How do you besiege a world owned by—self-proclaimed—siege masters?

Bloodily.

But such is our duty. And it would be done, for the Glory of the Imperium, and the Golden Throne.

In terms of actual answers to that question, the first step is to find a location capable of housing an army, just in terms of sheer open landmass. While I am sure the Iron Warriors would have loved to have covered the surface of the world in their namesake or otherwise corrupted everything into total inhospitability, Jaegetri had not yet reached such a point, and we were able to identify and deploy upon an empty, orange, rocky desert about seventy kilometers from any major objective.

Choosing deployment distance—in relation to objectives—is its own problem. Too close, and anti-infantry munitions eat you alive, and we did not possess more men than they possessed bullets. But deploy too far, and artillery or—worse—ballistic missiles will see your entire operation vaporized in the whistle of overhead death. There is a sweetspot, then, where you accept the presence of some lesser artillery being wielded against you so long as you can set up a forward operating hub and get some logistical measures rolling. Yes, people will die in that process. But provided the enemy is unwilling to blow themselves to hell with their own weaponry, the mission—whatever it is—can proceed. And ours did.

None of this really applies if you are an Angel, however. The Astartes—ours and those of the Space Wolves—deployed directly upon their immediate targets, taking heavier fire for it, but eliminating high priority entities almost immediately. There are those Astartes who may question why they do not deploy on the front lines with the common man, and there are certainly those front liners who wonder the same. The answer should be self-evident: they are simply better wielded elsewhere. The purpose of dividing our forces in such a manner was, of course, to force the enemy to respond in as many places as possible; they could not ignore an Astartes insertion, nor could they allow our front lines to push in and take key objectives themselves. As before, a game of resource management, and sadly one Valeran Mortoc appeared to know all too well.

Of course, that demanded our front lines engage the threat of making progress against the foe. Which, in turn, required a leader of some renown to motivate, encourage, and—at times—threaten men into advancing against a horrendous enemy.

Thankfully, this leader was not me.

While I joined the front lines of the Astra Militarum as deployed by Admiral Alejandro Batos, I did not step back into my Commissarial role—though I had considered it. In fact, I almost wanted to. Almost. The thought had occurred to me that I might honor Lord Inquisitor Caliman’s memory by playing the part of a Commissar again. But in any event, I did not have to; the task fell to Commissar Matvii Goryunov, who was, as it turned out, a Vostroyan. It was a breath of fresh air to meet a loyalist Vostroyan, as opposed to the heretic one I had killed on Hestia Majoris some years ago. Loyalist, and competent, praise the Throne! Any ill will I may have harbored for Vostroya—which was not much; I had not then made an enemy of the world for the actions of the man and I never held much of a grudge since—was easily dashed in my first meeting with Goryunov. We met only briefly, but it was enough of a first impression to assuage any worries I may have had about the larger operation or his role in it. He did not know or learn much about me, then, other than that I was an Inquisitor—more to the point, he did not learn of my actions on Hestia Majoris. I wondered if he would have known about Sigird, or would have cared—positively or negatively—that I had killed a high-born of his world.

Like the Sororitas that trailed behind me in the trenches and mire that was the forward operating base of our assault, Goryunov did question my need to be present on the front lines. I am sure he was worried about the psychological effect an Inquisitor’s presence would have on his men—I would have been so-concerned, likewise, were I in his boots. And more than that, it was far from safe for me to be here. He made that very clear, though the hammering of artillery shells and the slicing of lasfire overhead made it obvious enough as it was. Even so, there was a pragmatic side to Goryunov’s concern as well, that reminded him that I was here now, and extraorbital extraction was unlikely in the middle of an active warzone. He and I could only move forward with my presence, and he was in no position to criticize or chastise an Inquisitor.

Instead, I was a headache he would have to put up with. While not common, an Inquisitor’s presence was a headache many Commissars had needed to endure in active duty, myself included—though that was, by now, a bygone era. It was amusing, to say the least, to be that headache for a change.

***

Progress in the battle was slow, though for their part, I must make note that the front I was on was only intended to maintain our logistical hub of operations. This front was not one of conquest, even if it was still met with similar and constant opposition. In that regard, the elimination of that opposition was slow. I somewhat expected that, as the Iron Warriors—while great aggressors and while certainly not the defenders that their most-loathed loyalist counterparts were—were undeniably experts in the notion of siege warfare.

I spent my first night on Jaegetri in a command tent, but spent subsequent evenings in the trenches. Goryunov ever reminded me of the inherent danger therein, and his concerns were drowned out by those of Lucene, and both of them were right to voice those concerns (which was the most frustrating part), but, frankly, I found some small comfort in the servitor-dug hallways through the muddied ground. I had lived my life in this, once. It almost felt like home.

Almost.

The thought of ‘home’ made me wonder how I would feel were I on Pyrras-3 again. I had not seen the world in some centuries; would I even recognize it? Would I want to be there, were I ever to return? Whimsical thoughts for an Inquisitor to contemplate when he was not in a warzone. As it was, I returned to studying surveys of the planet as provided to me by an auspex tablet in my hands. The readings themselves were provided by the Augur Assault Scanners of the Coldbreed far above, and in turn that served as a good reminder that my fellows aboard were still safe; or, as safe as one could be while orbiting a hostile world and staring down bloodthirsty, savage Wolves, anyway.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

In any event, I saw, on the auspex, that Galen was making good headway against the Iron Warriors’ strongholds. One may have expected this from a Knight, but in comparison to his earlier advances on lesser worlds, his progress on Jaegetri seemed as a crawl. It was progress, but it was hard to tell if he was slowing our opponents down more than they were inhibiting his advance. Meanwhile, our deep strike teams—being the Red Hunters—were meeting what seemed to be the heaviest opposition, but that was also highly anticipated and somewhat by design. Our surgical strike teams—being the Tempestus Scions under Silas and Luther (Harakoni being Scions themselves)—were quickly and quietly eliminating what they could, but quietude was not long for any inch of this world. They would soon find themselves locked down in an engagement of their own.

After contemplating the battles Silas and Luther were likely soon to face, I spoke, loudly, “Are you going to stand there and gawk all day or do you have something to say?” I had been sitting on some munitions boxes—empty; I had no inclination to stand in the way of the Guard’s duty—on my own for a time, while my Sisters provided assistance and operational support to the logistics within the trenches. Lucene kept herself nearby, of course, but even she left me to my devices while I read the auspex reports. I was alone for some while, until eventually a Guardsman stepped by my position. It would have been wrong to say they stepped up to me; they stood perhaps five meters away, eyeing me with some curiosity and, as I found at the edge of their mind, some contempt.

“I…uh…apologies, Inquisitor. No, it wouldn’t be right for me to say,” the Guardsman admitted, sheepishly, and then tried to find it within herself to step away. But she could not. Curiosity, and remaining contempt, kept her still. Without probing deeper into her mind, it was impossible for me to tell where she was from, and I had not asked—for lack of interest—which regiment(s) served Goryunov; they were not necessarily, and did not appear, Vostroyan as he was. But this woman was as nondescript as could be; fair of skin—though of a deeper hue than the pale Pyrran of my own—brown of hair, and blue of eyes. The rest was covered by the usual garments and equipment of the Militarum, and she bore a lasrifle on her back, the strap reaching over and around her right shoulder, which she gripped with white-knuckled tightness, likely from the stress of standing before an Inquisitor.

“If it wouldn’t be right for you to say, why are you thinking it?” I asked, and at last looked up from my auspex tablet, meeting her eyes with my own, singular. She said nothing, but I felt her thoughts jumble into a mess. Still, the contempt remained. Why was this Inquisitor here, and doing nothing to help us at that? was the unspoken question. I had known some of my ilk that would have gladly shot a Guardsman—or condemned a squad to death likewise—were they to be made privy of such a thought. Was it fear, then, that kept this Guardsman’s tongue? Or was it respect? I sensed, admittedly, the latter. But were it either, my approach would have been the same: I reached for the Boltpistol holstered on my backside, not unlike the one Goryunov owned and wielded, and tossed it between myself and the Guardsman, where it hit the ground with a low thud. “Go on then. Speak your mind. I’ve heard the thought already anyway.”

The cruel joke, whether she realized it or not, was that I had not disarmed myself. I could just as easily wield the Boltpistol with my psykana, and the weapon had landed at such an orientation as to be aimed at her already. My mind needed only pull the trigger.

“Your Sisters help us, Inquisitor, but only in the auxiliary sense. There is a battle being fought here. There are people dying here. With all the mountainous respect you are due, Inquisitor, why are you and they not fighting it?” she managed to ask me.

“What is your name?”

“Alex Cortino, sir,” she reported at once. Her name grounded her, settled her thoughts.

“It’s a fair question, Alex, and one I have asked of myself countless times in the months and years prior,” I admitted. That seemed to put her at ease. Indeed, she was ignorant of the Bolt weapon still aimed at her. “I have lost…many…of my own to get here. Too many. Do you know why we are here, Alex Cortino? What we fight for?”

“We fight for the Emperor, sir. It is not my need to know the why,” she declared, adamant, and shook her head.

“Not your need?” I asked, scoffing a laugh. “Your blood may yet meet the mud and grime of this world, Alex. Is that a price you are willing to meet, for a cause you do not understand in full?”

“Yes, sir,” she confirmed, stalwart and loyal.

That earned another grunt of a laugh from me. “Like drones of a hive,” I muttered to myself, though the possibility existed that she had heard me. “You wish to see me fight, Alex? Rest assured, my battle looms yet. The best advice I can give you is not to be there when it arrives,” I told her. “You fight for the Emperor, as do I. We may bleed at different times, but our blood, when spilled, will be for the same cause, Throne willing.”

Her contempt had, at last, begun to diminish. But the curiosity had not, though it had changed in form. She had a mind, it seemed, for history. “Inquisitor, I have no right to ask—”

“—and yet you will, I gather—” I muttered.

“—but your eye, your arm; lost in battle?”

I paused in a moment of reflection, then nodded. “The eye was lost on a battlefield not unlike this one, though it was more of my own making. And its loss, indeed, perhaps my own doing,” I explained.

“And your arm?”

I paused again, sighed, then shook my head. Alas, an Inquisitor could not be an entity one could ‘capture,’ as I had been. We could not be tortured, we could not be beaten. In the eyes of the common servants of the Imperium, we needed to be invincible, or something close. “Surely you have some duties you need return to, Alex Cortino,” I invited her, and then demonstrated the lethality yet between us by willing my Boltpistol back into my grasp, its barrel pointed at her until she came to realize the depth of the danger she was still in before me. Only at that realization did I turn the weapon away from her, as evidence of her life having been spared, for the time being.

“O-of course, Inquisitor. My apologies for bothering you,” she insisted, and, unsure whether she should bow, make the Sign of the Aquila, or salute me, she haphazardly attempted all three, and for lack of arms, butchered the Aquila and the salute alike, but managed the bow. Good enough, I suppose.

“May the Emperor protect you and your squadmates, Alex Cortino. And may you live, serve, and die with honor and in glory,” I wished to her.

“Thank you, Inquisitor, and may the Emperor protect you and yours as well,” she returned, and then turned to leave, but looked back and acknowledged, “I never got your name.”

“And you won’t,” I replied, and then picked my auspex tablet up again and returned to reading its reports. Alex Cortino, rebuffed but unwilling to test her luck—a wise decision—chose, then, to leave me to my devices once more, and return to the fight as she was needed. I found myself, again, alone, listening to the searing of lasfire, the whizzing of enemy artillery, and the thundering bellows of ours. It was a concert of war that I thought myself quite familiar with, and so, for a time, I let it inhabit the background of my thoughts.

That proved a grave error, as it left me neglectful of the artillery that landed—and dutifully exploded—a short distance behind me, blasting me from my seat and out from my consciousness. The final, dwindling reaches of my mind found my position, and the area surrounding it, peppered with artillery, and while my mental imagery abated at that point, the sounds remained. Sounds of the low, thudding approach of men larger than men, armored like tanks.