Arrival 1.4

Shield of Fay

That the Second Battle of Ramev Pass was of an unimaginable ferocity was not a surprise. When the enemy is the Orks, Imperial commanders have long since learnt to expect the worse from the very beginning.

What was more surprising was the scenario of the destructive engagement. By all rights, the Guard and PDF regiments' only choice was to stand on the defensive. The orks rushing to kill them were too numerous, had too many war machines and had destroyed mere days ago a human army far more powerful and motivated than this one. Even in this case, the simulations gave to the Fay 20th and its reinforcements exactly 2.476% of chance to stop the greenskins the time necessary for the Navy and support to reinforce them. Several generals of the time were known to comment the simple act of delaying the green tides by two or three hours in the mountains where orbital strikes could easily obliterate them would already be a fantastic victory.

But this time, the paradigm changed. For the first time in their long and bloody history, the orks faced a strategist more unpredictable than them. The xenos did not find an answer on this day. To give the monsters their due, there were far from the only ones to bite the dust that decade in the Nyx Sector.

Lady Weaver has never been viewed as a commander easy to counter...

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

"The orks are a permanent danger for this galaxy." Taylor 'Weaver' Hebert, 294M35.

"The Emperor protects. Kill every last one." Attributed to Ezekyle Abaddon, Ullanor Crusade, M31.

Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Moros Sub-Sector

Fay system

Planet Fay III

7.177.289M35

Thought for the day: No man that died in the Emperor's service died in vain.

Tech-Priest Enginseer Morkys

Every member of the Adeptus Mechanicus was taught at a young age he or she was but a small cog in the great machine serving the Omnissiah. A small piece in an ocean of machinery, but one which had to devote all it had all the same in the Quest of Knowledge.

Tech-Priest Enginseer Minoris Arcturus Morkys knew this lesson very well and had accepted it long before he reached his current age of forty-six Terran standard years. Despite the respect an Enginseer earned when he was attached with a regiment of the Astra Militarum, the reality was that in the vast and holy ranks of the Priesthood of Mars, Morkys was a non-entity. Enginseers were never highly considered by the Fabricators and the Arch-Magos. Repairing a tank and appeasing its venerable machine spirit was useful for the battles waged against xenos and the other enemies of the Omnissiah, but the utility of this ability in the sacred Quest for Knowledge was nearing the absolute number of zero. In the first years of his initiation on the industrial world of Harbin II, this fact had been revealed to him into a concise and precise manner. But his dedication to repair the tanks had been the strongest.

Accepting the teachings of the Machine-God had brought him in the middle of the wilderness, towing a broken Tauros with a big red flag on it to its final place of rest. Following him and his Atlas recovery tank, the two servitors under his command poured litres of adulterated syrup in the neat holes dug mere minutes ago.

Sometimes, was forced to conclude Morkys, the Omnissiah truly worked in mysterious ways indeed.

The low noise of boots hammering the ground stopped the manipulation his large mechadendrite was engaged in. Turning his head twenty-five degrees, the Tech-Priest saw a familiar silhouette with black clothes and an infamous cap close the space with long stride and the rigid posture common to all men taught by the Schola Progenium.

"Commissar Zuhev."

The members of the Imperial Guard regiment who took care of the machines and did their best to satisfy the machine spirits were usually granted one platitude. For an illogical reason, non-Mechanicus members seemed to take those with gratitude. The man in front of it had never been granted one.

"Tech-Priest."

Morkys didn't like the Commissar. According to the few simulations he had made in his spare time, the feeling was mutual. The bag of flesh and bones was incredibly stubborn, unwilling to consider the arguments brought by simulations, logistics and researched tactics. His management of human resources was illogical and detrimental to the regiment's effectiveness. During the Petersburg Campaign, Zuhev had terminated privates who could have been augmented or turned into servitors. Not to mention the abandonment of a loyal servant of the Machine God at the jaws of the orks whose only crime had been to try the reparation of a still operable Chimera.

The Commissar's commands to attack no matter the opposition had led to disaster for the company he was charged to augment the 'fighting spirit'. As far as the Enginseer was concerned, the only act made by Zuhev which had improved the efficiency of the Fay 20th had been the summary execution of the Ecclesiarchy representative. Given the long and bitter rivalry between Mars and the Ministorum, the Tech-Priest was not going to waste cycles of his cogitators in remembrance of this waste of oxygen. The problem in these calculations was the fact Zuhev would have not hesitated one single instant to shoot him in the same manner, forcing him from that point to protect his primary organs and data cores. Just in case.

"You have come to oversee the preparations?"

The probability of this question being answered positively was remote, but even a Tech-Priest was allowed hope in his long service to Blessed Mars. Alas, watching under several different optical filters Zuhev's grim face made it plain the Ordo Tempestus delegate had not come to establish his lack of knowledge in fortifications.

"I have come to...urge you to reconsider your stance concerning the here-the young woman who fought in the last battle."

Morkys emitted in the blessed binary language the equivalent of a sigh. One hundred per-cent of chance the Commissar has wanted to pronounce the noun 'heretic', but had reversed his position at the last moment.

You are a very predictable equation, Zuhev.

In sixty-nine times out of a hundred, the 20th Enginseer Minoris had determined the man of the Schola Progenium's predictability made him an asset. Unfortunately, that left the part of the thirty-one per-cent where the Commissar was a nuisance for the interests of the Mechanicus and one Arcturus Morkys. Past experience and one cycle of cogitator-prediction told Morkys the conversation to come was going to belong in the latter category.

"This is not the time or the place to discuss it."

There. A simple and logical statement, and no need to misdirect the facts. Surely this disgrace to the exalted machine spirit of his chainsword understood it was better to confront the orks first and consider the lesser matters after?

"If she is warp-tainted, immediate execution is required. I have the full authority of the Commissariat behind me. This is exactly the time and the place to decide it."

And the simulations had not been wrong. Cursing the Commissar to an eternity of hell in the realm of the Omnissiah in binary language, Morkys activated two secondary systems of armament under his robes. Colonel Larkine had been extremely appreciative of the newcomer's intervention to save the regiment. The data slates compiled by Morkys himself had increased this rate of popularity in the Mechanicus and Guard numbers.

Zuhev, on the other hand, had militated for Hebert's execution, at the great horror of the officers present when he made this remark. The Colonel had followed the logic and denied Zuhev, but formal orders were not going to stop this being always raging against logic and the blessings of the Omnissiah. Morkys suspected the Commissar was sometimes suspecting everyone, even the destroyed servitors unable to move and receive the proper orders of the Mechanicus Tech-Priests.

"Your argument is empty of sense." Morkys replied. "The young warrior called 'Taylor' can't be warp-tainted. On the Assignment twenty-four point scale, her psionic results were those of an Upsilon-level individual. This is a negative psionic level, granting her solid immunity to the pernicious influence of the Empyrean. This immunity is holding firm and I see no reason to conclude otherwise."

"Then explain me Tech-Priest how she got those powers."

"I can't. Not without much experimentation, analysis and explanations from her."

In fact this was why Taylor Hebert –or Weaver, Morkys wasn't sure why she had given first this name to the 20th – was properly invaluable for the Mechanicus...and the Imperium of course. A loyal psyker having the power to control insects like the young woman did was invaluable. The galaxy had plenty of worlds where dangerous insect species were uncountable, the name of Catachan being a very renowned example. But in the last centuries, too many times control of the insects and the diseases they carried had been a domain reserved to the Arch-Enemy of the Machine.

Therefore, a non-psyker having this set of abilities was literally priceless. The archeotech carried on her back was just as important, though his limited auspexes had not allowed him to fully examine it before the Colonel politely escorted him out of the tent. By the oaths he had given to Blessed Mars, it was Morkys sacred duty to ensure this exceptional potential asset was not compromised.

"How typical. And I assume you believe that she comes from the past too?"

This time the Enginseer chose carefully his words, least they were associated with what Zuhev no doubt considered blasphemy and heresy by his narrow-minded brain. The sneer of the Commissar was all the indication the Enginseer needed of his beliefs.

"Weaver's very blood confirms her words. Her genetic code matches the theoretical reconstitutions the Magos of Mars have made of the M3 human genome."

"Ridiculous."

"Can you explain the formation of Space Hulks with certainty?" Retorted Morkys. "Then don't be so illogical in rejecting something just because it offends your judgement."

"It's still ridiculous." Persisted the black-clothed terror of recruits and veterans alike. The Tech-Priest had suddenly the vengeful idea of using some favours to invite a Genetor to the Fay system. No doubt a master of the genetic studies would slowly dissect his interlocutor?

Banishing these oh so satisfying scenarios from his train of thought, the Enginseer assigned to the 20th decided to end the conversation. The orks were closing, and by simple law of nature the work wasn't going to do itself. There were Basilisks to calibrate, Chimeras to inspect and shells to load in the cannons.

"Will that be all? Commissar."

The outward perspective projected by a Mechanicus adept was of a being difficult to assess, but in this case, Morkys decided to make an exception. Losing a valuable amount of time in the hope a logical priest might change the facts to support his error-prone views was singularly irritating. Not to mention wasteful in the extreme when the imminent threat of the green abominations got nearer.

Too predictably, Zuhev hadn't changed his mind and the hints placed at logical intervals in the conversation hadn't been enough to deter him.

"If I find any hint of treachery or heresy in her, I will execute the sentence the Emperor's Commissariat reserves to such abominations."

"You will not." Affirmed Morkys. "In the name of the Omnissiah I defend it."

"Is that a threat?" The Commissar of the 20th did his best to be intimidating, but for a Tech-Priest used to report data to far more intimidating supervisors, this posture was pointless.

"No. A statistical certainty."

"A statistical certainty?" Answered the man, obviously utterly ignorant of the greater mysteries of the cogs and gears.

"Yes, a statistical certainty." Said the Enginseer readjusting the red robes of his Priesthood. "If I learn you have attempted to let a single blood sample of Taylor Hebert, turning you into a servitor will have one hundred per-cent chance of being a kinder fate compared to what I will do to you."

And perhaps I will send your screaming remains to a Genetor after that. The Omnissiah knows you deserve it.

Ovael the Maleficent

The succession of profanities Ovael screamed when his attack bike engine exploded would have been enough for an Inquisitor to denounce him as a heretic. Of course, the traitor Blood Raven was already one, making this little religious point kind of moot. When one worshipped Chaos, insults against the God-Emperor and his authorities were relative minor infractions after all.

Not that it figured at the first place of his preoccupations. The explosion was warp-enhanced due to the daemonic nature of the bike, and had sent the leader of the destroyed Sons of Sorcery in a majestic glide over the remnants of his broken machine. Had a servo-skull passed in this war zone, no doubt a fantastic pict capture cliché could have been made. As it was, this priceless opportunity for the Imperium propaganda services was lost.

Despite the legendary reflexes of an Astartes, the collision with the ground was a particularly unpleasant and humiliating one. Ovael's very transhuman nature ensured he was standing on his legs mere seconds after the shock when an ordinary human would be dead or seriously crippled, but the stimulation of his muscles and the alarms sent by his battle-armour notified him the event had done quite a bit of damage at the worst possible moment. One of the horns coming out of his helmet was broken, its extremity lying at his armoured feet. The blue and gold colours were partially covered in dust and grass, giving Ovael a camouflage appearance for a few seconds before the Space Marine brushed it away furiously.

I hate this planet. First my last ship. Then the last members of my warband because of these greenskins vermin. My attack bike. Tzeentch and the demons of the Warp must laugh at my misfortunes.

With great effort, Ovael stopped his thoughts before his imagination carried him to unsatisfying places. Those serving the powers of Chaos who asked openly what nefarious thing was going to happen to them next were too often answered in a matter of seconds by a horrible mutation. One psychic command, and the Rubric Marine accompanying him stood up from the broken parts of the bike.

What to do?

In the distance, large dust clouds indicated that the kilometres gained from his orks pursuers in the last hours were not going to last. Worse, the demolished bike was burning in a warp-fuelled fire, attracting any marauder ork from ten kilometres away if not more. The Chaos Space Marine was out of range of the scrap-things orks called their vehicles for the moment, but the noise and their shouts were received by his ears, courtesy of his augmented hearing. They had not noticed his fall, but it was only a question of time. After that, the rain of missiles would not be long in coming.

"The orks are closing on us." No Space Marine could feel fear of course, but the blood in Ovael's augmented veins was quite a commendable substitute. The comment did not let him feel better. The silence surrounding him was too heavy for that.

There was no mocking laughter from the voices in his head this time. The Thousand Son trapped in his blue-gold armour stayed silent as always, unable to talk and to act on his own volition. It was great for an ambitious sorcerer when he wanted someone to obey his orders unquestioningly, but bad when an open conversation was required.

Examining the situation over and over again, the traitor Astartes was not finding a lot of ways to solve his predicaments. One demonically-possessed chainsword, a bolter MK IVe with one hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition – in other words six reloads - and his powers of psyker, plus the help of the Rubric Marine. For ten minutes of slaughter with nothing more dangerous than a cultist in front of him, this would be fine. Against the number of orks following him, better not to think about it.

Ovael was at the feet of the mountain range, but without a vehicle, it wasn't going to do him any good. Sighing, the former Blood Raven sent a mind command to his servitor. The Rubric marched, and gave him in the palm of his armoured hand an amulet the Sons of Sorcery had stolen at Vissian VI. The battle against Exodite Eldars had cost the lives of three battle-brothers that day...and the sorceries unleashed in the aftermath had cost many more. Now was the time to see if their lives had been lost for something valuable. The Chaos sorcerer pronounced seventeen words, each one burning him in the chest more painfully than the previous one. Words which belonged to no human language. Words which hurt reality as much as Ovael himself. Blood flowing into his mouth, the Space Marine gave his instructions to the amulet, which was now floating in the air surrounded by a light violet halo.

"Show me the direction of the nearest spaceport."

The amulet shone of a putrid purple colour before blinking twice and manifesting over twenty rays of magic going in every direction possible. What this spectacle of colour and power meant, Ovael hadn't the slightest clue. None of the lore he had stolen in the last century had told him how to interpret phenomena like this!

"Show me the way to take a warship and leave this planet!" Roared Ovael.

This time the lights changed to show three light rays...all pointing towards the ork horde.

"Useless. I should have known this Eldar witch was lying when I tortured the information out of her. A path-finder, what a stupid idea."

The blue fist of the Space Marine was about to crush the chaotic artefact into splinters when an idea formed into Ovael's mind. With his warband dead, the possibility of recruiting new canon-fodder had considerably augmented. Usually, the mutants and rogue psykers who were trailing in his company were discouraging recruitment. Without them, prospects were looking up. The world he was marching on was far from any core world of the Ultima Segmentum. It was likely the inhabitants venerating the Corpse-God had never seen an Astartes in millennia. And possibly the same thing was true of Inquisitors, daemons and all sort of Warp-taints.

The once-loyal Astartes was not in the mood to laugh, but an evil smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Show me the way to the biggest human army defending this planet."

This time a single arrow of purple line pointed to a nearby pass.

"Much better." Nodded in approval the Astartes. Perhaps Tzeentch has not abandoned me...

"Well. It seems you were useful in the end." Told the former Blood Raven to the corrupted artefact. It was still pulsating in a purple aura, and the Captain growled realising he had not asked the former owner how to deactivate it.

Fortunately the Traitor Marine had his helmet on, as it was the time the Eldar amulet chose to explode like a krak grenade.

Behind him, the war screams of several thousands orks mounted to the skies.

Colonel Daviev Larkine

"The birds of the Aeronautica have shot their bolt, Colonel. General Markov has given the order for them to withdraw and rearm. They have thinned the horde a bit."

The voice of Lieutenant Masev when the young man put down his headgear to reveal the content of the last vox conversation could have been more cheerful and optimistic. His superior guessed something had gone wrong. A cynical officer would add the 'again' after this sentence, considering the many debacles suffered by the Imperium on Fay this last days.

"I'm not sure how much is 'a bit'."Replied Larkine. "I'm going to need more accurate figures than that."

In the background a dozen of servo-skulls passed, followed by a messenger cherub carrying a pile of data-slate. A chronometric display switched off, and a cogboy ran with a few spare parts under his mechanical arm to repair it.

"Twenty thousand orks killed?" The tone employed could have hardly been less convincing. The other vox operators present in the room did their best to look occupied and not confirm what their officer had just spoken.

Let's just hope they didn't throw their bombs away when the ork flyers intercepted them...

In any case, that still left over a hundred and eighty thousands orks to kill. Somehow, Larkine doubted a second attack would go better, even if they had suffered absolutely no loss in their approach. Speaking of which...

"Do we know the extent of the losses suffered by the air fleet?"

"Six Marauders, nine Barbarians interceptors and eleven Valkyries outright destroyed." Masev bit his lip, visibly ill-at-ease. "At least five others Marauders have suffered various degrees of damage."

The 20th Commanding officer exchanged a glance with Major Ilvyna Dalten to his right. His second-in-command and him may not seen eye to eye on many things, but both knew when they heard bad news. Marauder bombers when it came to battle were vastly more resistant than Interceptors or Valkyries due to their heavy plasteel armour. The losses in these latter two categories of flyers had thus to be several times higher. Also telling that no one had told Masev the specifics of the damage the greenskins had inflicted.

By the way, Ilvyna was grimacing, the beautiful and deadly Major had also understood that whatever second wave the Aeronautica would scrap together, it would considerably weaker. The flyers had begun the day with twenty-five to thirty Marauders, sixty Barbarians and two hundred Valkyries. If half of that participated in a new attack, it would be exceptional...and miraculous if the bombers launched before the ground forces and the orks started their mutual slaughter.

"Thank you Lieutenant."

Daviev left the dozen men occupying the vox section and left the fortified hole where the communications section had been buried after the first onslaught, his blonde second on his heels.

Avoiding several warrant officers running in every direction with oil and grease spread on their uniform, the two officers progressed in what had become in the last days a very fortified position. The traps had multiplied like horny animals, hundreds of mines had been emplaced and considerable amount of weaponry and laser packs had been brought forwards. Hundreds of metres of razorwire had been redeployed. Several turrets had been buried in the ground, the vehicles they were coming from having been crippled beforehand. The sandbags had been replaced, and four more anti-tank ditches had been dug.

These preparations had not been without effect on the landscape. The fresh grass of the mountains had almost disappeared due to the tons of earth dug and swept aside by the men of the Emperor and the machines of the Tech-Priests. Thousands of boots striking the earth had finished the job. Ramev's Pass was now a bastion of the Imperium, an iron wall of the God-Emperor to crush the xenos...now they were going to see if it held.

Moving around a Basilisk which was moving slowly to its designed location, Larkine and Dalten entered quickly in a tent marked of the golden Aquila, after having received quick nods from two hidden men near an empty case of anti-armour shells.

There were four men waiting for them inside. The first two were known to the officers of the Fay 20th, though they had hardly spoken more than the usual pleasantries discussed in the headquarters of a general before the official beginning of a campaign. Colonel Petan 'Petard' Guliev, a very large black-haired man with several impressive tattoos on his right arm to cover his ugly scars, was commanding the 8th Fay Infantry of the Guard. With the appropriate training, Guliev would have had a bull-like constitution, but the rumours telling of his laziness had at least a finger or two of truth. The 8th CO was fat. There was nothing to add to this. On his left was Colonel Klux 'Demolisher' Zubrov, in charge of the 11th Fay Infantry of the Guard. Unlike Guliev, Zubrov looked and acted the part of the proud and determined officer of His Most Holy Majesty. Brown-haired with a musculature far surpassing Larkine's, several times the Administratum had used pictures of him to boost the recruitment rates. Originally having applied for a tankman's commission, the Departmento Munitorum paper-crushers had judged less costly to put the bloodthirsty enthusiast in the infantry.

As always the opinion of the bureaucrats had been less than stellar, and that was an understatement of the highest order. At Petersburg, Zubrov had charged with his regiment into the first horde of orks he met, instead of staying in the defensive like their orders demanded. Consequently, the 11th had been the first Fay regiment to suffer over eighty per-cent of casualties in less than two hours. Only Zubrov's second cousin position in the Munitorum and his family ties to several generals had prevented a court-martial from being convened. Larkine had many reservations to see him under his command, the ability of Zubrov to follow a plan being quite problematic.

But those two had seen the orks in action and as a result had some experience of fighting the greenskins. The two other men on the seats to their right could not claim the same. Colonel Maxim Loktor of the PDF 147th was a brown-haired slim youngster, one who could not have reached his present position without a large support from the Byukur dynasty. As for Colonel Togur Morogov of the 182nd, he was easily surpassing all the officers present in vice and sin. Daviev would never pretend to be a paragon worthy of Ecclesiarchy sainthood, but the 20th of the Guard had been ready to fight against the orks when the order was given by High Command, and the same was true of the 8th, the 11th and the 147th. The 182nd wasn't ready; half of its standard complement of men was still missing as he sat before the hololith detailing the future battlefield of the Fay armies. And to be honest, the commanding officer of the 20th started to have some doubts these men had existed at all. It would not be the first time a superior officer told figures but filled his pockets with the Throne Gelts one was supposed to spend in training, salaries and equipment.

"The orks will be upon us in less than an hour so I will not waste your time. It seems the vermin xenos wasn't as weak in the air as General Markov thought."

Which meant, and all the women and the men able to hear the sentence in the vicinity knew it, that the intelligence services of the PDF were responsible for another monumental disaster. No Commissar was present –all the political officers were busy motivating the recruits for the carnage to come- but none doubted this conversation was monitored via servo-skull or another more subtle method. In this case, better be careful with one's words. It would be stupid to survive the orks only to be shot by the Commissariat after the hostilities for disloyalty and treason.

"I demand the honour of my regiment drawing blood first." Declared in a warlike-fashion Zubrov.

"Yes!" Yapped Morogov with a suddenness only attracting the issue he didn't want to rush on the battlefield first. "General Zubrov is the obvious choice to lead the offensive!"

"Granted." Said Larkine after pausing a few seconds to maintain the appearance of deliberation.

Thanks you to offer you as bait, Colonel. I appreciate the spirit, although I'm sure a lot of your men aren't going to share you eagerness.

Not that putting the 11th on the first lines to receive the charge of the orks was a bad tactical choice. Zubrov's regiment had been reequipped with far more machines than the 20th: twenty Chimeras, two Hellhounds, twenty Sentinels, five Salamanders and a large numbers of Tauroxes and Tauroses in support. Plus five Basilisks. It was far better than the six Chimeras, four Tauroxes and nine Tauros his own regiment had started the last clash with.

The next minutes went fast. Between Guliev, Zobrov and himself, the hundreds of men which had not been assigned a clear role were assigned their positions, with a portable vox-set and a dozen messengers charged of the transmission of said orders. Sadly, if the two other colonels proved amenable to his plan in spite of not being revealed all its intricacies, the two PDF were almost useless in their contributions. Loktor was looking like a horned rabbit of the mountains which would have been slammed into by a Leman Russ, and Morogov was doing his best to be perceived as a cow-walrus of the Fay oceans. It wasn't inspiring great comfort at the eve of a decisive battle.

"Other questions?"

"Hmm...yes." The voice of Maxim Loktor was so low it was only a level higher than a whisper. "There was a logistical error from headquarters and we have received several crates of a new publication called The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer which were supposed to be sent to the 11th. I wanted to know if these books were valuable."

Ilvyna's mouth lightly twisted into an amused smile. Colonel Zubrov was far more expressive and burst into laughter.

"That depends entirely if you consider using them as toilet paper is valuable." Grunted Guliev. The way his massive hands moved suggested strongly the answer was 'no'.

"But the information in these pages..." Insisted Loktor, unwillingly revealing he had opened and read the content of this idiotic publication.

"Is a pack of lies." Asserted Zubrov bluntly. "Well," amended the offensive Colonel "except the part about the Commissariat shooting you of course."

Ah, yes that part. How could we forget it, I wonder?

"Even the parts about the greenskins?"

"Especially the parts about the greenskins." Commented Larkin's second-in-command. "The orks are no tiny green things ready to run at the first sound of lasfire, Colonel. There are vicious beasts living only for battle and bathing in blood."

"But...how can we hope to win against such numbers?" Whined the officer who had by all accounts had been elevated way past his level of competence and ability to maintain a cold-blooded attitude.

"We have the God-Emperor with us." Reminded him Zubrov, before their PDF colleague passed a line and went into the defeatist category.

"Ah, yes. Yes, indeed." Loktor nodded vigorously, perhaps to dissuade himself from a path which was not far from seeing him removed from his commission and sent in front of an execution squad.

The shrieking noise of alarms stopped this uncomfortable conversation. All this talk about orks had apparently attracted the xenos.

"It's time. Go back to your commands." By a miracle only known to the God-Emperor and his commissars, Zuhev had teleported himself behind Larkine's seat, making the colonels and the major almost jump and seize their laspistols.

As the other commanding officers left the tent, Colonel Larkine turned to face his political officer.

"Please tell me you have reliable Commissars in place to take charge if these two disgraces fall apart."

Who was targeted by this derogatory comment didn't to be explained. Several times already the deficiencies of the PDF had been discussed both in public and private places.

"I have." Growled Zuhev. "But they can't be everywhere and the average quality of the PDF is incredibly poor. Don't let the orks close with them, they lack the training for a melee with the greenskins."

If they won this battle, the Administratum and the authorities ruling the Nyx Sector were going to have much to say about the officer recruiting practises of Fay. Weirdly, Larkine did not think the opinion was going to be positive.

One battle at a time, Daviev. First we kill the orks. Politics can wait for tomorrow.

"Fine." Told the Commissar with an expression which expressed outwardly everything was definitely not 'fine'. "Where is our secret weapon?"

"Gathering her swarm."

Taylor Hebert

"Enemy closing in." Blared a metallic voice out of the tank's radio. "Estimated time before engagement: three minutes, seven seconds."

Taylor winced a bit at the sound of this voice. Not because her ears couldn't take it in the confines of the vehicle she was currently sitting in, but because the same thing had been repeated all over the camp outside it. And all this sound had generated enough vibrations the insects under her control had the human equivalent of a headache. And there were hundreds of thousands of them.

Well it was kind of her fault, really. To accomplish her part of the plan, one of her demands to be granted the maximum of bugs the 'Imperium' could concentrate in a single place. And these strange red-robed half-Terminator people had delivered. Somewhere in the middle, Weaver had been lost in their explanations on biochemistry – the rest of the audience had shown signs of confusion well before that - but the foundations of their efforts relied on the use of insect pheromones, adulterated syrup and other odorant substances.

When she had asked the Colonel how the soldiers of this 'Mechanicus' could have found pheromones and syrup in such a short amount of time, the cryptic answer had been how certain people were more eager than others to battle against the monsters inhabiting a place named the Adeptus Administratum.

It clearly was a strange new world and a new strange galaxy. According to the men and women Taylor had had the time to discuss, humanity had gone to the stars and expanded by the trillions. The 'Imperium of Man' was a galactic-wide realm dispersed across the Milky Way. Now humanity had starships...but war continued. Similar and yet different all the same. Before the opponents had been heroes, villains, parahumans in general, agents of the PRT equipped with tinker-tech and of course Endbringers. Now it was green monsters which could really benefit from an appointment with a dentist, a doctor and a shower. It said something about Earth Beta in Taylor's opinion that so far she had preferred fighting the 'orks' rather than starting a new battle against Behemoth or Leviathan.

Weaver wasn't sure what to think about their government. A God-Emperor, a Governor, several feudal-like organisations...the structure of this Empire had more common points with the methods the Undersiders had used to rule Brockton Bay than the United States legislation. Still, debates on democracy and dictatorship could wait until the end of the battle.

"Are you okay in there?" Asked Lieutenant Victor Tovar, who was seated on his left, temporarily stopping his speech in his futurist radio. He was one of the two men sitting with her in the tank, but the pilot on the front was the silent type: he had not said a word since she had embarked, though Taylor had noticed his fingers had never let the small two-headed golden eagle fall from his fingers.

The former warlord known as Skitter had been largely hesitant to hide in the tank. Sure, it was Colonel Larkine's polite 'suggestion' – which had turned more and more into an order as she had tried to pose arguments against it - the action had not been presented as hiding, but that was what it was. A high number of the soldiers outside had only the 'flak armour', combat boots and a helmet to protect themselves. Like the PRT troopers against high-level Brute parahumans, their casualties weren't going to be light. By comparison Taylor had her own spider-silk clothes under the flak armour and the rest of the soldiers' equipment, plus of course her own powers.

As Skitter, she has survived Leviathan with far less support all these men had. Okay, Taylor had ended at the hospital at the end but against an Endbringer survival was half a victory. The teenager of Brockton Bay was ready to bet most of the young adults charging their guns had no large-scaled battles under their belts. Their hands were shaking too much for this to be the case.

On the other hand, it was flattering the regiment commanding officer was considering her a very valuable soldier in their efforts against their alien enemies. It was a nice change from the PRT, an organisation which had definitely not considered her irreplaceable.

"It's a bit too small to my taste." Replied honestly Taylor. "I had bad experiences in dark and enclosed spaces."

Without explaining things like trigger events and how parahumans gained power, this was the best way she could put up her reluctance to enter such a place where it was difficult to escape in an interval of seconds.

"Sorry about that." The Lieutenant had a sympathetic face, having undoubtedly the experience of someone having vomited inside the vehicle when passengers were transport-ill. "Military vehicles like the Chimeras are infamous for being cramped and uncomfortable."

That the daughter of Danny Hebert could very well believe. The Chimera had only three passengers at this moment due to its function as a command vehicle, but it was already difficult to move without putting an arm or a leg somewhere it was not wanted.

"So all your tanks are like that?" It was more an attempt to distract everyone from the imminent battle, but it worked.

"Tanks?" The black-haired young man appeared to not realise the meaning of her sentence for an instant before his visage cleared in understanding. "Oh, no the Chimera is not a tank. It's just an armoured transport."

In spite of her best efforts, Taylor felt her mouth open in surprise. Instantly she closed it, but for a few seconds the villain-turned heroine knew she had looked like a gaping fish. The armoured vehicle she was currently sitting in was not a tank? The thing had one huge cannon pivoting with the turret, one other on the front, and three smaller ones on the sides!

"An armoured transport?"

"Yes, I'm afraid." Tovar's smirk was evidence enough her astonishment had been remarked, but unlike Tattletale he was not the type of person to capitalise on it. "The turret-mounted is impressive, but don't let it fool you. It's a multi-laser, effective against enemy infantry or lightly armed vehicles like a Taurox. We can't easily destroy the orks tanks with it. Their big guns would reduce us into cinders well before we shattered their armour."

"The armour looks thick." Was the parahuman's remark. At once, both the silent pilot and his officer nodded.

"It is, but not as thick as the armour on the Leman Russ tank. There are 100mm of plasteel on the front, it's enough to protect from lasguns, lascarbines and the likes according to the cogboys. But the meltagun and the other heavy weapons can tear us apart. We can't take the punishment one of the super-heavy Baneblades take every morning and..."

The Fay soldier had never the chance to finish his description of the merits and the drawbacks of the Chimera 'armoured transport'. The small holographic device which was worthy of Star Wars movie biped and then unleashed a succession of alarms and thrills. Then a lot of icons being characterised by ugly green skulls manifested themselves. A lot of icons were filling the edge of the pass, with the human army's own lights largely outnumbered by this threat. Taylor tried not to wince, knowing it would not put at ease the soldiers sharing the armoured transport with her, but the magnitude of the threat was something of a nightmare. How could aliens so stupid manage to muster in such large armies?

The insects mastered by her power had too little range to perceive the details of her opponents, but she could see the reaction of the Imperium troops waiting for the assault in their trenches. Whispers and murmurs of apprehension spread, though quite a few preachers and the 'Commissars' - wasn't it one of the Soviet Union political units by the way? – made a good show of exalting the ranks into a frenzy and outright fanaticism.

"They are so many..."

"Let them come. Soon they will be deader than Horus!"

"Oh mighty God-Emperor, hear my prayer..."

"The Emperor is our shield! As he sits on the Golden Throne and protects all Mankind we fight in His Name!"

"The Emperor protects! For four thousand years he has sat upon the Golden throne, and the Master of Mankind will endure six thousand more!"

And then a horrifying war imprecation came, full of anger, bloodlust and murder, the same one Taylor had heard when she first arrived into this world.

"WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"

Hundreds of men and women in the trenches and atop their vehicles shivered, frightened by the sheer power contained by the unbearable shout. Not for long however. Mere seconds later, by her insects eyes Weaver saw dozens of officers screaming their own challenges to the monsters.

"How many times human ears have heard that roar, I wonder?" Whispered Weaver, half-rhetorically. The low tone wasn't really necessary, because the pilot was muttering prayers in his beard with closed eyes, almost unconscious to everything around him.

"More than be counted by a million scribes." Viktor Tovar had grown a bit pale as the size of the enemy mass grew beyond the size of 'enormous' on his display. "There are legends and rumours the orks were the first species Mankind met when the first colonists left Holy Terra millennia ago."

Taylor narrowed her eyes. If that was true, then the first contact - or 'First Contact' since this was such a momentous event - with an unknown species must have gone down in flames. These 'orks' didn't sound like the kind of beings interested by the statement 'we come in peace'.

As fascinating as this session of history was alas, there was no time to pursue it. While Taylor could freely manipulate thousands of bugs per second and speak to the person next to her, the Lieutenant was rapidly relaying orders and commands from the rest of the regiment everywhere.

The good point now that the orks were in the pass was that even the weak vision allowed to these 'flea-vampires' and 'super-hornets' she controlled was largely sufficient to see the green mass rushing for the battle. To say there was no organisation was a big understatement. Tanks and armoured transports were racing along with bikes and foot soldiers, many of them looking like they had been stolen from the Imperium and then restored by a lazy alien unwilling to look for the plans of the machines.

There was a disparity though. Namely the two big silhouettes running at the edge of her bugs' vision.

"The orks are running after someone."

Lieutenant Tovar spoke quickly in his radio, listened to his commanding officer before replying in a hurry.

"The Colonel and the Commissar don't think it's an ally. All allied units we have in the theatre are here and Fay hasn't levied any force with these symbols and colours." The black-haired officer shook his head negatively. "Whoever these things are, they are not ours."

"Should I deal with them?"

The demand was repeated by Tovar a second time to whoever was in communication on the other side with Colonel Larkine.

"No. The Colonel says to stick to the plan. We will let the orks deal with them."

This was more cold-blooded than Taylor liked, but in the next seconds the thousands of eyes at her disposition allowed her to see there was nothing she could do. Despite their impressive speed, the two blue and gold armoured figures were unable to reach the defenders before the orks did and they were at the limit of her power's range. Plus intervening would ruin the many surprises that had been prepared.

An alien completely worthy of competing for the title of 'craziest driver of the galaxy' slammed his sort of hovercraft-bike in the first colossus, interrupting the escape. Quite surprisingly, it wasn't enough to kill him despite the destroyed engine weighting several hundred kilos. In a completely impossible move, the figure stood up and launched the carcass of the ork space bike into its followers before drawing a sword half of Taylor's height and using it to slice the bodies of two green aliens. And the other five which came behind. It was worthy of a superhero, but it didn't last. Pushing roars and a torrent of alien curses, hundreds of green things swarmed the blue armoured figures. Literally. A pile of orks was growing on the battlefield in their willingness to beat one enemy.

These aliens are completely crazy.

By the look of things, the soldiers in the first trenches had had a good moment with the orks ignoring them. The orks had tried to pass the first obstacles alone and without their biggest machines, allowing the Fay men to shoot them in a storm of laser.

But the initial moment of lethargy from the green aliens didn't last. Roars and bestial exclamations resonated, and the monsters came by the thousands, straight towards the red flag on the abandoned vehicle. None wondered why this wreck had been left outside the fortifications. There was not a single individual to put some sense or shout some counter-order, no moderation or sense of preservation.

And for those involved there never were. Ten 'flea-vampires' put a combination on a hidden panel just as over five hundred or so of the orks reached the flag. One hundred and twenty landmines exploded, disintegrating the advance guard of the aliens into a rain of blood. On the slopes, the men of the Colonel nicknamed the Demolisher were firing their laser weapons at the maximum rate possible. From what Taylor was able to see, each individual weapon was causing 'only' severe wounds to the ork warriors, but there were hundreds of them firing in the same direction. Even with the worst accuracy and will, it was really difficult to miss. Hundreds of screaming creatures went down, a green carpet finally silent in death.

More of their 'friends' came behind. Directly on the second mass concentration of landmines. This one the Tech-Priest hadn't required Weaver's help to place – apparently his supply of correct remote-controlled detonators was adequate only for half of the mines' numbers – and in a cascade of explosions the orks legs were consumed in a storm of fire, splinters and what looked like plasma emissions.

The batteries of human and ork artillery at the same time started a symphony of destruction against each other. Despite being in a transport relatively far from where the shells landed, Taylor was almost deafened by the noise of the bombardment.

From this inferno came the tides of orks. Not a single individual of the green aliens was unharmed, but being half-roasted did not seem to matter. With courage and a lack of wits which had made Japanese of World War Two quite famous until leviathan sunk Kyushu, an uncoordinated charge commenced. Hundreds were stopped by the 'razorwire', and gunned down by the lasers and the cannons of the Guard. Hundreds were shattered by the last rampart of landmines. Turrets buried at the level of the ground and the equivalent of machine guns opened fire when the orks were close enough to be smelled.

Taylor could honestly tell she had never seen anything like this. Sure Leviathan had crushed half of Brockton Bay singlehandedly and Behemoth had annihilated New Delhi but each time there had been little time or chance to see the casualties the Endbringers had caused. Saving the living had been far more important.

But at no moment on Earth Beta an enemy had shown a willingness to march on the corpses of his own subordinates, risk annihilation and tens of thousands individuals just to arrive at close-quarters. The ground before the Fay regiments was littered with ork corpses, with dozens joining them by the seconds. Small unit of fire-throwers burnt the closest aliens near the fortifications, giving this part of the battlefield an apocalyptic atmosphere.

And then a flash of green lightning blasted half of the first outer wall like a gigantic fist.

"What was that?"

"That was an ork psyker. Kill it. Kill it now!"

Fortunately the culprit was easy to notice. The 'psyker' ork had a large sceptre, a sort of metallic device atop its head and had the looks of a deranged mad cultist coupled with the visage of someone having abused mind-shattering drugs. Oh, and it was surrounding by a corona of green lightning and flames. If the situation had not been so dramatic, it could have been almost funny...but the ten orks surrounding the weird green being were suddenly immolated when the ork screamed a new unintelligible imprecation to form a shield against a new volley of laser...

Weaver's sent a small part of the closest available 'super-hornets' swarm hidden below the ground towards this new target...and was suddenly seized by a feeling of untold wrongness. Rushed out of nowhere, a feeling in her urged her to exterminate the 'psyker'. To make him suffer and ensure it was never a threat again. The bugs and insects attacked the device on the top of the ork's head...and everything exploded in a pyre of green energy, erasing orks by the hundreds from the reality. Mere seconds later, the effects of hate and disgust faded.

What was that? This was no parahuman power...

"That was too close." Breathed in relief the young man next to Taylor, before adding under his breath: "Damn these abominations..."

A new radio message interrupted what promised to a long series of curses and insults against the green aliens.

"Colonel Zubrov is going to launch the counter-attack. Colonel Larkine asks you to eliminate the orks leaders which have entered your range."

Releasing a tenth of her first bug reserves, Taylor proceeded to do exactly that. Not that it was difficult to point the leaders in this crowd: apparently the orks were listening to those bigger and noisier than them.

Three of them had already been neutralised when the defenders first line and the minefields were subjected to a torrent of shells and diverse creatures. Half of her bugs were wiped out in two seconds...and so were the orks in the vicinity. The earth walls and the humans resisting behind fared better but they still took a lot of casualties. Weaver was able to see dozens of soldiers being sent to the rear on stretchers, with more lying on the ground forever. One look at the holographic display was enough to realise what had happened. The valley was sinking under the weight of the orks, a green wave covering the ground in such a density that nothing under this could be seen.

For once, the driver of the Chimera did not stay silent. But Taylor thought he could have avoided his laconic remark.

"Here come the tanks and the big ones."