The girl sat, awaiting for both the arrival of her brother and their little strike team and the return of the two Death Korps troopers that were with them. She sighed deeply, looking over her weapon. Minor scratching and damage had removed some of the gunmetal-green paint that usually covered the plastic-and-metal frame of the weapon and its forward grip point, made out of a derivative of rubberized plastic, similar to the pistol grip, had started peeling away. Hers was an old Lasgun. It'd served by her side for the better part of training and their fighting here.
She hummed, standing to her feet and approaching the hatch leading down to the underground complex, her rifle trained on it so that the flashlight may give more than the dim, orange-tinted lamp-kits. She knelt, squinting down the poorly-lit corridor once more and wondered where the hell those two had gone. They were Grenadiers. They would usually not be too overly-interested in anything around, so, unless they'd have found an explanation or an enemy to account for the dead Severan and Imps, she had no idea why it was taking them so bloody long.
She sighed. Emperor forgive her, she figured she may as well go retrieve them. Descending once more into the depths of the base, the girl strolled forward, feeling that weight pressing down against her once more. Could it have been the stuffy air in the bunkers? Perhaps. Could it have been the fact that, aside from dried blood, they found a pile of decomposing bodies laying in the middle of the fucking garages of the place? Perhaps that, too.
She sighed, murmuring to herself "Calm down, Yrine... Whatever was here clearly vanished. At least it left us some nice kit..."
Yeah, that was bound to help her ease into things. Aircraft and replacement combat vics for the shit the Necron fight destroyed. She stalked past the intersection and the bunks, hands already fully wrapped around the grips of her weapon and it, raised up as she scanned her surroundings, moving down into the deep darkness of the garages, her rifle aimed forward as she took a more combat-ready stance.
The scent of decomposing flesh, dried blood and oil assaulted her nostrils again. She pushed past the main door, sweeping with her weapon over the corpse pile and slowly moving toward the open door leading to the hangar workshop. She whispered, "Oh-Three-Three... You and Three-Four there?" as she leaned left, peeking past the doorframe, her light shining dimly onto the rear wall of the workshop.
She sighed, "I swear..." as she stepped inside, scanning the walls. She crept inside, past the machinery and items used for forging, fixing and ensuring the functionality of their vehicles and their parts. A faint plop echoed, then another a half-second later, then another. The girl trained her gun onto the noise and saw a straight smear of blood across the rearmost wall. Murmuring a swear to herself, she moved slowly, her heart rate elevating to beyond normal.
She tripped over something and gazed down. Her eyes grew wide and she staggered. Both the corpses of the twins... There they lay, dead, one missing his head and the other with his throat slit. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared down at the pair of corpses, her senses now so active, she was acutely aware of the metaphorical pin drop in a storm. In this case, said pin was the muffled, heavy breathing of something behind her. A sibilat hiss echoed as the air grew frigid within the confines of the room, the fresh blood on the walls seemingly freezing.
She broke into a cold sweat, swiveling about as she felt her strength draining away slowly. Her face said of a scream, but it couldn't leave her throat. The humanoid creature, its skin ebon and lined with grotesque green runes that shined in the darkness, sat before her, its scythe-sword raised and ready for the strike. It was an Eldar... A twisted Eldar, a creature seemingly touched by the warp. Its hair was long, white and shimmering with light as she aimed at it with the rifle-mounted torch.
She gritted her teeth, squeezing the trigger of her Lasgun. Beams of energy lanced out forward, past the creature, narrowly missing it even at point-blank. It had dodged them, of course, giving enough time for the girl to scramble out of the room, screaming bloody murder. A Mandrake. A fucking Mandrake of the Dark Eldar was here. And it was on the prowl, after her, right now.
... A few minutes prior to this fateful encounter, Alvin strolled with his squad lacking three members up to the hangar where they'd left Yrine. Beside him, Freesia and her tribespeople, as well as the Tallarn, walked with weapons at the ready. He murmured, "This place doesn't feel right in the least."
Freesia nodded, silent, her hands twitching on her rifle. They'd found another bunch of corpses deeper within the other hangars. All of them had been tortured for an extended period of time, with the weapons utilized seemingly able to cause a much faster deterioration of the tissues. She was paler than before. Alvin hummed at this, then said "You okay?"
"... Yeah..." Freesia nodded, "Just... Shaken. This is a base that could probably house an entire Division... What could've caused this?"
"Maybe the Necron we've fought?" Voiced a Tallarn soldier. Alvin shook his head.
"Unless we missed a bunch of flayers when the world collapsed in on them..." He shrugged, "Something else is here... And I'm not sure I like it."
He looked to the two Ashanti, who seemed to be lagging behind, sharing a chat. He asked them, "You two know anything? This is your turf after all..." and he watched them turn to him. Both nodded, then approached the group, looking to a Freesia who seemed to instantly realize from their grim looks what it could be. And she was already starting to pray to whomever that it wasn't the case.
Alvin nodded to one of them. Said Ashanti, a trooper by the name of Riker, said "We believe it may be... Another tribe... A feral tribe that inhabits the underground around us. They have brought forth dark magicks in our ancient history, to fight against us and the others. The wounds sustained by the East Imperial and the Severan forces here match the descriptions of wounds that this tribe would inflict on their prisoners... Though they mostly tended to raid small outposts we ourselves set up for hunts."
"Okay... I'll ask later about what you hunt..." Alvin sighed, readying his Lasgun as they entered the place, "What does this tribe-" And he cut himself off as he heard screaming from the halls. He gasped, then called out "Yrine!" and surged forth, his allies readying their guns. They saw the girl scrambling up the stairs the moment she came up to them, only stopping to turn around at the top of the stairs and rapid-fire several hotshot rounds down into the line. Without hesitation, Alvin and the Tallarn joined her, filling the hallway and stairwell full of fucking laser fire.
Something clearly didn't like the hellfire. A faint black mist dissipated into the air, a wave of psychic energy shattering the lamp-kits to pieces and darkening the hallway for good. Yrine didn't wait, slinging her lasgun onto her back and grabbing the hatch before slamming it against the floor and locking it shut. She panted, breathed heavily, sweat dripping down onto the coffin-shaped hatch as she stared at it with wide eyes. Alvin placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, grabbing her lasgun, before settling herself as she stared eye-to-eye with Alvin. She breathed, looking to the Tallarn, Freesia and the Ashanti, before she wrapped her arms tightly around her brother.
"It got them... That thing we just..." She breathed, "A fucking... A... A fucking Dark Eldar MANDRAKE..."
... That's what they killed!? Alvin felt his breath hitch in his throat, "By the Emperor, Yrine... You're lucky you made it out of there... But..." He paused, looking to the Ashanti and Frees, all of whom seemed frightened at hearing those words. He sighed, realizing very well what this meant. He lifted his sister up, handed her his canteen, then said "I'll go deliver a Mayday... The Colonel was still busy negotiating with the Chieftain, so I only got the Commissar. This is bound to ruffle some feathers..."
"Okay..." She said, "Okay... I do think the concentrated fire killed that sonofabitch..." She wiped the sweat off her brow, "We should all leave, though... Just in case..."
Silent agreement came from the three Ashanti and their Tallarn friends as they stepped out of the base. Alvin powered on his long-range broadcasting Vox system, then called out "Mayday, mayday, Scout team to HighCom... We've got a situation, code VERMILLION at the enemy base... Commissar, get this Mayday to the Colonel ASAP... I think we've... Got..." He looked out onto a tall hill and cliff at the other end of the base, seeing thousands of forms standing atop it, then finished "Dark Eldar... Lots of Dark Eldar..."
The moon of the planet hanged high above them, giving a dim white light with the help of which Alvin discerned the thousand-odd Dark Eldar force ahead of them. Looking far more tribal than their Commorragh counterparts, some of which the Cadians had encountered just before the Thirteenth Black Crusade came to be when they struck to nab some slaves off of Cadia, these Dark Eldar bore skulls and teeth as trophies, blood-soaked bone armor on their chests as standard, with varying pieces across the ranks, as well as necklaces of teeth, shields made of bone and steel and ancient-looking spears, their teeth sharpened, bared at the few defenders of the base in dangerous smiles.
"God-Emperor..." Yrine murmured, finger twitching around the trigger of her Lasgun, "Why aren't they attacking...?"
"They await their own leader." Riker said, holding close the single-shot breechloader.
"Wonderful..." Murmured Alvin. He looked back, to see the light of fighting vehicles coming toward them. Chimera transports, Leman Russes and even the Baneblade. He hummed, "Our allies cometh..." And looked forward as the sea of dark shapes parted ahead, revealing a woman clad in full, dark-red wraithbone armor riding what seemed to be the tortured form of what used to be some kind of local supersized insect. The woman in spiky red armor, with skulls attached to said spikes, was the most normal looking of the lot, sans her impossibly pale skin and the burning green eyes that stared right back at him. A Wych.
Matt was the first to dismount his armored vehicle, approaching the search party and asking "I... Take it we arrived in time?"
"Yessir..." Alvin nodded, dumbfound at the ever-multiplying Dark Eldar numbers. Many of the monsters with them did, in fact, not seem to be Dark Eldar, rather amalgamations, missing people experimented upon by what they could only assume were primitive variations of Homonculi and even grotesque perversions of creatures borne of the Deserts and lands of Gallia.
"... God-Emperor above... Tech-Priest?" Matt looked over to Valon, who was holding an Auspex.
"... Approximately double our numbers, Colonel. I do not know, nor wish to learn how these Dark Eldar came here..." The Techpriest stated, "All I know is that it cannot be good news..."
"They have been here." Rose stated, approaching with her blade drawn, "For as long as humanity has existed, though they remained hidden in their dark abodes until now... We would usually give them some form of tribute, but... It seems our common enemies forgot to do so. This is their land... The land of the Drukhii." She explained, staring dead at the supposed leader of the group.
She smiled at Matt, of all people, then waved him forward. He looked around, then sighed and said "Keep your eyes open... Ready defenses, just in case. Autocannons, flamers and everything. I don't want these things getting anywhere out of this desert." as he drew his Bolt Pistol. Colin sighed deeply, readying his own weapons and squads as their compatriot and leader went to meet the leader of these 'Drukhii', who was now riding down on her eight-legged, chitin-covered mutant. Meeting midway, at a smaller runway meant for taxiing aircraft, the woman dismounted.
A head above Matt's height and with skin seemingly made out of marble, eyes pulsating an eerie green and her scarlet hair flowing in the wind, the Drukhii woman spoke first, mirthful smile ever-present, "You are Imperial... But not of the ones from the East."
"Cadians. We're Cadians." He stated, glaring at the woman, "The Ashanti tell us you've cohabitated with people here for as long as they can remember... In the sense you rarely did much damage. Why is your whole army here, now...?"
"To meet yours." The woman stated rather bluntly, "It is a destiny to be fulfilled... Where thousands meet, hundreds more shall join... And thousands more shall fall."
"I thought you Dark Eldar bastards were exempt from the beliefs of fate, unlike your Craftworld-borne brethren." He stated rather angrily, "If we're here to kill each-other, why don't we already?"
"You have a predestined meeting, child. One with us," She stated, "And you wish to rush it along... How human of you."
"I'm just not interested in listening to basket-cases, Wych. If we're here to fight, then let's get this over with." He growled, readying his bolt pistol. She sighed, shaking her head. She had expected as much, considering this was, indeed, but a child.
"Very well. Your troops will do nicely as slaves for my people... These Severan and Eastern dogs are too easily-broken." She drew her serrated sword from its sheath, a curved, ugly blade still stained by the blood of those it had just recently killed. Matt turned away from her, fully aware of the threat that meant and even more aware of the Snipers that had managed to set up. A beam of light lanced past his ear and past the Wych's ear, staggering her.
He looked back and saw her break her stride, blade raised high to strike at him. With a scowl, the boy returned to his allies, raising one hand much to the surprise of the dumbfound Dark Eldar wych. Once he brought it down, however, the Wych had noticed the tall, tree-like stalks behind the line. And how they erupted into flame. She swore to herself in ancient Aeldari, clambering onto her beast and riding it back to the line, raising her hand to order the charge just as the first artillery shells landed.
Matt had made it back to the line by the second volley, noticing how quickly the Regiments had set up firing lines, a perimeter and multiple Auspex scanners. The Dark Eldar were known for trickery, so... But the quickness they'd set up the defenses with surprised even the Colonel. He guessed that having Kriegers beside you hurried your ass along, especially with Dark Eldar melee troops around them.
He watched as the first wave charged down the hills and past the first line. He smirked, then said "Looks like the Dark Eldar lost a bit of their siblings' technological advantage! LOOK AT THEM! Melee weapons alone! We can easily deal with them!" to the laughter of his comrades and the silent jubilation of the Death Korps. He drew his Power Sword and readied his bolt pistol as he ordered "Fire the moment you know them in range of your weapons! I want that first volley to gut their liens where they stand! Let the Drukharii weep tears of blood when they face the children of the Imperium! STEADY!"
He watched as they crossed the point of meeting between him and the Wych. The Long-Las snipers already started picking off the bigger creatures and Grotesques. She looked to the Death Korps colonel and to Captain Al-Ahab, then over to Rose. He called out again, "STEADY! Set your rifles to automatic if you can! If not, Hotshot rounds!" and he heard the whirr of the weapons readying. The moon shined atop the clear sky above them as the first of the enemy units came into range. Then another. And then ten more.
"Steady..." He smirked, thumbing the safety of his bolt pistol, "NOW!"
Like an incessant, high-pitched scream, several thousand lasguns and auto-weaponry fired a burning hot wall of scarlet energy that was focused on the centermost force of enemy assault units, the Grotesques and their supporting Haemonculi. Beams of scarlet tore skin and sinew while autocannon shells pierced Wraithbone and thick, mutated muscle, gutting creatures as they charged.
Promethium shells arched high into the sky from the Earthshaker batteries before landing into the writhing mass of thirty-thousand enemies. Like bonfires, the areas above which the airburst anti-personnel explosives detonated lit with a blinding orange hue. The screams of the damned onto which the sticky fire managed to attach, mixed with the scent of burning flesh, barely reached the Imperial Guard lines.
To his left, Matt saw the Ashanti firing their breech-loaders in a line formation, from behind a string of makeshift sandbag walls. Guided by Rose York and by her niece, Freesia, the soldiers spared no expense in their blinding fire, while the Imperial Guard continued their unrelenting fussilade of energy weapon fire, now joined by the Tanks of the regiment, Punishers included.
The aforementioned Punishers were anti-infantry vehicles that could fire at a rate of several thousand RPM. When lined together, only five of the ten tanks were needed to severely thin out the enemy's ranks via the use of their Punisher turret-mounted multi-barrel gatling cannons. Like nightmares, the cannons roared into the night, explosive anti-personnel rounds tearing into the crowd of tribal Drukharii.
Despite the unfairness of hosing the technologically-disadvantaged enemy ahead of them with high-power energy weaponry and heavy cannons, the bastards were still making headway by focusing their forces on the central part of the defense, where the Colonel and officers were. So much so that some of the bastards were getting into melee range. So many of them, too, both human slaves and... Wait, Human slaves?!
The anger that Freesia suddenly saw in the eyes of each soldier around her was unfathomable. She stared at the emaciated, wounded slaves, formerly of other tribes, among them her own, and soon realized why. That same anger began to well up in her as she saw young men and women of her tribe, kidnapped in the night and latched onto machines and items of torture. The Guardsmen fired at them to put them out of their misery, while the Ashanti levelled and fired their .577 caliber Breechloaders in a line, hammering like a drumbeat into the monsters.
She gritted her teeth, standing up and joining Alvin's side as they peppered the line with las and bullet. Alvin looked to her, asking "Any of those your people!?" more out of courtesy than anything. He saw the anger welling in her eyes as she emptied two magazines into the line, then nodded to her and got right back to hosing the bastards with lasgun fire as they drew closer.
"FIX BAYONETS! PREPARE FOR CLOSE QUARTERS!" A hard, stern female voice echoed both from behind them and over Vox. That was the Death Korps's female Commissar, her power fist already shimmering with energy, bolt pistol roaring. Indeed, the enemy grew ever closer with each troop they lost. They must've, at the very least, purged a thousand freaks and their troops and poor slaves.
Orders came that they begin to push, to meet the enemy head-on while their Autocannons and artillery laid into them. Tanks and Chimeras were to lead the assault, rolling over the enemy's lines and squashing them under their tracks. Indeed, the vehicles advanced at the blow of a really loud psionic whistle that rang across the field. Alvin and Yrine soon realized that that had been Monyka, their regiment's resident Psyker, who was now leading the assault with her comrades, an ethereal blade made specifically for Psykers in one hand and her staff in the other. Her Servo-Skull hovered harmlessly over her shoulder, carrying the parchments and holy seals to keep the woman in check.
The first to meet the enemy assault was not the tanks, armored vehicles, Sentinels or even the massive Baneblade, but rather Monyka's own incredulous Psychic potentials. Thunderclap echoed as, above the field of battle, clouds formed, shimmering a frightening purple hue. Bolts of lightning soon began to strike in rapid succession, to the laughter of the Psychic danger sat to their right. Disintegrated remains of Haemonculi and their grotesque fleshy contraptions were taken by the winds as the Guard clashed with the enemy in a combination of melee and gunfire.
The tanks broke the first ranks of the enemy like a tidal wave of reinforced plating and cannon fire, massive wounds and gashes cut into the lines by the tanks' main guns, their flamers, the supermassive lasers of the Destroyer Tank Hunters and even the bloody Executioners' super-heated plasma. Promethium shells continued to detonate in the rear lines of the enemy army, a confusing amalgamation of creatures of the underground and darkness that the Colonel was intent on finding out how they'd even come to be, especially with the little tech they had.
From the top of his Baneblade, he ordered and guided the assault. Beside him, Colonel Stern fired her own handgun into the enemy force as the super-heavy rolled over the lines, its treads running scarlet with blood and gore, shining under the faint light of the moon above. They'd managed to drive a wedge between the enemy's lines with the armor, while the Infantry and heavy support continued pouring fire into the enemy from the rear and sides.
Matt saw the Wych leading this massive tribe, this massive hidden army of Commorragh, charging toward him. She jumped off of her six-legged mutant arachnid creature and drew her blade. Matt had met it with his own Power Sword in a parry, before standing atop the tank and leaving his gunners to do the work. He swore at her in High Gothic, then demanded "Why are your people here!? Why!?"
"Is it not clear?!" She laughed, slashing viciously at the man with her poisoned blade, "We came to hide from the Eternal Foe, young fool! That same Foe your actions here brought forth!"
The Colonel parried as best he could, retorting sharply, "We're slaughtering your people, Wych! WHAT GOOD DOES FIGHTING US BRING!? What insane plan has your mind concocted that has you, so disadvantaged in technology, fighting us!"
"Do I have to have a plan, Mon'Keigh!? I just go as the currents carry me!" She answered harshly, thrusting her blade past the boy's face and managing to get a glancing hit, though thankfully one not deep enough to inject any serious amount of whatever poison was on it. It still left a nasty cut on the side of the boy's head. She grinned viciously, a broken, ear-to-ear grin that spoke of the madness of the scions of the Drukharii's city. Her voice harsh, she said "I would rather DIE by the hands of your kin than by theirs! By the hand of the Necron! Or by the hand of those whose souls were sold to the Empyrean! And if I can take a few of your kin with me, that's all the better!"
"... Empyrean..." Matt staggered, gasping only as he felt the enemy's blade damn-near penetrate his breastplate. He staggered, parried, spun his own sword around and disarmed the Dark Eldar. With a powerful charge, he kicked the woman off the tank and into the grips of her soldiers as the vehicle began to whine and slow, so much gore caught in its gears causing it to lose traction.
Alvin, on the ground, made his fist connect with the face of a deranged human that the Drukharii had either brainwashed or managed to convince that death was a better alternative than torture. In truth, Alvin understood that Commorragh's brand of torture would make even the Inquisition reconsider their own place. Still, he did what he could and gave the man that attacked them his desired death, three lasbolts to the head that outright pulverized it into a fine scarlet mist. Following up, he thrust his bayonet forward and found purchase, gutting a Drukharii warrior who was charging him with a spear before the man got into range.
Now backed up onto Freesia, the boy looked back to see she also had her bayonet fixed. Smirking, he said "Taking after us?"
"Eh, figured I'd learn a few things on dancing in combat... Ya ain't bad yourself with the blade." She chuckled.
"I can teach you a few things if you want." His smirk grew into a grin.
"For the love of the Emperor, you two need to get a room..." Commented Yrine in jest, despite her face and tone that spoke of seriousness. She squeezed off a half of her power pack into the crowd of enemies, stating "Speaking of the God-Emperor, by His name, is there a lot of these bastards! Commissar, we'll run out of ammo before we've killed them all!"
"Then use your blade." Colin retorted, his face calm as he went on to vivisect two more of the bastards with his blade, only for four others to take their place. He swore to himself, "Feth, that's a lot of them alright... I'll dull my sword..."
Indeed, barely halfway through the enemy's forces, the Colonel and his unit found themselves running quickly out of ammunition. Some squads were already half-out and had had to divide power-packs between their ranks to keep up the fight, while the Drukharii Wych seemed to have withdrawn to the rear of the line. Matt swore to himself, watching as more and more proper Drukharii warriors, damnable Dark Eldar, streamed in now that their battle thralls and vile beasts were dead. These were fresh troops that they, tired and almost black on ammo, had to contend with.
Then, Matt heard something ring in his Vox. He stood, ramrod straight, then looked to see Maria clambering onto the tank. She pulled aside her mask, revealing a surprising grin as she jabbed a finger upward, to a string of lights approaching due North of their current position. At first, one could easily mistake those for Severan craft coming to find and kill the Cadians and the bastards who fucked with their airbase.
But once one heard the Vox call... They could only smile broadly.
Cresting the cliffs ahead, a dozen more craft followed those initial lights, then a dozen more. The harsh drone of jet-engines and the wash of fire roared above them as the first bird of prey dived. A twin-engine fighter let loose the heavy autocannon in its nose, a thundering roar of high-explosive ammunition carving a valley between the enemy. It had been joined by several fighters of similar design, including some reverse gull-winged craft with rotary cannons in their mouths instead of standard Autos. The droning roar of the cannons was only muffled by the detonation of high-explosive ammo.
Following in, boxy birds, similar to those in the hangars below them, shredded the ground with their pairs of Twin-linked Autocannons before banking away, their bellies painted white while their upper hulls were painted a deep shade of black. Matt watched with the widest grin he wore to date as, following them, four-engined aircraft flying high released a payload of two-dozen Promethium-laden airburst bombs. Detonating a few feet above the enemy's line, the explosive flame bombs left massive strings of white-hot fire burning, deep gashes that turned sand and bone and flesh into glass.
Alvin stared up too, lowering his gun as the Drukharii staggered and began to flee in a disorganized rout. The next aircraft over were over a dozen Gunships, with a multitude of payloads, the most common being unguided rockets launched from pods. The missiles whirred out of their tube-racks and into the lines of fleeing Drukharii with extreme prejudice while mobility vehicles, less armored than the Cadians', rolled forward with their twin-linked autocannons and other series of weapons.
"... Freesia York... Children of the Ashanti..." Alvin smirked, staring up and slinging his rifle onto his back, "Say hello to the Aeronautica Imperialis."
Indeed, as the Ashanti girls and boys all stared up, they saw the craft bearing the grand Aquila. Soon, out of the Gunships, clearly Valkyries, Vendetta Gunships and Sky Talon heavy transports, dropped the grav-chute-clad Drop Troops of the Imperial Guard. Elysian Drop Troops, Phantine Skyborne and the famed, most dangerous Harakoni Warhawks landed on the flanks of the enemy lines, supported by their all-terain mobility assault vehicles. By the time the arrival of their air support had finished, the Dark Eldar numbers had dropped to a meager two thousand out of their original thirty-something for five hundred dead Imperial Guardsmen.
The Cadians and Tallarn greeted their new comrades with cheers, hoisting high lasguns and bottles of Amasec to exchange with the Drop Troopers that had just arrived to save their asses. Matt watched now, almost half an hour later, from beside a hangar as the last aircraft came to touch down. A Thunderbolt fighter belonging to the Phantine Skyborne's Sixty-Third Air Group, the 'Reapers'.
"Colonel..." Matt heard a fairly familiar voice. He turned to see a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, standing there, a lit lho-stick between his lips, faint clouds of smoke around his mouth and a smile on his face.
"Captain Henrik Vald..." He smirked back, "You lot arrived just in time. I and my boys and girls were running out of ammo." And he went to shake the man's hand.
"We figured... Sorry we got here so late, but we barely managed to pick up the Vox-chatter from your tanks... We thought you were Emperor-damned Severan at first." The man chuckled as they shook hands. He was a dark-haired young man with slicked-back short hair, black eyes and sharp features. A given, the main being part of the Harakoni Ninety-eighth Drop Regiment.
"Yeah, well... Thank the Emperor you got the IFF Transponders before you sent missiles our way." The boy stated calmly, "Sorry about the airbase. I'll send a message to get some of our Techpriests to build one near Randgriz. That would be the capital of the country we're in." And he removed his canteen, taking a deep sip of the somewhat stale water within it. For him, right now, it was the most refreshing-tasting water ever.
"I take it we are on another world, then?" The man raised a brow.
"Mhm... Don't have a name for it, just for the country you're in currently. Its name's the Principality of Gallia and... Well, it needs all the help it can get, I feel..." Matt offered, his mind wandering to what that Wych had said. Sadly, they never recovered even her body. He figured that, after they just fucking gutted their entire little tribe, they were unwilling to go after them again. He hummed, then asked "In truth... How did you wind up over here?"
"Well, I and my boys were flying over Cadia at some point with these other Drop Troops and the Aeronautica air group, going to reinforce a Kasr... Before the Despoiler dropped the Fortress on the planet." The man sighed, taking a deep drag of his cigarette, "And we couldn't get out of orbit in time. Fires swallowed us, combined with the Warp, it sent us here... We woke up about two hours ago, over the large seaside here."
"Huh... Must've been a long flight. Thanks again." Matt offered, "Your timing couldn't be better, either. The Severan's just received a bunch of aircraft... More are coming, if the lot of vehicles at this airbase is anything to go by."
Indeed, the Severan had begun bringing in more aircraft, but many of the group did not know this. This was about to turn into a full, three-dimensional war waged in Air, on land and on the sea, the latter of which being already underway as the Gallian navy fought a war similar to a Guerrilla one against the stronger, more advanced Imperial Navy. Admittedly, they had the Federation to help with that, though...
... Matt didn't know. They would prep for leave after talking to the Techpriests about a rapid-assembly runway near the Kasr, so that their new comrades had some place to land. Until then, he was content to let his forces celebrate with their newfound comrades. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what had transpired with Squad 7's little meeting? Perhaps they could still make it to the training site. It'd only been a day...
... One hell of a long day... But a single one nonetheless.