CHAPTER FOUR
Draken Aluctus went to work. His faceless Mark II Crusader helm gave no expression, but behind it he frowned. The reductor gave a high-pitched shudder as it bit through armour into charred flesh, the tip digging into the corpse before it opened and stripped it of the gene-rich meat glands. Each progenoid was a DNA sequence of a Legion, this one being that of the IX Legion. From it would grow two copies of it, and from them two more and so on. From each gland was a set of organs grow, and from each set, a new legionary raised up from the masses of un-augmented human youths.
The Apothecary placed his deceased brothers progenoids into a hermetic capsule, and from there, he placed the capsule into a seal-pouch at his hip. It was Draken's duty, as senior Apothecary of his Company, to attend to these matters. Few of the bodies he had examined had been lacking a gland or both, only those that had suffered neck-shots had lost a gland. All would live on, in one way or another.
He went to the next body, this one's faceplate had been crumpled. The flechette-round that had killed him was gone, taken by a mortuary serf for desposale. Draken read out the warrior's name and squad ranking, 'Titus.' He liked to note these things down. 'A young warrior, a shame.'
He knelt beside the dead warrior, reductor giving a high-pitched shudder as it had the last.
Hyhad had been turned to rubble first, every man, woman, child and beast evicted in the aftermath of the fighting. Nothing remained to call it a settlement, much less a city-state, but it was in Hyhad that Raphaen raised the IX Legions banner.
Survivors came, they were civilians, former soldiers and nobles of the city. Here were youths supporting their elders, the rich guiding the poor through ruined estates to their destination. All brought together in the misery.
The simple gratitude for being alive united them.
There was something remarkable about the willpower that humanity possessed that made Durmek smile, it always surprised him to see it. From the tox-wastes of Terra from which he had been raised, to the killing-fields of Gorthia XII, humanity always survived.
And now, the shell-shocked survivors of Hyhad populace thanked him and the Army troopers for almost wiping them out. Their gratitude was unfounded, they had almost been killed by those they thanked. Was it fear, or awe?
Durmek kept his thoughts to himself. He did no one justice by speaking his thoughts aloud. He was anImperial Iterator, he was here for peace, not war. But was war not the final way to peace? No. It was a barbaric practise from an old age, returned to use for the cause of enlightenment.
When Raphaen had called for the populace to put forward a council of leaders, it was Durmek who brought them to the captain. Of the four, three were of an older sort, two men and a woman in rich cloth, the last was a man of middling age, his clothing that of an officer of sorts.
'I see that your people trust in the wisdom of you elders,' he said to them as they disembarked from the landcar, though calling it such did its size no justice.
'Not really,' replied the officer. 'We were just the most senior acting officials that survived. Watch Master Erdon, by the way.' Erdon said, with a dip of the head.
They looked in wonder and awe at their surroundings. Amongst the rubble of the city the Blood Angels and Expeditionary Auxillia had worked quickly, combining prefabricated defences with freshly constructed buildings. Ferrocrete roads were being laid out about the old city centre, whilst pavements were recovered and rebuilt. Between them armoured transports acted as mobile barracks and comm-links, whilst drop-craft deposited fresh materials for the cities reconstruction.
The city's old ghettos had been a pit of squaller, as bad as any Durmek had seen on any other world. That was one of humanity's most common trends, poverty did not change no matter where it was seen. The chance of disease spreading from the ghettos was too great for the reconstruction efforts, so they had been burned clear by flame-teams.
In their place, outposts consisting of landing-pads had been erected across the ruins, as much to act as a place for the patrol craft as a place for future expansion of the city. From these zones Blood Angels and Army Auxillia enforced an exclusion cordon around the central encampment, ensuring a free-fire zone for those within the inner defences. Food and medical aid were distributed from these posts, and from them smaller encampments. These were protected by an escrt of troopers, to better ensure an equal distribution of goods.
Order, Raphaen had decreed, would be enforced.
The Company Captain had been busy with his own duties, keeping his own counsel, except to receive hourly updates on Hyhad, the other city-states and Fenarix's status.
Durmek ushered the council leaders into the Expedition headquarters. Even in the makeshift encampment, there was evidence of the Legions involvement. Heavy armour was parked and undergoing maintenance besides a motor pool of civilians transports.
The captains headquarters were those of a Thunderhawk. Red-and-gold in the colours of the Legion, the Red Sorrow stood on clawed landing feet, a tent of sorts covered the lowered assault ramp, covering those inside from the worst of the cold.
Two Baal-pattern Predators flanked the entrance to the Thunderhawk, in turn protected by an overlapping firezone of bunkers and tarantula sentry guns. Unlike the las and predator autocannons of other Legions, the Baal-pattern sported flamestorm cannons and twin assault cannons.
A detachment of ten troopers in azuret carapace armour stood in honour guard before the tent, troops of the Expeditions main Army Regiment, the Ulthoxian Janissaries.
They parted for Durmek and his charges, as they did so they raised their lasguns in salute, then pressed a fist to their forehead, as was their way.
'You are their commander?' Erdon asked, looking back at them.
'No,' Durmek said. 'Their commander is currently in Leptkul, those men have been seconded to the Legion commander.'
'And who is that?'
'He is.'
Within the Thunderbird the benches and bulkheads that usually filled the rear of the main compartment had been cleared to create an open space. Glow-globs in the ceiling and recesses gave off a stark light, almost blinding any with the gold-chasing's of the interior. It did not hold the same grandeur that the Consort possessed.
Durmek, in this instance liked it. This was one of those situations in which the Imperium's charity and not wealth was needed.
In this place, servitors in iron-and-red hobbled, attending to whatever task they had been assigned by Legion Techmarines and tech priests.
Raphaen stood in the hatch between the compartment and cockpit. The light of the sun fell upon the captain from the cockpit, casting his features in a shadow.
He lowered his head a fraction as Durmek stepped across the threshold of the Thunderbird, the elected councillors huddled around the iterator like a child. The captain looked at each of them in turn. They all turned from his scrutinizing gaze, only Erdon seemed to hold it for a moment.
'You are the elected leaders of your city,' the captain said. 'You have taken up a great responsibility, it will take a great deal of time to prepare your world for the Imperium.'
'With your aid, I am certain we can do anything,' the women of the group said. 'My lord.' She added in deference.
'Your name, my lady?' Raphaen stepped from the hatch, armour humming as he went.
'Juvia, my lord. Juvia de Gran.'
'You seem to be a… perceiving woman, Juvia de Gran. You shall indeed be granted aid from the Expeditionary Fleet. But my Legion shall be departing by the end of what you class as a week.'
Raphaen walked forwards, a soft smile on his face as he spoke. 'I understand what I ask you to do. I ask you four, where once there were many, to govern a city. And then, perhaps, a world. But do not think I do this on unfound bases. If we return autonomy, no matter how little, to a people that resisted us. Then those that still harbour ill-will towards us will see we are not as we seem.'
'So we are to be your what, shining examples.' The officer Erdon said.
'Indeed.'
'And what of our city… Former city-master?' Again, it was Erdon that spoke.
'He shall face punishment for his crimes against both his own people and the Imperium.'
Raphaen ushered for the council to depart, an unceremonial action.
'For the foreseeable future,' said Durmek. 'I shall be your liaison with the Expeditionary Fleet, and by extension, the Imperium itself. I will contact you when next we are to convene on matters.'
The hull of the Thunderhawk resonated with the vibrations of the engines, and reflected shards of pale sunlight across the viewports as the craft threaded its way through the Expeditionary Fleet. Standing free between the troop compartment and cockpit, Draken looked out from the starboard viewport, looking out at the assembled fleet, the red-and-gold of the Blood, mixed with the grey-and-black of the Imperial Army. He was pleased by the sight of his Legion's warfleet, the beautiful craft hung in the void at the port most anchorage.
Smaller craft hung about the Consort of Baal, be those the fleet-tenders Lance of Jove and Encarmine Justice, or the bulkier escort's Terra's Justice and Heart of Illumination.
The Thunderhawk banked as it passed over a wing of Raven Interceptors in a teardrop formation, and Draken looked down on the flame-trails of the craft, the craft formed the Legion symbol.
He raised his head again to scan the Blood Angels fleet, aboard them were the scions of Baal and Terra, Saiph and dozens of other worlds, forever reshaping the galaxy.
The Thunderhawk's blunt nose was turning and suddenly a wall of adamantium was ahead of them. The heart of the Blood Angel fleet lay ahead.
Draken tok a breath. It was an effort to turn away from the mighty starship, but he did so nevertheless. His eyes fell upon a rack of sombre grey caskets, each one containing the Geen-seed of a fallen warrior.
Other craft flew besides his own, but they carried the arms and armour of his fallen brothers and their , the most important thing to recover from a fallen Astartes was his progenoids.
The Thunderhawk dipped and the smoothness of void-flight gave way to the shudder of atmospheric flight as the craft entered the battlecruisers embarkation deck.
Draken took a last look out of the viewport, and saw red iron brilliance.
Sortes out towards the Mandeville point of freshly compliant systems were rare, and despite the name such locations were very rarely fixed points in space. The term fell to any location that fell beyond the gravity well of a star to allow translation into the warp. In essence, a system was covered by an invisible sphere that on its very skin and beyond, allowed for translation to the warp.
Navigators and shipmasters had discovered early on the best locations for such locations in the freshly compliant system. Already, a name had been given to the greatest of those. The Dolen Gate, named so after a ship Navigators.
And such points were much more frequently visited.
Four Blood Angels vessels followed a stately course towards the Dolan Gate. One destroyer, the Grail Host and two frigates, the Terra's Justice and Heart of Illumination, bristled with gun-wales and spires, the last the Consort of Baal.
The small flotilla had set out for the Mandeville point two days prior, ahead of the slower Legion craft. The Dolan Gate lay on the opposite side of the system from their prior anchorage. Raphaen secluded himself from the governing of his Legion vessels, he left that to the mortal shipmaster, a wheezing relic named Gyndon.
When the Blood Angels craft reached the Gate, it was a wholly unremarkable ordeal. The geller fields had flickered to life, filing the air with a chlorine tang. The plasma drives had been hushed, replaced by the thrumming of the warp drives.
And then, in a cauldron of madness, they were gone.
A much shorter Chapter than the last one, I know. This was just there to give the best closure I could to this opening part of the story. I have a few ideas for what I want to do with this Fic. So, if you have anything to say, please review.