Arrival 1.3

Enemies Arise

There are many strategists to argue the Orks were their own worst enemy on the Fay Campaign, an observation reported millions of times since humanity first encounter with this odious race. It is difficult to argue with this assessment. The xenos committed a series of blunders a novice officer would have avoided. The groups of greenskins which were sent in pursuit of the retreating Imperium soldiers were pathetically small, letting more than a regiment turn around and destroy them piece-meal. A large quantity of the limited equipment looted on the site of their first victory was expended against each other or threats of little value. No general goal was fixed to conquer the planet. Save spatial mines, the space around the planet was left virtually unopposed. And last but not least, the Orks chose to attack the strongest defensive position on Fay III guarded by Lady Weaver and three regiments of His Most Holy Majesty's Guard, with its immediate bloody consequences...

By Retired General Tereyev, The Ocean of War, 510M35.

Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Moros Sub-Sector

Fay system

Planet Fay III

7.175.289M35

Thought for the day: Do not wait for Death.

Ovael the Maleficent

"The Source of Sorcery is gone, my lord. The lackeys of the Corpse-Emperor have destroyed it."

The vox-operator voice was gloomy and fatalist, punctuated by sobs. A few more seconds, and the tears would undoubtedly come out from his eyes. Which would be quite a spectacle given that the being in question had ten of them. Ten large yellow-glowing eyes, which spitted acid at random intervals when the mood of their owner degraded. Not that Ovael was presumptuous to criticise the mutations, given the horns pointing out of his helmet and the thorns accentuating the dread effect of his power armour.

Don't shoot the messenger, don't shoot the messenger...

"You told me the Gods were in favour of our enterprise here, Priest." Grumbled the leader of the Sons of Sorcery, turning towards his senior Tzeentch sorcerer, a thing which had only human in name. "I hope you have a good excuse for not warning us about this disaster..."

"The change..."Gurgled the thing that had once been a being with two legs but now had four and was speaking by the means of a large beak. "THE CHANGE! THE CHANGE!"

Each exclamation was more strident than the former. And to accentuate the problem, grey-blue sparks were lightening the blue skin around the multiple mutated pustules and tentacles of the sorcerer. The beak channelled more and more Warp energy with each word pronounced.

This is not good...

And then the voice of the Tzeentch priest had nothing in common with his usual tone of speech. It was like a concerto of screams and mockeries, all delivered in a language which was neither Low Gothic nor its noble and higher variant.

"Ô rage ! ô désespoir ! ô vieillesse ennemie!
N'ai-je donc tant vécu que pour cette infamie?"

The oratory performance of the preacher did not progress further. His mutated face exploded in a shower of blood and flesh, colouring in red the shocked members of the assistance who had been too close.

Ovael lowered his bolter, relieved a major Warp-incident had been prevented. Shooting first a psyker who was about to lose control of his powers and asking questions later was one of the first things the Astartes learnt in their formation. Not doing so generally made the accident zone...messy. Ironically, the same thing applied to lackeys of the Corpse-Emperor and those following the True Gods. Though the latter suffered more incidents if one wanted to be accurate.

Must be something in the Warp which made him weird...weirder than usual , Ovael amended.

Leashing his rage and anger under decades of long restraint and patience, Ovael looked around him at what remained of his pitiful comment, sending threatening glares at the mutants nearby. All of them took steps back under his glare. Good. A Space Marine, loyal to the Dark Gods or not, was to maintain a fearsome appearance at all times. This was the only reason why Ovael was not sobbing with his head between his armoured fists. Well, not the only reason. Displaying such a spectacle of weakness might invite an insurrection among his own ranks. It might also convince them to desert in mass. To commit acts-against-nature with the vegetation or the local wildlife. To verify by themselves how unstable decades-old ammunition could be when you mixed it with Warp-sorcery. That was the problem with Chaos worshippers. You never knew what stupidity they were about to try next time.

Perhaps I shouldn't have deserted...

It had been an easy decision at the time. Captain Ovael, loyal Captain of the 5th Company of the Blood Ravens, had found in the Barusk System an impressing arsenal of Great Crusade weaponry. His own Company, having endlessly waged wars for the equivalent of ten standard Holy Terran years, had been in dire need of resupply. So what if this equipment had belonged once upon a time to the Thousands Son Legion? By the five or six layers of dusts covering the armouries and the supply depots, it was clear the owners had forgotten this place long before the 35th millennium!

Unfortunately, it was at that point another warship had arrived in the system, and this one was bearing the dreaded sigil of the Inquisition. In command had been a very unhappy Inquisitor, who did not see with a good eye the Blood Ravens looting potentially Chaos-empowered materials.

Scratch that, Ovael. You knew they were belonging to Chaos, whispered a malicious voice in his head. You knew and you didn't care.

The now blue-armoured Chaos Astartes grimaced, an expression of disgust fortunately hidden by the helmet in form of golden funeral mask.

How I wish I could throw this helmet away...alas by the rotting testicles of Nurgle I no longer can.

When Ovael had departed the ranks of the Blood Ravens to start a career of piracy and glorious, unending war in service of Chaos, it had been in command of eight warships, one of which was a strike cruiser. Two hundred and ten thousand former PDF troops. Several hundred thousand cultists, men and women believing in his cause. The red armour the now renegade Blood Raven had just looted was boosting by a factor of three his limited psychic potential. It had also allowed him to recover three armours which had been revealed as Rubric Marines.

And you had one dead Inquisitor on your hands. Don't forget that.

Now ten years and a massive battle with a World Eaters warband later? His last warship was gone, and the fact it had been an old Marathon-class destroyer good for scrap material was no comfort. That they had captured it from pirates on one of the good days did nothing to quell the anger in his augmented organs. They were stranded on the planet, vulnerable to the bolters and lasguns of whoever was over their heads. His own Astartes subordinates, the ones who had encouraged him to break the shackles of the Imperium and venerate the True Gods, were dead.

No, Ovael. It's you who encouraged them to break the chains of their allegiance, laughed the voice in the back of his head. You and no one else.

The Chaos Space Marine swore in his helmet, the sound fortunately passing unperceived in the cacophony of his camp. This battle-armour was more trouble than it was worth. The Warp-tainted blue and gold colour was horribly visible from long distances, the horns made sneaking around all but impossible, the voices from the Warp never ceased their chatter. The force under his command was not better. A mix of mutated Guardsmen and deranged cultists, at most five hundred strong. Well, four hundred and ninety-nine strong thanks to the recent events.

The only solution that came to his mind at the present was to flee. The salvation of his pitiful war-band depended on their ability to keep their heads low, infiltrate a spaceport and steal a ship. Which would be easier said than done.

Ovael was an Astartes. Like all his brethrens, he had been a Scout before being granted the honour of wearing the Chapter colours and learnt in his days the delicate art of reconnaissance and sneaking around the enemy camp to clear the approach of the Space Marine decisive strike. He knew the tactics and strategies hundreds of ambushers and vanguards had used to infiltrate enemy positions.

The bickering corrupted humans around him had none of the qualities required for the task. In fact, they were very much the complete opposite of the men Ovael needed. Asking for true experts with these skills would have been too much to ask, but even whiteshields of the Corpse-Emperor's Guard were more useful.

They will have to serve as a diversion, concluded the former Blood Raven now clad in blue and gold. Around him, the troops-now elevated to the rank of meat-shields talked, argued and threatened each other.

The only thing of values under his command-besides his personal weapons and battle-armour- were the Rubric Marine who had been ordered to guard his attack bike and the aforementioned attack bike itself. Nothing else.

"ALL RIGHT! BY THE HORNS OF A BERSERKER SHUT UP!" Screamed Ovael. "OR I SWEAR BY THE ROTTING ENTRAILS OF AN UNCLEAN ONE I WILL-"

The large red flare which illuminated the sky forced the Traitor Marine to interrupt his speech. It was looking like an artillery shell...and it was coming right at their position.

"TO COVER BAND OF SLUGS!" Ordered the master of the war-band. "TO COVER!"

Fortunately, the mutants had still enough intelligence to recognise the danger. Crawling, running, flying or marching on their corrupted appendages, the cultists avoided the ground where the slow projectile was about to impact.

Every member of the Sons of Sorcery hid behind rocks or the ruins of long-corrupted machines, waiting for the explosion and the shrapnel which would come.

BAAANGG!

The explosion came effectively...but there were no splinters of plasteel or others metallic fragments coming out of the clouds. What came from the dust clouds was much, much worse. Little violet creatures with large snapping fangs, tiny muscular legs and thorns covering the back. Creatures which alas were all too familiar for an Astartes or any Guardsman worth the name.

Squigs. Damn the orks.

"SQUIGS! BEWARE THE GREENSKINS!" Shouted Ovael, one swipe of his fell chainsword Brutish Arrogance cutting two dozen of the pests and scattering their remains in a river of gore. "DEPLOY AND LOOK FOR THE ENEMY!"

But Tzeentch's favour was definitely escaping his servants and those of the other Chaos Gods today. Between fifty and sixty squigs were eliminated easily in less than half a minute-Ovael had cleared nine out of ten of this vermin himself-but the delay had been sufficient for the nearby orks to close fast. From the hills on the east, a large army was coming, with motorised columns rushing ahead screaming the usual battle-cries of the green ravagers. Behind them came a mass of disorganised warriors, braying, shouting, insulting and roaring.

"WWWAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!"

We can't beat them. Not without the Source of Sorcery to support us.

Ovael supposed many followers of the Corpse-Emperor would be astonished to see how fast he had arrived to that conclusion, but the former Blood Raven had never been attracted to the worship of Khorne. Berserkers were granted a fair deal of power for a battle at close-quarters, but their lack of intelligence was painful to watch. And even a whole squad of them would be unable to slaughter enough of the greenskins to make a difference. Assuming the idiots didn't choose to fight each other.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Shouted Ovael and grunted when about a third of his mutants preferred running eastwards rather than fighting. The voices in his head mocked him again, worsening his headache.

I regret my previous words. At least Khorne servants would stay and FIGHT!

Bloody cowards, thought the blue-gold Traitor Astartes, unleashing a vengeful storm of destruction with his bolter on a new wave of squigs. Well it makes what I'm about to do far more satisfying.

Marching calmly and at an assured pace to his attack bike, Ovael trampled two more squids under his armoured boots and continued to provide a covering fire, slightly slowing down the ork vanguard and crashing down two of their bikes-contraptions. Far from being discouraged though, the xenos fired back, throwing missiles, lasers, slug projectiles and a lot of things the Astartes wasn't sure to want their provenance.

Due to the terrible accuracy of any ork ammunition, about half of the missiles went down in the attackers own ranks, but that left the other half...letting them rain a random slaughter on the mutants who were attempting in vain to find some cover in their unbridled escape.

Yes, it is time to go.

One mental command, and the Rubric Marine mounted on the side-car's seat of the modified attack bike, where usually an Astartes gunner would have stood. There was no massive bolter or multi-melta on the prow of this model however. With his Arcane weaponry a Rubric wielded far more firepower than a conventional anti-tank weapon. And the Astartes soul entrapped in the battle-armour then proceeded to prove it by blasting three orks on a walker with a blast of blue livid lightning.

Firing again his bolter and killing five greenskins in a single salvo, the leader of the soon-to be-extinct Sons of Sorcery tore apart two squigs with his armoured fist and sat on the attack bike. The half-mechanical half demonic machine roared in challenge as its owner turned on the power and unleashed the hellhounds of war.

Firing the twin bolters mounted on the prow of his attack bike, Ovael pushed the engines to their maximum power output and the attack bike barrelled forwards, crushing anything-be it ork, mutant or rocks- that dared standing in its way. The vehicle created a trail of destruction and a river of green blood, as expected from a design able to crash rockcrete walls at full speed. The chainsword was drinking the xenos blood by the litres. Screams of surprise mounted from the orks warriors, who had obvious not thought to face one of the most dangerous opponents of the Milky Way. The lone mutant and Chaos cultists went to their knees in supplication, their voices begging him to stop and save them. For all answer, Ovael pushed the boosters of the bike to their redlines, breaking in a bloody flash the crude encirclement of the orks.

The distance instantly skyrocketed between the bike and the pursuers. Escaping was made easier by the orks themselves: the horrid xenos looted the battlefield and took great pleasure in wiping out any resistance. Ovael directed his bike south-west. Towards the mountains, which were growing on the horizon.

I'm alive. It's all that matters, thought the Traitor Space Marine. And I will have my revenge, by the feathers of Tzeentch.

The Ork Camp

Warboss Ta'aagh the Mad Brute boomed with laughter. The Mekboys around him laughed too, but in a far tenser manner. Perched on his great Battlewagon, the intimidating figure of their beloved tyrant looked at them with a large smile full of fangs and they didn't know why. The corpses of the ten human officers impaled on the pikes covering the big ork tank had just been eviscerated according to his wishes...

"BOYZ! WEEB AB WON A GREAT VICTOARY!"

The boyz cheered like a single ork. Victory was always good. Victory meant you could go elsewhere and fight another big battle. Harder. Faster. Stronger. The idea was so invigorating, hundreds of them ceased to loot the battlefield and rushed to hear their big Warboss armoured from head to toe in his Mega Armour speak. Hundreds came. Then thousands. A sea of green, gathered to hear the word of the Mad Brute.

"BADDLE! BADDLE! BADDLE!"

"TOMORROW DA WOILD! UUMIES ARE WEAK!"

"WHAAAAGGGHHH FURRAVA!"

Ta'aagh grabbed a live squig and swallowed it whole, rotting loudly. A large Nobz roared in anger when he saw his pet pass from company animal to food sustenance, but the Warlord get rid of the objection coming by fracturing the skull of his would-be opponent with a monumental strike of his power claw.

"ORKS ARE DA BESTEST!" Bellowed Ta'aagh, unveiling his pointed yellowish teeth. The bloody power claw was lifted over his head, spraying green fluid all over his big Nobzs. "VICTOARY IZ OURS! FER DA KULT O' SPEED!"

A bid red button was slammed by a Mekboyz, and two large pincers opened from the haphazardly-constructed war machine in a very threatening manner. Three large columns of smoke formed from the distorted chimneys in the vehicle's rear, creating a mini pollution cloud in a few seconds. The mob loved it. Weirdboys raised their skull-shaped sceptres to the skies. Nobz Bikerz pushed their sonorous engines to the brink of explosion; in two cases the machines actually exploded, propelling the owners and debris of their bikes far higher than the universal law of gravity should have allowed.

" DA KULT O' SPEED! DA KULT O' SPEED!"

"FASTA! FASTA!"

"SUPERSONIC! WWWAAAAAAAGHH!"

"NOWS LISSEN!" The exclamation was so strident and the ork equivalent of the megaphone to boost the effects was so mangled that about forty of the armourglass surfaces on diverse warbikes, warbuggies and wartrakk fell apart from the rusty emplacements they were located.

"BRUKK BRUKK AN BUZZ WURK AB LISSEND DA UUMIE COMMUNICASHUNZ!" Affirmed Ta'aagh the Mad Brute, a statement that would have undoubtedly caused a stroke to thousands of various species all across this very galaxy. "WEZ GOIN' TER DA BIG SCRAP IN DA MOUNTAINS!"

"WWAAAGGH!" Shouted an ambitious Cybork, the mix of ork and metallic alloys wearing the ruined and torn recognisable red robe of an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest, pointing his gun towards the Warboss. The attempted coup did not go far as Ta'aagh activated the big flamer mounted on the flanks of the battlewagon, enflaming the rebellious ork and the forty-plus others which were on the way.

"UVVE VOLUNTEAZ?" Brayed the Warboss over the agony screams of the burning boyz. "DA BARBECUE IZ READY!" For once, what passed for self-preservation among the ork species brutally kicked in. None of the Nobz advanced and issued a challenge to Ta'aagh after this brutal demonstration. "WERR WAS MEEB?"

A little mekboyz wearing the uniform of a Fay PDF General covered in grease and promethium approached the inspiration-lost warboss and whispered some words in his ear. More striking detail, the ork was carrying an imposing manual under his right arm.

"Ah UGH! DA 'UMNAS IN DA MOUTAINS AB KILLED ZHARGUG DA MASSACRA!" The screams of the Warboss went right to another level, to the point the Boyz in a ten-meter circle were struck deaf for several hours, in spite of the very robust constitution of the green race.

"DIS MEANS A BIG SCRAP!" The clamours mounted in an infernal crescendo. Every motor was roaring to its very limits, and an uncountable quantity of lasguns, laspistols, bolters, chainswords, chainaxes, power claws was raised in what could not be misconstrued as bloody challenge. Pipes, arc welders and plates were hastily rammed to expedite the repairs of the previous battle. "THEYZ UUMIES ARE NUB WEAK! BIG SCRAP!"

Soon it was every ork for himself, each screaming, roaring or honking the sirens of their vehicles.

"MEEB WAN RED PAINT FER MI NYOO BIG CANNONS! MEEB WAN BIG SCRAP!"

"WARBOSS TA'AAGH PROMISZ YA DA BIG BADDLE O' YER LIFE!" Erupted the Weirdboyz Buzz Wurk. "WODDA YA SAY?"

"WWAAAAAAGGGHHH!"

"DA GALAXYZ BELONGS TER DA BOYZ!"

"FER GORK AN MORK!"

"CUNNIN' AN BRUTUL!"

The sceptres of every Weirdboys were shaken by massive green spikes of energy. Thousands of orks of all specialties felt the call. The appeal of their warmongering divinities, Gork and Mork. A call they were never able to resist, and why would they want to anyway? This was the call for battle and massacre. This was the urge to murder and plunder until the stars bled and the galaxy crumbled.

From tens of thousands maws, a monstrous sound came to shaken the earth.

"WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!"

Colonel Daviev Larkine

The tent where the only hololith owned by the Fay 20th stayed had seen its power consumption decrease massively these last days. While the Mechanicus Tech-Priests would eventually reactivate all the lights and mechanisms when the invasion was over, the high levels of power needed to maintain quantities of diverse machine-spirits and objects were better used elsewhere for the moment. The main problems took priority against personal convenience. As a consequence, the obscurity was very much omnipresent at this second. Strangely appropriate, if one wanted to keep an atmosphere of dangers constantly waiting in the shadows.

"I have good news and bad news, Colonel. Which do you want to hear first?"

The shadow of a smile came to the lips of the man commanding the Fay 20th Infantry of His Holy Majesty's Guard. No one knew for sure when this particular sentence had been first used, but the wisest officers normally betted on a pre-Great Crusade origin. They were even some old beards pretending the inventor of this dilemma had lived long before the Master of Mankind united humanity under a single banner. Amusing but unverifiable, alas.

"Let's begin with the bad news." Decided the veteran of the Petersburg campaign in an ironic tone. "I want to finish this conversation on a positive note."

"Very well." The image on the hololith of General Marov made a gesture which could be largely interpreted as 'you're going to regret demanding this particular order'.

"We have re-configured our long-range auspexes in orbit and it is evident at this hour the estimations General Syuev got out of nowhere were wildly optimistic."

"Somehow I'm not surprised." Shrugged the Colonel, readjusting a bit his uniform. Heating had been deactivated in the tent like everything else, which made the atmosphere dark and cold. "The first wave we fought yesterday was close to three hundred per-cents stronger than the worst-case scenario."

In profane and stark words, this meant the bagatelle of fifteen thousand greenskins. That they had repulsed it with less than four hundred casualties total was nothing but a miracle of the Emperor Himself.

"Indeed." The powerful musculature of General Marov tensed visibly on the three-dimensional holo-projection, letting Daviev Larkine remember the man had won the Sub-Sector Laurels in his category of weight lifting twenty standard years ago.

"The orks numbers at the moment we speak are in the quarter-million range. Fifty thousand are close to the hollow asteroid they crashed with. They are a problem we can handle later. The other two hundred thousand however, are coming straight for the pass your regiment defends."

The Fay Colonel frowned. Even for orks...this tactical decision didn't make any sense. Given the poor intelligence of the average green xenos, it said quite a lot.

"Why?" Asked the man who one day ago had faced the imbecilic mobs of the greenskins in a short and furious clash. "They have crippled the best equipped regiments we had and routed the rest in the Borodino Plains! If they want to drive south and threaten the capital, the PDF is out of position to catch them!"

"Ah, but you forget the greatest weakness of a greenskin, Colonel." The austere expression of the General became lighter and a bit more patronising. "The orks want to fight. Yes, the passes leading to the capital are too weakly defended, but that's playing to our advantage. The xenos believe the infantry we have here will not give them a good fight-"

Well, it's not like they're wrong in this assumption, no?

"-letting them search elsewhere for a battle." Ended Larkine. There was not a lot of doubt in the 20th commanding officer's mind that the troops defending this part of the front were thanking the Immortal Emperor for this last-minute miracle. Given the late performance of the PDF, letting fresh recruits or second-rate troops having a first war experience against the xenos menace was not described as a particularly good idea. And if the greenskins were not coming in his direction, Larkine would have probably cheered too.

"What can you tell me about this force?"

"Besides their numbers?"The rhetorical question could have been avoided in Daviev's opinion. "They have a lot of light and common vehicles. Bikes, truks, tanks, buggys, wagons, all that crap. The Emperor only knows how they are finding the fuel to move that many engines. Expect a lot of our own machines on the other side too. Leman Russes and Chimeras of the 1st and 3rd Armoured. They must have... between eleven and thirteen thousand vehicles in total? The analysts were unable to make more accurate predictions."

Marov did not appear convinced the estimates were correct, and it was hard to blame him. The PDF Military Intelligence on Fay III had massively degraded these last years, to the point the army and navy detente places had been filled with various jokes and humorous comments on their general capacity to know official meeting really took place. Counting ork tanks was probably way over their existing capabilities.

Thank the Emperor the other Armoured regiments have extricated themselves of this fiasco, thought the dark-haired Colonel. Dealing with the ork-modified tanks of two regiments was going to be a pain in the ass. To be polite. If the other five Colonels had not ordered the retreat eastwards when the defeat became evident, more machines would have been added to the orks considerable stocks of scrapped weaponry.

Exalted Marshal Ivan Byukur should have been tortured and shot as the imbecile-in-charge of this disaster. Alas the man had been skewered by a sort of xenos chopper and cut apart, depriving countless Fay regulars from a well-deserved revenge.

"Do they have many flyers?"

"No." This time was the sign of negation was firm. "Our aerial assets have watched them and bombarded them. They have a few fighter-bombers to cover the heart of their army, but it stops there. You will not have a lot of problems coming from the sky."

Thanks the Emperor for this small favour.

"I still need reinforcements to stop the orks." Reminded him politely Larkine. "I have exactly four thousand and eighty-two men fit for duty, and I don't need to tell you how low the regiment is in mechanised support. If I try to stop two hundred thousand orks at Ramev's Pass, they are going to eliminate my regiment from the battlefield before we have the time to react."

This was not defeatism, just basic arithmetic. Events of yesterday non-withstanding, the Tactica Imperialis volumes recognised Imperium forces were able to deal three times their numbers of greenskins before facing what was euphemistically called an 'unfavourable rapport of strength'.

The current rapport of force was approximately forty-nine to one. And this was not taking into account the other overwhelming superiority of the orks in armour and artillery. It did not take a tactical genius to know the odds were stacked against you. Orks tanks and other motorised abominations had an appalling rate of failures, but not every machine of this considerable armoured force would break down on their way to battle Larkine's regiment.

"True." Acknowledged Marov. "I have already sent the 6th and the 8th of the Guard to reinforce you. That should give you eight thousand more men, give or take. Our Valkyries, Vultures and the other flyers we have are ready on the southern airfields to take off when the order is given. The 147th, 163rd and 182nd Infantry of the PDF are also on their way to your positions, but the estimates only give them a sixty per-cent chance to arrive in time."

Daviev made a rapid calculus in the privacy of his own mind. Adding the two other Guard forces to his own would raise his force roughly to twelve thousand men. If the PDF men managed to reach the 20th before the orks, this total would be multiplied by a bit more than two. Twenty-five thousand and five hundred soldiers of the Imperium. It sounded like a very impressive number. It wasn't.

In the best case, we are going to fight xenos outnumbering us six or seven-to-one. Joy.

These were not odds which made an Imperium giddy and eager to rush in the melee. Well, not if you weren't born on Cadia or recruited to be one of His Angels of Death.

"And the good news?"

They really have to be good, else the orks are going to transform us in lunches for their squigs...

"The Navy has finally dealt with its internal problems. In about ten hours, they will be ready to give you orbital support."

"Really?"

Larkine's tone was unconvinced. In the last session, the Overlord had promoted the naval version of the 'Exalted Idiot' to command his precious fleet. According to frequencies no loyal Colonel was supposed to know, Admiral Mikasev had turned what was a reliable squadron into a mix of rebellious warships where a pathetic spectacle of purges and free assassinations took place. The last rapid and informal report from the vox section coming from the capital had not pictured a pretty holo-picture.

Unless...unless Mikasev is not in charge anymore.

"Really." Affirmed the General with a lack of explanations which was suspicious by itself. "The warships in orbit are dealing with the mines, beacons and all the other surprises the Orks have left here. Once they have finished, they will be ready to carbonize the greenskins."

"Can't it wait after the xenos main army has been dealt with?" Daviev Larkine asked tartly. The tone was clearly unprofessional and was not one a mere Colonel should use in the presence of a General, PDF or not. But given the circumstances and the distance separating the two interlocutors...

"No. The debris the orks have left in orbit are not mere scrap. Each moment the beacons and these mines are active, they are emitting more power and will lure in our system thousands more of their xenos friends. Each day we wait augments the risk of another ork fleet coming out of the Warp and destroying what is left of our land forces. I do not have to tell you what a more powerful warband would make of our defences."

"Why weren't they noticed before?" The question was more coming from sheer exasperation than wanting a true explanation, but Marov decided to answer.

"The cogboys I have with me pretend the Warp-exit of the ork space-rock had hidden them all along. And then Mikasev ordered them to focus on this 'pirate'."

One more charge to add to the incompetence list of our Exalted-Overlord and his pet Admiral then. I wonder how the Nyx Headquarters are going to answer when they receive the news?

"If it's the best the Navy can do, it's the best they can do." Reflected philosophically the Fay officer. "Either they will rescue my men...or they will avenge us."

"Let's pray it will be the former." Marov replied. "For the Emperor."

"For the Emperor, Larkine out."

A rapid combination on the table of command's runes, and the light of the hololith went out. Closing the last buttons of his coat, the 20th commanding officer left the tent and went out into the windy night.

"General Marov made no comments on General Syuev or Governor Byukur's authority, didn't he?"

Daviev inwardly cursed as the threatening figure of Commissar Zuhev emerged from the night, like these birds of prey searching for attracting meat pieces to swallow. Everyone knew Commissars were listening the communications of a regiment, but seeing it confirmed in this manner was never an enjoyable experience.

"No, he didn't." Replied the Colonel after a brief moment of silence.

The Commissar closed the distance, and Larkine noticed that unlike him, Zuhev looked at the peak of his physical form, ready to shoot a heretic or two and lead a charge against the orks. The Colonel had no idea how the agent of Commissariat managed this feat. All day Zuhev had been overseeing the work on the defensive positions, the supplies, the officers, the ranks, everything. He was quoting legendary Lord Commissars and imposing his harsh discipline. Daviev had done the same thing until his bones ached and now he felt dead on his feet.

"Why didn't you ask? The duty of an officer of His Holy Majesty-"

"Commissar. Assuming General Marov told me a coup has just taken place in Great Landing and he is one of the leaders, what could I do?"

To his credit, Commissar Zuhev didn't answer. Which was good, because the answer was 'absolutely nothing'. The two men passed before a few tents, before arriving in view of the trenches. Since the orks last offensive, the gaps in the defences had been filled. More trenches had been added, along with other nasty surprises for the greenskins stupid enough to adventure themselves in the 20th killing grounds. But this was not this no-man's land that was attracting their attention tonight. It was the stars and the mini-fireworks which could be seen tens of thousands metres above the regiment.

"The orks beacons?"

"It might be there are really mines and other things in space to destroy. Or they may purge Mikasev's supporters and the Exalted Guard on our orbital stations. We simply have no way to know with our limited portable auspexes."

"There's nothing to do?"

"Survive." A grimace crisped the visage of the Colonel. "The orks remain the bigger threat. There always will be time to discover who is in command if we win the battle."

"The Administratum and the Mechanicus aren't going to like what happened here on Fay III."

Understatement of the year, Larkine recognised. Of course, Fay III was a second-class Civilised World with no major contribution to the Navy or the Guard, not a Hive World...but heads had rolled for far less in times pasts.

"For sure." Admitted Larkine, trying hard not to think about all these planets which had been transformed into labour camps and conscripted in the penal legions. "But they aren't here...yet."

The last word was pronounced with hope and dread combined.

"I will take one hour or two of sleep before the men of the 6th and the 8th arrive. And after that..."

Daviev Larkine paused a few seconds, searching for some eloquent words and failing to find them. Instead he finished simply by:

"After that the last battle to save our planet will begin."

And I will have to ask a second miracle of the young girl who saved us in the first place.

Taylor Hebert

When she thought about it, Taylor realised it was scary how many times she went to the hospital or required emergency healing in her life.

There was at least a good thing about it. Military or not, know or unknown countries, portable or not, hospitals were the same. The clothes, beds, walls, tents...everything was white. The nurses were extremely authoritarian, and while no one had chained her to her bed like in Brockton Bay after Leviathan attack, there was a look in the eyes of the medical personnel you ignored at your risks and perils. At least they had not Panacea honouring the place of her presence, which was something between a curse and a blessing.

Too bad because the parahuman healer would have been her salvation -assuming she had accepted to heal her-in this hospital of another world: the food was still awful. The 'lunch' Taylor had been presented a few hours ago was infect. It was like a soup...but the cook who had imagined the meal had sadly thrown the nutrients without accounting for the taste of the thing. The best thing one could say about it...well, it was a hot meal. On the downside, the appearance had been coordinated with the taste: infect. The former villain known as Skitter was under no illusion that after a few days of such a culinary treatment, the majority of the patients fled the tent-hospital and returned to their duties, whatever they were.

At least this time the nurses who had treated her had diagnosed her with nothing more dangerous than exhaustion, mild dehydration, and a need to eat more food. Pronounced in a curious accent that mangled the vowels of the English language, the women in white carrying the double-eagle in gold had assured the rehabilitated parahuman she would be able to leave 'soon'. Taylor's fainting had only lasted an hour or two, evidence provided by the position of the sun and the fact the soldiers were just starting to burn the corpses of the enemy.

Enemy. A strange thing to consider, as Taylor in her Weaver persona had met for the first time the green aliens for no more than five or six hours ago at that time. But as the medical personnel of this place had pushed her on a bed and then placed food and water in front of her, the short period of calm had allowed the newly renamed heroine to collect her thoughts.

The things who had attacked the soldiers had been a lot of things, but certainly not human. Worse, they certainly had not been friendly. Green, loud, determined to kill everything in their way. The humans fighting had hardly been the poster for humanitarian care; in fact they rather looked like a mild version of the Nazis with a futurist armament. Despite this, the men and the women in grey uniforms had clearly been the good side. Taylor was aware that alone against an army of these things, she would be dead. For some reason, she doubted the monsters had signed the Geneva Convention. Or that they recognised any humane version of a prisoner-of-war convention for that matter. At least, the name of these aliens had been repeated enough in the aftermath of the battle in Taylor or her bug's vicinity to know the name of the threat they had faced.

Orks. They looked like an extremely bad joke grabbed from a fantasy book, except the joke here had been scary and real. Ork. A name at the image of the aliens. Brutal, monstrous, war-like. Although the guards, nurses and sentinels in the camp seemed to have plenty of nicknames to give them. Greenskins. Green brutes. Vermin. Green tide. Unless everything was a massive disinformation like the ones the Parahuman Response Teams had routinely tried in the United States, the orks were really something dangerous, vicious and not to discuss with.

The good points in this new situation were far better than two days ago, Taylor had to admit. First, there was no Endbringer in sight-unless she was plunged in a huge hallucination caused by the Simurgh- which was definitely soothing for her peace of mind. As bad as these aliens were, the last battle they did not have anything bigger than tanks. More in her capacities than a gigantic colossus invulnerable to nuclear attacks.

Secondly, this 'Guard' and the 'Imperium' were far more courteous than anything the Protectorate and Armsmaster had ever done before her arrest in Brockton Bay. Once she had emerged from unconsciousness, the officer in command, a certain Colonel Larkine, had come to present his apologies for involving her in a do-or-die battle. His second in command the dark-haired man had affirmed, a certain Major Dalten, should have made sure she was secure behind the frontlines, not fighting head-on the enraged orks. That said, having participated in the death of a powerful Ork leader, Taylor would receive several awards for bravery and a modest financial recompense once the campaign was over.

As her clothes and her equipment had been examined and been judged free of any 'Chaos-taint',-whatever that was-, they would be cleaned of all the blood and restored to pristine condition. Suggestions to rest and recover to full health had been provided. The main argument was that there was plenty of time available before dealing with paperwork, boring formalities and the future.

After that the man had left and Taylor had been left on her own, free to grab a few hours of sleep and ignore all the whispers heard by her bugs all over the military camp.

Once Taylor had woke up, she had acknowledged how good it was to be appreciated by the women of the hospital...unfortunately while she tried to think about this upturned situation, Weaver was remembered that as much this last battle had been a victory, New Delhi was a major defeat. The teenager girl didn't know what happened to Lisa and the other Undersiders, but Taylor was ready to bet it wasn't anything good. The capital of India had been thoroughly demolished, and of the only survivors of the villain-heroes coalition, neither Regent, nor Grue, Tattletale or Bitch had been here.

Taylor felt something dolorous form in her stomach and tears flow from her eyes. After everything, after Leviathan, the Slaughterhouse Nine, Echidna and everything, they were...gone. One more time, the Hero-Killer had won and destroyed everyone's hope. Sobbing, she wiped away her tears with the white cloth that she was now wearing.

Taylor was at this state of her reflexion when another person entered the hospital-tent, and this one was as far removed from a nurse or a doctor as it was possible.

The newcomer did not look like a human at all. Okay, it was a human, but not like Taylor or the other nurses, soldiers and everyone she had seen since she had crossed this portal. Half of his body was metal: there was a large metallic respirator covering the lower part of his visage. One of his eyes was of a red electronic colour. His two legs were an assemblage of pistons, resorts and steel plates. Everywhere on his torso and arms, tendrils came in and out, with the noises a steam engine normally made. A large red-robe covered much of his transformed body, but it was enough to understand this had been a process made during the man's life, and that the changes went well beyond simple appearance.

Really, Earth-Aleph film fans would have described him as a hybrid of human and Terminator. The large cables and pack emitting low-level sounds supported this idea.

Unlike the soldiers, the double-eagle was not present on his red robe. There was however a human skull symbol, half of the head being white on black background, and the other half being half black on white. Maybe a different faction of this 'Empire'?

"The greetings of the Omnissiah on you, Taylor Hebert." Evidently the...man-machine had somehow learnt her name, which she had given the Colonel before going to the hospital. Contrary to all her expectations, the eyes of her interlocutor went not to her face or her body covered by the hospital gown, but to her clothes and her dorsal reactor, all posed on the nearby portable table.

Concerning the voice, the tone was pleasant, but was very...mechanic.

"The same to you." Replied the parahuman, feeling a bit bewildered as the breather had not moved a bit mind. "I'm sorry, but I don't know your name?"

"I am Tech-Priest Morkys, Senior Adeptus Mechanicus delegated to the 20th Fay Infantry Guard." Presented himself the man with perhaps an inch of pride in the artificial voice. "I suppose you have many questions to ask."

"Yes. Can you tell me where am I please?" By the means of the hundreds of insect under her control, Weaver had heard places like 'Great Landing', 'Fay' and 'Ramev's Pass' be mentioned, but despite being quite good in geography, no class course Taylor had ever taken had talked about such locations. Add the presence of these 'orks', and Taylor had a very bad feeling she was not in the dimension of Earth Beta anymore.

"You are on the planet Fay III of the Fay System, Moros Sub-Sector, Nyx Sector, Ultima Segmentum, a world answering to the Holy Rule of the Omnissiah."

Taylor for a moment tried to assimilate the information the Tech-Priest provided...and failed. It was far worse than she imagined. Unless Fay was this name of the dimension for Earth, there was a very high possibility of not only having changed of dimension, but of planet as well.

This is so wrong...how am going to return home?

"Er...fine. How far are we from Earth?"

After all if Tech-Priest Morkys was an indicator of how advanced their technology was, the possibility existed, however remote, to go back to her home planet. Crossing directions promised to be far more difficult, as this was not exactly a common parahuman power, but...

"As fraction 006, year 289, millennium 35, there were 114 630 listed planets of the Imperium including the word 'Earth' in their name." Answered the strange red-robed man-machine, sounding perplexed with a few buzzes at the end of his sentences. "I am going to need more precise data than this."

This...this is insane. Over a hundred thousand planets? For a simple word? The Empire in the Star Wars movies of Earth Aleph is not supposed to be that immense!

"We have nine planets in the Solar System orbiting a yellow star." For once, Taylor tried to assess the situation as calmly as possible. If Morkys needed to have many spatial references, then she would provide them. "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Between Mars and Jupiter there is a large asteroid belt. Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos. Earth has one moon."

This time it was the Tech-Priest who fell in what had to be for a Terminator the ultimate state of shock. His tendrils all fell down on his sides, and his mechanisms all appeared to stop in an instant.

"Calculations will not be necessary, in the end." The static in the mechanic tone could have been the equivalent of a laughter. Or someone who had seen his wildest dreams be realised. With this machine and the red robe covering over half of his head, it was difficult to tell honestly.

"Why?"

"Which year was it when you left your Earth?" The apparently unrelated question made Taylor frown.

"2011."

"Anno Domini?" The tone of Morkys changed, as if speaking the Latin word was letting him access to a whole new level of magnificence and nobility.

"Yes." The Tech-Priest nodded slowly, as if he had understood a very complex problem and the solution had always been before his eyes.

"With a margin of one millionth per-cent of error, I am able to assess you are from the Blessed Solar System of Holy Terra, Throne World of Mankind, where Blessed Mars, our triple-sacred planet and most important Forge World orbits the Sun. "

Taylor almost didn't believe what her ears transmitted. But the devotion and the conviction the elocution was announced by the Mechanicus man told this was no comedy.

"Simple arithmetic conversions are sufficient to estimate you are thirty-three thousands and two hundred seventy-eight years in the future."

"There must be a mistake!" Exclaimed the bug-controller.

Time-travel was exciting for movies, but even parahumans abilities rarely interacted with objects or living things more than a few minutes. Clockblocker had been a good example of said time-stopping abilities.

The only parahuman to wield abilities on a years-scale had been Grey Boy, the infamous member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and he had been dead for years. Still, even for this sociopath, a travel of thirty-thousand plus-years was outright impossible.

"All mistakes have been taken into account and are in the error margin." The Tech-Priest had obviously a little difficulty to recognise rhetorical affirmations and humour. "2011 was the start of the Third Millennium, when humanity began its ascension towards its rightful destiny and its conquest of the stars. It is the 35th Millennium..."

"And as the Emperor sits on the Golden Throne eternally vigilant His armies have to fight and preserve the Imperium."