Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 110

The Grand Foundry of Holorus Hive was the beating heart of the rebellion. Hives across the planet fashioned components and cogs but here were the Super-heavies assembled. The sounds of hammer and soldering iron rang day and night, mixed with ritual incantation and ancient refrains of labour. Turrets and hulls were joined to the sound of a hundred acolytes chanting and engines test-fired as libations of oil were offered with awed reverence. Thousands of years had the rites been performed unchanged and the rebellion had done little to alter that fact. Vanderspeak should have found it comforting, but he didn't, not at all.

Above the foundry floor his monorail trundled on. Suspended from a thick girder in the ceiling the cab rolled along, giving him a gods-eye view of the vast factorum. He gazed sadly at the thousands toiling below, knowing their efforts were futile. The destruction of Holorus command had sealed the rebellion's doom. Order was breaking down across the planet, the people already reeling from the loss of the sacred Shrine had seen their leaders cut apart and worse the High Plutocrat himself was dead. Vanderspeak was the last ranking General of the Land Leviathans, the last man standing.

Gun-Captain Haldrist leaned on a glassic frame, "There's Adamantine Spear."

"Huh," Vanderspeak grunted.

"Long past time for a refit, we'll be running smoothly in the next engagement."

"If there is one."

"Sir?" Haldrist frowned, "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," Vanderspeak deflected, "Let's go see if there's anything we can salvage from this disaster."

The monorail ground to a halt as the servitor-pilot drew back a lever. Vanderspeak straightened his uniform and stepped out, finding a crowd awaiting him on the platform. Production-factors and overseers of the Foundry, their robes of office stained by the rising fumes of machinery. Their hands were clean though, more accustomed to handling quills than wrenches and their faces were a mix of worry and desperate hope.

"General, good to see you!" a lean quota invigilator greeted him, "I am Fragoth, sub-district Invigilator."

"Thank you for hosting us," Vanderspeak said without enthusiasm.

"Anything for the God-Emperor's favoured."

"I… what?" Vanderspeak blinked in confusion.

"We heard about the attack on the spire. Terrible days, terrible but you lived. The God-Emperor spared you, it must have been for a reason."

Vanderspeak gazed at him for a second then said, "Please show us to your office."

The Invigilator bowed and led them through the crowd. Vanderspeak nodded coolly to a few faces but was disturbed by how they looked at him. Awe, trust and hope, as if he was some saintly figure sent to deliver them from darkness. The General didn't understand, he'd survived the attack by sheer luck, a Displacer field whisking him away from danger at the last second. That was hardly heroic, he'd failed utterly to stop the Eversor. Yet these people seemed to think it was some form of miracle. He didn't have it in him to disabuse them of their faith. Let them think the end of days was not upon them for another day, they'd learn the truth all too soon.

The Invigilator led them to a broad room, with an ancient lacquered table. Heavy shutters lined the windows and tired cogitators whirred in the corners. Yet what commanded attention was the sight of Disquisitor Jethro Von Tor awaiting them. The envoy of the Ur-Council looked haggard, his face sallow and his bearing weary. He looked to have aged a decade in a few days, but for someone struck by an Imperial Assassin he was remarkably hale. Few could claim to have been touched by an Eversor and lived to tell the tale.

"Severcole!" Von Tor greeted him, "Good to see you made it."

"You too," Vanderspeak nodded, "You're on your feet I see."

"Every bone aches, but I live. Frankly your survival is more miraculous."

"Don't call it that," Vanderspeak dismissed, "Everyone out there is looking at me like I'm a Saint."

"Occupational hazard I'm afraid. Don't rebuke them for it, times are dark and so people cling to hope all the harder. You're the symbol of Tellaris now, and people need a hero to follow."

"Heroes lead their armies to victory," Vanderspeak sighed, "All I can do is manage our defeat as best I can."

"Don't count yourself out just yet. Let's call the rest in and see the lay of the land."

Fragoth hurried to the door and called in the rest of the attendees: Quartermaster Bailiffs, strategic analysts, Compradors and Marshalls of the Commissary. With Holorus command wiped out these men and women represented what was left of the headquarters staff of the Tellarite armies, second and third-rate officers spared by virtue of not being important enough to be stationed in the real locus of power. Now they'd been thrust into positions they thought beyond them, and told to pick up the pieces.

Vanderspeak addressed them bluntly, "Thank you for coming so swiftly. I apologise for the location, but the spire top is… unavailable. You know me, you know I'm the last General left, so I'm in charge of the Land Leviathans. Let's get to the real business, what's our situation?"

A dozen voices spoke at once, "Production is disrupted. Riots in Greshum Hive. The lines along the Rad Wastes are depopulated and we can't shift men in quickly enough. Ammunition deliveries are snarled up in rail hubs. Food rations have failed to reach the lines. Workers are deserting their ordained posts."

"Slow down," Vanderspeak ordered, "One at a time: you what do you have to report?"

A pinch-faced woman in a grey robe replied, "Comprador Halema, Propagandist-core. We're trying to put a brave face on recent events but morale is low and the people uncertain. The masses lose hope and we can't cover up the death of the High Plutocrat. Currently we're putting out rumours that your survival was the will of the God-Emperor, but it's not enough."

"That was your doing?" Vanderspeak grimaced.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, you there, what's your report?"

An elderly man with liver-spots on his bald scalp replied, "Bailiff Trohal, new head of production quotas. Manufacturing disruptions are increasing across the planet. Workers are being laggard and listless, suicide rates are soaring and the replacements aren't committed to the task. We're predicting shortfalls of quotas in all categories, increasing by a significant margin with every solar week."

"Throne dammit," spat an officer with a grey moustache and too many medals on his chest, "The men on the front line need those supplies!"

"We're making every effort to buck up the workforce, but the facts are the facts."

"Without shells we can't fight, without tanks we can't hold the Terrans back!"

Vanderspeak cut in, "We all know that…. Marshall…"

"Breusha, Marshall, retired, of the Commissary. And I say let me send some soldiers into the Factorum lines with some whips, we'll get production back on track!"

"It won't help," Trohal protested, "Overseers are already employing maximum coercion, but whips alone can't bind hearts to the task."

"Then they aren't whipping hard enough!"

Halema cut in, "The Lower Plutocrats are assembling to appoint a new High Plutocrat. They promise to fix the production issues as soon as a new order is established."

Breusah snorted, "That will only take six months or so. We'll all be dead long before they sort out a new pecking order."

Vanderspeak overruled them, "This is a war council, not a political arena. We're here to discuss logistics and strategies, not debate policy. Let's stop dancing about the unpalatable truth: how long can we hold out?"

A distressingly young proctor coughed. Silence fell but Vanderspeak had learned long ago that if you wanted facts at a meeting they usually came from the youngest, and most naive, person present. "Newsom Sir, Ludd Newsom, proctor of strategic projections. Ahem, I… that is my office… projects that with our current supply backlog the front line can only endure for another four to six weeks. A notably shorter deadline if we attempt any offensives of our own. Every day after that the likelihood of a Terran breakthrough increases exponentially. Once they get past the Isthmus we can't stop the Terrans advancing on all fronts. Holorus Hive will be surrounded and isolated as the Terrans spread across the continents. Each Hive city has considerable defences, but without external supply the forges will shut down and starvation will make a long siege untenable. We project that Tellaris shall fall to the Terrans within one solar year."

Grim silence greeted that, ashen faces exchanging dire looks. Nobody wanted to admit it, but they all knew it was inevitable, the Tellarite rebellion was facing certain defeat. Vanderspeak had known this before attending the meeting, but to hear it said out loud was harrowing. Seventeen years of defiance and bloodshed, sacrifices beyond counting, all of it rendered moot. The God-Emperor had indeed abandoned the Tellarites, the High Lords had been right all along. The mere thought made Vanderspeak want to curse, but the truth was staring him in the face.

Vanderspeak wearily sighed, "Then it's time to discuss what terms of surrender we can accept."

"Surrender!" Breusah spat, "Never!"

Fragoth cursed, "Seventeen years of carnage, they'll never set that aside. The Terrans won't stop till we're all dead!"

"I have to agree," Halema concurred, "The High Lords are not known for their mercy. Even if they accept our surrender then all the leaders of the rebellion will be rounded up for public execution. That's us, if you didn't realise."

Trohal added, "The Administratum will demand repayment of all back-tithes. Our people will be enslaved for thousands of years."

Vanderspeak shook his head, "It's a bleak life, but the alternative is worse. If we fight until we can't fight anymore then the Terrans will spare no one. They will depopulate our Hives to the last man, and fill them again with colonists drawn from other worlds. Surrender will be a cruel yoke to bear, but this way at least Tellaris survives."

Haldrist broke in, "Then let's go out fighting! Throw everything we have at the Terrans and take as many of them down as we can!"

"That's foolishness," Vanderspeak rebuked, "We haven't the supplies to sustain an offensive. We'd be doomed before we started. "

"Better death in battle than to submit! The God-Emperor will see our valour and reward us in the afterlife!"

It was a bold statement, but futile, the kind of thinking that did a line officer proud, but was idiocy in a staff position. Vanderspeak knew how dire their situation was, how threadbare the logistics were. An offensive would get no further than any other had for seventeen years, and the retribution would be all the harsher for it. Much as it galled him to admit it Tellaris had lost, all that remained was to try to end the war with some prospect of his people rising again. His soul wailed in denial, death in battle was glorified by all, but the God-Emperor had rejected the Tellarites, there was no redemption awaiting him. They were all damned no matter how they died.

Vanderspeak was set to reject the idea yet Von Tor mused aloud, "He's got a point."

"Excuse me?" Vanderspeak blinked, "You want us to go out in a blaze of glory?"

Von Tor grinned, "You seem to think the only options are swift defeat or humiliating surrender, but have you considered the possibility that you might win?"

Vanderspeak scowled, "You haven't been paying attention. The line hasn't shifted in seventeen years, what makes you think we would fare any better today?"

"Because the Ur-Council shall deliver you victory."

Confused faces ran around the room but Von Tor proclaimed, "The Ur-Council has watched for many years as Tellaris fought for its freedom, but we have not been idle. Novan trade kept you going, but we always knew it would not break the stalemate. So for seventeen years we have been smuggling rare parts to your world, hidden in regular shipments with great care to pass unnoticed. The former High Plutocrat made certain forges available for our adepts to work, and the fruits of their labour are at hand."

Vanderspeak's heart trembled, "Titans… you brought Titans?"

Von Tor however shook his head, "No, not Titans, but something that will change the course of this war. Behold!"

At his cry the shutters rolled up, revealing the grandest forge in the Hive. Within awaited a machine unlike any other and Vandserpeak's jaw fell at the sight. A massive rectangle of metal, resting upon tracks broader than a Baneblade. It rose many levels high, banded with armour thick as Hive walls. Lascannon and Heavy bolter blisters adorned its flanks and multiple void shield generators adorned its rim. The prow was a rising cliff-face of metal leading to a narrow command bridge, crowned by missile batteries. The spine held an immense Macrocannon, being lowered into position on a hundred chains each as thick as man. Starship-grade, legendary in its fearsome power, larger than any mobile weapon had any right to be. The machine made a Colossi look like a child's toy, greater in every way and more lethal. A war machine that could roll straight across No-Man's Land without suffering a single wound. The mere sight lit hope in Vanderspeak's breast, the hope of victory so long denied, the God-Emperor hadn't abandoned them.

"Is that…" Haldrist breathed in awe.

"A Capitol Imperialis," Von Tor crowed, "The ultimate fighting machine. Gaze upon its Behemoth Cannon: Triumph of Tellaris, ready to bring ruin to the Terran armies once and for all!"

"How is this possible?" Vanderspeak whispered.

Von Tor cried aloud, "The Ur-Council shall lend you its power to seal our pact. Witness the means of your deliverance: behold the Invicta Nova!"