Every trooper in the convoy kept their eyes on the buildings overhead, anticipating the inevitable. Every decrepit window was a potential threat and every bowing pillar could conceal a heavily armed degenerate. Nordic was full of them.

From this angle it was easy to see how the city had suffered due to a lack of order, its buildings crumbling without proper maintenance and its infrastructure in shambles. Proper rule clearly needed to be restored.

"Keep your heads down," the field commander told her troops. A speaker projected her commands from inside one of the heavy speeders, while a more insidious voice gave instructions of its own.

They weren't complex. They never were. Usually they were as simple as an order to kill or to push forward, but they always came through loud and clear.

It was like a scratching within the ear canal of the Blood Battalion troopers, pilots and officers alike. It was a piece of their mind that gnawed away at them, replacing their memories, their hopes or anything else it wormed into.

"There will be no surrender." It whispered.

"There will be no surrender," came the uniform reply.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the convoy. A rocket struck the lead vehicle. The rear was hit next.

"Cover!" called the commander, but a new voice drowned her out. As plasma and rocks piled down on their heads, the air was filled with the whooping calls of the dissident soldiers who called themselves, the Rabble.

"Freedom!" they screamed, at the top of their lungs, and before the Blood Battalion could even properly mount a defence their line was overrun with vibroblade-wielding degenerates.

The mounted guns on the heavy speeders did their best to cut them down, but most were pointed upward, too concerned with the grenades and rockets that had rained down moments before the mad dash.

Others had been spooked and were desperately trying to break out, even running over their own troops to get free of the trap.

However, just as quickly as it had come, the attack ended. Smoke grenades erupting around the speeders was the signal to fade away, and the Rabble and their vibroblades sank back into the Nordic's dark alleyways and back streets.

The remaining Blood Battalion troopers were disorganized and demoralized, watching every angle for another attack, their superior technology and artillery no longer providing the comfort it once did.

"The truth does not die today," said the dark figure, standing in one of the Gangrene's many fighter bays and watching pilot after pilot climb aboard the black craft. "The Consensus will not be defeated by scum."

Each new fighter being pumped out was even lower quality, made with less care and less of their dwindling materials, but the pilots still climbed in without question.

"There will be no surrender," it whispered.

Their legs carried them away from the convoy. Their hands held tight to their blasters. They were driven forward by a compulsion beyond anything they had felt before.

The convoy was abandoned and the troopers rushed to follow the Rabble down their dark alleyways and into their escape tunnels.

"What the hell?" Ahor asked, watching the details come flooding in. The more he saw, the harder it became to speak.

Their sensor readings showed the heavy speeders being completely abandoned and the armored vehicles simply turning off in random directions to fire on random buildings and support structures.

"Sir!" Mavis called, calling for Ahor's attention, just as the sound of blaster fire started to seep into their command center.

"Alert the bunkers and tell them to get ready for an attack!" His order came out as a scream. He grabbed his rife and prepared to follow his guards to the Wharf's entrance.

"We need you here."

"I have to-"

"We need you!" Mavis called yet again, making him finally pause. "Stay, boss."

"Fine." Ahor set his rifle down and sat back down at the display. "Delta group in the Northwest end still hasn't attacked. Tell them to prepare to be followed and to be ready to use the alleys as choke points."

"Right away, sir."

"If they want to play reckless, we will happily take advantage. Let's go on the defensive."