Tanya Russ
One of the most annoying duties I think I'd ever come across was trying to find a name for a ship. As a Primarch I had been given a Gloriana class battleship, in fact one of the larger ones of the class. Apparently they didn't standardize the classes the way most militaries would, instead they just put a rule 'about this long means this kind of class', which was rather illogical but I couldn't exactly complain about what the forges of Mars did.
That being said, I was not a big fan of the fact that we couldn't complain. I was getting a lot of 'you scratch my back, I scratch your back' vibes from the whole logistical system. Bolters being the prime example. While the legion had been under the emperor's personal control it had only been issued bolters but the moment they had entered my control I had been informed that though bolter rifles were a much more logistically friendly weapon I was to take on Volkite weapons.
Volkite weapons apparently were Martian death rays, specifically designed to cook Orks in such a way that they would not spread through their fungal infection. On one hand that was awesome, you were immediately dealing with not only the threat in front of you but also any further cropping up of this infection. On the other, the weapons were extremely temperamental and broke easily.
In summary the weapons had a real reliability issue, one that would give some of the worst military equipment a run for their money. And because of how some of the treaties worked out with Mars… Well you couldn't exactly repair those weapons without pissing them off, meaning what we had to do was put them back on a ship so they could be sent to Mars to be fixed and only then would we get new ones.
Granted I had been issued quite a large stockpile but I was getting the feeling that this was some sort of large scheme to keep the legion at Mars's beck and call. But I would get around to my theories and worries about the Mechanicus another time. naming a ship that was a pain in my rear had already taken a month or two to figure out.
I couldn't exactly leave the name as it was because right now it was named 'Hall number six', which was official but more of a placeholder than a real ship's name. Actually I was pretty sure it was an actual placeholder as the captain of the ship, Nemmius Tetanus, often said he couldn't wait to find out what the name of the vessel would be. And then went out of the way to mention how a ship without a name was not good luck.
I was not a person who got into ship lore very much so I didn't know if that was true or not. I think I heard once that changing the name of a ship was bad luck. Then again if this whole 'number six' wasn't really a name but a placeholder for the real name, I wasn't really changing it.
But for that matter I'd looked deep into the history of Fenris for a name, trying to find something that would do well for my wolves. Thankfully that did not actually turn out to be that hard.
In legends there was a man known as King Hrafnkel, who had abandoned the worship of the ancient gods of the homeworld to look to his sons for strength in battle. I didn't know much about these guys considering that on Fenris their worship seemed to have long since been forgotten in favor of just a vague mysticism. But the point of the idea still stood, a king looking to his sons for strength rather than gods. The wolves were considered, through the weird genetics that were the Primarch program, my sons. In some cases very openly for those looking very similar to me but I tried not to think about that too often. So choosing that name would make sense, it implied that I looked to them for my strength and would hopefully get them to work harder and smarter in their given jobs.
I did have to give the Martians something though the Gloriana battleship was an impressive feat of engineering. As a class the ship had facilities for creating weapons, storing weapons, fixing weapons, storing shuttles and fighters and heavy equipment for producing ammunition. It had everything needed to prosecute a war and still was a very competent warship, though I think that mainly was just because it was so large being around 20 km long. The ship was so long that there had to be a central monorail running the length of the vessel.
And my Marines had not been idle in decorating every element of this ship, an impressive feat. Large swaths of forest had been cut down so wood could be shaped and carved into intricate designs before being laid against areas of the hall's internal elements. The metal frameworks were still there of course but this simply allowed for a bit of Fenrisian style of beauty. I'd walked the Halls once and noticed that they transformed a section of the large training area wall into a storage place for trophies of monsters killed and the heads of various beasts that each Space Marine had taken down. I had a feeling that that wall would grow. Considering there were 20 km of ship walls maybe, more probably definitely, this practice would spread quite a bit.
As long as it did not interfere with ship operations though? I probably wouldn't come down on it. Letting them turn the place a bit more like Fenris in look was, well… It was kind of nice really. As much as I like to think about my first life I would not deny that my third life had been a bit more interesting and rewarding. Oh, sure, it was a lot more threatening but that was just how things were when you were fighting monsters. I imagine if I didn't have a Primarch's body I'd probably be less mellow regarding the whole thing. Having the ability to come back from near mortal wounds had an effect on your outlook on life.
Anyways the tactical situation was what I should be reviewing right now but I was currently looking out one of the windows into space. We were stopping over into the league of something. Each Squat government was its own little league, I wasn't really sure which one we were exactly dealing with yet. I think there were several different league leaderships currently talking to Malcador in one of the meeting Hall's rooms.
I had offered to help with this negotiation thing as I had some idea of what that was like after my years on Fenris. Malcador had waved me off, saying it would be best for him to do it. It left me working on getting together the exact logistical situation of the fleet I was taking to the Wheel of Fire. The closer we got to the Wheel of Fire and the better of a picture I got of what exactly I was dealing with. When I first heard about it there was talk of alien and human kingdoms under the rule of the Orks of the Wheel of Fire, I now knew that this was not exactly true.
The kingdoms' governments, or whatever you wanted to call them, were giving tribute to the Wheel of Fire because when the Orks came out they either got tribute or destroyed everything. My objective of course was to stop this, which would bring the human governments into the Imperium.
As for the Xeno governments I was not in charge of policy so I could really hope that there would be some form of negotiation before we went straight on to xenocide. Now one of the so-called aliens looked to be just humans but with a redder skin and one less digit. They really needed to make a thorough check on if those were aliens or just humans with biological alterations, in my opinion.
Well either way my ideas of maybe bringing these human empires under my control to help overthrow the Orks were fairly outdated. Yes, they were under their control. Yes, they didn't want the Orks. No, they would not be taking part in the campaign. They didn't have the fleet elements to even get into the Wheel of Fire. That job would be left to the Star Hunters, my legion, and the Iron Warriors.
And the Imperial Army elements that had been given to me.
It meant there would be two Gloriana battleships, a smattering of other battleships, and lots and lots of cruisers and destroyers to defend those ships. That was just Space Marine forces, there were also elements of the Imperial Army and Navy attached to the situation, which I would need to figure out how to properly use. The Imperial Army was a little bit easier for me to understand, that whole organization existed simply to hold territory while the Marines pushed forward and ever onwards. The Navy was a little bit harder since, as far as I could tell, their ships were not any worse than the ships of the Marines. Theoretically I assumed the Navy was meant to be the spearhead of the action, fighting the enemy fleets in space. The Space Marine fleet was destined to support ground operations by the Space Marines and then the army was meant to hold territory. At least that's how I understood the whole idea of their operational doctrine. It was simple and somewhat easy to understand, but it felt like it was not using all the assets available.
But I wouldn't push too hard on that just yet, it's not like I didn't have full control of this whole operation as the only Primarch on this mission. The Imperial Army, Navy, and all Space Marines had to report to me, which was probably going to be a hell of a thing to deal with. The Iron Warriors had their own legion master which I would have to talk to and get to know so we could work together. As for the Star Hunters they weren't at full legion force here, their elements were scattered across the Galaxy and hard at work pathfinding for every other Imperial Force. I would at least have an easier time dealing with them since they wouldn't feel like they were in control all the time and were having their control taken away. But I would need to be careful not to step on their doctrines too much, they were the Pathfinders. They were meant to bring in intel for my operation, expecting them to do something like hold a position for me would be… bad.
The trials and tribulations of a multi-national, actually multi-planetary, and multi-element Force. At least all of us were still fighting for the Imperium. Now though there were rumors that a Forge World nearby was going to send some forces to help us out, which might make things a little bit more complex. I wasn't sure if a Primarch had control over Mechanicus forces, let alone those knightly orders that seemed to make up their Titan cores.
Well life wasn't that complex, it could be worse. The moment I thought that, down the hall from me, the doors to one of the meeting rooms opened. Malcador and a Squat gentleman stepped out, having a laugh at one thing or another. Trying to be polite I smiled and turned to them, nodding my head in welcome.
The two were walking in my general direction as the Space Dwarf, for lack of a better word than squat, nodded his head in return and said, "Good evening, giant lass! Wonderful ship you folks have here, really love the design." He reached over and knocked on the wooden panels that my Wolves had added to the hall.
Ignoring the 'giant lass' comment, I said, "Why, thank you, Mr?" fishing for a name.
"Trorban Grimmark, of the League of Kapellan."
"Oh well, Grimmark, nice to meet you. But, yes, my Space Marines have taken to decorating the halls and its nice wood furnishings. Helps with the feeling of home."
The squat nodded his head understandingly, before saying, "I understand that, the cold darkness of space is not meant for most people and if you're going to go out there you might as well make a bit of your home." He nodded his head, though he stopped quickly and asked, "But I do have a question, Miss Primarch. Something that's been bugging me since you folks arrived with such a massive fleet. Why do you have such a massive fleet in our space? We're starting an alliance, seems a little weird to bring such a large military force. It's almost threatening. Almost."
I had to chuckle at the relaxed way he basically implied that they could take on the Imperium. Although I didn't know their capabilities, perhaps they could? That was a bit… Mmm... deciding to be as truthful as possible, I said, "This task force is actually assigned to go to the Wheel of Fire and remove the Ork threat."
"By the ancestors, those damn Orks of the Wheel of Fire? Those bastards have invaded our space a dozen or so times, killed hundreds of civilians and good people for their chaotic love of war. that was not a fucking good time for our people."
"Well I have wonderful news then as we plan to completely demolish the Wheel of Fire and remove all threats to both humanity and the Imperium as a whole from that sector."
The smile on that dwarf's face was rather uncomfortably large as he nodded his head in approval before saying, "Would you perhaps mind if we sent a force to accompany you on this mission? We have a lot of old grudges with those bastards that need settling."
In the periphery of my vision I saw Malcador taking in this information, nodding his head in thought. He was already starting to go for a thumbs up when I said, "Of course, more help is always welcome and this will be a great way to solidify the alliance we are building between the Imperium and the leagues. Nothing makes a brother faster than sharing blood, sweat, and tears in combat.
Grimmark nodded his head in approval before saying, "I couldn't have said it better myself," before reaching his hand up in an implication of shaking on the matter. Given just how short he was compared to me… Seriously I could have punted him across a good kilometer toward the Wolf Hall's throne room that was near the back of the ship. I had to take a knee in order to take his hand, which was small but we made those handshake work. "Then we are in agreement. Welcome to the crusade against the Wheel of Fire."
"Glad to be a part of it. Bastards deserve every round of ammunition we'll expend on them, not to mention I have a whole crew of technical folk who've been working on several combat trains they wanted to deploy in these kind of conflicts."
I raised an eyebrow. "Combat trains? There's not a lot of track where we're going, I assume."
"Nah, nah, please. Those combat vehicles use electric drive Wheels, allowing them to move. They're called trains just because they can be pretty long but they don't require tracks."
"Oh? Well, I can't wait to see them in action then," I said with a smile before standing back up again. "Well, anyway, I'll let you and Malcador get back to your negotiations. I have to continue the plan for this coming conflict and take into consideration your forces."
The squat nodded his head before looking over at Malcador, saying, "And where were we, Mr. First Lord of Terra."
"We were discussing possible equipment support you could provide for the legions, now that we are moving into the segmentum Ultima."
"Right, right. As I was saying we'll gladly help you build tanks and all that junk. We would like to have a few of your designs to do it though, I understand those Mechanics of yours are a bit iffy about giving away their stuff but they need to understand we have equipment right here to build whatever you'll need. We will gladly share some of our stuff as long as they share back."
"Yes, yes, the Mechanicus can be a bit of a handful. I will discuss this with the Lord Master of Mars, see if he can be moved to share what he has. Well I wouldn't hold out hope, best I can guarantee is that we will be able to re-establish the trade lanes for food going to your worlds, and we will be able to clear the trade lanes for raw materials heading to Mechanicus Forge Worlds."
"Not a great deal but we'll deal with what we can," the squat said, shaking his head as they started walking away. "I really need to get out of their darn heads that they're the only ones with tech. There are plenty of civilizations out there that have tech and need those resources for their own advancement, I'm sure of this. If the Leagues can survive, humanity as a whole can survive."
"I'm sure you're right, Lord Grimmark. It will take time but we will see what we can do on the matter."
Shaking my head as the two rounded a corner I stared out into space, starting to think on the conflict to come. The Wheel of Fire was frankly unknown as a sector of star systems, with Warp storms that intertwined in such a way that you didn't know what was going on inside it. No doubt it would be a maze of planets that we would be required to navigate. And in this maze would be fortresses to prevent our advance towards the capital of their alien empire. Each planet would need to be burned out as we went, the question was: would we have the troops and manpower to pull it off? Or would we have the most effective plans, to make sure that we never had an issue with troops and manpower. That's what I needed to come up with, an effective plan…
Legion Master Elyphis Diorius
I looked over the tactical readouts with some trepidation, trying to understand the information in front of me. The Wheel of Fire was a nexus of space not too far away from the central Maelstrom of the galaxy. It was a sector that had a lot of different stars moving around inside of it, affecting the Warp in strange ways and creating areas that could be traveled and areas that could not. And it had been a target I had been eyeing for several years now, sizing it up. The 8th expeditionary fleet was in essence under my control, something I was proud of. My legion had fought from Terra to here with pride and honor, bringing many worlds into compliance.
But it was a bit scattered as of late and I was trying to bring it back into the fold. We had in essence pushed hard and fast across the galaxy to bring as many worlds into compliance as possible, and get ourselves a little bit of fame and fortune for our deeds in the name of the Imperium. The issue there is that if you push too far you get yourself spread out, which was something I was having to undo. Bringing the whole of the 8th here was one of those objectives but I had been denied my initial push on this sector by decree of the emperor.
Apparently he had decided that my legion and the Star Hunters' company that had been guiding us through space were not enough for this operation. It was a bit of a ding, one I was not particularly happy about, but I could not deny that having another legion to support us would be very useful in this coming conflict. The Orks were dug in deep and, from what I could tell, we would have to go through seven different planets before we even got to the core of their empire. It was not like we could just go around these seven different planets either as the Wheel of Fire could easily be described as a winding maze of trails, ever-changing but constant in that you had to go through one planet to get to the next.
There supposedly was a backway into the Wheel of Fire, one that led directly to the capital planet of this Ork empire. However I had yet to find any hint of it and even Helitin Ventassius, Captain of the Star Hunters, had yet to find it either. I wasn't sure if that intel was even trustworthy if they couldn't find it. The local human populations in the area were… well I think the only reason they still existed was because they couldn't give the Orks the good fight they wanted, they were too far fallen in tech level. They were relying on spears and swords in many cases.
The same was true for the xeno empires in the region though. They were all so very small, usually no more than the size of a solar system. I had already filed the paperwork to have the humans brought into compliance with the Imperium and start them on preparations for recruitment into the Imperial Army. From what I'd seen of the small empires they were, well, easily disposed of and I'd filed the information as such to the Imperial High Command. They would most likely take 10 years at a minimum but eventually they'd get around to sending an army out here to just clean up the sector and make sure humanity was the top dog in the region. Of course that depended on the fighting force we had gathered here to push into the Wheel of Fire, or at least jam up any Ork attempts to get out of it.
Which I believe would not be too hard, even without this legion that was coming to our aid. I never found evidence of this backway out, which meant the only way in and out was through the planet Icrinda. We could thus plug up the entire system, build a fortified complex, and the Orks, for all intent and purpose, were dealt with. Oh sure we could push in further and take more planets but we wouldn't need to and logically that was the best outcome. The fewer resources spent on an operation, the better. Shaking my head though I had to wonder if the operation would come to pass as I saw it. The sixth legion, the Rout was on its way. It had supposedly been reshaped by their Primarch but I doubted that. Something told me that the moment we got into the siege conflicts they would go crazy with battle lust like they tended to do. That seemed to be induced by any conflict and would always overwrite whatever sense they had.
I did find it somewhat amusing though that the most barbaric legion in the Crusade found its Primarch on a barbaric world, no better than the ones that we were now having to liberate. I was a bit too loud in my amusement on that, as Helitin Ventassius looked up from where he stood across from me where he had been studying the map display.
Smiling, I said, "Just thinking about something amusing, old friend.
He nodded and said "Well I hope that amusing thing is something you can share because I'm not going to come up with a way to deal with Icrinda. that's an impenetrable fortress from what my Pathfinders have been able to dig up."
"Orbital bombardment will handle it," I said, waving it off. "Their fleet is more of an issue but the Navy should be able to deal with that once they arrive. We've already committed to a 10-year campaign, there's no reason for us to waste more resources than necessary on this conflict."
"True, true," He agreed with a nod. "We just need to take this planet and we'll be able to establish an effective blockade of the sector. After that... I don't know. We'll be ground down assaulting every planet but we've yet to find a way through the Warp storms so we have to play by the Orks game if we want to go any further deeper."
"Exactly what I'm thinking," I concurred with a nod. "I would love to make this conflict quicker but pushing deeper into their space would simply be illogical. The Orks have unlimited numbers and as much as the Volkite weapons can deal with them on a good standard getting into prolonged sieges in this system is unnecessary. Better to save our strength for sieges on worlds we need to take."
"Well, our strength at least," I said in annoyance. "The Rout can waste their strength on it for all I care. This operation was supposed to begin a month ago and they're still not showing up with the Imperial Army and fleet."
"You are too hard on them, brother. The Warp is a fickle thing and they may have been sidetracked by who knows what conflicts on the way here. The fact that we've received reports that they're even on their way is a good sign, it could have already been lost in the warp if that information coming in.
I sighed and nodded my agreement. "Maybe. Maybe I'm just a little bit annoyed that we're going to have to deal with their Primarch taking credit for blocking up the Wheel of Fire sector when all the operational duties that started this process were handled by my legion."
"Cough, cough. Our legions," Ventassius pointed out with a roll of his eyes. "I know that Iron Warriors like a bit of credit taking but don't forget to give credit to those who helped as well."
"Sorry, sorry, bad habit," I admitted, shaking my head. "Anyways when did they say the sixth legion was supposed to arrive."
"My report said 3 months from the moment they were sent. According to the speedometers and information on the ship they are actually four months late due to Warp shenanigans, so they could actually show up at any moment now for all we know".
As if the Warp was having a laugh at us, immediately one of the bridge crew of the Gloriana battleship Iron Blood spoke up, saying, "Fleet transitioning into local space. Receiving Imperial FFS signals."
"Wonderful timing," I said matter of factly before turning to a communications officer. "Tell them that they are welcome to join the fleet, and that I'm willing to either meet with their Primarch aboard their ship or they can meet with me and Helitin Ventassius on this ship to discuss the operation ahead of us."
"Yes, sir," the crewman said, turning to his console. He stopped and said "They've actually already sent us some more statements. Their Primarch is making way to a shuttle now and is going to be transported over to our ship."
"Oh, wonderful,"I said, leaning back against the banister that separated the central dais of the bridge from the crew pits where most of the crew worked.
"So? What do you think the Primarch is going to be like?" Ventassius asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No idea. Only Primarch I've served next to was Horus and, besides being a bit demanding, he was a fine guy. Not the greatest commander though but then again that was one of his first few commands so it was to be expected. I have heard that this one actually conquered their entire planet and is called the king of wolves, whatever that means."
"Well that means they have to have some sort of military background then," He offered, "If they see something we don't maybe they'll have a new perspective to offer."
"Doubtful. It's just more likely that the planet was already conquered and they inherited it as some sort of orphan taken in by the king sort of thing."
"True, true. Well, as long as they provide us with manpower for this operation it doesn't really matter if they inherited it or if they conquered their planet they're still a Primarch, so maybe they'll know something we don't that will let us break into the Wheel of Fire."
"Maybe. Or maybe they'll just waste our time. This is the first Primarch to join the crusade since Horus, I don't have exactly high hopes after him."
"I think you're just a little bit annoyed since he took credit for that one siege where you engineered a dam break on that river and flooded the entire city."
"I am not annoyed over that," I calmly replied, crossing my arms across my chest as I looked at him. "I simply wished to have a little bit more credit for my strategic planning, that is all."
"Yeah, like all the other times," Ventassius countered, rolling his eyes.
I made a noise of contempt before shaking my head and letting out a sigh. "Fine. I'll work on trying to give credit to others a little bit more and letting things go."
"That's all I ask. You know how thankless the job of pathfinding is? It's very thankless. 'Oh, you found a way into the system? Good, now find a way into the next system.'. It's hard work and we'd like a little bit more respect for the operations we have to do." Ventassius said, making a good point, which I couldn't exactly fight without looking a bit like an asshole.
Shaking my head I was about to say something when a crew member announced, "The Primarch is in the elevator, on the way up."
"Oh, excellent," I said, taking to my feet. I stood straight, looking at the doors leading to the elevator that led to the central corridor of the ship. "Now let's see what this Primarch is all about." I looked about 10 feet up, expecting to meet the Primarch's eyes when the door opened. Instead I found myself looking right over their head, which was a bit confusing. Slowly I lowered my eyes and was surprised to find not at all what I was expecting.
There, standing in the elevator, was a 9 ft tall woman. She had blonde hair and wore blue-gray power armor on a rather shapely figure. She had a black flowing cloak under a sword on her back, a small hand ax on her side and two very large black wolves sniffing the air at her side as they followed her in. Not to mention a crow on her shoulder, one that seemed to have its sight focused on everywhere that the blonde woman was not looking as if it was watching her back more than the wolves.
She stepped into the room as if she owned it and behind her came four more of the Rout, their Mark II helmets on a swivel even if their guns were safely stored at their sides.
With a smile she approached and greeted us, "Good evening, legion master and captain. I am sorry for the fleet's lateness, we had to make a stop off for diplomatic reasons and we picked up a few more allies along the way."
"Diplomatic reasons?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Then I saw an old man come out from behind the Space Marines, leaning heavily on his staff.
Immediately I saluted. I had not seen Malcador in a long time and I doubted he even knew who I was. Still I was not going to step on the wrong side of that old man. The most trusted agent of the Emperor was not someone you wanted to consider you on their bad side.
I gave the sign of the Aquila before bowing to the pair. "Greetings, Primarch and first Lord of Terra. Welcome on the Iron Blood."
The shapely Primarch tapped me on the shoulder with the palm of her hand, saying, "No need for such pageantry, nephew. We are all friends here, we are all warriors of the Emperor. Tell me what the situation is and how we plan to break the Wheel of Fire."
Standing back up I said, "Of course," while noting that it was interesting that she had such a relaxed way about her. Another oddity, though this one might be explained if she was not, as I had originally suspected, an orphan who'd gotten lucky and got picked up by a powerful family.
With a flourish I moved my hand across the holographic pedestal, bringing up the planet we needed to lay siege to and began explaining.
"This is Icrinda, first planet in the Wheel of Fire sector and gateway to it. It's possibly the only way in and out from what we've been able to dig up. It appears that there are other planets past this that might be just as fortified, clogging other holes to eventually create a ring of seven fortified walls around the capital world. But that's neither here nor there because if we can take this planet we cut the Ork empire off from the systems they've enslaved. We can then clean up any outside forces then slowly push in, murdering the foul beasts as we go. The Administratum believes it will take ten years to reach the core world. Frankly I think that's a bit of too optimistic, it's more likely to be 20 years. Our best case scenario is to engage in prolonged siege activities and bombardment of the planets. There shouldn't be anything of use down there so, in the long run, this is the best option."
The Primarch nodded before clicking on the planet, causing it to increase in size until the main fortifications on the world came into view. Ork citadel, some ancient complex that had been built upon by their ancestors to the point that it was a heavy fortress. I could make out the signs of AA guns and double walls circling the entire complex as well as the outer complex. What was built inside the outer conflicts was up for debate but considering the slave camps around it it was probably nothing but work vehicles and ships.
The Primarch's eyescarefully looked over the fortifications before stopping and pointing to the slave camp. "What's that?", she queried
I shrugged and said "Slave camps. Human, Xenos, unlucky Orks from other empires that were a bit too stubborn to give in. You never know what you'll find in them. We've already written them off as a loss since they've probably been reduced to nothing but working skeletons. Orks don't tend to feed their slaves very well in my experience."
She blinked and said "Where are they getting these slaves?"
I shrugged, "As of now they have plenty of vassal empires. I would assume they're giving their population over as tribute to Orks in order to stave off full outrights sacking of their civilizations."
She nodded before saying "What's our plan to rescue them?" causing me to stop and look up at her.
"There's no plan. They're written off, they're barbarians. Sending our forces down there on a rescue mission will do nothing but waste our resources for humans of little use to the Imperium and that no one gives a damn about."
The Primarch turned their head to look at me and shook it. "There are plenty of reasons to pick them up. If slaves have been used throughout the Ork empire for who knows how long they could have vital information about the trade roads within the sector. Not to mention that, as you said, they're most likely prisoners sent off from the lesser civilizations in this area so returning them to their people will gain the Imperium favor in those civilizations. This is a potential propaganda tool that could be used to increase the standing of the Imperium in this area of space. Destroying it because we can seems lot more of a waste than just blasting the planet from orbit."
I shook my head at that. "Theoretically, yes. But we don't have the manpower for a rescue operation. In order to get in there you need to hit hard, grab as many people as possible, and then get them out. With those AA guns around the city it would be nearly impossible to pull that off so you would need to take them out before your shuttles get within their range."
Zooming out on the screen I showed the mountainous region where the camp was located and added, "You would have to do a lot of marching through mountains to get even close to the facility, before you do that. Mountains that may have AA guns as well. If we take them out it will most likely alert the Orks that you're coming. Frankly I don't want to risk my troops on such an operation. Maybe if it was not inside this mountainous region I might be interested in this but we are not trained for dealing with mountains."
The Primarch shook her head again before saying, "You may not be but Fenris is a world of mountains. My men can get through those passes and bypass their AA guns without them even knowing. We can set up an operation that will take them out quicker than they can realize what's going on. If we take out those AA guns on, say, the western half of the city that would give us a good landing zone in the valley that river here follows." She pointed out a northern section of the map, just passed the fortifications. Her statements were true, if you could remove the AA guns around the valley on the western side there would be quite a lot empty space that Space Marines could both land in and escort people out of. I just did not want to risk my manpower on that operation… however if she was willing to do it? Why not, at worst they lost a little bit of manpower, maybe got away with a couple hundred civilians, and learned a lesson about trusting the Iron Warriors when we told them that a situation was untenable. It would delay the artillery bombardments of the area for a couple hours but we would begin as soon as they had left. At best… I didn't even see that in the possibilities as far as I was concerned.
Nodding my head, I said, "I could help organize crafts to land in that area. If you think you can pull this off I can help get the people out."
The Primarch nodded before saying, "Sounds like a plan." before offering her hand. Smiling I took it and said, "by the way, I'm Legion Master Diorius. Nice to meet you."
She smiled back and said, "Primarch Tanya Russ, an honor to work with you."
Tanya Russ
Hiking through the mountains again… well, this was familiar, I thought as I watched the valley below. I brought my personal company, or chapter depending on how you phrased it since every legion seemed to use personalized terminology for the structure even if the structure was the same.
We had arrived by drop pod a few hours ago on the other side of the mountain, something that I was not familiar with but had to get used to. The g-forces had reminded me of something, giving me a headache, but I had no idea what. Even my best guess was very confused considering from all I knew my second life had been in a World War I situation, so how I would have come across large g-force? It was an interesting conundrum at least.
I'd need to spend more time trying to unlock my past memories because this was just getting a bit annoying at this point. Shaking my head in annoyance at the damage that the Warp had apparently done to those memories I quickly looked over my wrist, which had a holographic display showing what was currently going on with the troops I deployed.
Across the mountain around 2000 Fenrisians were currently disabling the outer ring of anti-air support as quietly as possible. They had orders to attempt to not use their bolters nor the Volkites I had been able to distribute. Most of the Volkites that were in production were seemingly already earmarked for legions that were at the front, which meant that once we started actually getting some victories we would start getting more Volkite weapons in mass instead of the bolters which would probably be our secondaries.
I still preferred the explosive round ammunition as it was easier to deal with in logistical terms but I could understand the need for the Volkites when fighting Orks. I'd managed to get ourselves several plasma weapons but those were only allocated to the other units waiting to drop on this place as soon as the AA was disabled.
Which should be any moment now, as I watched the last known AA position be taken out. Considering I didn't hear any shooting I think we'd effectively done it in complete stealth. Which meant we could move on to part two of the plan, dealing with the AA positions inside the fortifications.
Getting into the fortifications to do that would be an incredibly hard job though. I had dictated some of my forces to hit the outer walls of the fortifications that had inner walls. It was very unlikely that they were ready for Space Marines after 400 ravens had been dropping explosives. There was a reason I'd loaded up several megafauna onto the Gloriana battleship and it wasn't because I enjoyed their company, though I did. They were extremely useful in situations like this.
As if my thoughts were a summons a raven landed on my shoulder and leaned down, allowing me to pet its head. It quickly tapped out that about 90% of the explosives had been dropped on their targets, ready to blow if I pressed the explosive button I had already prepared.
Where the other 10% were I didn't know. The fact he had returned but they'd all been delivered and most of the ravens had returned from their mission meant those 10% that were unaccounted had either landed on target or bounced and were probably scattered near the targets. Not exactly great because it was an indiscriminate explosion but it should be close enough. It should cause enough mayhem that we would be able to get away with this operation.
This operation required a lot of timing so I wouldn't press the button just yet, I needed the wall-mounted AA guns dealt with. Once that was ready though? The real fun would begin.
I watched as my forces moved into position just below the wall. How they were able to sneak through the slave camp was a little bit interesting. Obviously the Orks didn't really care what happened in those camps or didn't have very good guards. Then again the whole planet was under their control so maybe they just didn't care if people ran away. Considering how I heard that they just enjoyed a fight they might consider hunting down slaves on the planet's surface when they needed them as a form of fight. Or maybe there was something else I didn't know going on, I still had quite a bit to learn here.
I didn't have to wait long though I did not get the noise I expected. I wanted to hear a buzz from my receiver that would tell me that the operation had gone off without a hitch. Instead I heard gunfire from the valley below, indicating that the operation was officially starting to go south.
We had done a lot before the unexpected happened so I might as well make use of what I had already gotten set up. Pressing the buttons on my wrist activated the explosives down below and I watched about a dozen to three dozen guns go up in fire. Their crews had hopefully died with them or were unable to fight. There were probably more guns I couldn't see but I'd deployed fully 400 ravens to drop as many explosives as they could. Considering that no explosions had gone off in the air that meant they had managed to drop them all.
In time with the explosions I tapped on the communicator built in my wrist and said "To all Wolves of Fenris: engage in combat. It is 90% clear, we are clear for landings to the south but could use air support for cover just in case."
It would probably take 5 minutes but that order would work its way through the system and immediately shuttles and aircraft would be coming down from their position behind the worthless piece of rock this planet called a moon. At the same time the imperial fleet would move out of its hiding positions and start engaging the Ork fleet up in orbit. The amount of chaos we just unleashed would probably buy us enough time to pull this operation off but there was no way to be sure so I wanted to make this as fast as possible.
Pulling my bolter rifle up I started walking/sliding down the side of the mountain towards the chaos down below. Everything was already moving at this point so my abilities would be more useful in combat and trying to organize the civilians or some sort of organized retreat instead of what appeared to be a writhing mass of chaos trying to escape the valley by trampling anyone who got in the way.
My slide led me to the southern end of the valley where we needed to get in front of the chaos. I fired a few shots into the air to stop the horde of civilians. Although It could have been the amount of Space Marines that slid down behind me. Or the wolves? Actually it was probably mainly the wolves as they let out some large barks and growls that even my bolter could not compete with.
"We're all going to die! It's a giant! They're going to eat us!" One man near the back of the crowd said, causing the horde of people who were already near panic to get a little bit closer to trying to stampede over even Space Marines. The one good thing about that screaming comment was that it let me know that they were speaking a form of Low Gothic. One that was not too far off from the variant I had been learning to speak since joining the imperium, which meant I could talk to them.
"Not here to eat you or anything else you're thinking," I called. "This is a rescue operation for all of you and I can't rescue you if you trample each other to death! My Space Marines here are going to organize you into several lines to make sure you do not trample each other. We have shuttles landing in the valley that you will be loaded on and you will be taken away from the Ork Masters. Is that understood?"
"What's a shuttle…" That same voice came from the man who had screamed about being eaten causing me to almost facepalm at that comment considering they must have been on the shuttle at least once to get here. Or maybe the Orks did allow people to have kids here? Well, I needed to learn more about how they operated that was for sure.
"A flying boat. You're going home to either your planet or at least a planet that has human populations that won't abuse you for slave labor." That last comment was more of a hope, I actually wasn't very aware of what kind of systems the nearby human planets had in place. I heard they were medieval so maybe there was enforced labor but it could be not that bad, right… "Either way you are getting away from the Orks so form a line and allow my men to guide you to safety." The panicked mass still seemed to be quite unsure about that so I simply look to my wolves and they immediately understood my meaning.
Growling they shepherded them into lines quickly. Ah, nothing is more convincing than a pair of sharp teeth and the look of hunger in a predator's eyes. I watched with a smile as they organized the humans in lines that Space Marines then checked over before they went by. Once I was sure that things were going well I moved past them to get further into the camp and headed towards where the fighting was going on. Already I could see shuttles coming in over the mountains to land in the valley below and, corresponding with that, the second wave of steel rain which had been designed to target the wall started falling.
Tripods smashed into the walls of the Ork fortress and disgorged Marines directly into the enemies attempts to get themselves organized. Okay, it seemed to have worked out right as there was no anti-aircraft fire while those pods came in and secured the wall, preventing Ork from moving into the slave camps. With the wall secured the last of the known AA guns were also completely removed from play, meaning the close support air vehicles started to fly around finding anything that tried to poke its head out of the fortress.
I could possibly order my men to push into the fort and take as much as possible but this operation didn't require me to kill all the Orks, it just required me to save as many of the humans as possible. And also the Redskins humans, that apparently weren't human. Seriously? That was just a human with red skin, I thought, watching one walk by in the lines.
I walked a bit further in and then I saw that Fierce and Cunning had wandered off. Confused I looked back and found Fierce helping a kid that had apparently been trampled. Fierce was pulling him by the neck of his shirt to put him up on Cunning's back. There were a couple other kids that looked on in horror before they realized they were not being eaten. Being trusting kids they immediately ran over to the wolves to, I assume, get the same safety that that kid was getting. Either that or today's brats were really stupid and they just wanted to pet the big doggies. Either way they were helped into the line by the wolves and were being processed towards the escape vessels. The whole scenario brought a bit of a smile to my face as it reminded me of when I first met the wolves. It inspired me to lean down to one of the many nameless wolves I had allowed to be brought on board the Hrafnkel, tapping his shoulder and pointing towards Fierce and Cunning, The eaven landed on its head and they both nodded in agreement before running and flying off to the other wolves and ravens. Those immediately got to work finding those who had been wounded in the stampede and helping them into the line.
It was so nice to have subordinates who were intelligent and able to understand what I wanted. Moving on I finally got past the majority of the chaos where people were still just sitting in crappily-built things made from scrap metal and a bit of fabric. These folks seemed to be the more beaten down of the slaves on this planet, either having given up on escape or not seeing this as an opportunity to even try. I couldn't tell them to try and move on ahead for the escape. Currently my men were overburdened with both fighting at one end of the valley and dealing with the civilians trying to escape at the other, adding to the chaos and the mayhem by sending these folks forward would do them no good even if I wanted to make this operation as fast as possible.
Stopping I looked at the walls that were still about half a mile away the fighting was going on fiercely there so I pulled up my communicator and asked, "Captain of the first company, what's the situation at the walls? How long do we have before we need to make our escape?"
There was a pause before the radio cut in, "This is the second in command to the first company, Commander was injured and is currently beating an Ork to death with his missing arm. We probably can hold this position for another 2 to 3 hours without problem but we believe that the fortifications are full of Orks. It seems that they're just waiting for a slackening in fire to get at us, they're also using several hidden hallways built into the castle walls to try and… well, sneak up on us and create that lapse in fire. That's why the captain is currently beating one to death with his arm."
I blinked several times then shook my head at the realization that, yes, he did just say that the captain of the first division had lost his arm and, instead of seeking medical aid, was currently beating the Ork who cut it off with said arm. Not the worst weapon, considering it would be inside power armor. Though I wondered how he had not passed out from the blood loss. Space Marine biology, what you think you know might be wrong and that's just the realities of it. Then again if something had broken through the power armor it might be a lightsaber for all I know, so he might not be bleeding as the wound had been cauterized by the cut.
Shaking my head I said into the comms, "Tell the commander of the first to finish beating the Ork to death and then return to his position. Make sure that he gets treatment, I don't want to lose a man able to fight like that to any local diseases. Understand?"
"Yes, my Primarch." Came the voice of the second in command before the radio went quiet. I saw several of my wolves had returned, obviously already having finished getting people into line and helping the wounded as best they could. Taking a knee I pat one on the head before saying, "Find anyone who's trying to escape but can't walk inside the camp, help them get to the lines." The wolf nodded before trotting off, the others quickly swarming into the camp. Hopefully the people inside the camp weren't armed but, considering that they were slaves, I would assume the Orks took a stance against weapon ownership for their thralls. In any case, if they did try to attack the wolves I would assume that that would not end well for them.
Quietly I walked to an elderly woman who was rocking in a chair, surrounded by three folks who looked rather terrified. Taking a knee in front of the group, I said, "Do you need help moving?"
The old woman shook her head and answered in an acid voice, "No but if you can convince my retarded children to run already that would be nice."
I let out a laugh as the oldest of the three around her wheeled around, "Mother! I'm not going to leave you to the Orks."
"I'm not your goddamn problem. If you'd ever left me and ran for the hills you would be fine and safe instead of staying here to take care of an old lady while working yourself to death in their scrap mines."
"I do what's necessary for the family, mother, and we're not going to abandon you. You never abandoned me."
Shaking my head I simply said, "Well, there's an easy answer to this." Reaching out I grabbed both sides of the chair and lifted it and everything on top of it into the air.
The old lady actually attempted to hit me with her cane, saying "Don't do that, I'm afraid of heights."
"Well, today's your lucky day. You can just close your eyes and imagine you're on the water while I take you to a shuttle that'll get you out of a situation which, in my mind, should be scarier than heights. And your kids can come along as they apparently won't leave the camp without you."
"Fine," the old lady grumbled, causing me to chuckle once again as I started hauling her towards the end of the valley.
Tanya Russ
It took an hour maybe two but we finally evacuated the majority of the civilian population to the Gloriana battleship up above, still hiding behind the local moon. From what I was hearing the fleet fight had gone well as the Orks had been forced to retreat, meaning that I had managed to not only push the Orks inside their fortifications but prevented them from activating any possible landbased weapon systems that could have been used against the fleet.
As for the civilians we quickly rounded them all up and loaded them onto shuttles. From there I would negotiate for trade ships to take them to local human worlds or worlds that could support the population, leaving this planet without its human resources to use as slaves. The Orks would most likely be able to take the planet back when we left but they would have a greatly diminished resource pool to rebuild their fortifications as we started the bombardment over them.
All in all, a good day. The enemy was denied valuable human resources and I had been granted a propaganda win. The Wolves had been bloodied in their first combat and losses were very minimal. The most severe injury that had been found was the captain of the first division who lost an arm. Sure there were a few dead but they had done stupid things and won stupid prizes. Charging an empty hallway expecting there not to be some sort of weapon around the corner was not exactly the smartest thing. Darwin would unfortunately have to help clean out the foolhardy amongst my legion it would seem. Or maybe I needed to improve the training. I would have to go over every report from the commanding officers to find out exactly what led to the few deaths we had had and improve the training based on what we'd find. No, I suspected it would just be simple Gloryseeking in battle, the Achille's heel that seemed to be present in my Geneseed or just leftover cultural elements from Fenris. After all can't go to heaven if you don't die in battle, supposedly. Damn LARPing was going to be a pain in my ass to clean out of the legion.