Jaghatai Khan
The Warp was a strange entity, and an even stranger form of travel. I had departed from my homeworld of Chogoris in 871, M30. And arrived at my destination in 854 M30, traveling roughly 10 years before I'd even met the Emperor.
I had arrived just in time to take part in an attack action that the Lunar Wolves and the Emperor's personal guard were involved in and gave them the aid they needed to successfully conquer the planet.
After that there had been a strained conversation between me and people I knew but didn't know me. I had still been accepted as one of the Emperor's sons and he had agreed to the terms that I had already gotten out of him the first time we met.
And then he promised not to tell my past self that this had happened. Apparently this was a known thing that could happen; time travel due to the manipulations of the Warp was just something that happened and humanity had some procedures for when people went backwards instead of forward. That procedure being: don't tell the person that it's going to happen to them.
A bit annoying, I think I would prefer to have joined the Crusade when I was joining rather than in 871. The Xenocides of the Rangdans were coming to the northern frontier and they needed aid, but I had been told to keep my silence on what the future would bring.
Seemed foolish to me since a little bit of future knowledge could help but the explanation of my Father and Brother was that since they knew that I would be time traveling whatever information I was given was probably not exactly true, in order to try and prevent contamination of the timeline.
Time travel was a messy subject and they just did not want to deal with it while trying to build the Empire. I could understand it after some time, I could even respect it. Trying to figure out what's happening right now based on information that may not be very clear in the future could have adverse effects.
Once the situation resolved and verified, I had been given some general orders of joining the Crusade and to avoid my homeworld until after I left it in this timeline.
I was told not to leak any information on where my homeworld was to them as, again, they wanted to keep the timeline as uncorrupted as possible. I don't think it really would have mattered but I could admit that, perhaps, I wouldn't have had as much ability to negotiate with the Emperor in 865 if I had not already conquered that planet in the year. If the Emperor had arrived a little earlier… perhaps I would not have been able to get as good of a deal as I did, even if he did seem to be a rather reasonable individual. He was without question a conqueror. If he felt that I was some weakling he think nothing of conquering my own world and enforcing his vassalage instead of the negotiated takeover that I had been deemed worthy of by having the planet under my control.
With that situation handled, I had set out amongst the Stars to conquer in the name of the Imperium and quickly found myself called upon by local forces of the Imperial Army, forces who needed reinforcements against an oncoming Ork Waaagh that was pushing heavily on the Northern frontier of Sector Obscura.
I had responded. Arriving ahead of any other reinforcements. My forces were now preparing for a general push against War Boss Mashogg, the leader of these green Xenos, though my legion would not be the only Space Marine legion deployed against this enemy horde.
Two other legions were scheduled to join me, the Iron Warriors who apparently were on their way into this sector of space but would take a few months to get here and the Wolves of Fenris. I had my doubts about fighting by their side, but it seems I would be forced to.
I had little time in 871 to actually explore the other Primarchs' reputations and who they were, but I heard rumors. And the King of Russ played a large part in those rumors. A true barbarian warlord who was used by the Emperor against some of the toughest targets and meant to break an enemy's will to fight. At least that's how the story goes, along with how the warriors of Fenris are dirty savages propped up by technology salvaged from the Mechanicus who were uninterested in supplying a barbarian host.
Apparently these priests of Mars had dealt with techno barbarians before, they weren't a fan of them. I was disappointed in these Fenrisians simply because of their reputation. Using fear the way they did, they drove into people's minds that Space Marines were nothing but uncultured warriors sent to destroy everything that stood against the Emperor. An image that tainted every Space Marine, no matter his legion.
And that taint was much harder on my own legion, most of my legionnaires still carried tribal markings from their homeworld and it would continue well into the future as there was no reason to reject these symbol of brotherhood. It's unfortunate that these tribal markings seem to be, in most people's mind, a representation of barbaric cultures because of what had happened on Terra and several other planets during the long night.
This served to explain my concerns with the Wolves of Fenris, their activities fed into stereotypes that would harm my own legion's ability to work. Not only that, but the fact that these Wolves of Fenris had chosen their symbols despite meeting the Lunar Wolves and had harmed their reputation due to the confusion about reports between what was a Lunar Wolf action and what was a Wolves of Fenris action in some of the reports I read.
Considering the Wolves of Fenris's reputation, it was easy to just put all the worst reports into the category of the Wolves of Fenris and put all the good reports into the Luna wolves as I had a good relations with Horus, or at least future Horus, and he seemed a more reasonable individual than some reports would imply.
The point of course being that the King of Russ's reputation preceded them and it was not a great reputation to have. And now I was having to work with this barbarian manchild who apparently from some reports drank his legion under the table for a laugh. I would play nice but I simply did not look forward to the experience of working with them, the sooner this was over the sooner I could get on with conquering as much territory as possible and ignoring the fact that I was not exactly in the timeline I should be.
As I sat back against the low wall separating the central meeting area on the bridge from operations former legion Master Helitin Ventassius chuckled as he looked at the screen showing several of the planets we would need to conquer. "This feels like old times," he said matter of factly, drawing my interest.
"Old times?" I asked.
Helitin Ventassius looked up before saying, "I was part of the portions of the Star Hunters that worked with the Iron Warriors and the Wolves of Fenris to conquer the Wheel of Fire about… I guess in this time 20 years ago? That was 40 for me."
"Really? Did they have their Primarch, these Wolves of Fenris, by then? Tell me are these stories about him as true as I believe them to be."
The former legion Master blinked before saying, "Him?" in confusion and then chuckled at an obvious realization. "Ha! The stories are not as true as you would think actually. If anything I'd say those warlord claims are a bit of over dramatized by the propaganda departments, using the old fear of getting conquered to get people to surrender instead of actually having to conquer them. That method is something that I think the Primarch of the Sixth would use and allow "
For some reason he somehow skillfully avoided saying him again. Why would he avoid that? It seemed rather odd; the Emperor had told me I had many brothers out there so unless he had been deceiving me I should be getting mention of him back at least.
"No," I discontinued that line of thought as the former legion Master continued, saying, "This was back well before I took the rank of legion master, I was just a humble captain at the time. We were used extensively to pathfind throughout the Wheel of Fire, finding ways in and out by which to safely move. We tracked down several of the enemy formations for the Wolves of Fenris to destroy. Russ could be rather brutal to their enemies but I'll tell you this: they're good to their allies. We got cut off on one of those expeditions and they dropped everything to send reinforcements to back us up."
"Hmm; so they're very loyal to their friends? That's useful at least to know," I mused, shaking my head before I continued. "Know anything about the Iron Warriors' Primarch? They're are also coming here to help us with this campaign."
Helitin Ventassius shook his head before saying "Never met him. I know he took power just sometime after the legion took part in the fighting on Incaladion and there was a bit of a controversy after that but information on exactly what happened has been kept away from the public. Some sort of legion spat, from what I understand."
Oh wonderful, I thought, shaking my head at the realization that I would have to work with not only a barbarian but probably someone who was having some sort of internal legion issues. I could not hope for this campaign to be over quicker, the longer it went on the more likely I was to run into some foolishness from those two. I'd rather not run into the foolishness that these two could unleash, I'd heard some rumors about the Iron Warriors in my studies of the reports, mainly that they were very efficient at siege warfare but also very abrasive people. If they were abrasive to each other as well that was meant that there would probably be internal conflicts and I didn't want to deal with that.
Letting out a deep breath I just focused on what I needed to: the Mashogg Waaagh, an Ork horde of several million who needed to be turned back, destroyed, and then hunted down. We knew that they had generally come from the north and that there were plenty of enemy planets that they could be hiding out on. We knew that they had a large enough fleet that even the Mechanicus was somewhat concerned about their potential combat abilities.
They had contributed quite a substantial fleet and military for landings, not counting the Imperial army which was also heavily deployed to this front. Question was how were we going to bring these Orks to battle? I understood that they enjoyed conflict but if we left topo open of a plan in front of them they would most likely see a trap and attempt to sidestep us or find some way past us into more profitable conquest.
A Space Marine came up a set of stairs and saluted with an Aquila before reporting, "My Primarch, Primarch Russ has arrived in system and is already in transport and moving to land in our landing areas."
"That's rather prompt," I admitted, at least noting that that was one good thing they had going for them.
"Deja vu," Helitin Ventassius said, shaking his head with a bemused look on his face.
"First," I said to the soldier, "Have a transmission sent that they are welcome to come aboard, we will be waiting for them on the bridge." Once he nodded and stepped away I turned to the former legion master and said, "I'm going to take it that they operated very similarly during the Wheel of Fire campaign?"
"Down to already being in a transport ready to come over and talk to us when they arrived for our meeting. They are one for being prompt, they're also one for getting down to business and figuring out how they're going to deal with the enemy as quickly as possible."
"Well then perhaps this won't be so bad after all," I muttered, shaking my head as I looked at the screen in front of me. Wondering how we were going to draw the Orks into combat where we needed them to be, there was a planet here in between their theoretical lines and our own. If we could force them to try and take that planet we could turn that into a slaughterfield for the enemy fleet, the question was how we were going to make the Orks come to us.
And if we were successful in destroying the enemy fleet and then the ground forces they landed on the planet would we still have enough resources to push forward into their domain and find where their Capital was and destroy it? The White Scars were pretty good at looking for enemy positions so, theoretically, we could do it and find their base but would we have enough to break through? Hmm worse comes to worst we could wait for the Iron Warriors lead units to arrive, after all they were good at siege warfare so getting their help in whatever conflict we were stuck into would be exactly what we needed.
Apparently I was in thought for some time as the next thing I knew I heard a Space Marine calling that Primarch Russ was on their way up the elevator.
Standing up I look towards the elevator expecting to see some barbarian warlord march out, covered in furs and scars, looking every bit the monster techno barbarians I had been informed once ruled over portions of Terra.
Instead of the elevator doors opened I had to lower my eyesight foot and look at a young woman covered in furs and scars standing just a head or so above an average Space Marine. Looking every bit the technobarbarian I expected but yet with a light in the eyes that denoted intelligence that was more than the outward appearance would give.
She walked forward from the elevator without seemingly any concern, a wolf pelt Cape flowing around her shoulders and a pair of Space Marines behind her bearing the wolf insignias on their shoulder.
She stopped just at the entrance to the small circle that made up the command center and gave a slight nod to the former legion Master before turning to me. "You must be my new brother. Welcome to The crusade, I am Tanya Russ, king of Fenris, commander of the Sixth legion, the Wolves of Fenris.
"And you are both what I was expecting and not what I was expecting and that's what I was expecting," I said clearly. Looking her over again before saying, "The Emperor never mentioned I had any sisters."
She smiled and something about it was unsettling. It was probably the fangs, they seemed unnaturally large on her. She leaned back and said, "Yes, Father does tend to play games with our meetings. I think he wants us to meet each other with very few preconceptions so we can make up our own minds on each other, get to know each other without anything built up in our minds beforehand."
Hmm well if that had been the Emperor's plan by not sharing exact details I apparently had spoiled it in 20 years when I had given myself as much information as I could on my possible Brothers, and now sisters. How many sisters were there?
Shaking my head, I said, "That is a strange way to handle things." I looked off as realization hit me that the Emperor had never exactly treated me like a child when he arrived on Chogoris, but as soon as we met after the time travel… Didn't he refer to me as a son? Had that been a game of the Emperor's? He knew that there would be time travel involved in my future so he'd been a little bit of a cold shoulder, standoffish for a little bit of fun for himself while knowing that after we met again in the past he would treat me differently.
If it was it showed a bit of forethought that I couldn't exactly understand. Shaking my head, I said, "Well be that as may be, I am Jagathai Khan of Chogoris. It is an honor to meet the Emperor's only daughter." I threw that in, to see what I may get.
She smiled and replied, "Only known daughter, at least known to me for sure. Of the other Primarchs I have met they were all Brothers. The Emperor has said there are other sisters to me, though he's left it a bit vague on who and where they may be."
"Hmm, I guess I'm just going to have to get to use to the Emperor"s eccentricity about us getting to meet each other." I answered, nodding my head before continuing, "Anyways welcome to the front for me to fight the Overdog Mashogg horde. We're dealing with a massive Ork swarm that is preparing to invade Imperial space for their own benefit and games. We've managed to put together a large army here to fight but every hand is needed to send these barbarians back in the direction they came from."
"I see there's a nice planet there to draw them in for a fight," Tanya said, easily spotting the potential of the planet I was just looking at.
"Yes, that is a place where we've noticed the enemy could be drawn in," I added, shaking my head. "We're not exactly sure how we're going to do it, making the enemy attack a position we would control would give us a large benefit in the combat but obviously the enemy would know this as well."
"Hmm, have you tried challenging them to a fight?" She just said that matter-of-factly, causing me to look at her. Spotting my confusion she added, "How many fights have you had with the Orks?"
"Not many. I've read many of the reports on them but they are not something we had to deal with on my homeworld."
She nodded before saying, "Neither did I but I have had to fight the Orks quite a bit since getting off my world and I'm sure you will get this experience standing the line as well. The Orks love to fight. If you challenge them, give them a place, they will come at you. They don't think about traps like you and me, traps aren't something the enemy springs to start a fight to them. For Orks traps are something you spring in the middle of an ongoing fight, something used to get closer to your enemy and not to get around them."
"So daring them into attacking us would work?" I surmised, before asking, "And the best kind of bait would be?"
"Space Marines." she simply answered matter-of-factly. "The bigger the enemy they fight, the more they want to fight them. Those are simple victory conditions for them: if I'm bigger and I beat him that means I'm better, and if I'm smaller and I beat him that means I'm really bigger. If you want them really going up provide them with a juicy target where they'll get a chance to win glory and they'll come running to that position like there's no tomorrow."
"But what would stop them from commencing an orbital bombardment and just taking the victory like that?"
She laughed at that, replying, "The Orks have a fleet, yes, and they do use it to transport troops but asking them to commence orbital bombardment on their enemy is like asking them to start washing and taking a bath. Yeah they could do it but they'll be a nuisance the whole time, preferring rather to just not and go fight their enemy face to face."
"So you're suggesting then that one of our legions should take up position on this world?" I pointed to the one on the screen, before adding, "and draw in the enemy as much as possible. Do we have any idea how we would do that?"
"Oh, that's no problem at all," she said matter-of-factly, before adding, "One of the Orks from the Wheel of Fire apparently escaped the campaign and has been spreading rumor amongst the rest of the Orks of my fierceness, which means they have an interest in fighting me though they keep calling my legion 'Space Wolves'. Simply mentioning that I am the one who defeated the leader of the Wheel of Fire should get them interested in coming out to play on that planet. Of course we'll need time to set up the fortifications there, at least a week or two if not a month.
I looked at the map before saying, "I could definitely hook and prod at the areas around the enemy lines with the Fifth and the other forces. We could definitely hold their attention long enough for you to build a bit of a redoubt to weather the initial storm of them coming for you."
She nodded before saying, "And once that's started to weather we'll have a location where they're sending all their forces for the imperium to send their fleet."
"Once we crush the fleet we then just have to push into their space and just start bombarding their planets," I said with a nod, agreeing with this plan.
"Bombarding as long as there's no human or slave population on the planet that we can rescue," Tanya said, taking me by surprise on that. I had expected her not to care about any humans down on the planet below. She noticed my look and said "Propaganda reasons, of course. We need to maintain the look that the Imperium is the good guys and freeing slaves always makes you look like the good guys to the local sectors."
"Sound logic," I concurred before nodding my head in approval. Perhaps this barbarian wasn't as barbarian as she appeared, what schemes were running through her mind? Someone who posed as a barbarian but had the cunning to wield propaganda against her enemies was quite dangerous an opponent. That was what she was in the long term of it, a wily War Lord that the Emperor had embraced as their child but was a potential opponent. Some of them felt like they could be good friends but if they ever fell out of step with the Emperor's wishes I had no doubt that there would be a fight between them.
In fact I had no doubt that there would be a fight someday nonetheless. I had seen it quite often amongst the clans, children of Khans tearing apart their kingdoms so there was nothing but scraps. Amongst the people of my homeworld it was so common that it was not an impossibility that it could happen amongst the Primarchs. If something, whatever it was; happened to the Emperor… The fact of the matter was, as far as I knew, there was no potential that none of them would ever get it up in their heads that maybe they would be preferred to be the Emperor. That had happened as well on the planet of Chogoris, children thinking that they should rule. Some of them had even been better rulers than their fathers so they had some right to it.
If all the children of the Emperor were as ambitious as they appeared to be I had no doubt that sooner or later one of them would outgrow the reach of their ambition and try and go for something against the Emperor. It was only a matter of time.
Personally I would just have to hope that enough of us would maintain control of our ambitions to see the Emperor's goals made manifest. As far as I saw the unification of humanity was important, the spreading of the Imperial troop as well as it removed much of the barbarism that had taken over in the period after the fall of humanity.
Shaking my head I focused in on the daughter of the Emperor once more, saying, "Well then I think we have a plan. You will be the bait for the trap and I will do my best to keep the enemy preoccupied as we build that trap. How much of the Imperial army do you think you'll need?"
"To hold the planet for the amount of time it will be necessary to get the rest of the Orks in the position?"
She looked at the planet, pressing the holographic projector and allowing it to be closer inspected before giving a summary of her thoughts. "My elements of the legion that I have here are reinforced by about 7 to 10,000 Skitarii or similar Mechanicus forces and 50,000 Imperial infantry."
"That is not a lot," I said matter-of-factly. From what I counted of her forces, she had only about 100,000 troops. Even if Space Marines were a force multiplier that seemed like a Herculean task to hold the planet for as long as we needed.
"I won't need much. I'm seeing a lot of mountainous regions that we can build our fortifications in and most of my men, including my personal Imperial army units from Fenris, are well-trained in mountain fighting. We could bleed the Orks there for months and they'd probably never be able to take our strongholds if we build them high enough."
She then pointed to one mountainous region on the equator, near the central area that was shaped almost like a fisher's hook, one end almost reaching the other.
"I'll probably put support structures in that area," She said, indicating the most protected point of the Fisher Hook. "We probably could even have supplies brought in to us even during the worst of the fighting."
I nodded and said, "And that's a rather flat plane around where they would have to build their fortifications, flat plains are a very good specialty of my own troops. We have a passion for movement warfare."
"Mhmm, beautiful… Then we could trap them in between a rock and a hard place and slowly grind them till there's nothing left." Tanya was smiling again, her fangs almost giving her a bloodthirsty look and making me doubt my own assumptions about her not being as barbaric as legend said. Strange.
She seemed to be a mix of the two, a barbarian and an intelligent warrior not too dissimilar to myself though… More emotive about it, I would guess would be the correct term. Nodding my head in approval I said, "I think we have a plan then. I will instruct the local fleets on our operational ideas and you can begin your operation to set up a fortification. Good luck, king of Fenris."
She smiled and looked at me as she replied in kind, "Good luck, Jagathai Khan. Give the Orks as much as you can." On that I could agree to without much issue.
Tanya Russ
Planet Fisher hook, as I had started calling it, was a rather desolate world. Sure there was green grass everywhere but that was it. No trees, no bushes, it looked like someone had dropped a load of lawn care equipment on the planet and expected to come back to something a bit more interesting in a couple hundred years. At least that was my theory on what the terraformers had been trying to do, there was no way this planet had started off with just nothing but grass. Well, I guessed that in a big enough universe anything was possible?
Plains surrounded the entire area around the Fisher Hook mountains range, mountains that nearly entirely circled each other but also ran to the South. Quite a perfect place to build a fortified line to stop an enemy advance, or in this case build a starport in the middle of the Fisher Hook and fortify the line so the enemy would have plenty of places to attack but no actual easy access or weak points to focus on.
For the last 3 weeks my men, both the men of the legion and the Fenrisian forces, had been working their asses off digging trenches, building fortified bunkers, and creating emplacements for artillery pieces. This mountain range and several smaller ones nearby had been converted into a fortified Outpost that would not easily be taken over. Granted I would prefer to hit the enemy and not be the one to take the hits, but I could see a good position when I had one. This place would allow me to grind the enemy down quite effectively.
After 3 weeks of work, it would now do even better at that. Fortified bunkers were covering most of the mountain range, trenches connected them, and the artillery positions could now provide maximum coverage for the entire line. Of course my personal forces didn't have the best artillery as a result of my preferred method of movement warfare but that's what the Imperial Army was for. The Army had quite a large artillery inventory, more guns than they had even been able to carry around so putting them along the mountains to do the job of killing the Ork menace made a lot of sense. One good thing about this planet's rather ridiculously monotonous biosphere, just a grassy field that covered most of the planet, was that when the fighting was over we would only have to burn most of the grasslands to make sure we got all the Orks spores. We'd then leave this planet to recover on its own. Well, mostly on its own. I wouldn't be surprised if my men and the men of the Imperial army had been dropping all kinds of fruit seeds and all sorts of other stuff across the mountain ranges they were now camping in. Not to mention there was always the probability of rats and other animals escaping onto the planet.
The planet's terribly simple biosphere was probably going to explode after all the fighting, just from everything that was being introduced on accident.
In any case our position was now ready to withstand the siege we had built up for. Soon enough the Orks would be called upon and they would most likely accept the challenge. One thing you could count on about the Orks: they loved a good fight and if you offered them one they would come.
Khan's reports had indicated some interesting things, the Orks were preparing for their own counter-attack but it looked like they were heading towards a planet a little bit north. Their current target was along the border between Imperial space and this war, no doubt they were getting tired of waiting for us to take action so they were going to do something. Beyond that it looked like they were well and truly ready for an attack against them, even with the forces they were gathering for their assault on the border planet we would run into their ships on patrol now and again.
I'd give this Mashogg something: he wasn't an idiot. He knew how to keep his lines of defense functional. That was somewhat concerning about the possibility that they may know how to fight and crack my fortification here but I didn't worry too much about it. The plan was simply to draw them in over a course of a week and, once the majority of their forces were here, the Fleet would Warp in from staging areas nearby to start pounding the enemy fleet until there was nothing left.
With all luck we could see the Orks take 50% losses, which would give us the initiative to attack anywhere within their area of control. Hopefully we'd soon enough find their homeworld and crush that. As it would be the main location of Ork breeding we needed to deal with, the sooner the better.
I believed we'd find it rather quickly given what I'd seen of Khan's work. He was well and truly a continuation of the Star Hunters, only on a larger scale. He seemed to value information about the situation quite greatly and I quite enjoyed the information he gathered. I already had a prediction about how long it would take for the enemy to deploy most of their forces to this planet once we got it under their skin that we were here, it would be somewhere around a week and a half. With that prediction I had already stockpiled supplies for about 2 weeks because being prepared for a longer campaign will never hurt anyone. We had enough artillery ammo to probably keep the guns firing for three weeks straight though we probably wouldn't need that.
That being said I quite enjoyed working with my brother, even if he seemed to have issues with the idea of being siblings. He was like me in many aspects, I think, very logical and his deduction of how we would handle a situation coming from a world of barbarism but not being a barbarian themselves. Not to mention he was favoring mobile warfare to a greater degree than even I did, in fact I was somewhat jealous of the amount of fast-moving vehicles he had gathered in his short time amongst the Crusade.
But not too upset about it really. From the short conversations we shared I had enough of an understanding of him to gather that his particular method of running down the enemy would work well with this strategy. I suspected that he would not only use his land forces here to help us crush the Orks when the time came but he would also be using some of his ships to lead the Imperial Navy elements into combat in various areas. He had already found outposts or supply points and was getting ready to cut off any way for them to resupply the combat here once it started.
That was something that I think we would be fairly grateful for when this war was over. The ability to have more than one Commander leading the force and having a general idea of what could be done with their abilities. The Orks tended to see themselves all as a horde and follow the lead of their Commander. Yes, there were some offshoot commanders here or there but generally they were just following the lead of the greater Commander unless they decided to become threats to that greater Commander. Threats to the greater Commander didn't usually last long. Something that was rather useful when dealing with them, internal politics brought on to a military scale was always a weakness. Luckily it was something that we didn't have to deal with for the most part. Yes, there were some internal politics about logistics but those were logistical problem and not a military command problem. We had been slowly working those problems out as the years had gone on, my stockpile of weapons meant for killing Orks had grown to the point that this campaign would be rather easy by my estimate. I think five Great Companies were currently equipped with Volkyte weapons for their main infantry rifle. Sure that meant that five other Companies that were with me still had bolters but Bolters were an important weapon on their own sake. Their ability to just not jam very often, their redundancies and ammo capacity, whether with heavy weapons such as the heavy bolter or light weapons such as bolter pistols, made them useful at all times.
That being said if I could get my entire legion outfitted with Volkyte, I probably would. It was simply too effective when you really thought about it. Give it time and I would be able to field probably one of the best armies ever outfitted for war in the history of humanity, the other 19 of course being my sibling's legions.
My thoughts on the matter were interrupted by the voice of Lord Wolfen, who had become a rather competent secretary. I would have been overjoyed at that development if not for some strange comments they had taken to slip in, that seemed to simply be there to annoy me. "Mother, the 57th Terra division has confirmed full emplacement of its equipment and lines."
"Thank you, Lord Wolfen," I answered, nodding to her as I sat up from my bed where I had been laying down to think about what was to happen in the coming hours.
Like most of mine Valkyries she was wearing the newer power armor that had been designed by Miss Adelheid. It was specially designed to fit the female form, and at least in her case to continue to look like a mini-me only with dark hair thing she had going on.
We had gotten to know each other over the last 20 years or so. Well I felt we had gotten to know each other to some extent and as a result she tended to call me mother now. Some of the other male Space Marines had mentioned a similar use of the terminology but only once or twice. I'd always given them a look and they'd gone back to using King or Primarch.
Lord Wolfen seemed to enjoy that it upset me to some extent and was not going to back down on it. I had thought about ordering her to stop but really I had screwed their life quite a bit and suffering the comment of 'mother' once in a while didn't exactly cause me much pain.
Thankfully she was the only one who picked up the habit of doing that, even the other failed Space Marines who had been incorporated into my Valkyrie tended to use Primarch or king of Russ or any other of my titles over 'mother'.
Standing up I looked her over again, noting that she was wearing a white wolf fur cloak. Her eyes were glowing like they tended to and she was carrying that staff still. She was psychically gifted, at least to an extent that was somewhere close to my level. As such I had taken her on as a bit of a protege and had been her teacher on how to defend herself mentally against problems that may occur. As a result though she didn't often use her Bolter gun but she was a rather competent psyker and was named a Rune Priest by the order that had taken up that position in my army.
And they had seen to her outfitting with a few protections runes and other things, modifying her armor as necessary.
Shaking my head to get the hair into the position I liked I stood up and said, "Well, correct me if I'm wrong but that's the last military unit that needs to be entrenched completely. Which means."
"I've already got a radio system up and running and ready for you, my mother," Lord Wolfen said with a smile and a bow, before continuing, "All you need to do is make your statement and the fighting will commence."
I nodded my head to her before saying, "All right then. Well, better get moving." I headed towards the door she was standing in front of. I'd been sleeping inside one of the bunkers we had dug out. They were not the best bunkers that could be created but after all we only had three weeks of effective construction time. My wolves were at my feet as we walked by, they tended to give my quote-unquote daughter a bit of leeway when they went by her. They seem to be a bit unnerved by her appearance and, by my guess, potential power.
To be expected. From my research, I knew that those of psychic power were not always well-liked by animals. So, until she proved herself as someone they could trust, they probably wouldn't be fans of the fact that she could pose for me in my younger days.
Walking into the main command center of the bunker I saw many Space Marines moving about, filing paperwork, and keeping track of what resources we had for the coming conflict. Logistics Commander Mackenzie Buckle was currently whistling as he was looking over reports on our efforts on building stable platforms for our tanks to move up and down the mountains without having to worry about them detreading or falling down a cliff.
Also amongst the others in the room were my Valkyries, working as a support staff as they either moved paperwork or brought drinks for others working on it.
Just as myself and my mini-me they were wearing armor that showed up a bit of the femininity that Miss Adelheid preferred, though I knew that a lot of them tended to wear enough fur clothes that you probably wouldn't see it from a distance. Capes, shoulder pieces, even loincloths. One enterprising individual was wearing fur chaps of all things over their leg armor. That was Ms. Vebrand Grithsson, the former Space Marine candidate who had gotten lost in the woods for a few years before returning no longer a Space Marine and having her own thunder wolf pet. The beast was actually in a corner right now, looking annoyed at being in such a small space. That girl was probably the tallest member of my Valkyries and, having put her helmet on, she might actually pass for me at a distance.
A useful decoy while on the battlefield, that I did admit. Due to her height, she could pass for any Space Marine if not for her armor design. I had attempted to get Miss Adelheid to produce something other than… well something that celebrated that femininity the way her armor tended to do but that conversation had not gone very successfully. To be more exact she admonished me greatly for wanting to hide my humanity, claiming that showing off who you were and that you were human and not some monster in an iron suit was important to demonstrate that we were there to help people.
An annoyingly logical conclusion that I had to acknowledge and deal with on my own. It looked like I would never be done with the boob plates.
Beyond that there was about a dozen or so other Valkyries, the newer branch of them at least, women who had undergone experimental procedures with my genes. They had come out the other side about the average size of normal Fenrisian woman but able to survive a bit more damage, and possibly able to live a little longer too. One of them actually kind of reminded me of an old friend from my last life. Miss Yrsa, brown-haired and strong and determined, would become sort of the second head of my Valkyrie operation. I could leave them under her command and I would be sure they would hold the position I told them to hold. I could also guarantee that she would have a cup of coffee waiting for me when I woke up. Again one of the reasons that she reminded me of one of my old friends, that familiar sort of go-getterness that I enjoyed in an employee.
Walking forward I picked up the glass of offered coffee from a tray she was carrying as she said, "Good morning, Primarch. Everything is set and ready to go." I nodded in agreement before walking over to the radio.
Picking up I stood there, trying to decide how best I was going to do this, before finally going with the old classic.
"Hey, Orks? This is the Primarch of the Wolves of Fenris, the Sixth legion. You might know us, thanks to rumors of my conquest, as the Space Wolves. Whatever you know me by I'm on this front and I want a bigger fight than the puny scraps you've given us. I've landed and taken over the planet in between the two frontiers of the Imperium in your war. Come here and unroot me from it and maybe you'll actually get a fight worth fighting, otherwise well… Then you're just weaklings who are posing as Orks."
Putting down the radio I sat down and said "Now that should be transmitted into the rest of the void around here within the next 24 hours, it probably will make its way to the Orks soon enough."
"Knowing these creatures I would imagine they'll probably come running, considering they seem to have a love for fighting only rivaled by us." Lord Wolfen said matter-of-factly as she picked a cup of coffee up from the offered tray, sipping it.
"They'll probably come faster than that," logistics Commander Mackenzie Buckle said from his table. "We've just got a report that there was an Ork ship poking around this system an hour ago so we might get an advanced guard of landings within the next 24 hours."
"Ah, wonderful," I said stoically. The enemy was already moving this way, it could only end with them getting a fire under their feet wanting to get here faster.
Commander Mackenzie Buckle spoke up again, saying, "Also there apparently was a bit of a weak point in the Ork line of defense. Primarch Khan has already taken advantage of it and moved his forces into that weak point."
"Hmm hopefully that doesn't draw off too many Orks," I said matter-of-factly. It wasn't a problem that he was exploiting a weak point but it could interfere with our strategy a bit.
Of course with the majority of the Imperial Navy waiting just outside the system in various places, even if Vulkan was currently stuck dealing with an organization in one area, we would most likely be able to defeat the Orks here and rally to his cause.
My thoughts were interrupted as a radio squawked and I heard an Orkish voice, "Hey, big booba one? Have you finally come to fight me again?! Wonderful, absolutely superb! I've been waiting for a chance to fight you since the last time we fought in the Wheel of Fire."
I looked at the radio, confused, but picked it up and asked, "Who's this?"
"Dark Shadow, the greatest Ork commando to ever exist. I've offered my services to your enemies multiple times but we have not had a chance to fight each other since the Wheel of Fire but today our paths cross unexpectedly. We shall fight for this border world and I shall bring everything to bear."
"Ah… Who is this 'dark shadow'?" while looking around the room, a bit confused.
Logistic officer Mackenzie Buckle shrugged before saying, "I think some of our guys have run into him once or twice in the Wheel of Fire campaign. He's a minor Ork leader that keeps getting away at the last moment in ridiculous ways."
"How is he contacting us so quickly?" Yrsa asked from where she was standing and holding the coffee tray. "Should it not take a couple days for a transmission to reach someone? Unless they're, like… in orbit?"
I nodded before picking the radio up again and saying, "Where are you, dark shadow?"
"I'm in your walls, hahaha," The Orkish voice came before a loud explosion happened outside the bunker.
A Space Marine ran in, exclaiming, "Some Ork ship just dropped into low orbit then dropped a giant load of explosives onto the spaceport. Anti-orbital guns have opened up but it's moving quickly out of range."
I blinked before saying into the radio, "Okay, you little commando, I will admit that was rather an impressive maneuver. Now, how about you come back here and fight me man to man?"
"Booba one, I would love to fight you! Unfortunately I need to go get the rest of my horde, as I said. no doubt the leader of the Waaagh will be most interested to hear where you are. I told him such stories of your amazing feats during your conquest of the Wheel of Fire and he will enjoy coming here to fight you. 'Till we meet again, Booba one." The transmission ended and I was left with a twitching eyebrow at both the impetuousness of this Ork and the fact that he continuously called me 'Booba one'. I had wondered who had been spreading that particular name and now I think I figured it out.
Khan
If there was one thing I could say about Tanya Russ it's that she kept to her word on things she had said she would do. She wasn't a braggart claiming things she could do when she couldn't. She said she would hold that planet and she had, for a whole week longer than we had planned. She had done it and in that time the complete sign of the Orks' destruction had been laid out before us.
Hunting down the enemy vessels had been easy, picking them out as they all rushed for the good fight. The Imperial Navy had racked up so many kills that people were confused on what exactly was going on for a few days but, after it became apparent that the Orks were in a dead rush to reach the planet we had been stockpiling for a long siege, they began to work in teams to hunt down the vessels.
By the second week into the fighting we had destroyed about 20% of the enemy's naval capacity by our estimations. After our vessels arrived in fleet formation over the planet we found that of the suspected ships there most of them had been unaware of our presence or unready for our counter-assault.
It would seem the Orks had taken things at face value and assumed that all forces of the assault against them were on-planet, which had left an opportunity to fight them with their backs turned to us.
The void war over the planet had been remarkably longer than expected, the Ork had lasted for 48 hours and given as good as they got in some aspects. Still, eventually, they had been forced out of the system with at least 40% of the ships we knew they had destroyed.
Of course there were probably more we didn't know they had but they would still need some time to repair and replenish their losses. No doubt, with the situation as is, we would be able to sail into their space and finish off whatever was left of their fleet rather easily.
Once we confirmed the destruction of the enemy naval forces we moved about to our next objective, landing forces to counter the Orks on the planet that had been sieging the Fisher Hook. And that was an easy job as even though the Wolves of Fenris had been under siege for more than 3 weeks by the time we got there they had not lost any land, instead they had bled the Orks dry. The army the Orks had was normally supposed to have been in the tens of millions, and was probably in the millions still, but now that the sky was clear I could tell that there were now hills surrounding the Wolves of Fenris' positions. Hills of corpses that would probably take a while to burn down once we had to cleanse this planet of all its fungal exposure.
Once my forces were deployed around the enemy's forces they were basically handled. Surrounded on two sides we actually didn't have to do much to keep them there while we bombarded them both from orbit and the mountains. It took another week but the enemy, the Orks, were wiped out, leaving nothing but the arid grasslands. My men were right now using flamethrowers to burn it down, hopefully destroying the fungal spores and making sure there would be no attack from behind us as we moved into the next stage of the assault and went after the enemy's homeworlds.
That being said the Orks were trying to make one last assault, charging up the mountainous slope as I watched from the back of my bike, attempting to hit the Wolves of Fenris's line. Seemed foolish to me but they were doing it, they were getting shot down in droves as Volkyte fire rained down on them. They were almost reaching the top as I watched, coming within spitting distance of the Wolves' line.
When the Wolves hopped out of their trenches and charged down. Shaking my head I watched from my binoculars as the Wolves carried out savagery and barbarianism as they met the Orks in close-quarters combat. Claw met sword and sword met whatever the hell the Orks used for personal weapons.
There was no retreat from that massacre I was watching, only brutal murder of the Orks and cheering of the Wolves as they did it. It pretty much proved my opinion on the matter of them being a bit more barbaric than my own people. We enjoyed a good fight as much as anyone but we weren't into that kind of enjoyment, mobile warfare and weakening the enemy was perfectly fine. They should have just held their position in the trenches but no they had decided to charge out and meet the enemy for one last glorious fight.
And they probably took more losses because they did it that way. Scanning the line I quickly spotted something that even concerned me a bit more, seeing that my quote-unquote sister was near the center of the line and happily slashing with a sword and a short sword while she was cutting her way through the enemy's lines. She appeared to not have a helmet and was smiling as broadly as many of the troops around her, showing that she was just as lost in her battle-lust as the rest of the barbarians. I could only shake my head at that, as this proved my thoughts. Yes she was somewhat more intelligent than the rest but she was definitely just a barbarian at heart. Granted I would note that she was a barbarian who could pull off her objectives so I wasn't that disturbed by her abilities. I was just annoyed with the culture she'd come from. No wonder it was so easy for the Imperial propaganda to paint her as some barbarian king on the March for the Imperium. Even if all the aspects of barbarianism were not taking her over she was obviously a barbarian from a distance in combat.
Letting out a deep breath I shook my head and mounted up my motorcycle, kicking it into gear and driving towards the current rear lines of the enemy formation. There wasn't much here, it looked like a screening force of maybe one Ork every 50 ft so we were easily able to overwhelm them and kill them all before moving forward. Soon we found ourselves at the foot of the mountain range and we could hear the general close-quarters fighting as the Orks and Fenrisian soldiers beat the hell out of each other. I could just barely make out some Orks rolling down the mountain, dead or not, having nothing to stop them as they rolled. Shaking my head I simply ordered some troops to start firing on anything that was green and trying to come down the mountain, it looked as if they weren't going to give up and surrender or retreat. They were going to fight to the end.
After about half an hour of watching the lower edge of the mountain something finally started coming down it and those lines weren't green, they were gray and light blue, the colors of the Fenrisian Space Marines. They seemed to be doing cleanup operations as they fired at any wounded Orks that we'd missed, executing them or setting them on fire to be finished off by the flame.
Soon enough they started reaching our own lines and greeting us with cheers of 'for the Emperor' and 'for us' and other terms that generally we responded in kind with.
They seemed to be generally happy to have completed the mission and were trying to get along with my own men. Watching this with an impassive eye I took note that they seemed to be a little less savage once they were off the battlefield, even though they seemed to take no care of the fact that they were covered in Ork guts and blood as they recounted tales of their glorious combat.
"Good evening, brother, long time no see," came a voice from my side causing me to look in that direction. the Primarch of the Sixth Legion was standing there, arms folded under her chest as she smiled at the battlefield. Like a legionary, she was covered in Ork debris and seemed to not care about it any more than they did.
"Tanya", I said with a nod, before getting off my motorcycle. "I see you've had a wonderful victorious close-quarters combat but I don't think it was absolutely necessary though."
She shrugged before saying, "Perhaps it's not but you need to play the role you're dealt." She said simply, holding out her hands in an offered shake. I took it before asking, "Role you're dealt?
She shrugged before saying, "My men expect a certain kind of leader. Yes I have my own ways of doing things but if I don't behave as a Fenrisian warrior once in a while, I probably won't get as much respect from the newer recruits."
I blinked at that as she basically said quite clearly that she played the role of a barbarian king to maintain the respect of the barbarians. It seemed odd considering she had conquered the planet she was from, from what I had been able to gather. Why would she need to play a role? unless she was lying to appeal to the idea that she was more than a barbarian. I shook my head, she was too confusing of a subject to figure out. I would rather worry about other things so instead of chewing on that, I said, "Well; it's good that you managed to defeat the Orks. With this enemy force destroyed it will be easier to push into their territory and finish this war.
She nodded before saying, "Yep. It will take a few weeks to find their planet, I assume," she said matter of factly. "Which tells me it's time to have a little bit of celebration. Best to take a victory when we can before we get into whatever nonsense of the horrors we'll run into within the next couple planets."
As she said that several Rhino drove down the mountain, coming to a stop just behind her. A moment later several women in powered armor started unloading the vehicles, working together to handle crates of what I could guess was food-cooking implements and food and alcohol canisters.
I blinked as she said, "Tradition amongst the Wolves of Fenris, after a great victory we always have a bit of a party. We celebrate those who survived and those who fell, you're welcome to join us I have more than enough supplies for this. I always keep a bit stored away for a grand feast, not to mention with the space above the planet now cleared my ships should be returning soon and we can unload a lot more supplies from that so everyone across the entire Fisher Hook can celebrate."
I blinked again, wondering if I should say no. After all we needed to be sharp, who knew if there would be a counter-attack… but with the fleet in orbit it would be a rather difficult task for the enemy to pull off so more likely than not we could actually have this little celebration safely, as long as it was no longer than 24 hours. Nodding my approval, I said, "Yes, I think we will join you, Tanya."
She smiled, one less fearsome than some might expect from her face, saying, "Wonderful! We can throw you a welcome to the Crusade party for your legion, makes this even better of a grand piece when you think about it."
I nodded my head in approval. Well the Fenrisians were strange barbaric folk but at least they seemed to show a lot of loyalty and trust to their friends, and were willing to share the spoils of their own hoard for victories. I may not like some of their barbaric ways as its propaganda value was not great for my own men but at least they themselves seemed to be okay folk.