Palindrome
Framing A Moose
LadyRunic
Jamesyco
MarshalSolgriev
ErsatzEmpress
Half Pint
Bingelly
ChronicleMan
Fuzzybootz
The jets of Apaosha screamed Sekhmetara’s rage into the heavens as the ancient jetbike sped its master towards her target. Currents of air which would have torn even an Astartes from the saddle pulled at her like the gentle kiss of a sunset breeze, her connection to the hallowed piece of technology more complete than even the neural links could explain. When they fought, they hunted together, she and the raging spirit within the machine.
It’s fury bled into her in mechanical code, updates across the flicking light of her iris-display that were both a functional purpose and an urge to fight and kill. It’s fuel cells would never tire, the ammunition stored within its modified hurricane bolter chambers barely even touched. It yearned to kill and it took the will of a Primarch for Sekhmetara to not lose herself within it. She wondered if this is what her brother felt when the ancestors of their family whispered from the Throne of his Questoris warsuit. She expected this was more direct, more akin to the battle of wills between a Princeps and a God-Machine. The thought gave her some additional respect for the mortals who wrestled with such forces.
There was nothing left in the sky to kill, yet. As each centre of rebellion had been dealt with, first with the scalpel like precision the Tears of Dawn preferred to implement in their compliance campaigns, and later with the brutal hammer blow of a full Astartes assault upon those who continued to resist, the enemy’s ability to project force outside of the cities loyal to them had plummeted. The last bastion of the enemy, Aulpollriax, had survived alone due to the blanketing void shields extended over it. The centre of the rebellion on the planet, the most extreme examples of the rebels’ mysterious technology allowed them to hunker down while the rest of their alliance burned. Perhaps the enemy still had aeronautical assets to spend, but for now they remained grounded and shielded. Most Imperial commanders would have done the same, rather than expend their forces uselessly to fight for a world they surely knew they had lost.
Bombardment, starvation, mutiny. Any would bring about the eventual fall of the city, but Sekhmetara did not have the time or the patience for such things on this occasion. The presence of Daena imposed upon her the will of the Emperor that the conflict be finished swiftly, their attentions were required elsewhere. The heart would have to be cut out, and swiftly.
Apaosha slowed to a halt in the sky, hovering in place as Sekhmetara beheld her target. Aulpollriax lacked the vast scale of some of the Imperium’s hive cities, but it was certainly still an impressive hub of humanity. The second largest on the planet after the Capital, the main spire of its starport raised high, even above her, into the atmosphere where smaller stellar craft would have once been able to dock. She mused that this was likely how the first elements of this interstellar benefactor had brought their means of rebellion to Praxia. Local agents, still loyal to the ruling elite of Praxia and thus the Imperium by extension had several significant holdouts in the high-spire, one avenue of approach they would use. The fighting would be brutal and fought at close confines even for the warriors of the Astartes. It would be a grinding advance to burn Aulpollriax down from within. It was but one of the prongs of attack, the other would be the storm that crashed against the city from without. The shield could stop bombardment, but it could not stop a Spartan Assault Tank.
“Sire, the Ultis-Solis is in position, your wrath is prepared.” The words of Ulven Tern, the mortal who currently helmed her flagship’s voice crackled in her ear, distortion brought about by the combination of distance and void-to-air transmission did little to dampen the pleasing message, her response breathed out in an instant.
“Very well, open the vox-link, broadcast on all channels.”
“At your desire,”
There was no telltale sign to denote that anything had changed, but as she remained suspended in place in the skies of Praxia, Sekhmetara’s voice reached out. Her words directly transmitted to all the Imperial forces gathering for this final push, nor obscured from the enemy as most military transmissions would be. Many would be listening below, from within the shimmer of their unhallowed shield. Let them.
“Sons and Daughters of the Imperium, people of Praxia, today a new dawn rises. Treason had sundered your planet from the majesty of the great purpose, but now you are reborn, remade, in fire and fury. The last of those who reject the one, Imperial truth, will today learn their final folly.” The address was short, she had little affection for any of this blasted world any longer, but those who had martialed to join the Imperial effort to restore compliance would fight all the more harder knowing their actions were recognised, if only passingly, by the demigods who bestrode their world. She allowed the pauses to extend a moment longer, before speaking her final refrain.
“Begin.”
For an infinitesimally small span of time, a new host of suns were born in the sky of Praxia, bright hot points of light searing in the sky. She could feel the rush of air, superheated atmosphere fleeing in waves from the wrath of the heavens, even if she was far from their touch. Less than a second later, and the lance battery fire split the sky before her. The columns of bright force struck the Praxian shield with an even brighter explosion of light and heat than their own nature. Force rippled across the suddenly fully visible skein of the shield as it distributed the force desperately across it. The continual motes of light from each impact were brighter than the true Sun, and there were many, many more of them. The lance fire would not break the shield, it was perhaps the weapon the shield was most suited to protect its inhabitants from. Destruction was not the aim, however. With the sky a bright hot sea of energy, the interference as blinding to the auspex network of the city as the light would be blinding to the naked eye, the sudden surge of land and void formations to begin the two pronged assault was entirely obscured from the inhabitants of Aulpollriax. They would of course know an attack was coming, and would prepare, but firing blind against a blade as finely honed as a Legion was a doomed effort. With cold fury, Sekmetara watched the final strike of her campaign begin.
There had been time for deliberation around the strategium. Time for suggestions and arguments, hot-headed bouts of anger and coldly calculated statistics. But that time had ended the moment Sekhmetara had begun her transmission. In the void above Aulpollriax, the heavens strobed in hues of reds and blues. Laser battery fire crisscrossed between the ponderously still giants of the Serpents fleet and the citadel of the spaceport punctuated every so often by searing strikes from lance turrets. Debris from both sides spun away between the behemoth voidships and their foe as both sides struck home scouring armor plates and arcane mechanisms from the hulls of the other, and began to burn brightly as they plummeted toward Praxia below . Between it all were the streaks of engine plumes and the yellow-orange death balls as Imperial assault craft made the perilous hop from the safety of their larger homes to the starport’s citadel.
Assault craft plied the void in silence, surrounded by weapons fire and the debris of the battle taking place around them, their continued existence owed only to the skill of their pilots and dumb luck as they closed the gap to the loyalist held landing bays that still remained in the starport’s citadel. Though not all crafts were so lucky. Pilots, overwhelmed by the mass amount of debris and the crossfire of the two sides found their skill lacking as, task saturated as they were, their flights came to sudden ends as they slammed into debris at astounding speed, the end of their existences marked by tiny flashes of light as their engines went critical and devoured the craft whole. Others found to no real fault of their own that their hand had come up empty, laser battery fire tearing into them and their occupants as easily as tin cans as gun-servitors and traitor crews tried desperately to cripple the massive ships pouring fire into the starport.
Through it all, Nelchitl waited. She passed the time with praise and prayer taken from the scrolling text of Isabis and whispered in His name, both gauntleted hands pressed against her chest in the sign of the Aquila as she spoke only loud enough for Him to hear.
Her devotions complete, the Emerald Priestess opened her eyes and took in the troop compartment of the Thunderhawk in an instant. Red battle lights cast an eerie glow across the forms of a squad of Astartes in the gloom, each still as they no doubt readied themselves with battle routines or talked silently with their trusted Sisters. Here she knew, were warriors sure of purpose and true in faith. Here she knew were Astartes of the Imperium, tempered in the fires of countless conflicts and honed sharp by the Emperor’s hands. Here were her Serpents, stood atop a mountain of corpses and yet baying for more. Pride and excitement filled the Scion of the Seventeenth as she imagined the glories to come once they were within the starport. Who would distinguish themselves as no other? Who would lead the most of the traitor scum to their graves? Who would be noticed in the eyes of the Emperor Himself this day?
Her reverie was interrupted as the Thunderhawk shuddered violently, Nelchitl even in her armored bulk being jostled as the craft seemed to fight to remain flying.
“We’ve taken a hit, damage is extensive. We will not make the landing site Sire.” the voice of the pilot rang in her ears as the Thunderhawk began to shake, rattling free items that had been strapped down for flight and shaking loose bundles of cabling throughout the cabin.
“Anywhere on the Citadel will do.” came Nelchitl’s simple answer as she pulled up a tactical display of the crippled assault craft’s flight path. She scowled as the trajectory line kept moving sporadically before her expression dulled entirely as she followed the line to its end. She opened a vox link back to the Solstice’s End as quickly as she could and spoke hurriedly, “My Thunderhawk is hit, we shall not make the citadel. Ensure that my Serpents tak--” the line went dead, the troop cabin around Nelchitl buckling and breaking as the Thunderhawk slammed into the armored side of the citadel and the world came to a crushing end.
Far away from the chaos of the Serpent’s assault, a line of bare steel glinted in the sun. It was perhaps quite the most impressive amassing of armor Praxia would ever see, a line of tanks stretching to the horizon on each side, all kicking up a great plume of dust behind them.
At the center of the formation, the giant, boxy form of a Gorgon assault transport pushed aside everything unlucky enough to stand in the way of the Legion’s assault. A practiced eye could tell that despite sharing the hull shape of an Imperialis Militia vehicle, the armament was decidedly non-standard, replacing the twin stubbers on each side of the operator’s tower with lascannons instead. On the side of the vehicle, the name was scrawled in white chalk - Inevitability. At the helm, 2nd Army Group Praetor, Johann Kohl, stared with disinterest at the hive which jutted from the landscape like the finger of an uncouth oath.
Inside the transport bay, forty Lancers of the First Company of the 2nd Army Group, the Bandits, checked weapons. They were loaded down with non-standard equipment, rad grenades, customized bolters, power spears, chainswords. Each of them was a hardbitten veteran, many of them having served with Kohl since Terra, since…
He closed his eyes. He could still see the burning banners of Unification in his mind’s eyes, clear as day, still smell the gene-enhanced, rich, coppery scent of the blood of the warriors of that time. This would be like that, but less. Every day would be less than that, but, this one...
“Vulf.” Kohl said, “Vox those locals and tell them to get back in formation, or I’ll fire on them. They’ll hit the exterior edge of the bombardment zone if they keep rushing ahead like that.”
Optio Vulf, helmetless, his revenant-like face exposed to the wind and sun, smiled with the half of his face that still could. He relayed the order, and the local elements slowed down, passing between the files of Serpent Spartans and Pact Rhinos. “Should’ve just fired. If they were worth a damn we wouldn’t have to help our gene-aunt with her group project.”
...This day could be the best he’d had in a long time. He smiled, a predatory, cat-like grin. “Forget the fodder. We were made to fight, and to win, and that’s just what we’ll do.”
“The raptor flies, Praetor.” Vulf responded.
“And where it lands, it owns.” Kohl finished the old oath of the Lightnings.
He keyed a vox-link to Sekhmetara’s flagship, which the praetor knew would be relayed to the Dawn’s primarch. “Ground elements reporting. We’re reaching the final maneuver point. We’ll be in place when the bombardment ceases.”
As her sisters fought battles, Daena waged a war. The angelic Primarch brooded from within the confines of her flagship’s bridge, surrounded by the full complement of her bodyguard. Each woman was in their full battledress, the Astartes complementing their power armor with jetpacks disguised under artfully sculpted wings to match their gene-mistress. They watched the massive holoscreens intently as the combined assault continued, a bridge officer dutifully reporting on the most critical of updates.
“Lady Sekhmetara’s assault is on schedule, my lady. Lance bombardment on target, Aulpollriax sensors and augur arrays blinded within expected tolerance thresholds. The void war is proceeding as projected, Lady Nelchitl is leading the va-” The officer stopped mid sentence, professional demeanor for a moment threatening to flag. “We have lost the signal of Lady Nelchitl’s Thunderhawk. The Serpents are continuing the attack. Praetor Kohl’s armor advancing swiftly to the edge of safe ground.”
The Angel sat hunched over in her throne, both hands grasping the haft of her mighty spear as her eyes flicked over the runes intermeshed with and behind the signatures of the Serpents and the Pact. Groundside, the situation was chaotic in the extreme, nearly a hundred different regiment markers glaring back at her - but the only similarity between that screen and the one depicting the void was the familiar sigil of the Doomsayers. Dividing her forces into four wings, Daena did what she and her daughters did best - compensate for the weaknesses of their siblings.
Across the face of Praxia and within the ranks of the Legion, junior Doomsayers took up garrison positions at cities and hives emptied of their guardians for this final assault forming the first wing. Serpents, Tears, and Auxilia alike had been tasked with ensuring the Compliance of reconquered and always loyal populaces both but now their Primarchs had called them to war. With the neophytes now drained from her own ranks, one startling fact united every Astartes that the Angel intended to send marching into war: a raptor stamped upon the plate of their knee.
Forming the second wing, a detachment of Revenants had volunteered to assist Nelchitl’s assault troopers in the taking of the spaceport, the deathseekers providing the only fire support that could move swiftly enough for the Serpents to not simply leave behind. Their vessels followed almost languidly behind those of their sisters, a second wave that the station’s gunners could not prioritize with the XVIIth upon them. Slow and ponderous assault boats, far more vulnerable than a swift Thunderhawk or a boarding torpedo, they were able to press their way through the clouds of debris but were easy pickings for the gunner who was not fixated on the far faster deliverers of death. Daena watched unblinkingly as runes winked out, each one representing the true and total loss of tens of her daughters.
Thankfully few such losses were yet to occur on the outskirts of the hive, though all knew that would swiftly change. The Primarch’s eyes lingered in recognition upon the standards of her household regiments, formations of the Astra Militarum that had been with her since her discovery - if not fighting alongside her Legion before that. The mechanized Golden Hegera and the cybersteed riding ranks of the Tupelov Lancers easily kept pace behind the advance screen of the Pact’s tanks, the Auxilia more than happy to let the Astartes form the tip of the spear. Following behind, the disciplined footsoldiers of the Geno Five-Two Chilliad and Kushtun Naganda would be tasked with the brutal and inglorious work of securing what areas of the hive the Astartes overlooked.
Only then did she turn to look upon the runes of her third wing. The demigods travelled within the center of the miles spanning formation - for if the Pact was the tip of the spear, the Doomsayers were its heart. Land Raiders and Mastodons travelled swiftly behind the tanks of their brothers, each containing Terran veterans. Daena’s lip tugged slightly at that thought, the woman realizing that the Astartes racing alongside the Pacts weren’t simply born upon the Throneworld but had fought in the last wars on its surface right alongside the Xth. The Legion Mistress herself commanded the force from within the massive bulk of a battlescarred Mastodon decorated with her personal heraldry. It was a simple symbol, but a curious one, depicting a massive bird of prey swooping down as if to attack, a broken lightning bolt clutched in its talons.
But for all of its strength, the forces Daena had already deployed paled in comparison to the might of what she held in reserve. The Primarch herself commanded the fourth wing, its Astartes waiting patiently for the order to commence operations.
“My lady, do we proceed with the battleplan? Lady Nel-” Asha began to ask, stopping at the sight of her Primarch’s raised hand.
“Nelchitl will succeed. As will Sekhmetara. We continue as planned,” Daena said softly, turning her head at last to the glaring green countdown chrono rapidly approaching zero. It was a daring, audacious, and some would say stupid plan, one that required every element of the combined force to perform as expected, when expected. But it would win the war in a day if it worked, bypassing the need to brutally fight the height of the spire.
“This is one she would’ve thought of,” the Primarch mused to herself, letting her mind drift on the influence of her Mithran sibling as the chrono continued racing towards its end.
-- Years Prior, The Ultis-Solis--
They had told Sekhmetara she had waited longer than any Primarch before her, and perhaps longer still than any who would come after her. The gathering of her legion had taken many long years, returning to Terra to meet their Gene-Sire. She did not begrudge this, her years upon Terra had been full of promise and adventure. She had shared the experience with two sisters, ones she had little hope would remain cordial without her presence, and the reason the delay had brought her pride. The Astartes legion who bore her genetic lineage were deployed across the galaxy, often in the vanguard of larger legion fleets, secretly strewn among worlds marked for compliance and invasion. They were the Emperor’s hidden blade, and had been named for their numeral. While she studied how she would become a part of her father’s realm, she had seen in them the traits of her abilities. They had her guile, her commitment to the hunt. She would have to teach them her glory.
The process of their union had been a joyous, but strenuous, one. Her legion might have inherited certain aspects of her abilities, but their war was not her war. Sekhmetara would not hide in the shadows, while her daughters had made their home there, laying the groundwork for others to take the glory, or fighting in gruelling guerilla warfare. She had resolved to bring those aspects into her vision of a Legion fighting in her name, but where before they had been the vanguard of other Legions, now they would herald the sweeping strike of her own. Her daughters were joyful, in their own muted way, to meet their primarch, but she had sensed their concern for the future. It galled her, a little, that they were not more grateful for the brighter tomorrow she would bring them, but she was determined to convince them. In their own way, they were determined to convince her in turn.
The halls of the Gloriana, recently renamed The Ultis-Solis in honour of the rediscovered Primarch, were bare and functional. This had been a craft befitting its legion, functional and utilitarian. Sekhmetara, with her study of voidwar over the recent years, already wished to pursue a tactical approach without such grand and ponderous ships. Her plans for the vessel were much grander than simply the largest ship in her fleet, but to transplant all the trappings of holding court to the stars. For now, however, it remained in its utilitarian state, especially as they delved further into its winding depths.
“Before we move further, Sire...This has remained hidden, from the others, from those few who even know that the Twentieth Legion has been active in your absence.” Elosha Turna, Librarian, had been the one who had informed Sekhmetara of the secret she was about to be shown, something that even the grim natured Terran scions of her blood had been determined to hide from their peers. They might not have the same desire for glory and recognition as her, but Sekhmetara could taste their shame, they had some idea of what honour might be.
“I am prepared, Daughter.” Sekhmetara breathed the words, barely more than a whisper, studying the features of the Astartes beside her. She had been born with the pale skin of Terra’s northern climate and could never be mistaken for a biological relation of any Mithran, but as with all her daughters, she found herself gazing back at eyes that were almost mirrors of her own. With a nod, the Librarian stepped forwards, the doorway sliding open with a pneumatic hiss.
The room beyond held no light but two sputtering orbs of gold, dripping like liquid through the air. No sooner had the doorway opened than there was a surge of motion in the dark, before there was the telltale sound of chains snapping taut, pulled to the limit of their exertion. To mortal humans the shape would have been obscured in the shadows cast from the light of the hallway behind them, but Astartes and Primarch regarded their subject with ease. Shorn of armour, the transhuman physiology of the Space Marines was still impressive, so beyond humanity they towered above them alone. The astartes before them, for they could be nothing else, seemed to strain even these impressive forms. Taught skin pulled tight over musculature that seemed to threaten to rupture free, the talons of her fingers ending in short claws extending from twisted nailbeds. The source of the light before was apparent. Dripping from empty eye sockets, the thin trail of golden light seared itself into the skin of the chained astartes, running down burned channels of scar tissue before dripping to the metallic floor with an ionised hiss.
Unphased by the rush of motion towards her, Sekhmetara spoke to her companion as they examined the sight. “What has done this to her?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, her attention entirely placed upon the straining figure.
“It is a curse our Legion suffers from, a rage that overcomes us in the pursuit of the hunt then...We do not know what strikes the mind of those who suffer, but there is a great rage, a need for blood...and then our eyes burn away, whatever is summoned from within us destroys our vision.” The Librarian spoke with a collective shame, even as Sekhmetara moved towards the chained figure. As the Primarch drew closer, the enraged thrashing of chains seemed to ease, the growls building from within the Astartes fading into bestial pants as Sekhmetara drew one hand and placed it on her cheek. The sizzling heat of her tears was enough to sting even the flesh of a Primarch, but she held in place.
“It is my blood.” Sekhmetara spoke finally, a tone of both sadness and familial pride touching her words, before she stood, her eyes blazing with the same golden light, in far greater intensity, turning upon the librarian behind her. “No longer will the Legion put down their affected sisters, they bear the blessing of my gifts, and I will find use for them.”
--The Present, Praxia--
As the ground and atmospheric assaults began, the Tears of Dawn themselves prepared to enter the engagement wholesale. Behind the sweeping advance of the local militia, Imperial Army and Pact of the Lance heavy vehicles which made up the onrushing Imperial assault, the swift forms of the Tears of Dawn Skyseeker squadrons surged into life. As the initial wave took the brunt of whatever fire the city was able to marshal under the bombardment, the gravbikes made up the distance in a few moments, before soaring over and around the slower moving formations. The moment the bombardment broke, they soared past the Pact’s vehicles, no small amount of competitive Astartes jibes blurting across the vox in the protest. In this, the final moment of the charge, the Skyseekers took on the role of the bombardment, underslung plasma cannons unleashing a surge of superheated fire, striking the shield in a thousand smaller motes of light than the more dramatic surge of the orbital bombardment of the moment prior. In the next moment they swept through the shield itself, slowing only momentarily, fractionally, so that the rapidly moving jetbikes might not activate the defensive capabilities of the technological marvel. The skyseekers crashed into the entrenched positions of the enemy like a shining wave of orange and gold, ebbing and flowing against the fortifications, power blade and lance stealing kills while they weaved to avoid the same. Each moment the foe was held in place was another moment closer to the columns of the Imperial forces being brought to bear within the city.
Sekhmetara watched this and more from on high, through the distant shapes of her physical vision and in the abstract sense through the tactical data streaming from the roaring body of her machine to her. She did not dismiss them, that would be to suggest her mind could ever abandon the recollection of such detail, but for now it changed nothing. Steadily she banked through the air towards much larger shapes rushing through the traumatised air towards the city. Beside the hulking frames of the airborne Cestus Assault Rams, even the figure of a primarch astride her warbike appeared small. Unlike the rest of the Tears of Dawn present, these vehicles did not bear the heraldry of the wider legion but instead the dominant black of the first company, roaring through the air like the ominous clouds of a storm.
“Unleash my wrath.” She spoke over the vox, now simply to the pilots of these craft, before they echoed back; “Your Eyes Upon Us, Sire.” As one, the squadron of craft banked, pulling down into a terminal dive towards the city, engines powering down as the vast bulk of the craft yawed downwards. Heavy, ponderous shapes for aircraft, they quickly began to draw what fire the enemy could manage to bring given the escalating warfare on two fronts. The trajectory of the craft, already looking like they had been downed, had them on course for nothing of tactical note within the city, falling downwards to likely crash among the residential districts of the urban sprawl. The city did not have air support to spare to make sure already defeated enemies wouldn’t impact with force.
Thus, unaware, the last free people of Praxia watched as doom fell towards them.
The Serpent’s assault was scattered and disorganized. Few of the assault craft had made the relative safety of the Loyalist held hangars and as vox reports of hundreds of separated squads of Astartes and Auxilia alike filtered through the command structure of the void assault the success of the strike seemed to hang in the balance, tilting steadily towards failure with every passing moment. The Auxilia command structure did its best to salvage the grim situation. Human operators relayed orders to dozens of units to reorganize the remnants of the assault into coherent formations and press them on to new objectives from where they had unexpectedly made entry. And for a brief time, the efforts of the Tactical Officers seemed to be working, but moods soon darkened as it became clear that for every success these attempts found there were twice as many failures as understrength squads and fireteams of Auxilia came up against defended strongpoints or the traitor forces in number.
The Serpent’s command structure seemed to fair far better than its mortal counterparts, though the condition of their forces on the citadel itself were equally as deficient. Where squads of Serpents found themselves cut off from the main assault they went to work quickly and without need for prompts or confirmations from higher. The injured and dead were left in their harnesses or in their many pieces wherever their craft had made their final entries into the citadel and those fit to fight had made no small show in their presence in these areas of the firmly traitor controlled citadel. Bolter and chainsword harrowing the arrival of death and destruction as groups of Astartes two or three strong stormed muster positions, ammo depots, and strongpoints at random throughout the citadel.
The individual actions of the Serpents scattered throughout the citadel on their own served no greater purpose than to cause death and destruction in the wider scheme of the action, but where dozens of unorganized and haphazard assaults were being tracked and relayed by tactical officers a clear picture was beginning to form in the mind of Captain Mayalen. The Second Company commander stood above the bustle of the strategium, clumsily tapping the fingers of her newly fitted augmetic arm atop the guard rail as she reconciled with the sudden loss of contact with her Primarch and the crushing weight of total command over the shattered assault that it had suddenly heaped upon her.
“Tactical, inform our cut-off squads to press the fight, there will be no withdrawal for them until organized forces can advance from the loyalist sections of the citadel. They must continue their mayhem, by any means.” she stated cooly as her psychotraining guided her emotions away from the great ache in her chest and toward the math of war that could win them the citadel.
Without needing to even consult the data available to her she knew that for every squad of Auxilia pinned at a strongpoint or pushing through a hall a number two or three times that was sent to halt or destroy them by the traitors, and for every two or three of her own Sisters engaged within the citadels winding corridors and chambers, a number five or ten times as many were sent to eliminate them. For these were the required victory conditions required by the mathematics of war, the tactics of numbers that no doubt guided the traitor defense of the citadel were the same as those employed by humanity since the earliest days of warfare, for overwhelming numbers ensured victory, and even now in the age of voidships and Astartes, tanks and Titans, the math had changed little.
She watched as the grim numbers of war were tallied and tolled on the scrolling data slates and in the clipped vox chatter and attempted hails from the strategium beneath her to the scattered and engaged forces in the citadel and painted the grim picture in her mind..
Entire Auxilia companies were being annihilated within the sprawling citadel of the space elevator, and she choked down bile as it became evident that for all the fury that her sisters could bring to the foe they too were fairing only slightly better than their mortal counterparts. Cut off from the rest of their forces, injured and outnumbered there was only so much that even an Astartes could hope to accomplish.
But Mayalen knew that their sacrifices were not in vain. Runes and symbols shifted across the live scans of the citadel as mass reinforcements were diverted to deal with the unexpected appearances of so many forces outside of the expected loyalist assault routes, and where these forces were moved from Tactical staff were quick to flood what forces they could muster to take advantage of the weakened positions. Before her, she could see the victory conditions sliding into place, each death of the cutoff Astartes and mortal Auxilia like a piece of some grand scheme falling rapidly into place.
The Pact complement hit the defenses of the city second, falling like the sledgehammer of an angry god. Fellblades crushed pillboxes under tread while the smaller, sleeker forms of Predators and Vindicators hunted enemy armor, destroying them with vicious, nigh point-blank exchanges of assaults. The Pact were the smallest of the four compliments of Astartes present, but the violence they inflicted with their armored vehicles was breathtaking. Buildings fell, filling the streets with rockcrete powder, forcing anyone not in a rebreather to stumble around in coughing confusion.
The Legionaries however, had no such issue. Pact infantry advanced behind their rhinos, gunning down the confused defenders with remorseless single-taps, the bolt-rockets painting the streets and alleys red with each thunderous shot. Auxilia pressed in behind, bayoneting the wounded and throwing grenades into the windows of any building the Astartes did not deign to clear. The civilian death toll mounted, but no man was willing to risk a woman or child suicide running them with a satchel charge, or smashing into them with a car bomb, or any of the many other tactics humanity turned to when they were desperate.
And at the head of this merciless advance, Inevitability parted the arterial through-ways with the stately dignity of an M2 wet navy battleship cutting through the rough seas of a storm, the Gorgon easily pushing aside burned out Praxian transports and crushing civilian groundcars.
“Tac net’s alive.” Vulf said, “I think our gene-aunt’s Thunderhawk crashed. I can’t see it on auspex.”
“Which one?” Kohl asked, his voice calm as if discussing the weather.
“Cuamani.” Vulf rasped. “The Serpent’s mother.”
“Ah, the amazon.” Kohl said, “Well. They’re all in the citadel, correct? The spaceport?”
“Aye praetor.”
“No concern of ours then.” Kohl said, curtly. “A primarch is easily capable of surviving such a thing. There’ll be time to find her after we crush this rabble. Drop the hatch here. I think it’s time for the Gunslingers to hunt.”
The gorgon came to a crushing halt, stopping in front of a strip-commercia that was blistering the vehicle’s paint with autogun fire. The heavy front prow of the assault transport slammed down, two tons of ferro-steel making a noise like a church bell. The violence that erupted from the front of the vehicle was breathtaking, ten Astartes at a time firing full auto from the hip as they piled out, killing and maiming every rebel under their guns by sheer weight of fire. The lascannons, at maximum depression aboard the Inevitability’s command tower, plugged beam after beam of bright energy, detonating heavy weapons before they could fire, vaporizing men even with glancing hits.
Kohl and Vulf jumped down the back, both of them armed with spear and chainsword, landing on the rockrete below. They stormed the building, feral grins on their faces as their blades met flesh, rending, decapitating, bisecting men with vicious strikes that no human could hope to counter. Their armor was washed red, this defence outpost the unlucky target of the most violent and warlike of the Tenth Legion.
In total, the strip-commercia rebels, one hundred and sixty all told, had been killed to a man, viciously and inhumanely. The action had taken about three minutes. The Gunslingers, the elite close assault infantry of the Pact’s 2nd army group, took a few more minutes to drive rebar stakes into the rubble with the heads of the rebel officers and non-commissioned officers of the outpost driven upon them, and then they were back aboard Inevitability, on the prowl for the next rebel strongpoint.
Aboard the Redemption, Daena and her court continued to stare at the hololith depicting the battle above and below. The Pact and the Tears worked well together, that none could contest. Doomsayer elements traveling behind the armored curtain of the two forces came well under the estimates on their meticulous time tables, sheer brutality having not been adequately factored into the grim arithmetic of war.
Mastodons ground to a halt and became makeshift command centers as Land Raiders flushed out those who had survived or who had been overlooked by the Lancers. Astartes fanned out to hold the ground that had been taken, presenting a hard target in advance of the encroaching mortal Auxilia. Slowly but surely, the forces of the Imperium tightened their noose about the hive’s ground level, thunderous fire masking the sound of millions of marching feet. What batteries ringed the walls were either already ablaze or firing down upon the Astartes, leaving the comparatively soft targets of unaugmented infantry to slowly filter inside.
The women gathered around their Primarch freely muttered to each other, the Angel having little regard for keeping her daughters quiet. Especially not those who would fight alongside her when the time came.
“Swift,” an Arcana said in a commending tone, her gaze locked on the icons of the Legion Mistress’ forces and the shadowy doubles that showed where they had been projected to be at this stage of the assault.
“Bloody,” another corrected, gesturing towards the locations of the Pact’s advance. “You don’t clear residential and commercial areas that quickly while keeping the fight clean,” the second Arcana chided.
“It will win the battle, will it not?” the first retorted.
“But will it win the peace?”
Daena ignored the debate between her daughters, her attention already turning from the victories on Praxia itself. Instead she, and those more senior Doomsayers who knew best their mother’s moods and priorities, were focusing entirely upon the orbital citadel. Within that structure there were no swift advances, no beating time tables, no easy victories. Sigils of Serpents and Solar Auxilia winked out with a startling regularity, initial beachheads repulsed and destroyed.
Where the breachers had failed, the Revenants who followed in their wake were already doomed. Resigned - even moreso than the rest of their grim order - to death against the forces which had already annihilated the first teams of Astartes, they unleashed the most ruinous weapons of the Legion to bellow their defiance.
Phosphex and rad missiles seared the corridors through which those doomed women strode, the rebels who had so valiantly slew the Serpents forced back and back and back. Poison seeped through the armor of their killers even as they fled, the victory bitter. Though some had cheated death this day by unleashing the most horrid of weaponry, reclaiming the beachhead that their sister Legion had lost, each knew that they had cut their lifespans by decades in a matter of seconds. Not all were so lucky, even the might of mankind’s darkest days was not enough to overpower the grinding weight of numbers which the defenders brought to bear. Entire sections of the bastion lay silent as the grave, the attackers having been slain with their opponents perishing to the vile toxins they had used as reward for their victory.
The story was far different where the Serpents still stood, their initial advance soon reinforced by luckier Revenants. The cruel glow of volkite and power weapons lit their hunting grounds, their jetpacks roaring as they undertook the unforgiving work of linking together pockets of Solar Auxilia. With the Serpents providing constant pressure on the rebel forces, the Revenants were free to cut through their lines to break encirclements around their mortal allies. Though their runes flashed out at a terrifying pace, they succeeded more often than not, scattered Imperial pockets slowly turning into united fronts pressing into rebel lines.
“While victory seems assured, perhaps we should delay?” Asha asked her Primarch with a glance towards the chrono, the Praetor Primus following her overriding directive to keep the woman alive. “Without Lady Nelchitl in command, the assault on the citadel has been slowed beyond tolerance limits. I do not think its command center will be taken in time for ou-”
“Nelchitl will succeed,” Daena said simply, her grip on her force spear so tight her knuckles were slowly turning white. “We follow the plan.” Irisless eyes scanned over the hololith as she spoke, her attention shifting with supernatural speed to each vanishing rune of a dead Doomsayer. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper, an afterthought so minor that only the smallest fraction of her attention could be devoted to it.
“Ready the drop pods.”
---
With force that rippled through the ground even over the destructive might of war, the obsidian craft of the Tears of Dawn First company struck the city. In several seemingly random locations, the heavy ceramite craft plowed through the spires of the city, shattering residential and commercial towers with crushing force. The assault rams ploughed through and down like a knife, the ceramite unchanging beneath the force of impact and collision. Mortal humans within would have been pulverised, even power armoured astartes would suffer under such force.
When the plummeting fall of the craft finally came to a halt as their momentum was spent, their hulls still steamed with the heat of their sudden plummet. Far from the combat lines of either side, the front facing exit hatches clanged open with force. The surge of motion from within was immediate, with vicious snarls, loping figures leapt from the stricken transports. In modified power armour, powered lightning claws flickered to life in the place of gauntlets and weaponry. The armour of each bore the scars of their dramatic crash, but none seemed phased, heads snapping back and forth as they regarded the area they found themselves in, panting, bestial breaths from the voxgrill’s of their helms. Their helmets were the most remarkably different from the norm of the Tears of Dawn, their visages shaped like bestial monsters from Mithra, and most notably, with no visible sign of eye lenses.
The pack, for they seemed barely more than animals, fanned out in a protective measure of their craft, in a manner that was tactical but barely restrained, practically snapping at each other in the moment. A few seconds passed, before the heavy tread of footsteps followed them from the Assault ram, the bulky form of a First Company terminator advancing into the space cleared by these unusual marines.
“Icari” The metallic voice of the terminator drew the attention of the savage killers for a moment, “Hunt in her name” With the command, there was a collective snarl of recognition, before they swept away, no longer a pack, each a murderer assigned to their own hunt, a tide of obsidian clad destruction.
-------------
“Sire, the Icari have been deployed, landings were not ideal, but remain within acceptable proximity to their targets.” The report reached Sekh’s cortex as she raced over the streets of the city as it began to burn. Even a primarch, cut off as she was deep in the city, could be overwhelmed if she remained in place for more than a few moments. She had ‘fallen’ with one of the assault rams, it’s powerless plunging form concealing the even deadlier target of the primarch and her craft attached to its hull until the final moments. Those of her daughters affected by the overpowering blessing of her bloodline, their eyes burned out and their minds turned to madness, were little use as traditional soldiers, but she had found a way to wield them. She alone could place a psychic command within their minds, a simple one, a hunt, a kill, but they were more effective than any simple missile. Working with her infiltration teams who had infiltrated the city long prior to the siege, she had personally picked out targets for each of them. Civilian leaders, monuments of unity, anything the people could hold to in their time of defiance. She would see them slaughtered and brought low. Of course, her sister’s legions could not fight alongside them, but that was where her legion’s history as saboteurs came in handy. They had long fought entirely beneath the notice of the others; now they even had the distraction of the rest of the legion to aid them.
That was not her target, though, while her chosen daughters vented her fury in darkness, her place was always the light.
With a scream of jets, she banked around another street, a surging motion approaching the churning form of the Pact’s Gorgon. With an artistry which belied the scope of her form, Sekhmetara leapt, the datalinks between her and her steed retreating from her in a fast enough separation that it registered as pain even across her enhanced form. Apaosha banked around, the jetbike still hovering in the air around its Mistress as she now stood atop the Pact’s vehicle, her vox link to those within opening up.
“Having fun are we?” She spoke with an amused tone, despite the ever present fury of her wrath burning with her chest, honing that emotion into a fine blade so that she might retain the aura of her diplomatic self. “My Daughters have made contact with the largest remaining loyalist holdout on the ground,” As Sekhmetara spoke, Apaosha provided the information to the Pact, the machine spirit of the ancient vehicle streaming the information faster than most of the Imperium’s current technology. The location in question was a large complex previously occupied by one of the many great noble houses that had remained loyal to the Imperium, now converted into a militarised holdout that seemed to have kept the rebels at bay. “I hope that isn’t too much of a detour?” There was mischief to her tone, a grim humour which might even seem strange coming from a primarch to simply an astartes, but her blood was up, and Sekhmetara could resist no joys, be they in blood or speech.
Forty one guns were pointed at the Primarch of the Tears when she landed aboard Inevitability, all except Praetor Kohl’s.
“Stand down.” He said to his men, looking at them with a disdain that was civilized for his breed of Astartes. He looked back up to Sekhmetara, and grinned, the smile as sharp as a knife’s monomolecular edge. “Fun enough. Mortals only give so much amusement, but… we make do. Don’t we, Vulf?”
“Aye.” Vulf said, through his mangled face.
Kohl watched the data flood the Gorgon’s simple cogitators, marveling at how the jetbike seemed to effortlessly overpower the troop carrier’s datafeeds. He’d have to speak to a priest about updating Inevitability’s cogitation suite; it was clearly not up to task for his personal vehicle.
“Dearest aunt, I think we could make an exception, just for you of course.” Kohl purred, flexing his fingers. “Vulf, if you’d be so kind? Redirect Inevitability to these new coordinates. And… vox anything escorting us to do the same. Keep whoever’s hunting out there hunting though.”
The Gorgon swayed, turning to the new heading Sekhmetara had provided it. Everyone except Kohl, Vulf, and presumably the Tears of Dawn’s Primarch had to brace as the boat-like vehicle went hard to starboard. The smaller vehicles, a platoon of Predators and a company of Rhinos, carrying Auxilia and Pact alike, swerved to follow.
“We’ll be there in minutes, dearest Aunt.” Kohl said, looking up at the radiant, golden brilliance of Sekhmetara. “You’re welcome to ride with us, though, you may wish to move inside the command tower instead of… standing atop. It is more comfortable.”
Sekhmetara let out a short laugh at the suggestion, detaching her helm from its maglocked place upon her waist and setting it over her features. Designed in the style of the Mark IV Maximus helms her legion favoured, it differed only in the gilded laurels, shining gold, which cross the top of it.
“I will be comfortable enough where I am, they can try to strike me down if they dare.”
With the intercession of the Doomsayers, the situation on the citadel evolved rapidly. Solar Auxilia joined their forces where they could, pressing further through the innards of the citadel as the carrion call of securing their victory beckoned them ever onwards. Serpent squads, hard pressed to make movements just minutes before, moved through the miasma of the Revenants destruction as they cleared entire subsections of the citadel with rad missiles and other weapons of humanity's darkest ages. The steadfast warriors of the Emperor pressed further past the smoke of still burning phosphex at crackling barricades and through the haze of deadly radclouds that filled silent and unmoving strongpoints, all but sentry guns standing in the way of the Serpents’ relentless push toward the command center as they used the sacrifices of their cousins to the fullest.
The armored form of a Third Company Serpent stalked through the aftermath of a phosphex strike with cold silence, stopping only to regard the black armor of a Doomsayer slumped against a bulkhead. The daughter of the Emperor’s Angel lay unmoving, the black paint of her armor burnt away in several places where their own strikes must have come back to bite them. She turned her gaze in disgust at the use of such terrible weapons and keyed her vox, the line crackling with distortion and ghost signals as she silenced yet another rad alarm from her suit's sensors.
“The Doomsayers have ensured our victory, Mayalen, and they pay a high price,” she paused as she took in the sight of her own injured Serpents stood around her, “Though I am unsure as yet for which of us the butcher’s bill is highest.” she let loose the mic and waited, the strange noises of the interference scratching at her mind as she attempted to filter out the aftereffects of the weapons at use in the citadel. The line crackled to life and a far clearer response rang through her ears than she had expected from the Solstice’s End.
“The traitors make for their final stand in central control, mass withdrawals across the citadel. Advance at once and link with the Fifth, they remain mostly intact. Yaotl, your forces will combine for the final assault, the citadel will rest in the hands of the Serpent’s within the hour.”
The Captain of the Third Company turned to regard the form of the Doomsayer once more, noticing the forms of several more still Revenant’s littered amongst the room behind her before turning to the Serpent’s gathered around her, “We take central control, now for the Serpent, forever for the Fifth Sun.” she stated, the ever present animation of the Serpent’s absent as they fell in solemnly behind their Captain.
As soon as the chrono on the bridge hololith passed a certain mark, the Emperor’s Angel stood from her throne, pounding her spear upon the deck. “They will succeed. We make our move as planned,” she announces, passing her weapon to a small robed creature to place her helmet upon her head. Her daughters follow suit, the Doomsayers’ faces obscured by ceramite battleplate as the hisses of atmospheric seals engaged. The armored forms take their leave of the bridge, the same images on the bridge’s hololithic screens now overlaid inside of Daena’s helm. With a blink click as she made her way through her vessel’s corridors, the orbital citadel was focused in her field of view.
The momentum of the Revenants had been exhausted in their charges, the majority of those who had breached the fortress now dead, dying, or attempting to save themselves from joining the former two categories. Those still in fighting condition were forced to slow their onslaught and put away their most noxious weaponry, now charged with ensuring that the mortal auxilia completed their own goals in time.
But time was slipping away. Daena and her closest oracles had spent the hours before battle parsing the strands of life and death to divine their course of action, and they had decided upon a bold plan. Too bold, perhaps, but the surviving Doomsayers aboard the station knew what their mistress required of them. With a grim determination, they brought themselves forward to form a battle line with the Serpents to strike at the heart of the citadel.
All of this was nothing more than blueprints and blinking runes to their Primarch, Daena forcing herself to think of them as nothing more. The time for grief was later. Another blink click and the citadel was banished from her overlay, the woman having walked more or less on autopilot from the bridge to the great hangar bay. Yet another blink click brought the overlay back, this time of the massed ground forces assaulting the hive’s base.
There was precious little the rebels could do to harm her daughters there - mostly because the Pact had slaughtered them before the Doomsayers even came into range of their guns. What advantages their strange weaponry gave them, it was of precious little utility when the fighting was up close and personal. Pact armor shot gaping holes in fortified rebel positions, Doomsayer infantry dismounting to purge those who were lucky enough to survive but foolish enough to remain. Volkite barrels glowed and chainswords roared within the depths of the hive, the terror of the Imperium at war brought in full to Praxia.
It was a way of war that the Pact and the Doomsayers were well practiced in, a return to the subjugations of centuries past, before their Primarchs were discovered. Brothers and sisters in arms, and just as frequently siblings in truth, the two Legions had perfected the art of doing far more than breaking the enemy’s might. They were here to break the rebel’s soul, to put the fear of the day’s carnage into their very bones and ensure that they would never rise again. Such was distasteful to Daena, but she was never the sort to permit distaste to override more practical considerations. Praxia had rebelled once. It would not be permitted to do so again.
Massacre and slaughter followed in the wake of the blinking runes of the Doomsayers, the massed forces of the Imperial Army crashing down to flush out those who had survived the first two crashing waves of Astartes. Hidden among them, sheltered within the charging steeds of the Tupelov Lancers, her own scientists and engineers - free of the dogma and superstitions of Mars - busied themselves looting the field, claiming the most intact examples of the strange weapons the rebels had used during the short conflict. This was the true victory as far as the Angel was concerned, for the war against Praxia was sure to end this day. It was the war against their benefactors that concerned her far, far more.
She was about to blink click the overlay away and see to her own contribution to the day, until she noticed her Legion Mistress’s Mastodon peel away from its assigned assault lane and turn to follow Kohl’s Gorgon. The gleaming rune of Sekhmetara herself atop the vehicle was explanation enough for Daena, the Primarch deciding to let Vairya follow her own judgement. If her gene-sister was there, it may prove to be the thickest of the fighting.
But such concerns were not on her mind as the chrono at the corner of her vision turned red as it neared zero. Blinking the overlays away for good at last, Daena found her standing face to face with the open hold of a drop pod, her personal guard arrayed around their own. The next three words would seal their fates - glorious victory, or ignominious death. Scanning the souls of her daughters, the fates swirling about them all read the same - an explosive end, trapped within the confines of their drop pods. There was still time to abort, to redefine the battle plan and increase their odds of survival.
One conviction drove her decision, a belief she refused to give up on. The Serpents would succeed. Nelchitl would succeed. She gave the order.
“Board.” One hundred armored forms ducked into their drop pods, settling themselves into the crash couches and securing their arms inside of impact gel reservoirs.
“Secure.” Legion serfs and mechanics swarmed over the pods, the final checks and seals performed. Armored doors slammed shut, sinking the Astartes into darkness as their harnesses were triple checked.
The chrono continued racing down, the angry red runes finally approaching 0:00:00.
“Launch.”
Hard rounds and exotic energy beams laced the air of an intersection ahead of the advancing Serpents, a group of battered Solar Auxilia holding the corner that led toward the source of the onslaught and exchanging fire with little result as the Serpents approached.
“Lieutenant,” came the harsh voice of Captain Yaotl through her voxgrill as she came to a halt just a few meters from the wall of fire streaming past the corner of the hallway, “report yourself.”
A Solar Auxilia pulled himself from an auspex device and turned to regard the voice stiffening as he registered the hulking form of the Captain of the Third stopped just a few steps before him. He keyed something internally and his own vox grill came to life, “Sub-Lieutenant Kaczmarek, 3rd Saturnyne Rams, Lord.” he motioned back at the hall just behind him with a wave of his hand as he spoke, “I’ve sent two squads to search out a path of less resistance, but have lost contact with both Lord. I fear the only way to our prize is straight up the throat of that fire.”
Yaotl scrutinized the Sub-Lieutenant as he spoke while at the same time shifting through internal layouts of the citadel, the many ongoing engagements highlighted in angrily blinking runes and data readouts. She nodded once to Kaczmarek and placed a gauntleted hand on his shoulder, “My Sisters will take the worst of this, though I expect you and yours close on our heels.” she smiled, the action lost behind her helmet as she noticed that Kaczmarek had not cowed away at her gesture, instead straightening considerably as she spoke.
With a shake of his head that was almost lost under the humans void helm he responded with an assured certainty that carried through his vox grill, “These Rams are yours to command Lord, anywhere and anytime.”
“Very good. We’ve a citadel to claim then.” the Serpent responded as she took her hand from the mortals shoulder and stepped out into the passageway. Instantly her armored form was awash with weapons fire, hard rounds sparking as they broke upon her ceramite form and energy weapons scouring shallow marks into the turquoise outer layer of her power armor.
Without missing a beat the rest of Yaotl’s Serpents stepped into the hall with her, bolters and volkite responding to the fire from the traitors as the armored Astartes advanced down the hall. At first there was little reprieve from the intensity of the fire, and several of Yaotl’s group fell as lucky shots found weakened armor or the heavier xenos weapons simply passed through them. But soon the incoming fire began to lessen as the Serpent’s own weapons began to find home among the reinforced bunkers at the end of the hall.
She watched with satisfaction as mass reactive rounds turned the silhouettes of the traitors in the bunkers to clouds of meat as the Serpent's advanced and volkite beams setting figures alight from within as they disappeared in bright flashes of ashe and flame. In moments they were on the bunkers and the ranged combat quickly shifted from barking bolters to revving chainswords, the brutality of war at such close quarters coming to the front as the Astartes fanned out through the small bunker complex leaving eviscerated corpses and limbs haphazardly in their wake.
“The entry is ours.” Yaotl voxed back to the Solstice’s End and waited as her Serpent’s took neat positions along the massive blast door that led to the citadel's central control.
There was a hiss of static and the strange whispers from the earlier interference returned before the voice of Mayalen once more overpowered them, “The Fifth have taken their entry points as well Yaotl, they send squads to reinforce you as we speak, hold until they reach you.” the line dropped for a moment and the ghostly interference returned stronger than before for a few moments until once again Mayalen’s voice rang in her helmet, “The citadel must be taken as quickly as you can,” there was the sound of commotion and frantic yelled messages in the background of the vox as something changed on the bridge of the Solstice’s End, “Belay that Yaotl, the Doomsayer’s launch for Praxia, you must silence those guns.” the nuance of her fellow Company Commanders voice was lost in the vox but Yaotl heard the urgency in the words of her sister as if she had been standing right next to her.
“Understood.” she replied as she turned to her Astartes, a pallid bunch of survivors and walking wounded arrayed before the blast doors. From behind her the unit of Saturnyne Rams leapt over the barricades and began to take positions at either side of the door, Sub-Lieutenant Kaczmarek stopping beside her as his unit prepared to make entry, “Thought we’d missed the end there Lord.”
“Quite the contrary Lieutenant, you’re just on time.”
As if to punctuate her words the massive blast doors began to yawn open, their ancient mechanisms creaking ponderously as the ceramite doors were pulled apart. Not waiting for the doors to open completely, the Serpents were already flowing into the control center, bolters barking as the Astartes picked their targets and began to seize the room.
Yaotl followed in behind her company, the Rams close at her heels as lasrifle’s began to spit across the control center and up towards it’s many tiered terraces above them.
“Lieutenant, clear the ground floor, my Serpent’s will take the terraces.” she called over an open vox as she moved to a large stairwell leading to the next level.
The fighting was quick and surprisingly easy. What little resistance was within the control center was made up of nothing more than tech adepts and traitor leaders too cowardly to die with their men at the outer defenses; she abhorred the sight of them as they had attempted to surrender or offered shaky and broken resistance before her Serpent’s and had directed their culling to the last.
Now, stood before a console at the highest terrace of the control room Yaotl regarded the blinking runes before her as she keyed in a number of controls. As she finished one of the runes blinked out, replaced by a scrolling diagnostic text that ended in a single pulsing word, ++Offline++.
Across the increasingly disparate fronts of the fighting the conflict only grew in intensity. The rebels may have lacked the superhuman capacity for war-making that the Legions and their primarchs possessed, but they had become more than a rabble of discontents. The city did not offer the easy sweeping victories of the earlier War for Second Compliance, they had grown hardened by the months of campaign and weeks of siege. Carefully managed withdrawals from the crushing blow of the Astartes assault were laiden with traps, or supported by overlapping fire. While the initial surge of assault had swept through the beleaguered defences on the ground, the longer the fighting lasted, the more the enemy’s strange technology and entrenched position would tell on the Legions, and whatever was true on the ground, was true many times over within the space port.
One previously minor factor began to play its role, however, in the favour of the invaders. As the eyes of the rebels turned outwards to face the oncoming storm of the Imperium’s wrath, the blade at their back began to bite. Those who had waited under the yoke of the turncoats, listening to encrypted orders passed subtly through the avenues opened by both the Tears’ hidden operatives and the civilian network of Isabis’ agents for their moment to strike. Some surged into action with the efficiency and good sense of any organised guerilla militia, but with some notable exceptions. The Serpents and Doomsayers in particular, in the closed confines of the space port, played witness to actions which seemed to make little sense. Manic crowds of loyalists, wearing a kaleidoscope of colour, crashed into fortified rebel positions, favouring the cut and thrust of melee combat when use of ranged weapons would have been far more likely to preserve their weaker mortal forms. They died in great numbers, only successful in their attacks through audacity and the press of the Astartes assault from the other direction. Strangest of all,those who were lamed and crippled, crashing down to the metallic deck of their atriums and hallways seemed to laugh in ecstasy in their few short moments of life, a cackle of delight as their life force sputtered away.
None of this was witnessed by the grinding motion of the Gorgon and her escorts, to the Pact and Sekhmetara the fighting was fierce but within expected parameters. The loyalists they encountered fought as would be expected of those seeking to earn redemption for their people in the eyes of the Primarch, bold and with fierce determination, but no suicidal love of pain and death. They contributed little to the success of the spearhead assault; in truth, the rebel forces within the Hive had the benefit of esoteric technology and entrenched positions. Down on the ground, the battle would be won beneath the grinding tread of the Gorgon and the elegant rage of Sekhmetara.
Some of her siblings had a dedicated preference towards killing up close or from range, she simply valued the hunt. Sekhmetara weaved across the top of the Gorgon, perfectly accounting for the motion of the vast vehicle even as she avoided fire atop it. Even the advanced weapons of the enemy would struggle to pierce her artificer plate, or the shimmering skein of her halofield, but that did not mean she would allow them to touch her. As she moved, the gauntlet of her left arm spat death back at the foe, the twin volkite weapon within turning the foe to superheated corpses with each flick of her digits. While she was a huntress at heart, she did not allow it to consume her, still retaining contact and command with those about her.
“My Daughters’ agents have organised a time for our arrival at the loyalist holdout, let us try to be on time, I do not think they will appreciate holding the door open for us.” Her voice crackled, sonorous even with the metallic tang of Imperial vox traffic. “Do not slow her tread on my behalf.”
“Loyalist holdout…” Kohl purred to himself, as much a predatory cat as his aunt riding atop his war machine. He eyed his auspex, and turned the vehicle to the new bearing. He grasped the lever dictating engine power on the Gorgon’s command console, and cranked it to maximum. The vehicle kicked to life, it’s original stately pace redoubled by mechanical effort. “How loyalist can they be, surrounded by traitorous filth, I wonder?”
Vulf, to his right, smiled his ghoul’s grimace. “I haven’t much trust for any crunchie, let alone the ones on this rock.”
“Well, best hope these… loyalists, stay on their best behavior.” Kohl said, pausing his speech to let the Gorgon smash aside a tanker truck, “It would not be the first time we’ve sanctioned Imperial assets.”
The predator squadron, the three of them left to the ad-hoc formation, spread out in front of the Gorgon, lashing heavy bolter and stubber fire into any pockets of resistance that came into view as the task force made their mad dash to the position Sekhmetara had provided. The lead predator was not familiar to the veteran Lancers, a newbie ride commanded by recent influx, a dour, humorless sergeant named Skole. Dour as he was, he clearly valued his machine, replacing the standard, single barrel heavy bolters with rotary-barrel designs allegedly sourced from their sister legion, the Daughters of Iron.
His predator cut a swathe through mortal resistance, burping long streams of tracer fire into rubble and flesh, turning it all into reddish-grey paste. Kohl was impressed by the display, and made a mental note to see if his gene-sisters could provide more of their technological gifts to his own machine.
Kohl voxed to Sekhmetara, atop the Gorgon, knowing full well the question he asked would seal the fate of whoever resided in the position they were to arrive at.
“Dearest aunt, answer me this.” Kohl said, “My Optio and I are curious. This… ‘Loyalist’ position. What will be the rules of engagement when we arrive?”
“Do as I do, nephews. Wear a pretty smile, but never drop your spear.” The grin the primach wore as she spoke could be heard in her tone over the vox as the tank company moved into position, the gleaming golden figure of the Mithran Primach riding the motion of her grandborne steed with as much ease as she did her own jetbike, the ancient device hovering close, spitting death with its cycling hurricane bolter even as its Mistress watched the approaching holdout with anticipation.
Daena loathed war. She understood this made her an oddity among her siblings, and her reaction to this simple feeling made her odder still. When battle became truly inevitable, lives were her measure of success and currency both. Her goal was always to reduce the bloody cost of the butcher’s bill for all swept up into the maelstrom of conflict, not merely those under her command. Privately, she knew this was a hindrance for her Legion, her daughters prevented from ever truly specializing for a given situation. Yet at the same time, when she put forth her call for one hundred volunteers for her most recent gambit, she had been flooded with responses.
The Angel busied herself with these thoughts as she and her flight of drop pods flew towards Praxia below, a pleasant distraction from the possibility of annihilation. Despite this, her breathing stopped as soon as they entered within range of the station’s main battery, time slowing to a crawl as she examined the runes of each craft she had dragged with her on this suicidal quest. If the Serpents had succeeded, they would be in no danger, her and her companions effortlessly entering the world’s atmosphere. If.
It was only after the buffeting began, the first jealous caress of the place she aimed to conquer, that her breathing resumed. Daena trusted her sister’s Legion, but even a delay in the plan would have led to disaster up to the death of her entire strike force. But such a fate had been defied, and now the next danger neared.
Far beneath them, but rapidly approaching, the void shields of Praxia’s last rebel hive perpetually flickered under orbital and ground bombardment. Drop pods under the strain of reentry traveled far too fast to pass through them under any degree of safety, but that was never the plan. Her engineers had called her insane when she had explained, and then spent days without sleep to modify the drop pods in ways pious technicians may have found blasphemous. Engines were overtuned near to burn out, the blasting caps on the doors enhanced, and the cogitators governing the internal gyroscopes enhanced.
Even so, it was unclear if it would be enough. Each of Daena’s volunteers knew where this ride may end and agreed to follow her regardless. And as the war torn spires of the hive neared, the time to put that trust to the test had finally arrived. The vox crackled to life, and the Primarch gave her orders.
“Burn.” Crash couches and harnesses activated at the sudden shift in acceleration as the engines of the drop pods activated, slowing their calamitous descent enough to render the platforms stable.
“Breach.” Explosive bolts blew doors off of their hinges, the blown free debris swiftly falling to detonate against the iridescent energies of the shield below.
“Jump.” One hundred jump packs activated in unison as the Doomsayers fell from their mounts, swiftly departing the metal shells that they had traveled in. Accompanying them was a single pair of wings buffeting the ozone-tinged air, Daena looking in approval. Their overtaxed engines having performed their duty, the drop pods followed after their doors, crashing against the void shield with another acrid tang of energy.
“To the spire,” was all the Primarch had to order as she and her daughters slowly finished their descent, passing through the field like a knife through butter.
The Angels of Death had arrived.
Sekhmetara watched the corona of fire that heralded the Doomsayers choice of entry with what could only be described as a primal joy. Here was the glory of war, and it shone brightly with her sister’s addition to it.
She had but a moment to appreciate the daring of the Doomsayers before turning back to her own matters. Despite the forces of the Imperium pressing in across the Hive, rebel elements were continuing to focus considerable effort against the loyalist holdout in their midst. She could understand wishing to punish dissidence in a time of crisis, but this seemed beyond the otherwise logical process of the rebel strategy. Logical in all but their decision to deny her.
The armoured spearpoint that was the Pact’s advanced was too much for rebels to hold against at the best of times, with their attention focused inward the astartes armour rolled over them like the tide, fortified positions and infantry both ground to nothing beneath armoured tracks even autocannon and bolter fire pulped them from afar. The loyalist holdout, an estate of some grandeur indeed, was shrouded by a smaller version of the void shield which protected the Hive itself. Writ small, it was far hardier in its concentration, keeping forces from being able to cross the barrier so long as it held under the force of attack. Seemingly it had held over the previous months. As Sekhmetara’s impromptu command vehicle pulled close to the complex’s gate, she paused to speak briefly into her personal vox.
“Sister, ring the bell.”
“You make months of clandestine work sound so simple, most-beloved.” The soft tones of Isabis answered, but no matter her teasing, she complied, whatever contact she had within the sub-dome proved true, and a portion of the void shield began to slide upwards. As it did so, the grand gate to the complex began to open, wide enough for even the vast astartes armour to plough through. The space beyond had no doubt been an aristocratic estate of great scope, such wide-spanning gardens the height of luxury in the urban sprawl. While the shield held out the outside world, the interior had not entirely survived the transition into siege. Footmen in gold-marked armour arrayed in preparation for battle, and many plinths that had once no doubt held sculpture now bore gun emplacements, ready to repel invaders when the shield would eventually fall.
Sekhmetara watched all around her as the tanks ground on, the Pact no doubt paying even less heed for preserving the beauty of the gardens than the current occupants. Even through her helm, she could smell something overly sweet wafting in the air, and the gleaming gold of the militia’s armour brought her back to a time before she knew she was a chosen scion of the Master of Mankind. All the same, the shield closed behind them, sealing them in with their apparent allies. As her personal ride drove close to the central building of the estate itself, Sekhmetara leapt from the roof of the vehicle, landing with an impossible softness before the stone steps which stretched upwards, the entrance flanked by two more golden guardians. They could have been astartes, these two were large enough, and could not be natural humans, their features hidden behind leonine masks. As she climbed the steps, the pair fell to kneel before her, the door swinging open before she had even drawn close. As Sekhmetara drew close, their voices carried softly towards her.
Prayer
It was not the first, nor would it be the last, mortals would respond to the presence of a primarch in such a way, and she swept past them without comment or reference. She checked her speed only slightly, and barely visibly from a mortal perspective, just enough to give her entourage of Pact Astartes enough time to disembark and catch up with her before she process too far from them, the increasingly cloying sweetness of the air putting the Primarch on edge in an all too familiar manner.
Daena flew and her spear sang, swift death following behind her. It was for this that she was born and bred, and it was this that she now exulted in, free of the lies and trappings of the studious bureaucrat she so dearly wished she were.
The defenders of the spire were wholly unprepared from an assault so far uphive, having planned and fortified against a grinding siege that would have slowly made its way from the lower levels. Such wasteful bloodletting was distasteful to the Angel, and so she refused to accept it, her and her chosen daughters cutting a swathe through what paltry forces opposed them.
Mansions and gardens were filled with the roar of jumppack engines as the Doomsayers went about their business, any who dared oppose them cut down where they stood for their temerity. Still, these were not the brutal killers of the Pact or the ecstatic hunters of the Tears, nor even the pitiless scourges of Terra among her own daughters. Their art was death, but they were instruments of Daena’s will, and brooked no distraction from. As such, those among the rebel elite wise enough to remain inside of their mansions were left unharmed, the Angel and her daughters soaring onward to enact their judgment.
Resistance finally grew stiffer as they approached their goal, the council chambers where the leaders of the rebellion had planned their last stand. The swift advance of the Doomsayers finally slowed as they came upon the first of the gun placements provided to defend them, tall figures in baroque power armor manning the makeshift battlements. Daena reflexively whispered the name of one of her daughters as she fell, the woman simply gone from the waist up.
“It will cost us what it will. On my order,” she announced to her remaining force, blink clicked runes showing their acknowledgement.