficiency. They had been prepared. The leader of the opposition sliced downwards as a line of searing, white-hot plasma raced across the tower top.
“
Evade!” Alim roared, deftly dodging a shot that would’ve obliterated his chestplate into a ball of slag. Two of his brethren were not so fortunate as he was, hit dead-on in the face or punctured through the chest from the Pacifican’s elites. The last three managed to evade, adjust, and pursue the enemy as they could. One of still standing Astartes collected the volkite carbine from his fallen brother, dual-wielding the gunnery and spraying into the elites with vengeance-fueled fury. The last two activated their powered talons and leapt into combat.
The Scorpion Captain knew who his target was before he had even registered all of the enemies on the rooftop. He had recognized the picts of Narthan Dume’s elite swordsmen from the briefings of Indoi’s unification. This was unmistakably one of those that had slain Astartes and Thunder Warrior with ease in those accursed jungles. His opponent ignited the blade, wreathing the sword in dripping, blue plasma. Alim rushed forward with the might bestowed upon him by the Emperor. The two collided. The powerfield of his thunder hammer sent shockwaves of lightning and plasma around them.
+’Perform your duties, mac Cormac, the Thirteenth will handle this.’+ Alim blink-opened the voxnet, echoing his wishes to the felinid captain. His voice, ever monotone, was tinged with concern. He did not fear the death of either himself or his warriors. He feared failing the Emperor. The elites of Narthan Dume’s Pacific Empire were not to be taken lightly. He knew what must be done. He continued, +’
Raptor Imperialis, Captain.’+
The Felinids left their recruits behind in the stairwell for this. The fighting at the summit was no place for militia, and those who had survived this far had more than earned their freedom. Instead, blue-and-black-clad troops poured onto the roof, avoiding the worst of the fighting around the 13th’s troops and moving straight to the gun and its support frame, lasguns barking as they killed or scattered the gun’s crew, and engaged the non-augmented elites in the most brutal firefight of their battle so far. It took three technicians to plant the first charge–the first was killed by a shotgun blast at close range, the second by a well-thrown grenade, and the third nearly lost an arm to a chainsword’s blade before a second soldier blew her assailant’s head off with a lasrifle shot to the chin.
The work was done, and done with professionalism and morbid efficiency. They knew the risks and they knew the stakes, and every one of them had volunteered for this mission, to prove the worth of Magh Meall to the Imperium.
Captain Cormac snapped up his own rifle, sending one of the Pacifican Elites over the tower’s lip with a shot to the forehead, screaming as he fell, then ran to the second bomb site and shoved a dead man aside to prime the charge. The problem was that fire came from every bloody direction, and these charges had no cover. Smoke grenades could only do so much when most of the enemy had imaging.
Two charges set, he saw the green light indicating success in his visor, grinning as three more flashed on. That just left one charge.
“Able, this is Radial. What’s the status on that last charge, over?’
The vox crackled with static and gunfire from the other side of the rooftop, “--inned under heavy—asualties—nting, request—” The line dissolved into static, and he grimaced, switching to Baker’s channel, “Able’s getting overrun. Get me two squads. Radial will take the lead and engage whatever’s got them pinned, over. Support the Imperials!”
He moved around the front of the cannon’s housing, ducking as a power sword nearly took his head off, then tackling the man to the ground, drawing a dagger from his chest harness and ramming it into the Pacifican’s neck before he could react, then scooping up his rifle on the move and sprinting to one of the enormous cannon’s support braces for cover. The command squad fell in behind him, and a few moments later he saw the two Baker squads he’d requested fall in nearby. He poked his head around the corner with a frown, seeing the signs of Able’s mass cas event, but no sign of what had caused it.
He silently directed his three squads to create a cordon, then directed his technicians to finish planting the bomb.
After a moment, the technicians called out, “Sir! The remote detonator’s fried!”
Fucking perfect. Able was fucking gone—he didn’t see anyone so much as left wounded, and these wounds…
Cormac’s mind flashed to the enormous soldier Alim was fighting and he clicked his vox, “It’s one of the fucking—”
The ground shook with an enormous thud, a scream cut off as the enemy gene-warrior landed on the technician team from where he’d been perched on the gun’s housing, blade lit with plasma as he swung it with wild abandon into a nearby Meallan, neatly bisecting the woman.
Snapping his rifle up, Cormac barked an order, “All units, concentrate fire!”
Las-rounds slammed into the man’s armour as he gleefully charged into them, throwing soldiers from the rooftop or obliterating them with single sweeps of his blade. This wasn’t going to end in a victory by force of arms.
But…
“All Radial commands, break contact and disengage! Alim, you and your men
fall back!”
He didn’t expect to make this sort of play, but the alternative was that the swordsmen wiped out his companies, killed the Imperials, and the cannon ripped the incoming Legions to shreds. Fuck it.
“Sir, but—”
Another soldier went over the edge, and Cormac grit his teeth, “No time! Get off the roof, I’m finishing this job!”
The skull-faced swordsman flicked his blade clean of sizzling blood. The last of the distractions had been eliminated and only one remained. It slowly walked towards the defiant mac Cormac with the dreadful grace of a miniature tank. It was dreadfully confident in its ability to slaughter and it knew that it was unstoppable. Few could deal with the Swordsmasters of the Jade Palace and few survived the ordeal whenever they faced them. Its presence was required elsewhere. It lunged at mac Cormac with the ferocity of a lunging tiger.
“
Blood of the Sands!” Hussan roared, emerging from the shadow of the cannon like a viper striking from buried sands. His left talon swiped out at the swordsmaster, clipping the powered armor of the Pacifican before the brute retaliated. The Astartes’ pauldron was sliced cleanly into by the plasma-blade, then flicked downward into the genewarrior’s chest. It did little to fully discourage the Scorpion from an all-out assault. His right talon swept inwards, digging into the other warrior’s side. With a mixture of fury and pain, the Scorpion rushed forward with the enemy in his claws. It desperately stabbed into the Astartes, yet he sprinted onward until the two fell from the top of the tower.
The interlocked pair descended into the depths of Ouran’s defenses, stabbing and tearing into each other as the ground met them. A haze of gunfire, smog, and toxic fumes from the coastline obscured the pair as they met their fate.
+‘
Denied. It is our duty.’+ Alim replied as Hussan’s life signs disappeared from his tactical tracker. He deftly deflected another strike from the swordmaster, who spun and twisted their body in strange orientations to attack. Had he not fought against them in Indoi, then Alim wagered that he would’ve suffered the same fate as the fallen Cataegis. Despite his best efforts, though, he was not a master of arms. He was a master tactician, a logisticar, and a craftsman. The Captain knew he could never be the equal of Zameel, or as ferocious as Zaid, or as devilish as Raamiz. He thrust out the head of his hammer, forcing back the Pacifican out of reach. He continued, +‘Find
Captain Raamiz of the Bronze Scorpions. Tell him that I have found the Meallan as worthy warriors.’+
The evidence of his lacking martial prowess revealed itself as the swordsmaster found a gap in his stance. Their plasmablade cut into the left knee of the Astartes, splitting warplate and flesh in a single slice. A normal man would cry out in agonizing pain, yet Alim was a genewarrior of the Thirteenth Legion. He used the overset balance of his sudden amputation to swing the thunder hammer into the Pacifican’s midriff. The powerfield of the weapon ignited against their power armor, crumpling their insides into a wet mess of flesh and exploding innards. Blood ejected out of their skull-mask as they listed sideways away from the fallen form of Alim.
Around him, the same story was being told and reflected by his brethren. Khair, firing a pair of volkite stubbers from the hip, burst apart several of the Pacifican elite before suffering several plasma shots to his extremities. Tharesh, his helmet shattered and his left arm bathed in plasma, skewered one of the assailants before recklessly lunging back into the fray. No other Astartes remained of their squad, yet they continued to fight as if they weren’t outgunned and outnumbered. Alim picked himself up with the assistance of his thunder hammer, pulling up his heavy volkite stubber with the meaty wreckage of his left hand. His oculus spun as it honed in on mac Cormac’s position.
The will of the Malik would be made manifest.
"Gloria Scorpii!"
Alim roared out, boosted by words from the unknown, amplifying his vox-grille output to the maximum volume. The other Astartes echoed his cry in synchronized battleform. Nearby mortals were momentarily afflicted by the sudden screech of noise, yet it drew in the attention that he required. He presented a worthy target for consideration. Those elite infantry that survived adjusted their attention to the three Astartes, who seemed to increase their brutality with their leader’s warcall. Their attack vectors changed as they rushed towards the genewarriors with renewed vigor, crying out in their mother-language.
“
But–” mac Cormac was about to object, but the Astartes were already in action, and he didn’t like his odds of winning an argument with them, anyway. He hesitated, then handed over the manual detonator and transferred the remote detonation codes, saluting him respectfully, “
Gloria Scorpii, Captain. I’ll tell your Legion you died well.”
He turned and booked it for the stairs, the recruits already being evacuated by the leading elements as he caught up, to the bewilderment of his Radial squad, “Sir? What happened–”
“The Imperials insisted on claiming the honour. Let’s make their sacrifice count.
Get me the Sigilite.”
The last of the Meallans had evacuated from the tower. None remained besides their scattered dead, broken behind fragmented cover or sizzling from white-hot plasma burns. The Astartes had given them a route out as they savaged the Pacifican menace with every fiber of their genewrought being. Khair was being butchered alive by a squad of the Ouran elites, their powered blades carving into his warplate. He still managed to drag mortals down to him with plasma-sizzling fists and bone-crunching headbutts. Tharesh had fallen, surrounded by a horde of brutally decimated bodies. Only Alim remained, eyed by the wounded and angry that aimed for his throat. He would allow none to survive.
“
For the Emperor.” The Captain said, his monotone voice breaking into a tone of righteous pride. He blink-clicked the activation codes for the paired charges, igniting their fusion-sequences into great plumes of explosive energy. In the same instant, he whipped his volkite stubber in a wide firing arc, spraying disintegrating beams in a seemingly desperate last-stand. It had never been desperation. One of the beams cut through a Pacifican, into the cannon’s supports, and onto the final charge. The energies of the weapon and the thermonuclear core erupted. Searing white death filled his visor as the weapon, the charges, and the plasma batteries exploded in dreadful synchronization.
A great howl of destruction rained over Ouran as their greatest and most vile weapon detonated into a great mushroom cloud of thermonuclear vapors. The tower it had been constructed upon quickly crumbled under the might of such an explosion, claiming the lives of those within and nearby in a storm of eruptive debris. Those on the outskirt of the explosion, foe or ally, were knocked from their feet from the sheer force of the eruption. The toxic fallout began immediately as green-white cinders of nuclear-plasmic ash fell throughout the Pacifican hive.
It was the signal to begin the invasion proper of Ouran.
Now, it was a job for Astartes. A lone Mastodon crawled through the rubble, hastily applied yellow paint peeling off as penetrative radiation and debris bounced from its armored hull. Inside it, forty two souls, all genehanced, all armed to the teeth. The resistance the huge transport had encountered had been utterly dismantled by sponsons, but the scattered, disoriented Ouranite defenders still of a mind to hold their positions after a nuke detonated behind their backs proved easy meat to the sponson weapons of the adamantite goliath that trundled over man, weapon, and obstacle alike.
The Mastodon was a loan from the 13th Legio Astartes, the Bronze Scorpions. It had been lent to their little brothers in the 3rd, the Lightnings, for this operation, a chance to prove their valor in their first operation in the Unification. It had been hastily re-marked in the fledgling third’s livery, bright yellow with the Thunderbolt symbol of the Emperor’s armies, a unique honor granted to the sons of the Merican rad-plains that made up the bulk of the small legion’s demographics.
“Approaching drop off.” The driver voxed through the intercom. “
Thirty five seconds.”
“
Thirty five seconds!” Captain Grieg Keller bellowed through his speaker grill, “Load weapons! Safeties off! There’s
killing to be done!”
A chorus of bellows and howls accompanied his words, fists banging on chestplates. Weapon bolts slid into battery. Chainswords revved. Power weapons were flicked on and off to test their field generators.
Slowly, the vehicle halted. Thirty five seconds quickly passed, and-
-nothing. Then forty seconds. Fifty.
Sixty.
Grieg put his hand to his ear.
“Any reason why we’re -not- opening the embarkation hatch?” He growled into the vox.
“Apologies lord.” The driver said. Grieg could hear clacks and shunts of controls being repeatedly pressed. “It appears the servomotors to the hatch are fried. Some of the rad shielding on this machine must have-”
Grieg cursed. Then he cursed again. Neither made him feel better, so he tried a third time. Still nothing.
“So? What can we do?” He asked.
“If we can’t deliver the payload, lord, then we have to circle back. Abandon the assault. There’s no point driving around if-”
“
Unacceptable. Thank you for your input, but we’ll take it from here.” He said, then cut his vox.
He held his hand out. A sergeant, Johann Weiss, slapped a melta charge into the outstretched palm.
Grieg then stuck the explosive to the hatch. A few quick inputs, and the activation rune on the weapon lit. Then, it began to burn.
“Back.” Grieg said to his men. “Cram together if you have to, but get b-”
The front half of the Mastodon erupted into a great explosion. Ouranite defenders, on the outskirts of the hab city, blinked in disbelief as the great Imperial vehicle that approached them suddenly exploded, the front half of it just coming -off-.
A sergeant winced, having seen the spectacle through binoculars.
“What fuckin’ killed that monster?” He wondered aloud. He looked over to the trooper next to him, who opened his mouth to respond.
A bolt whizzed from the wreckage, entering the trooper’s open mouth and vacating the contents of his skull onto the dirt behind. The sergeant gawped in disbelief. He was still gawping as his torso sailed through the air, landing in the dirt with a wet thump. A bolt had severed him neatly from the waist, also fired from the wreckage of the giant Imperial transport.
Forty two Astartes in ash-grey, formerly yellow plate, stalked from the burning transport, as casually as if they had emerged from a luxury bus to a formal dinner. Just as casually, they eliminated the stunned defenders with single shots from bolt weapons, slowly scaling the escarpment of rubble that marked their entry point to the Ouran hive.
Their objective would be simple. Raise hell, and lift pressure off the main advance. There would be targets aplenty in Ouran, and the amount of trouble forty two armed Astartes warriors could cause would be considerable.
To Captain Keller’s great shame, however, their distractive assault was now fifteen minutes behind schedule.
“Task Force Sharp is beginning their assault.” He voxed to the other Imperial elements within the AO. “My apologies. Our Mastodon had a mechanical failure.”
Captain Carvalho had only just crested a mound of rubble when the Mastodon was consumed in flame and smoke. For a moment, she feared her cousins in the Third lost to some macroweapon of the defenders. Then the assault ramp, free of its hinges, soared through the air in front of her and found a new home in a ferrocrete bunker emplacement some two hundreds meters away.
“Captain…!” the urgent vox from Lieutenant Giovana came quickly only for her voice to stop as the Third made their entrance.
Carvalho stood atop the mound of rubble, a habblock she judged by the trinkets and personal belongings strewn about the rubble, and watched as her cousins in the Third brought Imperial justice upon the defenders of Ouran. She admired their stoic advance as they climbed a similar escarpment of rubble and began to unleash bolters on the defenders beyond the mounds crest.
“Captain Carvalho to Sharp, my sisters of the Seventeenth regroup on your rear. We shall wheel off your right flank and make haste for the vehicle depot.” she paused a moment before continuing, “Quite the entrance Cousins.” her grin audible through the vox as she spoke.
“Vehicle depot, copy.” Keller said, his voice hoarse through the helmet vox, “What were we supposed to do? The driver wanted to turn us around because the hatch wouldn’t open. I’m not missing this day.”
“Did I not speak true of their tenacity?” Captain Raamiz said with a toothy smile beneath his helmet, staring down at the Third’s raucous arrival beside Captain Carvalho. The Astartes had been ethereal in his arrival, nigh undetected despite his auspex pings. His thin, taloned gauntlets flexed over the shaft of his curved power sword as he looked at their number. He grew thankful that as many had survived the Mastodon’s mechanical failure as they did. Their survival reminded him of the last words that the Legion Master had said before their departure. Ensure their survival, do not allow their experience in Indoi to amount to nothing. The Astartes’ would be remiss if he failed his mission before it had even began.
+‘I wagered your survival with Captain Carvalho. A wager that I won, thus must I thank you for your continued survival, cousin! Now, with all the actors on the stage, shall we prove our loyalty for the Emperor?’+ The Bronze Scorpion chortled into the interlegionary vox, now firmly reconnected with the Third. His words were as playful as they were serious as he turned away from their gene-cousins to the hive-city of Ouran. He couldn’t help but feel envious at the handiwork that Alim and the infiltrators had done in their short amount of time.
Ouran had been breached from multiple angles and from within. The hive-city was defenseless, its teeth torn from its aching maw in a brutal strike to the proverbial snout. Macroweapons, which had targeted the Imperial transports from far ashore, were extinguished in a series of thermonuclear explosions. A beautiful chain of penultimate destruction had shaken the defenders from their relatively relaxed stupor, forced to accept the savage reality that they had been invaded. Devoid of their teeth, the Pacificans were fighting in a losing war against several groups of genewarriors and their mortal legions of conscripts, professional auxilia, and mercenary cohorts. The afterglow of the infiltrator’s performance fell over the assaulting legions with cinders, ash, and plentiful toxins.
The Excertus Imperialis were passing them now on fast-track armored personnel carriers, heaving tanks, and bulky artillery pieces. Piecemeal groups of infantry, second and third wave survivors from the shore assault, were sprinting to catch up to the frontlines of the invasion. Medicae personnel, with their tents and pseudo-suture centers, patched what survivors they could from the first wave. The first of many screaming sky-giants were beginning to pass overhead, flanked by shrieking phantoms on metal wings. All of their arrivals were received well by the Pacificans, responded to with myriad gunfire and vicious melees.
Far behind the lines, Malcador paid no heed to the hololith keeping a live update of the assault, of the time tables slipping behind schedule, nor the junior Sigilites - a
very relative term when it came to him - attempting to inform him of a priority vox transmission. Instead, his gaze was fixed upon some distant, unseen vista, the man straining forward in his humble chair as he clutched his staff tight enough to turn his knuckles white. When he spoke, it was with the chime of bells and a cold that sunk into the bones of the administrators and scribes who dutifully recorded the words of their master upon reams of parchment and within cogitator banks.
“
He heralds the thunder. Defiance is his evensong. He is as lost as one thousand and one grains of black sand in a desert.”
Hoarfrost covered the screens in the command bunker as ink froze upon the tips of pens, the psyker hunching over himself as his vision passed.
“Hear me, by my word and will, Captain Alim of the Legiones Astartes has earnt the right to wear a lightning bolt upon his breast should he yet live,” Malcador announced, now in his rather ordinary voice. “His name shall be recorded among heroes if not.”
The bowing functionaries receded as they recorded the Sigilite’s will, save for an elderly Scribe-Intendant who did not seem particularly impressed by her master’s antics. “The Auxilia, my lord. They are quite insistent.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the man said in a soft voice, nodding to himself as he grasped for his vox, cutting off the Felinid operator as he finally replied to their attempts to reach him.
“Auxilia, you have performed well, but I would advise you disperse. The Astartes now move freely within the city, and not all are as gallant as Captain Alim. You shall be provided with their positions to remain clear of them.”
Was the Sigillite implying that their Imperial allies would attack them? Caoimhin shook his head, clicking his vox, “Guessing our job here's finished, then. We'll withdraw with our recruits to a minimum safe distance and wait for your work to be done.”
He relayed the order to rally as many Felinids, including noncombatants, as they could, and withdraw outside the city. This place was about to get much too hot for their small force.
Hot was the right word. As the 3rd entered the city, they formed a rough chevron shape, allowing gaps in their phase line so that they could easily move around buildings and rubble while maintaining a tight front.
Everything in front of the chevron died.
Bolter fire spat from each individual brother, forming white hot lines as the tracers burned through the air. They struck whatever didn’t have an Imperial identifier that was unlucky enough to be in front of them. The Sigilite had given the city notice to evacuate. Everyone left was a potential combatant.
“Bolters only on the infantry, morons!!” Keller roared, ripping a short burst into the back of a fleeing gunman. “Save the heavy shit for the big stuff!”
“Copy captain!” Sergeant Weiss shouted next to him. He unpinned a grenade and rolled it into a half-collapsed, hastily built defense shelter. With a crump, several men flew into the air, their weapons falling from their hands.
Little scenes of violence coalesced into a wide vision of Gehenna that stretched across the ashen-grey advance of the young legion. They worked in silence, only speaking to deliver terse target callouts to their fellows, interladen with cursing and admonitions of incompetence that served to drive each genehanced warrior’s competitive urge to kill more, and kill quickly.
They spoke raggedly, but worked efficiently, their flavor of warbringing gestating into a rough, coarse thing, a whetstone grinding against new steel. The soldiers they faced died. Rarely, a vehicle that trundled into view was called out, targeted, and neutralized with coordinated missile strikes from the brothers trusted to carry heavy weapons.
Steadily, they closed on the Ouranite vehicle depot, eaters of armies, chewing up the defenders and spitting them out as gore and smoking wreckage. Several minutes of sustained killing had propelled this spearpoint deep within Ouran, a trail of carnage in its wake.
“So far, so good, men! But these are the washouts and fuck ups. Don’t think there aren’t heavies out there waiting for a chance to shoot your idiot head off, so keep sharp. They’ll figure out which end their head’s on soon enough.” Keller growled, then switched his helmet vox into the command channel, “We’re movin’ smooth here. Should hit the vehicle depot in a few minutes. Ramiz, Carvalho, whoever bet on our survival is about to have a good fuckin’ day.”
Carvalho’s torso wheeled around in one smooth movement, her armored fist landing squarely in the center of an Ouranite defender's chest as she pressed through a flaming habblock entrance. The defender, previously charging with fear in his eyes, simply reversed directions at the touch of her fist, and rocketed into the flames with a sickening crunch.
“There is no prize to win, beyond that of the Emperor’s praise, Captain.” she answered tursely, the humorous implication of Keller’s statement lost on her as she moved toward the vehicle depot.
She moved around a flaming pile of interior furniture and skewered an unwitting Ouranite on her combat blade, her eyes wandering to the locations of her company on her auspex as she flicked the corpse from the knife’s edge. A series of blink clicked commands showed the icons on her display converging on the vehicle depot's easternmost service entrance.
Carvalho emerged from the flaming habblock, embers and burning debris raining off her soot-black armored form as she did. “Making entry on the eastern side of the depot.” she voxed to Keller and Raamiz.
Five of her Astartes stood at the base of a massive set of bay doors working the controls of melta bombs as Carvalho approached.
“We’ll be in in less than thirty seconds,” Lieutenant Giovana confirmed as she walked up to meet her Captain, “Auspex shows no lifesigns interior. The vehicle depot has been abandoned, it will be ours momentarily.”
Carvalho checked her armor's own auspex, nodding at the confirmation of her Lieutenants words, “Very good Sister, we can begin to move on our secondar--” her words were cut short as her gaze shot up to the massive depot doors once more. Sixteen melta charges were arrayed in close formation along the doors width in three rows reaching some four meters in height. Her genehanced mind did the math in a fraction of a second, the dots connecting in her mind as her carapace reacted to her mind impulse. Her helmet display highlighted a single recessed camera pointed at the depot doors, the telltale infrared blink of operation confirming all that had just shot through her improved mind.
“
Withdraw!” The command went over the company vox, and the five Astartes at the door immediately responded, hypno-indoctrinated obedience and rote battle drill instantly complying with their commander's order.
Too late.
The depot doors buckled and burst from inside as the first of the five Astartes began to rise from their melta charges. Molten metal cut through the Astartes closest to the depot entrance, an entire tactical squad was flattened under the bulk of the door as it was blown off its hinges a bit further up the ramp.
Carvalho and Giovana sought cover instantly, their dual hearts propelling them into the safety of a lee in the entry ramp as lascannon fire began to rip into her sisters too slow or too far from cover.
“Superheavy deeper in the depot, several heavier tanks arrayed at its side, count at lea--” the vox from Sister Isla cut as a small sun burst into being down the ramp, presumably, Carvalho guessed, where Sister Isla had been seeking cover.
Carvalho cooly tallied her lost Sisters, “Seventeen left,” she laughed without mirth.
“Fitting.” Giovana echoed at her side.
Blink clicked acknowledgements flashed in her helmet as she primed a photon flash grenade in sync with her lieutenant and let it fly.
A moment later, seventeen flash grenades detonated at once on the ramp. The fire from the tanks subsided for only a moment, the mortal crews within stunned at the sudden overloading of their optical feeds and blinding light through their viewports. The fire picked up once more though, the defenders raking their fires across the breach once more even as their viewfeeds cycled and reset.
The response had been too slow on the part of the Ouran defenders this time. Seventeen Astartes, genehanced weapons of war created by Him the most perfect, launched themselves through the smoldering remains of the depot doors and bounded their way to the nearest of the arrayed tank line without hesitation.
Carvalho leapt into the air, easily clearing the front of the Vanquisher tank destroyer ahead of her and landing atop its turret with a raucous bang. She thumbed the trigger on her chainsword and took the commander's hatch clean off its hinges. Without even looking she dropped a krak grenade into the vehicle and leapt to the next closest tank in the line. She mused at the carelessness of the crews for packing in so tight with their vehicles, but allowed herself a moment of pity for them, for how could they have known they would face Astartes this day? Any other assaulting force would surely have perished at the entrance. Another detonation tore her mind from its reverie as a Destroyer cooked off down the line.
“Seventeenth to all, we have made entry into the depot. Advise, we have met a heavy armor ambush at the doors. Recommend alternative entries. Carvalho out.” she cut the line as she dropped another krak grenade into the lap of a screaming Ouranite crewman and leapt away.
+‘The Thirteenth responds.
Seventeenth, the superheavy is yours.
Third, remain behind and prepare for their rout.
They always run when broken.’+ The Bronze Scorpion responded to Carvalho over the interlegionary voxnet, his voice macabre and serious. Now that the Third had arrived to be the secondary vanguard, the Thirteenth could operate as they were meant to be. Assassins, saboteurs, and killers. Half of his genewarriors followed behind him, crouch-sprinting along the length of a ruined habblock towards the westernmost sides of the depot. The other half was sprinting to the northernmost side, partially engaged with those that fled Keller’s brutal assault. Each of them dragged a peculiar thing with them, garbed in a thick wrapping of scrap cloth. Only Raamiz was devoid of their haul, his left hand raised slightly above the ground and his right gripping the power sword.
The reports from within the city were troubling to him. Contact with Alim was non-existent. Contact with any of his company was sporadic at best and null at worst. It soured his mood deeply. He refused the impossible, blaming the source of his minute worries on the Pacifican menace. The westernmost side of the depot appeared before them as they started to surge from the shattered habblock. Their position received immediate suppressive fire as the service doors were open, a fat-bellied goliath on tracks spraying a pair of rotary cannons from its turret; however, Raamiz was quicker. The wyrd pulsed through his veins as his eyes alighted with power unrestrained, one of the things that they had dragged was pulled forward and into the gap between them. Ballistics tore apart the object in record time, shredding cloth in a brutal hail of steel. A mist of red plumed out of the thing, followed by a wide-area explosion that obscured the vehicle’s vision. Gore detonated across the ramp leading up to the bay as entrails ejected in all directions.
The tank commander stopped, his guts churning as he realized what had occurred. The Imperials had rigged a bomb to a corpse and for a brief second, he was certain that it wore the armor of the Pacifican defenders. His falter would be a mistake. The Astartes crossed the distance, quicker than the Seventeenth had. A genewarrior lunged through the smoke, their power talons sparking with unstable energy. The hull-mounted stubber tried to react, but the Astartes was faster. The claws of the Thirteenth cut through hardened steel like a knife through butter, the turret-gunner pierced in the opening act. Another pair followed quickly after, stabbing their claws through the tread into the cabin proper, vivisecting those within as the commander tried to escape. Bio-electricity wracked his body in an instant, frying his skin into molten paste and bursting his eyeballs. Captain Raamiz flicked the lightning away as the Pacifican perished. They never had a chance.
It was only the beginning of the Thirteenth’s assault as the rigged cadavers that the Bronze Scorpions had dragged were tossed across the depot from the westernmost service entrance. Fragmentation explosives detonated, corpses exploded, and blood rained within as Pacifican entrails poured down on the myriad vehicles ready to ambush the Astartes. A wide cloud of debris obscured their vision, forcing them to rely on telemetry and auspex readings alone. Some were lucky, able to adjust their turrets to the arriving Astartes and rattle a volley off. Their shots had been true, melting warplate and flesh in the same burst. Others were less fortunate, heaving their guts in dismay as their comrades fell on them in pieces. A few hard started to run, those at the backmost service tunnel were starting to escape out of fear.
They were stopped by none other than the superheavy battle tank holding definitive command of the ambush. Their secondary turret turned, barking a heavy caliber shell at the closest vehicle that attempted to escape. It pierced the smaller tank, exploding it into a great inferno that lit the dull depot far more than the flickering glowglobes. Whatever the Thirteenth had done, their primary commander was unafraid. It would be their reckoning as the second group of Bronze Scorpions began their infiltration, slaughtering servants and workers alike in unrelenting brutality. The Ouran Vehicle Depot was quickly becoming a charnel house for flesh and metal.
Keller took his hand from his helmet, then waved the Third’s small force into a loose L shape outside their depot entrance.
“They’ve got the depot. Form a phase line. Take anything that comes from the tank yard.” Keller said, then for punctuation, “Move, idiots! Do I gotta say it twice?”
They were already mostly in place, however. Keller jogged over to take his place, ejecting the magazine from his bolt pistol as he went. He dropped into position, his deft hands slamming home a new mag. Weiss was next to him, bolter trained on the depot yard.
“Pulling security?” He asked.
“Yea, pullin’ security.” Keller said, “We’re the juniors, so we get the junior jobs. Rule of the fuckin’ universe.”
“As you say, sir.” Weiss said.
They didn’t have long to wait. Ramiz and Carvalho’s tricks had lit the night up, explosions casting hellish orange light onto various scenes of carnage. Some tanks were trying to mount a defense, but it was far too late. Astartes were among them. Without infantry to hold those power armored troops at bay, tanks were essentially just moving coffins.
“They’re coming out.” Weiss said.
A mass of people, some armed, some not, were filing out of the depot yard, yelling, screaming. Soldiers were firing into the air, trying to evacuate wounded and noncoms in a semi-orderly fashion, but it was bedlam. In the wake of a maximum effort Astartes assault, these people were reeling, terrified of the sudden violence that was inflicted upon them so mercilessly.
Bolters ripped into the night.
Forty two lines of tracers emitted from the 3rd’s phase line. Forty two simultaneous mag dumps all hit the fleeing river of people. Before any of them realized what was happening, explosive death had punched into them, the .75 cal bolts shattering bones and popping torsos with murderous efficiency. No member of the 3rd stopped to question their orders, nor the righteousness of their murder. Ramiz had ordered the rout dealt with, and they were dealing with it. If anything they had done had proven their status as the Emperor’s eater of armies, it was this.
A minute and a half sustained firing had reduced a mass of hundreds of people into a field of gore.
“Cease fire.” Keller said, though there was little need.
There was no one left, after all.
“Ramiz, your runners have been shown the door.” Keller said, “Status on the depot?”
Carvalho tore a heavy bolter from its mount with a grunt of effort and the high-pitched whine of her power armors servomotors giving every ounce of power they possessed. She watched, curiously, as its operator's arm too was pulled free of the operator with the weapon’s grip still clenched tightly between its fingers.
She shoved the muzzle of her volkite rifle through the new entry point into the squat tank destroyer and laid on the trigger as men died within.
A massive explosion rocked the vehicle depot behind her as the Baneblade fired. Seemingly to remain in control of the situation, it tore the turret off one of the retreating tanks from the Thirteenth’s assault as simply as one may open a can of recaf with a single shot from a secondary turret.
Carvalho left the tank destroyer she had been dealing with as the smoke and ash of burning crewmen began to escape from her newly created hole and took off at a sprint at the superheavy tank.
The light of the burning tanks cast long shadows across the vehicle depot. The lightning fast outlines of Astartes dashing from armored vehicle to armored vehicle among the most obvious of them. And she smiled as she bounded over the burnt out hulk of a tank to find the superheavy already swarming with her remaining sisters.
The Seventeenth hacked at sponson mounted weapons rendering them useless as they attempted fruitlessly to fend off the pack of wolves clinging to its armored hide. One of her sisters armed a krak grenade and swung low to toss it down the throat of a secondary turret’s cannon. There was a flash as the gun fired and her sister's arm and the grenade with it disappeared from the elbow down.
A moment later, that same Astartes primed another grenade with her opposite arm and threw it down the barrel all the same. The low thud of a detonation resounded from the barrel, soot and flame bellowing from the mouth of the gun as deeper inside the barrel swelled and buckled along its length.
Carvalho, with a final effort, leapt onto the main deck of the Superheavy and joined her sisters in their savage activity as they declawed the venerable war machine. With a scream of metal the commander's hatch was finally torn off its hinges by one of Carvalho’s sisters. In the same breath another of the Seventeenth tore the commander screaming from his chair and dashed the mortal across his own turret like a child swinging a stuffed toy against the floor.
“Do not destroy the beast!” Carvalho commanded as she sunk her combat blade through the armored view slit of a turret gunner and removed it satisfyingly red, “Claim this monstrosity for the Emperor!
For our lost sisters!”
“The depot is secured, the Superheavy is declawed and immobile. We work to capture it now.” Lieutenant Giovana voxed to Captain Raamiz even as melta charges threw tracks and road wheels at speed across the vehicle depot with immense explosions.
Just as planned, Raamiz thought, as he plunged a claw tipped gauntlet through the chest of a tank commander. Bioelectricity danced across his warplate into the man, fulminating him into a scorched cadaver. He watched his brothers bound through the depot on his auspex, pairs of two hunting those that sought to flee or retaliate against Unity. The mortals within the vehicles had lost their will to continue fighting, cowering in fear or choosing to chance a retreat. Either would suffer the same fate.
+‘The depot is in the arms of the Imperium. You’ve each worked marvelously for the Emperor!
I couldn’t be more proud as your genecousin, alas there is more to do and an invasion to win.
Third, begin routing the Auxilia to our position.
Seventeenth, prepare the superheavy for Auxilia control. The
Thirteenth will begin cleaning the vehicles of their occupants for Imperial handling.’+ Captain Raamiz replied to both Giovana and Keller, beginning the task that he had given himself. His voice was filled with ecstatic joy, underlined by the seriousness of their operation. The blink-confirmations radiated off of his display, each an affirmation from the Thirteenth on their new orders.
Someone from within the tank he stood on reached up and feebly grabbed his left boot. Raamiz looked downward to a Pacifican with a knife no larger than the Astartes’ hand. The soldier attempted repeatedly to stab into the ceramite, serving only to scratch the black-bronze paint of the Captain’s greaves. The Scorpion looked down at the mortal and offered a toothy smile beneath his dark hood. The man continued to scratch at his armor, faster this time, until the tool broke.
“O’ the
futility of mortal men,” Raamiz said, delicately reaching down to pull the struggling man up by his neck. The soldier kicked out at the chestplate of the Astartes, desperately trying to break free of the grasp. Foam gurgled up from the Pacifican as he closed his grip. The Scorpion lightly chuckled as he continued, “you never do tend to learn your place. Screaming, kicking, and fighting for a worthless life spent slaving to unforgiving lords. Better luck in another life.”
The claw-tipped gauntlet tensed, crunching the spinal cord of the mortal before tossing him from the top of the tank. His brethren were performing the same, albeit less condescending actions throughout the depot. Men and women were dragged screaming from the boarding ramps and ladders, slaughtered as animals pulled from their pens. None were spared the massacre, bar the other Astartes Legios that worked nearby. Soon, the rest of his Legio would join him and they would assist Alim with the siege. Just as planned, he thought, as he slipped into the heavy tank below him. The sounds of death echoed from within.
As the Thirteenth set to their work, Keller released his helmet with a small clunk, and a release of positively pressurized air. His face was craggy, lined, and marked with fencing scars, a mark of pride amongst the young, pugnacious legion. He looked over his shoulder and bucked his head at Weiss, who nodded.
“Copy, sir. I’ll go round up the Auxilia and give them their new presents.” Weiss said, then began to walk off.
He made it three steps before he heard Keller’s voice.
“Stop a sec, Weiss.” Keller growled, his eyes falling on a particular piece of equipment.
A huge tank. One of the old, fabled steel beasts. It had many names. The Merkabah. Bane of Men. Sword of God. The modern name, however, was the Baneblade.
It was an instantly recognizable vehicle, the hull of it painted in many tapestries of all the wars of old Earth. Eleven barrels - granted, most had been hacked off by his sisters, contained within a panoply of turrets and sponsons that spoke of both industrial practicality, and regal nobility.
Keller’s eyes ignored the brass armor of his brothers as they rounded up and murdered, his eyes only seeing that squat, damaged, but still proud hull.
“I’m making a field expedient modification of our orders.” He said, “Go, round up the auxilia, and give them their new presents…”
“Except one, sir?” Weiss said, finishing his thought.
“Smartass.” Keller said, with a smile. “Yes. Except one. I’m gonna talk with the other captains, of course…”
He looked back to his sergeant.
“...But I want that tank.”
As the last of the Pacifican resistance was pulled from their tanks in the great vehicle depot of Ouran, the hive-city began to fall silent. The staccato of gunfire, the roar of engines, and the screaming of aircraft began to fade into the gales of the poisonous Great Ocean. A fifth and final wave of Auxilia from the Tenth Excertus Imperialis emptied out onto the shores of the city. Their arrival spelled the death of the city as the Raptor Imperialis began to fly atop banners over the battlements.
A million souls in red-black uniforms scoured Ouran. A million more began the long process of rebuilding the hive-city from the catastrophic damage it suffered. Untold thousands of Pacificans that survived the siege were rounded up, herded into cells, and given the penultimate choice. Join or die. The former was more widely accepted than the latter. Hundreds of shovels were forced into their hands, then made to deal with the horrific aftermath of their defiance.
Refitted haulers, lumbering skybarges, and fat-bellied Stormbirds landed themselves into the city. Vital resources were spread from their hulls and then replaced with the valuable technology that Ouran had hidden within. They departed with hulls empty of flesh and cargo, refilled to the brim with trinkets meant for the Himalazian labs. The unseen eyes of their absent commander tracked each of these, assuring their destinations with an astute mind.
The Astartes of the Seventeenth, Third, and Thirteenth departed shortly after the last hauler departed. Their Stormbirds pulled them from the cataclysmic aftermath of their siege, while a plethora of Astartes piloted vehicles rumbled across the Pacific peninsula to their next objectives. A pittance of genewarriors remained behind to recruit, rebuild, and assure the compliance of Ouran. It was they that discovered a survivor in the wrecks of a macrocannon tower.
The survivor was alone. His warplate was sundered into burning nothingness. The limbs on the left side of his body were missing, baked into thermonuclear aftermath. His face was unrecognizable, half-crushed into the warrior’s skull. And he was an Astartes. His markings were clear through the wreckage. Black-bronze with a pauldron of twin scorpions flanking an ‘XIII’.
Alim had survived.
It was far from the only hope that the siege of Ouran had brought. As the battle raged, two ships had come to wait for them, anchored just out of the range of any accidental fire, but close enough for those on the ships to watch. Each ship was painted blood red, draped in crimson silk stained by the poison spray, and crewed, too, by people dressed entirely in shades of deep red. And as the city fell quiet, they let themselves drift in closer- as vultures, waiting for wolves to finish, circle closer to the scraps they hope to steal.
Outside the city, thousands of campfires blazed. The Felinids of the city—the underclass so long spat upon by their Pacifican overlords—were now counted among the conquerors, not the conquered. As those who had fought were given the option to join or die, many of the abhumans who’d survived the battle through hiding now flocked outside the city limits to join their kin. Nothing more was said of their decision. Not all slaves could become soldiers.
The names of those who didn’t make it to their own liberation were spoken solemnly around those fires, accompanied by spilled drinks and oaths of justice and deeds done. The Imperium had earned quite a lot of new recruits—eager and willing, rather than reluctant and frightened—simply through Malcador’s prudent decision to
wait and see.
Magh Meall intended to prove itself to the Imperium.
Peace and order returned to Ouran as soldier and slave made their march from the wounded hive. She and her people were humbled and bent, but they survived, and now would benefit the dream of Unity. Such had been the design of the Sigilite.
The man himself, architect and overseer of that great victory, stood chest deep in the surf off of the city’s coast, his eyes closed. So many had died in these waters, their corpses and the wreckage of their craft floating past him with such a berth that they seemed to be politely avoiding him, that it was hard at first to find what he sought among their death-cries. He did not know how long he stood there, sifting through the swirl of souls, before he at last turned and walked through the water.
“Here you are,” he whispered as he finally came to a halt, the spires of Ouran a distant dream upon the far horizon. “
Agethius Lorn. The first to give his life for Unity. Come, my friend, and walk with an old man.”
A pulse of power emanated from the man, and the waves ceased their roll, and the sea gave up its dead. The Sigilite walked with more strain than before, gripping his staff in both hands as he trudged through the surf, the fallen trailing in his wake. Upon at last reaching the shore, he rested as they were laid to rest, placed gently upon the blood-stained sand row by row and rank by rank, in such number that the beach was of their corpses. The time would come for them to be given proper honor, the conquered burying their conquerors, but that was not now - and not his errand.
He continued on, guided unerringly to a secluded section of the shore, where a burnt corpse laid feet from the wreckage of an assault transport. “
Yonat Hier. The first to touch this shore. You did well.”
Onward he trudged, building his list of names, recording the glories of the dead. The first to reach the walls. The first to claim an enemy standard. The first to fell an enemy gene-warrior. On and on the names accrued as he walked through the wreckage of war, and where he walked he prepared his silent companions as best he could for their final journey.
None dared to question or stop him as he wandered the maze of the hive, garrison trooper and conquered laborer only staring in mute witness to his long pilgrimage. He wandered through hab blocks drenched in blood, arterial roadways choked with burnt out wrecks, and climbed the ruin of fallen spires, until at long last he awarded the final honor.
“
Jal Kraterios. The last to die.”
Malcador let out a long sigh as he finally set himself down, sitting on a piece of masonry from a fallen macro-statue next to the woman’s body. “I trust you won’t mind if I sit with you a while,” he whispered.
The pair rested upon the floor of a great dome atop a tower adorning one of the main spires, exposed to the air by a massive hole in the wall directly in front of them. From here he gazed both east and west, to the Great Sea from which he had come and the far plains to which he must go. To the east fleets of vessels were bringing yet
more to Ouran as vultures circled the docks of the wounded city, matters that he and his order would tend to in good time.
It was to the west though where his gaze fell longest and hardest, to the great plume of dust that the columns of the advancing army created with their passage. It was in their wake that he must soon follow, after matters in Ouran had been settled. There, in the west, lay the promise that the great work might at last come to an end.
The road to the Jade Citadel lay open.
Credits: XIII Legio Astartes
@MarshalSolgriev, XVII Legio Astartes
@FrostedCaramel, III Legio Astartes
@BornOnBoard, Malcador
@grimely, Magpies
@mothnoodle, Magh Meall Insurgents
@Golden Record 
