A silence fell on the room like a brick through a window, every mans blood going cold at the mention of chaos. No man's blood was more frozen than Alaric, who had personally seen Tauron execute a dozen men for anything from praising the dark gods to losing a magazine of ammo, and would rather not have his command team executed.

"Well uh... commissar," Naveed began, "maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusion-" Naveed was, once again, cut off by a laspistol being raised at eye level. Tauron's scowl was the same as it always was, and Alaric felt his own hand falling to his hip. He felt a conflict of interest as his eyes slid between the two men, siding with Tauron might make him look good with the Imperial authorities when they came to execute the regiment for inevitably lynching Tauron, but then again, it was Tauron.

"Major, you are not above suspicion yourself. If you dare try and impede me in my hunt, and thus aid the forces of chaos, you will be the first I find under performing."

The smell of piss filled the air as Naveed began shaking in fear.

"Tauron, lower the damn pistol. Your witch hunt won't be aided by you pointing guns at my XO," Alaric told him. Despite his attempt to sound conciliatory, the spite he felt for the man leached into his tone. Tauron's eyes slid over to Alaric like a predator finding juicier prey but he said nothing and slowly lowered the weapon.

Satisfied, Alaric turned to Naveed. "Major, you have my permission to go find the bathroom of this building and clean yourself, Tauron, you have my permission to stop causing my officers to piss themselves. Now, what are you on about." Naveed made a hasty retreat, his eyes downcast in shame. If that made him piss himself, Alaric had no idea what he'd do when he saw his first chaos worshiper, covered in blood or excrement, depending on the god.

"Colonel," Tauron began, matching Alaric's spite tit for tat, "the chaos invasion of this planet is a military secret, the PDF and guard regiment's were only risen to meet it just before you left this morning, that was four hours ago. When we reached the landing site, it was already filled with refugees, reports are saying the refugees have been here almost as long as the regiment's have been summoned.

"Someone is being awfully open about military secrets, a crime punishable by death, and it was someone in the military chain of command," Tauron finished by slowly holstering his pistol, almost reluctantly.

"Now, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, some guardsmen was overheard? Or somebody told his family out of fear? You're seeing ghosts, Tauron," Alaric countered, receiving a few nods from around the room. It would have been nice to get some actual support, but the men nodding like a bunch of imbeciles would do.

"The heretic invasion was top secret, and was not to be told to the individual guardsmen. The guard has a magnificent ability to spread secrets quickly, but to cause mass hysteria in twelve cities across a planet twice the size of Terra in the span of several minutes when we locked communications down before we even told the lord general is not possible."

This gave Alaric pause. For once in his life, Tauron was bringing up a good point, and he took a second look at Anya as if to ask for forgiveness when he asked,

"This means PDF command is also under suspicion..." Alaric ventured. Anya's eyes narrowed but before she could give a reply, the vox operator, who Alaric was quickly beginning to think was too clever for his own good, cut in,

"Sir and sir and ma'am, if the PDF spread the leak it might not have been intentional, and only their general would have been briefed on the information. The PDF does however report to Governor Valden. I'm not saying he's responsible, but the leak may have occurred in his staff." Tauron looked ready to burst,

"Guardsmen, if you speak out of line again-" Alaric, continuing a nice series of interruptions, interrupted Tauron,

"Operator, what's your name and position," he asked.

"Sir, my full name is Pontias Pescennius Dactar, Vox-caster, 1st company, sir." Alaric's eyebrows slowly rose as the man seemed to take a year to state his name but when he turned back to Tauron they dropped right down.

"Very good Guardsman Dac, why is 1st companies Vox-caster in my command post?" he asked, checking his finger nails.

"Well sir, Vox operator Churvas was injured in a training exercise, so I'm filling in as the next most exper-"

"Great, that means you're a member of my regimental command squad, which means you have full right to be speaking as befitting of your position. Since you have been doing such a good job so far, we can consider this permanent." Finishing with a smile, he watched Tauron growl with a hint of bemusement. Dac's chest puffed up as if he had just been given a real promotion that Alaric didn't just use to insult Tauron.

Alaric hoped they were done making striking revelations and insulting Tauron (rather, the first part, he never wanted to stop insulting Tauron) and leaned on the table, one of the guardsmen in the room moving the maps back to their rightful position on the piece of furniture.

Tauron stood brooding and he and the major got back to work, Alaric giving Dac the occasional order to radio something or another to some commander in the regiment or outside. There was much that had to be done, and Alaric was intent to do them, if for no other reason than to try and extend his own life as long as possible. Not only did he have to deal with the Chaos invasion, Tauron raised a few good points he'd have to look into later.

Sadly, Alaric's feeling of accomplishment was shattered when he looked up and saw Kali chatting amiably with one of the guardsmen just outside of the cafe. He slowly turned his head to Dac again, who was smiling at Alaric, obviously pleased to be marginally more important, and Alaric rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. He would have quite a bit of explaining to do.

–

Time passed, as it tended to do, and the sun slowly set on the horizon. Kali eventually entered the cafe and he was forced to drop a very sad Dac back down to company level, and no amount of embellishing it made it seem any better. Tauron was quite pleased and although he did nothing to Dac, Alaric knew the Vox-caster would now have to be extra careful among the commissar.

Kali was a bit confused about the series of events and just stood to the side as if she was watching her parents fight. Alaric also noted some grumbling when he told the assorted officers that she was his Vox-caster, knowing full well that the guardsmen did not approve of more off worlders in their command squad.

An entire night's planning passed but out of it all, Alaric knew that was his biggest opponent. A foreign colonel was extremely unorthodox, and Alaric could only vaguely remember from the schola only one other case similar to his, and that was a colonel-commissar. He knew he mostly had his current position out of pity, and despite every guard he met claiming they knew him as a war hero, he had a sense that they all had a feeling about his true past.

Still, he had grit his teeth and went through the rest of the planning without more outbursts. He had found the PDF Major Anya to be lacking personality wise, going at the planning with enough cold pragmatism that it became disturbing to Alaric, her attempts to improve their chances bordering on sociopathic, but otherwise he was glad to have someone else who understood the gravity of the situation.

By the end of the day, they had a good enough base plan for the first few stages of the invasion. Luring the heretic forces into traps, holding them off at certain points to maximize the time they had, taking out leading officers, performing guerrilla warfare in the deserts. The 12th and most other Deeprok regiments were apparently well versed in the use of the grappling hook and other such tools, and they droned on and on about how well they could move up and down the faces of the cliffs and buildings.

Everything was coming together nicely, but there was only a single, tiny problem.

The 7th PDF Mechanized Infantry had gone missing.

1,500 men had been scheduled to move to Highkam in order to aid in the defense, he had been told they would arrive in six hours, eight hours ago. Alaric now sat at a table inside of the cafe, staring at a list of some sort while his mind was stuck on the disappearance. He had asked Kali what she had heard and she claimed that they were still on time for arrival only half an hour before they should have seen them entering the city limits.

But nothing, nada. Alaric had sent out a squad to investigate but he was rather worried by the implications. The regiment was to drive from Slaepsong to Highkam in a convoy of a hundred or so vehicles, they would pass over the arches and then through the passes and then enter the city. They had never made it to the arches however, and he had no idea what reason 1,500 men could go missing.

Well of course he could think of some reasons, despite how uncomfortable they made him (being the colonel he supposed he had to make these thoughts, for the good of the men.) The 7th may have been turned into ravenous chaos worshipers, and he now had a moderately well trained band of cultists on planet who knew all of his planning so far. There could already be a large band of moderately well trained cultists who killed the 7th and he now had to deal with said band who now also had the 7th's vehicles to supplement the power they had already killed them with.

They could have had a major breakdown in multiple cargo vehicles in an unfortunate series of events, causing them to have to stop for several hours and for whatever reason causing their vox communications to break down, maybe in one of the planet's many sandstorms. Or they could have been blocked by some sort of rubble in one of the many rifts in the planets the roads pushed crossed through, this of course meant that their vox would once again have to be down.

He knew it was hardly rational to assume these things, but his line of work was an irrational one to start with and he had to suspect the worst. Something either killed those men or they were about to kill him, and he had no idea which. His attempts to resist the thought failed and he soon became adamant in the fact that he had good reason to be worried.

Alaric leaned over the table he was seated at and pushed away the list in front of him, pulling over a blank piece of paper nearby and ordering one of the guardsmen to grab him a pen. A moment later, with utensil in hand, Alaric began scribbling down some rough ideas of how he was going to deal with the situation, trying to desperately keep his sleep-addled mind from losing any of his thoughts.

This was interrupted as a trio of bikes rolled down the street just outside. Alaric looked up from his desk and found his feet as he saw three of the scouts he had sent pull down the road and slow to a stop, the men quickly unloading their bikes and looking around. He waved off the two bored looking men who had been ordered to guard the CP as they made to follow, and walked into the street.

"Colonel Attelus," the sergeant, a tall Nomad (as the Deeproker's called those with darker skin) greeted him with a salute as the two walked up to each other.

"Sergeant, report," Alaric ordered, glancing at the night sky momentarily and hoping he had good news.

"Sir, I'm sorry but we've got nothing. There were no markings, no burn marks, no treads from wheels." Alaric found himself rubbing his temples in frustration as the man continued, "however sir, there was this..." Alaric looked up as the man stepped back to his bike, reached into a container on the side and pulled out a helmet. Turning, he tossed the bucket to Alaric who caught it deftly.

It was the regular Cadian style bucket that was popular all over the Imperium and on Deeprok, the Aquila still fashioned to the forehead of the helm, dulled and covered with scratches.

"We found it buried in the sand, near where they would have been when they last reported in. There might have been more but a sandstorm had just tore through that area and we're not equipped to perform a dig." Other than the wear and tear that being half buried in the desert had caused, Alaric couldn't see anything wrong with the helmet. With a sigh, he tossed it to the side, letting it clatter on the ground. Useless.

"Right... good job I suppose. Your platoon should be getting ready for a camping trip on the ridges, they're gearing up on..." Alaric racked his brain to remember the street name. He was quite good at memorizing things when he cared, but the problem lied in the fact that he didn't. After a minute of standing awkwardly, he shook his head.

"They're gearing up on Lagon Plaza, near the north gate," Alaric managed to finish. The sergeant nodded and shouted for the scouts to pack up and as soon as they had come they were leaving. Alaric sighed and walked back inside, tapping his finger testily on a table. He didn't know what had happened there, but with a regiment missing that knew all of his vox codes he had to settle some things.

Glancing around, he pointed at a guard captain who was looking at a map of the streets someone had pinned to a wall. Alaric recognized him from the evening's planning sessions as Captain Duret, a perpetually tired looking man with the most pale skin he had seen on a Deeproker (which would still be more tan than Alaric could ever manage.)

"Captain, I need something from you," he said, nodding towards a table and leaning on it. The man rolled his shoulders and walked over without a word. All business. Alaric liked that.

"What is it, sir?" he asked in a gravely voice, crossing his arms and looking on at his colonel. Alaric rummaged through a stack of papers until he found one listing the current radio channels in use.

"I'm going to need you to find some new channels, all of this is compromised right now. Figure out some new codes and send out runners ASAP, it's paramount we get these codes switched." Duret nodded and began to say something when a shrill scream echoed down the road.

Alaric and Duret shoved past the guards and sprinted back outside, several guardsmen following. Kali lay in the street, holding her ears, the headphones of her Vox-pack laying next to her. Warbled speech came through the headphones, so loud that Alaric could hear it from 15 meters away. Running, he slid on his knees next to her and tried to shake her back to reality.

When she just continued moaning in pain, blood dripping from her ears, he cried for a medic and unbuckled the Vox-pack from her body. Duret was next to him soon after, and he instructed the man to drag her inside. Alaric watched Duret pick her up and carry her back with worried eyes, trying to assure himself that she would be fine.

As Duret and Kali disappearance inside the cafe, he shook his head and turned back to the Vox-caster. By now, guardsmen had begun gathering, muttering their opinions on what exactly had just happened, and the sounds of the Vox-caster slowly became louder and louder.

Grabbing the pack, he attempted to lower the volume, but to his annoyance the thing seemed to only get louder. Flicking the off switch temporarily muted it but the sounds came back a moment later. Slowly they became more uniform, more distinct, like speech, and Alaric was becoming very nervous about exactly what was being said.

He turned every dial and clicked every switch but nothing stopped the noise, and cursing, he carefully brought the headphones to his ears, wincing at the noise. For some reason, he wasn't surprised to find the volume lowering as he did so, it was just as unnatural as everything else that had just happened.

As Tauron became visible in the back of the crowd, threatening guardsmen to get through the press, Alaric began to hear the voice through the headphones. He strained to understand what was being said when suddenly it was like pulling his head out from the water, the sound becoming clear as day.

"Colonel Alaric Attelus, savior of Calarran, hero of Horones! It's a pleasure to be speaking with you, I think it's time we talked," the voice said in a tone that was one half silk and one half cries of the damned.