Chapter 1: Refugees
The void was dark and infinite, broken only by the pinprick of dim yellow light that was the forgeword of Belis Corona. Far from the orbital shipyards, reality fractured and ripped asunder, spewing out a mass of burning wreckage, barely distinguishable as the rogue trader Cadian Star.
Whiteshield Rogen Moor sat exhausted in his stark bunk, staring into the abyssal darkness of the unlit hab-bay. He heard his company bustling frantically about him, cleaning weapons blindly and keeping watch by the light of jealously guarded lighters, foil wrappers from ration-bars reflecting the dim light into the black. Some slowly smoked smuggled lho sticks. Clinging to his lasrifle, the winged skull emblazoned on it the symbol of imperial dominance, Rogen anchored himself to his fragile old reality. Cadia could not have fallen. The orbital fleet was too strong, the fortresses that had crowned it's towering kasrs too impenetrable. There had been no breach of protocol. Cadian discipline was unquestionable and absolute. The invincible Astartes had been on the planet for the Emperor's sake. His mind continued to rebel against truth that he had been indoctrinated against all his life. The Imperium had failed. The archenemy had broken the Cadian Gate. The Emperor had abandoned them. Seeds of doubt were planted unbidden in his mind.
He turned to the memory of their last stand on Cadia. The hell-march to a mountain fortress, and the incessant rear-guard action that had consumed half of the 500,000 strong Cadian Mountain Youth Army. The enemy defied imagination, horrors and abominations from the deepest pits of hell brought forth to mutilate and defile them. Traitor Astartes and their hellish consorts had slaughtered their way through the young aspiring guardsmen, once so arrogant in their shiny uniforms and hand-me-down equipment. The survivors had helped the garrison man the fortress defenses, and put up a gallant resistance, dying in droves. Someone had found the rogue trader cowering in the bowels of the fortress, his ship at anchor. Some Colonel had immediately commandeered it, and a commissar had shot the merchant as a coward. The commissar had shot many cowards that day, mostly whiteshields half, and some fully, out of their minds with terror.
The fighting retreat to the relative safety of the ship had claimed a hundred thousand more lives, painting the winding halls of the fort with gore. The emergency warp-jump had driven a full quarter of the remainder insane. The last loyal guardsmen had been forced to hunt their former comrades down the dark halls of the trade ship, fighting tooth and claw for ownership of the barracks rooms that still had oxygen sealed securely. When there was finally respite, little more than three regiments remained, commanded by a single rough assortment of officers and color-sergeants.
Rogen shuddered as he remembered his comrades dragged screaming from their battle lines, being ripped to shreds, living horribly long, and even joining the very foe they were slain by. He felt sick, and consoled himself with a crumpled lho stick.
Alicerine Prior, another whiteshield in Rogen's company, murmured a prayer long memorized from mandatory ecclesiarchy services.
"In war and abandonment, be thou my shield and my guide..." She began.
"Be thou retribution, and I shall be Your hand in the darkness..." From somewhere to her right, another whiteshield was repeating the same mantra, manically rubbing his aquilla charm.
"Light from the shadows, death from the dying, vengeance from the lost..."
The sentries scanned blindly into the darkness of the cavernous room, muttering with her in a low throng.
"And from the void shall rise only the pure!"
The young, newly blooded veterans, and what was left of their youth army shook in their bunks or were thrown to the floor as the commandeered starship lurched roughly out of the warp.
The atmosphere on the command bridge was chaotic. The rogue trader's first officer, thrust suddenly into the command throne, roared frantic orders through a thousand vox links as the crew struggled to seal hull breaches that threatened to vent them into the aether. The commanders of the amalgamation of imperial troops fought over myriad plans and squabbled over command like pack predators vying for leadership. Servitors screamed redundant alarms as their overloaded circuits burned hot brands in their remaining flesh. There was one grizzled, scarred old man who was silent, his uniform bearing none of the flashy, pretentious ribbons of the junior officers. Only one medal graced his chest, and its presence made up ten-fold for the lack of parade ground chest candy. It was a medal that had been paid for by thousands of lives, one respected even by Lord Generals, Planetary Governors, and Inquisitors when they knew what it meant. It stood for the salvation of a world, the death of innocents, and the butchering of their murderers. It stood for righteous vengeance, ancient hate, and fanatical devotion.
The old man had thought he had lost everything when his sons were slaughtered on… what was that cursed world's name? His aged mind had forgotten, or purposefully cast the word into oblivion, and it didn't matter anyway. The one absolute in his life, that he loved as his home, and hated for its cruelty, was gone. Cadia had fallen.
He felt odd, like a man whose load was lightened by discarding a valuable but heavy burden. His return to Cadia had been sorrowful. His former unit, the 793rd Cadian Mechanized Army, was at last worn down, the standard returned, drowned in battle honors, a new throng of men to be drummed up around it to fuel the imperial war machine. He would have commanded them. Those plans had been interrupted by the archenemy though. The standard he carried did not make the ceremony, and now he doubted whether the cardinal who would have blessed it or the color sergeant who would have carried it were still living. His shuttle made an emergency landing in the mountain range in the northern hemisphere of Cadia, and the youth army had found him. He recalled with begrudging acknowledgment their forced march to the nearest imperial outpost and the subsequent desperate defense. He reviled at the memory of the endless tide of daemons and traitors covering the mountains and reflected on his shame, and the silent accusation in the Commissar's eyes, when he ordered the white shields onto the last evacuation ship.
He was the most ranking officer there, as Line Infantry Colonel, with battle honors. The feuding officers silenced deferentially as he stood.
"Officers of the Cadian 793rd Army" he began, silencing them. "The Emperor has blessed us. On our day of reckoning, we were, by the great courage and sacrifice of the Astartes and the Militarum, given the chance to continue to prosecute the divine will of him on Terra."
His officers stared at him glumly.
"You are no doubt disheartened by our withdrawal. I assure you, there is none of you as devastated by the loss of Cadia than I. But do not weep for that which has already been done. When you are asked by your sons what happened at the fall of Cadia, tell them that the planet broke long before the guard did."
At this, he noticed a spark of pride enter them, and their spines straightened. He continued, "You are no cowards who have fled combat. You have stood your ground like true heroes, and He on Terra shall welcome you to his side when your duty ends. But for now, we have work to do. There are cadres to form, inventories and accountabilities to take, and troops to ready. Go to your men, see that they are prepared for planetfall. Let's give the Belisians a sight of Cadian martial discipline when we dock."
Rogen received the Colonel's order via his squad's vox operator, White shield Constant. He quickly relayed the orders, the barracks becoming a frenzy of activity as White shields hurriedly changed into their cleanest dirty uniforms, packed their gear, and made sure their flak armor was perfectly aligned. They did all this by the light of only a few lux-sticks.
The Cadian Star seemed to groan with relief as she finally mated with the shipbuilding station orbiting Belis Corona. Dockworkers, firefighting robots, and servitors scurried around like insects about their various tasks, neutralizing burning promethium, and prying open imploded passageways. Rogen stood at the front of the little formation, waiting for the rescue that the echoing industrial booms promised. His squad now stood in formation to his left, waiting for the heavy plasteel door to open.
Finally, they saw the door begin to glow, as servitors with las cutters outlined a glowing rectangle in the lump of useless plasteel. When the door fell through, clanging harshly as it fell to the floor, the young Cadians held their discipline, though they squinted in the blinding light of the dockyard halogen lamps. Rogen gave the order for his squad to move out, and they began to file through the opening. They marched in perfect step, packs slung on their backs, and lasrifles at their shoulders, through precarious bridges that connected the crippled ship to the shipyard. They broke their cadence only when the confines of the passageway demanded it. A small eternity later, they emerged into the Belisian shipyard's main assembly chamber. It was a cavernous room, full of smaller craft in various stages of overhaul and the sounds of heavy machinery.
Rogen was overjoyed to see more companies, even regiments of junior guardsmen filing out from different connection bridges. He strained to see any of his old friends as he led his men to a halt at the rear of the formation. Despite his efforts, he could only see a sea of drab flak armor and khaki uniforms. Bayonets glittered in the artificial lighting of the hangar bay as the newly founded Cadian 793rd Mechanized Army slowly assembled a massive formation. Rogen saw that there were more survivors than he had initially thought, though patched together from several different units. He turned his attention to his squad. Their discipline was perfect, and he prided himself on their martial prowess.
Unseen by Rogen and the rest of the army, the Colonel was inspecting his troops from the overhead observation deck, accompanied by his command staff and the senior Arch-Magos tech-priest of the shipyards.
"They'll have to scrape those foolish white stripes off their helmets once we get planetside." He mused to his executive officer. He received a polite acknowledgment, as his second clicked away at a data slate, issuing orders in advance, securing logistics, and reviewing statistics. The Tech-priest at his side, so heavily augmented that he could pass for a red-robed satellite, commented offhandedly about the efficiency of his shipyard. The adept of mars was so concerned with his quotas and internal power struggles, that he hadn't even bothered to ask why the 793rd had fled Cadia. With the tight web of information that the Mechanicus kept up, however, the Colonel doubted that the Arch-Magos was oblivious. Transportation off the orbital ring had already been arranged, and with a promptly relayed order, the newly founded army was marching down a colossal corridor into the hull of another troop carrying vessel.
"I thank you for your hospitality Arch-Magos," the Colonel began. "My regiment will begin training immediately for the imminent invasion, and we are of course in your-"
The tech-priest cut him off with a wave and began speaking in a tinny, mechanical voice.
"Colonel, my skitarii and titan maniples are more than capable of protecting the vaunted shipyards of Belis Corona until the true storm hits. You have my pity for the death of your planet, but I must see to the construction and crewing of an entire imperial navy group. We have outfitted you with what armored vehicles and weapons you need to be fully equipped. In the meantime, my dock's tithes have gone up three hundred percent in the last few solar hours, and I have mining coalitions to threaten, machine spirits to appease, and planetary governors to bribe. I believe your departing expression in the Astra Militarum is "the Emperor protects?"
The Colonel raised his eyebrows, taken aback at the tech priest's generosity and awkward brevity. The situation must be dire indeed for the Adeptus Mechanicus to be so charitable.
"Yes Arch-Magos, we will disembark from your station shortly."
The Arch-Magos waggled a mechandrite in what may have been an attempt at a salute, already turning to leave.
"May the Omnissiah guide you and your army Colonel." He chirped, exiting the observation deck with his retinue of adepts in tow. The doors closed behind him, and the guard officers heard the ticking echoes of binary chant begin to sound.
Rogen had been uneasy getting on another starship, but this ride was much smoother than his last. There was only minor turbulence as the troop ship entered the atmosphere, and that was ignored by the now veteran guardsmen. They were far too busy admiring their new equipment. Oily lasrifles, still hot from the Belisian forges were stowed in racks along the walls. Chimera troop carriers, slick with fresh paint, lined the bays of the ship. Down the center, imposing Leman Russ battle tanks stood stern vigil, led by a colossal detachment of Macharius class heavy battle tanks.
"Holy feth!" someone exclaimed. If there was one thing that could break Cadian discipline, it was new gear. The young guardsmen let out whoops of joy, broke ranks and began inspecting every nut and bolt of their new toys. When they got to the first Macharius, the curious guardsmen met resistance, in the form of a red-robed tech-priest, who screamed in binary and snapped at them with his mechandrite arm.
"Back you barbarians!" he shrieked. "You dare defile this temple to the Omnissiah with your filthy biometric fingerprints!" It took all his efforts (and arms) to keep them from going down the hatch.
Rogen had managed to get his squad together before the officers came to restore order, and unlike some of his fellows, was not given the heavy tank shells to carry as punishment for allowing the squads to lax in discipline. In time, the inventories were received, and the officers doled out equipment receipts.
"Feth Me!" Roger exclaimed, ogling the costs totaled at the right of the sheet. The cost of the equipment was mind-boggling to him, a middle-class urchin that had grown up scrounging worn uniforms and polishing lasguns that had already been fired to near failure. The receipt detailed every part of the vehicles and weapons issued, from the smallest spanner to the largest armor plate. Rogen watched one squad leader's face go from ecstatic to crestfallen, as she received the receipt for the Macharius heavy tank, which was longer than the kasrkin field manuals he had seen in the military libraries on Cadia. As it was, his squad was issued a chimera troop carrier, flamer and carriage mounted lascannon, pict-slates with navigational spirits, lasrifle sights, and a full complement of explosives and ammunition. Used to seeing ancient equipment discarded by the Cadian shock regiments, the young guardsmen's eyes bugged at the wealth displayed before them, worth well more than any of them expected to make in their lives.
"feth me to the warp, I feel like an Astartes!" one of the less devout guardsmen exclaimed, checking the charge on a lasrifle. Alicerine gasped at the profanity and gave him a look that could kill a daemon, which he ignored.
Constant, as the most tech-savvy of the group, was issued one of the pict-slates and the vox caster to figure out. He muttered to himself, tinkering with manuals and dials. In another life, he could have been an adept of the mechanicus.
"I call the lascannon!" Cried Jericho, another squadmate, inspecting the heavy crew served weapon.
"That means you have to pull it, mutie-brain." Scoffed a short guardsman with a fresh Aquilla tattoo on his bicep.
"Oh feth...say Alicerine, I bet an Astartes would just swoon if you towed this thing." Jericho wheedled, recoiling slowly from the big gun.
"Too late warp-head, you're assigned" Constant interjected, as Alicerine began snobbishly quoting some obscure litany of duty, and typed Jericho's name into his slate.
"Feth!"
Rogen and his squad sat on the benches in the hull of the Chimera, puffing smoke from lho sticks smuggled past overworked and little caring sergeants. Rogen surveyed his slate. The hardest duty choice was the driver for the Chimera. To his knowledge, none of his squad mates had ever gotten within a meter of the expensive cars that politicians and gangsters drove around the mountainous kasr hives of Cadia, let alone been allowed near blessed armored vehicles. Those had been reserved for full guardsmen, Whiteshields were considered below even the scant Cadian wildlife.
"Craif." He said, leaning to the guardsman to his left.
"Corporal?" Craif responded with a tinge of sarcasm.
"You know Baal team well; who'd make a good driver?"
"Guardsman Marten has the coolest head you'll find here, and could be a good driver with proper training...Corporal." Came the reply. Rogen rolled his eyes at his friend's light mocking and took a minute to find Marten in the crowd. Tall, with dark hair and crooked nose, he was off by himself, cleaning his lasrifle, a nigh-religious practice for most Cadians. Marten had etched careful, intricate kill markings on the stock while on the transport ship, and was in the process of rubbing them with carefully applied boot polish to make them stand out against the cheap wood of the stock. Rogen watched as Marten went about his task, unbothered by the busy men and women around him. Rogen was impressed by the kill markings; if they were any indication of skill, Marten was quite the marksman. Loathe as he was to deprive his squad of such a marksman, he needed a driver more, and Marten would have to do. He made his decision and had Constant mark Marten for Chimera operator training from the tech priests.
The command company was searching for any kind of purpose, buzzing around, generally being unproductive. The Colonel had issued orders to locate what remained of the Cadian high command, and request orders. The problem was that there was no Cadian high command left. They had been with the orbital armada that had been scattered when the planet cracked, and were now in the warp, if they were alive at all. The Colonel sat once more surrounded by eager aides, as he had so long ago on another strategically important, uninhabitable world. He pondered his options. He could make his stand on this world. Die gallantly against the foes of mankind, and be at last inducted into the hall of heroes on terra. What he needed was information, and rest. He had no idea how far behind him the enemy were, and dreaded the answer. Damn, he was too old for death and glory. He had witnessed friends and sons die for the God Emperor, and had he fulfilled all his youthful oaths of vengeance, he would have slain every enemy of the Imperium thrice over. His repose was broken by a cry from one of the astropaths.
"Sir, I have contact with Lord General Crain!"
"Put him on my pict-slate!" the Colonel growled, receiving a swift affirmative. He whipped out his slate as the haggard face of Lord General Guerre Crain appeared.
"Colonel. The state of the empire is grim. The fleet has been decimated, and is retreating to join you at Belis Corona."
All hope that the Navy had won a miraculous victory over the enemy faded. The Colonel bowed his head and made the sign of the aquilla, followed by his officers.
"How many of high command survived?"
"The Lord Castellan is missing, the Joint Commanders either dead or scattered. I have not made contact with anyone higher ranking than myself, and have tentatively taken command of the sector's Imperial forces."
"I am aboard the inquisitorial ship Doom Herald. I have managed to contact three surviving armies, all from our reserve fleets in system, as well as yourself, and a crusading company of the Black Templar Astartes. Those are all the forces within reasonable warp-jump of your position, and the reserve components are fleeing the advance guard of the arch-heretic, unlikely to find respite soon. I have requested that the Templars join you in your defense of the strategically critical-" he emphasized critical-"Belis Coronan shipyards. Hold it with your lives. The Emperor protects." With that, he cut the psy-link and disappeared from the slate.
Silence fell over the assembled officers, as they realized that they would bear the brunt of the oncoming storm.
"Well lads," the colonel began, surveying the sea of young faces. "We will establish our defense at Odysseus Hive." He pointed to a large mass of structure on the map. "The Black Templars will join us afterward, and bolster our numbers." He knew he had to win them to his plan, and focused on making it strategically sound, to make them feel they had a chance. They were expected to hold back the unholy might of the thrice-damned Black Legion that had, despite the Imperium's best propaganda, broken through Cadia, the best-defended world in the galaxy, if not the universe. The only comfort was the company of Astartes that would, hopefully, be joining them planetside. Now they had to prepare. The Lord General had marked the positions of the units in the warzone to his pict-slate. He was reassured to see that the Templars crusade vessel was speeding towards Belis Corona. The Colonel stowed his slate in his knapsack and began giving preparation orders.
The tech-priest that had tried to defend the heavy tanks stood with his arms crossed in the front of a small room, scowling at the rowdy guardsmen who were filing into rows of chairs. Marten had been disappointed when he had been selected for Chimera duty, but he was slowly coming to terms with it. The Chimera had a multi-laser on the front turret and hard points for a whole arsenal of additional weaponry. Marten loved weapons. He loved the metallic clicks they made, the way they felt in his hand, and the precise destruction they could wreak. He stayed to himself while the other guardsmen conversed cheerfully, and the tech-priest glared disapprovingly. Finally, everyone was seated, and a grizzled sergeant roared attention.
"Ahem- I am Techpriest Humbrol. I am to give you an initiation to the rites of driving, and school you in the basic appeasement of your vehicles' machine spirits." Marten settled back in his chair and began to be bored.
"-And that is why the Belisian Forge's track suspension system is vastly superior to the short-sighted system of the Byrrus Alfan Forge. Any questions?" The sleepy guardsmen roused themselves from their stupor and dubiously began to clap.
"Ahem. Well, in that case, the left pedal is the brake, and the levers in the center control the direction and speed of the tracks." Humbrol glanced at a sheet of paper, obviously reading from a script. "You are now certified as -ahem- drivers on the Belis Coronan Chimera -ahem- Armored Assault Personnel Carrier. Failure to operate this machinery correctly is an affront to the Omnissiah, and will be reported to the -ahem- Officio Prefectus. The Emperor Protects!" The priest exclaimed, set down his notes, and left the room through the back exit, leaving a stunned and slightly dazed audience in his wake.
Marten's eyebrows raised a fraction, and he decided that he should not be in the way when the "newly certified" drivers first tested their skills.
Belis Corona was a barren planet, with no recorded vegetation or animal life. Seasons rotated from scorching sun flares, that blasted the ground into a desert wasteland, to nuclear winter that coated the continents in glaciers and snow. Each season lasted years, and winter had engulfed the planet's largest continent, the wind chill could freeze an unshielded man's blood. The gargantuan bay door eased open, guided by hydraulic pistons, slowly exposing the contents of the troop carrier ship. The wind whipped at the armored vehicles, trying to cut inside the sealed hulls to the men inside. Rogen and his squad thanked the emperor for their plasteel shelter and pitied the poor bastards in the light infantry companies, who stood shivering at attention outside, protected only by their "cold weather" fatigues and flak armor. Marten fired up the engine, and when the order came through the vox relay, the Chimera began to lurch forward.
The Cadian 793rd moved slowly, a titanic serpent of drab men and women in drab clothes. They marched down the loading ramp, into the lit maw of the strategic Odysseus Hive. Though only briefly exposed to the bitter cold of the hostile environment, it was enough to test any guardsman, even the mountain trained cadets of the 793rd.
"Oh feth this planet." Rogen bitched, the cold seeping in through the armored plates of the troop carrier.