Muster 6.3
Ad Astra Per Aspera
It is incredibly ironic in hindsight that, until I was twelve, the name of Taylor Hebert meant nothing to me.
Oh, I knew the name of Weaver, Saint of the Emperor. I may not have gone to church every day, but I attended enough sermons to know the names of all the Great Living Saints.
But on Donia, our patron saint is Saint Sabbat. The Saint of Nyx is venerated and has over sixty churches under Her protection, but it is the Angel of Healing who is our most respected holy figure. Thus Saint Sabbat has given her name to the great cathedral of Pella.
Logically, my first military lectures were oriented by the culture of my homeworld. At age ten, I had read the first three tomes of the Memories of the Hagia Crusade, written by Lord General Faltornus.
It was pure luck and the Emperor's Will that I had the opportunity to read a sixth edition-text of the Requiem for the Pirates. My father received a delegation of Templar Sororitas, and one way or another, my interest in past exploits of the Living Saints was mentioned. Now, the Order of the Silver Rose had few books or information available about Saint Sabbat save some known-to-all data-banks on the Conclave of Saints. On the other hand, the Templar Sisters had many, many books and reports on Saint Weaver. She is after all their Patron and Founder.
As soon as I finished the Requiem masterwork, I knew I wanted to read everything about the woman who led the Imperial Guard and the Imperium forces from triumph to triumph.
My childish desires weren't satisfied immediately, of course. Son of a Planetary Governor or not, I had nowhere near the clearance level to read more than the public texts the Order of the Silver Rose authorises non-members to study and copy.
Ultimately, it was on my twenty-fourth birthday and my promotion to full General I was offered a copy of The Fires of Operation Caribbean by Mordian General Houston. To say it was an illuminating read was greatly understating the truth. Being older and wiser, I could far better understand the logistical difficulties in mustering an Army Group and the issues which come with the command of a coalition of disparate elements. I also had a far better idea why many victories of the Saints are treated as miraculous.
The Basileia-Saint was not the first General or Admiral to make methodical preparations before launching a military campaign. She didn't have a monopoly on ruthlessness, nor was she an exception in her capacities of improvisation, charisma or skill to surround herself with talented subordinates. But the Lady of Nyx had all of that and absolutely no compunction to ignore the opinions of the slow and rusty Adeptus Administratum. A will of adamantium saw an obscure young man ignored by the Imperial Navy in charge of a plan involving millions of men because Weaver believed in him and imperturbably ignored the criticism.
We know what happened next. Operation Caribbean and its two major battles are still carved in golden letters within the Hall of Victories, and one single banner was placed in front of the Eternity Gate where, as far as I am aware, it remains to this day.
From an overall perspective, the tactics and strategies favoured by Lady Taylor Hebert, Saint of the God-Emperor, Heiress to Sanguinius' Legacy and Star Marshal of the Imperial Guard seem to lack the elegance and cleverness of Saint Sabbat's moves.
But as I often remark to my Generals, when you have a swarm, an army and the Emperor's Grace, victory is often all that matters.
And at that game, Lady Weaver rarely loses.
Extract from Of Saints and Campaigns by Star Marshal Alexander Macharius, 670M41.
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Nyx III
Hive Athena
7.448.295M35
Thought for the day: Carry the Emperor's will as your torch, with it destroy the shadows.
Sergeant Gavreel Forcas
It was always a pleasure to watch the Basileia say 'no' to a crowd of Munitorum, Administratum, and Navy parasites.
They squealed. They protested. They shouted. They waved with massive scrolls and hololithic devices, the symbols of their authority.
The second 'no' forced them to stay silent for about ten seconds.
They protested again. Obese bureaucrats who had never commanded anything bigger than a scribe room suddenly pretended to have the strategic wisdom of a high-ranked Guard officer.
The third 'no', supported by a threatening sound made by over six hundred insects, finally achieved what Gavreel had thought impossible: the useless delegation wised up. Hundreds of arrogant mouths closed, and in the next ten minutes the throne room where the council had taken place was emptied of the incompetents and the imbeciles.
It didn't leave a lot of people. Save the Dawnbreaker Guard and the bodyguards leaning against the walls, the participants were limited to the young Wolfgang Bach, six younger men and women who served in the Caribbean General Staff – none of them above the rank of Lieutenant – and of course Lady Taylor Hebert herself.
And it was her voice which broke the silence which had accompanied the outraged dismissal of the bureaucrats and the armchair generals.
"I think we will keep our Guard and Navy staff as it currently stands, Wolfgang."
The elite starfighter pilot nodded. As a sign of how serious the situation was, there no trace of his usual good humour in his expression.
"I can't say that it is a bad thing, my Lady." The First Naval Secretary grimaced. "Still, I would have preferred we had some additional experienced personnel. Your staff, whether we're speaking of ground or naval affairs, is going to be terribly young. They won't be completely without experience, hundreds of them have fought the Battle of the Death Star or gained experience fighting the greenskins in the neighbouring Sectors over the last years, but I would have preferred adding some senior commanders to the trained cadre we have here."
"It was a good idea." Coming from the mistress of insects this was high praise, because Weaver was not shy in pointing out the flaws of someone's reasoning. "But like the high-ranked officers we have not yet received, I think a General Staff for Operation Caribbean is only useful if we have dedicated and competent men and women to give sound advice and propose realistic options to the commanders of each branch. If I listened to those grox-bureaucrats...let's agree it would be better not to launch Operation Caribbean at all."
Wolfgang slightly inclined his head to signal these words were not presenting a line of thought he hadn't thought of at least a few hundred times.
"Still...I must thank you for the unconditional support, my Lady."
"Wolfgang." The voice had no effect whatsoever on Gavreel, but he heard it every day, and it took a lot to impress a Space Marine. But as he saw the effect her charisma had on the First Naval Secretary, the former Dark Angel Legionary acknowledged that in the last five years, the young woman had mastered the 'imperious Basileia' role nearly perfectly. "Unlike too many Navy officers, you give me a lot of space fighting-expertise, you don't lie to me and, except for your jokes with Dennis, you don't waste my time."
The Lady of Nyx shrugged in a gesture which managed to remind everyone in the room she was very much a human of flesh and blood.
"As long as you continue to serve in an excellent manner, my support will continue. Don't give me a reason to change this."
Even with his limited experience on the battlefields of the 35th millennium, Gavreel knew this was a very 'innovative' view to do things in the Imperium, and it didn't matter if the one speaking was a General of the Imperial Guard, a Sector Lord governing a hundred planets, or a popular figure. Too often politics drowned every other concern, and recently two Sectors away several defeated Generals had been on the receiving end of several court-martials that had been more purges and scapegoat-hunting than a true accountings of the campaign's failures.
"But we have lost enough time listening to the 'advice' of these 'councillors'." The disgust was palpable in her voice. Gavreel would not be surprised if the majority of these men and women who had just left were encouraged to leave Nyx in a few days and never return without a very pressing reason. "Was there any particularly important point left to debate upon?"
The de jure Rogue Trader watched at his data-slate for a couple of heartbeats before shaking his head.
"There are few adjustments I want, now that we have renamed the battle-plan War Plan Leyte Gulf."
Taylor Hebert groaned theatrically. For some reason, the Basileia had been really disappointed at the news she couldn't make 'Plan Collateral Damage' official. Though frankly, it was a bit childish in this instance. The replacement name, initially introduced by Minister of Industry Dragon Richter, was far better in his opinion, and all the Dawnbreaker Guard had agreed with her once the context was explained to them.
"Adjustments?"
"Yes, I know the existing plan takes great care to limit the number of Rashan casualties for...technological and propaganda reasons. And yes, I know there will be a large amount of chance to factor into the first hours of battle. The pirate fleets we slaughter in the first salvoes won't have the time to do anything except die. But when I studied the means to increase the demoralising power of the first attack, I had an idea that could make everything worse for the pirates."
Gavreel had to admit, the young man was good. Most of the people in the throne room, and yes, that included a lot of Space Marines, were openly smiling. Why Kar Duniash had ever thought it was a good idea to tell him 'we have found no ship for you to serve on' with his incredible skills, the member of the Dawnbreaker could think of few reasons that didn't fall into the category 'they are arrogant and inbred nobles'.
"And that idea is?" the parahuman asked.
"Why not sow a bit of dissent in their ranks?" Wolfgang's words were shaped like a funny question, but in his eyes the unyielding steel was strong. "When we will have finished hammering their defences after about seven or eight hours, the pirates will have lost somewhere between three and five fleets. I don't care if they are xenos or humans, their confidence will be shot to the Warp and back. All these scum and traitors will look at each other and watch for the first sign of retreat. If the sub-plans involving the Rashan are successful, we will break their confidence further."
"You want them to instigate a pirate civil war before they have the opportunity to mount an effective counter-attack," there was an almost appreciative undertone in the deduction of the Basileia.
"I do." Wolfgang confirmed. "That's why I wanted to ask if there's one or two pirates you'd be willing to spare. If one fleet commander betrays the others because we offer him lenient terms, it will be like agitating a battle in sight of greenskins. They will be disorganised, furious...and ready to do anything to avoid the guns pointed at their heads."
This time, it was the turn of the Sector Lady to show her contrariety.
"You ask a lot of me, Wolfgang. I have already spent many, many meetings with the Tech-Priests convincing them the 'Rashan issue' need not be solved by genocide."
"I know, my Lady. But I would not ask you if I didn't believe it was important."
"You're right about that," Gavreel had no idea if the muttering was supposed to be heard by everyone, but the throne room and the dispersed sound devices made sure the voice of the mistress of Hive Athena could not be missed.
The commander of Army group Caribbean stayed thoughtful and motionless for a couple of minutes. Based on his intuition and knowledge of the woman he was guarding, it was likely there were currently many spiders and large insects re-reading top-secret reports somewhere in the Spire.
"I won't spare the human pirates." Weaver mercilessly announced, and it was something Gavreel could tell she would not change budge on. "They are exactly the sort of scum we must wipe out from this galaxy, and even if I was inclined to spare one, they are more useful dead than alive. Jaeger is a Navy deserter. The Administratum is really, really eager to kill Kalmar. The Abbess-Crusader has confided to me most of the Ecclesiarchy warship reinforcements will be there because the elimination of Hoth is considered a holy deed by many Cardinals. And Tanaka is hardly proper redemption material. They all must die."
Her minister winced.
"That rather limits the range of my options. The Ork and the Sheed can't be trusted and their...volatile behaviours are everything the Imperium hates in xenos. They must be exterminated with extreme prejudice. Moonblitz and Bloodweaver are out of the question. The Kroot is a man-eater and will break his word before ten days have passed..."
"Prepare your 'sowing discord tactic' for the Eldar 'King of Ransoms' and the Siren," Weaver said with reluctance. "They're the only two great bounties I can stomach not collecting if we're excluding the Rashan Calico from the list."
A spider landed in her hand and within three or four seconds created a purple glove of silk with inhuman dexterity. The 'ameliorations' of the Biologis labs had been put into effect, it seemed.
"As for lenient terms, I see no need to be overly gentle. Assuming one pirate accepts our terms of surrender, we will safeguard the lives and the physical health of these xenos, but they will have to return all the goods and loot they stole from Imperial citizens and organisations. A wealthy pirate who escapes Pavia may seek revenge in a few years or decades. A poor pirate will be more concerned with the day-to-day survival of his fleet, feeding his crew and paying his debts to bother the Nyx Sector.
"I see no problem with this," the young blonde-haired man replied. "It is going to be a bit difficult to have a full list of exactly what exactly these two pirates might have stolen during their lengthy careers, but I think I can divert a SDF Archivist group to look at it for a few months."
"Please do that. However, I must warn you I will inform some of the upper commanders of this sub-strategy in our plans. And if I face massive opposition from them, I will be forced to cancel the move. As I said before, the 'Rashan issue' takes priority. For example, I happen to know that the Inquisition and a few other organisations really want to capture the Siren for their own goals. You can return to your duties."
Wolfgang Bach bowed and marched out of the room. Gavreel was honestly a bit surprised by the suddenness of the dismissal, especially as there were no urgent meetings following. Taylor Hebert enjoyed discussing some of her political ideas and reforms with the members of her government, and before breakfast today had mentioned there were some things she wanted to pick Wolfgang's brains for. This was not...
"Gavreel. Remind me what we know of this Officio Assassinorum public disaster of last year."
Astartes had impressive memories and were able to adapt to every circumstance, but this time the black-armoured Astartes needed three seconds to compile a full report.
"There is not much to say, I'm afraid. The Heracles Wardens have done a lot of searches, and they think there were two shape-shifter Assassins. One was on a Ferraci cruiser crippled by a surprise strike of the Brothers of the Red, but the bridge received a lance strike in the first salvo and was a total loss. Chapter Master Isley had to requisition many Tech-Priests, and even then if I recall the study of the partially intact cogitators only gave a fifty percent likelihood of a Callidus presence aboard the Uranus' Dominion."
It was galling to admit, but no one had seen the need to investigate the events on the bridge of those treacherous mutants. The Ferraci had rapidly abandoned their vendetta-raids when they realised hunting House Achelieux was likely to put them into conflict with the Adeptus Astartes and the local Sector authorities.
"The second incident was far better documented, since it happened in the middle of a spaceport, but Veteran Battle-Brother Sowell had previous experiences with the Officio Assassinorum, and his first reaction was to...permanently neutralise the threat, which was done quickly and efficiently."
The vid-cast had been seen billions of times across Nyx, and Sowell had been a very popular figure for a few months. In hindsight though, this had been nothing more than an execution. The Assassin was obviously a novice, and Sowell was a very, very dangerous veteran of the Heracles Wardens who had supervised counter-infiltration training sessions.
And so everyone had more questions than answers, for after a few seconds the insides of the Assassin had dissolved into goo, rendering any post-mortem analysis completely impossible.
"The Inquisition was very tight-lipped as usual," the former Legionary continued. "They were unable or unwilling to tell us who the prime target of the Assassinorum was, and the best we got was the vague hint there may be one or more Assassins on their way. And we already knew that, because the Heracles Wardens' experiences have many instances of the executors of the High Lords sending multiple agents to end a life."
Weaver stood from her golden throne with a sardonic smile.
"Well, the Wardens were definitely right about the last part. Call Isley or whoever he left in command if he's away on patrol. My Catachan ants and my spiders have caught a third assassin trying to stab them approximately two hundred metres below our feet."
That was...not good. Granted, these shape-shifting killers were always a monumental headache to intercept, but it was still far too close for comfort.
"Reinforce the security and raise the alert to Black!" Gavreel instinctively barked. "Is the Assassin neutralised?"
The insect-mistress chuckled.
"Yes, I think you can say that." The smile turned vindictive. "I have disarmed her, removed all the suicide implants I could find, and coated her in so much spider silk she will never able to move. Oh, and she is hanging by the feet above a spider's lair."
Gavreel felt a brief moment of pity for the unfortunate Assassinorum agent.
Someone else was going to suffer from arachnophobia tonight.
Apprentice-Graduate Tziz Jarek
When the Imperium's citizens thought about people who knew no fear, their first thoughts went to the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes. It was not without reason. The transhumans were big, could withstand a firestorm that would have destroyed a couple of regiments, and many Chapters truly were the epitome of nobility and loyalty Imperial propaganda presented them in vid-casts and newspapers.
But there were organisations which had agents unable to be blinded by fear. The Officio Assassinorum was among them. Between the psycho-indoctrination, the sessions of mental torture, the trials killing hundreds of potential aspirants, the ability to fear something was in general destroyed within mere months. Those who were still able to fear rarely survived for long.
And yet, in the last days, Tziz had thought long and hard on the subject and realised this was fundamentally incorrect. Assassins, especially those of the Officio Assassinorum, lived in constant fear. Fear of failing the God-Emperor. Fear of failing the Clade-Masters. Fear to miss a step in a combat zone and being recognised by one of the Imperium's many enemies. Fear of asking too many questions when too little information could result in an agonising demise and too much would reveal the splendid hypocrisy of important nobles and Senators.
Assassins lived and breathed in a world of fear. They just tried very, very hard to pretend they weren't suffering from it.
Of course, all this philosophical introspection wasn't going to help her escape from this predicament.
And it was a very perilous predicament, no doubt about it.
At this very moment, she was suspended above a precipice, with only a rope of spider silk preventing a long fall into the darkness.
She hoped that if it happened, she would be so lucky as to die from the impact with the ground. There were tens of thousands spiders in that pit, and being devoured alive was not the way she wanted her life to end.
Silently, the Apprentice-Graduate damned Frost and whoever had written her orders. What did you call the phobia of bugs and insects? The answer, she had learned after landing on Nyx, was 'common sense'.
Her preparations, if she had to grade herself, had been fairly thorough. For months she had studied the defences of Nyx and Hive Athena in particular.
There had been irritating setbacks. The failed infiltration of Hannah Bator had been in many ways the most damaging one. Save a dumb, blind and drugged noble, no one could have mistaken her for anything other than a Callidus, and several anti-Assassinorum protocols had come into effect, forcing her to rely on the weaknesses of the insects the Basileia of Nyx had under 'perfect control'.
Unfortunately for her mission, the rumours and propaganda had understated the powers of her target. She wasn't even going to describe how useless the initial report was. If the spatial coordinates had not been included with it, Tziz would swear the 'masterminds' behind the orders had misread a planet's name and the real world she was supposed to reach was somewhere in Segmentum Obscurus.
The wait lasted long hours. Patience was second nature to her, but it was a bit difficult to maintain this sense of detachment when spiders were crawling by the thousands on the material keeping you prisoner. There was no hope of escape. Her Phase Sword, her best weapon, had disappeared after she stuck it into the abdomen of an abominable ant. The three Poison Blades had fared worse: they had broken one after another when she tested them against the chitin of the monsters. Seriously, who kept these beasts around? There were tanks in the Imperial Guard which didn't have a quarter of that armour! The Neural Shredder had been the most efficient insect-killer ultimately...but it fired too slowly and the first shot had revealed its capacities too early. Some gigantic bee had 'confiscated' it as a dozen massive spiders jumped on her body and covered her in this unbreakable-by-hand silk. The last two Polymorphine doses in her possession...she blamed the hornets. The hornets or the beetles.
God-Emperor, if someone had told her she would have this type of monologue five years ago, Tziz would have asked how many bottles of amasec and injections of Lho-sticks they had in their system.
Loud footsteps echoed in the distance and the silk above her mouth was removed. Good, but not good enough: there were six or seven violet-black spiders able to bite her throat in a second if she activated a voice-controlled weapon or sonic-based deflagration. Since she did not have any of these deadly – and rare, even by Officio standards – weapons, she was as helpless as a hive-ganger in a fashion contest.
The large doors were opened, and one by one, twenty Space Marines entered, fifteen of them pointing their bolters straight at her when they had her in their sights. As she had predicted, they disregarded completely the spiders and other insects...or at least they feigned to disregard them. Some of the spiders were really big, and no Astartes worth his rank would fail to keep an eye on these Death World beasts.
And finally She entered. Her target, her bane and the mistress of all these hungry insects which eyed her with looks she didn't enjoy in the least.
"Your Holiness, it is an ineffable pleasure to be in your company..."
The young mostly black-haired woman scoffed.
"You have been in my company for quite a time. Everything my spiders see, I see it too. The moment you tried to break through what you believed was a simple ventilation duct, I observed you."
That was...to be honest, really terrifying. Tziz wasn't going to affirm she was the best agent of the Officio Assassinorum, but she had been sure before this mission no one save a Vanus, a more experienced Callidus, or a sorcerer would be able to sneak up on her.
"Name?"
"Tziz Jarek." She could have insulted her jailor, of course. But the spiders were quite close, the insect-mistress was out of her reach, and the Space Marines present would likely volunteer to offer her a few torture sessions. Besides, a name didn't mean anything in the Officio Assassinorum. Names were chosen and discarded, and if they had one, it was because it was more cordial and practical than saying 'hey, you' all the time.
"You are really far from Terra, Tziz Jarek." The golden fingers of the power armour clicked casually. "For the record, Venenum Clade-Tertius Virginia Nordbrandt, personal executioner of Lord Inquisitor Odysseus Tor, contacted your headquarters on Holy Terra and the Ordo has denied all knowledge of an assassination mission in the Nyx Sector. Officially, you do not belong to the Officio Assassinorum or any of its temple sub-divisions."
There was no sneer and no compassion, no mockery. More than everything else, this convinced her that the Planetary Governor was telling the truth.
"Let me guess. You are going to tell me now that my masters have left me at your mercy, it is my chance to seize my redemption?"
"Do you wish me to?" Her interlocutor asked politely while caressing one of the biggest spiders of the pit.
"No, I will survive." Tziz coughed. "I won't lie by telling you it was personal. We just wanted to graduate, to serve the God-Emperor, and to escape the hellish training we are given at the Temple."
The Apprentice-Graduate swallowed nervously.
"I don't suppose you have a job for a recently dismissed assassin?"
"I don't like assassins." The admission was blunt and short. "Maybe it's because I've been targeted by so many paid killers over the last few years. Maybe it is, as naive as it may sound, that I am of the opinion a space-faring civilisation should be able to function without an order of psycho-indoctrinated murderers. Indiscriminately slaying people who have not been formally sentenced by the Adeptus Arbites is just...wrong."
So this was how it was going to end, then. What a pity...
"I'm willing to give you a second chance."
Her incredulity must have been evident, because there were a few rumbling sounds coming from the Astartes and the woman they protected – assuming of course the controller of an insect Legion needed protection in the first place.
"There is about a ninety-five percent chance, according to the Logis Magi, that you were a disposable blade Clan Vandire hired to annoy me. Having spoken to Nostradamus Vandire, there is zero doubt his relatives didn't waste a single second thinking about the consequences this failed assassination could have on your career. And one day, I will make Clan Vandire pay."
The weak golden aura flashed and there was something in the air...it had sounded like something...true. Like the reality had bent to the woman's will for one heartbeat.
"If it is your intention to pay me for an assassination of the Vandire Clan, I'm afraid I will have to decline." Tziz could probably accomplish it. But it would mean returning to Holy Terra, and she would never manage to set a foot on the Throneworld before an Officio agent eliminated her.
"No, that wasn't my intention." Two miniature swarms were summoned and danced around the golden arms. "There have been several...discipline incidents in the Alamo 4th Penal Legion, and for some reason Commissar-Colonel Vulpahan has been pestering me for new reliable officers."
Tziz almost opened her mouth to tell Weaver the nobles badmouthing her had a point about her love for Penal Legions, before deciding to keep her mouth shut after all. This formation may be in need of officers, but the ex-Assassinorum agent was confident there would be accommodations for an expendable first-line recruit.
"Assuming I say yes...will I receive an amnesty when you announce the ending of your 'Operation Caribbean'?"
Dark eyes fixed on her for several seconds. Tziz thought they were of a more worrying nature than the spiders...
"If your performance is judged adequate by the Commissar-Colonel or you are awarded any Imperial Guard award of the second rank or above, I will pardon you and even forgive you for this assassination attempt."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." The Basileia of Nyx smiled at her. "Of course, before you answer positively or negatively, I'm afraid you have an unpleasant session with the Heracles Wardens. They have a few specialists in psycho-indoctrination and how to...disarm some mental traps."
And it had a non-negligible chance of killing her. Yeah, Weaver was worshipped by her subjects, but angels were not noted to be nice to their enemies...
"In two thousand hours, you will be presented with one of your Polymorphine doses and a Captain's commission to sign up...or you will be led to an Arbites tribunal."
Tziz nodded her head at the subtlety of the message. What capital punishment awaited an assassin caught in the middle of an attempt to kill the Sector Lady had not been something she had researched, but it was assuredly something atrocious.
By contrast, the duties of an officer in the Penal Legion were just mildly dangerous. Death was not certain. And the opposition, according to the rumours, was limited to pirates.
"No need to wait two thousand hours. I will serve in your Penal Legion."
Her assassin career had been ended, but where there was life, the God-Emperor would provide. Right?
Lord Inquisitor Odysseus Tor
"This is a disaster. At least this assassin wasn't captured in public. The God-Emperor only knows what the reaction to that would have been!"
Inquisitor Pedro de Moray had a point where the public opinion was concerned. Really, he had many good points.
"It could have been worse," Benjamin Lorenzo affirmed, his eyes still fixed on one of his many stellar maps.
The expression the member of the Ordo Obsoletus sent in his direction could not and would never be described as 'friendly'.
"Yes...imagine if the third assassin sent had been an Eversor!"
The shiver of unease which spread among the Inquisitorial Conclave was significant. Assassins of the Eversor Temple were living weapons and avoiding civilian casualties had never been included in their parameters. One unleashed in the streets of a Hive would have been the recipe for a massive bloodbath...and a monumental loss of face. Because Odysseus didn't believe for a single second an assassin-berserker had even the tiniest chance to kill Weaver. The Basileia would see it coming the moment it killed a civilian, and her most dangerous insects could easily intercept the living bomb a kilometre away.
By the Golden Throne, unless it was a veteran Eversor, it was unlikely the agent would survive long enough to even see its target.
"I think we can all agree it would have been a suboptimal outcome," Zoe Zircon concluded. "At least the Callidus trio list of murders remained close to zero and no one important died." Apart from the Officio Assassins, but Odysseus knew the Ordo Machinum representative had never been a supporter of the blades in the dark. "This way we avoid the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters going on a rampage in direction of Holy Terra."
"What I want to know is this: how by the Holy Golden Throne could the Officio Assassinorum lose control over three of its apprentice-graduates?" Inquisitor Juan Geronimo muttered.
"You know the answer to this question, Inquisitor Geronimo," Cleopatra Coral said softly, her face as always hidden behind a mask of black silk. "There is only one person on Holy Terra who has a motive and the influence to send three Imperial Assassins after Weaver: Xerxes Vandire."
None of the Inquisitors present protested.
"We could kill him," Pedro de Moray proposed. "I'm sure that the Imperium wouldn't mourn his violent demise."
"I agree with you," Rafaela Harper interjected. "But unfortunately, he covered his traces too well. The only person who could have incriminated him died years ago. The Callidus apprentices sent to Nyx were ignorant pawns. Killing one of the leading candidates in the succession for Master of the Administratum would undoubtedly have major consequences, and none of them really beneficial."
"Yes, yes." The red-haired Inquisitor waved the objection away. "Personally, I find the thought that that this man can become the Master of the Administratum in the first place an even more concerning consequences. I'm sure I can say in the name of everyone at this table when I say there have been too many problems at the top of the bureaucracy's pyramid lately. If anyone thinks the leader of Clan Vandire will make the Administratum function better, I have a nice patch of land on Catachan to sell him or her."
There was half an hour of additional debate, but they had to agree on a 'wait and see' approach in the end. It pleased no one, but the non-existent evidence was the critical problem. Arrests on Holy Terra or one of the bastions of Segmentum Solar would require support among their colleagues working there, and with the data they had, and the Officio Assassinorum busy erasing all evidence that its wayward Callidus agents had ever existed in the first place, that support wouldn't come.
"Have you decided who will accompany you for Operation Caribbean?" Odysseus asked Rafaela Harper. The Lady Inquisitor, not him, was going to be the senior member of the Holy Ordos travelling to Pavia. As much as he had wanted to see the forces of Nyx and Mars in action, there was no logical reason he could see to accompany them. The information on this pirate's lair and the talks with the Necrons were tasks for the Ordo Xenos, not the Ordo Malleus.
"Yes. The core of our warship assets will be concentrated around the Judgement of Inquisitor Cleopatra Coral," the veiled woman nodded in confirmation. "All told, we will have one Battleship, two Cruisers and five Frigates. As Inquisitor Severus unfortunately won't be back in time to participate, I will take Inquisitors Contessa, Moray, Coral and Zircon with me."
So Harper had decided to replace Severus by Contessa at the last minute, interesting.
"Our ground assets will be more limited, but all indications suggest Operation Caribbean will be a naval-focused engagement. Nevertheless, my Heraklion 105th Ironclads will go with us, and we have requested and obtained the 11th Rhoin Cobras of the Tempestus Scions. Inquisitor Contessa has agreed to support us with a battle-squad of Blackshields' Space Marines."
And it made him all the more eager to have a serious conversation with her, not that this fascinating debate seemed to be close to happening.
Harper was right to point out the Inquisitorial forces would be light should it come to a planetary assault. Alas, there was no way to remedy it easily. Recruiting an Imperial Guard's regiment into Inquisitorial service was no easy task, and training it for the dangerous operations that were an Inquisitor's average day was even worse. As for the Tempestus Scions, the famous Stormtroopers, there were never enough of them for anyone's liking, and the Nyx Sector was at the bottom of the list for their delivery. That they received one was already satisfying.
"May the Emperor's Light shine on you and success await you at Pavia."
"I don't know why," Pedro replied with a smirk, "but I think we are going to need all the blessings of His Most Holy Majesty we can get..."
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Vulkan's Arsenal
7.603.295M35
Magos-Draco Dragon Richter
"Okay, now I really regret being the Basileia's Heiress."
It was not an uncommon reaction among the people who were not participating in Operation Caribbean, Dragon had noticed. The core of the Twenty-Fourth Mechanicus Fleet was still approximately one thousand light-years away, but the arrival of its vanguard elements plus the forces already mustered in Vulkan's Arsenal were...impressive.
"Would you have preferred Dennis being named in your place?"
For a couple of seconds, Missy Byron's gaze was lost in the void, as her sense of duty fought with her adventure-seeking energy. In the end, duty won...barely.
"No, could you imagine the state of this poor Hive World if Dennis is left in charge for a few decades?"
The planet wouldn't lack humour and jokes, not to mention costumes, vocabulary joke references and happiness, Dragon was ready to bet that much. When it came to paying tithes in time and respecting the budgetary constraints, the Tinker was far less confident.
The young heroine sighed.
"Still, it's a bit disappointing having to stay in the Nyx System while a massive battle will be fought at Pavia."
Dragon had to agree, and not just because she was one of the people staying in the Nyx System. She had participated in hundreds of war simulations and would have dearly loved to watch how her new Dragon Armours fared with her own eyes.
But this was an imperfect galaxy, and neither Dragon nor Missy would be playing a role in Operation Caribbean.
For Missy, it was the principle of safety. The Enterprise was a marvellous battleship, but there was no denying Warp-travel remained a risky endeavour. And even if it weren't, the Quayran-built warship was going to fight in a very dangerous war zone. Casualties were probably going to be in the thousands even if everything worked perfectly; it was out the question to risk Sector Lady and Heiress in the same battle.
Dragon's inability to go was due to far more material concerns. While the soldiers' tithe had started to be paid at last year's Sanguinala, there remained millions of soldiers to be armed, equipped, trained and mustered according to the Munitorum's demands. It would be a very bad time for the person who was both the Minister of Industry and the inter-coordinator of the Mechanicus Council to go on a sabbatical journey to Pavia.
"I completely agree. Especially as we saw Dennis and Leet spontaneously announce their intention to participate in Operation Caribbean."
On the one hand, Clockblocker in his persona of Second Naval Secretary had several good reasons for volunteering. First, he and Wolfgang Bach were the 'not-Navy but naval experts' of Taylor Hebert. It was going to be difficult to advise her if they were staying at Nyx while the Enterprise was fighting at Pavia. Second, there wasn't much for him to do as the Plan Jamaica of naval construction had been ordered and completed. The Hoplite-class destroyers had entered active service, and while the heaviest units of Plan Star were still under construction, building them was the responsibility of the Mechanicus and the workers, and crewing them would be one of the Imperial Navy's many duties.
Leet on the other hand...she was ninety-nine percent sure it was for the sole purpose to leave his lab-station and his current 'guardians'. To say he was going to be sorely disappointed when he arrived at his quarters inside the Enterprise was something she took great relish in.
"I don't blame them," the Shaker admitted. "It's like a blockbuster space opera, and a lot of the battle-line has not arrived yet..."
Viewed from the tourist bays of Vulkan's Arsenal, the word 'impressive' wasn't good enough to describe the might of the warships gathered for Operation Caribbean. Cruisers like the three Discovery-class Discovery of Nyx, Discovery of Brockton, and Discovery of the Ancients had been here for five years – save the time they searched into the debris fields created by the destruction of the Death Star.
But they had soon been joined by capital warships of other Forge-Worlds, like the Lunar-class Technical Knowledge of Mezoa, the Motive Force-class Cant-Requiem of Triplex Phall, four light cruisers, a dozen frigates, the dozens of destroyers, fuel tankers, macro-transports, Guard transports, hospital ships, mobile repair facilities and more.
Between them, this was a fantastic amount of tonnage...and the Mechanicus ships were far from alone. The 17634th Ultima Battlegroup of Vice-Admiral Max von Schafer was the Navy's contribution to Operation Caribbean, with the Avenger-class Indomitable Resolution dominating the three Lunar-class cruisers and the multitude of escorts Kar Duniash had agreed to detach for the elimination of the pirates. The 332nd Frateris Battlegroup of the Ecclesiarchy had been removed from the Atlantis diocese's order of battle to participate in this operation, and while it was weaker than the 33rd Fleet which had fought at the Death Star, it was still a respectable force with a Deacon-class battlecruiser, two Frateris-class cruisers and three light cruisers.
Inside these warships two hundred and twelve Dragon Armours of the Nyx and Ancalagon classes, six thousand-plus starfighters and the sixty thousand fighters, bombers and tactical transports of the Aeronautica Imperialis would be counted.
And that didn't count the Astartes muster waiting near the Ramilies Starfort, the Inquisition squadron no one wanted to ask too many questions about, and of course the battleship Enterprise itself.
Dragon was sure that for most living species in this galaxy, this would be the industrial and economic effort of a century, and one they would not be able to repeat if defeat waited at the end of the journey.
For the Imperium of Mankind, it was a tertiary effort at best compared to the real campaigns, though in naval forces it was almost a 'Crusade', as the High Lords of Terra loved to call the military offensives they felt worthy of their attention.
The ground forces however were less powerful in comparison. 'In comparison' being the key word here. One and a half million guardsmen, fifty thousand Frateris Templars, nine million Skitarii, Electro-Priests, Robots, and Cyber-Cohorts of the Mechanicus, three Ordinatus, two hundred-plus Knights, two formations of Titans, and at least four hundred Astartes were a considerable host to liberate a system with a single inhabitable planet.
"Let's see the good side of the muster and the tithes. I have a better idea how many production and industrial reforms will be needed for each planet...and we had the pleasure to punish three Planetary Governors in a risk-free manner."
"Yes..." Vista's voice was suddenly far happier. "I was really amazed by the stupidity of the three nobles governing the planets of the Omsk System. Seriously, one planet refusing to contribute a single regiment to Operation Caribbean would have been suspicious as hell, but three planets in one system at the same time? And then they also had to worsen the problem by declaring their tithes to the Administratum and the Munitorum would be 'late'...what sort of drugs were they taking?"
Assuredly, the Omsk nobility had not included the smartest humans of the galaxy. They had been delusional, poor conspirators, incompetent and unpopular among their populations. The moment Lord Admiral Alexandros had arrived in orbit of each planet with a delegation of the Munitorum to pay the tithe now or suffer the consequences, the near-totality of the planet had turned against their masters.
Not to say the Omsk System had not paid the price for this error of judgement. The Munitorum had seized one and a half million PDF soldiers to incorporate them in the Guard, and three million men and women had been taken to form the core of a colonist fleet.
The Lady Nyx had tried to moderate the manpower punishments, but the Administratum had been implacable and fully justified why it was never a good idea to pay late.
"Yes, the situation should be calm in our area of responsibilities...something I fear won't be true at all for the different fleet and army components involved in Operation Caribbean."
Hoplite-class Destroyer technical data:
Forge-World of Origin: Mars
Date of first unit accepted into active service: 0.212.904M34
Dimensions: 1.7 km long, 0.3 km abeam at fins, 0.3 km in height
Mass: 5.9 mega-tonnes (approximately)
Crew: 10 000 men, women and Tech-Priests (approximately)
Maximal acceleration per military regulations: 7.8 gravities
Specific Armament: 40 Mars-Pattern Spirit-Surge anti-starfighter torpedo tubes
Ammunition capacity: 1200 Spirit-Surge torpedoes
Second Naval Secretary Dennis Peters
"So this is a Hoplite-class destroyer, uh. It really lacks the cannons to be badass."
In certain areas, the Tech-Priests who had...supervised Leet in the last years had done a lot of good.
Alas, there were plenty of sensitive issues the adepts of Mars had not corrected with the Tinker from Brockton Bay. One of them was his ability to ignore the reports handed tom him before a warship's visit and open his mouth at the most inopportune of times to annoy the people around him.
"Leet. The fundamental principle of the Hoplite-class destroyer is to be an anti-starfighter platform. It's not supposed to engage enemy battleships with macro-batteries that destroyers can't be equipped with in the first place."
Contrary to films like Star Wars where X-Wings and small fighters always managed to destroy the gigantic enemy super-weapon before the supervillain destroyed the planet or whatever other typical 'evil plan' they had, in this galaxy a lone starfighter, ace or no ace, had no chance at all against a cruiser, never mind a battleship.
Unfortunately, the pirates gathering at Pavia had more than a few 'lone starfighters' available.
The passive auspexes of Magos Wismer could not give a precise count, there was too much traffic and certain zones were too risky to properly investigate, but the conservative estimates stated the outlaws would be able to field approximately twelve thousand starfighters. Worse, at least a third of those attack birds would be piloted by centuries-old Eldar aces.
"I still think we should have added a big gun on the prow instead of this ridiculous armour cuirass."
"It's the only notable armour a destroyer has," the time-stopping parahuman reminded the irritating Tinker. "Which side will a captain present to enemy ordnance when no side is armoured?"
It was bad enough that a destroyer's life was really, really short when a battle between capital ships raged. And once it had fired all its torpedoes, the destroyers were limited to torpedo-interceptions and repulsing the starfighters' assaults.
The Tech-Priests who had built the Hoplite-class had thus decided to entirely forego the role of torpedo-launcher against capital ships and made this destroyer class the protector of the battle-line against raiders and smaller units. The warship would be hideously outgunned by a conventional frigate, but at least it could ravage a starfighter wave.
Unfortunately, the first Hoplite had been admitted into active service on 0.212.904M34 in the Ring of Iron of Mars, which made it a very recent class by Imperial standards. As such, there had been a grand total of zero of them available in the forty Sectors of Samarkand when Wolfgang had made his first queries.
It had required a lot of diplomacy and agreements with foreign actors, but in 500.293M35 Plan Jamaica had been launched. Vulkan's Arsenal would build thirty-five Hoplite-class Destroyers at reduced costs, and in exchange twenty of them would be transferred to several Samarkand Battlefleets once Operation Caribbean was officially over.
A younger Dennis would have believed the Admirals and the other deciders of the Imperial Navy were in love with the Hoplite class. The far more mature Dennis Peters, Second Naval Secretary of Nyx, knew better. The Hoplites' tubes were all automatically loaded and had extremely advanced systems. The nominal crew was ten thousand men, women and Tech-Priests, but it could operate and fight with eight, eight thousand and three hundred crewmen. Something that was unimaginable for the common Cobra-class Destroyer. It didn't take a genius to realize there was a non-negligible chance that a Rear-Admiral or another high-ranked figure would crew a Hoplite with eight thousand but register a crew of ten thousand to fill his pockets with the difference.
The fact it would never fly under Taylor's or Missy's watch in the Nyx Sector was a consolation...but Nyx was not the Imperium.
Dennis sighed. They were making significant progress in some areas, but what people considered the norm on some planets was really horrifying. Earth Bet had many dictators until 2011, but they were children compared to the societal and military control a Planetary Governor could enforce with the benediction of higher authorities.
"And that will be all for today," he said once his party had been saluted and they walked on a red-black coloured footbridge to exit the destroyer Achilles. "I am going to return to the SDF headquarters now."
And he would get away from Leet, the most annoying parahuman that a capricious Fate had sent with them to this galaxy.
"But we were supposed to visit the Enterprise!"
"The Enterprise is in manoeuvres," Clockblocker replied in a well-rehearsed tone. On this he was perfectly willing to obey the instruction of his bosses to the letter, and the instructions were: 'Don't let Leet go to the Enterprise if he is not surrounded by a company of Tech-Priests'. "Its crew are working hard to train newly recruited spacemen. They have other things to do than organising visits for you or I."
Dennis didn't mention he had already visited it a dozen times in the last three years. It would have in all likelihood begun a rant or some insulting comments, and he had no wish to begin this kind of 'conversation'.
"Oh well, we could visit..."
And unlike the Tinker, he had a job to return to...and a lot of paperwork to complete before their departure.
"Goodbye, Leet."
Nyx-Pattern Cataphract Super-Heavy Tank technical specifications:
World of Origin: Nyx
Crew: 7; Commander, Driver, Senior Gunner, Junior Gunner, Loader, Communication-Operator, Tech-Priest
Powerplant: DR101 V22 P395 Multi-Fuel
Weight: 346 Tonnes
Length: 14 metres
Width: 8.5 metres
Height: 5.9 metres
Ground Clearance: 1.3 metres
Max Speed on-road: 42 km/h
Max Speed off-road: 22 km/h
Transport Capacity: None
Autonomy: 410 kilometres
Fuel Tank: 2050 Litres
Main Armament: Dragon-Pattern Smaug Battle-Lascannon (Barrel Length: 10.9 metres, Calibre: 233.7 mm)
Turret Traverse: 360 degrees
Turret Elevation Maximum: 26 degrees
Secondary Armament: 6 Heavy Bolters (3900 rounds), 2 Magnum Lascannons
Armour Superstructure: 200 mm
Armour Hull: 170 mm
Armour Gun Mantlet: 160 mm
Armour Turret: 210 mm
Colonel Tom Cameron
When he had been told to deliver his report in one of the most secure conference rooms in the central section, Tom Cameron had thought it would be a formality. In practise, it was anything but.
The moment he opened the door, he realised his mistake. But by then, it was a bit too late to do anything other than presenting his best professional face, salute and wait for the instructions of his superiors. The large table in front of him was occupied by a dozen people, and while several were unknown to him, he recognised enough to know this 'routine audience' was in reality anything but. At the centre of the table was Archmagos Desmerius Lankovar, member of the Nyx Mechanicus Council. To his right was Colonel Tanya Sevrev, commander of the Weaver's Own, and two seats to her left Director Albert Rhine of the Rhine Cartel was present.
The rest of the men and women weren't exactly low-ranked either. There had to be three PDF Generals of Nyx, two Magi Dominus, and one very large Enginseer.
And to complete the list, a red-armoured Space Marine was waiting silently at the extreme right of the table, his pauldron decorated with a trio of symbols everyone had learned to recognise, and a purple cloak clasped to his shoulders. This made the transhuman the direct representative of Lady Weaver, and gave the assurance that before the day was out, his sword-liege would know of the contents of this conversation.
"Audience 1-347 with Colonel Cameron," one of the Magi canted in those buzzes which convinced you the Tech-Priests were one step removed from humanity in general. "The efficiency of the Nyx-Pattern Cataphract Super-Heavy Tank and the Nyx-Pattern Jaghatai Khan Battle-Tank need to be evaluated. Be quick and concise in your questions, for we have a lot to cover and a tight schedule."
The Colonel braced himself. He had been forced to talk a lot with Tech-Priests at Petersburg, and it often gave him a headache. It was the Enginseer who opened up like the questions were a lasgun.
"There have been protestations the Cataphract maximum speed off-road is too high for the stability of the superstructure. Are these protestations based on rumour-mongering or in facts?"
"They are based solely on rumours, sir. The twenty-two kilometres per hour the Cataphract managed off-road have never been followed by a breakdown or any system-failures."
The Cataphracts and the Khans were in fact more reliable than the Leman Russes. Or at least they had fewer mechanical failures and the repairs were completed more swiftly than the Battle-Tanks' still assigned to most of the Guard regiments.
But since Tom didn't know how much was due to the tank's efficiency and how much was the competence of the Tech-Priests assigned to his regiment, he didn't voice it. A PDF General was the second person to ask him a question.
"There have been concerns the gyro-stabiliser is too much focused on long-range gunnery. Can you comment?"
"It is true the super-heavy Cataphract and the Khan lose most of their superior gunnery advantages over similar tank classes when the distance of engagement is less than five hundred metres. But in the hands of a competent crew, no Russ Tank on an open battlefield will successfully enter this range. The tanks the guardsmen and guardswomen of Patton have had the privilege to test have successfully won war games with shots from over four kilometres, and elite crews have records of between five and six kilometres."
The litany of questions continued for what felt like hours, though the Colonel knew it was likely mere minutes. There was no identifiable relevance or order in the interrogation. Tanya Sevrev even asked how long he had served in a tank regiment!
It took him something like sixty questions to see that there was a method to this madness...sort of. The Archmagos – because even if he had not opened his mouth once, no one could possibly miss the fact he was in charge – wanted to know the essence of the tank-fighting capabilities learned at Petersburg, with or without trained crewmen.
But if the members of this committee reached a conclusion, they sure didn't share it with him, by the love of the Golden Throne.
"Your performance had been judged satisfying, Colonel Cameron. Continue to serve the God-Emperor excellently during Operation Caribbean."
"Thank you, Sir."
And he would gladly let them handle the political and the technological parts of the battles. Tanks interested him. Tom Cameron gladly let others handle audiences, committees, and Administratum forms.
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Ramilies Starfort Angel's Brotherhood
7.802.295M35
Chapter Master Agiel Izaz
It was almost like a great summit of the Chapters of the Blood at Baal. Almost. Agiel and his battle-brothers had tried their best, but the sheer magnificence of the Arx Angelicum and the works of their predecessors could not be replicated. But it would not be said the Brothers of the Red were third-rate artists, and the reception hall had been remodelled to reflect the inheritance of the defunct Ninth Legion.
The bronze statues were emplaced under great tapestries and banners describing different parts of the life of the Great Angel. The original floor had been replaced by red marble – this endeavour had necessitated over three thousand hours of work. Paintings and hololithic images projected a spectacle of light that had impressed even the dourest Tech-Priests working in the entrails of the Angel's Brotherhood.
The impressed looks of the Space Marines as they entered the heart of the Starfort was reward enough, to be honest. Too often his Chapter had tied its name to a bloody reputation in order to survive one more day. He wasn't naive enough to pretend that the coming war wouldn't see some of these behaviours resurface, but for now he enjoyed the moment of unity. It was a moment of peace before the storm.
And it was an occasion to talk between Space Marines without some Administratum or Munitorum high-ranked script-babbler interrupting them. Not counting the aftermath of the Battle of the Death Star, today was easily the greatest gathering of Astartes he had the honour to host. The green armours of the Iron Drakes were the most numerous by a large margin, but in this reception they mingled perfectly among the red armours of his own Chapter and the blue-red of the thirty-plus Heracles Wardens who had managed to free themselves from their current duties to attend. And there were of course the newcomers. Polite but quiet Angels Sanguine of the 3rd Company and the laughing warriors of the 2nd Company of the Crimson Scions had mustered in the capital system of the Nyx Sector once the call for the Pavia Liberation had rang from astropathic choir to astropathic choir.
"Lady Weaver and the Dawnbreaker Guard!" Agiel Izaz congratulated himself to have coached the reception's herald. If he hadn't insisted, the serf would have announced the litany of titles gained by the Basileia of Nyx, and there was a non-negligible chance they would still be awaiting her entrance tomorrow.
The chatter instantly stopped and a good third of the Crimson Scions bent the knee while the others stood to attention like they were about to be inspected. Their respect towards Lady Weaver, and it was respect, did not compare to those of the Angels Sanguine. All of them bent the knee...and most of them knelt so low their foreheads touched the floor.
Fortunately the order came quickly.
"Rise, Angels of the Blood. I'm flattered, but you don't need to bend the knee to me."
The Lady of Nyx advanced in her golden armour, escorted to her right by Gamaliel of the Blood Angels and Gavreel of the Dark Wardens, the rest of the Dawnbreaker Guard following two steps behind with Champion Kratos in the lead.
As the crowd of Astartes formed in a half-crescent wall in front of her, Agiel noted that several Space Marines could not hide their awed look. It wasn't surprising, he supposed. He could not remember these youngsters from the assembly after the destruction of the Death Star, and the golden aura around Lady Weaver had been smaller then. Moreover, it was a new generation which had been told firsthand of the importance of the protection provided by the young woman holding in her hands the Angel's Tear. They knew from their mentors she was the only thing holding back the Black Rage...and of course unlike Agiel, they did not meet her every standard month.
"Space Marines. I thank you for answering the call of Nyx and Army Group Caribbean."
At the same time, over four hundred battle-brothers struck their armour above their heart.
"FOR THE EMPEROR!"
The reply brought a large smile to the insect-mistress's lips before it disappeared again under the stern face of a General.
"I will not ask you if you understand the risks of this operation. You are the Emperor's finest, the blade which strikes true His enemies. I will ask you however if you are ready to respect the plan I have formulated with my advisors. War Plan Leyte Gulf must be obeyed to the letter if we are to avoid large casualties and a long war of attrition in the asteroid belts of Pavia."
Captain Bering of the Angels Sanguine stepped forwards before 'Pavia' had left her lips. Without his helmet, he looked un-angelic and gaunt, and Agiel recognised the signs of someone who had avoided succumbing to the Black Rage by a miraculous intervention.
"The 3rd Company of the Angels Sanguine pledges itself to obey your plans in all aspects, be they high or low," the Captain voiced without reservation, adding emphasis by bending the knee again.
"And so will the 2nd Company of the Crimson Scions!" thundered Captain Euthymenes. Unlike Bering, Euthymenes had the brilliant golden hair and clear blue eyes of the Blood. "I pledge that my company and I will follow your orders, Shield of Angels."
Agiel advanced a second later, pledging half of his 1st Company to the Pavia Liberation. He would have loved to send more, but the first generation of Nyxian recruits was still finishing its trials to become Scouts, and losing all the training cadre of the Chapter while they were still rebuilding would neither serve the Chapter's reputation nor would it serve Lady Weaver. Fifty-seven Astartes would be his commitment...and of course he would lead them aboard a Strike Cruiser.
Jeremiah Isley was next for the Heracles Wardens, pledging an elite kill-team of twelve Marines to the Basileia's service.
"You can release Ancient Pierre from the stasis vaults," the black-haired woman added after the Chapter Master had spoken.
Finally, Chapter Master Pontiac Dupleix advanced and pledged his 1st, 3rd and 5th Companies to the oncoming campaign.
Agiel had made some prior calculations, but they proved to have been pessimistic. Counting the Dawnbreaker Guard among the force of Space Marines, there would be approximately six hundred and thirty Space Marines mustered to crush the pirates. And the Iron Drakes had committed a Battle-Barge and two Strike Cruisers...
"I thank you for the confidence you have in me." The commanding officer of Operation Caribbean said. "And I swear I won't disappoint you by giving you an easy assignment."
The hololithic device which had until now been dissimulated behind red drapes in the Brothers of the Red's heraldry was revealed and displayed the hololithic image of a void fortress. It was of course smaller than the Angel's Brotherhood, but by any standard was a respectable bastion to control the approaches of a system.
"This is the Malta-class Starfort Palace of Feasting. It controls the only access between the minefields of the Pavia outer belt. I want you to take it and turn its guns against the pirate fleets before they have the time to realise they're under attack. Opposition will involve Kroot warriors, human traitors and Rashan tech-creators."
A member of the Dawnbreaker Guard gave him an advanced data-repository in the form of a coffer-disk. The other Chapter's commanders received similar devices.
"The Heracles Wardens will leave tomorrow as their Mechanicus stealth transport will need to be in position early for the first strike. The other companies will follow in the coming days."
The eyes which had refused to die before the Angel's Bane turned towards them as if searching for a weakness. It found none.
"The pirates of Pavia have been left to their own devices for too long! They think they have the firepower and the wits to devastate and pillage convoys and planets wherever they want to strike! I say they are in need of a reminder that the Imperium governs this galaxy. I say it is time to liberate Pavia. Are you with me?"
"WE ARE! FOR SANGUINIUS AND THE EMPEROR, LADY WEAVER!"
Segmentum Solar
Solar Sector
Sol System
Mars
0.809.295M35
Tech-Priest Rho-36
"I have the list you wanted me to compile, Master."
The Archmagos didn't answer. Rho-36 had not expected him to. When his master was in Biologis Storage Vault 1010111, it was rare to receive answers. It didn't matter if you spoke in binaric, Low Gothic, High Gothic, or a long-forgotten language of a frontier human colony; the Dominus wouldn't speak.
Rho-36 wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the magnitude of the Archmagos' success. The hovering platform he was currently waiting upon was buried in the entrails of Mars, and no one save Archmagos Cawl's closest servants had any idea it existed in the first place. The Tech-Priest didn't even know how far they had travelled under the surface of Mars; only one mind had overseen the construction and the architecture issues, and that mind was the one of his master.
The technological challenges must have numbered in the billions. Simply building such a vault was a long and costly enterprise in and of itself, but feasible if the authorities of Mars were willing to expend sufficient resources. Doing so in secret, with the clear purpose of keeping the thousands of Archmagi in their Martian Forges completely ignorant of their Master's project, and ensuring it would stay that way for thousands of years...the project must have been titanic when it was first conceived.
To say the truth, Rho-36 sometimes thought his master must have accepted help from non-Martian agents to build these vaults. Not because Archmagos Cawl didn't understand operational security. His master in all likelihood understood it better than anyone in the Sol System at this point. But for the simple reason the expense would have been high enough to buy a few Titan Legions and arm four or five Crusades, and the updates of his predecessors never mentioned how this fortune had been acquired in the first place.
The contents of the vault relegated this engineering work to a status of insignificance. For in this gigantic vault which could have contained the Parliament of Mars with plenty of space left, stasis-fields and gel alveoli surrounded by the most powerful anti-empyrean measures known to Mankind kept a true army of Space Marines asleep.
And when Rho-36 said an army, this wasn't a metaphor or a figure of speech. More were added every year, but his augmetic eyes judged there were enough here to create fifty Astartes Chapters from scratch. The revelation of their existence, if done under uncontrolled conditions or handled unproperly, would unavoidably spark a civil war. Because these were not the template of Space Marines the Omnissiah had created several thousand years ago. No, these were a different breed of Astartes, awaiting the moment they would be called to defend the Imperium. It was a contingency that might never be needed, but existed nonetheless.
"The new STC database includes the Larkine Lasgun Template, the Hebe Rejuvenation Template, the Mongoose Analyser Template, the Angel's Tear Power Armour Template, the Fay Bolt Pistol Template..."
His binaric cant was extremely long. There was so much archeotech and precious lore which had been recovered and brought back to Mars.
"My recent investigations have also revealed that the 'Dragon Armours', which were preferred over our current project, came from the Nyx Sector."
Anyone not knowing his master would have missed it, but the mechadendrites tensed for a twelfth of a second. And mere minutes later, the platform accelerated towards one of the two gate-exits at full speed.
"I must study this database and judge how many tech-improvements will prove beneficial to the Great Work."
"Yes, master," Rho-36 said. "I tried to anticipate your wishes and gain a Alpha-Maximus-Alpha priority access to the Temple of All Knowledge. Unfortunately, the list-queue is already...considerable, and..."
"And the Fabricator-General, petty creature and miserable servant of the Omnissiah that he is, will block all my attempts to access the database until I've done penitence for some of my recent actions and appeased his narrow-minded brain."
Rho-36 would not have described it in these terms, but he wasn't going to argue with his master. And in the end, the tech-result was generating the same outcome.
"Your request was accepted by virtue of your seniority, Master, but the simulations do not predict an access to the STC opening up within the next two hundred standard years."
It was counter-productive on the part of the Fabricator-General and his Forge-Lord allies, for there was no more brilliant mind than Belisarius Cawl's to exploit, develop and improve upon the knowledge of the Ancients, but then the upper clergy of the Red Planet frequently threw rationality aside for petty grudges.
"I will not wait two hundred standard years to study this STC's data," the Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah declared in a tone that permitted no compromise. "I do not trust Stygies VIII to sell me a full template-copy, and Ryza has only the working templates in its vaults. We must go to Nyx and negotiate directly with the discoverer."
"Master, if you make a long Warp-jump directly for Nyx's coordinates, the Twenty-Fourth Fleet will be warned long before we are there. The cogitators I used weren't able to calculate all the possible scenarios, but every simulation predicted a over sixty percent likelihood of political and technologic obstruction."
"A good point, Rho-36," the mechadendrites of his master activated several energy matrices before connecting himself to more data-feed exchangers than the tech-regulations considered safe.
"The Twenty-Fourth Fleet and the 'Chosen of the Omnissiah' Taylor Hebert operate in the Acacia Expanse, Pavia System," Archmagos Belisarius Cawl said after ten point three seconds that the Tech-priest could affirm had been spent assimilating illegally-acquired information from various M31 Noosphere networks. "Pirate presence in this warzone is maximal. Probability of a conflict escalating outside the Pavia System is eighty-nine point six percent."
The miniature tri-dimensional hololith was switched on, detailing a map of Ultima Segmentum's southern frontier with a precision many Navigators and Imperial Admirals would have sold one or two relatives as Astartes gene-stock to purchase.
"We can't go to Pavia or Nyx without rousing suspicions," his master announced in a joyous tone that rang a lot of alarms in Rho's head, "but there are plenty of systems nearby where I have one-use contacts established in my younger days. This one, for example. We will be ideally located to meet them, offer assistance..."
Rho-36 did not groan or cant insults. He was a dignified Tech-Priest and would not fall on this path of indulgence as long as the Motive Force animated him...but one glance at the scintillating orb on the hololith was sufficient to put a name on their future destination.
"I am already regretting the fighting against the Secessionists, Master." At least crushing the three counter-attacks the Nova-Terrans had sent to retake Urdesh had been on a Forge-World or in civilised space. It had been far from Segmentum Solar, but it was still civilised territory.
"Nonsense. We are doing the Omnissiah's work here, Rho-36. I can feel it in my data-banks and mechadendrites."
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Nyx III
Hive Athena
7.905.295M35
Abbess-Crusader Theodora Gaius
"Lady Abbess, with all due respect, these...these 'reinforcements' are an insult to your rank and your accomplishments!"
Theodora watched the Hive sprawling under the belvedere where she now took her tea every morning. The sights were not beautiful or pleasing by any definition of aesthetics she was familiar with, but they were protected by a transparent wall from the winds, the lack of air and the pollution, and it was still spectacular to contemplate the raw industrial power and the dots below which were millions of humans working to serve the God-Emperor.
"Of course it is an insult." The Abbess-Crusader said to her second in command. "Or a very pointed way to tell me the Ecclesiarchy and His Excellency the Cardinal of Atlantis would dearly love to receive my retirement decision by priority astropathic message the moment Operation Caribbean is over. And the former is not incompatible with the latter, now that I think about it."
Because yes, telling an Abbess-Crusader she was in command of a single division of Frateris Templars, and a division of only two brigades at that, was an informal demotion if there ever was one.
"Maybe we should relay the information to the Saint..."
Theodora was prompt to silence this potential source of division and quarrel.
"No." She answered forcefully. "It isn't a good idea and will have the sole effect of widening the gap between the Atlantis and Nyx dioceses, Galatea. I would have to demand a public audience for the message to pass loud and clear to Atlantis, and I am reasonably sure the Basileia-Saint already knows."
"But..." The long brown-haired Abbess-Brigadier bit her lower lip before finishing her sentence. "Why have there been no reactions from the Saint?"
"You might have noticed that the majority of the troops which went to Petersburg as Frateris Templars are coming back under the name 'Penitent Regiments'." The Shrine World of Claire 47 had three regiments by that count. The Cardinal World of Upelluri had assembled one regiment. Nyx Quintus and the rest of the muster of Claire 47 had been united to form the second Brigade of her Frateris Templar Division. "The Saint has already shown her...displeasure to certain parties."
"It is...it is not right Lady Abbess. They should prostrate themselves before the Saint and implore her mercy. Saint Weaver is the clearest manifestation of the God-Emperor's Will we will be honoured to receive in our lives!"
"Don't talk too fast, Galatea," the old woman chided gently. "You are still young and I have no doubt you will see far more of this galaxy than I have in the years to come."
Theodora's eyes observed for a moment the large silver flower on her former pupil's head, which had given its name to the Brigade by a curious turn of circumstance.
"I have no doubt some of the Saints venerated by the Imperium would already be in the process of punishing the sinners and the misguided priests of Atlantis," Theodora Gaius said at last. "The Basileia-Saint is not one of those Saints however, and has made clear that as long as heresy and treason against the God-Emperor are not reported outside the Nyx Sector, the Lex Imperialis must take precedence."
In a sense, she could understand Weaver. If one began to punish some senior Deacons and Pontifexes for not following the tenets of the Cult of the Saviour Emperor to the letter, it was going to be a never-ending task and ruling the Nyx Sector – and reforming it – would quickly become an impossible reality.
"I expect the Atlantis diocese to make certain demands to Cardinal Prescott Lumen the moment the forces of Operation Caribbean have safely moved hundreds of light-years away." The Abbess-Crusader explained with confidence. "These...these donation requests, will be of course refused by the Nyxian priesthood. And when Lady Weaver returns, we will be left in virtual exile in the Nyx Sector. We will have taken losses, the Frateris division will be dissolved with full honours to avoid all embarrassment, and I suspect the intact warships will sign some secret agreement with the Nyx SDF and the Imperial Navy to operate as their auxiliaries in exchange for access to their shipyards."
She had fifty thousand men and women under the banners of the Frateris Templar. Theodora had to be realistic, despite her unshakeable belief in the ultimate victory of those who fought in the light of the God-Emperor. One bad day on the battlefield, and the Division Atlantis-Divine could be dissolved.
"It will be your role, Galatea, to lead the Frateris Templar and advise Cardinal Lumen. The Adeptus Ministorum has too often proved in the last war and during the peace that it is not infallible. Like this Sector, I fear we will have to face our flaws and reform to become what the God-Emperor wants to see in His Church."
"I don't know if I'm ready for this, Lady Abbess."
"Nobody is until the mantle of command rest on their shoulders," Theodora said with melancholy. "But you won't be alone. The Basileia-Saint I'm sure will explain you her doctrinal intentions...and there are plenty of young and bright souls in this Sector ready to serve His Most Divine Majesty. Never forgets this."
"Yes, Lady Abbess..."
Ensign Freya Brasidas
Graduating in the first rank of your class had a number of perks. Freya had enjoyed several in the last few days. She was senior to the other graduates by two or three days, and thus she had received a brand-new Thunderbolt before them.
On the other hand, an Ensign was still unimportant in the hierarchy of the Aeronautica Imperialis. And being above the other Ensigns in status was not a big deal when your Squadron Leader was a Second Lieutenant and considered them akin to newborn larvae which might one day, the God-Emperor willing, become veteran pilots and lead squadrons of their own.
Thus when a mission had arrived demanding an escort of an entire wing of Thunderbolts, the choice must have not taken long to make.
The young woman yawned. Freya did not have the time to seize a cup of recaff before launching in the White Lance, and she was not a morning person.
Freya loved flying, but everything was better with recaff. She had tried her luck with other non-alcoholic beverages, but to no avail. The milk produced in the Theta Marches gave her the urge to vomit, the new 'teas' which were all the rage tended to calm her, and the cactus juice 'shots' some of her fellow pilots somehow managed to acquire on the black market were acid on the tongue. It was also illegal to trade outside of Biologis-Gubernatorial licensed distilleries, and those who were caught dabbling in contraband and illegal breweries received harsh fines.
So recaff it was, and with a triple-dose of caffeine for her.
But as her Thunderbolt landed and she stopped the systems whispering the litanies of the machine-spirits for safe flight, she wasn't able to see any drinks prepared for them. She didn't see any buffet or fast reception either.
This was a more and more common occurrence these days, alas. The Aeronautica Imperialis and its pilots still commanded great respect, but hundreds of customs the nobility and the pilots of Thunderbolts had taken for granted were revealed to be...well, not as carved in marble as they had assumed.
Freya was better informed than most of her noble fellow pilots, and sometimes she was able to be amused by the paradox: the Aeronautica Imperialis now had a greater budget than in the last five decades of the Menelaus administration, and yet the privileges of the pilots were chipped away 'reform' after 'reform'.
This wasn't the Aeronautica her father had described to her when she was listening to his old stories. But then that Aeronautica had died a long time ago, pulverised by Ork cannons and bloodied until the Admirals had no choice but to send the Academy instructors to the frontline, often with their most promising students in the same squadrons.
For that at least Freya thanked the woman ruling Nyx with an adamantium fist. She knew she was good, but 'good' was not exactly sufficient when fighting an enemy which often outnumbered you in the sky thirty-to-one. The Academy had built two entire halls where the names of its graduates who had perished in the last war would be mourned and remembered by future generations of pilots. The Brasidas daughter supposed many among their ranks had thought they were invincible. The greenskins had crushed that belief with blood and slaughter.
Sighing, the noblewoman left her Thunderbolt and immediately came face-to-face with her personal nemesis Kurt Nils. He was a symbol of everything wrong with the new order. Academy scores, efficiency and willingness to serve were prized values, and good breeding and traditions were relegated to fourth or fifth-rate criteria.
"Your last manoeuvre was a bit sloppy, white duchess."
"And your take-off was a model of mediocrity, slum-worker." Freya retorted, never pausing her walk as she followed the Squadron Leader and never met his eyes.
In the old days, her word would have been enough to send Nils away to the frontlines or a minor Academy, assuming he even managed to pass the gates the day of the entrance exam. Today, she had to pretend that this disrespectful son of hive-gangers was her near-equal.
And since he was in the same squadron as her, she might in a few days call him her wingman. It was enough to give her nightmares at night.
Trumpets sounded and a flow of soldiers marched out of a massive barrack which looked like a prison.
After a few seconds, Freya realised her mistake. Even by the standard of lowborn scum, these Guard recruits looked like any Colonel would be better off putting them in front of a firing squad and recruiting a few squads of Ogryns.
Men or women, they all had their skulls shaven, and the infamous red mark the Arbites reserved for irredeemable criminals had been stamped on their foreheads. They had no weapons in their hands. They would not be trusted with one before their ultimate deployment on the battlefield. The black clothes without a single recommendation or military award spoke loud and clear of what they were.
And if there was any doubt about their status, the explosive collars around their necks dissipated it in a heartbeat.
It was a Penal Regiment, and a big one. The parade ground below them was eight-tenths filled. There had to be around twenty thousand criminals...
While she had been watching this, great gates two hundred metres away from their positions opened, and a Commissar column walked out.
Freya and the rest of the Aeronautica stood at attention and saluted. Commissars were a rather rare sight at the Academy, with only one full-fledged representative of the Commissariat and ten assistants, but this didn't mean their powers were diminished in the slightest.
And the man leading them was looking like the archetype of the Commissar. Tall, threatening, a humourless visage under the iconic cap, and the uniform which seemed to promise a sudden demise to anyone who took a step back when facing the enemy.
Following him were over twenty Commissars, and what looked to be fifty to sixty 'regular' officers in red-black uniforms.
"Penal Legionaries of Alamo!" The leader of the Commissariat column immediately spoke as he arrived before the reading desk prepared by a Tech-Priest, and his magnified voice was heard by everyone. It was, unsurprisingly, stern and unyielding. "I am Commissar-Colonel Vulpahan, and by the authority the Imperium of Mankind has invested in me, I am now your commanding officer. If you refuse to obey one of my commands, I will be your executor."
None of the Penal Legionaries below were stupid enough to voice a protestation or beg and claim this was all a mistake.
"By order of Lady Nyx, the Alamo Penal Facilities are closed as we speak. This will make you the last Penal Legion to be formed from this world and the only formation to be integrated by Army Group Caribbean."
Vulpahan emitted a sound which was either a snarl or a growl of disgust.
"You are not worthy of this honour. Let's be totally clear on this. Proud regiments have trained every day for the last three or four years to improve their military skills. They have bled, sweated and made great sacrifices to be guardsmen. They are worthy to fight under the aquila of His Most Holy Majesty, while you...aren't."
The fist of the Commissar-Colonel struck the reading desk and the impact was...significant.
"Yet Lady Weaver believes for some reason that there is a part of your worthless carcasses that can be still useful. Or she thinks your souls are not beyond salvation. I do not particularly care. You will fight. You will kill the enemies of the God-Emperor across the stars. You will throw yourselves in the thickest of the fighting. And maybe, just maybe, if I judge you have erased your crimes by your sacrifices, your names will be removed from the roster of the Alamo 4th Penal Legion and added to the roster of respectable Guard regiments. ARE YOU READY TO SERVE?"
"WE ARE, COMMISSAR-COLONEL!"
"Good," answered Vulpahan before turning towards a woman with long black hair and deep unnatural yellow eyes. The young noblewoman had no idea who she was, but she was certainly not a Nyxian. There was a...a sense of danger surrounding her. Given her thin body with nothing but pure muscle, Freya had to guess she was a former Cult Assassin. "Captain Gabriela Jordan will be my second and your senior non-Commissariat overseer. At the first sign of disloyalty, she has the order to kill each and every one of you."
And of course the reason of their presence was at last revealed in an afterthought.
"Any sign of agitation in the transport leading you to the starship waiting above our heads, and the pilots of the Thunderbolts will shoot to kill. You are not irreplaceable, and you never will be. Commissars, you can join your Companies."
Freya could only wish the Basileia would not substitute the Alamo Penal Legions with Nyxian aristocrats...
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Nyx III
7.933.295M35
Marshal Werner Groener
"Our presence is eagerly awaited at the Capital Hive. Follow me."
The words had been uttered with arrogance and a sense of self-entitlement which screamed 'noble' to whoever was in the vicinity.
Werner left his seat like all the officers and walked towards the nearest Aquila Lander at a steady pace, his mind trying as best he could to maintain an expression of detachment on his face.
It was...difficult. The bureaucrat who had just spoken was a huge reason for this. Adept Gulliver Nixon of the Departmento Munitorum was completely incompetent and only nepotism could explain how a man like him had been able to reach such an exalted rank.
To say living in the same transport as this imbecile had been a torture was a kind statement, like saying that saying the denizens of the Eye of Terror were a bit hostile and inimical to the guardsmen of the Imperium.
Unfortunately, there were a disturbing amount of clues indicating that the Departmento Munitorum was very well-aware Nixon should never have reached Adept status. One of the most evident was his lack of participation in the coordination of military operations for the last three decades. The other was the sum of the assets put at his disposal. Don't take him wrong, the Emissary of Sol was a very nice luxury transport crewed and maintained by the Departmento Munitorum in active service, but it was a single transport, and Werner doubted very much the tens of thousands men living in the under-bridges would be of some utility in matters of logistical importance. No, it was far more likely the Munitorum and Administratum overseeing their Army Group had arrived years ago, and Gulliver Nixon was just being sent now because there was no way he could screw up too badly in mere hours.
"Have you reconsidered sending him through the nearest airlock?" The other Marshal marching by his side whispered.
"I haven't," the Cadian Marshal replied. "His demise would bring me plenty of satisfaction, but I suspect it would be incredibly short-lived."
Marshal Lorelei Moltke snorted but didn't push further, and Werner stopped the 'conversation' there. As a rule, he avoided speaking for too long with the woman. And it wasn't because her face was a mess of scars and artificial skin which had been imperfectly grafted.
The Mordian Marshal was, as far as he'd been able to discern, psychotic and mentally unbalanced. The Mordian Iron Guard took great pride in its steadfast defensive skills, its discipline, and ruthless decimation of the enemy. This made them elite guardsmen – or guardswomen – of the Imperium. Mordia had one of the rare PDF's who could boast having stalemated a total invasion of the Enemy.
But when a Mordian force – or a Mordian commander – snapped, it was devastating. Werner did not know who or what had managed to break the composure of Lorelei Moltke, but the result could be summed-up in a single sentence: her entire Corps, save three thousand men, had died in twenty-four hours at a moment where everyone thought the enemy was routed. The then-Mordian Lieutenant General had thrown her troops against the walls of an unbroken fortress in which the enemy was starving and about to surrender.
Not that she had a monopoly when military catastrophes were recounted in the Guard Headquarters. Werner himself had nearly been court-martialled four times for his alcoholism during the last decade, and he was sure over twenty thousand guardsmen and guardswomen would still be alive today if he had not tried to drown his sorrows in amasec and command divisions at the same time.
No, when the time came to compare their careers, Werner was sure he and Lorelei weren't that different. They had both won plenty of battles, before meeting something their brains couldn't handle and causing a bloody quagmire that their previous exploits weren't able to excuse.
"Let him enjoy his 'triumph'," he whispered as they sat in the comfortable seats of the Aquila Lander. "I think our dear Adept is not going to be congratulated for his late arrival."
Werner had been informed of his participation in Operation Caribbean six standard months ago, but even by that late date, his rank and his accounts could have allowed him to pay for a cabin aboard one of the fast-liners or a destroyer-courier travelling between the Quadrant Capital and his destination.
But Gulliver Nixon had refused...no, he had refused and commanded Werner and all the other officers gathered at Samarkand to wait until the last Major-General arrived – who for the record was the elderly Major-General Harold Chapman of Palladius. And the Munitorum imbecile had done this knowing the official beginning of the operation was 7.004.296M35.
It didn't matter if he was acting alone or with the blessings of his superiors to spite the General commanding Army Group Caribbean: such an obvious demonstration of arrogance could not be tolerated by any Commissar or Lord Commissar.
"This is all so exciting! Marshal, look at these splendid Arks!"
Neither Werner nor Lorelei turned their head in the direction of the Adept. They weren't the target of this outburst. No, this 'honour' belonged to the third Marshal present in the Lander, namely Marshal Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff, a Cadian like him, though Werner would have preferred to avoid having anything in common with the man.
Werner Groener would never say he and Lorelei Moltke were the best of friends. And he would certainly not argue in public they were the best commanders among the rank of Marshal. But both had led their men from the front in many, many wars. They had the scars to prove it – though the Mordian guardswoman beat him handily on this front. Should the order come to atone for their sins and launch a last-ditch offensive against xenos or the forces of the Arch-Enemy, Werner was reasonably certain he could take a few enemies with him before receiving the judgement of the God-Emperor. He was not in his prime anymore, but in an ingrained routine that was as natural as breathing, he spent at least two or three hours exercising every day. It didn't help fighting the nightmares like a good bottle did, but at least he avoided thinking about past campaigns for a couple of hours.
"Indeed, indeed my dear Adept. You and I are going to do great things with this muster."
The voice was arrogant and decisive. But mostly arrogant. The body which had produced it was a bit less impressive. Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff could have benefitted from the loss of ten kilograms, judging by his rotund belly.
A true Cadian would have kept in shape. But was Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff a true Cadian? Werner had a lot of doubts about that.
Unlike Moltke or several of the Lieutenant-Generals and Major-Generals which were going to follow them in less ornamented Landers, the name of Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff had not been unknown to him before his orders transferred him from the reserve base where he awaited the end of his career in absolute anonymity.
It was often said that stalwart Cadia had no nobility, just an army which also happened to own a planet when they weren't deployed across the entire galaxy.
The saying was true...in a way. There was no aristocracy like those on the worlds he had fought and liberated. On Cadia, over two-thirds of the population was under arms, and the one-third remaining was ready to join them if the Arch-Enemy launched an attack against the Cadian System. The nobility any Civilised World created formally or informally just wasn't physically possible.
But for a hundred Cadian Generals who survived to enjoy their retirement – or not enjoy it, being a guardsman was not the safest of professions and many wounds couldn't be healed – there were always one or two to return to Cadia in their later years and join the Cadian High Command.
Repeat it over three or four generations, and you had the root of a military aristocracy. It remained a very meritocratic one, for not serving in the Cadian military forces barred you from the upper echelons of Cadian society. But this aristocracy existed. And the Ludendorff family was one of them. Unlike some, they did not pretend their grand-grand-grand-something had served with the God-Emperor at the Siege of Terra, but claimed an ancestry in late M31.
In recent times, their reputation had taken a sudden crash with the military career of a certain Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff. From the moment the man had become the commanding officer of his first regiment, he had become the epitome of the Colonel determined to adopt the millennium old saying 'quantity is a quality in itself'. And proceeded to apply it against the greenskins with no regard for the list of casualties it produced. At first, it had worked, at the cost of millions of guardsmen's and guardswomen's lives. And then one day it didn't. The Imperial Guard lost over six million guardsmen and one Hive World in a single year, and Ludendorff was removed from his Corps' field command with due haste.
Normally, any officer responsible for a disaster of this magnitude would have faced a court-martial or the laspistol of a Commissar, but the father of Georg-Hans was a permanent member of the Cadian High Command. There had been no inquiry or formal investigation. Younger officers had taken the bullets that should have killed their superior.
"Ah, we are about to land!"
Werner Groener watched with one eye the landscape of the planet they were about to land onto. A landscape which was dominated by a massive Hive, and that had long ceased to impress him. Once you had seen ten or twenty of these gargantuan cities, the awe disappeared quickly.
The Hive World of Nyx seemed like a lot of Hive Worlds he had visited in his life, although this one had the pleasant benefit of not being on fire, in the hands of the Arch-Enemy, in armed insurrection, or under quarantine. It was also less polluted, for the clouds looked almost normal and not the usual sickly colour of yellow-black shrouding the ground from non-augmented eyes.
The ambiance in the Spaceport was incredibly joyous, and a couple of minutes of observing the local population was more than enough to explain why. There were crowds of thousands in red robes singing long prayers between the avenues around the shuttles' passenger facilities.
"We have arrived in time for the Sanguinala, it seems," Werner told Lorelei, and the female Marshal allowed herself a twitch of the lips, which was her equivalent of a large smile.
The enthusiasm of the locals was contagious. It was difficult to stay icy and stern when Ecclesiarchy men and women placed necklaces of little golden angels around the necks of newcomers. Young children in some loosely tailored clothes were throwing some sort of confetti-flower before running to reload under the benevolent gaze of the spaceport's security forces.
The hololithic devices' displays for cartel products or the usual propaganda messages had all been replaced by beautiful images of the Great Angel and sermons to honour His memory. Some walls had been repainted in gold and red for the week-long festivities.
This made Werner somewhat melancholic. Cadia celebrated the Sanguinala, of course – he was sure the number of Imperial worlds which did outnumbered the number of those that didn't – but it never had this...this brightness and profusion of light and happiness. The Cadian Sanguinala was a far more solemn affair...and it was only celebrated after beating back the raiders trying to leave the Eye.
"It looks like we've been awaited," the Mordian Marshal murmured as the crowd became denser outside the spaceport. Werner realised three seconds later that this concentration of civilians was a consequence of the 'welcoming committee'.
Space Marines. Astartes. The Angels of Death.
They were only two of them, but their presence was felt in a radius of hundreds of metres. In their armoured hands were the bolters the Imperial Guard used as secondary or even primary weapons for its vehicles. Nothing was seen of their traits as from head to toe, they wore magnificent armours. As Marshals, they had enough clearance to recognise the tear-shaped rubies identifying them as Successors of the Blood Angels. On their pauldrons were curious symbols: a blue insect, a golden flame and the same red tear on a white field.
The crowd moved aside when the two giants advanced in their direction, and Werner couldn't blame them for this instinctual measure of self-preservation.
The Astartes were tall and huge...but especially huge. And threatening.
"Adept Nixon, Marshal Ludendorff, Marshal Groener, Marshal Moltke?"
"Yes!" and of course their Munitorum escort had to preen like the God-Emperor had announced he was going to be a High Lord of Terra. "It is warming my heart to see..."
"BE SILENT!"
The Space Marine's command was a bit too effective: he managed to shut up not only Adept Gulliver Nixon, but three-quarters of the crowd too.
"You received instructions, Adept. These instructions were ignored and there is no credit to your name. My Lady wasn't pleased. And what displeases her has a strong tendency to displease the Dawnbreaker Guard in turn. And we, Battle-Brother Maxime and Battle-Brother Sari, are members of the Honourable Dawnbreaker Guard." The fist which stopped mere centimetres away from the Adept could have crushed his skull without much trouble, but for the next seconds there was no violence...but the glares they received from the helmeted figures were deeply unpleasant.
"You will be escorted to an audience with our Lady. Know however that you, Adept, have already lost our respect. Should more events proving your monumental incompetence and your failure to serve the goals of the Emperor come to our attention, your body will be turned into fertiliser before the day is out. AM I CLEAR?"
Adept Gulliver Nixon didn't answer. The arrogant bureaucrat had collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been severed, and by all signs was now unconscious.
"Corporal, remove this coward from my sight," the Astartes who had to be Battle-Brother Maxime barked to a platoon of PDF troopers. "Send him to Lord Commissar Zuhev. This Adept doesn't deserve an audience after all."
Two soldiers rushed to obey, and Adept Gulliver Nixon was dragged away with the same care one gave to a bag of military rations. The three Marshals followed the Space Marines.
Of their travel in the crowded streets of the Hive, Werner suspected he wouldn't remember much in ten days. The sights were nice with a lot of religious and military parades, the angel decorations and the shouts of approval from the local population, but the imminent meeting with the General of Army Group Caribbean occupied the core of his thoughts. Somehow, he doubted that arriving late and his failures in the past decades were going to put him in good graces with his new superior.
Past three avenues the Angels of Death moved away from the centres of Sanguinala celebration, and in the following several minutes they began to gain altitude with a combination of elevators and other Mechanicus contraptions.
Their progression was halted in a middle-sized square with no particular noteworthy characteristic. There was a statue of an angel doubling as a fountain in the middle of it, and over four hundred metres to the east the Gothic arrows towered over the other buildings.
There was no time to wonder why this square had been their destination. Ten more Space Marines took position from different streets, and a tall woman in ceremonial black uniform walked out at a very fast pace from the path guarded by a golden-armoured Space Marine.
"My Lady, we have brought you the Marshals."
"Good work." Werner blinked and realised with stupefaction this was the woman commanding the Astartes. But there was no staff, no servo-skulls, no assistant or junior officers...no one save the Space Marines, and they weren't that numerous, really. "I don't see the infuriating Adept."
"I'm afraid Adept Nixon fainted when it was announced you would meet him and express your displeasure to him."
The woman didn't show any expression, save a slight inclination of the head in direction of the Space Marine who had spoken.
Yet now Werner had the time to see her, there were some things that were completely outside his comfort zone. First above all was the decoration above her heart. It was the Star of Terra, by the Golden Throne! In general the powers-that-be gave out this award when you had saved a planet on your own and generally perished in the attempt. To earn one and not look like Lorelei Moltke was so exceptional it bordered on the miraculous. The Star of Terra was the key to high-level promotions, and, unlike many other 'rewards', nepotism and Munitorum political struggles were insufficient to secure one. And yet this was what the woman in front of him had managed to do. And she had done it without looking like a Mechanicus patch-up job or a Skitarii hybrid.
And speaking of the miraculous, the second exceptional thing was the light golden aura surrounding her and the large strands of gold shining in the middle of her black hair. Was the woman a Saint? And if she truly was one, where were the tens of thousands of Ecclesiarchy priests that followed wherever one went? Being a senior Cadian commander, he had walked many times behind hover-barques containing 'verified holy relics'. Those attracted crowds of millions people...
"I managed to change my itinerary on my way to the next church ceremony, Sari. But I have no more than five minutes for this 'audience'."
Her black eyes turned towards them, and there was little warmth in them.
"Welcome to Nyx. I am Lady Taylor Hebert, Basileia of Nyx, Lady of the Nyx Sector...and for you, General of the Imperial Guard and supreme commander of Army Group Caribbean. Please give me your names for the records. There should be no errors, but with the Munitorum 'delays'..."
"Marshal Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff."
"Marshal Werner Groener."
"Marshal Lorelei Moltke."
The young woman – though with the rejuvenation drugs, the 'young' part may be wrong – nodded curtly.
"I would say it's a pleasure to meet you gentlewoman and gentlemen, but I'm not in the habit of lying. I don't know how much of the fault lies with you and how much lies with the Munitorum, but you are very, very late."
Werner knew that in cases like this, it was better to say 'no excuses' or never speak, but Georg Hans VI coughed, obviously having not caught on the cold welcome.
"The last war games ended five days ago on Nyx Secundus and most of the troops are on their way to their transports or already inside the hulls ready to depart the stellar system. There is no time left to organise another war game...and judging by the incredibly fascinating careers the reports say you have had had, I wouldn't do it even if there was time left."
"Reports can be redacted and modified by...unsavoury and mediocre elements," it was amusing, in a macabre way, to see Ludendorff dig his own grave deeper second after second.
"So the fact your entire career can be summed-up as 'this Cadian Marshal's favourite tactic is to send his troops as bullet sponges and wait until his enemies run out of ammunition' was erroneous?"
The aura increased in intensity and suddenly Werner felt a pressure not so dissimilar to the presence of a force of Space Marines in action. He winced and tried not to falter. That wasn't a point against Sainthood, truly.
"That is a gross oversimplification of more complicated factors..."
No one with two brain cells would have believed this answer, and it clearly failed to convince Ludendorff's interrogator.
"If it was in my power, I would summon the firing squads in the next seconds." The General-Saint affirmed. "But then I would also have to execute six Lieutenant-Generals and all but two of the Major-Generals who arrived with you today."
"All but two?" Werner couldn't help but close his eyes. It just wasn't possible to be that stupid... "My Lady, we have many Cadian officers in this officer contingent. We are the guardians of-"
"I'm aware of the reputation of the Cadian Shock Troopers, Marshal," there was emotion in the retort, but it wasn't a good one. Far from it. "I also know most of those who have been chosen for this Operation are the pestilent grox the elite regiments of your Fortress World would prefer to throw into the nearest star. If you had some honour, you would have taken your own life with your power sword after your failures, and the same is true of the Lieutenant- and Major-Generals. No, I didn't refer to any Cadian officer when I said two Major-Generals weren't firing squad material. I was talking about Major-General Domenico Flabanico of the Ventrillian Noble Regiments and Major-General Paul Dundee of the Indigan Praefects."
That...that made sense, as much as it hurt Werner to admit it. Domenico Flabanico was a maverick officer with no black mark on his record. The Ventrillian was adventurous, in the Guard for his personal glory, and had a long series of unconventional victories to his name. Domenico was in all likelihood the only officer of their delegation to have truly asked for a posting in Army Group Caribbean.
Paul Dundee, on the other hand, was a beast-hunting specialist, like all the Indigan Praefects. If he was here with the rest of the Guard screw-ups, it was because his unpolished diplomatic skills annoyed many superior officers, and during his last campaign he had straight-up murdered a Lord Commander Militant with the benediction of his Commissar when he realised said man was leading an entire Crusade force into the jaws of a gigantic Ork WAAGH. A court of inquiry had cleared him of any wrongdoing, but Dundee had not been thanked by the High Command of Kar Duniash.
"My schedule does not give much time for the tedious political crap, so I will be perfectly blunt. Save the two officers I have just mentioned, I do not trust any of you to do your job and lead my troops to victory. I have assembled Commissars, promising young men and women for large and adaptable strategic division commands, and veteran Brigadier-Generals to ensure this operation is a success. You will not create difficulties, or I swear on the Emperor's name, I will feed you to a swarm of carnivorous ants alive. This is your one and only chance. Even the Munitorum has decided you are lost causes; you will not receive help from that direction. Prove yourself worthy of the military ranks you have, and I will return the favour. Fail and the Commissars will pass the sentence."
Nyx must be a scary place if the politicians were always that blunt.
"Any questions?"
"Yes," Lorelei Moltke said. "What did you do to earn the Star of Terra?"
"I fought a Bloodthirster one-on-one and won." Werner Groener was not a coward, but he had a very good idea what that name meant, and it was enough to make him shiver. That was Arch-Fiend league, and generally the kind of threat the Guard removed with orbital strikes and unending artillery barrages. It was not something any guardsman wanted to fight at close quarters...or at any range at all. His two battles against the monsters of the Ruinous Powers had left him enough nightmares, and those had been minor infestations. "Other inquiries?"
This time even Georg-Hans VI had the intelligence to stay quiet. Criticising a General was one thing; criticising a General-Saint who could in all likelihood crush you in a thousand different ways while blind and with both hands tied behind her back was an apt description for 'suicidal conduct'.
"Battle-Brothers Maxime and Sari will lead you to the temporary Mechanicus Strategium Archmagos Hediatrix has installed on Floor 120. The Voice of Mars is aware of my views and my strategic considerations."
And on that note General Taylor Hebert departed, her Space Marines closing ranks once again to provide a large and threatening Honour Guard, leaving three Marshals with the certainty the odds of their short-term demises had just skyrocketed massively.
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Nyx III
Triangle Fortress Citadel
7.997.295M35
Basileia Taylor Hebert
If someone had told her a decade ago she would possess a military bastion like the Triangle Fortress Citadel, Taylor would have undoubtedly thought of them as madmen.
Centuries ago, the Menelaus dynasty had chosen an island west of the Moira Hive-Continent to build their largest military arsenal and the headquarters for millions of PDF troopers. And unusually for inbred aristocrats, they had not been stingy with their purses. Forty metre-tall walls had been built on the very cliffs of the island, massive anti-air guns and field artillery had been purchased, and thus the Triangle Fortress – the name came from the shape of the island – had officially entered its existence. From the first months of its existence, an underground train line and a gigantic bridge had linked the island-fortress to the continent and the Capital Hive. While no Planetary Governor had ever felt the need to say so, it was evident that in less than a day the entire garrison could be sent to protect the lives of the ruling dynasty...or to crush a rebellion in the other major Hives.
Three years ago they had begun a modernisation of the Citadel's military assets. Many guns and walls were in dire need of repairs, and the doctrine employed by the Menelaus-appointed PDF officers had too often been filled with weird ideas.
The result had a certain beauty under the morning sun. Dozens of defence towers and hundreds of thousands of men could be seen from her window, and the number of guns was incalculable if you didn't have a cogitator-integrated augur to help you.
"You should stop looking. The citadel is not going to fly away in your absence."
"I know."
She turned around to watch the woman in silver armour standing behind her. As usual, Wei looked radiant, no matter how much she grumbled when it was time to wake up early.
Their hands joined, golden armoured fingers crossing silver ones. After Omsk, she had decided to abuse her authority somewhat and give Angel's Sword-class customised power armours to all the people she held dear in her heart on this planet, and Wei had been the first to receive one. Her equipment wasn't as capable as her own – the Angel's Tear she wore would remain a unique object and Wei was not a frontline fighter – but visually, the silver armour was almost a form of art, shining in silver alloys and several Nyx sapphires.
They kissed, and for several seconds she wished these moments never ended.
"That way you will not be stressed for your speech," her Wuhanese lover teased her when they separated to catch their respective breaths.
"You are incorrigible." The insect-mistress shook her head in feigned sadness. "It is good I take you with me, otherwise my subjects would have terrible, terrible things to say about a female Tyrant when I return..."
"As long as they acknowledge my beauty, everything should be fine..."
Taylor chuckled. To be honest, she trusted Wei a lot, easily a thousand times more than she had in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of the Death Star. Not because she hadn't trusted her back then, but because the last five years had truly allowed her to discover in mind and body the woman who had seduced her.
The same could be said about the soldiers of the Fay 20th, the Nyxians she frequented with every day, the Astartes of her Dawnbreaker Guard, and hundreds of other people. These weren't strangers anymore; many of them she could call trusted advisors...and friends.
That said, Wei had not been involved in the overall governance of Nyx, and Taylor had no intention to change this on a whim. For one, her Consort wasn't interested in it. For two, Taylor's ideas were far more compatible with Vista's and Dragon's. Consequently, Wei would go with her, though her battle-skills would be limited to accompanying her on the bridge and being a good stress-reliever.
"Regrets?" Wei asked.
"No, not where the Hive World and the Nyx System are concerned. We leave this system well-defended and stronger than before." Operation Caribbean and the Army Group of the same name represented a phenomenal effort of industry, manpower, training and logistics, but she had hardly left the system undefended. The System Defence Fleet had one hundred and forty monitors of varying size in service, and the Planetary Defence Forces had over forty-five million men and women. Many Brothers of the Red and Heracles Wardens remained behind, and this was not counting the millions of Mechanicus forces, whatever nasty surprises Dragon had in store for any potential invader, and of course the large Navy squadrons in orbit around Nyx Sextus. "And I do not intend to wage a decades-long Crusade."
This time it was Wei who giggled.
"I think a few Munitorum Adepts would faint or suffer a heart attack if you proposed those 'modifications' to the existing plans..."
"Yes, they will...I won't call them cockroaches or locusts, it wouldn't be fair to the insects in question. But they were undoubtedly a source of great headaches these last years."
Her hopes the Munitorum would do a decent job of correctly managing the supply lines and finding officers of high rank for Army Group Caribbean had turned into a tragic comedy. In the end, the Logis and her staff had told her it was better to do what a lot of guardsmen and organisations already did: keep the Munitorum technically in charge...and then proceed to find alternative solutions under the veil of data-slates and terabytes of information.
"You have not gotten over the fact they sent you a pack of disaster-grade flag officers."
"No," it was an easy admission, especially here in private. "I haven't."
Maybe it was she who was becoming too picky and difficult. Obviously, the endless list of titles she had associated with her persona could make a hour-long address without much effort. And evidently, the commanders of Brigadier-General and every rank below were good. Zuhev had years at Petersburg to train the officers and the volunteers, and demote the elements which were unable to fulfil their duties. Archmagos Hediatrix and the Nyx Mechanicus had less time, but they too had assigned veteran Tech-Priests and verified the Magi and Archmagi nominated were experienced and extremely motivated. The hundreds of Space Marines had fought in multiple wars and were eager to annihilate the pirates; the Adeptus Astartes would not be found wanting. The Frateris Templars had good equipment, their religious fanaticism, and the core of their troops had fought the Orks.
No, the questionable officers were coming from the Munitorum and nowhere else.
And, the Lady of Nyx had to give the stubborn bureaucrats this victory, they had found impressively catastrophic cases in their galactic-sized drawers. Doubtlessly, it was the last shady 'vengeance' of Clan Vandire. After the assassins had failed, they had tried this path. And on the cinders and dust of Earth Bet's cities, she swore they would regret it in a few decades.
Still, after a few months spent creating contingency plans and ensuring these Guard Major-Generals and Marshals would NOT command her regiments, the reading of certain reports the Mechanicus had compiled on them had been...illuminating.
Gavreel had proposed they gathered all the mistakes and publish it in several volumes under the title 'What a loyal officer of the Imperial Guard must avoid doing at all costs'.
And there were several impressive examples to justify it.
Marshal Georg-Hans VI Ludendorff of Cadia. Tried to launch an offensive with only a single bridge to move and supply his forces in what could be best described as 'uneven terrain'. He also tried to convince the Orks to recognise their defeat by ordering a record of straight-up charges directly towards their guns.
Lieutenant-General Pietrov Vakalev of Valhalla. If the concept of 'charging enemy tanks and solid defences with infantry and bayonets' had been judged stupid in the last thousands of years, it was thanks to men like him.
Lieutenant-General Pearson Chelmsford of Praetoria. Wonder how humiliating a defeat can be? Chelmsford had managed to lose against Stone Age tribes armed with bows and spears. Apparently, when you don't care about the state of your water supplies, your soldiers are in no state to fight. Shocking, really.
Major-General Cassander Gorgias of Donia. The man had tried to lead offensives against Eldar at a speed never exceeding ten kilometres per hour. She was sure the long-ears had laughed a lot at his stupidity.
Major-General Rajaram Kohari of Mephidia. He convinced himself his enemies had no experience in amphibious warfare. Given that the xenos were more akin to fish than mammals this confidence had been somewhat misplaced.
To be honest, these five were the worst and the only ones to not have extenuating circumstances. Men like Marshal Werner Groener of Cadia or Lieutenant-General Hervey Cox of Elysia had been described as good and competent at their jobs before their first serious battle with demons and other sorcery-fuelled abominations.
More than once she had thanked whatever luck she had that guardsmen in this galaxy couldn't trigger. Because between the horrors of the battlefields, the political struggles between politicians and military commanders, and the vengeances accomplished in the shadows, it was easy to see one or two hundred soldiers becoming parahumans in a single day.
Anyway, there simply hadn't been time to discover who were the irredeemable officers – save the first five mentioned – and who could be trusted after long sessions of therapy and healing. The Munitorum had delayed their arrival for too long and all of these newly arrived officers would be de facto useless for Operation Caribbean.
And then the vox-casters, megaphones and all propaganda-oriented devices began to play the Imperial March.
"I'm going to kill Dennis, Wolfgang...and Leet, just to be sure."
"Now, now...it would be terrible for public and soldier morale..."
Taylor was pretty sure Julius Caesar must have sent the same betrayed look to Brutus she did upon the day of his assassination.
She left her temporary quarters and began to descend the long series of marble stairs, flanked on both sides by the Dawnbreaker Guard. And with each step the number of people increased. Guard Brigadier-Generals, Archmagi, Ecclesiarchy priests, Knight pilots, member of her own staff, and Nyxian delegates were there, and even not counting her own decorations, the sum of ranks and decorations was properly phenomenal. Grand Princeps Surena Ctesiphon of Legio Defensor was attending sealed in a modified void armour, as did Princeps Elvin Connelly of Legio Aeris Aestus. Knight-Barons of Houses Raven, Curtana, Hermetika, Krast, Sablus, Taranis, Terryn, Winterveil, and others had come thanks to the assistance of several Forge-Worlds and the discovery of the STC database. There were a dozen Archmagi for the twelve Skitarii Legions which would form the core of the Mechanicus ground forces. One hundred and forty-four Guard regiments implied one hundred forty-four Colonels or equivalent ranks, though most of them were already waiting in orbit.
Arriving before Vista – and was someone going to stop this damn music from playing? – Weaver handed the younger parahuman the sapphire baton representing the authority she wielded in her persona of Basileia of Nyx.
"Rule Nyx well until my return." In public with ten thousand ears in the vicinity Taylor had no intention to say more. Missy nodded and took a step back as Zuhev approached and saluted.
She returned it, as did everyone in a Guard uniform nearby. Whatever the official records said or would say in the future, Zuhev had spent the last years ensuring the troops she selected and the equipment forged by Dragon and the Mechanicus would unite to be a true army and not a mob which happened to be extraordinarily well-armed.
The scarred representative of the Commissariat handed her the gold baton symbolising her authority as a General. It was a simple thing: the double-headed eagle of the Imperium was at the top, and a ruby was embedded in the middle. There were a few more stylised flowers but Taylor had insisted for it to remain simple. War was not a game. War killed a lot of people. And there was no need to put hundreds of hours into an object she firmly intended to let be seen only at ceremonies.
And finally she arrived on the massive balcony over the parade grounds of the Triangle Fortress Citadel. Despite knowing what was waiting for her, Taylor had her breath cut for a second.
There were thousands of them waiting in neat lines. The red ranks of the Skitarii were on the left, preceding the twelve gigantic walkers the Imperium called Knights. In the centre were the guardsmen of the Nyx Sector, a sea of multi-coloured uniforms in carapace armour and flak armour. And on the right were over two hundred Astartes preceded by thousands of grey-white Frateris Templars. Hundreds of Thunderbolt Fighters and Marauder Bombers waited on their landing zones behind of them.
"HAIL WEAVER! HAIL WEAVER!"
The shouts of enthusiasm and joy were so powerful many of her insects were overloaded by the sound cataclysm.
"Ave Imperator," she answered, saluted, making the pseudo-Roman salute the Imperium had adopted as its own in M30.
"AVE IMPERATOR! AVE IMPERATOR!"
Taylor could not help but smile at the sight of several hundred Commissars trying to convince their charges to be quiet and not agitate their regimental standards.
"Some of you might wonder why I chose to call this Army Group 'Caribbean.'" There must have been some preparation-coaching from Zuhev, because the men and the women below stopped shouting instantly. "The reason is historic and ancient. Thirty-three millennia ago, long before humanity thought it was possible to reach for the stars, the Caribbean Sea was a region of Holy Terra where pirates terrorised merchant ships and challenged the rule of kingdoms and empires."
It would be so easy to consider them numbers...but all these soldiers trusted her in victory and she wouldn't disappoint them.
"But their reign didn't last. Outlaws and criminals, pirates will never build any solid civilisation, and ultimately piracy was destroyed and purged from the Caribbean archipelago. So it happened thirty-three thousand years ago on the Throneworld. So it will continue in this war."
The Imperial March had finally ended its cacophony, but this was more an afterthought than a core preoccupation by that point.
"I intend to go to Pavia and teach the xenos and the traitors terrorising the frontiers of the Imperium that one does not challenge with impunity the might of the Imperium of Mankind. The black flags of treachery and lawlessness will burn. Pavia will be returned to humanity. Ad Astra Per Aspera. Ave Imperator!"
There. A short and easy speech, and none of the Administratum propagandists would find fault with it...probably.
The forces mustered on the parade ground exploded in acclamations and cheers. It was like a volcano of noise...and the Knights and the Mechanicus machines chose to add to the cacophony by adding some of their 'music' into the mix.
"AVE IMPERATOR! AVE IMPERATOR! HAIL WEAVER! AVE IMPERATOR!"
There was no return possible now. Operation Caribbean had begun.
Beyond the frontiers of the Imperium
Acacia Expanse
Pavia System
Battleship Incessant Agony
8.999.295M35
Duke Traevelliath Sliscus
The screaming stopped before he had ordered it.
Traevelliath Sliscus opened his eyes.
What he should have seen was a Mon-keigh trying desperately to make one of his so-called 'holy-signs' while strapped to a crucifixion-flayer machine.
Instead he had a decapitated corpse and there was blood everywhere, including on the new skin-sheets he had just inaugurated tonight.
The two reptilian bodyguards supposed to prevent exactly this kind of insolent interruption were deathly immobile.
Sliscus threw one of his rings against the green-dark scales and sure enough, the Sslyth's body collapsed into several bloody fragments. The Duke of Commorragh clapped his hands twice to signify his pleasure. Killing one Sslyth was no impressive achievement. Killing two was already more difficult. But killing two of them, decapitating his suffering entertainment for the hour and do these three killings in less than two seconds without the bodyguards alerting him of the danger?
"Master, do you want us to remove the intruder from the bedroom?" The three wyches who had won the honour to share his bed five nights ago – yes, they were sisters, and yes, they had desired he took them together, and who was he to deny their greatest wish? – were awake and had seized their daggers, of course. The youngest had even managed to pull a whip-sword from somewhere. She wasn't lacking resources, to be sure.
"I am touched by your initiative," Sliscus grinned. "But seeing your heads join the Sslyth on my carpet does not enter my plans for this cycle. You are a bit young to measure yourself against him."
The shadows coalesced in an Eldar-like shape as the killer revealed himself. Of his traits, nothing could be seen, for he wore a heavily-modified kabalite armour where onyx was dominating. Only the symbol of his allegiance was distinct on his breastplate: the rune of the Red Sun.
"I have heard many stories about you, Uzvirkh, the Tenebrous Shiver of the Red Sun," this was really exciting. He had been absolutely certain his benefactor would send an assassin before the grand pirate meeting was joined, but to send the foremost assassin of the Dynasty of the Red Sun...
Xelian must have been really, really annoyed by the delay.
"You were supposed to attack Pandaimon three cycles ago," the assassin growled threateningly. "The patience of Lord Xelian is finite and your promises have been revealed to be nothing but wind."
"A million excuses," Traevelliath said sweetly before kissing the closest wych languorously. "The pirates of Pavia are so slow and difficult to gather together that I was unable to arrive on time."
This was a massive lie, and they both knew it. Xelian might be technically above him in the ever-changing hierarchy of Commorragh, but Xelian was so boring and inflexible.
Wherever he went, he sucked the fun and the pain out of the moment.
"By the way I've changed my mind. We will attack Biel-Tan in two cycles."
"WHAT?" It was so easy to make these arrogant children of the Red Sun to explode in anger. "You signed the agreement with your blood, Serpent! You had a mission and you failed it!"
This was really too easy.
"Poor, poor Tenebrous Shiver. Do not worry. I was lying. I will attack Pandaimon in two cycles."
"And your targets will be gone!" roared the elite killer.
"I fail to see how this is my problem," Sliscus replied as his second bed partner gave him a golden cup filled with one of his purple-yellow toxins that he emptied in one long gulp. The power of the venom and the delicious pain stimulated his muscles and he purred as the two other wyches kissed his body with their poisoned lips. "I have many obligations, you know, and the agreement was to attack Pandaimon. Which I plan to do...eventually."
The Xelian assassin had enough and disappeared from view, obviously deciding it was time to end the 'alliance' there and then.
A loud thud echoed and the agonized scream of the Tenebrous Shiver echoed across the Incessant Agony.
"By the Dark Muses," murmured one of his Wyches, "Uzvirkh was one of the best killer-blades of Commorragh. Who..."
The door of the bedroom opened for a new figure and the three wyches had the good sense to freeze and withdraw to the other side of the bed.
"You could have lengthened a bit the agony, my dear," Sliscus purred. "I had barely the time to sense his surprise, his irritation, and his terror."
Dark eyes fixed him and the Admiral of the Sky Serpents sighed.
"You were more amusing before the..."
The cup exploded in his hands, and the Duke of Commorragh didn't finish the sentence.
"My proposal is still open for you, you know."
He knew he wasn't going to receive a 'yes', but for old time's sake he made the effort.
The silence continued and dark eyes glared at him.
"The pirates are almost all gathered and expediting their repairs. We will strike soon."
The light and the dark flashed in the room, and when his vision had adapted again his second unwelcomed invitee had departed.
"The times ahead are not going to be boring."
And Traevelliath Sliscus laughed.
Beyond the frontiers of the Imperium
Acacia Expanse
Pavia System
Malta-class Starfort Palace of Feasting
Metal-Crafter Angalifu
Angalifu didn't like space stations where dirty humans lived. Angalifu didn't like the Kroot. Angalifu didn't like the pirates who were uncomplimentary about his work.
It was his bad luck the station Palace of Feasting – for those who didn't like the name, it was the fault of the Kroot Shaper – had all three in abundance.
But he was a loyal Rashan and he obeyed the orders of Calico. And these orders were to make sure this old space fortress was able to repel an attack coming from outside Pavia.
Angalifu didn't see the point, but he supposed this was why Calico was the pirate-strategist and he was the Metal-Crafter.
Still, he would have preferred working aboard the Pillow of Jasmine, the Malta-class Starfort the Rashans had taken for theirs and theirs alone.
The tech-adept Rashan grumbled lightly. Yes, he wanted to work aboard the Pillow of Jasmine...and so did all the other Rashans, by the perfume of the Great Lotus. This was where all the females and the babies were, their last refuge after the destruction of their homeworld. But everyone had to be useful at Pavia, lest the other pirate leaders decide they could assault the Rashans' ships and enslave them like they had done to millions of other beings in recent years.
Angalifu murmured an algorithm-demand and finished the power test of this void-shield generator. A matrix-query was added and five green lights answered, followed by six other green lights two seconds later.
Angalifu frowned and shook himself before recounting. No, he wasn't having hallucinations. There were only eleven green lights, not twelve.
"May the black holes devour the Eldar and all their unnatural tech-sorcery!"
Human technology was usually solid and reliable, not to mention long-lived. But since they had the arrogant long-ears aboard, their presence was wreaking havoc with thousands of machine parts and cogitator-systems. That or the Kroots had decided it was a good idea to eat the plasteel-covered cables once again. One never knew, with all these xenos and their stupid habits.
The point was, all the machines the humans who tried to become machines and hid behind red robes produced worked by twelve, not eleven. And sure enough, a red light soon materialised on his test-panel.
"Repair, repair...I swear I am not paid enough to repair the Palace of Feasting! Who was in charge of this section last year?"
To his surprise, it was Flomato who had supervised the maintenance. Strange, the young Rashan was very excitable, but he was a reliable tech-worker.
"It must be the Eldars' fault," Angalifu declared to the silent walls, before consulting the plans. "These depraved long-ears should have drowned themselves in Lotus liquor a million years ago and everyone would have thrown a party."
Unfortunately for the Rashan and the galaxy in general, the Eldar still lived and complaining about it was not going to change the status quo.
"Now where are my tools and this..."
Angalifu stopped monitoring the lights and turned...to immediately freeze in shock.
Something was right behind him. Something...oh by the Lotus, it was huge. Past the moment of surprise, he remembered having been shown a similar design by his brothers four years ago.
Frantically, he searched all around if there was a weapon to use but it was a futile hope. He had his tech-repairing belt and a laspistol.
As for fleeing...the colossus was blocking the corridor, and it was the only exit.
Angalifu trembled before closing his eyes. He was going to die. He was going to die...
And then something seized him by the scruff of his neck. The Rashan opened his eyes and stared at ancient human eyes.
"GREETINGS RASHAN. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, THE EMPEROR?"
Angalifu thought this was an excellent moment to faint.
Somewhere between Materium and Immaterium
1.001.296M35
The Last Sentinel
It has been an eternity since he last stepped foot on these oniric lands.
Now he is not prone to sadness and regret, but he can't help but feel a shadow of these feelings.
The river is not flowing peacefully anymore. It is tainted by blood and its current is treacherous.
The lands are not cultivated. Bones, human bones, are a very good indicator of what happened to the previous inhabitants.
He can't hear a single bird singing a joyous song. He can't see a single animal. And while there has been no revelation, no great announcement, he knows he is the last living being in this realm.
There are talon prints on the earth, but they do not belong to any animal species. That does not mean he doesn't recognise the marks these monsters have left on the landscape.
They have been given a multitude of names in the last million years. They are the abominations of the Warp, the agents of the Primordial Annihilator, the heralds of the Arch-Enemy.
They are the daemons, the eldritch abominations of the Warp, the tumours of a cancer corrupting the galaxy.
They are, as his liege called them often, parasites of the Ruin.
They aren't in sight, of course, or he would have to fight for his life. The weak sun above his head keeps them away...for now.
It takes two hundred and fifty-one steps to arrive at the entrance of the village. It is a spectacle of devastation. There are no traces of inhabitants, and a good half of the tiny houses have been torched.
The lone sentinel does not cry, but he knows he watches over the ruin of innocence. It is the contemplation of something that could have been simple and beautiful...but was murdered.
It is a symbol of his failure. It is the cost of doomed defiance.
It is at the centre of what was this small settlement he finds the message.
The fire is almost extinct by the time he arrives there. With the motions of someone who has repeated it to perfection, three pieces of wood are added to the pile of ashes and the hot embers are strengthened by his breath and a more judicious disposition.
Within ten heartbeats, the fire regains its vitality, providing light and warmth.
It is a pleasant sight, but the lone sentinel knows it is just a respite. Already in the shadows outside his vision he feels their horrible presence. And no wall, no trench, no shield will provide succour.
The fire burns in gold for a millisecond without warning. The next instant the flames have returned to their usual shade.
But it was not a hallucination. On his left is a spear. Before him is a game board looking like a multi-dimensional game of regicide which has begun hundreds of turns ago. And on his right is an old scroll.
He seizes the spear first, and in spite of not having wielded it in an eternity, it is like an old companion returning to him.
The regicide board is observed lengthily until he can memorise all the pieces' locations. Internally, he winces. The golden side is losing, and losing badly. Numerically, it still has millions of pawns but there is no coherency to their disposition and their dispersal all over the board is preventing any large-scale counter-attack strategy.
The golden figure of the Emperor is surrounded by many protectors, but thousands of blood red, garish pink, eldritch blue and putrid green pawns are surrounding them in turn, neutralising the strongest asset for the rest of the game.
But what attracts his attention is a small group of pieces on the far right of the board. At first glance, it would appear a suicidal move of the golden player. There are some pawns, a couple of Knights and other lesser pieces he is not completely familiar with, most of them unremarkable and showing signs of age. But the piece they are protecting is critically important. Impressively, he can't give a name to it. It is not the Empress...it is not the Ecclesiarch...it is like the piece has not seen its powers properly defined and integrated into the game.
It is completely outnumbered by a tide of enemy pieces. The numbers are inferior to those surrounding the position of the Emperor, but there is enough to bury the golden detachment a thousand to one.
The trap appears to be foolproof. Except there are signs the enemy pieces have moved too quickly and ignored lone golden pieces which look like they have been randomly dispersed like thousands of others...but those are not.
And there is a card active over the board. It is the Shadowpoint. Activated by the eldritch blue player, but reinforced by the Cloud of Destiny from the golden player. The other players are blind and all divination attempts will fail for the short-term.
For the first time in aeons, he smiles as he touches the scroll. The contact is enough to dissolve the construct and dissolve into a near-invisible orb of light.
Memories assail him. A request resonates in his head. And a question is asked.
"If it is your will..."
The fire burns gold for a second time.
"Then it shall be done. If the death of the old dream is the price to be paid to forge a new one, let it perish in purifying fire."
There are no more answers or signs of approval. And he knows he will perhaps never receive one again.
The lone sentinel stands and looks at the fire devouring the logs a last time.
"Only in Death."
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Neptunia Reach Sub-Sector
Nyx System
Battleship Enterprise
7.003.296M35
Lady Basileia Taylor Hebert
The Enterprise was a marvel. To be sure, it had been a marvel before it arrived from Quayran. It was an eleven kilometre-long battleship, and even for the Imperial colossus, these hulls were a gigantic industrial and military effort.
But Taylor was really proud of the decoration she and Wei had imagined for the one and only ship she owned. The Archmagos who had built the warship had been far too focused on efficiency and his technological toys. And even the Tech-Priests had not been happy: there weren't enough Mechanicus cogs, skull emblems and machine-altars.
Of course, it had been impossible to agree on a single theme for the paintings and the decorations. The Enterprise was long, large and impossibly vast. Taylor was fairly certain she had visited every bridge and grand alley of the Enterprise in the last three years during her irregular inspections, but she had not seen everything. And besides, it was not like she had truly lived here, unlike the tens of thousands of workers, Tech-Priests, SDF spacemen, logistic officers and employees.
The statement was perhaps a bit easy for her to make, but if on the outside the Enterprise was an instrument of war and conquest, inside it was a hub of activity and life. The great battleship had rarely left the Nyx system in the last few years, but life continued in its engine sections, its hydroponic farms and on the upper bridges.
Many compartments had adopted the steampunk theme, going so far as to bribe the red robes of the Mechanicus with clockwork altars to decorate the weapon batteries at their leisure. Some workers had preferred a more flowery environment, covering walls and ceilings with flowers, grass and landscape picts. Gamaliel and several Brothers of the Red and Dawnbreaker Guard Space Marines had commissioned hundreds of artists to paint several galleries in the great arteries of the battleship.
The redecoration effort had blown apart every yearly money allocation she had reserved for it, but since it came out of her pocket and not the Planetary or Sector budget, there had been no grumblings...and besides, it was not like she had the right to own more battleships. The insect-mistress had decided a couple of years ago the Enterprise would be a unique artwork much like the Angel's Tear armour was. If it cost several millions to achieve that, so be it. It wasn't like she had a lot of things to spend her money upon now.
"The two angel statues were completed too late to be brought aboard, Lady Weaver," Archmagos Thayer Sagami told her as one of the smaller gates was devoid of decoration save a large dose of red and gold paint. "There are also several artworks and gifts that couldn't be delivered on time."
"You know my opinion on the subject." The supplies, the ammunition and everything a military force absolutely needed went first; the decorations and the cosmetic affairs went second. "And when it comes down to it, nearly every decoration process has been done on time. I'm sure that the minor flaws will be rapidly completed by spacemen and workers on their free time."
"That's generous..."
Taylor shrugged.
"Perfection doesn't exist, either in military operations or decoration. The Nyxian workers and everyone who worked on and inside the Enterprise did their best. I see no reason to complain."
"I think several Vice-Admirals and Admirals who taught classes at Kar Duniash would have been less tolerant than you," Wolfgang Bach said with a smirk. "By their standards, the Enterprise would have been a disorderly mess and they would in all likelihood have asked to demote half of the crew."
"How so?" The General of the Imperial Guard wondered with a hint of discontent. She had grown rather fond of her warship.
"There was no purple carpet waiting when your Thunderhawk landed," the First Naval Secretary answered seriously. "Your soldiers weren't in their parade uniforms, there were no crystal glasses and refreshments to quench your thirst, and the officers should have offered you something extremely onerous and ridiculously rare to be in your good graces."
The Lady of Nyx turned towards Thayer Sagami in the vain hope it was a joke, but the Quayran-born Archmagos made no objection.
"Surely not all officers waste their time in long ceremonies and minor details."
"No, of course not. Admirals on the frontlines who try to continue these bad habits are transformed into orbital debris pretty quickly. But Kar Duniash and everything built there tends to create...a circle of eccentric personalities, shall we say?"
Taylor was glad she was a General of the Imperial Guard after hearing this type of information. The Imperial Navy sounded like it needed more reforms and changes than any organisation save the Administratum...and the overwhelming majority of its greatest officers were nobility.
Taylor banished this thought as they arrived on the main bridge of the Enterprise.
One thousand men and women, ten Space Marines and over two hundred Tech-Priests saluted in the same second.
"At ease, everyone," and her subordinates relaxed in the brilliant atmosphere of the vast hall serving as the brain of the Enterprise. Unlike many brand new or old vessel classes of the Imperial Navy, the primary bridge was deep in the entrails of the hull, protected by dozens of layers of adamantium, ceramite and plasteel plus a few other ultra-secret emergency systems.
But if you arrived at this moment, it would have been hard to notice. The walls and ceiling had been transformed into an eternal canopy of stars via super-advanced hololithic projectors imbedded in the very walls. It would not be activated during battles; it was too distracting, but for presentations and in times of peace it was just beautiful.
Nyx was shining under the sun like an obsidian jewel, and hundreds of orbital structures were visible to the naked eye. And naturally there was the huge fleet surrounding the Enterprise. Two great Arks Mechanicus, squadron after squadron of destroyers and frigates, macro-transports, and forge-ships, including the very first Arsenal-class Star-Forge Galleon Arsenal of the Omnissiah built in the Ryza yards. Carriers and troop transports were in formation. Titan-transports waited under the Battle-Barge Honourable Shield of the Iron Drakes Chapter. And this left many, many things unseen. There were millions of Skitarii waiting in the Mechanicus hulls to be called to war, tens of thousands of starfighters and bombers were prepared to be launched by catapult into the inferno of battle.
When one saw this splendour, it was difficult not to marvel at the distance and the efforts made by Mankind to spread across the stars and survive. Now she just had to remain humble. A lot of these ships were not hers per se, they were participating in Operation Caribbean because she had obtained results. This would have to continue.
"Archmagos Sagami, is the Enterprise ready?" This was purely for the sake of appearances; if there had been any delays or problems, Thayer Sagami would not have escorted her to the bridge himself.
"The venerable spirit of the Enterprise is ready and eager to serve."
Taylor nodded as she sat on the captain's seat and all the officers and operatives diligently went to their stations.
"In that case, please contact the senior commanders of Operation Caribbean."
One by one the hundreds of screens lit up, revealing familiar and less familiar faces. As much as she wanted to know her top allies and subordinates, once again she had been forced to delegate. There were just, it seemed, not enough hours in the day to meet everyone and make decisions upon confidential reports.
"This is the hour." The General declared to them. "Per War Plan Leyte Gulf, the Astartes squadron will lead the Warp translation under Chapter Master Dupleix. The Enterprise will translate separately between the Strike Cruiser Blood Remembrance and the Ark Mechanicus El Dorado."
It wasn't completely safe, but the Warp predators had not abandoned the idea of attacking whatever warship she travelled in, and the Enterprise was the only ship which had Gellar Fields powerful enough to repel the empyrean assaults one hundred percent of the time.
"The Astropathic calls are obviously restricted to the most severe incidents and problems. The pirates have several powerful xenos sorcerers; every communication risks warning them of our imminent arrival."
The parahuman woman stood again from the throne-seat and raised her General's baton.
"Battle awaits and we have pirates to punish. To Pavia and to victory!"
"TO PAVIA AND TO VICTORY!"
Dozens and then hundreds of starships roared to life, and under her feet Taylor felt the Enterprise wake up and answer the call of the binary activations and prayers.
"Ad Astra per Aspera. We will win the war after the peace."
Authors' note: The muster is over. The time of peace is over. The Shadowpoint will begin...and with it the glorious cycle of escalation. Give your prayers to the God-Emperor. Inspect a last time your lasgun and your supply of grenades. A new war is about to begin...
The other links for the Weaver Option if you want to support or comment my writing:
P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444
Alternate History page: www .alternatehistory forum/ threads/ the-weaver-option-a-warhammer-40000-crossover.395904/
TV Tropes: tvtropes pmwiki/ / FanFic/ TheWeaverOption
