Dilloth's vision scanned over the mass of troopers disembarking their drop ships. The mass of soldiers and tanks was an impressive sight. Several other regiments had joined the drop, totaling their numbers to roughly 200,000 troops, enough chimeras to mobilize all of them, some couple thousand sentinels of both scout and heavy variety, several thousand hellhounds, just over a thousand Leman Russes, and finally ten baneblades of several different variants. What Dilloth was now looking over was but a fraction of the total forces that would reclaim the planet.
Dilloth felt his belt vibrating and took out his short range vox. He clicked the hailing signal off and spoke into the speaker, "General's secretary and psyche Dilloth speaking."
"Dilloth!" boomed the deep voice at the other end, "It's Mathis, no need to be formal."
"Of course, sir."
"How are things going on your end?"
"Fine, the troops are mustering, despite a few gambling rings here and there."
"Looks like the Commissars are forgetting that's a capital offense."
"Indeed, for I think I see one such commissar partaking in the gambling."
"You really need to dumb down your speech, psyker."
"Sorry, sir," He said scratching at the psychic inhibitor implanted in his head.
"Could you do me a favor and pass on a few orders?"
"With pleasure, sir."
Dilloth cracked his knuckles and sat down in a meditation stance. He closed his eyes and tried to open his mind to the Warp. The inhibitor lit up and started to hum, prevent Dilloth from being overflowed with power from the Warp and as a safeguard against a daemon from invading his mind.
He saw the planet through the Warp. He felt the raw energy from the various ork war cries occurring as their latent psychic powers were called into action by the thrill of battle. He saw the bright spots of his fellow psychers and those that belong to the orks. He saw the dim light of the rest of the troops, barely detectable in the Warp. He tapped into their minds with extreme pain to his. The inhibitor started to beep, warning him about taking too much energy. However, Dilloth knew his limits, and while this would stretch them, he would be safe.
He opened the minds of every trooper on the planet and in the spacecraft above. He was bombarded by hundreds of thousands of thoughts, but he managed to maintain his concentration. He tapped into each of their vocal controls within their brains.
"Message from the General," He muttered, each trooper echoing him on the planet and in space. "Once you have landed, take your full combat kit and report to your sergeant at your assigned chimera. Once everyone has landed, we will be acting as a second wave."
For a second, the connection was broken. Dilloth experienced a white hot flash of pain as a daemon tried to force its way into his mind. Dilloth repelled the daemon hastily. He hadn't lived to be forty-nine by being a pushover to daemons.
He quickly reestablished the connections to the minds of the troopers. "Sorry about that. As I was saying," two hundred thousand voices said in unison, "All tank crews, your orders are to fill your ammunition piles to the brink and be ready for both anti-tank and anti-infantry if possible. That means HE rounds for the Russes. I hope to begin our advance in four hours. That is all,"
He broke the connection and released his mind from the warp. He felt exhausted and wolfed down a ration bar to get back some of his energy. He decided it may be prudent to retire for a few hours so that he would be rested before the battle began.
Captain Savlon looked about the cabin of the chimera. Directly across from him sat his company's Commissar, a stern looking man by the name of Grassik Tikus. Despite regulations, he was from the home planet Savlon was from, though he was taken away to be trained as a Commissar when he was only five years old. Normally, a Commissar would not be from the home planets of the troops he was charged with, but due to the sheer number of planets that they had recruited from, it was inevitable that at least one Commissar would be from the same world as one of the other troopers.
It was because of this shared world that Savlon had taken the Commissar into his own company. He missed his old planet greatly and the Commissar served as a reminder to the simpler and better years he had spent on the planet, playing farmer and husband to a beautiful woman. They were to have a child within three months.
That's when the ruinous powers fell on his planet. They captured most of the population and tortured them, feeding their souls to the dark gods that the screaming lunatics worshipped. Tasha, his wife, had been killed before him by one of the filthy worshippers of darkness. They had sliced her open and spread her organs about in an eight pointed star, at the center of which they placed his unborn, yet murdered child. They had used that circle to summon a daemon, a horrid beast that words could not begin to describe.
Savlon shook his head and cleared it of the memories. Now was not the time. It was time for battle.
He scratched at the beginnings of a beard and realized he should have shaved before planetfall. This beard was going to be annoying and annoyances tended to be killers in warfare.
He leaned over to the commissar and shouted over the roaring engines, "You better not kill any of my men today, worm," he joking shouted.
"As long as a soft skinned fool like you can manage to lead them, I won't have to kill anyone, ever," returned the Commissar. He was fiddling with his new plasma pistol which he had managed to requisition after taking down a Chaotic Astartes on the previous planet. He set the pistol aside and double checked the battery pack in his chainsword. If it ran dry in the middle of a fight against orks, he was very well bliked.
"Me? Soft skin? How dare you!" replied Savlon in mock hurt.
"Don't blame me, you were the one to call the Emperor's wrath down on yourself."
"Hm, indeed," responded Savlon before he drifted back into his thoughts.
Jarvix was mimicking the Commissar and was once again fiddling with his new hellgun. A few of the other bodyguards smirked at his obsessive cleansing rituals, but Jarvix knew better than to mess with the machine spirit. He finished polishing the gun and took out his gold cog necklace and kissed it, muttering a prayer to the Emperor and the Omnissiah.
"Say, boy, what do you think you're doing?" inquired the guard next to him. Jarvix turned and looked at the grizzled veteran, whose lined face had seen dozens of battle fields and hundreds of his friends died. Jarvix nearly shuttered at the sights he must have seen in his years.
"Just saying a few prayers before battle."
"Ah, standard Emperor worship?"
"Yes, along with some worship to the machine god."
"Now wait a second. For one thing, the Emperor is the only god, and two, you don't look like no damn tech-priest to me. What you be worshipping that false god for?"
"Well, Omnissiah is part of the Emperor, so I am just worshipping a specific part of the same god. As for why I am, I grew up on a Mechanicus forge world, so worship of the Omnissiah was more or less expected."
"Whatever floats your boat, kid."
Jarvix ignored the old veteran and put his weapons aside. He leaned his head against the side of the chimera, feeling the rumble of the engine flow through him. He always had an affinity for machines, but he never considered himself tech-priest material. Still, he enjoyed being in transports of any kind. The rumbling of the engine felt like a cradle rocking him to sleep. He decided a quick nap before the battle might be a good idea. He yawned and dozed off.
The boom of artillery filled the air around Commissar Krakin. The vibrations traveled through the air and rattled in his new replacement heart and lungs. He scanned the battle field and despite his lack of showing emotion, he was filled with dread at the sight.
There had to be at least a million orks surrounding the hive. There were several gargants firing their heavy weapons at the city, trying to destroy the void shields surrounding it. Already, the orks had managed to deactivate one shield, leaving only one left, which was almost depleted as well. The fields around the city were burnt, meaning even more fertile farmland was lost to the ravages of war. If this plague managed to spread any further, there wouldn't be a planet worth fighting for.
He tried to locate where the ork leadership was, but he couldn't tell from the top of the wall. IF he could managed to direct the artillery fire on to some of the warbosses leading the siege, the resulting confusion might break the ork lines, allowing his forces a victory. His only hope would be that the imperial forces currently landing would be able to assist quickly.
He scribbled some coordinates down where he though some ork leaders might be and handed them to a runner. A few minutes later, the wall of fire brought down by the artillery shifted, killing more orks, but not slowing down their fire.
Krakin cursed and spat off the wall. The orks were bringing up more of their own artillery to bring down the shields. The crackle of their zzap guns echoed across the city streets and between the towering skyscrapers and spires that made up the city. The bolts of lightning hit the shields with the force of a mag-train, showering the orks outside the shield with sparks and lighting the inside of the shield with blue cracks of light.
So, this is it, he thought, I die defending an overgrown city made up of farmers, but I'll be damned if I die without a fight.
"Voxer!" he barked.
"Sir?" replied the trooper manning the large vox unit.
"Send an order to all infantry. Report to the east gates immediately. We are going to charge the enemy and try to kill a few of their leaders."
"Yes, sir," he said obediently and he began repeating the orders to the unit commanders. Krakin moved briskly to the mag-lift and descended down to the lower levels of the hive, where the east gate was located. He stepped off the lift and walked to the gate. He noted that it was much darker here and he saw gang members and the poor of the city sneaking around in the shadows.
Poor wretches. They probably don't even know what's happening.
He arrived at the gate and saw several companies were already waiting for him. He straightened his long black over coat and checked to make sure his bolt pistol was in place. He drew his chainsword and approach the commander of the city forces.
"Imperial guard units have landed only a few hours from here. I have reason to believe that several units are on their way to our position now," he reported to the commander. Though he had a lot of renown and sway over the military units here due to the fact he destroyed an ork gargant single handedly, it was up to the actually commanders to call the shots. He had probably overstepped his bounds in requesting that the units muster at the gate. "I suggest that we have a massed infantry charge and try to take out some of the orks command structure before the imperial guard units arrive."
"Do you know for sure reinforcements are on the way?" asked the Commander doubtfully.
"No, not for sure, but knowing this particular general, he will be launching a quick first wave."
"You do realize that if they don't arrive soon enough, we will be overrun."
"Yes, but if they do come and we aren't fighting, they may be overrun as well."
The commander ignored this and continued talking, "If we are overran, then the shields will fall quicker, meaning the death of this city."
"At this rate, the shields will fall within a few days anyway."
"That's a few days that a lot of people will want to live!"
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
"Yes, commissar, but I don't know what you're doing, and that's what scared me."
"You have no reason to worry, commander. Everything will work out. Everything will go according to plan."
"What plan?"
"Don't worry, I have one."
"Would you care to enlighten me?"
"No time. Do you smell that?" Krakin said, sniffing the air.
"All I smell is the filth of the orks and the under city."
"I smell promethium. Our reinforcements are here."
"Commissar, if you're wrong about this. . ."
"If I'm wrong about this, we'll both be dead. If I'm right about this, we'll both be heroes. Now let's go be heroes commander!"
The commander nodded and waved his hand to the gate control house. The gate opened slowly as the commissar and the commander took their places in front of the infantry, some four thousand troops.
The commander raised his power sword and cried, "For Maklis Hive!"
The commissar raised his chainsword and shouted, "For the Emperor and the golden throne!"
The men echoed their cries and the mass charged forward into the throng of ork awaiting them. Autoguns fired and knives bit into green flesh. The orks were not expecting this display of fury and were pushed back temporarily. As the commissar's chainsword neatly decapitated an ork, he saw the unmistakable smoke trails of a promethium engine in a chimera transport. Their reinforcements had indeed come.
"Forward, men!" he cried, "To victory!"