In the distant background the ruined carcass of Vernum City was incinerated with holy promethium and constant gouts of flame, the incandescent flame of the Emperor's purifying might being spouted by a over a hundred Imperial sentinel walkers that criss-crossed the currently spore-infested cityscape in an attempt to make it habitable for Mankind once more.
At the Cathedral of Holy Light, where Orkoid and Human bodies were currently being turned from masses of flesh and bone into nothing but so much ash, a mass of already broken regiments had held firm long enough for several Krieger Battalions to surround and annihilate the unsuspecting Greenskins where they stood – a great victory had been one that day, at the cost of many lives...too many.
Outside of the city, like a whole nest of ants stuck rigidly and still to the floor, the surviving regiments and armoured formations of the twenty-year crusade stood at attention to receive commendations and to listen to the victory speech of the architect put in charge of the entire bloody mess, Lord General Militant Egough Van Deer.
The man himself stood atop a towering podium overlooking the neat blocks of infantry, cavalry and armour, arranged in a perfect grid formation in spite of the shell-holes and trenches that had been by and large filled in, the ground now mainly flat but still a shade uneven in places.
At the front of each column of regiments, some as deep as sixty formations, had been placed a huge holo-screen so that all could witness the speech and be thankful for the God-Emperor's love; by and beneath each projection screen waited an ample coterie of aides, officers and NCO's – it would be their duty to hand out the medals once their superior was finished.
Klaxon’s blared as Van Deer strode up the podium, clad in his finest long black coat and wearing a peaked cap he nevertheless looked like some form of avian, and with the bitterly frigid wind beginning to whip up about the field, there was no doubt that he must be cold as well. On either side he was flanked by members of his staff, their responsibilities simply to stand and look austere as the General-Militant made his speech.
“Men and women of the Vernum Crusade,” he begin with a wide spreading of his arms, as if to encompass them all, his reedy voice amplified by the micro-comm before him, “for twenty years you have battled across mud and ice, through blazing heat, and marched stoically into the most hellish landscapes that our enemy could conjure...but you have survived where many would not, you have proven yourselves to the God-Emperor and to me, for this you are to be commended.”
With this signal the pack of aides and so forth were set loose, medals and commendations being drawn en masse from thousands of boxes and pinned to chest or placed in hands with military efficiency. There were awards such as the Triple Skull awarded to almost every regiment in the crusade – the amount of casualties having been beyond belief... - and more specific laurels for the differing regiments, dependent on background and part in the crusade.
It was not odd to see that those regiments composed for the most part of Abhuman soldiers – considered subhuman by many assembled there – were bereft of decoration or reward; Ogryns were too stupid to care, Penal Legionnaires could expect nothing, while those with bodily mutations were simply not counted as equals of the humans they fought by the sides of.
“The following regiments have been given the right to settle in this system, may it be your homes forever more, and may the God-Emperor watch over you.”
A list was read out then that included some of the more intact regiments, as well as some of the most depleted ones, but did not include regiments of Abhuman origin or those such as the Mordian 246th, the 222nd Edrastian Shock Regiment, the 382nd Siege Regiment of Krieg and others.
“Those that have not been selected for resettlement will report to the Departmento Munitorum headquarters immediately. May the God-Emperor bless you all.”
The General-Militant retreated from the podium, his retinue following in turn and the holo-screens deactivating on queue, the contiguous mutterings of hundreds of voices silenced quickly by Commissars and officers amidst the men.
As soon as the assembly was began it was over, over a thousand fractured regiments directed off toward the Departmento Munitorum headquarters, located in a huge and recently constructed outpost some miles to the west of Vernum City.
Terebravisse Scriba, clerk of the Departmento Munitorum and dispiritedly bored servant of the Emperor, looked once more over the pile of parchment he had been asked to process for presentation to the Prefect of Munitions and gave a long and heavy sigh. It had been several days without a break, his fingers, which each ended in another quill, were hurting and heavy and even his augmented eyes whirred with irritation as they focused and unfocused.
The texts that he had been handling for over a week were texts ascertaining to numbers of lives, to regiments that had become severely depleted and damaged by the crusade, and now a decision had to be made as to what to do with them. While this certainly gave him some form of cheap thrill , the regiments very existences resting upon a strike of his quills, it was laborious and time-consuming work and he had better things to do!
“Next...” he hissed, pulling more parchment toward him, his red-lit eyes (more like a pair of goggles attached to his face for all time) narrowing on the Gothic text before him, “interesting,” slowly but with expert precision he made his way through them, marking each one by type of regiment, planet of origin and specialisation, “you...and you...and...you.”
Evening was setting in, along with bone-chilling cold, as the most damaged of the regiments arrived at the headquarters buildings – at least nine prefabricated constructs of rockrete and plasteel, mostly square in shape and at least four levels high, a hundred or so large hab-units dotted around the perimeter, in which the regiments (or rather the still living remnants) would take shelter for the night until the verdict of what was to be done with them was given on the morrow by the Prefect of Munitions.
For now they could rest, converse, eat some standard rations and generally muse over what their fate would be...
