The Purgation of Balardandah
By author SIngemeister
The Palace of the Republic was the greatest and most glorious construction on the face of Balardandah. Built after the nations of this beautiful world had come together as one after centuries of strife, constructed by the finest of minds with the strongest materials and the most potent equipment, decorated and designed by master artisans. It was a representation of everything good and wonderful of not only the planet, but humanity itself.
As the Sea-Between-Stars had cleared and allowed for travel between worlds once more, the Republic had sent ships to offer help and support neighbouring worlds. They had sent food, for Balardandah had plenty. They had sent machinery, to help rebuild after the rigours of the Star-Storms. They had sent soldiers—the valiant Lightning Sentinels, the unsurpassed Viravituri, the ancient and mighty White-Gold Battleminds—to quell conflict and bring harmony. Slowly, one by one, their neighbouring worlds had recovered and joined with Balardandah in a new interstellar union, the Interstellar Commonwealth. It had been a glorious dream brought to fruitful reality with a canny mixture of idealism and pragmatism. They had encountered an alien race, the Ghaltothor Hegemony, who thrived in frozen temperatures that humans would find inimical to life, but struggled in more temperate climes. Colonisation rights for ice worlds located by the Commonwealth signatories would be gifted unto the Hegemony in exchange for gifts of more human-inhabitable worlds in kind. And so, after a while, did the Hegemony become part of the Commonwealth, with diplomats receiving quarters both in the Palace of the Republic itself, and in the orbiting headquarters of the Commonwealth itself, the Promise of Heaven.
The Palace too, reflected that history. Fine tapestries from Krom-Surind lined the walls. Perma-Ice statues carved by Ghaltothori frost-smiths guarded the doors, nine-legged insectoid shaking hands with a human. Carpets from the Lowmett Regime covered the floors, sweet incenses made by Hardlander scent-forgers burned in bowls of finest Makalawatan love-silver, pleasing harmonies of the peace-choirs of Xa Xo Mve filled the air. Sydelline Lanternsmen, fierce yet honourable warrior-police, marched through its halls. Glories from forty worlds filled the room, all complementing one another as a new and magnificent culture, many minds coming together in peace, in harmony.
The gaudily-armoured woman who sat lazily on the Presidential Throne, leg draped over one of the arms as she examined an Orb of Ulvrys with an expression of acute disinterest on her fast, represented something other than all that. When this 'Imperium' had offered them membership, they had asked for diplomats to meet them in the Celestial Gardens present in the Commonwealth's orbiting headquarters, to be greeted with food and drink. Instead, when they had dropped the planet's Void Shields as a gesture of trust, they had tracked a teleport signature—here. To the heart of Balardandah itself.
Arrogance, presumption, disdain, all ways of thinking that had led to so much strife and despair in the past, that was what she represented, and her Imperium as well.
Hoqam Polvarus, the President himself, tried to speak with as much dignity and poise as he could muster. He could feel the anger radiating off the Presidential Guard and the Lanternsmen behind him, but he would not rise to the bait. He was a diplomat and negotiator without compare, and such base reactions were below him.
He focused his breathing, stilled his anger, and spoke in his deep and clear voice.
"My name is Hoqam Polvarus, President of Balardandah. I am honoured to meet you, Madame…"
He paused. The woman—who now that he was looking at her more closely was clearly over ten feet tall like one of the Sardonu Gene-Forged—did not respond, instead still looking at the golden Orb in her hand.
"An Orb of Ulvrys, a member of the Commonwealth," said Hoqam, trying to be accommodating. "Each one is a true work of art, crafted over decades."
Her lips curled into a shape of mild interest. A start, he supposed. He went to speak again, but his voice caught in his throat as she dropped it on the floor, with that same half-interested expression on her face.
"Seems well-made. Durable, at the least," she finally spoke, watching the priceless Orb roll slowly across the floor. "Or maybe it's the carpet that's well made."
Her voice was smooth and low, a pleasant contralto that nonetheless set him on edge.
"They are intricate mechanisms," Hoqam said, his voice slightly rougher. "When activated, they play music, or scenes that shift along the surface. Each one is unique. The people of Ulvrys live in eternal darkness, sculpting these through more exotic senses than sight."
It did not seem that she had been listening, instead swinging herself off the throne and taking a slow stroll around it, gazing with mild amusement at the artistry of the room.
"Jiun Xiao is my name. As for a title, I suppose Madam will do. I was a chieftain's daughter, then a princess, then a queen, then an empress, and now I'd suppose that I'm a princess once more. Primarch might be the easiest title of the lot, and I've no desire to get into epithets yet. What's depicted here?"
She gestured idly to one of the tapestries, wherein a kaleidoscope of lights illuminated a mountainside with a haze of dust in the air, as colossal platinum figures strode the mountainsides.
"It represents the Battle of the Hamlofyr Mountains, wherein the White-Gold Battleminds won a great victory and brought down the Bandit-Lords who'd so plagued Krom-Surind."
Jiun Xiao chuckled at that, a wicked smile crossing her face. She turned to face Hoqam, and met his gaze.
He felt himself stumble back, almost detached from his own body. Behind him, several of the guards gasped, or muttered sacred incantations. Nothing could have prepared him for the intensity of her eyes, the colour of dry grass, that forced him back and filled him with fear and awe. It was all Hoqam could do to not fall to his knees in terrified revelation.
She advanced on them now, slow and dangerous as a tiger, her voice seemingly no louder, but somehow almost deafening.
"I'd apologise for visiting here as opposed to where I was invited, but you can always find out more from a palace in my experience—you can find what truly matters to a nation. And what I have found…"
She grinned again, and shook her head, breaking the gaze for a merciful second.
"Normally we would send diplomats to try and create an unevenly disagreeable compromise, but I don't think that will work here. My, hah, father's Imperium is unfortunately very specific on certain subjects, for all its talk of a unified mankind."
She gestured to the ice-statues around the room.
"Consorting with xenos, to the point of allying with them? Not allowed. Perhaps they'll be made into protectorates, if we're feeling merciful and their planets don't have anything desirable."
Jiun Xiao lazily kicked the Orb on the ground, rolling it onto a different carpet.
"The abhumans might be alright, I suppose. At the very least, I have a brother who collects them."
She raised her hand to the tapestry she had inquired of.
"If those are just combat-robots, then maybe the Mechanicum will take them apart and bring themselves pleasure with the pistons, but Battleminds?"
She shook her head again, still smiling.
"I'd wager much that those are Abominable Intelligences. Can't have that, I'm afraid. And finally…"
She sighed, and her grin grew yet wider as she turned her stare against one of the soldiers who had muttered under their breath.
"Religion. That will have to be stamped out, superstitions of an earlier age unbecoming of modernity to be replaced with the rationale of the Imperial Truth. We do so enjoy truth in the Imperium."
There was a mocking tone to her words, and the wry smile on her face made it obvious that she did not truly believe a word she was saying. Hoqam steeled himself.
"What, exactly, are the terms you offer for our incorporation?"
"Compliance, actually. Your compliance. The xenos will be resigned to one or two worlds, the abhumans similarly, the Abominable Intelligences destroyed, and any and all religions stamped out—probably a significant portion of local culture as well. A regular tithe will be taken, of food, technology, soldiers, people, resources, et cetera. In return, you will gain access to the technology and protection of the Imperium, making it far harder for Orks to kick your collective heads in."
"These are your terms?"
"No, these are my father's terms, the terms of my commander. Personally, I'd take a few more trophies and recruits and let you alone, but I'm fighting for a vision of a united mankind now."
Hoqam was silent for half a minute before speaking. "You sound dissatisfied with the arrangement. Perhaps there is an accord we could come to."
Jiun Xiao laughed again, and Hoqam winced.
"The only way any such accord could be made would be if I came to head the Imperium. And unfortunately for both of us, I doubt that's happening any time in the foreseeable future. Not unless something drastic happens. I have twenty-four brothers and sisters, all as potent as I, and our creator eclipses us all. No, alas, those are the terms and the only terms."
It had been a very risky gambit, he supposed. This 'Primarch' reminded him more of the Bandit-Lords than any actual head of state he had met.
"I suppose there is no chance of meeting this Emperor of yours, is there?"
Jiun Xiao gave him a patronising smile. "Believe me, Hoqam, he'd say just what I have said in a fashion both less charming and more self-deluded. Those were the terms he gave me on our first meeting, and you'd get nothing better."
Two options, both equally terrible, ran through Hoqam's head. In all his years as a diplomat and then President, he had never met such a dogmatic nation as this Imperium. There was always room for compromise in the past, but now it seemed that all this Palace stood for could be swept away in the name of security.
He made his decision.
"I cannot speak for my fellow Commonwealth delegates, but I cannot accept these terms. As a world and as a faction, we have come too far to consign ourselves to such cynicism, such barbarity, as your Imperium posits. All we have fought and worked towards, together…" He swallowed a lump in his throat and continued, "No. I cannot allow such to be destroyed simply because some man I have never met wishes it so."
Jiun Xiao clapped, a predatory look in her eyes. "A good speech, a pretty speech. I've heard it before, but rarely so concise. Of course, if you don't comply, you'll be made to. The Imperium can't have independents around it."
Hoqam straightened his back, and gestured for his Presidential Guard and the Lanternbearers to move forwards.
"You'll find we can defend ourselves quite capably, Jiun Xiao."
She turned to face them, and somehow seemed even larger and more awe-inspiring than she had before. Her armour was massive and ornate, a fine ashen-grey halved with bone and covered in golden filigree. Her left gauntlet terminated early, leading to a metallic hand that spoke of a crude and brutal efficiency. Something blue glowed within its depths.
"Oh, I'm certain. But I will tell you, the other reason I visited this palace is because I very much did not wish to be onboard that space station when we sent it crashing down onto your planet."
Hoqam's eyes widened and he moved back through his defenders, babbling commands to contact the Promise of Heaven and raise the armies of the Commonwealth.
"Oh, go ahead. Tell them! It will only make the terror so much sweeter."
Hoqam and two of his guards fled the room and barred the door behind them. She advanced again, until she was totally surrounded by the soldiery of Balardandah. She looked around, and now her voice was a terrible, sonorous sound, a promise of death and pain.
"You all appear to be under the impression that I am now locked in here with you. Alas, the opposite is true."
Hoqam heard the screams and laughter echo through the palace even as he fled.
First-Rider Sha'al Vei howled in furious joy as they were unleashed. Besides her flew her fellows in the First Lance Sisterhood of Shadrak's Bloody End, barbed arrows loosed at the enemy's heart, the first volley, the striking shafts of the First Lance. It had been a long and stifling wait for word from the Primarch, too long kept stuck in the miserable conditions of a Thunderhawk's bay, unable to ride free.
She had taken off her helmet. Foolish she knew with the Balardandan's technology level, but there was nothing in existence like the rush of wind through your hair in flight. With a whooping laugh, she plunged down after her sisters, the Korgu'ul-class jetbike screaming as it fell, a bird of prey going for the kill.
Targets had been designated as soon as the Expeditionary Fleet had been able to survey, but the Sisterhood of Shadrak's Bloody End had a different task to the rest of the First Lances that now fell upon the hapless foe. Behind her, two of her sisters, Aelis and Xuluqa, bore the honour of carrying the Primarch's jetbike, Sunstrike, to her when she was finished with diplomacy.
As they plummeted towards the Palace, they saw an explosion tear a hole out one of the sides. Defence guns along the sides of the plateau where the Palace sat spat coilgun rounds into the air towards them, carving hissing trails through the sky. Sha'al cursed before reattaching her horse-haired helmet with one hand. The voice of her Tarchan Klovar Bloody-Shoulders echoed through the vox.
"I reckon our Demon Queen's done with diplomacy, sisters!"
Laughter crackled through the speakers, and Sha'al howled back, "Another peaceful integration!"
The laughter redoubled, and the Sisterhood gunned their engines, racing towards the Palace. One of the coilgun rounds came too close for comfort, a glancing blow striking a battle-sister on her shoulder and sending her into a short spin as curses rang through the comm.
Klovar barked orders through the vox, and the Sisterhood scattered, dancing twisting, weaving steps around the clumsy shots of the coilguns. Missiles spat from their jetbikes, Hunter-Killers lancing towards the guns themselves. Several Warbands streaked forwards, seeking to screen Sunstrike and its bearers.
Sha'al fell into a spiralling dive, calling for her Warband to follow her.
"Down, sisters, down! Cling close to ground, we'll strike from along the plateau!"
Like falcons, they dropped as one, pulling out scant metres from the ground. They roared through the ornamental gardens at the foot of the plateau, howling with laughter as the coilguns above tore through the lands around them. A petty group of lasgun-armed soldiers were taken by surprise as the Warband raced towards them. Sha'al and her warriors were upon them before they could react, storm bolters screaming. The lucky ones were torn apart by bolter shells, but one was rammed by Skopasis and Sha'al managed to wrap her chain around one poor soul's leg, dragging him with them for half a mile before the limb gave way.
As the flat lands rolled away towards the foot of the plateau, other Warbands joined them, taking advantage of the limited firing arc of the coilguns on the mountainside. Far above them, her genehanced eyes could just make out the silhouettes of other sisters just beginning their assault dives. The warbands moved up the plateau side as close as they had to the lower lands, now coming under fire from a more organised resistance based around the coilgun cannons. A volley of missiles struck true, and swept First-Rider Ghorlis's jetbike from under her, and Sha'al watched her sister be flung forward and upwards, before almost comically succumbing to gravity and arcing into the mountainside.
"Be lucky to survive that," grumbled Skopasis across the vox.
Sha'al grunted in agreement. "A good recruit for the Falling Star, if she's not put in a Sky Rider."
The culprits were obvious: enormous silvery-white war engines precariously balanced on five pointed legs around the base of the coilguns. Missile racks sat upon their squat shoulders, plucking Astartes riders from the sky, as their arm-mounted lascannons lanced spectrums of death against the warriors of the Scourge. In return, the XVII Legion launched Hunter-Killer Missiles of their own, and the Xao Ghor-class jetbikes turned their central lascannons upon the machines.
"Tough bastards, these ones!" roared the Tarchan across the vox. "All First-Riders, get close and melta them. Sunstrike's breaking through! Crowned Kindred!"
"Crowned Kindred!" came the war shout of the Primarch's chosen in response, their efforts renewed.
Sha'al gunned past one of the lower firing platforms, swinging round as tight as she dared until her jetbike's engine whined and squealed in protest. The war machine tried to turn with her, but she had already dropped two melta grenades at its feet before racing off towards the summit once more. Across the cliff face, similar scenes took place—a group of riders from Kallat's Warband managed to entangle the legs of one in chains and dragged it from its position to fall and break against the mountainside, whilst a wounded battle-sister in Tresha's colours collided with one head on, screaming in agonised defiance all the way. Bolter rounds cut down the human warriors, and grenades were hurled into tunnels to mince reinforcements.
They roared up the summit, Sunstrike brought to the fore as the last of the guns was brought down. With a shout of joy, the Demon Queen leapt from the ruined palace onto her prized mount, hurling a half-crushed infantryman to an ignominious death with her other hand as she did. Zhenershpa swept down from the sky to hand the Primarch her fearsome, devil-faced helm.
"Your orders, Primarch?"
The voices of the Tarchans clamoured for the Primarch's attention, until a keening hawk-cry rippled from the Primarch's throat.
"Havoc. Terror. Destruction." Sha'al felt her blood rise once more as the Primarch's voice rang through the vox speakers. The Demon Queen turned in her saddle and pointed to the sky. For a moment, there was nothing, and then a massive shadow devoured the sun, burning as it tore through the atmosphere.
The fleet had brought down the space station.
A bloody, manic grin spread across Sha'al's face. Jiun Xiao's voice once again brought vicious joy to her ears.
"All this and more, my sisters! We ride!"
As one, the Scourge howled, and turned their jetbikes from the falling space station. There was much prey to hunt yet.