The sun rose over the hilly woodlands, bathing Perjed's Landing in a warm glow and drawing hazy wisps of steam from the asphalt on the flight lines. The scream of aircraft engines still filled the air, and the cacophony of construction echoed all around. Along the open flight lanes, freight haulers lumbered to and fro, and formations of troops and armor were forming up to join the first major offensive on Knossos. A steady northern breeze from the mountains whisked away the worst of the humidity, but a heaviness still hung in the warm morning air. Dark wisps of clouds, the dregs of an early summer storm, tumbled through the deep blue sky. Today was going to be hot. Liberation forces were working around the clock – not only racing away to join battle with the Emperor's enemies, but to transform the star port into an impregnable loyalist stronghold.
Nearly a week had passed since the clearing of the star port. The Reyado tank divisions were grinding their way across the continent of Vidal, bearing down on the eastern coast. Heavy fighting throughout ensured a steady, but hard-won advance by the tankers. Industrial and manufacturing sites became the stage for vicious armored duels and push-pull infantry engagements, methodically directed in the name of preserving the tremendous capacity of Knossos's industry. To the southwest, airborne engagements blistered across the resource-rich archipelagos of the western oceans. And to the south, scouting parties of the Valparaiso air assault troops rendezvoused with the feeble remnants of loyalist resistance, bolstering their numbers and providing them with the resupply they so desperately needed. Field Marshal Tarkov and his staff were executing a three-pronged campaign across Knossos, an ambitious move that belied his patient demeanor.
Mack and Girard left the main concourse, out through the yawning entryway with a gaggle of Naval intelligence personnel and Elysian team leaders. Their morning hours had been spent in yet another confidential briefing inside the concourse's command wings. Also present at the briefing were the 22nd's support section leaders, who had set about consecrating the specialized wargear and requisitioning the necessary supplies from the liberation force's stores. The stage was set, and their time was coming.
Out from beneath the shadows of the overhang structure, the noise of industry greeted them full-force. Along the perimeter of the star port, a towering prefab curtain wall had sprung up after the Seige Auxilia brigades were unleashed. Sturdy, armor plated rockcrete watchtowers loomed over the razor wire-edged walls, and heavy defense guns maintained a silent vigil over the surrounding woodlands. At key points on the grounds, Manticore launchers and Hydra flak emplacements squatted on low, tread-plated platforms, scanning the skies for threats. At the far southwest corner, the now ubiquitous ochre and tan armored Tarsus men guarded the sloping entrances to the service tunnels, now repurposed as ammo dumps and storage bunkers. The Siege Auxilia Corps was astounding in their industriousness.
Long formations of troops marched and double-timed across the flight lanes, requisitioning their gear and munitions. Processions of priests and holy men chanted blessings through vox projectors, and packs of augmented servants of the Mechanicus scuttled about. Shadows slid across the lanes, cast by a maddeningly complex formation of cargo shuttles and troop landers. Up above, a chaotic network of contrails laced the morning sky. The concourse's announcement matrix had been reactivated and calls to prayer droned from the flared mega-horns fixed around its edges. The tinny sermons echoed out into the surrounding woodlands, scaring up flights of birds and other wildlife.
Cloth-topped troop lorries manned by oil-stained munitorum workers made a circuit 'round the various billets, muster points, and chapels to ferry troops quickly around the base. It was toward one of these muster points that Mack and Girard now approached. A huddle of spindly marking flags lay ahead, weighted down between lashed-together promethium drums. A large gaggle of the air assault troopers gathered around the fluttering flags, smoking and chatting among one another. They lounged about on stacks of duffel bags and long-range reconnaissance packs, awaiting the next transport. Though many of their number were a tall, wiry, and fairer skinned breed, these troopers appeared to come in all manner of shapes and sizes. What unified many of the more seasoned-looking troops, however, were conservative but lovingly sculpted moustaches. This lot was headed to a weapons draw, bound for somewhere beyond the wooded highlands of Vidal.
Beside the air assault troops, at full battle dress, was a command squad of Artonian troops. Slate colored and two-tone fatigues of jagged camouflage patterns were overlaid with gleaming carapace breastplates, pauldrons, bracers, and greaves of deep royal purple. Burnished gold trim lined the carapace plating, which shone majestically in the late morning light. Matching slate berets topped their clean-shaven heads, and their kit and weaponry sat in tidy stacks beside several portable stasis chests. These noble men stood away from the livelier Valparaiso troops, who all appeared quite content with one another's company. Even by his unit's high standards, Girard was genuinely impressed at the level of funding these Artonians received. He spied dataslates integrated into arm plating, omnispex targeting arrays, sleek deep-range vox equipment, and even an unused bolt pistol swaddled in wax-stamped purity seals. A pair of bull-necked troopers stood watch over their small stack of gear, while their commanders conversed privately.
"Reinforcements bound for the Ancillius Archipelago." Mack stepped up beside Girard, her augmetic eyes flickering. "The off-shore drilling platforms were seized at the start of all this, after the island nation-states fell to the Novum Tempestus. They've still got a real slog ahead of them, so the air assault regiments are joining in."
"They look about as happy as I'd expect. I'm surprised there wasn't more maneuvering get our operation scrubbed." Girard said over the breeze.
"Oh, there was – Jampson and his merry little band have been trying, even after his embarrassment at the briefing the other night. Field Marshal Tarkov struck it down again, citing support from the Office of the Lord General. The course of this liberation was all rather thorough. I must admit, your high command cadre is more pragmatic than most I have seen, but still appears to frown upon arbitrary glory-hounding. Just as well." Mack replied.
"Well, you're certainly well-informed."
"Who do you think supplies the sat-vox buoys and intra-planetary comms arrays? 'Course we know all your gossip."
"You mean you know all our gossip." Girard countered.
"You know what I mean."
Their discussion trailed away as one of the lorries rumbled to a stop ahead of them. The mob of Valparaiso men clambered aboard with whoops and laughs and slaps to the backside if one of their number wasn't quite quick enough. Next came the Artonians, who climbed aboard and left their two troopers to load their gear into the compartment. Mack and Girard brought up the rear, swinging up in and pulling the tailgate into place. One of the air assault troopers saw this and gave two thumps on the driver's cabin. With a lurch and revving of engines, the lorry resumed its circuit of Perjed's Landing.
=][=
Girard and Mack stepped through the threshold of the Elysians' hangar. Pre-rebellion, it had been a noble family's personal hangar, filled with expensive aerocraft and interplanetary shuttles. After its owners beat a hasty retreat off-world, the Elysian detachment was next to settle in. Two stormtroopers from the reserve teams stood beside a sliding utility door, in full kit and with their weapons at the ready. They waved the pair through the large, open-ended storage cube that doubled as a checkpoint, and into the bay itself. Inside, the morning sun shone through windows set high into the ceiling, illuminating golden pillars of dust motes. The long, green containers had been shipped from the Justicar and were lined up along the far wall, under the flight control office. A network of catwalks and gantries crisscrossed the hangar higher up, leading to the office and various utility and supply sheds. From down below, Girard could make out some of the 22nd's command element inside. Across from the line of bunk-hab trailers in which the troops and support staff were billeted, armory benches bordered a makeshift gymnasia floor, where the clanging of weights overlapped the racking of weaponry and idle chatter.
The hangar was a snug arrangement, with all of the detachment's equipment loaded inside. The detachment of elite troops numbered only a few hundred fighting men, no more than company-strength by many standards. There were, of course, the support elements: the armorers, medicae, munitorum techs, and artificers that bolstered their numbers and allowed these highly specialized teams to function. Even still, they were a comparatively tiny force, alongside the other main elements of the liberation. To judge them simply by their strength of numbers however, would prove a grave and fatal error.
The men of 2nd squad were gathered around and atop a battered, flaking double-wide storage capsule. Stashed away from the rest of the detachment, it made for a quiet and private gathering point. The men milled about, chatting idly and awaiting their leader. Johannsen dangled his feet beside a messily stenciled bit of wording: The Bunker, it read. Girard crossed over to the acting team lead of 1st squad, who would now be integrated into 2nd. Sergeant Vaytsman had been a dependable and generally well-regarded sort, but had perished along with several of his men while retaking one of the sprawling orbital gun batteries far to the north. Their memorial had been heartfelt but brief, as was the way of things in the Imperial Guard.
Girard spied the late Sgt's second in command, Cpl Gideon Moroz, leaning against the doors to the capsule. He was a lean, dark-haired, and brooding sort, coated in an impressive array of tattoos that flowed from his field-rolled sleeves, to cover the tops of his hands. The occasional blackout mark or tidy cover-up job (all to remove remnants of ganger-related imagery) marked him as a product of Elysia's 'Civil Reclamation Initiative.' Not content to simply put Schola Progenium graduates to work fighting the Imperium's fiercest battles, imaginative Administratum officials redirected citizens and servicemen otherwise bound for penal colonies– and various other forms of incarceration – and set them on a higher path. They selected ex-gangers and malcontents of every stripe, even promising feral world stock, subjecting them to brutal reeducation programmes and mental reconditioning widely considered barbaric – even by the standards of the current age. Fate had taken Moroz away from the dangerous and brutal life of a hive ganger and transplanted him into the equally dangerous and brutal life of a stormtrooper. Despite his dark past, his reputation solid.
Other additions to the squad were waiting, as well. Specialists Heisig, Kassin, Lindemann, and Hurtak were anxious to see what the future held for their combined squads. Girard knew of these men, insofar that they were respectable within the small and tight-knit community of the 22nd. He would reserve judgment until they were once again in the heat of battle. Presently Johannsen, seated atop The Bunker, hopped down to the smooth rockcrete floor.
"Finally! Let's kick this party off proper, hey?"
"Morning, gents. Venn's right, we need to have ourselves a talk." Girard met his men with a series of firm handshakes and comradely hugs, gesturing toward the dim interior.
A rush of mock conspiratorial conversation went through the gathered men, dissolving into boyish chuckles as the men made their way inside. Heisig, a burly and tanned fellow of colonial stock, heaved the doors shut behind them, sealing them inside the tread-plated confines of The Bunker. Lumo-strips flickered to life, revealing chairs, projector equipment, and map tables secured along the far wall inside dusty mesh lockers. At the center of the room was a circular arrangement of squashy, faded couches and chairs nicked rom a poorly secured officer's lounge years prior. Each man quickly found a seat, jostling for space in their favored spot. Heisig made his way to a long couch, dusting off his hands as he went.
"Locked tight and good to go there, Sergeant." He sat back heavily and settled in.
"Excellent, then I bring this secret club meeting to order," Girard said, thumping his armrest like a gavel and earning subdued chuckles.
"Check the doors again, would ya? Think I can still hear those purple lads bitching all the way in here," said Wulfie, drawing out further laughter.
The Elysians made frequent use of The Bunker, given the oft-sensitive nature of their assignments. The signal-reflective materials insulating the container prevented surveillance on virtually all spectrums, making it ideal for more private briefings. Short of astropathic intervention, their conversations were unknowable to the outside world. Girard had recently learned that the Artonian Lions, heavy assault infantry regiments drawn from a nearby Tempestus system, were thoroughly chapped at being denied the planetfall operation, and subsequent seizure of this star port, given to the Elysians. His men's victory over the unexpected band of xenos only soured their mood further. The aristocratic troops were barracked across the airfield in an upper gallery of the concourse and, in a markedly unsubtle move, had ordered an array of their own sat-collector dishes aimed out of the windows and directly at the Elysians' hangar. Word among the rank and file was that their commander, one Colonel Jampson, had ordered the surveillance.
"Ah they can go frak themselves. And I'll tell ya, if they heard what word we've got for you, those little peacocks would really be having conniptions." Girard nodded to Mack. She clicked a holo-display adapter to a port on her slate and made her way to the center of the gathered stormtroopers.
"You've all gotten the buzz about the Gantos peninsula, the triplex citadel network, the gathering of traitor forces. Well, that's our next stop, too – at least, the outer point-defense batteries are. The whole det's going in on this one, Strike Force-like." Girard pointed at the holo display that leapt from Mack's slate, as she set it on the floor and took a seat. "See? We're hitting this cluster of silos here, all Deathstrike-capable from what the 'brains say. It's also the unified control point for their air defense network."
"This is a seriously hard target; large concentrations of armor in – what I'm guessing here – is a tiered-ring defensive line. Heavy defense guns and armor, massed troop formations, close air support. These scum-sacks are ready for a fight."
"And we're bringing it to them, yeah? So much for specialist work, we're going in with the masses." Stark sat back, blowing out a long breath.
"To a point. The original plan was to get Mack's team in spotting range and they'd guide in a controlled orbital strike, just wipe it all out. Now that they may have a Deathstrike arsenal, they're scared we might vaporize the whole damn peninsula."
"Sounds like an easy fix – what's the problem with that?" Grumbled Lindemann, the mohawked savage from Moroz's crew. Several of the men murmured in agreement.
Lindemann was a swarthy, thick-muscled brute, made most distinct not only by his eccentric hairdo, but by the ragged scars that marked his forearms. As the story went, Lindemann had been forced to fight off an ursadon pack mother during a cold-weather land navigation drill, armed with nothing but a survival knife. His fellow trainees had eaten like sector governors after the encounter.
"The problem, is that we'd rather like to keep the peninsula intact. Relatively speaking. So instead, we'll be attaching to 5-2 Brigade, that's one of the Tarsus lads' urban assault groups. They're bringing up the rear while the Reyado tankers trade volleys with the enemy armor. We fight up through the city, storm the silos, and clean the place out. The flyers have their fun, the Tarsus lads kill their way through the citadels, and the Novum Tempestus leadership are brought to commissars' feet." Girard finished the overview. Wulfie nodded appreciatively, pantomiming the explosive recoil of a bolt pistol. Mack piped up from her seat:
"The Nemean delegation, the local representatives of the Cult of Mars, are quite grateful for us eliminating the xenos infesting their data vault. They have chosen us to carry the inload drives with the deactivation codes into the silo network – my lot will handle the technical side of the operation."
"Ooh, praise be to the Omnissiah," Johannsen said with only partially mock reverence. Mack smiled.
"Indeed. Now for something a bit different…" She leaned forward to tap at the slate and bring up a new screen. The battle map fizzled away, and was replaced with the spidery script and vile heraldry of the Void Serpents. Girard talked over the hateful murmurs and chatter.
"Listen up. We move on this silo network like it's our Primary, until further notice. The second the tacticians and their lot work out what these xenos are after – better yet, where they are – we're adjusting fire in their direction. If it means a rapid exit from Gantos and letting the Tarsus troops carry on without us, that's what we do. A Valparaiso squadron is standing by in case we need a pickup outside the anti-air umbrella." Girard looked around at the men gathered here; Moroz spoke first. He leaned forward in his seat, lacing his tattooed fingers as he stared at the display.
"The full might of the Imperial Guard is bearing down upon them, so why do they stay? Slave runs can't be worth it, anymore. Any other Kabal would have retreated once the battlegroup translated out of the warp." He mused. Mack turned to address him.
"And they very well may have done so, by now. We do not have anything actionable, Corporal. What concerns us, is that they were gathering information on religious sites on Knossos when we stopped them down below, but that data is still being parsed up in orbit." Moroz squeezed his hands together briefly, frowning.
"Before we dropped, I did some reading in the Justicar's archive cores-"
"Quill-pusher," Hurtak playfully jeered from across the room, earning a round of laughter. Moroz smirked the briefest moment, before continuing:
"I did some reading, and found the Ecclesiarchy doesn't have much presence in this region of space, let alone any shrines of note. Little wonder, I suppose." said Moroz. From the opposite couch, Veidt let out a breath.
"You coming to a point?" he sneered. Moroz's eyes flashed to the elegant stormtrooper, and the newest members of the squad flinched. If Moroz took any offense to the verbal barb, it was impossible to tell.
"Not a point, but rather a question: Are they our religious sites, or something else's?" The room fell silent – including Veidt – and all eyes turned to Mack. She leaned back and crossed her arms, genuinely stumped. The sinister implication was lost on no one.
"…Hadn't quite considered that, just yet." She said, after a moment's pause.
"Thor's balls, Gideon." Lindemann sighed.
"By the Throne let's hope it's the first one." Postigo murmured, to a round of assent from the group. Girard steered the conversation back to more pertinent matters:
"Doesn't matter who the old tenants were. Once they turn back up, we'll be ready for them. Now Wulfie, the signal to swap objectives, it'll be coming down on one of our in-house frequencies. We don't need anyone else growing wise to our plans – least of all those damned Artonians. I'll get you the numbers before we step off."
"So I'm to understand there's no support from the main force if we get lucky, yeah?" Heisig asked, underscoring the clandestine nature of it all.
"None. As of tonight, we're all on the ready line. Get your kit together, sleep in it if you like, just be ready when the Sirs call on us. Any closing remarks?" Girard looked about the room, while Mack collected her slate from the floor. None was forthcoming.
"Breathe a word of this to anyone, and we'll be swabbing the plasma drives of the Justicar before we can blink. I'm serious." He added.
"The reclamation halls burn their servitors out the quickest; they always need more raw material." Mack said, face a worrying deadpan.
"You'll be goin' down with us, ma'am. You and your lads. We share glory, and we share defeat." said Stern.
"Then let us speak no more of it." She smiled briefly. She eased herself onto the arm of one of the couches.
"Well unless someone's gonna put some vids on, or we got a card deck around here, I'm off to the chow tents." Johannsen announced. It was as effective a closing remark as they needed.