Frontlines
By author Redcoat777
Simeon Greft is just a simple Remembrancer, his speciality being in the field of Frontline Scribing. That was to say he writes reports from the frontline for consumption by the Compliant worlds. Shifting in his carapace armour, Simeon moves aside to let some Imperial Army troopers pass by as he makes a few edits to his pre-combat report on his notepad. It is a novel method, pen and paper, archaic yet wonderfully simple. His eyes glance up from the pad, and down and over at the line of kneeling Astartes that wait in preparation for the battle, staring ahead and wrapped in camo-cloaks. Some watch him for a moment, before turning and holding silent.
This world is a mere Mining World of their enemy; Simeon does not even know its true name, only its designation under Thunder Warrior targeting briefs. He will have time after the campaign to make the necessary enquiries. He has heard that the Imperial Army troopers call it the Ashpit, though he is not sure whether that refers to the planet or simply their section of the line. There certainly were a number of pleasant vermillion grass plains they passed by on the road to the front. Still, here they are in the shadow of an active volcano, brought in through stealth to preserve the element of surprise for this section of the line. They are hoping that such is the case, though they are prepared if it is not. The enemy are predominantly human, Simeon was surprised to learn. Most human polities choose to join the Imperium peacefully either in thanks or in fear, most being perhaps a little over half.
This human exclave, however, which calls itself the Purozeyan Ascendancy, consorts not with xenos as is the crime of a number of conquered worlds, but in despicable hybridity with Abominable Intelligences. This crime is perhaps the second-most common crime of non-Compliance among human civilisations being brought back into the fold through the Great Crusade. It is a world where the two live in tandem, despite the horrors Abominable Intelligences are renowned for, and even conjoin in sick unions according to the reports of the emissaries. The Ascendancy is hostile to xenos at the very least, so they are to be spared from full destruction. Either or can be tolerated by the Thunder Warriors, but never both. As such, forceful Compliance swiftly became the only option. The diplomats traded increasingly heated words, begging, pleading, requesting, demanding, threatening that the humans should see the error of their ways and redeem themselves by shedding the corruptions of the thinking machine.
Typically the Mechanicum would be dispatched to bring such worlds to heel. They hold sway in such matters, taking the worlds with arcane technological warcraft, exorcising the digital spirits from all spheres of existence and learning the remaining humans in the truth of Mars. As it was, the Thunder Warriors were closer, and it was necessary that they were called here. The foe is said to be terrifying to face. Luckily they are not quite capable of deploying nano-swarms en masse, it seems. If such were the case, the area would have been quarantined until Mechanicum arrival. No, the enemy armada is a mix of singular robotic units, cyborg elements and human deployments. They seem to lack nano-swarm deployment capabilities, at least beyond holding them in reserve for the defence of their main population centres.
A sensible strategy, for nano-swarms were notoriously fickle, capable of generating a hive-mind intelligence that leads them to outstrip programming restraints and turn on their masters with the intention of constant expansion. Simeon would not call himself an expert on such matters, though he has always felt it is better to be able to report with an air of authority about frontline details. It makes for better reading in his opinion. Certainly, the Space Marine censors seem to approve of his reports, with hardly ever a comment to amend anything.
Letting out a small sigh and scratching his chin, Simeon recalls his arrival at the Thunder Warriors fleet all those years ago. He was met by a senior Remembrancer, and at the mixer, he was regaled with how the Thunder Warriors operate in regards to them.
"You will find that the Thunder Warriors, for all their storied glories that we bedeck them in, care nothing for anything beyond war. There are no feasts, no music halls, nothing, but constant drilling and lectures. They are utterly dutiful, and rather dull. They are serious fellows, which may bode well for you as a frontline reporter, but for our few bards in this fleet, they are devoid of inspiration."
As for Simeon, he finds the company of the Thunder Warriors calming. They are serious, always on time with any appointments, and they are not unkind. Certainly, he knows that the Thunder Warriors are not one of the more requested appointments, but they certainly are not one that was looked on with disdain or despair by Remembrancers either. Perhaps not embodying the noble virtues of the Bringers of Light or the humanity of the Adamantium Coalescence, but neither do they go in for the cruelties of the Scourge or the moroseness of the Dread Wardens. Goodness only knows what—
"Enemy approaching!"
Simeon's musings are interrupted by the shout from a sentry, his hands quickly shunting his pad and pen into a pocket, and breaking out his pict-caster. Turning, Simeon leans into the walls of the trench and uses his pocket telescope to gain a closer look at the enemy through a small peep-hole he has been granted. The forces of the Purozeyan Ascendancy are upon first sight seemingly a haze in the distance, before the dust and ash clears a little and reveal themselves to Simeon. Infantry, some faceless, others not, advancing speedily in skirmish formation, with some line infantry behind them from the looks of it. Is this their elite or not? Ducking back down the trench, Simeon leans back into the wall, and finds a few of the Thunder Warriors looking at him, idly, almost expectantly. So, moving his hands, Simeon signs what he has seen as best as he can in Astartes Battle-Signage.
Skirmish line oncoming. Infantry behind. Unclear on combat abilities.
The Thunder Warriors nod, moving to click off the safeties of their bolters, the whole line of them shifting a little as they begin signing orders to each other. Down the line autoguns and autocannons began ringing out and Simeon turns and glances through his peep-hole at the volcanic plain, straining to see through the ash kicked up by falling bullets, bodies and boots. War is always a chaotic thing, Simeon finds, even with Astartes and their transhuman minds. The outcome on the ground is never elegant, no matter how smooth the arrows on the maps in the command centres.
The Purozeyan infantry begin their reply now, their weapons barking out. Simeon has been allowed to see a few captured specimens, thankfully deactivated and deconstructed so as to ensure no potential cyber-infections could pass through the Imperial systems. They use digital weaponry for the most part, allowing the android and robotic forces to mesh with the weapons and utilise them more effectively. Very few of their soldiers, as far as Simeon can tell, are wholly organic; most are cyborgs in some form or other. Behind him, Simeon turns and sees a shifting of movement. The Thunder Warriors are preparing to move. Dropping into the wall and scrambling for his pict-caster, Simeon manages to bring the pict-caster into focus just in time for the counterattack.
"Company will advance! For the Emperor!"
The colour sergeant roars the command and call over the vox, his vox silence breaking like ice before a sledgehammer. The Thunder Warriors are a blur of motion. Simeon presses into the trench wall as the Astartes surmount the ramparts with terrifying speed, their weapons roaring out, voices crying harsh and high with bloodlust as they surge forwards. He manages to turn, and sees the Purozeyan soldiers' composure and unity flicker at the sudden and unexpected counterattack. Their cogitators attempt to calculate advanced firing trajectories. They were processing human speeds, and now they must compensate for transhuman speeds. But by then it is too late; the Thunder Warriors are in amongst the first line.
Simeon takes pict-casts as best he can, his pict-caster clicking and clacking as his hands work feverishly to try and capture the atmosphere of the combat. Whistles ring out shrilly down the line as bayonets are fixed and the Imperial Army troopers clamber up the ladders with childlike clumsiness in comparison to the Astartes before them. Over their heads comes a wing of screaming gunships, the digital haze that the Ascendancy wears as a confident cloak dispersing as the Thunder Warriors' electronic countermeasures kick in and begin to force back the Ascendancy on their own turf. The Thunder Warriors have levelled the playing field, and this is all they need paradoxically to swing it fully in their favour now. They are made for war, they have waged it unceasingly across the centuries, and all of this experience and sheer bloody-minded purpose are brought to bear on a single foe.
The all-clear rings out a few minutes later, but by then Simeon is already clambering out of the trench, to study the battlefield and wonder just how he will write up such a short fight. How can he write it? It is much the same as any Thunder Warrior campaign: an aggressive and fast-paced battle where the Firstborn seize the offensive spirit as soon as they can and push hard until the enemy breaks. His boots crunch over the volcanic plain, ash and dust kicked up his wake as Simeon studies the faces of the fallen. The Purozeyan bodies are strewn across the scene, twisted and broken beyond repair.
Kneeling in that scene, Simeon raises his pict-caster, focuses and takes a picture. A soldier's face, lying unblinking up towards the sky, jaw unhinged by a chainsword, the ground pooled with saliva, blood and silica. He cannot imagine why anyone would wish to change themselves so drastically, to become more machine than human. Finally, as he stands finished with his pictures, Simeon's head turns to note the approach of an Imperial Army spearhead, a column of Chimera armoured personnel carriers and battle tanks. A Chimera pulls aside, stops near him, a hatch opening, an Imperial Army soldier waving for him to get in. Simeon nods, slings his pict-caster over his shoulder and jumps into the hatch. The door is shut behind him. Taking a seat, and a proffered flask of water, with thanks, Simeon glances out of the thin viewport the door offers.
Clouds are gathering. A volcano has erupted in the distance. The sun is setting. But the orange glare given off by the eruption makes it seem as if there is a sunrise and sunset. Valkyries thrum overhead, leaving thin vapour trails that grow and grow until the flight of a hundred of them has left a hazy band in the skies over their heads. The Chimera's engine roars and with a lurch, they are off, crunching over the volcanic plains with a bouncing gait. Looking down into his pict-caster, Simeon looks into the opened eyes of the dead Purozeyan soldier, then back out at the world the soldier had died to defend. It is nothing special, a simple world, a Mining World, a world whose name he does not know, and yet, here he is, light-years from home, reporting a single skirmish in a campaign that will be a single-volumed novel in the history of an incomprehensibly large conflict. The Great Crusade marches on, ever on, and leaning back into the cold metal bench, Simeon puts that out of his mind, and simply closes his eyes. Best not to linger on the past. The frontlines are ever moving forwards. All that he can do is make his reports and keep up as best he can.