AN:FINALLY, time to start the real meat and bones of this story! Kay and her friends'(and siblings') Journey and growth as Imperial Soldiers in the face of the War in the Sabbat Worlds!
My Armor is Contempt
Book 2:Into Darkness
Chapter 1:A Great Pain
"I had thought I'd seen all of Chaos's obscenities, all their trickery and monstrosities, but whenever I managed to figure out something, they'd find one more thing to spite me with and make me hate them more for. Not like it was hard to make one hate the machinations of these vile creatures, but... They tended to like pissing me off. My girls and I didn't take to that kindly..."
-General Pattern, on the Arch-Enemy, in her autobiography, 'The Memoirs of a War Maiden'
Aboard Imperial Navy Transport Black Tulip
Approximately six hours after the destruction of Saunders
En-route to Serena system, Sabbat Worlds Sector
A light up above flickered and flashed, its bulb needing a change. Tall boxes lay stacked in one corner of the massive quarters, while in another lay a corner desk of glass and steel, with a reading lamp. Beside a thick, armored window peering out into the dancing, ebbing miasma of the Immaterium sat a bed. A bed where a young boy had fallen asleep in his tired oldest sister's arms. Kay stared up at the ceiling, almost in a catatonic state after focusing so hard on getting Cal to sleep any. The poor boy kept asking about mom and dad, about where they were. Kay had to assure him several times that everything was okay, avoiding the subject entirely before she finally coerced the poor kid to get some shuteye.
Her younger sister lay on her right side, arms wrapped around the blonde and eyes bloodshot, streaks of tears dried on her cheeks and on Kay's shoulder. Kay hadn't even the strength to cry. Hadn't had it for a while. Instead, her pale face stared up into the faint lights hanging above them, her back against the wall where the small window peering into the madness of the Warp sat.
She registered the fluffy feeling of fur and the whimper from their newly-acquired pet. Gazing down, she saw him forcing himself under her hand, trying to help get her out of this semi-catatonia. She pet the creature, pulling him close and into her left arm, coddling him as he whimpered too. In her mind, the images of the final moments of her homeworld replayed constantly. The headache, the tears in space-time, that Emperor-damned blood-red battleship. The shell that ripped Argos in half. The bombardment that followed.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself to get some shuteye of her own, but failed. Turning toward her sister, she got a glance back from the tired girl. She sighed, slowly but steadily leaning herself back and trying again to force herself to sleep. After another series of fruitless attempts, she had given up. Her sister had finally fallen asleep by the time the clock of the cogitator terminal in the room had hit twelve in the morning.
She sighed again, wanting to rub her eyes but unable to due to the two living things occupying them. She looked forward as the bulkhead door to her quarters slowly opened. The good colonel Rosa, looking haggard and tired and bearing a few more grey strands of hair, poked her head through. With a deep, saddened sigh, she nodded to the blonde. The girl shook her right hand and looked to her sister.
Rose had woken with a slight start. Kay spoke in a whisper, "The Colonel's asking for me..."
"Okay..." Sighed her sister, her voice cracking as she took the youngest brother into her arms. Kay set the puppy aside, then stood up, her legs jolting with shock and the 'static' numbness of being sat upon for hours on end. She wobbled them a bit, trying to regain a semblance of feeling, before slowly stepping forward. She only stopped to wave to her sister, who waved back weakly, before wrapping her arms tightly around their younger brother. The little pup strode over to their side and sat himself down beside the brother too.
Stepping out into the massive hallway of the ancient Imperial transport vessel, Kay joined the Colonel in her walk.
"Sleep any?" The woman asked, her voice hoarse, clearly from weeping.
"None..." Kay answered with half a mouth, then asked "What do we do now, ma'am?"
"Sadly, we do what must be done..." Rosa commented, "The new warmaster, Macaroth, wants us on the field as soon as possible..." and they passed by the barrracks. From inside, Kay could hear weeping and the muted chatter of the Infantry. They then passed by another barracks, that of the Tank Crews. The door was half-open, so the girl caught a glimpse inside, to see that Colleen was training, while the others were sat in their bunks, silent, with the rest of them.
"Can't wait..." Kay growled, frowning angrily as she stared forward. Navy crew passed the two officers by as they took a left at the intersection ahead, then another left down the hall and up an old elevator. The colonel had brought Kay into a room with the other Company-level officers. In the middle of the room lay a hololithic display, a device from which three-dimensional holograms and runes, colored a deep emerald, came. Alisa and Naomi looked to Kay, both of them smiling sadly at the girl, both of them with bags under their eyes.
Following them up were Penny and Amy, as well as Mary and that girl that belonged to the richest of Saunders's families, second only to the now-dead Governor's. She had the same thousand-yard stare of death that Kay felt like she wore. Around them, sat at cogitators and near specialized systems, Techpriests and Servitors sang quiet binary hymns as they worked. Ahead, past the officers meeting in this little section, was the rest of the Bridge.
The captain, an elderly man, probably well past his hundredth year of life, stared with two bionic eyes at the unnerving sea of pure, undiluted soul-stuff that was the Warp, through a thickly-reinforced glass window. More computers sat, with their staff, at intervals between the captain's chair and the window. To the man's right, a creature clad in a strange robe and wearing a dome of opaque glass on its head, with the faint shimmer of psychic energy flowing inside the clouded interior of that fish-tank of a helmet.
It also had an eye on its chestpiece and on the staff it wielded. Below the robes it wore, it also had a gold-decorated, master-crafted handgun of unknown type to Kay. A Navis Nobilite Navigator of House Balevolio. The shrouded figure turned to Kay and she averted her gaze. A human mutant that had the ability to assist ships in traversing the warp. Wonderful thing to have...
The Colonel cleared her throat and all the staff of the Regiment turned to their superior. She spoke, "Ladies... I am very well aware of what has occurred. I, like you, had to watch as the bastard Arch-Enemy tore asunder our planet... But what has happened cannot, and I am unable to stress this enough, can not dissuade you from fighting. Neither you, nor your Companies and Crews...
"It will not." The noble-turned-soldier stated, leaning onto the table. The Colonel stared at her for a moment, before looking to the rest.
"It seems Major Meredith believes her soldiers won't falter. It's barely been six hours, Major, I would not-"
"With all due respect, Colonel..." The woman interrupted with a hiss, "I've spoken to my company... They want payback. I want payback. And I'm certain everyone else at this table does too." before she looked forward. Rosa had half a mind to reprimand the girl for speaking over her, but elected not to, for the moment. She'd probably shut up when they got a commissar.
Gazing around, she looked at the other girls, all of whom stared at each-other and at her, then sighed "What of yours, ladies?"
"We haven't spoken to ours yet." Alisa said, then looked to Kay, "We were waiting for the major."
Kay seemed to glare. Not at them, but at the Warp as its ebbing clouds danced ahead. The Colonel sighed, then said "Whatever the case, ladies, your forces will need to be ready within the next week at earliest... I'm sorry to spring this upon you immediately after what has occurred, but the Warmaster will need our forces to be deployed at the nearest battle zone..."
This started a discussion among the officers. Yelling, demands, requests, questions and confusion took over for order, sanity and answers. Kay stared still, her eyes locked upon the currents of insanity outside. She felt an anger welling in her chest, something she hadn't felt since she was a child. Her ears had tuned out the arguing officer cadre, which was now joined by the Colonel as she attempted to maintain order. The blonde crossed her arms to her chest, her eyes never leaving a singular cloud in the Warp.
She gritted her teeth and blinked, but the cloud was still there. Only the binaric hymns of the Techpriests, the whirrs of Machines and the deep thruum of the Ship's Gellar Field and engine reverb echoed in her mind as she stood there, focused. Then, a faint voice came to her. Female, it spoke, but she could not hear it. IT wasn't the colonel's, nor did it belong to anyone present currently at the Hololithic table. She recognized the voice, that deep, scratched, scarred voice as it called out to her. She blinked again, then again and then again.
Two eyes, corrupted, a deep amber, their pupils slit like those of a cat's, stared back at her with a deathly glare. Kay's heart thumped in her chest and she grit her teeth. Whoever this fucker was, she'd talked to her before the first bomb dropped on Saunders. She'd been there, probably aboard that damnable Chaos ship when the planet burned and the billion souls on it were extinguished. Kay's nails dug into her palms, she'd clutched her fists so tightly.
That ship... Chaos had been there and they'd burned her new Home... Damn near took her and her friends with the world... And Killed her mother and father...
The bastards!
She slammed her fist into the table, nearly denting the metal. The entire table went silent, turning to Kay with wide eyes as the girl stared between the Colonel and Meredith. Kay voiced, her every word seething "I don't care what it fucking takes... My Company will be ready to roll over the bastards with every single tank in our arsenal. We'll grind them down and kill them all, so the Emperor help me! And if my girls ain't ready, well, I'll fucking MAKE them ready!"
Her two friends stared at her fearfully for a moment, before that fear was replaced with pride. Amy crossed her arms to her chest, then said "To hell with Chaos... To hell with them all and to hell with that ship that blasted our world to pieces... I'm with Kay and Mere. To hell with Chaos and all their machinations! The Emperor will guide our shells, guns and bayonets." before turning to the Colonel, "You just get us a world we can liberate, ma'am."
Meredith grinned at Kay, who grinned back deviously as the other Company commanders voiced their agreement. The Colonel sighed, gazing upon her command corps and thinking to herself that maybe, just maybe, they had a chance at making it as Guard officers. She straightened up, then said "Very well, girls. Get to your companies. Speak to them. Rally them as good commanders should... And be ready for your baptism by fire. The Emperor Protects!"
"The Emperor Protects!" Chorused they, the scions of Saunders. After a quick salute, the girls departed. Alisa and Naomi followed Kay to their Company's tank crew bunks, entering the room. Colleen noticed them enter and called out to her fellows "Officers on-deck!" before standing to her feet. Several hundred boots thundered within the hold as the soldiers all neatly lined up by their bunks.
She scanned the bunks, noticing her own crew there, all waiting to hear what she had to say. They, too, noticed the anger in the blonde's eyes. That pure, seething hatred one would feel only for their worst enemies. Kay was about to say something that they were all eagerly awaiting for. And indeed, so she started, "Ladies!" getting salutes from the lot. She waved them at ease, then continued "What just happened to us six hours ago is something I know all of us are still reeling from."
She saw their driver, her eyes swollen from all the tears. On she spoke with that image in mind, of what Chaos did to her friends, to her family, "It was a cowardly attack. A nightmare that no citizen of the Imperium should have to undergo. Yet, by some cruel twist of Chaotic fate, we had to be the ones to witness this death first-hand. The death of our homeworld..."
Where only anger existed once, a sense of pride welled in her chest as she stared at all of the girls here. All of them were still alive. Many had wept rivers of tears to the loss of their homeworld. Many more stared with that same hatred in their eyes as she had. All of them may well have had it, even if she couldn't see them all. So, she strode forward, pacing between the wall ahead and the door as she continued, "I know what you all feel. We were helpless to defend our very planet and we've all had a nightmare of it, or our bodies and minds even outright refused to get any sort of rest because we were afraid, afraid of the enemy's firepower, afraid of what they'd just done and thinking it would repeat the next world over..."
She stopped in front of Alisa and Naomi, then yelled, her voice harsh, "FUCK! THAT!"
A few gasps sounded off among the crowd, but Kay saw her two closest friends now wearing grins on their tired faces, then turned to her tank crew, to see them with hope in their eyes and murder on their mind. The murder of Chaos bastards, of course. Her voice loud, echoing, reverberating across the Barrack Hall of the First Company, Thirty-Third Armored, boomed "The Arch-Enemy has just picked a fight with a Regiment that has nothing to lose... Not anymore! They made the worst fucking mistake of their lives!"
"They MESSED WITH SAUNDERS!" She roared, "We, the fair maidens of the Imperium. They believed us to be a target of opportunity! Whatever that meandering fuck who commands the Chaos ship that bombed Saunders thought he was doing, he was horribly mistaken!" And she heard a faint cheer echo from the back. Jade's voice, no stutter this time. Kay nodded to the driver, smiling proudly. "We're still alive! LOOK AT YOU! LOOK AT THE PEOPLE NEXT TO YOU! Your comrades, your fellow crewmen! WE'RE ALL WALKING AND ALIVE! And I don't know about you, ladies, BUT I AM FUCKING PISSED!"
"Hoorah!" Colleen and Jade shouted, as did the rest of her tank crew and Naomi and Alisa.
"WE'RE THE DAUGHTERS OF SAUNDERS! WE ARE GENERAL PATTERN"S DESCENDANTS! THE IRON LADIES OF SAUNDERS!" She roared, "And I'll be DAMNED if I don't seek what any good Imperial Citizen whose home was just wrecked by some no-good Arch-Enemy motherfucker will seek! The only thing we can seek at this bloody time! That is RETRIBUTION!"
"HOORAH!" Chorused a third of the crews now.
Kay spoke on as if possessed by the grand General herself, "So hear me, girls! Wipe those bloody tears out of your eyes, ready your lasguns, ready your tanks! Because the next time we see solid ground, it's gonna be held by the enemy! And tell me, my fair Company of Tank-troopers and absolute badasses, what will we do to the enemy when we see him!?"
"WE'LL KILL'EM! HOORAH!" Chorused the entire deck this time.
"Damn straight! We'll tear'em open!"
"HOORAH!"
"We'll blast them apart!"
"HOORAH!"
"And then WE'LL SEND THEM BACK TO THEIR MASTERS IN FUCKING BAGS!" The girl roared a final time as the Colonel came in to listen with the rest of the Company leads. Kay continued, "For Saint Sabbat, for those we lost, for those killed by Chaos every day... For those who will still dare fight! AND FOR THOSE WE CHERISH! LADIES, CALL WITH ME!"
"FOR THE EMPEROR! RETRIBUTION!" Bellowed the entire deck,raucous cheers and battle cries. Kay smiled, then turned to the door, to see the tired Colonel holding a cup of hot recaff in one hand and leaning against the door. She tipped her cap toward Kay. She waved to the girl, motioning to the outside hall. Kay looked to her Executive Officers, who both smiled, though tired, and saluted. She smiled back, saluting as well and dismissing them with a nod.
Before Kay left, she turned to the girls one last time. She ordered, "Get some rest, gals! As much as you can! Find things to do! Tune our tanks with the Techpriesthood, do whatever! I have a feeling we're about to get our deployment orders."
Boots clapped against the steel floors and crisp salutes were snapped. Kay dismissed them with a smile, before walking toward the Colonel. The woman smirked, "I heard almost every word of that... Good pep talk. Come, Major. I need to hand you the briefing of our first operation... Before we all drop off to bed and have to wait an entire three weeks for the travel."
After a short briefing of their target world:Gehenna, a desert world near the Balhaut system where Chaos had set up an outpost, Kay entered her room, to see Rose standing up straight and playing with the Pup. Sliding the briefing dataslate onto the desk, she walked up to Rose and took a knee in front of her. She gave the girl a sad smile, running a hand through the hair of her still-sleeping little brother. She whispered, "We're going to have to tell him at some point..."
"I know..." Rose sighed, hugging the fluffy samoyed gently, "If it's bad for us, imagine it for him..."
"Yeah..." Kay shook her head. She retracted her hand, then looked at Rose, "I... Got our regiment's first assignment." She smiled sadly again. Rose sighed, burying her face into the dog's fur. She twitched, tears welling in her eyes. Kay crawled up beside her, wrapping her arms around the girl and the dog as she said "It's gonna be alright, Rose... It's gonna be fine..."
The crying blonde looked up at her older sister, then said something in that tired, sad, bittersweet voice that broke Kay's heart. "Don't you die on me too... Emperor knows, I need at least my older sister..."
Kay's breath caught in her throat. She hugged the little girl tighter, burying her own face into her little sister's hair as the dam finally broke. She had contained herself as best as she could, not to wail and wake the poor boy beside them, but she cried and cried with Rose and the whimpering pup. What felt like a century of suppressed emotions was finally let out in one cathartic session of tears.
Rosa half-opened the door, peeking inside a few hours later, only to find Kay fast asleep, her brother, sister and the mascot of the Regiment, a Samoyed dog puppy, all fast asleep with Big Sis playing the part of the Big Spoon as she coddled and held her family close. Few, if any of their own had any family left. That Kay's brother and sister had made it was a miracle.
... A miracle Rosa had wished she'd have seen strike all her girls and their families. Sadly, it was not to be...
She needed some Amasec in that Recaff. Dull the pain...
Aboard Imperial Navy Transport Black Tulip
Three weeks since the beginning of Voyage
En-route to Drop-Point Theta, Planet Gehenna, Talos system, Sabbat Worlds Sector.
Gehenna was a small industrial world with a desert biome. Its hive cities housed a hundred-odd ancient manufactories that produced the basic amenities of the entire Sector. It was a sister planet to the Forge World Urdesh, which also lay now under enemy control. The Imperial Guard's Sixteenth Cadian Mechanized had managed to secure a landing zone with the assistance of a squadron of Harakoni Warhawk Drop Troops leading from the front. Right now, Drop-Point Theta was the only planetary Hive, its original name unknown, that they controlled. It had a starport that could take the landing of the massive transport vessel.
It was also under continuous attack. Sat atop her tank, Kay could see past the opening ramp as the clouded skies were lit by tracer fire from Anti-Air Hydra Batteries. The enemy had air support in the form of Valkyrie gunships with inaccurate, unguided munitions strapped to their pylons. Still, a swarm of the damn things could take out a pretty big swathe of Imperial Armor stationed within DP Theta.
The landing pad of the starport was an area several square kilometers wide, made up of concrete and with walls that were lined with anti-air and anti-ground guns and lasers, many of which now tracked a probing attack of enemy aircraft. She looked back at her friends, nodded, then set her tanker's cap on her head, fixing up the vox-bead in her ear and straightening up the microphone wire.
Once the ship touched down, a rumble flowing throughout the place as the weight of the transport made itself felt, Kay ordered through Vox "All vehicles, unload slowly, eyes open. Hydra Batteries, prep to join the defense if the Cadians ask for it. Driver, forward, half-speed. Nice and slow, Jade." and her tank lurched forward. The Colonel was in a command vehicle in the rear, a Taurox she'd been given by High Command. It was an old thing, that MRAP, but it did its job, so many vox antennae and other com systems poking out through the top making it look like a porcupine.
Kay looked forward, to see a Cadian trooper, clad in desert tan flak armor and with the battle dress uniform underneath bearing a strange pattern of spotted camouflage waving her tank forward. Far to the left, atop one of the walls, a battery of around ten Earthshaker cannons let loose a barrage that spooked Kay slightly, but the girl eased herself back into a proper seated position.
The Cadian soldier showed them to stop, halting the entire thousand-strong convoy, then climbed onto the tank's side and said "Motropool is through Gate Alpha-3! You take the road straight and into the suburbs, past the first completely collapsed Hab Block and hang a right! You should see a heavily-damaged storage warehouse that once belonged to the Manufactorum of this hive! That's our motorpool!"
"Thanks!" Kay nodded to the trooper, forced to yell by the raking gunfire of the Anti-Air guns. She turned to ask, "Where's the command post?!"
"It's next to the motorpool, in the old Sister Hospitallers' mission building! Can't miss it! Big Ecclessiarchal thing, missing the bell-tower!" The Cadian said, his accent thick, almost British. It was funny to Kay to hear a separate accent from those she'd normally hear with Saunders, "Our Colonel's waiting for yours, Major! Best of luck and the Emperor protect all of you!" He said, saluting before he dismounted.
Kay sighed, "You heard, right, Jade?"
"Gate A-Alpha Three, aye..." The driver stuttered, but nodded.
"Is it just me who didn't like the guy telling us 'good luck'?" Colleen mused, looking over the stock of shells in their water-jacketed magazine. Ellie nodded in agreement with her burly loader, while Kay hummed. She voxed in to the Colonel and the rest of the Regiment to follow, looked to down to Colleen, then smiled reassuringly. The loader chuckled, shaking her head and saying "Alright, boss."
As the girls drove on and out through the massive tertiary loading gate of the Starport, they entered into the town's suburbs. Rubble littered the streets and broken buildings were pretty much the norm here, though they weren't as destroyed as the Trooper had described to them. In these buildings with blown-out windows and shards of glass littering the floors, they saw Cadian soldiers scoping in targets through binoculars, infantry patrolling and even Chimera transports settled cozily into hull-down positions, their massive, turret-mounted Autocannons scanning the areas beyond the destroyed defensive walls of the city.
In the distance, set up in farther outposts in the desert Badlands between the Hives, tanks and infantry of the Cadian Regiment sat, dug in deep and ready in case of an enemy attack. So far, however, it seemed the enemy was content with probing their air defense. Emperor only knew why. The desert itself was littered with holes from artillery and the broken hulls of enemy vehicles.
Jade turned the tank as they passed by a collapsed hab-block that was once a three-story building. To their immediate left, the girls saw the church-like building that was, presumably, the command post of the entire defense. A tall Vox antenna stalk stuck out of the broken bell-tower, stained glass and stone rubble littering the rockrete roadways and sidewalks around the place. She saw Cadian Shock Trooper Elites, the Kasrkin, guarding the door. She gave a quick salute to them and they saluted back as the tanks rolled past.
Ahead lay the gargantuan storage warehouse of the Manufactorum. A building of concrete and steel that stretched across around 10 square kilometers of the Hive's outer hab and manufactorum area. Behind it, they could see the tall smoke-stacks of the ancient factory still spewing smoke as the forge worked overtime. They entered through the guarded main gate and into the motorpool, to the sight of Cadians and their tech-priests tending to their Chimera assault transports that'd been damaged where there once would've been massive storage shelves containing the goods produced by this Hive.
A Guardsman from their allied regiment, this one clad in the same heavy armor as the Kasrkin, but hauling what looked like a jump pack of some kind on his back, waved them forward and pointed them to a different, more free and open section of the motorpool. The soldier wore the camouflage pattern of the Drop Troops of the Harakoni Warhawks, as well as their war cry, the latter painted on the chest of his Carapace Armor.
'Harakonari an Tellika Regalia!'
Kay figured their own regiment needed a nice little war cry. Would help with morale to have something to shout down Chaos with. Settling in the thousand-odd vehicles in the tightly-packed area of the Manufactorum, the girls disembarked their vehicles, with Kay waving a Tech-Priest that was free over. He looked to Colleen and said "You're in charge of our tank 'till I'm back, Cee. I think the Colonel's gonna want the officers with her."
"You got it." The girl gave a thumbs up and a grin. She turned to the others and said "You heard the lady! I'm in charge!"
Kay chuckled at the antics of her comrade, before turning to see the Colonel and the other staff members approaching. She waved her own two Exec-Officers with her and met the Colonel midway. Rosa nodded to Kay, then said "I want some of our battle-tanks positioned to assist in case of enemy movement, as well as at least half a company of infantry."
"My girls are already waiting orders for deployment, ma'am." Meredith noted.
"As are mine." Kay said, "Just give us the order."
"Alright... We'll vox them when we're in the Command Post. C'mon." She motioned to follow. Kay did, as did her friends. The eagerness to fight and that hatred Kay felt hadn't subsided, but she'd gotten better at containing them. No incidents had happened aboard the transport on the way over to Gehenna, thank the Emperor, but the girls were all getting restless, Kay herself included.
The girls left the building under escort of a platoon of theirs, walking across the street to the CP as Hydra anti-air filled the sky once more with the thunderclap and black flowers of Flakk Shells. An enemy air-superiority fighter, colored a blood red and bearing a myriad shimmering vile runes caught a blast immediately to its left engine and wing. The wing tore off and the engine burst aflame as the fighter spun out of control, crashing into the deserted southern reaches of the city. Good fucking riddance, Kay thought. One less scumbag to kill.
"Uh, ma'am?" Penny started
"Yes?" The Colonel raised a brow.
"Could the manufactorums here have been retooled for the enemy's use?" The girl asked.
"Undoubtedly. Alongside whatever they managed to seize from the City Militias..." Sighed the Colonel.
"Well, shit..." The ginger murmured, "Eh, we'll be alright, I think."
"We will." Kay smirked, "We got the better vics."
"And the better soldiers." Mere remarked, garnering a nod from the tank-corps staff present. Walking up the stairs and past the guardsmen holding the main gate, the Colonel pushed open the two massive oak doors of the Hospitaller mission, only to find that, right in the Hallway, the Sisters themselves were treating the wounded of the two other present Regiments.
The Sisters, nuns clad in heavy armor and with specialized medicae tools and masks. The lead of these nuns, a woman older than any, pointed a needle-tipped finger toward the inner sanctum wordlessly. The Colonel bowed her head in thanks before pushing aside the tarp that had been put to separate the hospitals and the wailing of the dying and wounded from the command post.
Within, she and her girls were met by a slew of Cadian and Harakoni officers, including the two leading officers of the pair of units. The Colonel of the Cadians was first to acknowledge Rosa. An old man, both his eyes and his right arm replaced by specialized, top-of-the-line Augmetics. Littered around the room lay multiple cogitators and communication consoles and com-stalk antennae peering out of the holed roof. The two officers were gathered with their staff around another Hololith display showing the terrain between them and the enemy's city.
He tipped his cap to the Colonel and said calmly, "Welcome, Saunders Thirty-Third, to our own little corner of hell."
"I did not know they have Imperial Churches in hell, Colonel. Maybe it is not so bad." Rosa remarked with a smirk, joining them around the hololith display. Kay and the other majors promptly saluted the two other colonels as well, before gathering around the device. The two stout men let two chuckles escape from their mouths at the Colonel's orders, while her officers stifled laughs. She motioned to the table display, then asked "What is the situation?"
"We've been dug into Hive Geron for the better part of a year now." The old Cadian remarked, "Our original assault came after the Harakoni secured us a landing zone due just south of here. Funny thing, seeing snow in a desert, but we took it in stride."
"Not for lack of the enemy trying to stop us." Remarked the Harakoni officer. He pointed at a gash in the side of his throat, just below his thick white beard, that had scarred and stated, "Got this one from a Heretic bayonet. Bastards tried to poison me. The damn thing was shining green with the foul warp-stuff they'd concocted." with a smirk. He knew Rosa had gotten her own wound from somewhere, clearly, but didn't dare comment.
"Doesn't look that bad." Rosa nodded, "Enemy strength?"
"Hundred-forty thousand as estimated by our cogitators, all within Hive Harrod, just opposite us." The Cadian staff member that had busied himself with the Vox and Auspex in the room answered from his console, "Three thousand armored fighting vehicles, as well as over three hundred aircraft of varying types, though we've been thinning them out with the Flak batteries, ma'am. Thank the Emperor for Hydras."
"You can say that again, Major..." The woman quipped, then looked over the map. She pulled away, shrinking the map and looking around at estimates of the Enemy's position, strength in certain areas of the Hive and even the possible civilian casualties should they mount a full forward assault. She hummed, then asked "We certain the enemy's still got civilians in the hive?"
"Positive... Though most fled for Geron when we took it, some were forced to stay. They're being used as human shield, so a full frontal assault is way out of the question for us... At least it was, until your Regiment touched down." The Cadian Colonel stated, "Oh, also... Where are our manners, Colonel. I am Markus Raven, of the Sixteenth Cadian."
"And I am Harridan Voss, Harakoni tenth." The Drop Trooper tipped his own peaked cap at the woman, "Our Commissars are currently busy checking the lines."
"A pleasure to meet you both, gentlemen. I am Colonel Rosa, Saunders Thirty-Third and this is my staff. Majors Penny, Amelia, Meredith, Clara, Samantha and Kay, as well as their executive officers. I'm sure we will all get well-acquainted with one-another as the battle here continues. For now, however, I'd like for us to have a plan and information so we don't wander in half-assed." The woman stated proudly, "Any intel you have will be beneficial for the cooperation of our troops and the swift victory over the Arch-Enemy's forces."
The girls snapped crisp salutes at the other two officers, who saluted back and smiled. They all seemed eager for action, so the two colonels had figured. And indeed, they'd started handing out dataslates with information regarding to enemy force disposition, strength and armaments to every officer and Non-Com leading a squad within the Thirty-Third. The girls were to read these copies while the Colonels were formulating a plan with the rest of the staff.
Kay had walked out of the building, to get some 'fresh air'. As fresh as the air her was, anyways. With dark-grey clouds hanging ominously over the battle field and smoke from the manufactoria feeding into them, their biggest worry right now was a bit of acid rain. She'd voxed in at the Colonel's request for troops to start mobilizing to start positions, defensible and good as a jump-off point when they began their own assault against the enemy's hive.
Naomi stepped up beside her, an actual, honest-to-the-Emperor Cigarette, or Lho-stick, between her lips. Kay raised a brow and stated "I thought ya didn't smoke..."
"Tell that to any woman who hasn't seen her world burn..." Sighed Naomi, before dragging deep from the lit cig and puffing out a cloud of acrid smoke. Kay coughed, then chuckled, "Hey, it's not so bad. I like the smell."
"At least don't get the cheap shit... Emperor above..." The blonde remarked.
"Yeah, yeah..." The shooter born in heaven shook her head disapprovingly. She took the cig from between her lips, then asked "How are you holding up, Kay?"
"Eager to kill these bastards for what they did, honestly. Otherwise? I'm..." Her shoulders sagged, "Fucking scared... Tired... Worried sick... All that stuff, y'know?"
"It's normal." Alisa said, joining them, arms crossed to her chest, "We're all knee deep in the grox-shit right now... Command's just waiting for the right moment to submerge us completely, not for their own will, but for that of war."
"Eww, you and your fuckin' metaphors, Ali..." Kay shuddered. The three then laughed together, before looking out at the Hive they were defending. Even the spires themselves looked like a massive creature had bitten chunks out of them. Kay's face turned from what one would've thought to at least be some level of calmness and relaxation, to sadness. She asked, "Think they... Felt anything?"
Both girls knew what she meant. Both grew quiet.
"I hope the bombs got them quick. That they went up in a flash... That they didn't suffer. But knowing the Arch-Enemy..." The sharpshooter stated rather mutely, flicking a bit of ash off to the side and taking another drag. Alisa didn't say anything, simply staring up at the black sky, expecting yet another enemy warship to warp in and deal with the remnants. Kay could tell as much, the thousand-yard stare in her old friend's eyes, the sunken face. Alisa had aged thirty years due to stress and fear.
"We're gonna kill'em all..." Kay broke the silence, "By the Emperor, we're not just gonna kill the bastards... We're gonna murder them by the fucking Bushel..."
"We'll grease our fucking tank treads with their guts, boss." Alisa growled, feeling that same anger that Kay felt welling up in her. She requested "Nae, pass me one of those..." before she was handed the long opioid-filled tube. She set it in her mouth, then lit it with Nae's bullet-shaped lighter. The shooter then extended their commander the packet, but Kay refused.
"Don't smoke. Don't intend to start..." She noted, craning her head to look across as their infantry started rolling forward, to their allies' positions, to reinforce them. The enemy-held Hive City flew scarlet banners, soaked in what one would assume was the blood of those opposing them. Kay growled, shook her head, then said "C'mon, girls. Gotta finish up the plans with High-Com."
"Aye." The two nodded, Nae discarding her cig and stomping it out.
They had Chaos bastards to kill...