"Captain I was aware that only two outposts were created and only one fort. What does this soldier speak of?" Robert closed his eye and steeled himself. He breathed out slowly as if he finished a drag from an Iho stick. He was advised not to create it by every Tarthian officer and many political figures in the city. "Get Sergeant Darius and tell him to recon the area with a Hades Unit."He quietly ordered. He didn't want the Chapter Master to pry and find out he had 500 men at an outpost, or the fact that the outpost had walls and a garrison on what we figured out was native holy ground that caused half of the conflicts. Robert refused to take responsibility for a necessary evil that allowed the city to expand freely as it did now.

"Milord, the outpost was built on a valuable pass. The only true way to move huge groups of soldiers into the bubble here or rather this valley. The problem is that the local Tarthian residents believe the fort is too far away to properly support and too close to native lines, and it would cause tensions to rise." Robert conveniently left out the fact that it did indeed do exactly what the Tarthian population believed would happen. Aggressive... scouting had increased in frequency ten fold along with injuries and lost equipment all which Robert chalked up to his new innovative tactics for his battalion.

"I thought this was suppose to be an outpost? Now it's a fort? which is it?" Robert inwardly cringed realizing his mistake. There was going to be hell to pay for his deceit.

"It is two forts milord. One built on each side of the pass. They're rudimentary with walls, but that's it. They are meant to house 200 soldiers each-"

"Would I be right to assume there are more there?"

"500 soldiers"

"That would explain why you didn't display a wargame."

"It's also why we requested additional power packs and survival gear-"

"Is that also why you have had a 127% increase in training accidents? I thought Helikians were better trained than to incur such foolish injuries, but this would explain the odd injuries that didn't line up with the training event. I feared you were…. Overworking the soldiers"

"There's 100 soldiers in hunter groups taking the fight to the natives. This is why you don't see the Huxi as much. 250 garrison it with 150 resting at any given moment. We have been under attack before, but Helikian steel tends to stave off the worse of it as it should now. I need one day to mobilize the soldiers and rest them. After that I can insure this siege ends decisively"

"What you've shown initiative Captain, but the acting commander of 2nd Battalion has 300 men ready to go if his reports are accurate."

"Then two thunderhawks, and I'll bring the best Helik has to offer and beat these savages."

"You've already done enough Captain" like a shot to the heart, Robert was put back in his place. He had caused this and he would reap all the demerits of his bloody campaign. Except, he wouldn't be paying the price but other guardsmen. A lingering pain of broken promises of not being like high command when he was but a lowly sergeant came back with a vengeance leaving Robert less than optimistic about his future here as an officer.

With a reluctant nod Robert let the decision be final rather than his life be finalized. Robert continued to look on at the soldiers training as the Chapter Master left. Darius came trudging back after the run tired but with a smirk on his face. Robert didn't waste valuable time casting off his doubts and forcing the bravado he saw dozens of officers display after being so righteously humbled. "2nd Battalion is going to relieve our boys at the Drake Fort."

"Sir, I highly doubt they even have the capabilities to go in that deep. There's a reason why we bring everything in by air and rhino."

"The Drake Lord is going with them. I want the head hunters formed up and ready to go in within the day. I don't care where they are or what they're doing. I want full accountability. I want to be mission capable within the next three hours."

"Sir, you have half of them on leave." Robert turned to Darius with disgust on his face. Robert spat out "I don't care I'll be damned if Hilko saves our boys out in the field." Darius slowly nodded before walking away yelling at the option 2 instructors to end the exercise and round up the men.

"Sir what about me?" Robert turned to the bloodied messenger why moved off a little ways to try and avoid being in the presence of Robert and The Drake Lord. "I don't care find your unit"

"Sir, they're at the Drake Fort…" Robert was a few steps away before the private spoke up. He tilted his head slightly "Then get to the thunderhawk pads. You'll get to go on a field trip with the head hunters."

Robert was called in to talk to The Drake Lord. He didn't need to know why. He was being called in. He heard the rumors. Hilko lost hundreds of men and a few pieces of hardware. Hilko was already there and looked like any soldier should. A bloody disorganized mess who came up on top. Unfortunately, he didn't have any war trophies on display, so Robert had no idea if Hilko had valor and was in the thick of it. He could just have easily stayed in the Rhino hiding as soldiers died defending him. The Drake Lord was quick and to the point about what needed to be done.

"Moonsun, I want to you take your best hundred men and two of the thunderhawks, destroy these villages." Robert quickly put his beret on before leaving in haste. His chance at redemption granted. The head hunters were all assembled and ready to go. There wasn't time to question with hundreds of men he ordered to hold those forts. This was his mistake to fix.

The operation's briefing took place not too far from the thunderhawk pads. Robert walked across the pad to the two thunderhawks on standby. The head hunters all stood around sitting on various boxes of prepackaged food, water and ammo. All of them didn't wear helmets with their normally tanned faces covered with dirt and oil. A few had red on their faces no doubt blood from Emperor knew where. Their uniforms were exactly the same as any other soldier in 1st Battalion. Green camouflage uniforms with baggy pants, and a baggy blouse. The only protection they wore were flak jackets with only the front plates in them. Every head hunter had a war trophy somewhere. Some made necklaces, others had a belt that gave this special unit their name. They were the undisciplined, nonuniform psychopaths of the unit. Many were former problem children of the town that Robert "recruited" and "rehabilitated" their darkest desires were in arms reach as long as they did it to the natives. The less the Drake Lord knew the better for the sake of the future of Tarth and the comfort of 2nd Battalion.

They were the meat that created Alpha Company or the Head Hunters of 1st Battalion. Some were the survivors of the plague wars that threw away their medals and such. As he walked by he saw a few spit in his direction and yell obscenities, Robert loved these soldiers. They were terrible in garrison but had all the right stuff for combat. They were feral dogs that needed wars to remain 'civilized'. A perfect tool to cull the natives and a perfect tool to get immediate results when other units could only stand their ground.

The order didn't need to be given for the hunters to start putting away packs of cards and placing the boxes of supplies into the thunderhawks. The fact Robert was there with his full kit on was enough to make the proper conclusion. The pilots one of which was female, breathed sighs of relief, the hunters who surrounded them left them in favor of grabbing energy packs and various other pieces of kit strewn about the pad. Every hunter had a backpack on with differing amounts of supplies. A few had vox casters, but all carried small explosive devices and additional ammo. With combat guaranteed, every magazine, grenade and weapon not bolted down to the armories were taken and forced onto the newer members of squads. The veterans of the guard knowing their life blood wouldn't be food or water, but the readiness of their weapons.

While the Tarth Guard or expeditionary force as it was called on official documents were equipped with lasguns, grenades, flak jackets, rucksacks, helmets and a bayonet. The Head Hunters were vastly different yet exactly the same. While they still had the gear of any other soldier, they also had a secondary ruck. It was meant to hold half of the supplies a traditional ruck had in favor of being smaller and more compact in order to move faster in the forests. Many head hunters had canteens belted on the sides and a shovel stitched onto the back of their rucks. The lessons from the natives being more than enough to teach these men to adapt swiftly less they end up on dinner platters on their charnel plates. Every piece of equipment they held was similar to the standard issue, but they modified everything including their own rifles to insure they would come out on top in every conceivable situation.

Their lasguns were modified by the tech priest to fire 30 shots but at the cost of firepower. Their buttstocks were gone in favor of hip firing only a few kept them attached becoming the scout/marksman for their compact teams. Everyone had shortened their barrels rending the bayonet unattachable. Knives were sheathed all over them not to kill but to hack into foliage of differing shapes and sizes.

The largest difference was that each member had a trauma kit attached to the left side of their ruck. It held some make shift bandages with the packs only holding cloth and tape. This was required for all head hunters to carry as it weighed little and a clean bit of bandages and tape had saved many lives or brought comfort to those dying that their brothers and sisters in arms had tried their best to save their lives.

They were Roberts elite soldiers. Unlike Captain Klein, Robert didn't make them leaders to try and train the younger generation. He made them icons to follow and one day hopefully replace. He helped feed into this idea by requiring these men to train on garrison only 1 day and spend 3 days in the field other than that they consistently had 4 days off. They didn't have to adhere to any orders outside of Robert himself of Sergeant Darius.

The headhunters in return had 7 times the kills of any other company. The least amount of fatalities or major injuries. They lost the least amount of equipment and most importantly. They gave Robert their loyalty first and foremost as Robert regularly went out with them. He also paid bail or made sure they didn't wind up on any form of punishment after leave. These grizzled veterans repaid Robert handsomely with the heads of warband leaders and other grisly trophies Robert proudly displayed in his office to intimidate any Tarthian officer who had complaints about his battalion.

"What's the mission sir?" A head hunter asked. He had sergeant stripes and a missing left eye. His call sign was Idiot if Robert remembered correctly. They patrolled a few times before and Robert was more than surprised that his nickname was because of his very obvious wound, and his attempt to cover it up. He claimed fought a native before beating them to death despite the wound being clearly made from walking into a tree branch.

"We have a few villages to burn down. No rules or regulations on how we proceed" a few soldiers groaned as they started taking out luxury items like hygiene kits and liquor to replace it with 'firecrackers' now thinking about the next few days having to carry the incendiary devices instead of a nice bottle of "fire water". A few others looked lovingly at bottles that smelled like paint thinner and shoving a small cloth down with the bottle. More than a few took a large gulp before shoving the cloths in. Robert wasn't phased instead gathering speaking directly to the NCOs.

Robert quickly laid out the plan and what each squad would carry, or any additional info they may need. Robert sent them on their way. Robert looked around until he saw a shape at the end of the path reaching the landing pad rush to reach him. The tell tale shape of Darius slowly took form. It was hard to miss the ox of a man who sharply contrasted the average head hunter who tended to be lean and smaller roughly Roberts size if not a little bit smaller.

"Darius what are you doing here?"

"Sergeant Sage switched out with me. You know him he hates the field and what not. By the way... Sergeant Sage says since 1st Battalion is now unable to field enough soldiers we need a detail to do the new colony expansion detail for awhile. Your orders?" Robert groaned as he too was shoving various supplies into his own rucksack in anticipation for the slash and burn mission parameters and taking another look on the map and noticing the extra rocky terrain.

"I don't know or care…. Put Echo Company on the new colony detail. They've been out there in the sticks for weeks. Now that I think about it, I want Brave and Charlie off too. We will just send just the headhunters out. The Xule and Huxi are the only ones active now that the Truxii and the other natives left."

"We just need 100 soldiers for this detail sir."

"I know just tell the three companies to send 33 soldiers each and one officer and the rest have a 3 day pass. We should probably send more, but we don't have the soldiers to spare hunting beasts. We already have enough trouble hunting down these natives."

"What about the rest of the Battalion?"

"I got Shinn training them up. Rumor has it we're headed back to Helik sometime this year."

All was given was a nod as they walked into their designated Thunderhawk and strapped in. None actually used the hard straps as they were too small and most sat on the hard floor of the ship all holding onto the man in front of them as they were thrown across the bay when the pilots decided to "wake up" the ground pounders. To say 2nd Battalion hated the fly boys would be the understatement of the year with bounties posted to humble the airmen whenever the company funds could pay out the sizable bounties.

"Any chance we can actually get ships we can fit in?" Darius gasped clutching his right leg after a particularly rough turn.

"Not a chance in hell Darius, I might be able to get some when the guard has more than 4 Helikians and a Tarth conscript." Darius laughed before leaning back against his seat and attempted to fall asleep all the while smirking. Robert just sat there slowly drifting off as they headed towards their objective. The roar of the engines lulling Robert asleep as he dreamed of a day long past.

"3 minutes out!" Every headhunter awoke in the thunderhawk. Immediately, they set to work redistributing hot meals they had brought with them that were now somewhat warm. Others sharpened knives. The majority sat or stood waiting for the pilot to descend. The door crept open on the 1 minute mark. The headhunters stood in silence as they watched the tribal force miles away surrounded by torches and the sounds of battle no doubt fierce. The stakes were high. They would lose hundreds if the siege were to continue. More, if the guard couldn't keep the natives suppressed and out of the city proper.

After a few seconds warband disappeared on the horizon as the planet darkened. Robert watched four head hunters throw large ropes out the back when the 30 second mark was yelled. The thunderhawk slowed for those 30 seconds to insure none were thrown out and to go at a hovering speed. The four that threw the ropes out quickly put their gloves on before grabbing one and jumping out. In teams of four headhunters left the thunderhawk.

Each headhunter had heavy duty gloves on that would take the rope burn once or twice an expensive bit of gear, but one that all of them were more than willing to pay. Robert soon grabbed the rope and went down using only his hands. He grabbed on and felt gravity take him and air leave his lungs. He looked below seeing red beams of light touch everything that moved. The only way to tell who was friend or foe was if a colored strap on their right arm. It was pure panic, and the ground was approaching. Taking a deep breathe, Robert shoved his feet so his boots were grasping the rope and legs bowed out to prevent the burn. The last 20 meters slowed dramatically. Impact, pain and collapsing on the ground. Robert was spared being smashed by the next man out as the thunderhawk would slowly drift forward and in effect the rope.

Robert watched the next soldier do exactly what he did but roll as he hit the ground and grabbed his rifle off his chest and immediately start firing into a group of braves who attempted to rally. The villages was in chaos none of the natives even considering the thunder hawks would dare drop off their hate filled cargo within the confines of their village. The thunderhawk flew away after 4 more groups rapelled off. A rough triangle was formed with Robert in the center yelling commands and organizing recently dropped guardsmen into a proper formation taking advantage of every meter of open ground or cluster of trees to provide his men with cover.

"1st and 2nd platoon assault through the objective! 50 meters LOA!*" The soldiers now formed in a rough cigar shape with the platoon of one taking up the left flank, and the other the right flank. Immediately two lieutenants screamed out more orders to their sergeants and the cigar formation stood up in one movement and pushed outward. When one would stop to finish off a brave the two beside him would move to fill in the gap.

Robert stayed where he was as a vox man ran over finally finding his CO* in the midsts of all the chaos. Three other headhunters remained with Robert to provide security. Seconds later the vox crackled.

"1st platoon up!"

"2nd platoon up!"

"1st platoon I want 360 security around this village. 2nd reform and search these huts!" Within a minute the huts in the village were being searched to reveal large stores of food, water and furs. Sergeant Darius came jogging up in full kit including his helmet an odd enough choice considering how only moments out here and Robert was sweating without a helmet.

"It's a hunting village. 1st plat found some interesting info on a dead body." Darius pulled a leather object from under his vest before handing it to Robert. There were a multitude of symbols on the other side of the leather where it was just skin.

"Anything else?"

"Trackers confirm at least 40 braves have left this area recently. They also think this is a rest stop to the front." Robert nodded before shoving the leather object into an empty mag pouch. He then removed his own map and placed an X on the village location.

"Sergeant, I want 1st platoon going 74 degrees by 3.8 kilometers. 2nd platoon will be the trailing element 100 meters behind. You got 10 minutes to stack the dozen or so dead bodies in a hut and the demo team to burn the huts." Darius nodded and turned to go before Robert roughly grabbed his arm.

"I want the returning braves to find something to greet them on their successful raid." Robert held out an imperial tarot card. A quick yes sir was said before a flurry of action took place. 1st platoon remained outside the village providing security with the 4 squad leaders jumping soldier to soldier explaining the new plans.

2nd platoon quickly grabbed the dead bodies and cut off heads with 3 squads setting fire to roughly half a dozen huts after moving two dozen dead bodies within them. The last squad took the heads and lined them up for the natives to find in the town square. This always had a strong demoralizing effect on the natives as they slowly saw the headhunters as daemons rather than flesh and blood humans.

Once the fires took hold of the huts 1st platoon got up and assembled into two lines and went straight into the forest with second platoon rallying behind them after a minute and insuring the village was being burnt. Robert went so he was in between the two platoons to maximize control along with his small contingent of men. After 4 minutes the forest canopy had hide the smoke of their raid and the headhunters disappeared within the forest.

Zydeco was stunned. His friends were dead. He had gone out with the day's hunting party after his friends made a joke about his spear arm. Now, he saw his friends heads lined up as if they were some prize to be awarded to some carrion god.

Fear pricked at his mind knowing who had done this. It was the skull takers. The inhumane warriors who stalked the forest to steal the souls of young warriors. Zydeco also felt tears prick at his eyes as he fell to his knees. His friends wouldn't go to the afterlife without their heads. They would be cursed to wander the lands alone and headless. As Zydeco wept for his friends his stomach growled. Looking up at the burning huts another wave of tears hit him. There was now no food for any of the braves at the hunting camp. After gathering themselves, the natives formed together to make the trek to the next closest village to find food before they returned to the battle.

Days had passed. The headhunters ruthlessly pursued their objectives with the help of stims to continue the "Death March" leaving only destroyed and ruined villages in their wake. The tribal braves while being natives to this land couldn't keep up with the stimfilled head hunters who didn't stop unless they were in the center of a village performing their deadly trade.

"Sir, this is a small village we only killed a few dozen braves."

"That's because the rest of them are women and children." Robert looked up from his map to see the hunters surrounding a large crowd of women and children. A brow was raised at the sergeant.

"Leave them alive just burn the food storage to the ground."

"Roger that sir-"

"Actually, I want everything here on fire. I want those natives to realize they only have mouths to feed and nothing to feed them with" Robert waved towards the survivors of the village.

"I'll tell the sappers" the sergeant started to walk away and got a dozen or so steps in before Robert hollered to the sergeant. "And find their water and poison it or something."

"Already on it!" was all Robert heard before Darius walked up eyes tired from the long raid into the native land.

"Any idea what's going on." Darius looked over Robert's shoulder to see the map.

The map was covered in colored dots. Purple being visual contact, red being a battle and yellow being a questionable last stand or loss of supplies being brought in. The dots covered the northern section with only a few being south of the outpost. Robert looked closely before jabbing his hand at the south seeing an odd collection of dots too close to what was believed to be an impassable section of mountains.

"They played us! Right here is a path we missed" Robert pointed to a unpassable section supposedly that was covered in purple dot sporadically.

"Patrols say that they disappear into the hills but what if they really do? That would explain all the raiding parties south of us here, here and here." Robert pointed out questionable battle locations that should be impossible to reach with no purple dots to show that visual encounters were frequent. A large yellow star denoting Hilko's miracle defeat by a supposedly large brave force after reading the map. That brave force could easily be over two thousand warriors hungry for blood.

"They're going around us, and we are surrounded as we already know not by a single raiding party but at least-"

"Sir you're going to want to hear this!" Private Stacks ran over humping his large vox on his back along with his ruck.

"What is it?" Private Stacks took a knee pressing the hand mic against his ear as he relayed the info.

"The headhunters attached to the siege say the south is red with torches. This is the big one."

"How much time do we got?"

"Two or three days. This is probably the brave force that took the fight to Second Battalion. They'll be moving slow if they're taking their wounded also."

"Darius get over here!" Robert didn't need to glance to see if Darius had arrived. He just knew his trusty sergeant would be there.

"Here sir"

"Darius grab a some boys and get back to the Drake Fort. I need you to support them. They also need to know that the Xule tribe has at least 2 thousand warriors heading their way."

"I'll take 3rd and 5th squads. Can't we just vox it over?"

"Negative either they lost their voxes in the siege, or we're out of range with all of these damn trees and mountains. We tried boosting earlier, but we couldn't even raise the thunderhawks patrolling overhead." Darius nodded as he chewed on whatever the hell it was spitting out blackish red liquid.

"The fastest we can get there without voxes, food and water is 4 or 5 days." Robert pointed along the route he predicted that the natives were using to get around the fort.

"Here's the route take the map, this route with full gear should take 3 days. I expect you to take 1 if you go all night. Don't stop, those boys need the info and the last I heard the men are surrounded and separated. They can't resupply because the thunder hawks drop the supplies outside the wall and can't get too close due to the terrain. The pads are locked out because they got blown up in the confusion during the first attack."

A/N

I decided to start writing again. I haven't spoke to Austan123 about continuing this fic so don't be surprised if this is taken down due to continuity errors and such and I would also say if this isn't taken down don't treat this as true lore for the main story. I plan on writing to simply maintain a little bit of writing ability. I went abroad for a year and I'm taking a short break from college. This is my kinda sorta promise to myself to "study" and such by exercising writing and such. This fic will honestly go back on haitus when I return to college. This also isn't the best written chapter of my life, but about 90% of this was written before I took a break only for me to return now. A lot of ideas were lost in transition.

I do promise that the next chapters will be the siege over 10K words is my goal. I'd love feedback on grammar, sentence structure and such as I want to work on the technical side and such. Keep an eye on my profile as I also might time skip to an idea Austan123 and I played with but decided against. The fic would revolve around The Burning Stars region once again my writing being focused on the guardsmen.

If there's anything specific you would like me to explore eg. Guardsmen mentioned in Austan123, the training or the world of Tarth just send a PM and I'll get in contact with Austan123 and find permission to expand upon his IP.

Until Next Time

-SITH