Alaric sat in the Chimera with the men of first platoon, and women, with Kali having been dropped in to fill in the void Alaric made by promoting Dactar. First platoon was their best, ranked the highest out of all of Deeprok's forces during training exercises despite Naveed's spectacular ability to utterly fail in said exercises. Alaric would normally have been hesitant to take the men from the front, but they took the heaviest losses during their latest battles and he would much rather have taken their smallest force.

Behind their three vehicles, which had been 'borrowed' from the local PDF, were the PDF themselves. Although putting any form of trust in the rookie soldiers made Alaric quite nervous, he wasn't one to turn down meatshields and thus he had been given an entire company of PDF troopers to use as he wished. They came trundling up in twelve of their own vehicles, a Leman Russ having even been given.

Although it may have given the image of excessive, nearly a hundred soldiers fighting against untrained governor's guards, but they needed the estates AA weapons to be online immediately. The capital was holding off most of the enemies bombers with their various weapons scattered around the city, but some had already broken through, and what their bombs didn't damage, their remains did. Already they had received losses nearing the hundreds from their attacks, and constant bombing runs in the passes were doing more to damage the guard than their landing craft ever could.

Worst of all, they had been unable to prevent the heretics from landing temporary bridges to allow their armor to pass, and he had been receiving reports from Duret that they had already had to destroy four tanks in the passes. The Guard would be pushed back to the final set of bridges by the afternoon if it continued, and the sun was already beginning to slowly rise over the horizon.

There was a loud bang and then the vehicle shuddered, followed by a sound like rain falling onto their vehicles. Alaric leaned out of his seat and leaned next to the driver, trying to catch a glimpse from his view port.

"What was that?" he demanded, and the driver, some PDF trooper with a sense of humor, laughed and smiled.

"That sir was an anti-tank round, nothing but a glancing blow. And the rest is lasgun fire." Alaric's eyes widened and he smacked the man on the back of the helmet.

"You fucking fool! Everybody out of the vehicle! Move!" 1st platoon's vox-operator, Jurhka, began shouting the order into his vox-pack as the Guardsmen piled out of the back of the vehicle. Alaric hopped out of the door and into the sunlight, immediately spinning around and jumping to the left of the vehicle, hiding behind the Chimera as lasfire slammed into the other side.

He heard a scream and a guardsman drug a wounded comrade behind the vehicle, next to Alaric. Throughout the entire line, Guardsmen were shouting various orders as they sprinted behind whatever cover they could find. Alaric saw dust fly up in between two vehicles as a stubber began adding its fire and he could do naught but curse.

"How many arms do these bastards have?!" he shouted, and cursed again as an antennae just above his head was shot off the top of the vehicle.

"Sir! We need to keep moving! This is a killing zone!" screamed Jurhka as he fell in next to the colonel and Alaric agreed.

"You're right!" Alaric slammed his fist against the side of the vehicle, "get these bastards moving again! And that tank to start bloody firing!" the Leman Russ was trying to back away from the anti-tank fire, and the man on the Bolter on top was draped over it, a smoking hole through his chest.

After Jurhka droned out some orders, trying to maintain some calm in his disposition, the vehicles once again began moving up the hill. The wounded were quickly thrown back inside the vehicles as the guardsmen fired at the various shapes on top of the ridge, moving to keep up with the Chimeras at the same time.

A missile flew out from the ridge and narrowly passed between two Chimeras, Alaric falling back as it whizzed past his head and exploded somewhere in the city below. Cursing, he leaned out and fired into one of the shapes running on the top of the ridge before spinning back behind cover, wishing the vehicles could move faster.

There was another loud bang as the Leman Russ fired, but it did little besides pour dirt and gravel onto the advancing guardsmen as the turret couldn't angle its turret for a decent shot. It was useless to try and fight them here he knew, they would only have equal footing when... they had equal footing, at the top of the ridge.

To the heretics credit however, they did everything in their power to make this difficult. When they didn't have missiles flying by or las skimming their armor, the defenders threw down everything from large rocks to corpses in an attempt to take out some of their attackers.

"Fucking really!?" one of the men screamed as a flower pot shattered against his helmet, the man stumbling back before pushing back up against the Chimera's hull. Alaric had to agree with the sentiment, and could only be happy that Deeprok was advanced enough for plumbing.

After what felt like days, the guardsmen were facing the closed gates of the manor. They had managed to take heavy losses, and already, a quarter of the men were down. Luckily for Alaric, the lions share of those were PDF troopers, and they had only lost one Chimera in the struggle.

As they saw the straight path ahead, the lead Chimera sped up suddenly, the guardsmen who had been following sprinting for new cover along the compound walls. The fire had died down as the heretics ran out of good positions to fire, the wall being too thin to stand on, and he was sure they would have found new positions inside the courtyard.

The lead Chimera slammed through the light metal gate, throwing the doors off their hinges as it drove through. Its turret immediately began firing at various positions, and Alaric saw a pile of sandbags collapse as three Bolters began their bloody work. The other vehicles quickly sped up and made a semi-circle in the courtyard, the rest driving forward and pressing into the heretics positions, smashing through the palace gardens as they went.

Alaric sprinted behind one of the Chimera's, closely followed by a dozen of his guardsmen. He leaned out briefly and fired his pistol into a figure in white ceremonial garb, the man falling into a fountain and staining the water red with blood. What defenses the heretics had made was soon collapsing, and soon after, a trio of the traitors held the doors opened as their comrades sprinted inside.

"Sir! We're running low on ammo!" shouted one of his men, and Alaric realized that he himself was on his last magazine. Taking a long look at his men, he cursed and shouted loudly for all to hear,

"Men! Arm bayonets!" The assorted guardsmen and PDF troopers looked up in confusion for a moment before the guardsmen began tearing the knives from their belts and fixing them under the barrels of their rifles. The PDF troopers took a bit longer, but eventually resigned themselves to the decision and began following.

Alaric took one last look at the milling bands of heretics, their retreat frantic as they rapidly sprinted inside.

"On my order!" Alaric screamed, and the men all began to slowly lean from cover, their rifles at the hip. Alaric waved his hand forward, "CHARGE!" and as one the men sprinted from their defenses and into the horde of heretics.

Alaric fired his pistol wildly as he sprinted, screaming a warcry the entire way. His vision swam from the movement and his body ached in protest, but he charged forward with his men who screamed with him. The heretics hadn't been expecting the maneuver, and most of them were caught by surprise, weapons not even raised as the men charged. Alaric saw Juhrka stab a heretic through the neck before tearing out the weapon and spinning around to cut the face of a charging one.

A PDF trooper went down as a heretic slammed the butt of his rifle into the man's face, and the traitor was about to execute the man when Alaric slammed into him, wrapping his arms around the traitor and throwing both of them to the ground. He felt ready to puke but he kept his mind focused on his enemy, the two rolling around, screaming as they attempted to gain leverage over the other. Alaric gripped his laspistol and spun it around, grip up, and proceeded to slam the back of the weapon into the man's skull.

Several sickening crunches later and the man was gargling in a pool of his own blood as he weakly swiped at Alaric, and the colonel responded by flipping the weapon back around, jamming the barrel down his throat and firing. He stood up to see the doors to the major slamming shut, the few remaining heretics being executed as they attempted to surrender. Alaric didn't stop the practice, he knew it'd be useless trying to hold back the PDF troopers, and he had half a mind to help them.

"Sir! The courtyard is ours!" shouted Lieutenant Shaalt, his face and bayonet soaked in crimson. The man led 1st platoon, and Alaric found him dependable enough, if a bit unimaginative. The man gave a quick salute and Alaric waved off the gesture.

"No saluting, who knows how many traitors with a rifle are still around hoping to get lucky. Begin sweeping the perimeter, and get some many planting charges on those doors." Shaalt nodded and ran off, and Alaric sighed and put his hands on his hips, looking up at the manor. It was an impressive building, and he was happy to see the heretics weren't risking firing through the windows.

He snatched a magazine from a fallen heretic and loaded his weapon. The day wasn't quite done, yet.

–

Saveer fired off a few shots from his laspistol before ducking behind the cave wall. He glanced out once before ducking back in once again, las fire passing within millimeters of his head. When the heretics crossed the next bend, they'd be facing the bridges and the gates to the city. Then it would be game over he knew.

"Sir! I'm getting reports from all over Deeprok!" Daskan shouted, crouched behind the cave wall. Saveer glanced out again before turning fully inside.

"Why? What?" Saveer trusted Daskan to only give him important news, but even now he found the timing rather inappropriate.

"Slaepsong just went dark, so did Ashkalte and Veedonir. Porchide is still holding but they have heretics in the walls, and Illkar is dark, but it's been going in and out for the past few hours. We're the-" he stopped as a shell slammed into the other side of the mountain, dust falling upon the beleaguered guardsmen inside. "We're the only organized defense left, sir." Saveer waited a moment before nodding, and then waved to a sergeant on the other side of the cave.

"Keelvan! Gather the men and get going! It's time to fall back to the bridge!" the man nodded and began shouting names, and Saveer sighed and looked out again. One of the guardsmen grabbed a long weapon from off the wall and knelt down in front of the cave mouth. He aimed for a moment before firing, a hook flying out of the cave to the other side of the mountain. The man then stuck the weapon between two rocks in the cave and satisfied at its sturdiness, began ushering his comrades to the rope.

Saveer waited for the wounded to be hooked up and shoved out the cave mouth and then ran up. Keelvan helped him hook his belt into the line, and then without thinking, Saveer hopped out of the cave mouth and took a breath as he was suddenly in midair, dozens of meters above ground with lasers whipping a hairs breadth away from him.

And then he was moving forward, his weight dragging him down and his carabiner kept him connected to the rope. With one hand loosely around the rope, he used his other hand to fire at the heretics down below, scattered around the pass, as he went flying across the pass. He only had a few seconds to fire off, and soon he was closing his hand over the rope, his glove absorbing the worst of the burn as he slowed himself before being caught by a waiting guardsmen in the next cave, much lower than their previous position.

The man helped Saveer quickly remove himself and Saveer was soon grabbing a rope hanging out of the cave mouth, leading to the ground. It was yet another perilous drop, but was mere child-play for a Deeproker like him, and soon his boots were hitting the dirt.

The rocks were piled up tall enough that he was fully protected if he lightly bent his legs, and guardsmen were arrayed along the rocks, sandbags piled in sections where the rocks were lower, and a stubber fired reliably at the advancing heretics.

"Let's get moving! Back to the bridges! Move!" Saveer waved his men on, and with cover from 2nd platoon, they began making their way around the bend and to the bridges. One of the Little Aces rolled up and fired as they retreated, the tank's gunner leaning back and firing his Bolter at full auto. Saveer sprinted like his life depended on it. Mostly because it did depend on it. And soon he was turning the bend and facing the bridges, and beyond those the walls.

"What the hell is going on up there?!" shouted one of the guardsmen as he sprinted alongside Saveer, pointing into the sky. Looking up, Saveer saw one of the heretic ships slowly positioning itself over the capital.

Whatever it was doing, it couldn't be good.

–

Alaric pressed up against the side of the door, laspistol raised and ready. A Chimera was pulled up in front of the double doors and six or so charges were stuck to the front doors. Half the platoon was piled up next to the doors, the other half and a decent chunk of the PDF were with the Chimera, aiming inwards. Alaric waited a moment before nodding to himself and waving at the man with the detonator.

"Go! Go! Go!"

"Charges hot! Fire in the hole!" Alaric covered his ears with his hands and leaned away.

BOOM!

A flashbang was thrown in and the Chimera opened fire with each of its weapons, hundreds of rounds flying through the doorway. After a moment, the fire stopped and Alaric shouted for everybody to move in.

The guardsmen sprinted through the smoke, and as soon as he saw a white uniform, he raised his weapon and fired several holes in the man's chest.

The defenders were completely disorganized, many of their fortifications having been destroyed either by the blasts or the Chimera's opening fire. One of the traitors stumbling through the smoke was torn to bits by fire from no less than six guardsmen at once.

Alaric slipped behind a column, what he could only assume to be las slamming into the other side of the thick concrete. Alaric leaned out and took a few shot at those who remained in their fortifications, and nodded in satisfaction as his las cut a hole through the smoke and through the head of one of the defenders. The doors at the other side of the room, another set of large double doors, slammed open to hearken the entry of more estate guards, and after a sharp word from Juhrka into his vox, the Chimera opened up again.

Alaric had never understood the term 'tearing somebody into ribbons', but was suddenly enlightened as the heretics were turned from charging militants into bits of flesh and cloth flying through the air. Those that survived were reduced to screaming, fearful wrecks, screaming from the bottom of what cover wasn't torn to bits.

The fire soon became sporadic, and Alaric began ushering the men forward, pushing the advantage. He moved from column to column, firing as he moved up. By the time a guardsman was kicking over a pile of sandbags, pointing his lasgun down, twenty or so traitors jumped up and raised their hands, screaming for mercy.

Alaric briefly considered punching them full of holes but realized they didn't have the ammo for it, and waved over Shaalt as the guardsmen and PDF troopers began shoving the traitors down to their knees and shoving their weapons into the back of their necks.

"Have them tied up and watched by the PDF, send the rest of the men searching. I want to know where they're keeping the governor."

–

Alaric was reading off a list of reports he had received when Shaalt and a small group of guardsmen dragged a trio of figures. Behind them came twenty or so estate guards, unarmed but unrestrained, and looking back at the figures, Alaric saw the figures of the governor and the chancellor being brought before him. The governor was only being held lightly, while the chancellor was being jerked along, obviously having received a beating on the way.

"The governor and the guards behind us were locked in the wine cellars, under guard. The chancellor was in a hallway with some guards, he survived the firefight. Only one." the guardsman dragging him along kicked him in the back of the knee, dropping him in front of Alaric's feet. He immediately got the sickly feeling he had at the dinner yet again, and was sorely wishing that they took the man far away from him

"Colonel if you would let me ex-" he was cut off by the governor, whose roughest treatment was a light hand on his shoulder by an angry looking guardsman.

"You traitor! You bastard! You dare try and feign innocence?! I'll kill you myself!" the guardsman tightened his grip on the man's arm just in time, holding him back as the governor attempted to grab the traitorous chancellor. Alaric shook his head, looking down at the chancellor with thinly veiled contempt.

"This case is clear and we have the evidence. Take him away, he sickens me." The men nodded and grabbed the chancellor, dragging him and the other prisoners off to the cellar. The guards who were with the governor were herded to the side where a PDF sergeant began questioning them, and the governor bowed lightly to Alaric.

"Thank you so much, friend colonel. I am ashamed that I failed in my vigil." Alaric waved him off with a flick of his hand.

"It's quite fine, governor, I understand. If you could get those weapons manned, we're taking a bit of a thrashing from those air forces." the governor nodded quickly.

"They took those out first, by the time I realized what was happening and tried to organize the loyalists, they were on us. It won't happen again, you have my word." Alaric nodded and shook the man's hand before turning to the lieutenant.

"Keep the PDF here to ensure we don't get more trouble from the prisoners, then mount up and prepare to leave." Shaalt nodded quickly and ran off, and Alaric sighed, feeling the wear and tear from so much action pressing down on him. With one last glance at the entrance hall turned battlefield, he turned and walked out the doors, to see a group of guardsmen staring at the sky, mouths open.

"S-sir..." one of the men said, pointing into the sky. When Alaric looked up his breath caught.

One of the chaos ships was coming in low, and was angling itself to bombard them.

–

Dactar sat inside the concrete bunker, part of the only solid defenses left until one reached the massive refugee camp and beyond that the city walls. The guardsmen had set up defenses on the opposite sides of the bridges and were preparing to blow the concrete constructions, the heretics not even bothering to try and cross it. Instead, they had set up camp on the opposite side of the bridge, and were attempting to kill as many guardsmen before... well before whatever it was they were planning.

He was receiving a constant stream of messages as city after city blinked out of existence, and he had long gone numb. When he heard of three hundred thousand people disappearing off the face of Deeprok, he now felt nothing, and simply droned it out to Duret who was shouting orders right back. Guardsman Lustig collapsed from a chronic case of las in the skull, and a man quickly pushed his body to the side and took his place. There was no time for mourning.

"Uh... uh... the ship is making to bombard. All units, get ready for bombardment. I repeat, the heretics are preparing to bombard." Dactar's eyes widened at the transmission from the 11th's vox-operator.

"Major Duret!" he shouted, and the man immediately stepped away from the wall, falling to a knee next to his vox-operator.

"What is it, Dac?" Duret asked, glancing back momentarily before looking back to the far younger guardsman. Duret had been Dactar's sergeant in the PDF, Dac having spent less than a handful of years in the unit and Duret nearly a decade, and the two were fairly close.

"Sir, the heretic ship is moving to bombard! What are we going to do?!" Duret frowned and then sighed, before standing up.

"Have everybody into cover, and start getting the wounded inside the bunkers. They are priority." Dactar gave a half salute as the major shouted for some guardsmen to follow him and left the bunker, searching for the wounded.

"All units, all units. Bring wounded inside and then get to cover, orbital bombardment is about to commence. I repeat, all units, all units, bring-" he was cut off as a guardsman sprinted into the bunker.

"They just launched the first shell! Get down!" Dactar cursed and spoke twice as quickly as he just did,

"Bring the wounded inside and get to cover! Shells are coming down! Get to cov-" he was cut off yet again by the shaking of the ground, followed by a massive bang and the sound of falling rock, and then darkness.

When the darkness faded, Dactar's first thought was that the Emperor was truly with him, and his second, as the pain rushed in, was that he had been abandoned. Pain flared through his skull from a wound in the back where the rock had hit, and coughing, he slowly looked up, only for his breath to catch.

The bunker was mostly collapsed inward, piles of rubble taking up most of the space and the front wall mostly collapsed, along with the roof. A hand twitched lightly from one pile of rubble, and in the center of it all sat a huge metal brick that Dactar could only assume was a shell that hadn't exploded. It was oddly shaped, and colored brown, but he didn't know what else it could be.

His ears were still ringing, and when a guardsman stumbled up and shouted something, he couldn't understand what the man said. Dactar thought the man was Escuardo, but he couldn't properly tell through the haze, and when the sides of the shell slammed down, the guardsman spun around and grabbed his lasgun, pointing it at the new arrival.

Out of the shell, or drop-pod, Dactar now guessed, stepped out a hulking behemoth of metal armor. Nearly four meters tall, his armor was a darkening brown that reminded Dactar of mud, and insignias decorated it, making the young guardsman sick to his stomach just looking at them. If that was not enough, the man's gut was torn open, the sack of diseased organs hanging loosely from his stomach.

Escuardo took a nervous step back, his hands shaking as Dactar looked from his position half buried under a pile of rubble. From behind him came ten or so similar monstrosities, helmets over their head in a permanent frown, all in various states of decay. He wanted nothing more than to puke at the sight, but he had a feeling that revealing he was alive would not be productive to his health, and instead sat silently.

"Step back!" Escuardo said, before raising his lasgun and firing into the leader's chest. He didn't even flinch as the lasgun burned through part of his guts, and Escuardo only got a second chance to fail at killing the man before the abomination backhanded him, sending Escuardo against the wall into the other side of the wall. Dactar nearly gasped, unsure if Escuardo's skull had exploded from when he was backhanded or when he hit the wall, but neither made his chances feel very high.

"It's time... for a new order..." the beast rumbled. Dactar, glanced around for a chance to escape, and tried to readjust his body slightly in order to get a better view of the bunker door. As he did so, several of the rocks fell off of him and clattered against the floor. Dactar breathed in suddenly, and the leader stopped suddenly. Slowly, he turned to Dactar, a sickening smile from cheek to cheek that looked like it required his jaw to be distended to achieve.

"You... you are... alive..." grumbled the heretic, phlegm further disturbing the tone of his voice. Dactar's eyes widened and he shoved backward, trying to escape the pile of rubble, but found that he was nowhere fast enough. Before he could even get back on his feet, the heretic reached down and grabbed Dactar by the throat, pulling him up like a child. Dactar got the sense that the man could snap his neck like a twig if he wanted.

But one thing dominated the scene, besides the horrible appearance and the fact that he was sure his short career in the Guard was about to end very violently and fairly predictably, and that was the damned smell. Dactar simply couldn't get over the smell, and immediately threw up over the creature's armor. It was as if a hundred corpses had been left to rot and... somehow worse. Mold, rot, acid, every bad smell he could think of was centered on the monstrosity.

"I... am Margos Pale... this world is mine." Dactar gurgled in pain as Pale's grip slowly tightened, and then it slacked as las slammed into the creature's armor.

"You keep off him!" he heard Naveed scream from the doorway, the suicidal erstwhile major opening up on the assorted monsters with this lasgun.

Margos growled in a voice that was half cough, half grunt, and threw Dactar at the doorway. He slammed past Naveed and into the sand. Guardsmen ran out and grabbed him, dragging him behind cover, where a trio of others sat. Glancing around, more guardsmen were behind whatever they could find, most weapons pointed at the bunker, as the civilians ran screaming behind the city gates. Naveed was dragged behind the wall from where several other guardsmen were pressed closely.

Then Margos Pale marched out with his men.

And then the slaughter began.