Teotihuacan, Mexico, Earth

The wheeled drone looked like a cobbled-together toy and about to fall over every second. Its base were several wheels that ballooned to the point of being comic, a manipulator arm clutched a white flag and a big LED screen was held by brackets and duct tape.

It trundled by snakes of all shapes and forms, passed them by, was actively avoided by some and hit at least one of them with its wheels without causing major damage. Before long the drone held before the Temple of the Feathered Serpent and angled itself so that its screen was facing the entrance that was a hole leading into darkness.

Nothing happened for a long minute, then the screen became live and showed the picture of a swarthy man speaking words in Spanish. He did not get to finish the first sentence before several arrows pierced the screen, making it turn off with a small huff of smoke. The drone was hit several times before being buried by a multitude of snakes.

Pi: 3,155

Malus Darkblade did not need to sleep, which was a good thing given how much he had to do and learn. It allowed him to write the newest missive to Malekith at the close of a very long day.

His forces had survived the battle well enough, the losses were miniscule compared to what the enemy had suffered. The surviving Chaos Warriors had retreated a bit after he had buried their charge under an avalanche, that one had worked well enough. It was still disconcerting to see how very many of them were still left.

His forces were still in back-slapping mode when the ever-changing winds had parted the fog enough to reveal even more troops emerging from the Chaos Desert. He had seen the signs even then and had ordered a retreat back to the next ridge line. By itself the terrain was worthless, it was just a means to fight his enemies more effectively and the piece he had just used had lost one of its major attractions. The next ridge line would yield an avalanche on demand as readily as the last one and he could prepare its defenses better with more warning about what was to become. The move had become an even wiser one in retrospect when he realized that his forces had used up nearly a third of the munitions earmarked for this whole campaign season.

Setting the oh-so German ball pen besides the clean, smooth German-style paper Malus Darkblade relaxed as much as was possible for him and reflected the last battle. He knew the Druchii, inside and out. He knew them to be the superior race, having received the intelligence, longevity and marvelous bodies of all elves without the superstitions and qualms that held back the others. Even so, he very well knew what would have happened if he would have encountered the Chaos Army that was outside with a similar number of old-style troops. They would have hardly slowed down the followers of the fell gods.

It was time he stopped hating the German weapons, their gear and their tactics. The mental gymnastics of doing so while still using them were tiring and slowed him down. They gave him power and standing far in excess of what had been possible before. No, now was the time to embrace all these things fully. And that meant he had to gather control of their source, he would not be depended on the travesty that was a human Dread Lord.

He was not aware of it, even if it would not have surprised him too much would he know of it. Barak ar Varbadaudassoda had not needed to breathe for a long time now, even if he still partook in the habit when he remembered. It had taken him hours to dig himself out from under the snow that had killed warriors that had followed him for an eternity. He stumbled towards the ridge that had denied his best efforts to take it and killed more warriors than the last dozen years of campaigns with it.

Finding the abandoned field works left by the Druchii he despaired. They had extracted such a price for something of so little worth of them that they would abandon it first notice. That was when he froze in place, that was when the light that came from his armor's joints became brighter in all the colors an oil slick held.
He looked at the enemy's positions that would be shrouded from mortal eyes by darkness. War had changed, very much so. He would make himself the master of the new ways, this was what the Four Gods demanded.

Teotihuacan, Mexico, Earth

The sun rose over Teotihuacan as it had done for more than a thousand years. When it had done so for the last millenia it had always roused the multitude of birds into a cacophony celebrating the dawn of a new day and having survived another night.
Today there was only silence. The old city had gained new inhabitants, inhabitants who considered birds a source of nourishment. The few birds that had survived that invasion had learned the value of discretion.

The silence was broken by small vehicle that trundled down the cobble-stoned Road of Death seemed like a caricature, a small tank model. Hardly bigger than a hatchback car it sported comically thin tracks, a very old-fashioned suspension and enough corners and angles to make a map. The clatter that emerged from it talked about a not-so-high powered petrol engine and it rattled like a drawer full of cutlery were drawn over the stones.

A metal barrel hung over its rear end and looked like it might fall off at the slightest provocation. The alleged tank had barely cleared the treeline around Teotihuacan when the first snakes raised their heads, tongues started to test the air and sinuous bodies started to move. When the vehicle started making its way down the main course the ground was covered by snakes, reptiles crisscrossed the air above it and inhuman eyes watched the intruder from cover.

The tank stopped its march as if frightened by the attention it received before a roar drowned out its engine's clatter. A dark stream emerged from the short tube that struck from its front glacis and turned into a long shower of flame before it hit the ground. Up to a hundred meters of road was transformed into a reptile crematorium in seconds. The little tank turned left and right spewing flames up to 90 meters away from it, walking flames over all exposed surfaces.

Arrows impacted on its sides again and again. While they were tipped with razor-sharp obsidian and the armor on the vehicle laughable by any modern standard they were denied entrance.

400 meters from the tank

"Archer at 11, 550 meters, in that doorway."
Crack
"Another one, 20 to the left, same distance."
Crack
"10 O Clock, a group coming from the entrance of the sun temple, 450 meters"
Crack Crack Crack Crack

Chad Littlefield called the targets that his rangefinding binoculars showed, Chris Kyle took care of them. He might detest the old G3/SG1 the German had left during their short stay in the wasteland, it still took down magical enemies faster than anything else. At the short distance he was currently working it worked about as well as any other sniper rifle Xenon Communications sniper might use and better than some.

He had gone through two magazines already, a frightening rate for a sniper, and there was still no shortage of targets. Most snakes were too small to qualify, but some of the bigger ones made it into the "target" category. Most of the time the sniper went for the strange beings that Juneau's crew had dubbed "Naga". They might look like having stepped from a fantasy flick, but their bows were deadly weapons. So far they were useless against the Wasp Mk. II tankette employed to keep the snakes attention, but soon others would make their entrance who were less well protected.

It was not long before a line of soldiers emerged from the treeline and made their way down the same way taken by the flamethrower tank. Wielding various weapons ranging from shotguns to one-shot flamethrowers themselves they went after the nooks and crannies their tank had left untouched. The sniper team did their best to keep them being hit by the Nagas and so far they had succeeded. Behind tank and soldiers black soot and deformed reptilian bodies covered the ground, leaving the old city as dead as before, even if a bit worse the wear.

"Not so bad this time, hu?"
"Don`t count the eggs already Chad, there is still….fuck"

The street was still covered with countless snake bodies and their ashen remains rained from an uncaring sky.
The masses of new reptiles that emerged from several temple and tunnel entrances would easily make up for those losses.

Small tank, big hurt

Castle Bastonne

The two men in the room shared their age, their weight and their gender. That were the majority of what was common between them.
Jaques de Bastonne showed what had been the hulking frame of a Knight of the Realm that was softened and diminished when the Rebels burned his right arm to the point where it had to be amputated. While his leg and hip had been broken through a fall from his steed the Rebels were to blame for that also, as they were for them misery personified by this Maximilian Gartz before him.

That man wore clothing proclaiming him a German, the root cause for Bretonnia's recent demise. The smooth skin, soft hands, healthy teeth and the absence of blemishes made him younger than de Bastonne, the traces of gray in the hair betrayed that deception. That he had to entertain this man, that he had to listen to his advice, that he had to sully himself with such matters were sign of the new, bad, times.
He was a warrior, not a moneylender, a gardener or a grubber in the dirt. This was for those of lower birth, for those who did not bask in the Lady's favor. He simply did not want to sully his mind with such matters and had voiced that again in a moment when his pains and frustration overcame his good sense.

He received the same lecture in return he had gotten the last two times. That this German kept his temper and talked to him in quiet tones made it worse still. He was frail of body, not of mind and still that outsider made him feel that way. Still, it could have been worse. Gartz hailed from Miserior, one of the Catholic Church's aid agencies. As long as he was here and as long as some of his less outrageous ideas were implemented the serfs kept the hope things would look up. It did not bear thinking what they'd do if they would not.

"I understand the needs of your household and the means needed to keep up your station Sire. Yet, if you want to receive them you have to improve the yield of your farms, otherwise your people will starve, despite the aid we provide. They might then be forced to seek better futures...elsewhere."
"We both know that the bloody border is not far away and that I am out of serfs if I do not feed them well. But how will keeping fields fallow accomplish that, pray tell?"
"Actually not just lying fallow, the fields will be used as pasture. Anything else depletes the fields and promotes several blights such as fungi. If we can arrange a decent three-field crop rotation we can increase yield by at least 20%. We will sponsor better plows and yokes, they will allow for faster and better plowing. I just need your approval to use some of the horses that are currently not doing much at your stables."

"You will not make my Bouquais a plow horse."
"Would not dream of it Sire, but still, there are a dozen horses currently not used."
"Yes, yes, we will see about it. What else?"
"Two of my aides report they are asked by the farmers about their beliefs Sire. What are they allowed to do?"
"I told it to you already, who cares what the lower orders believe as long it is not in the ruinous powers? Why do you pester me again in this matter."
"As it can be rather sensitive, as it is quite close to my heart and as several members of your fiefdom have asked."
"Do as you please."
"Thank you sire."

ASS Morgenstern, Warhammer World Orbit

T-15

"Are you really sure we need to do this?"
"Yes, this will be part of our budget."
"They will all hate me."
"I will not tell them if you won't."
"And you do believe that the clans do not know who the two Dawi are who are regularly in space? And they will not draw the connection between the two data points?"
"You had nearly nothing to do with it."
"Explain that to the Elders. Oh, I am so fucked."

T-10

"Did you sell in time?"
"Yes, yes. Made a loss of it."
"Less than next month I'd wager."
"You don't wager with your own money. I did."

T-5

"Right you are. But this is like betting Dawi will grumble when beer reserves are getting low. If you care so much about your bank balance you could have shorted."
"Baschurr Rogach would never do such a thing, that would besmirch his name in Dawi's eyes for all times. There seem to be a Tilean shell company though which inexplicably is shorting..."

T-0

"Doesn't matter anyways Baschurr, we have ignition."

Nathan Alpers and Baschurr Rogach watched from "Morgenstern's" small observation lounge. A roughly egg-shaped object ejected steam from the small cylinder at its end, slowing it down from the speed needed for this orbit.

"There goes nothing."
"Don`t be so glum, this is really basic and the test shot worked like a charm."
"I still think we should have used a Phoibus."
"Would work for sure, but this is proof of concept and all that."
"Yes, yes. But using this for proof?"
"Decision made above our paygrade I'm afraid."

By now the object had dropped so far below and behind Morgenstern to be out of view for both. Nathan's and Baschurr's pads told them that things stayed nominal all the same. The unmanned tug continued to decelerate the object for a while and stayed on to provide for a number of course corrections.
The tug detached cleanly in time and it accelerated away from the doom that awaited it if it were to stay with its former charge. It would be back at Kopernikus station a few hours later.

In the meantime the object dropped deeper and deeper till the atmosphere became so dense as to make itself felt. The object started to buff a bit about and compressed the air on the blunt end that it projected forward. When more and more molecules arrived before the speeding egg enough air was compressed to the point where the edge of the object started to glow cherry red. The object's outer skin was formed from slag left over by the space station's solar smelter. It started to liquify under the intense heat, burned up, dropped away and exposed more of the same to the raging inferno.

For a number of minutes the gas around the object became so hot that it ionized, denying the transmitter that tried to keep DLR appraised about the objects status the ability to get through. The object was still tracked from several stations, its progress watched by white-knuckled operators.
And then the object slowed to the point where there were no new flames from below it, where its sonic boom ranged from Bretonnia's cost to far-off Penemünde Nord. It was still doing a couple of hundred kilometers when it hit the cold Sea of Claws. It skipped the surface like a well-thrown stone before it settled with hissing, crackling and a huge head of steam where cold water met hot metal.

The last Orion plane still in flying condition in employ with the German armed forces circled it within ten minutes, two Flensburg DE arrived within the hour. Marine divers attached tow ropes at conveniently placed eyes and the object was pulled to Rostok harbor by a high sea tug which sported a few Marines for this trip.
It was cut open in the part of the harbor given to salvage operations and still armed guards were present through the next weeks. Saws, plasma cutters and torches cut themselves through the rest of the slag used as a heat shield, the foamed aluminum that made the object float before it came to the heart of the matter.

Those were the 14 metric tons of gold and the two tons pf platinum that Kopernikus smelters had extracted during the last year. The Old Ones had a basic orbital industry around the Warhammer World when the Chaos Gates opened. Basic by their standards, having been much reduced from the halcyon days when the Stargate had been build. Even in its reduced state it's remains were still a marvel to behold for the Germans who plundered its remains. The Old Ones had shipped quite a bit of raw material from the asteroid belt to Warhammer World orbit, which promptly went unused when the survivors evacuated the world. Most of these had drifted to the Trojan Points, where tugs had collected then when the first smelters went online.

The news that the operation had worked, that it would not be a one-off, depressed Gold prices considerably. It led to a lot of grumbling Dawi whose hoards had just taken a nasty hit and buried any ideas the "Kaiserlichen" had for establishing the Gold Standard for any currency.