-XVI-
Squad Extus moved at the edge of the sector designated as the combat zone. Combat zone was the main sector where the Imperials defend the hive itself from the still amassing Ork hordes and their constant Ork mass wave attacks. Ioras and his team had no tactical data into the battle itself, ally dispositions, enemy dispositions, command integrity, enemy armour types, enemy aerial presence, sections covered by enemy artillery, mine fields and many more.
"When you said we are going in blind I underestimated it, now..." trailed off Julius.
Ioras checked the maps via his helmet display "We are at the edge of the rich districts, but the lack of Orks up until now what worries me."
"Maybe we are winning." grinned Julius inside his helmet, Ioras wasn't able to see the smile and took it as a serious comment.
"Unlikely, its probably there is something that lures the greenskins with hopes of a better fight, these beasts live for a good war." replied Ioras.
"Probably a mass Imperial presence or a bastion of some sort." said Iulius scanning around with his auspex.
"Anything?" asked Ioras.
"Negative." said Iulius.
They moved ahead between the piles of broken down buildings and abandoned personal transport vehicles. The road was full of them, apparently there was a great pandemonium of some sort and Orks somehow getting behind the defences and causing mayhem within the city didn't help.
"We got incoming." shouted Julius as he saw the shapes on the sky dropping towards them.
The shapes was making a distinct motor noise and leave behind a trail of black smoke as they descend towards squad Extus.
Purring high pitch noise grew louder and louder as they neared the marines. Extus was already in cover and the shapes fallen some distance away in a very wide area from their position. Explosions rose towards the sky in a big black smoke and fire till they dissipated.
"Rockets, greenskins are firing rockets at us." said Horatus.
"Rockets yes, us no, those were too random." said Julius.
As he said it they heard the same purring noise in the distance and saw as several more rockets descend from the sky into the city with no apparent target.
They landed divided and disorganized as before and some exploded upon impact while others only stirred some dust clearly their firing mechanisms failing.
Cussax's vox caster made a static-like noise and Julius realised it was a chuckle.
A moment later Cussax said "Their rockets won't even fire properly." as if pointing it out would make it funny.
"Lucky for us." Ioras said then added "move!"
Squad broke cover and marched onwards and they immediately realised that they were leaving the rich districts. The large wall and the decorated gate clearly stated that this was the end of the rich section of the hive.
"What's the next section?" asked Horatus didn't bothering to check the maps.
"Factories and production plants and then the city outer wall. Also worker habs." said Iulius checking the maps.
"We should directly go to the wall with the shortest route possible, factories would be deserted we would find no one there." said Horatus to Ioras.
"Wall would put us too close to the combat, we might get bogged down in fighting or catch some unnecessary artillery fire." countered Iulius.
"We might but its better than doing wasting time in deserted parts of the hive." said Horatus.
"They would not be deserted, there would be artillery units and logistics. Its possible we might even come across military command by chance." said Iulius.
"I won't leave this to chance and neither would Ioras, right Lord?" asked Horatus.
Ioras didn't reply at first considering both options in depth, checking over the maps as the squad paced forwards.
"Like the same person born to different mothers." thought Julius as he listen to the two sergeant's chat. One was clearly a Devastator Sergeant who would take solid and tactically wise path while the other was an Assault Sergeant with a desire to resolve issues quickly and directly, suffering the consequences.
"I plotted a route towards the wall passing through the factories." said Ioras.
"But what if we came across an impassible terrain, an obstacle or a wall." said Horatus.
"These factories are built with wide roads so that heavy lifter cargo vehicles can manage through them and carry their products." explained Ioras.
At first they moved through generic habs and streets but soon they came across a wide crossroad and saw the factories up close. The gigantic buildings rose several dozen metres into the air and laid out for kilometres into the industrial area. The factory area was a long way from the main hive and the average factory worker probably never seen the hive itself up close in all their lifetimes. The rich districts closer to hive was where the real pleasures of the world was. The rich and prestigious had access to the excess provided under the rule of House Echnisia. The factories provided the richer sections with the endless supply of worldly devices, ranging from forks to chemicals. All the disposable utilities were produced day and night and carried over to the hive range.
This was before the war happened. Before the Orks arrive at Echtesia. Now the giant factories were abandoned, only the occasional random rocket barrages give voice to the empty area.
Extus moved in through the path designated by Ioras. It was a long road towards the wall, there was some abandoned heavy weight vehicles and trucks on the road but other than that it was empty.
"Not much of a damage here." said Rexus looking at the high factory buildings.
"Workers must be drafted once the Ork presence became apparent." said Julius.
Deciaci raised his bolter to get their attention "I hear something." he said pointing towards a giant sheet-metal door used to load in the ores for whatever this factory was supposed to make out of.
"Yeah, me too." said Achagon putting his eye over the scope and ranging the factory's windows and pipe openings for possible contacts.
"What is it?" asked Ioras.
"Chatter, crying, human noises." said Deciaci.
"Move to that door we open it and see what waits us inside." said Ioras and the squad moved in unison, covering every angle with their bolters.
Deciaci and Ioras moved the sides of the door, Julius and Herean was right behind them, one for each. Horatus took cover behind a nearby barrel where we got a full view of the inside once the doors was open.
Deciaci and Ioras grabbed the giant door and raised it with their superhuman strength. The giant door was impossible to open was human standards but two marines hefting it made it look too easy.
As the door groaned Julius and Herean had already took point and covering their squad mates while they were busy with the door. Once the door was raised to Astartes height and bolter barrels showed at the doorstep the people inside became aware of their presence.
Julius saw several armed man raising their guns towards them "Drop your weapons or die. Choose." he shouted with his vox speakers booming.
The men were horrified and all except one dropped their guns on instinct. The one that didn't comply was a brute. He had a short-cut mohawk hair on his otherwise bald head. The sides of his head and cheeks was covered with continuous tattoos that resembles snakes on his face. He also has a black long beard which was kept pretty well compared to the entire package. He was wearing a leather sand-yellow vest with pockets on both sides and sand-camouflage military issue pants accompanied by black military jack boots. His tattoos ran down his neck and onto his arms in one swift formation. Julius could see the distinct shapes on the tattoo and decided that whoever did it took his time.
It took Julius to realise all these details less than a second, in the full second he also saw details of the guy's weapon that was still pointed at him.
He carried an old stubber in his one hand and leading the bullet trail with his other hand. It could probably tear apart several guys in one burst but against Astartes power armour it was useless.
"Drop the weapon." repeated Julius as he moved towards the brute with his bolter aimed at his head.
The guy didn't respond or flinch to the second time the marine shouted.
"Drop it." shouted the marine a third time but the brute was still standing in the exact same pose as if expecting something. He was standing like a statue.
Ioras realised that there were more people on the catwalk above them and moved inside without raising his weapons.
"We see you up there, come down here and we'll talk." he said.
A second later several shadows moved as one shadowy figure raised on his feet.
"He is deaf, won't hear ya." the figure said striding slowly towards the nearest metal ladder.
"Alexis" he shouted, then the brute looked up at him. Figure made a swirling motion with his hand and Alexis lowered the stubber he was carrying.
The figure grabbed hold of the ladder and put his feet to the sides of it and slid down in one motion towards the ground level.
Ioras signalled Julius to stand down, Julius lowered his bolter but still scanned the people around for any problems that may arise.
"Quite a show there." the guy said pointing at the door.
"We are Space Marines." declared Ioras boldly.
"I assumed that much, we are not all ignorant bunch ya know." he guy said.
He was wearing a black kopiah hat and had black disorganised long hair mixing into his short black beard. He also wore a black vest with gold decorations at it's shoulders over his combat uniform. The uniform had the same sand-camouflage design with the Alexis's outfit. He spoke with a guttural dialect of the low gothic.
Ioras also realised that the uniform had a different rank insignia than the regular guard regiments. He wasn't able to identify it but it looked important.
The guy also had a pair of stubguns in holster in either side of his hips accompanied with an odd dangling gold-yellow tassels.
"We thought the cursed greens found a way in." he said walking towards Ioras.
"Who are you people?" asked Ioras.
"How uncivilized of me, I forgot the necessities in all this ruckus, you gave us quite a scare." he said smiling to reveal a gold tooth.
When Ioras gave no reply he continued "I am Lord Erdul Malik of these respectable gentleman, the Adi Balhareth Raiders" he waved a hand toward his man.
"Are you guardsmen?" asked Ioras.
Malik moved towards one his man in a calm demeanour "Of course we are, barely." he laughed tapping his man on the chest to prompt him to laugh.
The man produced an involuntary smile and a nervous laugh, glancing towards Space Marines with fearful eyes.
"What is your rank then? I don't recognize the symbol." said Ioras.
"Oh we are from far away, so we use our local ranks, I am Kavhim Lord." he said.
Ioras stood unconvinced, his helmet made his thoughts unreadable.
"It's akin to colonel as you would know, Space Marine." Malik said.
"So what are you doing here?" asked Ioras.
"Well, aren't you going to introduce yourself, my good friends." said Malik with a smile.
"Get this, we aren't your friends, next time you adress one of us, use lord or use nothing." said Ioras.
"Of course my lord." said Malik with an exaggerated bow towards Ioras.
"We are Emperor's Spears, I am Ioras." Ioras said.
"So were are allies right? In our type of business there are allies and others." said Malik with a serious look.
"We are, as long as you are loyal to the Emperor of mankind." said Ioras.
"Oh bless his name, of course we are, what would we do without the Emperor and his empire." said Malik and his man mouthed a silent word as one when they hear the Emperor's name from Malik.
"We need to get to the guard command or whoever is controlling the defence effort in this hive."
"That would be the Lions right?" asked Malik.
"So you know about them."
"I do, are they your friends by any chance?"
"What do you think?"
"I think you hate them as much as we do."
"Why did you think that?"
"Posture, I've been doing this kinda work for a long time, lord."
"What kind of work?"
"You know, going here, going there, trying to get out fair share while the big gears of the Imperium try to crush us. We know how to survive and its not always the Orks that kill you." Malik said.
Ioras removed his helmet and looked at Malik "Any information or help with the Lions, we would appreciate it. With payment of course." he said.
"Let me tell you what...lord, we have cargo trucks some long way from here and we need to get our cut to those transports in one piece, you help us and I help you get into the Lion's den." Malik bargained.
In the internal vox Horatus cut in "We don't have time for this, Ioras lets make them talk we can cut through them like a butter."
"Wait Horatus I am handling this." he said.
Horatus was uneased and that made the guardsmen uneasy.
"My man are just eager to help you out in this noble endeavour." said Ioras to Malik.
"But first we need details, on the cargo, on the quality of the information, on the route." Ioras said.
"Very well, we need help anyway." said Malik and produced a holo-map in his hand.
The route was from their current position to two factories towards the wall. Malik said that the Orks somehow get behind the Imperial defensive line and causing havoc roaming and looting in random, so the factory routes were quite dangerous for them. They deployed at the defensive wall with trucks and some of them needed to get inside the factories to acquire certain commodities.
"And about the cargo?" asked Ioras.
Malik looked to the Apothecary for a second then said "I better show you."
They followed Malik to the other side of the factory towards the next exit where they would start their route.
As they entered a large storage section Ioras saw several crates of ammunition and weaponry as well as a group of people sitting in a tight group circled by armed man of the Balhareth.
"We needed to fight and race our way in to get to these caches before the cursed Orks did, damned beasts loot like a gutter-fly hive upon a corpse." said Malik walking towards the weapons cache they loaded on wheeled carriers. Several young man with hoods and sand hues white robed man stood behind the caches ready to push them on Malik's command.
"These are also your guardsmen?" asked Ioras pointing to the young man that clearly had no weapons and had poor quality sandals and robes.
"Oh, no no, those are the volunteers, they also hail from our homeworld but they've yet to prove themselves worthy as a fighter." he explained.
Ioras looked towards the group of people sitting as a pack. Fear and uncertainty could be read from their faces. Most of them had their gaze towards the ground but some glanced towards Space Marines as they walked in.
"What about those?" asked Ioras.
"They belong to our cargo." Malik said trying to judge the reaction of Ioras through his helmet.
"You're taking slaves?" said Julius before Ioras manage to reply.
"Well, not slaves, we provide them with...work." Malik said.
"You're taking Imperial citizens and selling them as well as looting Imperial factories." Julius said exposing the Malik's efforts.
"It is certain, these man are heretics, let's kill them all." Horatus voxed in.
"No, we need the information, what's going on here is none of our concern at this moment." Ioras voxed back.
"My lords, do not think us evil, this is how the Imperium works, we need these armaments, would you prefer these Imperial products to fall into Ork hands rather than used by us, in the most glorious Emperor's wars." Malik said his man mouthing that word again upon the Emperor's name.
"And the slaves?" asked Julius.
"They are not 'slaves', these man and women are Imperial souls without an aim, they're deserters and pleasure girls we gathered from the hive cluster." said Malik.
"Are they?" asked Ioras.
Now that Julius took a closer look he noticed that several girls really were pleasure girls from the rich districts and some pleasure boys as well.
"This world disgusts me." he said to himself inside the helmet and nobody heard him say it.
"We provide the Imperial nobility with these prized people, this in not slavery. It's just employment change, they were working for one noble and now they will work for another." said Malik.
"Are we going to stand by and let these man drag Imperial citizens to slavery?" voxed Horatus.
"I don't like it anymore that you do but this isn't our concern, these people were owned by the lords of this pleasure world before these guardsmen." Ioras said to Horatus on squad wide vox.
"This borders on heresy, Ioras." snarled Horatus.
Ioras kept his composure "We are not the Ecclesiarchy or the Custodes, Horatus, whether you like it or not this is the hidden face of the Imperium. Our involvement here would change nothing and we could use this people to lead us to the Lion's command."
"And what if they're messing with us, these man are hardly trustworthy." Horatus said.
"I will make sure they won't cross us." Ioras replied.
"What do you mean the hidden face of the Imperium, were you aware of this looting and slaving before?" Julius asked Ioras.
"Of course I was, what do you take me for, a neophyte?" said Ioras.
Julius was speechless and didn't reply.
"I have seen riots and massacres and looting all over the Imperium when the local control collapsed. These are hardly news for me. They are humans they live for their own lives first and for Emperor second. Call it whatever you wish but this is the nature of man. They are not Astartes." said Ioras.
"And it is our duty to defend the Emperor's realm against its enemies." voxed Julius.
"Against its enemies, not against sanctioned guardsmen units. Whatever these man are doing is not under our mission parameters at this moment. Do I despise them? Yes. Do I care? No." Ioras said.
Julius stopped talking turning away and walking a few paces in the opposite direction.
Malik and his man standing still and waiting for the Space Marines to give a response, they weren't able to hear the vox communication of the marines and for all intents and purposes saw the marines standing around in silence and glancing at each other.
Some of the man were really unnerved by the silent stature of the marines thinking something is going wrong.
"We concluded that we will aid you in your efforts, guardsmen." said Ioras.
"Thank the Emperor, I knew we could count on his angels for deliverance." Malik said clearly relieved and mouthed a prayer in his own language which his man responded in kind.
They all knew if the Space Marines were to decided to stop them even the mighty Alexis would be helpless against them.
"We move as soon as possible." said Ioras.
"Of course, my lords." said Malik bowing exaggeratedly when he rose up a bolter barrel came into his full view.
Ioras' bolt pistol was an inch away from his face.
"Listen well, Malik, if you try to trick us or cross us in anyway and you won't even have time to scream before you die." threatened Ioras.
"Y-yes lord." said Malik as his man stood watch silently.
In the next few minutes several armed buggies were prepared and loaded with the ammunition cargo, the slaves were rounded up and tied to the ammunition cargo that the buggies couldn't carry, they were to drag them the whole way through. As his man hurried to prepare the cargo Malik and his sergeants sat as a group peering over maps.
Julius approached to them and Malik raised his head to look at him.
"What can we do for you, Lord Astartes?" asked Malik smiling.
"I am tasked to be at your side." said Julius removing his helmet.
"To execute me?" asked Malik in a cheery manner.
"To protect." said Julius coldly.
"We welcome you then." he said holding the shoulders of two of his men at his sides and his sergeants looked at Julius to salute him.
"What was your name, brother marine?" asked Malik.
"Julius."
"Brother Julius." he said smiling.
"Only Julius."
"I take it that you don't carry the values we bear." said Malik.
"I don't condone Imperial citizens sold to slavery." said Julius.
"I explained you before it isn't slavery but maybe you would like to know more in depth." said Malik.
As they were talking one of Malik's guardsmen approached the slave group where the pleasure girls were being held. He pulled one out of the group holding her arm in a tight grip, girl went quietly as the man dragged her away from the group.
Malik heard the ordeal and turned towards the man leading the girl away eagerly.
"I said they would not be spoiled!" he shouted and the man stopped dead in his tracks.
He looked at Malik for a second then averted his gaze and let go of the girl's arm. He nudged the girl towards the slave group with the butt of his gun gently with a disappointed face.
"So you show compassion towards your...merchandise." said Julius.
Malik turned towards the marine "Call it whatever you want, we survive this way, I hope one day you see how the world is rather than how you think it is."
The debate didn't continue as the guardsmen readied the caravan and Ioras called both groups to move on his order.
Julius followed Malik and his sergeants into one of the buggies, Malik climbed to the shotgun of the second one as his sergeants filled the first one.
Alexis climbed at the back of the second buggie and sat atop the ammo crates. An Astartes would break the vehicle with his weight so no one offered him a ride and he didn't need any. Julius' strides were enough to catch up to the vehicle as it moved slowly.