IX: One Purpose
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Between them, projected from a finely carved table of wroshyr wood, displayed in miniature, centered around the edifice of the Great Temple, was the entire Massassi Site. One of Lowbacca's cousins was a celebrated woodcrafter and the table had been a gift honoring the Wookiee's achieving knighthood. Of course, despite the beautiful finish and cunning, fastener-free construction, the table had seen its fair share of use. There was still a discolored, darkened stain from a time Lowie had brought a swoopbike's engine up to work on with Jaina.
The hologram spread across most of the table, emitters hidden in the polished surface. Tiny ribbons of rivers and creeks, in pale blue, wend and wove through the jungle, around temples and obelisks and monument plazas, overgrown and ancient. There was the Palace of the Woolamander, there was the Temple of the Blueleaf Cluster. Then further temples, many with no official name, tumbled down or decapitated, still buried in vegetation. All over the plateau of the Ersham Ridge hid plenty of as-yet undelved and unmapped ruins. Naga Sadow and Exar Kun were industrious in their time.
Tahiri, smiling, continued to point out one single ruin, nearly covered over by Massassi trees and half-consumed by some ancient landslip from a nearby cliff. Over fifty kilometers away, it was toward the edge of the Site as defined by subsurface scans conducted back in 11 ABY.
"Tahiri, what were you doing that far away?"
"Training."
"Training." Anakin echoed.
She tossed a curl of blonde hair over her shoulder.
"Why not? Kam Solusar even knew where I was and I had a comlink. Really, Anakin, it was a lot more responsible than when we went off on our adventures."
Anakin wanted to argue; couldn't. Flashbacks of stern talking-tos from his Uncle, from Tionne, from Kam, from Master Katarn, from Master Ikrit, from-he cleared his throat.
"So, what happened?"
Sannah perked up from where she was reclining on the sofa, knees hooked over the arm as she kicked her heels, hair splayed out like a halo around her head.
"Oh, finally. Tahiri wouldn't tell me, I'm dying here."
They'd commandeered one of the common rooms in the Temple, filled with comfortable sofas; soft, shapeless squish-chairs and a few repulsor-lounges. Usually, the holotable was used for dejarik or pazaak, other games and entertainment for the trainees, but Tionne encouraged the students to use it to review lessons or even recordings from Holocrons. Little touches made the common room as homely as Anakin remembered. A few misshapen clay pitches and pots, painted roughly on end-tables. An enormous, framed painting of the Great Temple in the morning, found and purchased by Mirax Terrik. A few holocubes of local creatures or snapshots of Jedi training, meditating, just living their lives.
Not all of the faces smiling out of the holos were counted among the living.
"I went exploring, of course. I borrowed one of the speederbikes from the garage - Master Solusar gave me the key, of course - and I was just going to practice my flying."
She was decent enough, that was a true, Anakin thought. Usually, she just relied on him when they needed to go anywhere, letting him take a landspeeder out of the garage and, well, Anakin hadn't been around in months. Of course she would want to brush up those skills.
"Okay, that makes sense."
"Duh," Tahiri idly added, continuing with her tale. From the Praxeum, she'd done a simple loop. The speederbike she took out was no SoroSuub racer, just a plucky little scooter, so after an hour or so of doing laps, she'd decided to go out into rougher terrain. More of a challenge of both piloting skill and the Force, as trees, bushes and thick vine coverage made the jungle more and more treacherous the farther you got from the Great Temple. That was when Tahiri remembered looking at the map with Sannah days before, talking about exploring, and decided to go check out one of the farthest temples.
"I'm not really sure why," she admitted. "I just kind of wanted to."
She actually passed by it twice before she realized her mistake - it was so buried after millenia of abandonment that bushes and trees grew right over top of it. Only if she looked carefully did Tahiri finally spot the ancient Massassi stone peeking out from between fronds and ferns. She'd parked her 'bike and gone on foot, not sensing anything more dangerous than a crystal-snake.
"I think it was sleeping or something."
Sannah rolled her eyes.
"Angry ancestors, Tahiri, this isn't some play. What was it!"
"I was getting to that!"
"Get there faster!"
What 'it' was, Tahiri described, was some kind of enormous flying, well, monster. When she'd gotten closer to the old temple, close enough to run her fingers over the algae-stained stones, the ground itself rumbled and if the Force had been quiet about threat before, now it shouted in her ear. The thing that burst out of the ruin, throwing ancient stones around like toys was the size of a speedertruck, maybe even bigger. A huge head with a giant, round mouth, a delta shaped body with a wingspan that darkened the jungle.
"I mean, it's not the first time we annoyed something in its territory, so I knew I should just get going and maybe it would calm down."
The Krayt dragon they ran into as kids did not, in fact, calm down, but Jacen would've agreed with Tahiri's decision so Anakin wasn't going to argue.
"I think it was sleepy or something, because while it seemed really angry - real angry - I could kind of feel it in the Force and it seemed more confused and tired than anything else. Still tried to eat me, so, points off for that."
"Huh," Anakin exhaled, pacing back and forth. "What else did it look like? That doesn't sound anything like stuff from our lessons."
"It had tentacles, like, a lot of them. It tried to grab me with them and grab the 'bike, but like I said, it was clumsy and tired so it mostly grabbed some trees. And kind of yanked them down too, which was, wow, that was a little scary."
Sannah shrugged.
"Doesn't sound like anything on Yavin 8 either."
Some kind of giant creature, slumbering away in a forgotten Sith Temple, immediately hostile, didn't sound similar to any other life on Yavin 4…
Tahiri raised and eyebrow as Anakin met her eyes. Green and blue held understanding, each knowing exactly what the other was thinking.
"Probably sithspawn," Anakin sighed, Tahiri echoing the words. The blonde grinned, toothy and wide.
"Back on the same wavelength!" She aimed finger-blasters at him and Sannah giggled. "So we're gonna go kill this thing, right?"
Sucking a deep breath, exhaling it, setting his shoulders, Anakin pulled on the guise he'd been wearing for some time now. Tahiri felt it and her cheer evaporated.
"Oh come on-"
"This sounds dangerous, so I think we'd better just go to my Uncle-"
"What made you so boring, oh my-"
"-and tell him we're going to go check it out."
His father's grin shone out from Anakin's face, and he aimed finger-blasters right back at Tahiri. Sannah pounced on the other girl's back, wrapping skinny legs and arms around her.
"And I'm coming too!"
Tahiri oofed and staggered.
"Corellian hells Sannah, you are seriously too big for that-"
Anakin shrugged.
"Sure."
Two girls stared at him like he'd gone insane.
"Oh no, Sannah. Anakin's gone mad. Centerpoint broke his mind."
"He's not telling us it's too dangerous?"
He could've killed a billion vong the other day. He had killed hundreds. He was sixteen and he'd watched friends die. He'd watched a beloved Uncle burn for him. Anakin stuck his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit.
"Sure it is. Sannah, you grew up on a world where giant snakes and spiders hunted you. Tahiri, we were fighting Sith magic before we hit double digits. The universe is dangerous. I guess…we might as well face it head on."
They told Uncle Luke. Surprisingly, his Uncle just looked at the three of them, the lightsabers on Anakin and Tahiri's belt, at the diminutive Melodie girl. The Jedi's expression was impassive, but Anakin felt his regard in the Force. Assessing, gently brushing over the three of them, touching over their focus. Whatever his Uncle was looking for, he must have found it.
"If you think you can handle it," Master Skywalker said.
Anakin looked to his two friends. In Tahiri's bright green eyes there was brimming excitement, but he felt the iron-core behind it: serious and solid. Sannah bounced from foot to foot, the thirteen year old nearly vibrating with excitement to go on a bonafide Anakin & Tahiri Adventure, but beneath her buoyant cheer Anakin felt the same steady roots.
That was what he'd realized, at Centerpoint. Jacen begging him, Ebrihim scared witless, Thrackan shouting and demanding. Everyone looking at him like a kid. Jacen still thinking he, himself, was a kid. Anakin had been believing it so hard too that he'd tricked himself for a while.
He smiled at his uncle and nodded.
None of them were kids. They never had been. The galaxy hadn't been kind enough to allow it. It was time to stop pretending. Shutting down Centerpoint had been the first act of stripping away that lie. Instead of waiting for the adults to tell him what to do, instead of pretending to be a child, Anakin accepted what he was. A warrior, a Jedi - a killer. It was like Centerpoint understood what he wanted, before he even reached for the mental levers. The station started shutting down before Anakin could visualize the controls. A Jedi Knight wouldn't pass the decision off. A Jedi Knight would bear the responsibility so that others didn't have to.
Sannah ran off, Tahiri chasing after her, bare feet flying, and Anakin gave his uncle an apologetic smile, then sprinted after them in turn.
Maybe they'd never been kids. Lighter than he'd felt in months, Anakin followed the sounds of laughter down the halls and turbolifts of the Temple, toward the garage. But that didn't also mean they couldn't find some kind of happiness.
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Beyond broad crystalflex panels, ten meters in height and so polished as to appear nigh-on invisible, the clear shapes of five Suzerain stood as still as carven stone, one fist clamped about the hilt of sheathed gladius, the other hovering over bulky, stub-snouted volkite serpentas holstered at their other hip. They rotated every four hours exactly and until their replacements stood precisely before them, not one would budge even an inch.
Drakus Gorod was nothing if not fastidious. The Master of the Invictarii Suzerain could not always hide how he glanced at the white-roped scar about Guilliman's neck, courtesy of the bastard Kor Phaeron. A personal insult, Gorod considered it, though it had been no fault but his own, the Primarch considered.
Roboute Guilliman returned his attention and gaze to another of his sons, rendered in azure and flickering form, tracked occasionally by lines of degaussing interference. Sannad Optarch, Brevet Lieutenant, appeared from the waist up with his plumed helm tucked smartly beneath one arm. Bareheaded, the blond Astartes wore his curly hair short to the scalp, just long enough to begin the trademark tight ringlets of his western Traccian heritage.
Ever since Calth, Guilliman had endeavored to learn more about each and every one of his sons. There were none whose name he did not know, but they were more than that, more than just their service. Now he knew the heritage of each, from which world they hailed, the time of their ascension. He had heard his brother Sanguinius knew each of his own sons as closely and intimately as a mortal father and he believed it utterly. The Angel had a gift for personability and the charisma to make it simplicity itself.
'Continue, Lieutenant,' Guilliman said, still idly marveling at the true technological wonder before him. Treated like nothing more special than a simple vox, the holonet of this Galaxy he considered to be an unmatched wonder. His Father had dreams and goals beyond the comprehension of even his Primarch sons, but Guilliman wondered if the Emperor had ever dared imagine the possibility of such a comprehensive network of real-time communication.
Not for the first time did he reflect on his years in the Crusade and the immeasurable boon that instantaneous, trans-galactic vox could be. Many Crusade Fleets might have been saved, many worlds spared retributive devastation by rogue xenos powers, countless orkish hordes headed off in their infancy.
Alongside his planning of the extant city of Eboracum Civitas and the planned ones of Eboracum Secundus and Nova Numinus, Guilliman already worked to codify principles of warfare under the practicalities that this Galaxy offered. Their hyperdrives, their holonet, their shields, their differing but universal weapon systems. He also had notations on the implementation of such within the Five Hundred Worlds.
An idle dream, for now, but he daresay it was a balm.
'The Vong armada has not moved from the position they retreated to. They appear content to allow events upon the surface to dictate the fate of Fondor.'
'A fate which you have bound the 4711th to.'
Optarch dipped his head.
'Just so, sire. Time was of the essence and I acted, I believe, on a well-informed practical.'
'Continue, Lieutenant.'
'The practical is that Fondor, while wounded; crippled, perhaps, still remains a critical junction into the so-called 'Core'. Even should we assume the manufactorums of the surface are in some way entirely lost, the placement of this world alone ensures that even a burnt cinder is still of prime strategic importance.'
'I would concur.'
Optarch ever so subtly swelled with clear pride.
'That does not, however, fully explain deploying your demicompany alongside the Iax Tertius and Eboracum Auxilia.'
'Allow me to continue, my lord.'
Guilliman gently waved one outsized hand.
'My consideration is twofold. In the first, the void battle for Fondor was our achievement. Without Regil's squadron, the Republican Fifth fleet battle group would likely have been slaughtered to the last. The admiral reckons the Republicans served to divert attention away from our own warships as well as providing valuable additional weight of fire, but it was our influence that was the clear deciding factor. I believe this will not be the case upon the surface.'
Guilliman suspected the angle of the Lieutenant's scheme, but allowed him to describe it instead.
'In taking action upon the surface, though the Guildmistress has named me as theatre command, the 4711th may prove a role as an able partner, rather than an overwhelming superior. We have saved them in orbit, now by fighting together on the surface, the Republicans might borrow a little gloss from our reputation.'
'And thusly be doubly indebted. I applaud the practical, Sannad. We'll make a politician of you yet.'
'As you say, sire.'
Guilliman recognized his dreams of an enlightened empire with Astartes as philosopher-kings was not entirely anticipated by his more warlike sons, yet there was still time enough for minds to change.
'The second?'
'Much like Obroa-skai and my own boarding operation. Iax Tertius is the best of our reformed regiments. The Auxilia are untested. Bonds formed in training may be strong, but they require the crucible of war to become forged.'
'A simple practical, but inarguable.'
'A third thought occurred to me as well, sire. I have not spoken it aloud among the Republicans, but I am comfortable in voicing it to you. I believe Fondor is a valuable training ground for what is sure to come: an invasion of the Republican capital, Coruscant. It lacks the depth of the world-city, but Fondor bears many similarities in its ecumenopoli and urban strata.'
The vulnerability of the ecumenopolis world had not passed Guilliman by. Indeed, in downtime, he had examined several theoretical invasion scenarios. The Yuuzhan Vong could not bypass the capital nor ignore it, and not merely for military concerns. Coruscant was, as Guilliman had read, just as much a potent symbol of civilization itself as it was the functioning - a term he decided on only after much deliberation - heart of the government itself. The Vong were anxiously waging a war of cultural annihilation and to tear down the millenia-old symbol of Coruscant was something only a fool would overlook.
What drew his brow together in a frown was not that Optarch was correct, but the implication therein.
Of his idle play at besieging the capital, he had only ever selected the armies of the Republic and the Vong. Not once had he sown the 4711th into the scenario. Should the invaders reach the Republican capital, all his theoreticals pointed toward an utter collapse of the galactic nation. It would explode at the seams. The fleets would scatter, the self-serving politicians would run and hide upon their homeworlds. It would be the end, in his mind, of any organized, centralized resistance.
Thus, he had never considered spending the lives and materiel of the 4711th on what would be not a turning point of this war, but rather the capstone. The blood exclamation point that ended it. Coruscant besieged, Guilliman calculated, was the endgame.
Yet here his son spoke on it as if he thought it inevitable and potentially winnable.
'Should the war reach Coruscant, the 4711th will not stand there. I find your former reasoning well-argued, however, and I will approve continued action on Fondor. Be warned, Lieutenant. The 4711th stands at high alert. There have been whispers of contacts within the outer system. Until we are certain what they portend, I cannot send reinforcements.'
'Heard and understood, my lord.' Optarch saluted, thumbs interlinked. Roboute inclined his head, reaching out and cutting connection with the stroke of a single rune. The holotank cleared, returning to an idle, gently breathing aura of indigo.
Guilliman felt poised atop a knife. Review of documents and data recovered from Obroa-skai was ongoing, but the prognosis was poor. While rife with trivia, not a single entry had done more than briefly elicit attention before being discarded. Over and over, no sign of the immaterial appeared. Phenomena was explicable within material means. That, or by hyperspacial definition. So-called hyperspace 'wormholes' were uncommon, even rare, but not unheard of. They were also clearly not of Empyrean origin.
His relaxation, then rescinding of the Edict of Nikaea never left his thoughts. It had been prudent, logical even, to enact. Only nine of the Librarius were counted among the survivors of the 4711th and of them, only Codicier Rubio was of more elevated rank and experience. After Calth, in his blackest moods, Roboute feared the Edict had been a manipulation all along to deprive the Legiones of the weapon most potent against Lorgar's byblow allies. In consultation with Codicier Rubio, the psyker-warrior confirmed Guilliman's suspicions. With latitude to act, the psykana of the Librarius may not have been enough to counter the workings of the clearly far more experienced Word Bearers, but may have blunted or deflected many attacks.
The trick played by his bastard brother that cost the lives of the entire command bridge and almost his own - might have been detected before it was too late. Doubt was not something Guilliman countenanced, but its bitter teeth worried at the edges of his plans.
How could his own Father be deceived by trickery? There had to be a logic to the Edict, and indeed there had been. Roboute had no great argument when it had been passed down. If it had been a ploy by Lorgar and, if Guilliman dared believe, Horus, then he had to accept that the Emperor was not just fallible, but that he was manipulable.
Roboute was not sure which was worse. The former was understandable. As his Father would have taught, no mortal was perfect and faultless. If the Emperor was fallible in his vision, it would be a grave danger in its potential to tremble the foundations of faith in the Imperial Truth - an ironic turn of phrase. Guilliman could weather this; he never truly expected the Emperor to be faultless. Indeed, he had opinions on some ways his Father ran the Imperium, though it was never his place to comment.
But the latter - to be manipulable. The Emperor portrayed himself as above all such earthly concerns. No god in human form, but rather man made whole. A man who had no desires, and thus could not be tempted. A man with only one allegiance - the truth - so that he could not be swayed. A man with no attachments, so he could not be threatened. Some of his other brothers, those that Guilliman pitied by degrees, had fraught relationships with their Father. Guilliman was content in his. His Father's genius was unmatched, his wisdom immense, and he was willing to impart it. That was enough.
The Emperor could never be a true Father and Guilliman understood this all too well now. He had thought to model himself after the Emperor and knew his realm of Ultramar was an expression. The office of Emperor held no appeal, but the idea of a builder, a statesman, a leader and a shepherd of civilization?
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
That appealed; it appealed deeply.
Calth demonstrated the depth to which Guilliman could never aspire to be his Father. The lesson taunted him when he stared into his bastard brother's eyes and promised only death. The lessons teased him when he, lost to his fury, forgot his sons and rampaged across the exterior of his flagship. The lessons needled him when he took risks, when he demanded Marius pursue Kor Phaeron, when he beat Word Bearers into messy paste.
Roboute Guilliman could never be detached. He could never achieve so numinous a state that he became as impeachable as he believed his Father was. The deaths of his sons sliced at his soul. The burning of his world consumed his thoughts. The deaths of his citizens polluted his temperament.
Luke Skywalker asked him: what would your father do?
The Emperor, in this place, would begin the Crusade anew. He was certain of it. There was no other conceivable outcome. Even with the limited resources of the 4711th, the Emperor still retained his singular goal for the human race. Utter and complete dominance of the galaxy and safety against extinction. Mastery of the material and eradication of the spiritual.
Roboute Guilliman could not; would not, and as he peered at the silent holoprojector, he knew why.
His heart burned in his breast. It yearned for Macragge. In any spare moment, his thoughts turned to his sons, his Legion, wherever they were.
Gently, Guilliman set aside his stylus, rising from his seat and pinching at the bridge of his nose.
Codicier Rubio led his eight compatriots in plumbing the local Warp. Astropaths were tasked to call far and dream farther. Navigators peered with their mutant eye, searching the metaphorical skies. Even Aeonid, dispatched to the Jedi Praxeum, carried ulterior orders.
Optarch fought well at Fondor, but he did not understand that everything the 4711th did, every action, every deal, every agreement, was directed toward one, ultimate purpose. Guilliman stepped into his private chambers, forbidden to all but those he admitted. One wall was covered in notation. HIs eyes traced connections. Each datapoint had been placed by his hands, and his alone. None could know this…obsession. The 4711th needed to believe that Roboute believed in what he spoke.
Helplessness gnawed at him.
The center of the nexus, the sprawl of accounts from Navigator and Astropath, Librarius and Magi, soldier and Astartes, civilian and Remembrancer, was a single string of digits.
Calth Mark 31.15.12.
The moment that all the clocks stopped. The infinite, endless moment when the warp was breached and Veridia vanished. The very same moment, after an eternity, that the local primary of Eboracum bloomed bright. A warp translation of an instant forever. There, to here.
There was one purpose. Guilliman would return to Ultramar, he would find Lorgar and whoever was responsible for marooning him here, and he would kill them.
Indeed, he could never be like his Father.
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Cackling and hooting, diminutive chazrach boiled over abandoned airspeeders. Their crude, hooked blades waved in the air, fervor lighting their reptoid eyes, slitted pupils blown wide by the joy of the hunt. Their masters kept pace, two in total, jogging with long legs to ably pace their meter-tall charges. Two tall, scarred Yuuzhan Vong warriors in their clamshell living armor, amphistaves curled about thickly muscled forearms. Taloned claws pointed, picking out retreating backs of routed Republican soldiers.
There were Humans, Herglic too, and a few Duro. Their clothing was shabby, their body armor ill-fitting. Strange rifles were slung over shoulders, save for one thickset Herglic who hefted a repeating cannon in both trunklike arms. His thick, rubbery skin was sliced in many places, bleeding only a little as the thick layer of blubber prevented more than glancing strikes from whizzing razor bugs.
That repeating cannon spun up again with a whine, barrel accelerating to a blur before it erupted hot, blue-white hyphens of blasterfire toward the pell-mell charge of chazrach. Reptoids crumpled, smoking. A few shots glanced from rich, viridian and mother-of-pearl vonduun armor, leaving smoking smears and hissed epithets.
The infidels were enticing, but it was the presence of a dozen others that truly focused the ire of the invaders. They were spindly and tall, close to two meters, with a body plan more akin to a hominid skeleton. Their faces were long, with downward antennae sprouting from the rear of their thin head. They were neither swift nor agile, becoming outpaced by the rapidly retreating Republicans.
Thud bugs sang and one of the automata collapsed in a heap, sparking. Another wobbled, one arm severed, the other still clinging onto its rifle, trigger depressed, punching blasterbolts into the duracrete underfoot. Chips flew. Dust plumed.
The alley the Republicans fled down ran long, splitting away from a primary thoroughfare. The last of the chazrach piled in along with another two Vong handlers. Four Warriors to forty chazrach. A classic formation, one officer and ten levy.
That was enough.
Krak charges blew on either side of the alley. Whizzing chunks of facing and transparisteel blitzed like shrapnel bombs, sending chazrach reeling in puffs of crimson. Warriors had just enough time to process their change of fortune before a quadruple thunderclap rent the air, harsh on the ears as it banged and reverberated against the high alley wells. All four warriors dropped, headless, villips at their shoulder pulped. It was as yet unknown if the chazrach could use the communication biots of their masters, but no risk was taken.
'Blades,' Zalthis ordered.
Five broad forms, two of more singular size, pushed through shattered walls at the mouth of the alley. On cue, the Republicans spun, ceasing their flight, taking knees and bringing up rifles.
What followed was the same as the other dozen times. Zalthis carefully wiped his long knife clean of blood with a stained cloth. Solidian crouched down to do the same, but on the garb of one of the reptoids. Qario, Lyros and Petran, faces visible beneath their open, half-helms looked to him. To Zalthis.
The Herglic with the rotary cannon ambled over, kicking through corpses. He took a moment to aim a particularly vicious blow to one of the toppled warriors, headless corpse squelching unpleasantly.
'Scarheaded freaks,' the alien grumbled out of both sides of its wide mouth. Mist fogged over his head. Humid air exhaled from the dorsal blowhole on its broad forehead condensed rapidly in the chill air. Fondor had not usually been this cold, but the thin sunlight that filtered through the veil of upcast ash and smoke bore no warmth for the embattled world. 'You know, I thought I'd hate being bait, but it means I get to see their surprise every time. It's a little addicting.'
The three neophytes did not even deign to spare a glance to the alien. They were ever aspiring to portray the Astartesian ideal and that surely meant little patience for a xenoform. Zalthis had no such qualms, meeting the Herglic halfway and extending a hand. The massive alien took it in a warrior's grip. Each time, the strength and size of the being surprised Zalthis.
'You honor us with your trust again, Conscript S'hmu.'
Black-skinned, wide sloping shoulders rolled in a vague approximation of a shrug.
'Kills vong, don't it?'
'It,' Zalthis confirmed, 'in fact, does.'
'Then as long as you Blue Boys keep up your end, my boy's're up for a good run. Stretches the legs, right boys?'
The last words the Herglic shouted, rumbling bass voice full of good cheer, met instead by profanity and crude gestures. Zalthis did not know the meaning of most. He was learning.
'And I like this gun,' S'hmu continued. Where the others carried Mu Pattern Lasrifles, fresh from the manufactorums of Eboracum, the weighty rotary cannon the Herglic clung to was claimed to be of 'Clone Wars' vintage. A relic, they called it, though privately Solidian had made a joke of the concept. A relic fifty years old. Ascratus', now Solidian's, bolt pistol was Martian-make. It was as old as the Crusade itself. Two hundred years.
'It's effective.' Zalthis peered down at the corpse of one of the Yuuzhan Vong warriors, whose head was burst like a ripe melon, spraying mulched brain matter in a grisly arc. Deftly, Zalthis doffed his helmet, crouching down. S'hmu made a sound like a tyre rupturing, lurching away on stumpy legs. The Herglic misliked this part, a sentiment Zalthis shared. He ran fingers through the glutinous mass of the Vong's grey matter, managing to gather fragments.
As always, the taste was bitter and curled his lip.
'Sol,' he called. His brother's helm jerked up and he quickly stomped down on a still-living amphistaff that he'd be studying beneath one massive tread.
'Brother?'
'We are still unnoticed. More - the commander of this sector is named Tshek Ulm.'
'A name to a face, then.'
Zalthis bobbed his head in affirmation, rising back to his feet. Each time he tasted the minds of the invaders, he was careful. Not only had he never employed the more grim functions of the omophagea before, but the memories and mentality of the vong warriors was almost acidic. The utter devotional zealotry they had was like a physical flavor. He sampled carefully, chasing surface memories and impressions. Lieutenant Optarch deployed squads of five as rapid-reaction forces, using Ultramarian muscle to shore up the overwhelmed locals. A fine practical, but Zalthis was thinking of Obroa-skai. The killing of the yammosk threw the vong's slaves and even their chazrach into disarray. It was no feat he could replicate, but the idea of a similar strike appealed and Solidian concurred. If they could locate the local commander, they could do as the famous Sons of Horus did: go for the throat.
Each ambush revealed a little more. Zalthis had a blurry image of a tall, rangy Yuuzhan Vong male in his mind, impressions of a glowing topographical map. Vague orders in a tongue he almost understood.
Qario cleared his throat.
'Sir?'
'Speak, neophyte.'
'If I might say on behalf of the conscripts, the day is ending. A return to the lines may be advisable.'
Zalthis studied the neophyte, just the same age as he. Of the same cadre, even. A head shorter than Zalthis stood, wearing the half-plate of a Scout. And tired. Mortal, still, despite the beginnings of augmentations. They were not Ultramarines like he and Solidian. Not yet.
'S'hmu!' Zalthis called. Solidian grimaced. He never liked using the given names of any of the alien soldiers.
'Whatsit, sir?' the Herglic replied. Informal, but the being did at least understand command.
'Your men will be weary. We make for the lines.' Zalthis eyed the still forms of the automata - B1, their classification was given as. 'The automata remain here. They will draw any attention.'
S'hmu nudged one with the butt of his cannon.
'Good luck, wobbly.'
'They aren't living,' Solidian snarled, vox turning his voice harsher. 'Don't humor it.'
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Where there had been crude barricades of durasteel, now there were spiderwebs of sandbagged defensive bulkwarks, set at optimal angles to allow for cross-fire and support. Where there had been crude casemates made of repurposed duracrete street barriers, now there were prefab plasteel bunkers that sprouted the long snouts of wheeled lascannon turrets. Mortar trio set into triangular formations covered every approach. Rumbling Leman Russ panned blunt-snouted turrets left and right.
At the center of the wide front the vong opened, angling to push to Oridin City and the priceless shield generators there, Kadyin Memorial Distribution Center now bore the most robust and comprehensive of defenses. A huge campus of warehouses, habitation blocks, loading cranes and small landing pads, the Distribution Center sat at a nexus of hover-rail lines and broad highways used for speeder traffic. All avenues the invaders could use just as easily as the usual industrial traffic to rapidly approach the Capital.
"We're pretty exposed here," sighed the Sarge, his booted feet and lower body visible as he leaned out of the open hatch up above.
"We're defilade, yeah?" Elsali tried out the new word for size. It meant their tank was covered up to the turret: they could shoot; couldn't be hit. In theory. A theoretical, as her instructors had hammered into her.
"That's not everything, Private," Sarge bitched. Sarge bitched a lot. That was another word Elsali picked up, since their driver, Private Sula, liked to sprinkle it in two to three times per sentence. After explaining the meaning, as best Elsali could understand, it definitely fit Sarge.
Learning how to operate a tank in the First Auxilia was an exercise in learning several languages at once. First - the language of war. Elsali had been in air & atmospherics. Filter systems, heating and cooling. Not a lot of crossover between that and putting rounds as big as her thigh downrange. So that was the first language, the language of defilade and advance and elevation and depression and leading and everything you had to know. Turned out - Elsali was good at all that. She'd had an eye for detail before and when she'd taken the controls for the first time, depressing the pin and sending a dummy shell downrange, she'd hit within five meters of the target. Better than anyone else.
The second language was Gothic. That was the one she still was working on. Sula didn't speak a lick of Basic, but their last driver, Kenkar, who'd been from, she thought, maybe Corsin? Had been whipped and then discharged for getting caught drunk on duty. Sula came in from one of the non-Auxilia regiments and he bitched about it every day.
The third language was the whole damn Imperium. The language, mostly unspoken, of understanding just what the hell they were all about. Why you got out of the way, real-quick like, of those big Astartes in their armor and always bowed your head. Why you were supposed to spit and turn your head if someone mentioned droids. Why you crossed your hands on your chest when someone mentioned Terra.
At least Elsali wasn't alone. She bumped elbows with Tonil, on the right-side sponson. They bumped elbows a lot, and hips, and sometimes heads, but this time it was on purpose. Tonil, under her helmet, sniggered.
"What's the problem, Sarge?" Elsali asked, innocent as could be. She winked back at Tonil.
When you got Sarge going, the man would go.
"No air cover, for one. Give me damned anything, but something should be keeping an eye in the clouds for us. Makes me feel bloody naked like this. Hate it."
"A-i-r, c-o-v-e-r," Elsali said slowly, dragging out the syllables, as if taking notes. Tonil giggled.
"Air cover! Fug and damn, but those ugly 'skips could be in and out and then where'd we be? Can't put the battle cannon on aviation. Well, you can, if it's low and slow. Did I ever tell you about that time on Eighty-seven Forty-nine? I don't think I did."
And there he went. Sula was dozing, down past their feet, cap pulled down over his eyes. Handling the other sponson was Caraget, who looked jumpy. Probably about to ask Sarge if she could get out for a smoke. The lhosticks were gross and smelled something awful, but the sponsor gunner had gotten addicted. Beside and below her, Obsie sat her fat ass on several hundred kilograms of high explosive, humming under her breath. Before Kenkar had been kicked out, they'd been an all-female crew, aside from the Sarge. Sula messed that up, but he'd not even waggled his eyebrows at sharing the cramped, in-each-others-laps interior of the tank with four women. The man mostly hated everything, except making the tank move. If he couldn't do that, he'd sleep. If he could do that, he'd been an endless steam of profanity that was actually helping Elsali learn Gothic, in a weird way.
Most of the crew of the First Auxilia tank squadron were women. Turned out, fitting ladies into the Russ tanks was easier than trying to jam in six men, and Pirve - Eboracum - wasn't exactly overflowing with options for recruits when the First was founded anyway.
Elsali didn't mind it in the slightest. Looking out through her viewfinder and seeing the poor bastards humping it in the shit made the reeking interior of the tank absolutely comfy.
Also, her rifle was one hundred and twenty millimeters and could kill a starship. And her flak jacket was fifteen centimeters of cast plasteel and the finest ferro-steel from somewhere called 'Konor'.
The oil-stink that never quite washed off was a pretty fair tradeoff.
"...and dead if those scarheads bring up artillery too, because we don't have any indirect fire here, fug and bale-"
Sarge's bitching rolled over her like water on a Pirven - Eboracan - wattle-duck's back. Leaning forward, Elsali peered again through her viewfinder, and-
"Shit! Contact, ten o'clock, seven hundred meters!"
The hatch banged as Sarge dropped down. The engine roared to load. Obsie was offer her fat ass, already grabbing for a shell. Sarge got his periscope up, peering around -
"Throne alive, that's enemy armor!"
"AP!" Elsali shouted. Wasn't her place, but Sarge was on the comm - vox - to the other tanks in the platoon. Obsie had one up and moving, ramming into the breech - clang - "Loaded!" and she panned, checking the sensors - auspex - next to the viewfinder. She swept crosshairs over shapes of Yuuzhan Vong warriors darting between buildings, past those little scrambling reptoid slaves of theirs. There! Movement, big, just a shadow -
-into view again.
"Sithspawn!" she cursed. Rakamat. Next to her, Tonil rattled a banged up ration can. Elsali knew it by sound alone and could picture it. Tape haphazardly wrapped around it, the words 'worship jar' in sprawling hand.
Elsali tracked the massive biot as it passed behind habitation blocks, catching glimpses of its nodding dorsal sail, the tip of its tail. "For the last time, Toni, sithspawn has nothing to do with faith!"
The biot came into view. Huge, too huge, even at range. Big as one of those Juggernaut tanks, held up on thick legs with a grand, arching dorsal sail. Horns at its shoulders pivoted, aimed.
"Shoot!" she cried, at the same time as she pressed the pin.
The tank lurched back, hard, rubber eye-cup bopping into her cheek.
The shell was a blur - gone.
"Vaping voids," she swore.
"Tonil, Caraget, tickle the bastard." At the Sarge's words, both sponson gunners opened up with their lascannon. Beams of red energy barked out, flaring hard and Elsali grimaced and squinted at the flash in her viewfinder. More voids, eating up the las blasts.
"HE!" Sarge shouted. Obsie moved, breach hammered shut.
Crosshairs over its ugly head -
"Shoot!"
Another void.
"Aim at its feet! HE!"
Crosshairs lower.
"Shoot!"
This time fire bloomed hard, suddenly swirling. A shell from one of the other two tanks in their platoon cracked in, vanished.
"AP!" Clang.
Crosshairs up. Ugly face appeared out of the fire, void sucking in the fire, las beams - but now green hyphens stabbed in, hard, another void appeared, she saw one green bar slice through, chip into it's back-
"Shoot!"
Tank jumped again. Elsali shouted, wordless, as the rakamat staggered. Staggered hard, fell right onto its flank with a sudden burst of blood and coral -
"AP!" Clang.
More las blasts joined in, from heavy turrets along the line. Green laser beams kept coming down from a high angle. The rakamat struggled to rise to its feet.
"Oh no you don't," she snarled, pressed the pin.
This time, its head exploded and it fell, boneless.
"HE! 'El, thin the troops!" Sarge hit the vox again, shouting over the hum-bang of the sponson lascannon. "Get that AT-AT moving! It's a fat target and I don't want it falling on our damned heads-"
Explosions leapt up among the Yuuzhan Vong. Elsali put her round into a warehouse, watching as the building buffed, blew out like a cloth training target. Scarheads pinwheeled, little slave warriors ran in flames. Sarge kept on the vox, telling the overeager AT-AT driver to back the fug up. Green laser beams chased retreating Vong infantry. No other rakamat showed itself.
"Throne alive," Elsali breathed, the foreign exclamation just feeling right. Heavy bolter fire stitched out into the distance, popping tiny detonations. Sula let the engine wind down, back to idle. A few other tanks in the platoon threw a desultory shell after the retreating vong, but she didn't bother. Didn't want to waste them, not now she'd seen - really seen - one of those big biots.
And killed it.
Sarge's hand fell on her shoulder and she jumped.
"Fine shooting, Private. First armor kill to us."
Elsali, who'd been replacing heating coils and troubleshooting fitful apartment climate controls less than a year ago, beamed.