Chapter 2 - An Eagle's Rising (1)

Second Line of Defenses, Headquarters

Isaiah woke up from his short nap on his desk. Sitting himself up, he looked around to find that he is alone in his tent, and that the pile of papers on his left had grown slight significantly. Sighing, he got up from his desk and made his way to the entrance of his tent. He moved aside the door flaps and was outside of his tent. He could see Federation Riflemen; Standard backbone of the Federation Military moving up and down in formation to their stationed defensive positions, followed by Shock Troopers; the elites, and Veterans; The more hardened soldiers following suit. He stopped walking to allow a MBT - 25 Marauder Tank; The Federation's main battle tank to pass. He spotted some Arbalest FAV Artillery units, locking their stabilisers in place as they begin firing their artillery cannons. Isaiah hypothesized that the enemy is attacking their defensive lines already. He'll have to go to the command center and find out himself.

"Isaiah!" a voice called out to him.

Isaiah turned around to see Stheno Pythagoras, slithering towards him. She is an Echidna, a serpentine humanoid species hailing from Nagendra Prime, were her Species were discovered by the Federation's predecessor, the Stellar Republic before its reformation into the United Stellar Federation.

The United Stellar Federation had existed in this galaxy for over 16,000 years, their existence, dating back before the Age of Strife, well to be more specific, right before the Men of Iron rebellion began. They were once colonists, settling on worlds beyond the borders of Humanity's growing stellar empire. When the Age of Strife began, they became Isolated from the rest of Humanity. It was during this that these simple Colonists began to change, they began to adapt to their isolation. In the Imperium's Age of Strife, they saw it as the Discovery Age, where they discovered and united with other lost and cut-off worlds to form the Stellar Republic. Years past, and a great event changed the Stellar Republic forever. In this moment, the Humans of the Stellar Republic, along with their humanoid allies, and their machine ally, brought the birth of the United Stellar Federation. Born from the ideal of a unified and a peaceful harmonic society between Humans and aliens, they advanced from the Discovery age to the Exploration Age, where the newly born Federation expanded into the Veiled Region, and from there, into the Asterion and the Perseus Arm Regions, discovering new worlds, bringing other alien species to their cause and reacquiring lost STCs. Also during this time, the Science Age also occurred in this time, as there was a boom in Scientific discovery and development. These ages lasted for Millennia, until a few events stopped them, but it did not the scientific advancements of the Federation.

The Echidna, are one of the third races to be found by the Stellar Republic, and one of the founders of the Federation. A serpentine race, they posses human upper body, but their legs are like that of a snake. are a serpentine species, well think of them as Lamias, who stood at an average height of 6'2, making them more taller than a regular human. The population of the Echidna, is mainly female, as 70% of the population is female, thus making most of the governing officials and important people female

Sthenos fairly tall, standing a few inches over Isaiah, has red hair flowing down behind her back and yellow slit eyes. She wore a standard flak jacket, specially made for her race, which covered her upper body. She is also a Psion, a Psionic User; who draws power from their minds, instead of utilizing the power of the warp. Psionic users, or Psions are impossible to be corrupted by Chaos, temp or possess, and are immune to direct Psyker attacks, but they cause unease feelings, sometimes hostile feelings, in normal people since they give a presence they should not suppose to exist while in Psykers these feelings are double and can cause great pain, lethal in some cases. Eldar consider them as a severe threat and thus Psions are considered a threat to them and must be killed given the first opportunity.

"Stheno" Isaiah smiled "nice to see you"

"As to you too" Stheno responded with a smile "How's your sleep?" She asked him

"It's alright" He shrugged "So what's the situation?"

"The Tyranids attacked our lines once again. Basic swarm of Tyranid Warriors supported by some Raveners and Biovores. We managed to repel them, but that isn't the only problem"

"What happened?"

Stheno clicked her tongue "It was confirmed to be members of the Genestealer Cult, which had managed to infiltrate our lines and sabotage our Guardian and Spectrum turrets"

Isaiah sighed in annoyance. It was the same Genestealer cult that had infiltrated Acarnania before Thanatos arrived to the planet.

"I thought they were destroyed?" Isaiah raised an eyebrow. Stheno shook her head no

"It seemed that some members survived after all" Stheno concluded "Now without the tower supports, we won't be able to repel the next wave of attacks, it was a miracle that we managed to repel this one"

"Unless it was a mere distraction for the Genestealers to operate, under the cover of an attack. Tell me Stheno, how did they managed to get in?"

"They managed to get in through our Chrono-Teleporters" She told him "But what was bad that they passed as human, even though Gene-Scanners should have detected the Genestealer hybrids under their disguise"

"It seems that we have a mole amongst our ranks" Isaiah hypothesized "It could be the only explanation. Thwy would have shut the scanners off when they arrived from the teleportor"

"But who would betray us to them monsters" Stheno gritted her teeth in anger. It was then that Isaiah's mind drifted to what Harold told him two days earlier

Do not *cough* trust him *Cough* *Cough* at all

"I believe Com. Harold had every right to be suspicious about Gen. Bartley" Isaiah said

"The Commander's second in command?" Stheno questioned, raising an eyebrow

"When I got the rank, he told me not to trust the general, and ever since I got back, he had been acting strangely, even I would question him harshly of his actions. Plus he wasn't even there in his own post during the initial assault on the first defence. The clues all point to him"

"If he is co-ordinating sabotages on our own lines, then how do we expose him?" Stheno asked him

"I'll have Percival take care of that" Isaiah responded "He's a better guy at this stuff than I am. I am only best for my tactical plans and stuff"

It was true. The reason why he climbed the ranks so high, and was viewed as a growing and potential prodigy, was due to his tactical genius and intellect, one that hasn't been encountered since the time of Achilles O'Neill.

"Yeah, Percival can have a look at that" Stheno shrugged her shoulders "So what are your orders?"

"We need to stop the Genestealers from doing anymore damage to us. Who were the hybrids?"

Stheno took a piece of paper from her pocket and gave it to him. "Inferno Squad, and Easy Company. It seems that many of the members are Neophytes"

"We need stop this, now" Isaiah said "Stheno, you're coming with me"

"Where are we headed?" She asked him

"They went through a Chrono-Teleporter yeah?" Stheno nodded "It's obvious that they are using them to deploy their infiltrators here, not to mention to move supplies and equipment through and fro, we need to find where they are operating from and destroy them"

"Right then" Stheno grinned "Where do we begin?"

A Room somewhere inside the Mobile Construction Headquarters (MCV)

"Percival, do you copy?"

Percival O'Connor, a Federation Knight of House O'Connor woke up from his small nap. Taking his communicator, he answered the voice on the other side. Percival is a young knight, with blonde hair and green eyes. He wore black and green Knight armour, that had seen through many fights and battles. He operates an MK. V Avatar, a towering mech, the same size as an Imperial Knight that can rival it with its aasortment of weaponry. The Mech can be both operated by AI and manually, but Percival perfer manually and is one of the few manual controllers in the Avatar Corps.

"Yeah? Isaiah? What is it?"

"We have a genestealer infiltrator amongst us, someone who passes as human"

"Bollocks, we have Gene-scanners"

"Yes, but whatever is the source of the problem, they can pass as human. The malfunction of the towers were no engineer accident"

"So what do I do?"

"Find them obviously, I trust you with this, and this mission only Percival. Get it done"

"Roger, I'll find whoever as soon as possible"

"Com. Harold suspected Gen. Bartley to be an enemy. Start from there"

END

Riflemen - Main backbone of Federation Military

Shock troopers - Equivalent to Stormtroopers

Veterans - Equivalent to Hardened Veterans

MBT - 25 Marauder Tank - Main battle tank of Federation. Very reliable and versatile in terms of stats. Armed with a special laser that can weaken enemy armour.

I have started working on a much bigger Codex, containing in-depth features and information of the United Stellar Federation. It will take awhile for it to be complete as it is lengthy. If you have any questions, I highly recommend that you PM me about it.