How an inefficient species like us could lord over such a large swath of our galaxy is one of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

-Unknown heretic

image [https://i.postimg.cc/VNWn1kTr/Vaax-06.png]

Primarch Ferrus Manus would have cursed at this level of inefficiency.

Vaax almost regretted agreeing to travel to the city with the villagers. Watching the humans fumbling in getting the convoy going, the dreadnought realised he might be too used to the Astartes level of efficiency that was ubiquitous in his chapter. The word “soon” seemed to carry a totally different reference of time frame between humans and space marines.

Although deeply frustrated by the sluggish progress, Vaax knew it was impractical for him to walk all the way to the city by himself. His dreadnought frame was too slow, not to mention there was little chance he could survive another hostile encounter with the Orks all by himself. Mighty as he was, the dreadnought was not capable of fighting an entire invading alien army. For a space marine, to die a wasteful death was the greatest sin, so Vaax waited in silent frustration.

When the clumsy convoy finally got moving it was already near the evening. A curious mix of vehicles and beasts of burden crawling across the land cast long shadows across the fields. Trucks, bikes, cars, transport animals of all manner of variants and sizes were involved in the quest of seeking refuge in a far away city.

To Vaax, not only was the convoy slow, it was also supremely unsightly; random bags of belongings and rations hung on every available surface in the convoy.

The dreadnought himself was secured onto the open air cargo hold of a large transport truck and was treated like an oversized religious idol in a grand celebratory procession.

Vaax only talked when he must, in truth the dreadnought could still barely tolerate interacting with the humans; every attempt at communicating ideas and concepts that were slightly more complex with them strained his patience, there was just too vast a distance between an entombed Astartes and the mundane humans.

As the convoy crawled forward and Vaax rocked gently in the cargo hold, the village became smaller and smaller in his view. The place was now overrun with released livestock. The animals were released as a form of distraction to buy time should the aliens return to the village.

After reviewing his mission briefing and battle record with the Orks for the umpteenth time, with little else to do Vaax started quietly observing the humans.

The villagers had sent out groups of outriders ahead and behind the convoy as the dreadnought had advised, the former serving as forward scouts while the latter acted as rear guard trailing behind the main lumbering convoy, watching their back.

Throughout the journey, the outriders had been communicating with the convoy via crude civilian grade devices. With all the sophisticated Astartes communication devices installed inside him, Vaax had been picking up bits and pieces of information from all the random chatter he eavesdropped on.

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This change of pace was strange, under normal circumstances Vaax wouldn't not even bother to listen to the idle noise.

Ever since his entombment, Vaax’s half life had been a series of moving from one war campaign to the next, fighting in the forefront and facing down galactic horrors that stood in the face of Imperium’s dominance. Rarely was the dreadnought away from his battle brothers, rarer still was he not surrounded by the familiarity of war.

Like a sponge the dreadnought soaked up the information that was flowing around him. From listening around, Vaax learned that the huge man who baited out the Ork raid leader had survived. The man was now bathing in his new found fame and had picked up the moniker of “the alien taunter”. Vaax knew better, in truth the large man was but a smith who could barely fight, he had even soiled himself right when the Ork leader charged him.

Listening further, the dreadnought heard people praising the village scholar, whose wisdom had first recognised Vaax as one of the fabled Astartes. Others had lauded the courage of the village chief, the seemingly frail old man who had dared to approach the imposing space marine war walker while the rest of them were paralyzed with fear.

Then there were the talks of other rising heroes, chief amongst them was a hunter who had been credited with downing five Orks with his ancient hunting lasrifle. No one had mentioned about the boy who first saw Vaax though, the child had seemingly vanished in the crowd. It then took a second for the dreadnought to realise the absurdity of him dwelling on the whereabouts of a human child.

Heresy grows from idleness. This weakness will not do.

Refocusing himself, Vaax began reciting battle mantras to cast away these strange notions. Regardless of the weird circumstances, he vowed to stay ever vigilant.

As they got closer to their destination, Vaax started to pick up the official emergency radio broadcast from the regional authority. Half of the static-filled transmissions was an urgent directive asking all citizens to immediately head for the nearest populated centres where the planetary defence forces could provide a more adequate protection; the other half of the transmissions consisted mostly of propaganda on how the region was well prepared in the face of an alien invasion.

Completing the broadcast was a self congratulatory message from the regional overseer who credited himself on the arrival of the space marines of the Iron Lords chapter. According to the overseer, the Emperor’s finest had arrived to aid them in the face of this crisis on his very personal request.

Vaax knew better, he had a record of every important information concerning this operation in his data drive and found no traces of communication between his chapter and the planet’s ruling party. The idea that an Iron Lord like Brother Markaan would answer to the call of a random regional overseer on a backwater planet almost amused Vaax. Markaan would be informed of this, the dreadnought knew the newly promoted force commander would not be amused.

They continued the journey, it was late into the night when the lumbering convoy finally stopped to rest. Having no need to stretch his joints, Vaax stayed put in the cargo hold. The meagre industrial development on Hermetica IV produced hardly enough air pollution to block out the sky, so countless stars and galaxies could be seen blanketing the sky above.

The dreadnought remained silent and still while the humans around him busied themselves with mortal business. They prepared and consumed food, tended to the wounded, and purged their waste by the roadside. None had dared to disturb Vaax. Eventually the crowd settled down to catch some much needed sleep.

In the stillness of the deep night, Vaax was maintaining his silent vigilance when he noticed someone approaching in the darkness. Intrigued, Vaax activated his preysight and saw up a tiny figure crawling into the cargo hold where he resided.

It was a little boy, the first person Vaax met on this planet.