The Distant Sun’s orbital bombardment on the ork positions, Barrel, Pan, Embers, and Ash are completed without further complications. During this time, Commander MacCrane finishes organising our counter attack into four groups and the stellar corps depart six hours after the bombardment ceases.

The terrain is impassable for our armoured vehicles as I don’t have anything that can fight in a shallow, growing lake, so we load twelve armoured companies, split equally between armour, artillery, and anti-air onto D-POTs as well as thirty two line companies and four command companies. The cyber mastiff assault company is also along for the ride. The reconnaissance company has already left.

I join up with the cyber mastiff company so I can experience their performance myself and step in to get them out of trouble if it all goes horribly wrong and hopefully hunt another crown too.

I travel from orbit down to Drumbledrone and board a different D-POT with my retinue of twenty kataphrons and six tech-adepts, walking through the hold where most of the cyber mastiffs are. Two heralds sit either side of each pony-sized doggo, all of whom are mag-locked and strapped to the floor. It looks quite uncomfortable to me, but the dogs are calm aside from the occasional whine, pacified by extra scritches or a stern command.

The smell is rather fierce and I order my armour to engage the rebreather.

An hour into our flight I receive reconnaissance footage from a flyby. Barrel is completely slagged, as are Pan and Embers. Ash, however, is missing.

Three of the attack groups set down on Barrel, Pan, and Embers. The groups spread about small islands of steaming, glassy rock, setting up sensors and looking for ways inside the remains of the structures so that they can be properly cleared of ork spawn and spores. The armoured companies push the fragile rock armour with their dozer blades, creating embankments and filling holes with rubble.

Over the next few hours basic fortifications are pushed into place and roads are crushed into place. Little will be found in these places, I think, but that is no reason to be careless and commander MacCrane clearly agrees. Despite our fortifications, training, and equipment our casualties have been quite high, even if the fatalities are low.

Thanks to the implant and prosthetics manufactory on Distant Sun, heralds can be back with their unit within two weeks from even the most crippling of injuries, but those stocks are dwindling fast as no one thought to have a big stockpile ready before a fight and if we take another two percent casualties our units will begin to lose effectiveness. We still have eighty-eight percent of our original numbers and will recover to ninety-five percent without further recruitment, but I still hate losing people.

Chaplain Owen Broin and small team confessors have been working overtime visiting heralds in rehab, or chatting to them while they wait for surgery. They’ve been working wonders in keeping people’s spirits up, letting our hospitallers and tech-priests focus on trauma care and surgery.

While there has been some interest in the imperial cult, word of the clergy’s kindness is inspiring an increase in worship, or at least visits to the auto-temple and small altars around the Distant Sun, as well as the chapel at Drumbledrone.

While I feel like I’m scamming people, seeing the stellar corps take up worship of the Emperor is a great relief as it will protect my crews and I from the eternal vigilance of the inquisition and the grasping paws of the ministorum.

If they’re lucky, it may even save their souls too.

Kind words have done more to convert my personnel than the fear of Tzeench’s avatar managed. ‘The Emperor Protects’ still doesn’t mean much to Marwolv’s populous, but a stranger holding your hand while you’re blind from shrapnel and pain and about to go in for a scary surgery means far more, enough that they’ll at least visit the chapel afterwards to say thank you and find out more about what that person actually does every day.

From there, people form friendships and help groups focused around the chapels, instead of pubs and community centres, and are gradually exposed to imperial faith and culture.

The chapels carefully cultivate a welcoming aura, with workshops, talks, community fairs, meeting halls, and so on pulling people together into a shared space where they feel appreciated and listened to and therefore willing to listen to others in turn. That’s when Chaplain Broin steps in to spread the faith with small anecdotes, stories, and scriptures so that visitors can relate the faith to their own lives, or become enchanted by the tales of great saints.

While Barrel, Pan, and Embers are fortified and excavated, my D-POT remains in the air, waiting for the deployment order as the reconnaissance company and the aeronautica try to find out where Ash has disappeared to.

As the hours tick by with no result my mood starts to sink. Something has gone horribly wrong and I’m cut off from Distant Sun and have no way of finding out what it is.

After seven lethargic hours with nothing but STCs and nine other thought streams to entertain me, I receive an update.

Dôl East Prime has been destroyed.

I curse in the privacy of my sealed helmet and continue with the report. Ash has been located moving into the Monadh Republic, heading for their capital, Ettinsmoor: a sprawling, fortified city of three million people.

We don’t have a picture of Ash yet, only bad scans, so we can’t work out how they got it moving, survived the bombardment, or avoided notice until now. We do know they have a massive anti-grav array as it started pinging like crazy on our sensor network, which is how we found it in the first place.

The orks have eight hundred kilometres to travel before they get there and at the speed they’re going, we have about fifty four hours until they arrive. My second class officers, Daithí Quill and Nadbroicc Geadais have ordered another bombardment and I’m left waiting for the next update to find out how the orks respond.

Thirty minutes later, my D-POT stops circling and heads towards Ettinsmoor and I receive another update: the orks stopped moving when being bombarded. We can’t make macro-shells as fast as we can fire them, so they won’t be held up for long.

Eire sends a request asking to have Distant Sun bombard the orks at random intervals while they travel and bring Erudition’s Howl in to help as combining lance fire might cut through whatever crazy shield their mek boys likely cooked up to resist bombardment.

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I approve of the plan as it will give more time for Commander MacCrane to build fortifications and perform hit and run attacks on the orks. Commander MacCrane doesn’t just want to rely on orbital bombardment either as Two hours later, my D-POT and the rest of its flight sets down and disgorge the dogs, then fly off.

Data builds up in my head as three armoured companies and a command company report in. Four line companies also deploy. Auspex from all units, especially the D-POTs and myself, mesh together and fill in the terrain around me. E-SIM matches everything to orbital scan data and uses it to create my location data, without me requiring an uplink to Distant Sun. Which is ideal, as between the rok colliding with Marwolv and multiple orbital bombardments, there is still far too much dust in the air for a reliable connection.

For our harassing action, MacCrane has set up a point to point relay with loitering D-POTs all the way back to Drumbledrone, which is far enough from the rok impact to have lower interference and has a much stronger vox relay, which is just enough to reach Distant Sun. This should be enough for us to coordinate our efforts but there’s no guarantee we can keep it if the orks launch strikes at the low flying D-POTs.

From the topographic data I realise we are seven hundred kilometres from Ettinsmoor positioned high in the hills, north of a glacial valley. South of me, on the other side, are the three armoured companies, the command company, and two line companies. Even over the rain and lightning, I hear the rumble of thousands of machines approaching.

I receive a call over my vox, “Magos, this is Lieutenant Moredeleg of the seventh stellar corps command company. I have been assigned as your liaison for this upcoming battle.”

I smile, “Congratulations on the promotion, Lieutenant Moredeleg. I am delighted to fight with you once again.”

“Thank you, Magos. You are currently registered as an independent party, outside the chain of command, in the same manner as Operation Sea Mither as well as an attached force for the experimental cyber mastiff assault squad. How would you like to proceed?”

“In my last update I received some battle plans. Has anything changed?”

“The orks haven’t turned up yet, so there will be no change of plans for a few more minutes, Magos.”

I chuckle, “Fair enough. Issengrund out.”

With my retinue surrounding me, I seek out the mastiff company captain, passing hundreds of wet and happy dogs, who are ever so happy to be out off the D-POT. Their simple joy is delightful and I feel absolutely terrible about the approaching carnage.

Following a discrete signal, I find a man in black carapace armour surrounded by twenty nine heralds, chatting about how they’re going to approach the orders they’ve been assigned.

The mastiff assault company is the only company with clear face helms, letting the mastiffs better understand the orders and mood of their handlers. Their captain, Fergal Whelan, is a slim, twenty-eight year old man with a fine jaw and petite nose.

All talk stops as I approach, and I see several arms twitch as they refrain from saluting me.

“Hello, Magos. Ready to stretch your legs?” says Fergal.

“Good evening, Captain Whelan. That sounds wonderful. Just think of me as an observer, I won’t be interfering unless I have to, so please continue with your briefing.”

“Yes, Magos,” Fergal turns back to his officers. “Our only objectives are to delay the orks and get an accurate picture of their forces. As we are highly mobile, the plan is to pick off the ork scouts and outriders, and retreat. I’d rather not get caught, but the chances of that are low as orks always seem to know where a fight is and how many to bring. Rather than take any risks, I want to give ‘em a poke then lead them back to the hills, where the four companies of line infantry will ambush the orks.

“Once we have identified their different groups, their numbers, and the routes they’re taking, we’ll move on to phase two and start setting traps and further ambushes and perform a fighting retreat. We’re working with the aeronautica who will use class one D-POTs to reposition our line companies and help us retreat in good order. They’ll also act as resupply points.

“During this second phase, the mastiff company will be used to hold off the orks if a line company needs assistance to disengage. Any questions?”

A herald raises his hand.

“Go ahead, Captain Reid.”

“What’s our engagement distance and what’s their current speed?”

Fergal nods, “The ork attack group is travelling at approximately fifteen kilometres per hour. The plan is to attack with our special weapon teams only, using lascannons, rocket launchers, and heavy bolters to pick off as many vehicles as we can. They are to fire at five kilometres, then keep going until the orks are within three kilometres, then get out of there. You’ll have three to eight minutes of fire, then four minutes to retreat before the ork weapon counterfire becomes debilitating assuming they don’t accelerate. I wouldn’t count on that though, so four minutes after the first shot is fired, I want everyone to be stowed and already moving.”

A different herald raises his hand.

“Yes, Sergeant O’Rourke?”

“Could we get the dogs to carry the special weapon teams, or attach our guns to their harnesses and save us from repeatedly setting up and tearing down our heavy weapons?”

Fergal crosses his arms and frowns. “That would require six dogs per team. The line infantry have one dog per fifteen man squad, that gives you twenty dogs for your thirty special weapons heralds, per line infantry company. You’d need to borrow forty dogs from me to do that, leaving us with one hundred and sixty dogs for our three hundred men.”

“Ah,” says Sergeant O’Rourke, “you plan to ride them when retreating and fewer dogs means more have to double up.”

“We do,” says Fergal. “It’s a little unconventional, as unlike your logistics dogs, ours are trained to carry and fire their own weapons, or fight in melee. They only have twin lasguns though, and while I’m sure they’ll be needed, that doesn’t match up with the fighting retreat we have planned.”

“Let’s pool our chimera’s and crassus then,” says Captain Reid. “Each line company can normally move a third of our heavy infantry at once, but if all our IFVs work with whichever company is currently on the front line, they can retreat to the next line and the D-POTs can focus on moving heralds to establish new lines and keep our supplies up. There'll be plenty of space for the extra mastiff company heralds and then you won’t have to double up on your dogs and still be able to lend some to the special weapon teams.”

“That would work,” says Fergal. “Can your dogs stay steady with loud guns firing over their heads?”

“Maybe not all of them,” says Captain Reid. “We’ll give that a test. The more skittish ones can carry heralds with rocket launchers as they’re single use so the heralds don’t need to mount the dogs and can retreat in the chimeras.”

“Excellent. Last chance for further questions.”

A new herald holds up her hand.

“Yes, Lieutenant Hogan.”

“How do our two phases fit in with the armoured companies on the hills to the south?”

“They’re doing the same as us,” says Fergal, “but from a much greater range. Our delaying action is supposed to make the orks bunch up, increasing the effectiveness of our artillery. They intend to hop from hill to hill with the D-POTs so that the orks can never catch them and hopefully spend a lot of time trying to do so.”

“Thank you, sir. Always nice to know what I’m risking my life for.”

Fergal chuckles, “Well, there’s always hearth and home. Just be grateful we’re fighting orks or no doubt there would be an information blackout and I wouldn’t have been told.” Fergal turns to me, “Anything to add, Magos.”

“Call me in if you spot anything big. I have a lot of firepower with me. Otherwise I will just observe from the front line.”

“Will you need a lift, Magos?” says Fergal.

“No, I can run. My adepts can hitch on the kataphrons.”

“Understood, Magos.”

The officers break up and return to their companies and I climb to the top of the hill and lie down. Staring through the rain, I try to understand the approaching shapes and examine the networked auspex.

The mastiff company sends out its scouts and they lure back orks to the slaughter and data on the enemy.

Between the data and my own observations, I realise what we are facing. Fear grips me, and for the first time in many years, E-SIM floods my body with combat drugs.

“Well, at least it’s not an attack moon,” I mutter.