The sun rose over Perjed's Landing and the surrounding woodlands, bathing the land in sunlight and raising banks of mist from the asphalt. The screams of aircraft engines filled the air, and the cacophony of construction and industry echoed across the busy flight lines. Freight haulers lumbered to and fro, and formations of troops and armor were forming up to deploy to their assigned combat zones. Liberation forces were working around the clock – not only racing away to join battle with the Emperor's enemies, but also transforming the star port into a proper stronghold. A steady northern breeze from the mountains whisked away the worst of the humidity, but a heaviness still hung in the warm morning air. Dark wisps of clouds, the dregs of an early summer storm, tumbled through the deep blue sky. Today was going to be hot.
Nearly a week had passed since the clearing of the star port. The Royal Reyado tank divisions were now on the move, thundering across the continent of Vidal and bearing down on the eastern coast and the center of Novum Tempestus command. Resistance only mounted as they drew near, ensuring a steady but hard-won advance by the accomplished tankers. Heartland industrial zones became the backdrop of vicious armor engagements and push-pull infantry maneuvers, methodically directed in the name of preserving the tremendous capacity of Knossos's industry. Far to the southwest, aerial engagements blistered across resource-rich archipelagos and over sprawling drilling platforms. In the southern tropics, scouting parties of the Valparaiso air assault troops rendezvoused with the remnants of loyalist resistance, bolstering their numbers and providing them with the resupply they so desperately needed. Field Marshal Tarkov and his staff were executing a three-pronged campaign across Knossos, an ambitious move that belied his otherwise by-the-book demeanor.
Back at the star port, a towering prefab curtain wall had sprung up after the Siege Auxilia brigades were unleashed. Sturdy, armor plated rockcrete watchtowers loomed over the razor wire-edged walls, and heavy defense guns maintained a silent vigil over the surrounding woodlands. At key points on the grounds, Manticore launchers and Hydra flak emplacements squatted on low, tread-plated platforms, their gunners and sensor pods scanning the skies for threats. At the far southwest corner, naval security teams stood watch at the sloping entrances to the service tunnels, now repurposed as ammo dumps and storage bunkers. The Siege Auxilia Corps was astounding in their industriousness. Long formations of troops marched and double-timed across the flight lanes, requisitioning their gear and munitions. Processions of priests and holy men chanted blessings through vox projectors, and packs of augmented Mechanicus minions scuttled about. Shadows slid across the lanes, cast by a maddeningly complex formation of cargo shuttles and troop landers, all part of a chaotic network of contrails that laced the morning sky. The concourse's announcement matrix had been reactivated and calls to prayer droned from the flared mega-horns fixed around its edges. The tinny sermons echoed out into the surrounding woodlands, scaring up flights of birds and other wildlife.
Presently, Mack and Girard left the main concourse with a gaggle of Naval intelligence personnel and Elysian team leaders. Their morning hours had been spent in briefings inside the concourse's command wings. Also in attendance were the 22nd's support section leaders, essential personnel who now set about consecrating specialized wargear and requisitioning the necessary supplies from the liberation force's stores.
As they continued, cloth-topped troop lorries made a circuit 'round the various billets, muster points, and converted chapels to ferry troops quickly around the base. It was past one of these muster points that Mack and Girard now made their way. A huddle of spindly marking flags lay ahead, weighted down between old lashed-together water drums. A large gaggle of the air assault troopers gathered around the fluttering flags, smoking and chatting among one another. They lounged about on stacks of duffel bags and long-range reconnaissance packs, awaiting the next transport. Their regiments in particular were bound for somewhere beyond the wooded highlands of Vidal.
At a respectable distance from the air assault troops, and clad in full battle dress, was a command squad of Artonian troops. Their slate colored, two-tone fatigues of jagged camo patterns were overlaid with gleaming Tempestus pattern carapace armor of a deep regal purple, with burnished gold trim that gleamed majestically in the morning light. Matching slate berets topped their buzzed heads, and their kit and weaponry sat in tidy stacks beside several portable stasis chests. Truly, a premier selection of experienced and well-funded regiments had been pulled together to prosecute this liberation. Even by his detachment's high standards and prominence in the supply chain, Girard was nonetheless impressed by the scale of the resources afforded to the Artonians. He spied dataslates integrated into arm plating, omnispex targeting arrays, sleek long range vox equipment, and even an unused bolt pistol swaddled in wax-stamped purity seals. A pair of bull-necked line troopers stood watch over their small stack of gear, while their commanders conversed privately. The officers and enlisted men alike made no effort to hide their disdain for the pair of glory-thieves, glaring contemptuously as they went. Girard took a moment to smile and wave.
"Reinforcements bound for the archipelagos." Mack kept a brisk pace, her augmetic eyes flickering with data retrieval. "The Artonian forces met extreme resistance three local days ago, so the air assault regiments are joining in."
"Can't imagine they were thrilled at that arrangement. I'm still surprised there wasn't more maneuvering to hijack our operation for themselves." Girard said over the breeze. Mack scoffed.
"Oh, there was. Colonel Jampson and his adjutants have been in constant correspondence with Liberation Command."
"Even after getting shot down the other night?"
"Indeed. Though, the Field Marshal's staff is admirably resolute - they have even cited support directly from the Office of the Lord General. Unfortunately, the Colonel seems not to have… taken the hint." She mused, casting an appraising glance over the preening noble troops. "The prescribed course of this liberation was all rather rigid, not much room for theatrics or glory-hounding." "You're certainly well-informed." Mack smiled. "Who do you imagine supplies the sat-vox buoys and intra-planetary comms arrays?"
"Point taken."
The conversation trailed away as Girard and Mack approached the threshold of the Elysians' hangar. It belonged to a noble family before the rebellion, and was no doubt filled with expensive aerocraft and interplanetary shuttles. After its owners beat a hasty retreat off-world, the Elysians happily filled the vacancy. Men from Sergeant Weber's squad, one of the three other squads under Metzger's command, provided local security for the hangar in full kit and weapons at the ready. Inside, the morning sun shone through windows set high into the ceiling, illuminating golden pillars of dust motes at slanted intervals.
The long, green containers had been shipped from the Justicar and were lined up along the far wall, under the flight control office. Across from a parallel line of bunk-hab trailers in which the troops and support staff were billeted, armory benches bordered a makeshift gymnasia floor, where the clanging of weights overlapped the racking of weaponry and idle chatter. The rest of the company-sized element of stormtroopers went about their daily rituals and preparations, grateful for the pause but eager to be back in the field nonetheless.
The men of 2nd Squad were gathered around a battered, flaking double-wide storage trailer. It was stashed away near the rear of the hangar, and made for a quiet and private gathering point. Johannsen sat atop the trailer, feet dangling beside a messily stenciled bit of wording along the facade: The Bunker, it read. Girard crossed over to the acting team lead of 1st squad, who would now be integrated into theirs. The former leader, Sergeant Vaytsman, had perished along with several of his men while retaking one of the sprawling orbital gun batteries far to the north. Their memorial service had been heartfelt but brief, as was the way of things in the Imperial Guard.
Girard spied the late Sergeant's next-in-line, Corporal Gideon Moroz, leaning against the doors to the capsule. He was a lean, dark-haired, and brooding sort, coated in an impressive array of tattoos that flowed from his field-rolled sleeves to cover the tops of his hands and fingers. The occasional blackout mark or tidy cover-up job, all to remove remnants of ganger-related imagery, marked him as a product of Elysia's 'Civil Reclamation Initiative.'
Not content to simply put Schola Progenium cadets to work fighting the Imperium's fiercest battles, imaginative Administratum officials redirected citizens and servicemen otherwise bound for penal colonies– and various other forms of incarceration – and set them on a higher path. They selected ex-gangers and malcontents of every stripe, even promising feral world stock, subjecting them to brutal reeducation programmes and mental reconditioning widely considered barbaric – even by the standards of the current age. It was a markedly unorthodox practice, and a far cry from the elitist selection processes of the vaunted Tempestus Scions. And yet, as unorthodox as it may appear, one could scarcely argue with the astoundingly positive results. Fate had taken Moroz away from the dangerous and brutal life of a slumland ganger and transplanted him into the equally dangerous and brutal life of an Imperial Guard stormtrooper. Despite his colorful past, his reputation was well-earned, and as solid as any of his peers.
Other additions to the squad were waiting as well. Specialists Heisig, Kassin, Lindemann, and Hurtak were anxious to see what the future held for their combined squads. Girard was familiar with most of these men, insofar that they were respected within the small and tight-knit community of the 22nd. However, the hasty formation of the expeditionary detachment and the speedy journey to Knossos left him with little time to fully acquaint himself, especially given the highly decentralized nature of the regiment's various forces. He would reserve judgment for now. Johannsen, seated atop The Bunker, hopped down to the smooth rockcrete floor.
"Finally! Let's kick this party off proper, hey?"
"All present, ready when you are." Solly added.
"Good, good. Head on in lads, let's have ourselves a chat." Girard met his men with a series of handshakes and comradely hugs, gesturing toward the dim interior.
Heisig, a burly and tanned fellow of colonial stock, heaved the doors shut behind them, sealing them inside the tread-plated confines of The Bunker. Lumo-strips flickered to life, revealing chairs, projector equipment, and map tables secured along the far wall inside dusty mesh lockers. At the center of the room was a circular arrangement of squashy, faded couches and chairs nicked from a poorly secured officer's lounge some years prior. Heisig made his way to a long couch as the rest of the squad took their seats, dusting off his hands as he went.
"Locked tight and good to go there, Sergeant." He sat back heavily.
"Check the doors again, would ya? Think I can still hear those purple lads bitching all the way in here," said Wulfie.
The Elysians made frequent use of The Bunker, given the oft-sensitive nature of their assignments. The signal-reflective materials insulating the container prevented surveillance on virtually all spectrums, making it ideal for more private briefings. Short of astropathic intervention, their conversations were unknowable to the outside world. Haughty and aristocratic to an insufferable extreme, word spread quickly through the liberation force that the Artonian commanders held no small amount of resentment toward these foreign troops. Snatching up missions that were assumed to be theirs by right, and succeeding by what they perceived as pure dumb luck, tensions were steadily rising.
"Ah they can go frak themselves." Girard nodded to Mack. She clicked a holo-display adapter to a port on her dataslate and made her way to the center of the space.
"You've all gotten the buzz about the Gantos peninsula, the citadel network, the gathering of traitor forces. Well that's our next stop, too – at least, the point-defense batteries are. The whole det's going in together, a proper Strike Force maneuver." Girard pointed at the holo display that leapt from Mack's slate, as she set it on the floor and took a seat. "See? We're hitting this cluster of silos here, all Deathstrike-capable from what the 'brains say. It's also the unified control point for their air defense network."
"This is a seriously hard target; large concentrations of armor in – what I'm guessing here – is a tiered-ring defensive line. Heavy defense guns and armor, massed troop formations, close air support. These scum-sacks are ready for a fight."
Stark sat back, blowing out a long breath. "So much for the delicate, specialist work."
"To a point. The original plan was to get Mack's team in spotting range and they'd guide in a controlled orbital strike, just wipe it all out. Can't do that now, with a possible Deathstrike arsenal on site. Too much risk of vaporizing the whole damn peninsula."
"Doesn't sound like much of a problem, then." Grumbled Lindemann, the muscle bound breacher from Moroz's crew. Several of the men murmured in agreement. Lindemann was a swarthy, thick-muscled brute, made most distinct by the ragged scars that marked his forearms. As the story went, Lindemann had been forced to fight off an ursid den-mother during a cold-weather land navigation drill, armed with nothing but a survival knife. He took his share of damage, but in the end he and his fellow trainees had eaten like sector governors after the encounter.
"The problem is that we'd rather like to keep the peninsula intact. Within reason. The Foe's not keen on glassing their precious territory either, but there's no point letting them get desperate enough to try it. So instead, we'll be attaching to 5-2 Brigade, that's one of the Tarsus lads' assault forces. They're bringing up the rear while the tankers deal with the enemy armor. We fight up through the city, storm the silos, and clean the place out. The flyers have their fun, the grand old infantry sweeps the citadels, and we help round up the leadership that hasn't already legged it." He finished the overview. Wulfie nodded appreciatively, pantomiming the explosive recoil of a commissar's bolt pistol. Mack piped up from her seat:
"The delegation from the forge world of Nemea Epsilon are quite grateful for us eliminating the xenos infesting their data vault. My team has been chosen to carry the inload drives containing the deactivation codes – your team will bring us to the complex, and we will handle the technical side of things. More specifics will follow after I meet with my commanders tonight. Now, Sergeant, I believe we may move on to the second matter?" She leaned forward to tap at the slate and bring up a new screen. Girard nodded. The battle map fizzled away, and was replaced with the heraldry and pict captures of the Void Serpents. Girard talked over the backdrop of hateful murmurs.
"Listen up. The silo network is our Primary until further notice. But the second that the tacticians work out where these xenos are, we're adjusting fire in their direction. From what the Lieutenant here has been telling me, they're close to working that out. If we have to make a rapid exfil from Gantos and let the Tarsus troops carry on without us, then that's what we'll do. We'll have a Valkyrie pickup standing by in case we need a lift outside the anti-air umbrella. Any questions so far?" Girard looked around at the men gathered here; Moroz spoke first. He leaned forward in his seat, lacing his tattooed fingers as he stared at the display.
"The full might of the Guard is bearing down upon them, so why do they stay? They are slavers, raiders, not a garrison force. Surely they have long since retreated?" He mused. Mack turned to address him.
"Entirely possible, Corporal. What concerns me is that they were gathering information on religious sites here on Knossos, but the mass-data siphon is still being parsed up in orbit. I do not believe that they will have left until they find what they seek." she explained. Moroz squeezed his hands together briefly, frowning.
"Before we dropped, I did some reading in the Justicar's archive cores-"
"Bloody quill-pusher," Hurtak playfully jeered from across the room, earning a round of laughter. Moroz smirked, before continuing:
"General records show a lack of Ecclesiarchy presence in this region, let alone any noteworthy shrineholds or relics. Little wonder, I suppose." said Moroz. From the opposite couch, Veidt let out a breath.
"You coming to a point?" he sneered. Moroz's eyes flashed to the elegant stormtrooper, and the newest members of the squad flinched. If Moroz took any offense to the verbal barb, it was impossible to tell.
"Not a point, but rather a question: Are they looking for Imperial religious sites, or someone else's?" The room fell silent – including Veidt – and all eyes turned to Mack. She leaned back and crossed her arms, chewing at her lip. The sinister implication was lost on no one.
"…Unclear at this time." She said, after a moment's pause.
"Thor's balls, Gideon." Lindemann sighed. Girard steered the conversation back to more pertinent matters:
"Whatever they're after, it's all academic in the end. Once they turn back up, we burn them down just like any other target. Now Wulfie, the signal to swap objectives, it'll be coming down on one of our in-house presets if we're in the field. We don't need anyone else growing wise to our plans – least of all those damned Artonians. I'll get you the numbers before we step off."
"As of tonight, we're all on the ready line. Get your kit together today, sleep in it if you like, just be ready when the Sirs call on us. Any closing remarks?" Girard looked about the room, while Mack collected her slate from the floor. None was forthcoming.
"Should go without saying, but if you breathe a word of this to anyone, we'll be up swabbing the plasma drives of the Justicar before we can blink. I'm serious." He added.
"The reclamation halls burn their servitors out the quickest; they always need more raw material." Mack said, her face a worrying deadpan. She noted the worried expressions of the gathered stormtroopers. "Let us speak no more of it."
"Well unless someone's got a card deck around here, I'm off to the chow tents." Johannsen announced. It was as effective a closer as any.