Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40,000 it is owned by Games Workshop.

Death in the East

Chapter 1

"Firing solutions plotted. Standing by."

"Launch torpedoes."

"Acknowledged, all ships, launch torpedoes."

It took approximately two days for the Imperial liberation fleet to reach Balor Prime, its high orbit defended only by orbital docks originally built by the Imperium itself. In the decades since the world's fall to the Tau, however, the aliens had completely rebuilt the orbital docks, its once blessed and recognizably-Human architecture now turned bizarre and inhuman. The mighty macrocannons which once deterred enemy attack had been replaced by profane railguns, and where hangars once housed Furies and Starhawks now they carried alien craft in the form of Barracudas and Mantas.

Those same alien attack craft had harried the liberation fleet as they proceeded in-system, but heroic efforts by Imperial pilots had kept the aliens from doing any real damage. Furies launched from Dictator cruisers had fended off Barracudas and Mantas alike, the liberation fleet focusing on defense while getting into torpedo range. Now, and beyond the reach of the Tau's railguns, the liberation fleet launched mass salvoes of torpedoes against the orbital docks.

As expected, Tau Barracudas vectored in to intercept, only to meet the fleet's Furies. Laser beams and plasma rounds lit up the void as Tau and Imperial attack craft dueled in space, a few of the alien fighters managing to break through their Imperial counterparts to shoot down a number of torpedoes. However, the liberation fleet had launched well over a hundred torpedoes at the orbital docks, ensuring that even if half of them were shot down or decoyed away, many more would still hit their target.

Defense turrets and even the anti-ship railgun batteries opened fire, destroying many of the torpedoes as they closed in, plasma drives burning white-hot. Exploding torpedoes lit up the void with miniature suns, but in the end, over half a hundred torpedoes broke through the flak barrier. Tau countermeasures screamed across all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, successfully confounding the machine spirits of most of the Imperial torpedoes, ensuring some forty-eight torpedoes flew off harmlessly into the void.

Unfortunately, this still left nine torpedoes to slam unerringly into the orbital. Nine out of over a hundred torpedoes launched. But they were enough.

Plasma exploded in white-hot flares, turning metal into vapor and ripping massive holes and gashes into the orbital docks. Entire sections were torn away into the void, secondary explosions sending yet more debris and gouts of flame jetting out into the emptiness beyond. Escape pods began streaming out of the orbital docks, surviving crew fleeing as best they could, the Tau's own attack craft coming around to assist.

Most perished, as Imperial attack craft pounced on them, with only a few escaping to the Tau bases on the planet's surface. The Imperial Navy's pilots didn't pursue, though. They had other quarry now, the escape pods and other escape craft from the orbital docks, those that didn't survive its final destruction.

"Target the orbital docks." Vice Admiral Gunther von Geiersburg ordered on the bridge of his flagship, the Lord Falkenhayn. "I don't want a hulk drifting along in orbit leaving debris to further complicate further operations. Especially since the Tau might send a reinforcement fleet. Supporting ground operations while simultaneously fighting a fleet battle will be hard enough without environmental hazards."

"Surely there's value in salvaging what's left?" a staff officer asked.

Von Geiersburg snorted. "The xenos filth have defiled the station for decades." he said. "No, the orbital docks - or what's left of it - will only be good for scrap. No big loss burning it out of the stars now."

"Yes, sir."

Von Geiersburg nodded to the flag captain, Captain Ernst Schumacher nodding back. "Lances, target the orbital docks." he gave the order. "Maximum firepower, fire when ready."

Across the ship, crewmen, technicians, and servitors carefully diverted power to the Lord Falkenhayn's dorsal lances, gunnery officers already directing their machine spirits to focusing their wrath against the chosen target. Then with the humming of powerful engines dutifully performing their assigned task, the lances fired, beams of focused energy cutting through the void to bite deep into the ruined orbital docks.

Metal turned to vapor, blowing away surrounding sections into the void, before the orbital docks' compromised reactors went critical. To the people below, it was like a second sun had ignited, mercifully vanishing after a few seconds, leaving only superheated debris scattering away into space, easily dealt with by the fleet's void shields if they ever came close.

Von Geiersburg nodded. "Orbit is secure." he said. "We can begin ground operations once the fleet is in a stable orbit."

It took several more hours for the liberation fleet to enter a secure orbit, escort squadrons spreading out into several other orbits, ensuring every point on the planet was covered by at least one lance-armed warship at any time. The transport fleet itself remained with the main fleet, the first wave of Imperial Guardsmen moving to their landers and dropships for the initial landing operations.

Its target would be Balor Prime Central Spaceport, located approximately fifty kilometers from the capital city of Grand Balor. The capital itself had long been renamed with an uncouth name from the alien Tau language, but by order of the Commissariat, the city would remain addressed by its proper Imperial name. Failing to do so was punishable by fifty lashes for the first offense, a hundred lashes for the second offense, and public execution by firing squad for the third offense.

This was just a formality, though. There was no love lost for the Tau within the Imperial Guard, add to the inhuman pronunciations of the city's new Tau name, and the Guardsmen had no reason to call the city by any other name.

But liberating Grand Balor would have to wait in the future. Today, the target was the central spaceport, which surprisingly enough had retained its original name. Aside from the spaceport, there was also the spaceport town, appropriately called Rocket Town by the locals.

The Tau also had a massive base about ten kilometers from the spaceport, protected by powerful shields and featuring an array of weapons capable of reaching low orbit. This would vastly complicate any attempted capture of the spaceport, to the point of impracticality, even. And thanks to its shields, it would have to be taken by ground assault, with Imperial forces needing to land far away with no local supporting infrastructure.

At least, not if you wanted to minimize collateral damage.

As it was, Imperial Command had decided that collateral damage was acceptable here and now.

Imperial Commissar Risha Singh glanced out of a dropship's viewpower as Lord Falkenhayn fired its lances in quick succession. As she would later learn, the trio of lance strikes collapsed the Tau shields, at the cost of pumping enough heat into the atmosphere to throw the planet's weather system into utter anarchy.

That, and dump significant amounts of radioactive fallout into the air, eventually necessitating anti-radiation inoculations for civilians and soldiers as well.

The Tau base itself remained intact after the initial bombardment, Earth Caste engineers quickly rushing to restore the shields. But the Imperial Navy would never give them that chance. The Lunar cruisers in the main fleet now fired lances of their own, a dozen beams cutting through the atmosphere and utterly obliterating the base.

In Rocket Town, anyone looking in its direction was blinded, temporarily for those without a direct line of sight, permanently for those with a direct line of sight. Seconds later, and the town and spaceport alike shook from the shockwave, windows cracking and alarms screaming from the vibrations.

And in the distance, a colossal mushroom cloud reached up into the atmosphere from a molten crater cut a kilometer deep and three kilometers wide into Balor's crust.

Risha would only know all about this later on, though. Right now, she was tightly strapped into a harness in a dropship, one that was flying down from orbit towards the planet's atmosphere. The dropship interior was tense, silent but for the humming and beeping of machinery, even veteran Guardsmen needing to gather themselves for the violence of atmospheric insertion.

After several minutes, the dropship began to shake violently, gold and red flames blotting out viewports from the heat caused by breaking through a planet's atmosphere. This persisted for several more minutes, and then the dropship was evening out, the viewports clearing as they entered the lower atmosphere. A glance out the viewport showed Balor's surface reaching out as far as the eye could see, and the other dropships and landers.

Then something flashed by, then another, all moving at high speed, Imperial Navy Thunderbolts flying escort duty. Others flew on ahead, launching airstrikes and strafing runs against Tau positions on the ground, or drawing fire away from the approaching landers.

Alarms sounded as the dropship abruptly jerked. "Hold onto your butts, folks." the pilot cheerfully said over the internal line, much to the amusement of the Guardsmen inside, and Risha was no exception. "Taking evasive action, enemy SAMs inbound."

The dropship jerked again, and Risha - partly as a way to take her mind off the prospect of an alien missile turning the dropship into flaming scrap - began to check her wargear. Plasma pistol, check. Power sword, check. Carapace armor, check. Red sash, check. Greatcoat, check. Commissar cap, check.

The dropship jerked again and again, then a yellow light lit up with a harsh whine: they were on final approach. At that, Risha disengaged her harness, and wobbling her way to the side doors, put on a grav-chute before turning to look at the rest of the men and women in the dropship with her. They all looked back at her, eyes and faces expectant.

"Long ago, Balor was a world of the Imperium!" she began as the Guardsmen also began to disengage their harnesses. "A demesne of Humanity, and a beacon of civilization amidst the darkness of the Eastern Fringe! Then the alien Tau came, casting misguided shadows across the world and its people, turning them from the Emperor's Light! In its absence, their souls dance the edge of the abyss, facing the prospects of wandering the void for all eternity or to be cast into the Great Enemy after death! But now, we are here! This is why we are here! This is why we fight! To save the people of Balor, and bring them back to the Emperor's Light!"

Nods and even shouts of affirmation and agreement met her words, before a red light lit up and the side door's master lock disengaged. The Guardsmen stood up, squads forming up and equipping grav-chutes, hellguns at the ready while positioning themselves for aerial assault. "With me, Guardsmen!" Risha shouted, a fist hitting a button that caused it to open, before drawing her plasma pistol and shooting down at the enemy below. "Victory or death! For the Emperor!"

"URAAAA-!" the 5051st Autonomous Stormtrooper Battalion roared as one, following the Commissar's lead as she jumped off the dropship at barely two hundred meters above the ground. Plasma flew up at them from Tau troops and drones, the Stormtroopers and the Commissar returning fire with hellguns and plasma weapons of their own.

Grav-chutes hummed as they compensated for altitude, allowing the Imperial Guard forces to land gently but firmly at their destination. The 5051st was deployed across the kilometers-wide expanse of the spaceport, smoke rising from portions reduced to burning rubble by Imperial airstrikes. Valkyries flew in wide circles above and around the spaceport, using their multilasers and rocket pods to provide close air support as the Stormtroopers assaulted the Tau security forces inside.

"Let's go, get them!" Risha shouted, gesturing sharply at the Stormtroopers around her as they assaulted an upper level work area, before looking and aiming at newly-arrived Tau forces. Her plasma pistol whined and hissed as she fired off three shots in quick succession, killing three Fire Warriors one after the other. The rest of them returned fire, the sheer volume of fire from their pulse rifles hammering the lead Stormtroopers back and behind cover, saved from dying only by their carapace armor, which smoked and steamed from the impact sites of Tau plasma weapons.

But there were more Guardsmen than Fire Warriors, at least here, allowing the former to flank the latter. Getting in close, the Stormtroopers opened fire on full-auto with their hellguns, before engaging in melee, either bayonetting or bludgeoning the aliens.

"Move!" Risha barked, loping forward past and around cover towards the exit that would lead them further into the spaceport. "Move!"

Suddenly, the ceiling collapsed, an orange battlesuit dropping down into the middle of the Imperial Guardsmen. It quickly identified Risha, and leveled a plasma rifle in her direction before opening fire with a quick volley of plasma. Simultaneously, it vaporized an entire squad of nearby Stormtroopers with its fusion blaster, while a pair of gun drones opened up with burst carbines on full-auto.

Risha, however, was still alive. She'd lost her commissar cap, and her greatcoat was toast, while flames burned at patches of her hair. Her armor was hot and smoking, and the skin on her face painfully seared. But she was alive, and she still had her weapons. Quickly forcing herself up on all fours, she looked up with a glare, and then spitting out blood and saliva, leaped up and forward.

Raising her plasma pistol, she fired repeatedly until the safety locks engaged with an alarmed whine. It was enough, though, as she'd managed to destroy the Tau officer's drones and collapse its battlesuit's shields. Discarding her plasma pistol, she gripped her power sword with both hands, and with a wordless cry, she threw herself at the towering alien machine.

As powerful as it was at range, it wasn't meant for melee, as proven by its clumsy attempt to parry. Risha's power sword cut its plasma rifle in two with a single blow, her followthrough similarly disabling the battlesuit's fusion blaster. Then the Tau battlesuit kicked her away, sending Risha flying and turning her world red with pain.

The Stormtroopers opened fire, hammering the now-shieldless battlesuit with laser fire. Realizing its poor position, the Tau officer tried to leave, but the lasers pummeling its backup had damaged its jet systems, causing it to explode and blowing the battlesuit forward and staggering on its feet.

Then the fire slackened, much to the Tau officer's surprise, causing it to look sideways in time to see the bloody and burned Risha charging back in again. A clumsy swipe of an arm had the Commissar jumping back, before she dove in low to sever one of the battlesuit's legs at the knee.

Sparks exploded and the unbalanced battlesuit collapsed to its one remaining knee, Risha reversing her sword before stabbing it through the alien machine's chest. It stiffened up, before Risha pulled up and away, leaving a gash of molten metal bubbling with blood and fluid in its wake. Through the whining and screaming of failing machinery, as well as the sound of the ongoing battle, Risha fancied she could hear the death gurgle of the alien pilot within.

Clubbing the machine hard, Risha had it toppling over backward, the battlesuit landing on the ground with a loud crash. The Stormtroopers cheered at the sight, Risha finally letting pain and exhaustion overcome her to slump down to one knee.

The cheering abruptly ended as overstressed rockcrete and metal groaned and broke, then the floor collapsed under Risha and the battlesuit. "Emperor take it…!" she shouted as she fell, and then darkness.

Risha didn't know how long she stayed unconscious, but she stirred as she was pulled from a pile of rubble, and quickly shook herself back into full consciousness. Shaking away the Stormtroopers helping her up and away from the wrecked Tau battlesuit, she looked around her to find themselves in a lower area of the spaceport. Through broken floor-to-ceiling windows, she could see more Stormtroopers outside, along with Valkyries, dropships, and landers.

"We've won…?" she asked no one in particular.

"There's still pockets of resistance getting mopped-up," a lance corporal replied. "But we have control of the spaceport. The next wave of landings should be coming in by now…"

"...and we can begin taking control of Rocket Town." Risha concluded with a nod, before glancing sharply at an approaching Stormtrooper. The man briefly stiffened before resuming his approach, offering the Commissar her plasma pistol back. Risha favored the man with a small smile and a grateful nod, likewise for another man who offered her power sword back. Then, looking back outside, narrowing her eyes at red flares being lit at the edges of the spaceport, a simple and basic signal for the second wave that they could begin landing.

"Ma'am, you need to see a medic." the lance corporal worriedly said.

"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Risha ruefully admitted, dabbing at the burned and peeling skin on her face. "I will, though, even if it means missing out on clearing Rocket Town. I'll just have to make-up for that when we liberate Grand Balor."

The lance corporal gave a small smile. "No point missing the main show, huh, ma'am?" he asked.

"No, there isn't." Risha agreed, limping over to the windows, from where she looked up, to the approaching transports lumbering down through the atmosphere, carrying heavy armor and more infantry to secure the surrounding town. "But first, I want to see the major and the rest of the command staff. If I'm going to be busy at the medicae for the next couple of days, I want to make sure things will run smoothly while I'm gone."

"Of course, ma'am, right this way. I'll also signal for a medic, so we can at least get you some first aid for those burns."

"Make it so, corporal."

"Yes, ma'am."

Risha nodded, limping along before glancing to the side and seeing something that caused her features to darken. Rows of bodies, covered by dark cloth, the fallen of the battle waiting for proper transport and final rites by the chaplains and lay brothers.

"You will all be avenged, on that you have my word." Risha silently thought. "Your sacrifices will not be for nothing, and your deaths as kindling to light the fires of hope and freedom for this world, and to guide you to the Emperor's side. So, rest, for your duty is done, and the Emperor speed you to his light."

Closing her eyes, Risha bowed to the honored death, and then opened them, resumed on her way.

A/N

Imperial Guard and Navy action for this chapter, the Emperor's Hammer and Shield pounding away at the enemies of Humanity. We'll return to the Eldar in future chapters, though.