Tanya Russ
Well this alien menace was a rather annoying foe to fight. It had been several months since I met the Second Primarch and Rogal Dorn, and since then we had all gone our ways. We were all needed at different points in the line to seal up the problems that were flowing through and sealing them up was not that easy.
These Rangdans seemed to have an inexhaustible number of soldiers from the humans that were serving them, to orks and the most terrifying thing, their bioforms.
A multi-clawed alien-like creature that served the still rather shadowy Rangdans and could be distributed to any planets to cause mayhem and chaos. They weren't very intelligent though, thankfully. Less intelligent than an ork by my estimation. More just a beast unleashed, however I was somewhat perturbed by the existence of these bioforms after fighting them.
Something about them didn't sit right with me whenever my men had to come face to face with them, and I was still trying to figure it out right up until the Mechanicus finally completed their survey of one of the bodies taken at the planet of Xana.
The bioforms were made from humans. How exactly this was done no one knew exactly, only the Rangdan had any clues on that matter. However we did know that they were definitely made from humans, or at least had some genetic connection to humans.
My hope in general was that these platforms were some sort of experiment, somewhat similar to what had happened to the people of Fenris, but had been altered by these Rangdans to go even further beyond the human form. But I did have some fear that there could be something more to this situation. We existed in an age where science was basically magic, and magic was basically science, the two could jump between either way. Just look at the creation of a Space Marine, it was both a mix of magical intent and scientific learning, fusing power drawn from the warp with genetic manipulation. Supposedly the Emperor's Custodians were even further along that track; they'll be more magical than science.
If things like that could be made from humans, what's to say that these Rangdans haven't created their own version? This could be some sort of retrovirus that they used on the planets they captured, turning the human population there into monsters.
It was a concerning prospect, one that I was worried about. Because this in essence made this a zombie war, only somehow worse. If these creatures were changed from human to whatever they were now, and could easily reproduce the way they had been during the conflicts, well that meant they had an almost insurmountable number of ground soldiers;
And every planet we lost would be handing them more soldiers to the field even without considering the possibility of them just feeding the population to these monsters.
I wonder how they control them though. The beast had no mental ability past what was seen so far. A charge forward mentality not too dissimilar from the orks so I'll give the orks this, they know how to take cover when they were making a charge and things went to shit. There seemed to be some sort of single-minded driving action to them. Perhaps there were other bioforms that we had not seen? There were reports of a sturdier one, so perhaps there was one that could control the horde and had more intelligence.
If that was true, that would need to be something that needed to be wiped out, or perhaps the Rangdan were somehow more connected to these creatures than it would first appear, but I have yet to see one of their corpses. This meant they weren't in the battles, except for in space, and in space well things got burned, shredded and flushed into space quite easily so many bodies were lost and the ones that weren't were nearly impossible to find.
Too many unknowns about how these creatures operated, too little information. I was hoping that when we finally went on the offensive we would gain some intel about exactly what we were dealing with, once we were done dealing with these defensive operations to stabilize the Imperial border between the planet Poliri and Emapus. But with this Rangdan crusade against us, who's to say when we would be successful and when we could pull that off? Fighting had been monstrous over the last few months.
After the meeting of the Primarchs, I had immediately taken a good portion of my legion to a meeting zone just near the bulge where the Rangdan were pushing into the Imperium. We had conducted slowing operations, mostly naval skirmish operations to try and grind their advance down while I waited for reinforcements from Fenris. That had taken about a month and now, well, now we were beginning operations to try and undo the losses we had taken.
So far I already lost 500 Marines fighting Rangdans, and similar numbers or worse were relayed in communications from the other legions; however, they were all reporting similar aspects of stabilization was underway.
This could be bad. Losing 500 Marines in a couple months was serious, and this could easily get worse. In fact, as most of the fighting had been naval conflict so far, the fighting that those troops had engaged in had been a lot more furious than might be assumed from the idea of 500 troops being lost in a few months.
There were about 25% casualties in each conflict that a small group of troops had taken part in. One in four odds that any fighter that goes into combat with these creatures would die.
Perhaps when we learned more about these creatures we would be able to avoid such losses, but it was also possible that this would only continue to grow.
Thankfully with the end of the siege of Xana 2 by the rescuing heroes of Mortarion and the Primarch of the Dark Angels, who I had yet to meet, but their presence was proceeding them. Apparently they were called The Lion which was interesting. I wonder if they came from a world that was rather English in origin? Well that wasn't fair, the king that had been known as the Lionheart in English History was really French.
But odd historical jokes aside, we now know that whatever control mechanism they may have been using on some of the planets they've conquered did seem to take a while to take effect. It would require them to have an actual conqueror on this planet. For our intents and purposes this was not an easily contractible virus that could be used to spread disorder and chaos within the ranks of the human forces of the Imperium. Stabilization was also going to be possible through bringing in soldiers from across the Empire, but that would take time because they had to be moved into position. Hopefully they would be here soon enough that we could get to work on pushing into the regions of space that had already fallen into enemy hands.
Currently though, the plan to stabilize the border came first and that was successful so far.
There were seven Primarchs engaged in this conflict, patrolling the border and trying to stabilize it. Each Primarch had their own zone of control for the most part, though there were a few that seemed to be acting more like a mobile reserve, particularly Mortarion and the Lion. It occurred quite a bit with them coming to the aid of conflicts with Nobunaga, Perturabo, and Rogal Dorn. I was yet to have any troops come my way, but I didn't mind that. We were handling the situation fine, and Jaghatai Khan was in the region, but they were acting as they always had as scout forces and quick attack for us. Less of a 'mobile reserve' and more a mobile and continuous pain behind the Rangdan lines. Hopefully that would prevent the Rangdan from pulling any of their large offensives while we stabilized. Well, if not there were more forces on the way.
There had been a rumor that the 11th and 17th were on their way to join, but they seem to have been pulled off and sent towards the Western Fringes of the Galaxy. Instead, rumor was that the rest of the 19th legion, a Primarchless legion, was on their way to join the conflict, as well as elements of the 20th. From my understanding both of those legions particularly worked well for behind the lines operations, so that was good. We needed to cause more chaos behind the Rangdan's lines. They're pushing towards our space so we could just slow them up and then eventually push them back. When that would happen though was a bit mysterious.
After all, most of the 19th have been moving with Horus Lupercall into the Eastern reaches, so they would have to travel a long distance to link up with the 19th elements already here. As for the 20th, that was a bit more of a mystery. No one knew exactly where they were, so they could actually be on the front already. It seemed they were going to be very good at avoiding notice. I had checked reports, I knew exactly where some legions were and where some legions weren't. The 8th was out in the far reaches, the 9th was somewhere in the middle of the Galaxy, the 15th was actually not that far away also working in the middle of the Galaxy, the 18th was reportedly in the far south of the Galaxy, 3rd and 10th were actually probably the closest other legions so they may serve as a another reserve that's further back. They would be called up to join us if things got too harsh.
The 13th, from what I've been able to dig up, was operating in the far east as well, though so far East that it was supposedly close to their homeworld. Made sense really. The legion was that far out, so it might as well build up the network around there instead of calling them back to Earth to fight their way back every couple of years. Supply networks would need to be built out of your own homeworld, so might as well start right away; build a little bit of a fiefdom around your planet so you had the supplies you needed.
The 12th was apparently operating with the 13th so they were too far away to join if this fight got too terrible.
All in all not a bad lineup, though for this operation just under half the legions were here and two were close enough that they could be rerouted if things got terrible. With the Emperor coming with his own Custodians, well, there might as well be half the legions of the Empire here.
The question was would we be able to successfully push out the Rangdan and end this conflict?
Looking at the maps that had been provided and the information I had, I did believe that we could win the stabilization war, create a good front line and move on from there. The problem was, could we push deep into enemy space with any success?
I wanted to believe we could, but that was something I had to yet be able to determine.
The enemy had of course pushed into Imperial Space with its invasion forces, taken several star systems and created a bit of a bulge in the general direction of Fenris. Something that annoyed me, but it was possible they didn't know, but it was also possible they did know that Fenris had some sort of importance to the Imperium. Presuming that they did know was probably the best option, which meant they were trying to cut out a pillar of the Imperium with their attack. I wanted to remove this bulge, smooth out the line and create a bit of a straighter area to patrol.
But to do that I needed to launch an assault, which was possible. I had the legion at my back and they were champing at the bit to go at these aliens, especially when I had leaked information about how their bioforms are possibly mutated humans.
That seems like it pissed off not only the Wolves of Fenris, but the Valkyries too, and the Fenrisian Guard, which had mobilized a large enough unit of men to come with me. So I had an operation before me that needed to be done; an assault on their space to determine the capabilities of the enemy. There was also a rather interesting possibility in front of me.
Space is not flat. If we somehow took the system at the root of the bulge, cutting them off from supply, that wouldn't literally stop their supplies from flowing in, they would just bypass the system. However, it would put a bit of a damper on them and if it was just the first planet of many to fall to a counter attack, well I may cause a bit of a scare with the orks and humans under the control of the Rangdan. Enough so that they might turn on them and their bioforms.
It was possible infighting would serve to help remove the enemy from our space a lot faster. Not to mention that I heard some murmurs that these orks were mercenaries, not some sort of war band directly serving the Rangdan, but many different clans the Rangdan had basically offered a bit of money to fight for them.
Simple thing about the orks, you didn't need to pay them a lot of money to fight for you. They would fight if you just gave them the option. The Rangdan seemed to know this.
However, if you offered them quite a bit of money they probably would fight for you, maybe even betray their contracts.
I had an entire hold full of teeth; somewhere around 300,000 teeth, possibly 400,000. Numbers were a bit iffy after the 100,000 mark. That wasn't a small amount of money for them, and if so you could probably get an entire clan to switch sides, maybe more. If I knew how much the orks would be paid, well perhaps I could get the Imperium a few extra allies, or at least barter with them enough that they leave the conflict and head to the other side of the Galaxy. That last part was unlikely, after all orks like to fight, but perhaps if I could get in contact with one of their leaders I could at least get them thinking of switching sides.
Of course in order to start that we needed to close the pocket, which meant taking the system Emapus and the system Poliri. I had enough great companies to pull this off, gathering up everything I could. There were currently 16 great companies under my command, eight of which could stay exactly where they were in the line, searching for Rangdan attempts to push further into space. The other eight could be split into groups of two and drop them into those two systems.
Drop four great companies on each system, nearly 20,000 Marines and as many extra infantry and Valkyries as I could muster, and take those systems from the Rangdan, sealing them off as best I could. This would prevent some cargo links for a while, and then we could begin pushing in all directions on the pocket, trying to force the aliens either to flee back across the newly established border or be separated and destroyed.
Kori Bretakollrsson
Emapus
The drop pod rattled wildly as it descended through the atmosphere,barreling towards the planet below. Who knew what we would find down there, defending it? I didn't. No one aboard the craft did.
The entirety of the 3rd great company was taking part in this operation, alongside company 20, company 17, and company 5. Of those only two of these companies had experienced combat before to the extent of what we were going to be facing today.
I wasn't exactly happy about that, mainly because I would prefer to have a lot more allies at my back, but once we secured the landing zones we would have infantry coming down and quite a lot of other equipment. The better question was would we be able to clear the landing zones? Information on exactly what we were facing was sparse to say the least. Could be the bioforms, could be orks, could be humans. Hell, it could even be the damned Rangdan themselves finally showing.
All we knew was this planet had been under Imperial control up to 6 months ago, before the invasion by the Rangdan. At the time it had been a somewhat advanced planet, not a hive world per se but on its way to becoming one.
Which was not fun. I wasn't a big fan of urban fighting, too many places for an enemy to hide and shoot you from where you least expect.
Thankfully we were not being deployed directly into the urban environment, we were dropping on the spaceport next to the urban environment. It should be relatively flat except for some large cargo storage buildings and maybe a terminal or two.
Well that was my hope, and I would find it either proven right or wrong in a moment as I looked up and saw that we were entering the last few moments of the descent. Soon the entirety of the company would be disembarking on to the landing area and we would have to fight whatever was there. Hopefully nothing too serious, but I heard of losses with some of the other companies. Ground fighting between these enemies and us was rare, but they were probably about to get a lot more active.
My thoughts were interrupted as the drop pod engaged its thrusters, slowing the vehicle down enough that it wasn't immediately crushed as it smashed into the earth below it.
There was a brief pause as the pod adjusted itself and then the doors began to lower, and the first sight of the planet we were invading was given to my eyes.
The terminal of the spaceport looked to have been where we landed, crashing right through the first few floors of the building into a lower floor of whatever the structure once was. Around us was a dark area with the lights off and the windows boarded up. It was a large area, possibly some sort of holding area for those who were about to embark. There were seats scattered here and there, and not many places to have stacked large cargo so I don't think it was a cargo facility.
Keeping silent, I stepped out of the pod and flagged the area. I brought the light on the end of my gun back and forth, looking for any enemies while the other Marines under my command did the same, watching for monsters. There's only about five of us, but at the moment that should be enough to deal with anything in the facility I thought.
Before I could take another step another drop pod smashed through the ceiling in front of me about 7 yards away. It quickly opened revealing another group of Marines that began to do as we had.
A quick scan of their pauldron numbers determined that they were part of the first wave, and had just had taken a bit longer to get out, which meant there shouldn't be any other drop pods coming through, not exactly great. We need to link up with the Marines outside or spread out throughout the rest of this facility before something-
Screaming lots and lots of screaming rang out, not human… but yes, almost human. Raising my gun, I looked in the direction of the sound as other Marines formed a line around me, connecting to the other group. We didn't have much time to talk. I just gave the other Commander a nod and he responded in kind as we formed a gun line in case anything was going to come rushing out at us.
A good estimation, as there was something coming screaming out of the darkness at us. The mutant monsters that had once been humans came scrambling out towards us, a dozen or so seeming not to care as our bolters and volkite weapons opened up, burning and blasting them to pieces. That only brought about more screaming, not only of the dead and dying of these creatures, but of more picking up the sounds of their fallen kin and immediately coming to the aid of their allies.
Signaling to the other officer that we needed to circle up, he nodded and immediately the group formed a battle circle as the screaming was now coming from all directions. I watched the darkness for the monsters, but they hadn't come for us yet, so I had a short moment to take in the Sights to see exactly what we were dealing with.
And I immediately realized we had made a mistake.
The facility was not just abandoned, it was overgrown with a viscous material that looked waxy. There have been no reports of anything like this in any of the combat so far, so I had to assume the worst. This was probably a nest for the bioforms of some sort, a facility that Rangdan let bioforms do what they pleased with.
The windows have been blacked out by this wax, and probably a lot of the structure was being held up by it. The real fear at this moment then was what else was in this thing. We'd never come across a bio-forms nest before, what monsters could be hidden within it?
My thoughts were interrupted as the monsters came again. Large swarms of them, their four tall legs skittering across the ground as their oversized jaws gnashed at us, their stinging tails flashing more like swords than spears with the way they moved them, and thankfully they had no ranged attacks.
We butchered them as quickly as they came when they appeared on the sites we were firing our weapons at them. We were doing everything we could to kill as many as possible as quickly as possible, not wanting to give him the chance to overwhelm us.
I think we were doing a good job, however I didn't know if their assault would stop, as they kept coming, more and more until the point that we no longer had a clear sight over the horizon as they had built a wall of their dead.
One good aspect was forcing the enemy to climb over the wall of their own dead was rather useful. I mean, morale is a thing. Most Space Marines would not be shaken, but the same wouldn't be true for most creatures.
The bioforms had no apparent need for morale, they just climbed over the wall. Thankfully the climb did slow them down, but again the climb just allowed them to build up numbers as more and more seem to be streaming over the wall now that they could get closer and closer. Bodies were tumbling down the sides, and some of them weren't quite dead. A marine took a blade through the face as one of the creatures whipped its tail around in its final moments of death. Another marine had a claw-like leg smash into his volkite gun in such a way that it exploded in his hands splashing him and several others with plasma, they did not last long after that.
We reformed our lines as much as possible to try and prevent such incidents, but it was becoming a bit of a problem as more and more of these creatures just seemed to pour out of whatever hole they were dug into.
An endless onslaught. It seems that we might be facing our final stand.
Then things turned in our direction. Another drop pod smashed through the ceiling right in front of us into the oncoming horde.
The pod's doors lowered and a mechanical voice called, "For Fenris and the Wolf King!" A dreadnought stepping out of the platform, unleashing great waves of fire from its many weapons.
The building would have been set aflame t with the amount of fire it was unleashing, if not for the wax protecting the internal structure. The creatures apparently did not like fire very much, shying away as the flames washed over them.
"Captain Bretakollrsson!" A mechanical voice boomed out as it smashed a creature that got too close, before dousing it in copious amounts of flame." I have a route to escape this building, follow me."
"You heard the man!" I yelled, bringing up my bolter and firing a few rounds into the creatures charging through openings in the firewall. "Follow him out of here and keep these monsters off his back."
With that, the formation of marines and dreadnought began to slowly push our way out of the encirclement we were in, heading in a generally Northward direction until we reached a wall that was in fact not a wall.
I hadn't seen it at the time because there were more monsters coming at me than I could count, but apparently this wall which was covered in the wax stuff was actually a set of windows and one flamethrower gout and a bolter round later it became a path to the outside world.
Slowly and carefully we expunged ourselves from the situation. The second squad we met entered the outside world, followed by my own before the dreadnought came through, firing off a set of explosives that collapsed the area around the open window and sealed the building up a bit, giving us a moment to catch our breath.
Looking around I saw that we managed to find an exit that led us to a rather large courtyard, one that had three or four drop pods already in it as Marines were apparently busy firing and dealing with these monsters charging out through other exits. However, they were doing a lot better since these monsters were forced into choke holds. Our troops were doing a good job of closing those chokeholds when the amount of bioforms trying to charge out of it became too many for the bolter and volkites to seal up.
Straightening, I tried to determine where the commander was but quickly realized that there was no one in command of this section. The Marines were just a bunch of squad leaders, sergeants and such, doing their job meaning that I was probably the one in command.
Shaking my head, I led my marines towards the ongoing conflict, and quickly found three sergeants near the center talking about how they were going to get out of here. As I appeared they all gave a salute, quickly noting my rank and saying "Captain Bretakollrsson, good to be serving with you."
I checked their pauldrons and realized that though two of the other squads were from the third Great Company, the other two squads were from the 20th. I've had no real experience with combat with them, so there might be some issues working together. I said "Good to meet you, Wolves. What's the situation? Do we have contact with other landing groups?"
The ranking Marine from great company 3, a sergeant by his shoulder pad, nodded before saying, "There's another opening in the building like this to the west of here. More squads have been pinned down there, but they're holding down pretty fine. Apparently a bunch of other squads are trapped inside the building, trying to find their way into one of these openings or outside. As for the rest of the deployment, I'm hearing that basically it's all a clean up operation. Mostly just bioforms, there's no indication of any other troops in the area."
"No troops? No orks or humans?" I asked with curiosity, which got a shake of his head. "There's some indication that there's some human activity in the main city, but reports are a bit spotty right now."
"That doesn't sound good, but the city's not our problem yet. The commanders will determine when and if we go in. Now we have to worry about getting ourselves out of the situation, any ideas or information that could help in that?"
The marine sergeant shook his head before saying "I heard that Bjorn was on the outside and is organizing a rescue operation to try and find a way through the facility to these patches. There's also some talk of getting some aircraft down here a little bit faster to pull us out so they can just bombard the building from orbit, but both of those are going to be a bit of time, I think."
I nodded in agreement. Trying to find your way through that building with the darkness and the unknown amount of fabricated walls inside would be a pain in the ass, so Bjorn was probably not going to be here anytime soon, and getting shuttles down here while the airport was still not secure was not exactly going to be something that was assigned right away.
"I guess we just hold out," I said looking around before asking, "How much ammunition do we have?"
The Marine responded with a voice that said they were smiling. "Enough ammunition to keep fighting for a day. The drop pods had quite a bit of fuel still in them, and we're using them in the flamethrowers. Should be enough to keep those holes closed and allow us time to recoup ourselves, not to mention I'm sure that they'll figure out a way to get more ammo to us a lot easier than getting us out."
I nodded in agreement before turning to look at the nearby hole that was under fire.
The situation was not good, but we had it under control. I thought we just had to hold out a bit longer and we'd be fine.
"Hey Kori, how you doing?" came a voice from above the hole, causing my eyes to go up and up and up five floors to see Bjorn standing on top of the building with about a dozen other Marines and what looked like a lot of climbing rope.
He had no helmet and was smiling widely as he waved, and I just had to shake my head in amusement that of course he would figure out a way to getaround the problem. Why get trapped inside the building when you can just climb over it? Well, at least we had a good supply route for ammunition now, and had a good chance of getting pulled out just by going to the roof. This situation might be able to be pulled off after all.
Yrsa of Tra
Emapus
Sitting on a tread guard of a Tanya Russ tank, I watched the side of the city with some trepidation.
It has been nearly 12 hours since the invasion began and so far things have been rather horrid. The space Marines had landed directly into a bio-form nest, their assumptions that the spaceport was still functional was correct, but first they had to be cleared out of the monsters that the Rangdan used as their Frontline troops.
Once that had been accomplished, the logistics core, aka the Valkyries, could be deployed as well as many of the other units who had been accumulated for this conflict.
There were soldiers from almost all across the Northern Frontier, many of them didn't speak Fenrisian, but we made do as best we could.
And thankfully we have been deployed in such a way that we wouldn't have to work with each other often. Wolves of Fenris were leading the assault into the city, so all we had to do was mop up operations. Our unit of Valkyries were taking several Russ tanks designed for anti infantry work up the main corridor of the city to maintain control of the main highway that would allow supplies to be funneled in for the Space Marines and other units working within the city.
This logistic situation was important if we were going to free the people who had been imprisoned here under the Rangdan's control and remove the traitorous humans and mercenary orcs who'd come under their command.
The problem of course was where was everyone? This city supposedly had three to four million people living in it, a number that probably rivaled the population that had lived on Fenris when Tanya had first arrived on the homeworld. I could be wrong there, I wasn't an Imperial Surveyor from Administratum..
But the fact remains we should be being greeted as liberators right now. Instead I hadn't seen a single person since entering the city. There were obvious sounds of fighting near the front, so there were enemies in the city, but as we passed on the road all I saw were bioforms. Lots and lots of dead bioforms.
"They killed them all, didn't they?" Turning to my right I saw another Valkyrie looking over the side of the tank at the dead bioforms. She was a failed aspirant of the Wolves of Fenris and went by Chris… something. She'd taken the name after her transformation; not many wolves who became Valkyries kept their original names. They saw it as a sign that they should take a new one, believing that they weren't the same person they once were.
She had red hair and wore her Fenris pattern Valkyrie armor with pride, having a shining silver wolf's head embedded in the armor that looked to be polished so well it was sparkling, almost making the gray and blue camo pattern of her armor worthless. Of course we weren't actually big fans of the whole camo pattern. Tanya was the one who mandated that our armors have a camo pattern instead of just the prideful colors of the Space Marines. It had taken a lot of argument to at least get the camo pattern to be based on the colors of Wolves of Fenris.
Said camo pattern had extended to both the Fenris tanks under the Valkyries' control and the Chimera vehicles that were being produced for the Valkyries as well.
The Fenrisana Guard also had a similar camo pattern, but there's an addition of white and black to the coloration both for their tanks and armored personnel carriers as well.
Space Marines of course had no camo either, having the gray armor of a new blood or a light Gray blue armor of someone who's been in the service of the space Marine for sometime. According to my brother Bjorn, they have a tradition that if you have served alongside Primarch Tanya or I've been in the service for more than 2 decades, you could paint your armor Wolf Grey. It was a visual way of figuring out who was a veteran or not. Their tanks had a similar thing going on. If a tank had been in the service for some time it would be painted Gray blue brand new it would just be kept in the gray coloration.
It's rather unfair in my opinion that they got to wear their colors proudly and march into the fire as the warriors they are, while us Valkyries and the guard had to wear camo and skulk about like thieves in the night.
Letting out a sigh trying not to think about it, I Shrugged and said "of course they killed them, they're monsters" while looking at the bioforms.
Chris shook her head before saying "no not the space Marines, no I think the Rangdan killed all the humans on this planet."
I blinked before looking down at the passing bodies as the treads crushed the foul creatures underneath them and shook my head. "They cound't have killed them all. I mean sure there's these monsters about but we're getting reports of fighting up ahead and I'm sure there's got to be humans and orks to fight."
"That's an assumption that I'm not seeing much evidence of" Chris said shaking her head before adding "at this very moment we haven't seen any evidence that there's even gunfire coming at us, all I've been hearing is bolter fire for the last few hours and maybe a couple volkite guns if we get too close to the line."
"I really think we can stay with some certainty we're not going to find an enemy to fight, not more than these monsters at least." Chris said, looking down at the bodies.
I shook my head in disgust before saying "damn xenos, what are they doing unleashing these sort of monsters."
"It's what xenos do, at least if you believe the propaganda from the Administratum. Although I will say, most of the Space Marines who come back from their campaigns out there, they have told me quite a few stories about how the aliens have basically betrayed humanity at every step."
I was going to comment on that when the tank in front of the tank we were sitting on stopped, the girls on it calling for everyone to dismount.
Confused, I got up and looked over and saw what was causing the hang up as there appeared to be a Marine stumbling forward towards our position. He appeared to have a large bioform claw poking out of his chest. Blood was streaming down from the wound as he made his way towards our line of transport tanks.
"What the-" I said, hopping down from the tank and moving to the front of the column to get a better view of the situation, Chris hopped down behind me and followed close behind with her bolter in hand.
Pushing my way through I got just in time to see the Marine collapse to his knees as Valkyries came to either side of them to check him over, trying to see if he was all right to be moved into one of the transport vehicles at the back of the column. If we laid them flat on a chimer we could definitely pull him out of this situation and somewhere where he could get medical help, though why was he out here all alone?
That question was quickly answered when one of the girls pulled off his helmet to check his vitals, grabbing the girl's shoulders he yelled, "They're coming! They broke through the forward line!"
Confused, I grabbed onto the tank next to me and climbed up using the side gun boxes as an easy way to finish the last few steps to the top. Pulling out a pair of binoculars, I looked down the road and quickly got confirmation of the Marines' comment that there was a large horde of bioforms. There were a few Marines still trying to slow them down, running back between cover, covering the other Marines to move back. There should be 2 squads of 20 Marines in front of us, and I could only count seven which did not bode well.
Turning to the girls down on the ground, I yelled to get that Marine back behind the third tank.
The girls saluted and immediately did as I required as I kicked the hatch to signal the girl inside to pop her head out.
The Valkyrie was apparently not wearing her full armor, wearing a very light and small shirt that showed off a lot of cleavage and stomach, which was not good if you plan to escape a tank but I understood the inside of the tanks were damn hot.
Pointing towards a position to the extreme left of the road, I said, "Line up there, get the other tanks to form a gun line and I will support you!"
The girl nodded her head in response and immediately tapped her ear, causing the earbud she had to activate, and began transferring my order to the other tanks. Not even dismounting, I held onto the heavy machine gun on the pintle mount as the tank moved in position with two other tanks coming up to fill in the line beside it.
There was just enough room between the tanks for some girls to take up positions behind the gun boxes shooting probably between the lower points and a few other girls climbed up onto the tank like me either laying down or taking a kneeling position.
Looking back I saw the next group of tanks for my secondary line and more girls doing the same. Those tanks would not have a great ability to support us however if the first line broke it would be better to have a second line to fall back to then no line at all; I waved them off though telling them to back up a bit more, if we were going to be overrun then I'd rather have as much room between overrun positions as possible.
The officer in charge of those tanks nodded and it moved back about half a block. Though the girls who had been guarding those tanks separated into two, half going back and the other half continuing to build up the rubble fortifications they were constructing there, creating a manageable line so that the girls from the first line could fall back and take cover when the main guns of the second line opened up.
I couldn't see it, but no doubt the rest of the column behind those three tanks was spreading out, either moving into other streets to try and build blockades to prevent us from being encircled, or trying to form a circle so we weren't caught off guard when it happened, possibly both to some extent. Either way there was a direct line of infantry behind the Valkyries that would be called up to fill in the gaps soon enough, and if the Space Marines were falling back here that probably meant we'd have some marines join us in a bit of a good old last stand.
Shaking my head, I looked back towards the front where the Marines were still making progress in our general direction. They were doing a damn good job slowing them up, but they weren't stopping the ravenous horde of meat eaters coming to take us out for lunch.
And I could tell that they were being more sparing in their fire, probably running low on ammo.
Reaching into my side satchel, I pulled out a flare gun and loaded up the green, then made a final check on the line, making sure the tanks were prepped and ready and the girls were stacked up as heavy as possible; once I was sure that we were all in position and ready to fight, I fired it in into the sky and their general direction of the space Marines.
I had to hope they'd see it and get the signal that it was safe to retreat to our line, and I didn't have to wait long for a confirmation at that, as the seven remaining Marines stopped firing and started sprinting in our direction at a speed that was remarkably faster than probably the Russ at its slowest.
They didn't even stop, as they came up to the Russ's, simply using the little jets on their back to give them an extra boost as they ran up the sides of the front plate armor before taking up either positions behind the line to recover, or turning to join the line bringing their guns to bear.
As for the bioforms, well they just kept on coming without anything in front of them to stop them; they became ravenous rather quickly, moving quickly across the blown out road throughout the city, flooding into and out of buildings as they searched for meat. They were coming directly at us.
Turning to the nearest marine who had a bit of a rank insignia, I asked, "How many of these bastards are there?"
The marine shrugged, before saying, "All of them." Causing me to shake my head before activating the communication bead on the side of my head.
"Girls, wait till they're within a maximum accuracy distance of 200 meters then give them hell." There was a chorus of "affirmatives" and "yes sister" as my command was spread throughout the column. Soon enough the order would be everywhere and hopefully that would make sure that our ammunition was used correctly. We could have started firing at around 400 to 600 meters, but 200 was a good accuracy limit meaning our shots would be more effective. It also meant the monsters had less ground to cover, but it was a numbers game. Would our ammo run out before their numbers? With accuracy taken into account I think we had a better chance of surviving.
Turning to look back towards the front, I watched as the first creature crossed the 200 Mark and was immediately lit up by the tank I was standing on, its gatling turret unleashing hell into it and the fellows near it. Soon all the guns were opening up as the monsters hit the 200 mark.
Tanya Russ
Poliri
Kicking some dirt off my armor, I looked out across the planes that had once been a great city, 'once' being the operative word. According to the records, this planet had been on its way to being converted into a new forge world; the population was large enough that it could function that way and the people were disciples of the Martian religion already. The only thing it was missing was a little bit of extra work from other Forgeworlds to help it attain that rank.
I doubted that would ever happen now because the population was gone and the city was rubble. The planet was a loss at this point. The population gone, the plant life was dying, and any animals that had been left had been eaten by its new residents. These bioforms are proving to be more trouble than I had expected.
It's just a numbers game with them. Does your ammunition hold out long enough, or do they run you over? That was proving not to be as accurate as I had theorized, they seem to be adapting to combat with space Marines. The armored variants of bioforms becoming more common and leading the charge, making sure the less armored versions could get into combat with the Marines; thankfully my Marines were very good at close quarters combat, that didn't mean much though considering it took two marines to keep all the arms busy enough to kill it.
This was the first assault into Rangdan controlled space. I had sent eight great companies into the fire, 40,000 Marines and currently something like 15,000 were dead across both battlefronts.
This was not good, this was a bleeding wound. This was over the projections I had originally come up with of one in four Marines possibly dying, and this could only get worse if they kept adapting. How we were going to adapt was still up in the air, but I would find a way otherwise this operation would be doomed.
I'd confirm the city was filled with only the bioforms by this point, so continuing the assault on it had pretty much dwindled to nothing; instead I had built fortifications around the city with my Marines and infantry and just reinforced the line. Currently I was watching fire from the orbit coming down on the city, demolishing it block by block, forcing the bioforms out of their hiding holes and onto the surface where if they would either die to the bombardment or charge the lines that have been constructed and die under my Marines' fire.
There was a bit of a mystery here though, and the one that needed to be figured out quickly. Both this planet and the other planet under assault were supposed to have a large human population. Now there was nothing but a dead world that would serve as a grave marker for its people and their lost ambitions.
Something had killed them all, likely the bioforms, but why had the Rangdan given the population of these planets to the bioforms? My blockade of the assault front had been telegraphed for a couple months, perhaps they realized that that operation was not going to be a success and had started to pull out their best assets; even with these bioforms being rather aggressive and good at killing, they were not an arranged enemy. They had plenty of infantry and orks somewhere, maybe they called them back into their own territory for defense, and when they did perhaps they had brought as much of the human population with them as slaves or some other servant class to work in military fields, supplying their army with the assets they'll need to either defeat us or hold us off?
Either one was possible, but I would not know until we assaulted into long held territory of the Rangdan. This territory had only been newly conquered, which meant whatever practices they had for their prisoners or the populations they gained control of were probably slapdash and in a moment of dealing with a current crisis. It didn't speak well about the five or six other systems that were currently under Rangdan control within the bulge.
I would need to send forces to investigate. If it turned out that they had in fact just dumped their bioforms to hunt the human population on the planets after they realized that their operation to push deeper into the territory was not going to work; I would need to first clear those planets because we could have risked those bioforms doing something else we didn't know about. They had already started to grow armor, who's to say they couldn't grow a jetpack and start flying into space?
Part of me wanted to say that was impossible, the other part of me remembered that the warp was a thing and I should not take potential threats lightly.
Every monster out there that was not hunted down and killed could be a problem later on, not to mention we still need to figure out how they were creating these monsters. Was it an aerosol gas, something that had been ingested over a long period of time, a virus? There was a possibility that as we entered Rangdan space, we would try to liberate human populations only to find them turning into these creatures in our back lines and attacking our supply depots.
There's a lot of concerns for the future that would be crossing my mind, shaking my head though, there was nothing I could do at this moment. The pocket would be closed then slowly strangled, I would take severe losses with my space Marines if the current loss rate remained the same, but it would be successful. After that, I would just have to fortify the border and prepare for a direct order for an assault, because sending my men into combat with these creatures was not proving very successful.
You have to bring down a lot of armor. Thankfully planet Svellgard was producing a lot of russ tanks. Perhaps using them as the spearhead would be the best option, backed up by the more modern tanks that the Mechanicus had been selling us for the last 30 years.
Perhaps with enough armor we could accomplish a push into the Rangdan's held territory. 'We need something more, something... hmm.' A thought just occurred to me, recently some of my legions have been deployed inside the core to the League's space. There'd been a particular League World that didn't like the idea of joining the Imperium and had gotten rather violent in their efforts to prevent the joining of the empires. They had attempted to cut off the supply road from League Space to the Imperium.
My great company along with a couple other Space Marine, units I didn't know who they belonged to, had been involved in the conflict and had been issued power armor, the Mark 3 Iron Armor for combat in the tunnels underneath that planet while they were fighting these squats who didn't want to be part of the Imperium.
From my understanding these suits were not supposed to serve as a replacement for the current Mark II crusader armor, but they did have one advantage going for them in a line fight: most of the armor was in the front.
Grinding advance was a lot easier with that kind of armor. Perhaps I should see about having a couple hundred, maybe tens of thousand of those suits made. We were going to need armor for frontal assaults, so perhaps this Mark 3 would serve well against the Rangdan. I have to contact the other legions involved in this conflict.
If it's going to be close quarters combat we would need that kind of armor, I should also see about getting some Terminator suits as well. I have not been an adopter of the idea of the Terminator armor, several legions had quite eagerly grabbed up the suits that were being produced by Mars and several other forge worlds. A heavy trooper that could take a lot of incoming fire like that was useful, especially in small corridors but I preferred my troops to be able to move around.
However if the enemy was going to be a monster that could cut through power armor, perhaps Terminator suits at the front line would be useful as well as these Mark threes to provide a little bit more movement and armor.
Nodding my head, I watched as another artillery show from one of the positions caused some screaming from probably a horde of bioforms trying to find a way out; they would find their way into a death trap sooner or later.
Shaking my head, I turned away from the conflict and moved across the hill towards a series of tents that had been set up.
The enemy was defeated here. When I arrived here I thought human allies would be a concern, but not now, now it was a cleanup operation and my men could handle that without my input. I was going to take a moment to look over the map before getting some sleep, see if I couldn't organize my thoughts into something and put out a memo for the other legions about the need for heavy armor troops in the front.
I should also probably look into increasing my initial aspects of around 20 great companies, maybe double that to 40. Losses like we were taking would be harder to fill in, but not impossible, but what if we come across something that did something more than one in four deaths? 1 in 2 deaths were much worse. Who was to say it wouldn't get that bad at some point? I would have to send some messages back to the Fang and see if they couldn't figure out how to increase production of troops for the front ,but not too greatly. I did not want to damage the population of Fenris. Perhaps it was time to officially recruit from Midgardia and Frostheim ?
Hopefully they wouldn't do something radical and accidentally create more troops for the valkyrie, that would be rather annoying. Not that the valkyrie weren't useful, it's just every time a marine became a valkyrie that was production loss on a Marine and a valkyrie was a good consolation prize, but that's just it, they were a consolation prize.
An enjoyable one in a few cases, but that was something to think about another date.
As I pulled the tent flap back I saw an officer waiting for me, already giving a salute as he said, "My Primarch, the Primarch of the Dark Angels is on their way down, they wanted to have a meeting with you."
I blinked for a moment, before saying, "Oh that's unexpected. I thought they were busy providing mobile reserve cover for most of the line?"
The Marine nodded, saying, "They've taken time out of their busy schedule to come talk to you. Apparently they were concerned when they saw that you were taking action so quickly and were worried you might have over extended."
"Huh, a worried brother." I mused before moving over to a Primarch sized chair waiting by the hollo-map. Every camp had one of these, though I figured I would need one more; looking to a valkyrie, I said, "Have another chair brought out for my brother. We're about to have a Primarch meeting. Oh, and have some drinks prepared as well."
"Yes, Wolf King." the valkyrie said with a nod before walking away further into the tent structure.
Relaxing, I leaned back in my seat and asked, "How many of the Dark Angels are in orbit trying to get an understanding of what we're dealing with here?"
The officer shook his head before saying, "Unknown, but it's at least the Dark Angels Gloriana class battleship, so probably a good portion of their legion."
"That's a lot of troops, though we don't need them, but it's always good to have." I thought out loud before a soldier trotted in and gave a salute. "Sir, Primarch Johnson has arrived. They are coming with several Marines."
"Hmm. It's going to be one of those meetings that happen fast. Wel,l stand outside and tell him they can come in as soon as they want." I said as a valkyrie returned offering me my drink. A large alcoholic beverage for a Primarch, the second one was put down on the table next to me for Johnson. I guess this primarch's name was Lion Johnson. Odd combination of names, but then again Tanya Russ was no better.
Sipping my cup, I watched as the tent flap was flipped open and a large Primarch compared to me, more about Vulkan's Height, though shorter than him entered the room wearing black armor with gold etchings. He also had some red markings here or there while carrying a large sword on the right and a short sword on the left. Their face was obscured by a robe but they stopped as soon as they saw me.
"Welcome, brother." I said holding up a drink. "What brings you to-"
I was forced to stop, as I was officially stunned when Lion pulled back their own hood revealing, well, I made a mistake. It wasn't a brother, it was a sister. A woman who had a somewhat similar facial structure to myself, though her blonde hair was more golden than straw like mine.
"So you're the sister father teases the existence of." My newly found sister said with a bow, before saying, "Lion el Johnson of Caliban, the Primarch of the first legion the Dark Angels. Nice to meet you sister." The Woman said with green eyes seeming to have some warmth in them. I nodded my head from my seat.
"Nice to meet you too." I said with a smile. "I'm Tanya Russ of Fenris, leader of the Sixth Legion, The Wolves of Fenris." With my free left hand I indicated the open drinking spot and said, "Would you care to sit as we have our first conversation?"
"Hmm, why don't I?" She said, taking a few steps between the entrance and the seat quickly, then sat down into the chair. She brought the cup to her lips and gave it a sniff before saying "Hmm, alcohol. I take it you know I've never gotten drunk?"
"Well, you're going to be in for a surprise. The stuff that comes from Fenris can even get a Primarch and Space Marine drunk, trust me I've been making sure of that."
"Hmm." She raised an eyebrow at that comment before sipping the drink carefully, taste testing it.
"Don't know about the drunk aspect, yet, but I will say this does taste pretty good. Next time you're on Fenris pass my compliments to the creator of this Brew."
"Will do." I said with a smile, thinking that this might be the start of a good working relationship.