Disclaimer: I don't own warhammer, that belongs to GW. All technologies and characters native to 40k and the Horus Heresy, not made up by me, belong to Gdubs too. I do not own any aspect of Attack on Titan, those belong to Hajime Isayama.
Claimer: I do own the original character Warsmith Phidias Longinus of the 86th Great Company of the Fourth Legion Astartes, as well as all original characters and organizations of unspecified origin, i.e. not created by the wider warhammer community or GamesWorkshop, associated with the 86th Great Company and the attendant Expeditionary Fleet, including, but not limited to, the Legio Cauchinium and all characters directly under the umbrella of the 86th Great Company of the Iron Warriors.
AN: Hey guys, have you missed me? I saw a 40k meme while I was supposed to be working on a quota for the tech startup I work at and it inspired me to belt out a quick story. It was Erin attacking an Iron Warriors affiliated chaos titan…. This came from that. If you like it, I might write more, but I'll probably be writing relatively short chapters.
Warsmith Longinus strode away from the bridge of his flagship. The augur arrays picked up no indications of a spacefaring race in this star system, and the Warsmith anticipated an easy compliance ahead. The augurs had detected voxcaster signals coming from the fifth planet from the parent star, IWEF86-695 or Iron Warriors Expeditionary Fleet, 86th Great Company, system 695. Warsmith Longinus preferred to let the remembrancers and bureaucrats attached to his force sus out the local names of his compliance actions.
Phidias Longinus, a Terran Marine of the IVth Legion Astartes served as the Warsmith of the 86th Great Company of Perturabo's Iron Warriors, and was fortunate enough to survive the decimation. Decades after that, he had gained command of his Great Company, and in turn the expeditionary fleet it was attached to. Phidias considered himself something of an architect, and relished a simple compliance that allowed him to spend his time building up a world's infrastructure instead of tearing it down.
According to the scout reports from the screening vessels he'd ordered forward, the other twelve planets, and their attendant swarms of moons, appeared uninhabited. Some worlds showed signs of previous development and industrial activity, but, according to the scans, they were derelict and unoccupied. The Mechanicum detachment had detected signs of a research installation on a moon of one of the gas giants. The Warsmith allowed them to investigate, figuring that it would be better to let them check on it, having been through cross training with the Mechanicum at the beginning of the crusade, what seemed like aeons ago now, he knew the Skitarii and Legio Cybernetica machines his Martian allies could field would be able to handle any possible resistance, and they had a number of squads from the 86th Great Company attached to handle anything the Mechanicum couldn't.
Phidias had his helmsman steer the massive bulk of his expeditionary fleet's flagship, his battle barge Girded in Iron, towards the system's fifth planet. The vast iron skull of the Fourth Legion was emblazoned in silver across the vessel's prow, and the gothic arches so strongly associated with the forces of the Imperium bristled across the venerable warship. The thick adamantium was unpainted, and thus a dull metallic grey. A single massive, golden aquila, symbolizing the vessels allegiance to the Emperor on Terra, wrapped itself around the bridge of the warship. The Girded in Iron is seven kilometers long, and had the arsenal to go toe to toe with all but the greatest foes on its own. Bristling with macro cannons and lance batteries it was prepared to reduce the enemies of the Iron Warriors to atoms.
What had been distorted, garbled transmissions were resolving into what sounded like orders, communications and entertainment across various vox channels, and in a dialect that was different but recognizably, and, more importantly, comprehensibly Low Gothic. Noting this, the Warsmith summoned his attendant Magos Linguistica, Lexicon-617-Xi, to translate a message into their dialect that could be broadcast across all vox channels.
"Message reads: 'The Glorious Fourth Legion of the Legiones Astartes has come to welcome your world into the fold of Imperium of Man. We bring with us wonders of technology and the clarity of the Imperial Truth. Willing compliance will see your world uplifted into the imperial fold. Resist and your world will burn. We make planetfall in three day's time.'" A dull green light glowed from under the Magos' hood, and the crackle of his vocoder signaled that he was speaking again, this time in a flat mechanical voice, "I will broadcast this message. Shall I synthesize your voice?"
Phidias took in the Magos' dull tone, and glanced over at the machine man. "Broadcast it in the voice you feel the populace will be most receptive to. Every bolt shell saved is one that can be used in the Emperor's service elsewhere." The Magos' gave an exaggerated nod, passed a dataslate with the message to a communications officer, and left the bridge. Phidias nodded to his equerry, Sergeant Rufio Alexander, to follow him as he made his way to the vessels meeting hall to convene his Great Company's council of captains. His force of Iron Warriors consisted of 7,100 legionnaires, and thus he had seventy captains under his command. The council of captains consisted of the seven captains under him that each had overall command of a formation of ten companies. These captains would in turn, delegate orders to the captains under their command, who would in turn convey squad level orders to the engineers and legion-brothers. Each of the council of seven was a member of the Dodekatheon, four of them since before the days of the Primarch. Phidias trusted them implicitly, as they had been so far removed from the Primarch for so long that many of them were content with the prestige and accolades heaped upon them by the elements of other legions they had worked with.
Phidias himself had earned the praise of Leman Russ in an action in the Horsehead Nebula where the Space Wolves had requested the siege expertise of the Iron Warriors and received the assistance of the 86th Grand Company. Phidias was seconded to Russ' first company as the siege liaison, more to keep the Wolves out of the barrage zones aimed at the massive Xenos fortress, and to notify them of when and where artillery strikes were planned to prevent friendly fire incidents, however this meant that Russ had made the decision to include him in the final charge against the Xenos stronghold, which the Wolves insisted on leading themselves after the Iron Warriors and their mortal auxilia had dug the trench lines, siege mines, and sap trenches required to reduce the Xenos fortification and eventually open the breach. Phidias acquitted himself well in tearing apart the Xenos techno-traps and reducing the casualties sustained by the wolves. The Fenrisian Primarch honored him for his service with a wolf claw necklace, though this was small compared to the Frostblade conferred to the then Warsmith of the 86th, now a Dreadnaught languishing in the stasis vaults of the Girded in Iron, it was an honor conferred directly by a Primarch, and thus commanded the respect of Phidias' brothers in arms.
If that wasn't enough, he'd also served with honor in a compliance action against a world of Eldar worshipping human detritus alongside Vulkan himself, where he planned and executed the reduction of a fortress the size of a continent in the Witch Head Nebula in two week's time. Through a combination of surgical lance strikes on the Eldar seats of power, reinforcing the human partisans on the surface with his transhuman soldiery, and making good use of the shock troops provided by the Salamanders to launch teleport strikes on surface to air defenses, gates, bridges and bottlenecks, the foul Xenos and their worshippers were isolated into ever smaller pockets of resistance. Two weeks after the siege had begun, the first company of the 86th Great Company under the command of Warsmith Phidias Longinus personally escorted Vulkan and his honor guard to the Eldar citadel on the planet, a massive spire crafted out of that uniquely Aeldari psychoactive material, Wraithbone, Vulkan slew the Xenos seer lord and presented it's blade to Phidias as a trophy for his exemplary efficiency and his remarkable, for an Iron Warrior, regard for the lives of all men, mortal and transhuman, who served under his command. Phidias thought Vulkan was sentimental, though he graciously accepted the gift from the Primarch. The Warsmith spent the lives of his men frugally because to do otherwise would be a waste of valuable resources; it takes years to train effectives siege engineers, and any specialist, mortal or transhuman, represented the investment of countless years of human industry.
He'd garnered a reputation for his cold application of the calculus of war against the foes of the Imperium while managing minimal casualties compared to other Iron Warriors formations. His captains knew their lives would not be spent out of caprice or spite, and thus Phidias didn't have to watch quite as intently for the schemes of his underlings as they vied for prestige. He keyed the communicator as the one member of the council of captains aboard the Girded in Iron entered the chamber and six hololithic pedestals flared to life with the images of the other six of his captains. In the center of the council chamber, an image of the planet they would land on appeared. Phidias designated an island off the coast of one of the continents in the northern hemisphere of the planet. "This will be our beach head on the world. A large island will be simple to fortify, and we need not worry about supplies once we establish a provisional star port." He looked around at his captains to check to see if they had any input. With no comments forthcoming, he continued. "We have not detected any signals from this island, which intelligence believes indicates that the population is less developed than the rest of the planet. We will take advantage of this in case of hostilities to bring the island to compliance first before conquering the rest of the world."
One of his captains, a distinguished Terran legionnaire known simply as Martinus, brought up a question after zooming in on the island. "What of these walls? Are we not simply making our landing here for the opportunity to lay siege to such a magnificent fortification?"
Grunts of agreement were heard around the council, though no one else spoke, deferring to the Warsmith. "Based off our orbital scans, this is the most impressive fortification on this world, and thus likely to be of some value to some petty faction on the world. We have yet to identify an over-arching power on the planet, and so it is best to devise an action to crush their spirit quickly."
A chorus of words like "reasonable" and "sensible" rang out from his assembly of commanders. He met each of their eyes, Martinus, Casca, Barbarossa (who did, in fact, sport a massive red beard), Golyn, Cain, Solomon and Percival. Each held sway over 1000 legionnaires, each could conduct a great siege all on their own merit. "When we make planetfall, we will surround each of the four protruding segments of the outer wall. I will attempt contact with their leaders. If this fails, we will attempt to scale the walls to force compliance upon the population. We shall grant one opportunity to surrender. If they refuse once more, we will raze their fortress and all that stands within."
After a brief interlude, offering an opportunity for his captains to make their objections known, he nodded his head, passed a dataslate to Barbarossa, the council member present on the Girded in Iron, instructed him to disseminate the pertinent documents to the rest of the council, and left the chamber.
He greeted Rufio outside the chamber, and instructed him to have the legionnaires prepare for field operations. In ten hours they would make planetfall, and Phidias had every intention of making this a speedy compliance.
AN: Leave a review or send me a PM if you liked it. I'll probably write a follow up regardless of the feedback, or lack thereof, that I receive. I want to take this to an assault on the walls, but I also wanted to put something out and this felt like a natural stopping point. A lot of my work ends up in limbo because I set arbitrary word count requirements on myself, but I figured I'd rather publish something then let it sit in the wings and wither on the vine. My brother and I are collaborating on a One Piece fic, and I still have my notes for Inside Out, Upside Down and Warped, but I'm probably going to go back and doctor those because, well, I have feelings about those two stories and the quality of my writing there, and going back and editing could renew my motivation to get them rolling again. Anyway guys, leave me a review or send me a PM. I'm not dead!
Postscript: Guest reviews are appreciated, but before leaving a review, ask yourself if you're talking about 40k or 30k. I'm mostly looking for feedback on the Attack on Titan elements. Please don't bring up politics in Warhammer 30k or 40k; there are no good guys in 40k, in 30k the Imperium is explicitly the good guy, and during the Heresy, which takes place after this story, there are no good guys, only varying degrees of bad. With all that said your reviews are welcome and if you want me to take your review more seriously attach an account to it.