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*Would absolutely love some criticism!*
(So far I feel this story's pacing would benefit from a prologue of sorts where you see the Storm Troopers in action but I'm still figuring out what form that would take.)
1
“Any questions, Tempestor Prime?”
The flickering hololith somehow managed to capture the general’s apparent ignorance of her own demands despite the heavily distorted projection. Light years away, in a lavishly furnished officer’s mess it was presumably quite easy to think up ingenious solutions to problems by moving one Regicide piece next to another. Out in the void, on the cusp of a planetary rebellion that could severely disrupt the Imperial War effort, it fell to the subordinates to actually come up with practical answers.
“General, there are several layers of difficulty that this request presents…”
“Segmentum Command has assured me that the 33rd are the finest that the Imperium can bring to bear in your sector. They tell me that ‘difficult’ is what you are best suited for. Are they wrong?” The Lord Commander sneered.
“No my Lady” The Prime bristled. “I merely have some inquiries about the lack of logistical support…”
“Have you been remiss in your briefing attendance? Allow me to remind you that we are sitting on the wrong side of the largest warp storm ever recorded! I can barely get a fleet from one system to the next let alone coordinate
every warzone’s specific needs...” The general was on her feet now, bitterly clenching and unclenching a fist. “If I could sanction and secure a full scale invasion I wouldn’t be giving you these orders. Throne, I need Tripyat back in the fold and producing materiel! You are going to deliver that for me, soldier, or your outfit will die trying. Do we understand each other?”
“Absolutely, Ma’am. One way or another you will have your way.” The Prime braced himself.
“Indeed?” She raised an eyebrow. “Well Segmentum Command may trust you but I find a strict hand in such matters eases a lot of doubt.”
The Prime tightened his expression and cricked his neck as the general’s projection turned back to face him. “I’m assigning one of my staff to your troop… Commissar Mertens will be more than capable of keeping up whilst he keeps an eye on you.”
“Yes my Lady” the Prime grimaced.
“He will rendezvous with you in the Tripyat system. Do not disappoint me, the Emperor expects.” The general made the sign of the Aquilla before her hololithic projection flickered and faded.
The rose red lights of the ship’s officer’s ready room beamed back into life as the Prime slumped into a chair and lit up a Lho stick. His last briefing from high command had taken place at a sumptuous dinner after an operatic performance of Lucretia’s “The lion and The Wolf”. But this was a sparsely furnished side room of the Ship’s bridge that functioned more like a conference room than anything else. The Duty of Contempt was a centuries old Lunar class cruiser, relatively young for the Imperial Navy, and lacking in much of the ostentation that more ancient ships of the line enjoyed.
“Congratulations Arjun, you’ve reached new heights of idiocy today.” A whip thin gentleman in a gilded naval officer’s uniform sat down next to the Prime with a smirk on his face and a cup of tea in his hands. “General Sarkovitch doesn’t have a great deal of patience for insubordination at the best of times. You’re lucky she didn’t have me blow you out of an airlock.”
“Well then Captain, I suppose I’m lucky it’s the worst of times…” Arjun Tuplin sighed as he reached over to the briefing print out and started flicking through the pages. “If the gak really has gotten this deep and she really is that desperate then she’s going to need her desperate measures.”
“Quite some risk, Arjun. But if you’d simply taken the orders and shut your mouth you might have gotten away without having a Commissar over your shoulder for the whole operation. ” The Captain sipped at his tea with a wry smile.
“Hmm? Oh that was probably coming whether I bent over like you normally do or not… Throne Marius, haven’t you ever heard of a data slate?” Tuplin took a drag of his lho stick as he tossed the briefing across the cold steel desk.
“I’ve always found that making my officers work to comprehend their briefings makes the information stick all the better. Perhaps the fact that you’ve never had to strategize before is affecting your appreciation of my methods.” Marius snorted as he shuffled the briefing papers back into place.
“Well I’m not one of your officers, Captain; just because my troop is attached to your ship that doesn’t make you my commander. I thought we’ve had this discussion before?”
“We have and we established two things that are relevant to this current discussion”. The Captain swivelled back to face the Tempestor Prime and pointed to the star on his uniform’s breast. “Number one, I am still a superior officer of the Adeptus Administratum as far as you are concerned. And Number two, as long as you are on my ship you are my responsibility.” Marius’ expression softened. “You’ve saved this ship and my life Arjun. I don’t forget things like that but you must understand your actions reflect on my command. We’re about to have a General’s personal Commissar attached to this operation. That means, however briefly, that he will be attached to this ship. I do not need you giving him any reasons to doubt my authority.”
Arjun Tuplin took one last drag and looked back Marius. “You’ve repaid that debt many times over Marius. As for Mertens…” he stubbed the Lho stick out. “Commissars are awfully clumsy... I’ve never known one last very long in a warzone.”
2
Arjun stalked out of the ready room and across the bridge with his eyes on the ground. He had told Marius he would be back with his command staff before the day was done. Arjun shook his head as he contemplated plotting a planetary invasion with 50 soldiers in a few hours.
“Bloody Idiots…” He cursed as he jabbed a fist into the door’s access panel. Marius, already swamped with subordinates as soon as he left the ready room, sighed with exasperation then went back to the clamouring officers.
The Tempestor Prime cut an extremely imposing figure, even unarmoured, as he swept through the ship’s corridors. Navy ratings were often void born and paste fed so rarely made for an intimidating sight. Arjun, by contrast, was orphaned from wealthy Imperial nobility and raised with extreme attention to developing his physicality. His heavy boots added to the aggression of his footfalls and told every on comer to stand clear or be forced aside. Despite this, Arjun was not the largest or most grizzled Scion that graduated from the Progenium but there was a coldness in his eyes and sharpness to his muscle that made people think twice about testing the Prime’s patience.
Arjun reached out an arm and began rapping his knuckles across the broad bulkheads of the ship’s interior as he passed them. It was only a short walk back to the troop quarters for his men. Marius had realised the benefits of keeping Arjun’s Scions close to the bridge after their last major engagement, but the captain had stopped short of letting them keep their weapons. Regulations were extremely strict in the Imperial Navy on retaining armed soldiers aboard a vessel. This was, of course, much more difficult a task to enforce with the Scions as they retained an oddly independent streak that seemed at odds with their unwavering devotion to following direct orders. Arjun often mused on the eccentricity of troopers who would gladly follow a suicidal order immediately but would ignore a simple standing regulation until they were explicitly told to adhere to it. Fortunately, this ship’s captain was a man of quality from Cypra Mundi and believed very firmly in the honouring of a life debt. Certain rules had been overlooked on Arjun’s behalf which, now he paused to consider them, made the Prime stop in his tracks and curse aloud that he had brought a Segmentum Commissar into the mix.
Arjun leaned up against a wall and rubbed his brow while a crew of ratings with a cart of welding equipment trudged past. Steam was billowing up from the grating under foot and the flickering auburn lights made Arjun think of the rainstorms he grew up training in. The world his Scholam was based on was mostly temperate but contained enough ecological diversity to make for a wide variety of training exercises. The bunkhouses though were situated on an island called Bahara that seemed almost incessantly battered with monsoon storms. Even graduation day was a drenched affair with lightning piercing the heavens as the Drill Abbots sermonised on the glory of the causes the students were about to serve.
Arjun remembered nothing but pride on that day as he cast his eyes about him. Off to the right were future Administratum Clerks and on his left were the lion’s share of the female students; standing in serried ranks and itching to get fitted for power armour. But Arjun’s company in the centre was a different story. Every young man and woman in the centre ranks was a hammered steel Tempestus Scion and beaming with pride at the fact. Of course, they all found out later that no one in the regiments of the Tempestus Scions would consider them a real ‘Storm Trooper’ until they had survived their first combat mission. But that day Arjun and his compatriots were certain that they had become worthy of the Imperium that had chosen them.
The Schola Progenium taught all Tempestus Scions that many must die in order for humanity to survive as a whole. That was how Arjun was able to order simple men and women to assault great xenos beasts twice their size with little more than a fighting knife. For all the deep-seated respect Arjun had for the soldiers under his command and their devotion to serving the Emperor he would not hesitate to order them to their deaths if it meant victory for humanity.
“A single Scion’s duty is to die in a useful manner.” Arjun recited his old Tempestor’s favourite phrase but this time it didn’t bring the usual sense of comfort. Since taking command of his regiment Arjun had often thought about what Tempestor Tarleton had taught him about sacrifice in the name of the Emperor. Much had been offered on the altar of war from Arjun’s regiment. He didn’t begrudge the price of victory. But to offer what was left of the whole regiment in one fell swoop? And for no hope of victory? Arjun banged the back of his head against the wall he leaned on as he considered the prospect.
Captain Marius Steltor watched the adepts and ensigns of his bridge crew scurry back and forth with indifference. He hadn’t been able to focus since Arjun had stormed off into the depths of his ship. The Captain turned over the warp jumps and fuel calculations needed to ferry Arjun Tuplin’s Scions to Tripyat and somehow deploy them into combat against a fully fortified munitions world. Even with the firepower of a Lunar Class Imperial Cruiser the odds were little better than pointless suicide. Marius didn’t like the thought of heading to the officer’s mess without a plan for what he was going to have for supper. Sailing headlong into a planetary invasion with little more than fifty or so human soldiers and a prayer to the Emperor was deeply unsettling.
“Commander Venislav, beat to quarters! No sense hanging around in the void when we’ve got work to do…” Marius muttered. “And someone bring me my damned tea!”
The fresh faced first officer saluted then hurried over to the bridge whilst Marius retired to his command throne and sulked. He was supposed to have hashed out at least a vague strategy for assaulting Tripyat with Arjun but the fool had lost his temper all too quickly and stormed off to be with his Scions. “Well so be it” thought Marius. The Scions were the ones charged with taking back the planet, not him and his crew.
“Captain, the ship is beginning full lock down procedures. We will be ready for translation in approximately three hours… Oh and your tea, sir.”
“Thank you, mister Venislav. See that the preparations are comprehensive. The Admiralty is counting on us to complete far too much this rotation to go and get ourselves lost in the Warp”. Marius dismissed the commander and sipped his tea while staring blankly at the multitude of screens that flanked his command throne. Engineerium projections for operational efficiency scrolled along with a dour inevitability and Marius registered almost none of them. “I don’t want to leave them all to die…”
Marius rapped his fingers along the armrest of his throne while scowling into his simmering cup of tea. “Mister Venislav!”
“Sir!” The commander snapped to attention and bounded over to the command throne.
“Recite all known examples of a single Imperial ship of cruiser class successfully completing a planetary conquest of a fortified renegade human world with only its troop compliment and standard armaments. Start in reverse chronological order and omit any examples where reinforcements arrived.”
Venislav paused for just a second, furrowed his brow and closed his eyes before speaking again. “100.1 post VCM.M41. A Howling Griffons Strike Cruiser successfully overwhelms the defences of…”
“Strike all examples from the Indomitus crusade… Far too well provisioned.”
Venislav’s tortured expression twisted even further as he continued “13.1 post VCM.M41. The Raptors Chapter use a particularly cunning series of…”
“Strike all examples which include Adeptus Astartes in combat dispositions… Hardly fair with them on the field.”
Venislav bit his lip and picked up again “5.1 post VCM.M41. The Lord Dubois Gothic Class Cruiser destroys the hiveworld of Setragramma with a sustained bombardment of…”
“Strike all examples where the planet in question is obliterated in the process of reconquest.”
Venislav took a breath and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before finally looking back to his captain. “I’m sorry but I have no known record of such an action, sir.”
“Of course you don’t” Sighed Marius. “It’s never been done… At least I know your education was thorough, Commander.” Marius slumped back in his throne and turned the various options over in his head. “The general needs the world in tact and on side. That’s the objective. The world is heavily fortified and in open defiance of the Imperial Tithe. That’s the obstacle. So how do we use our assets to force that outcome?”
“Captain… I… Um I would…”
“Calm down Mister Venislav. Far be it from me to expect sound tactical advice from my first officer… Assemble the command staff in my ready room. I’ll hear all suggestions before I make a decision on how we do this.”
3
“So how are we going to do this?” a gruff voice, tempered by augmetic vocal chords called across the crowded room.
“If I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t have crammed you all into this stinking billet and asked you, Duffy would I? Seriously when was the last time any of you actually availed yourself of the fact that we have hot running water on this boat?” Arjun grinned as his Tempestors laughed off the jibe and at Tempestor Duffy.
“Seriously though sir, this one’s a taller order than usual.” Duffy recovered.
“There’s no doubt about that, lads. I’ve seen Astartes class missions with easier victory parameters.” Arjun grinned. There wasn’t a Storm Trooper alive who didn’t hold a deep reverence and respect for the fighting qualities of the Adeptus Astartes. But to pull off a mission that even they would respect? Arjun could see the shivers of pride spread through what was left of his regimental command as they considered the prospect.
They were a far cry from the parade ground, dress uniformed glory boys that the regular guard watched in the Regimental Standard Holo Dramas. Most of these men and women were lean, wiry cut throats with the type of cold smile that lets anyone know that the person they’re talking to has likely visualised several different ways to kill you. Schola Progenium training and indoctrination mad it near impossible for a Tempestus Scion to disobey a direct order but they had a way of finding loopholes in regulations and dispositions that infuriated a great deal of Imperial commanders. Still, more often than not, the same commanders would be toasting victory thanks to the wet work that their Scions practiced in the dark corners of the Imperium’s battlefields.
Arjun couldn’t look at their faces, all eager to figure out how to pull this mission off, without feeling an immense swell of pride. “Alright Tempestors there’s 50 or so Scions at our command with light vehicle support in our Tauroxes and a Lunar Cruiser in orbit. How do we make planetfall?”
“Bombardment of the void shields on the Capital hive and then a full-scale assault via orbital mod Valkyries to the spire.” A terse voice called out. “We’re in and out before they even realise what’s going on.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be enough here, Katja. Although I do admire the direct approach this isn’t just a snatch and grab or simple hit job. We need to remain on station to ensure that this worlds means of production are fully functioning for the Imperial war effort. We can’t risk another government stepping in and continuing this heresy.”
“Yeah and in addition to that, five or six Valkyries dropping onto a Primus hive all by themselves is going to make for a short flight and a very messy landing.” Duffy added.
“Well I didn’t want to lead with that part, Tempestor.” Arjun corrected. “But you’re right, any kind of assault where the enemy can see us coming will fail due to our numbers and their planetary defences.”
“So it’s infiltration then” A wiry man chuckled as he brushed lank, black hair out of his face. “Insertion a good distance from the hives where we won’t get noticed. Drive up to the perimeter then on foot ‘till we’re in the Underhive. After that we work our way up to the spire where we take and hold the government functions from the inside.”
“I like where your head’s at Tsanko but that will take far too long. We don’t have the months needed to make that kind of infiltration succeed. Too many variables and flashpoints of trouble where we’d get caught if we rushed it.”
“Why the ticking clock?” Tsanko cocked his head. Ever the patient hunter.
“Because right now Tripyat is just refusing to supply the Imperium. Things aren’t going to stay that way for long. They never do. As soon as the governor openly declares for the arch enemy and actually diverts the planets resources to enemy fleets then the Imperium won’t care to save Tripyat anymore. They’ll destroy it and us along with them if we’re hiding in some hive maintenance duct for the next few months.”
“So what do we have left?” Katja asked.
“Yeah boss, if we can’t drop in loud and we can’t sneak in quiet then what can we do?” Duffy added as the rest of the Tempestors started murmuring.
“That’s enough chit chat” Arjun silenced the room. “I have an idea.”
Only an hour ago the Duty of Contempt’s command ready room had been a cold husk of activity with only the Ship’s captain and Tempestor Prime idly chatting. Now the conference room was packed with officers and representatives from all major operations chiefs on board. Every seat at the table had been filled and many more junior officers were standing behind them. All conversation ceased as soon as Captain Marius Stentor entered the room and every person present stood to attention. Or in the case of the Adeptus Mechanicus representative, rose on several clawed feet.
“At ease, ladies and gentlemen. Honoured Adept.” Marius nodded to the tech priest lingering in the corner of the room. “We have been honoured with a task of monumental significance to the war effort in this sector. Tripyat is an Imperial hive world with considerable means of Adamantium production and the new government has decided they no longer want to pay the God Emperor’s tithe. We have been instructed to deliver them back to the right and proper way of thinking that keeps the holy Imperium in magnificent ascendancy.”
Marius paused and took in the room. He had their complete attention, even the frustratingly aloof Navigator’s attendants were showing something approaching respect. Marius was quite sure this was only because he had confirmed their next destination. This was essentially the only thing that mattered to the Navigator who cared little for anything resembling duty to the Imperium when they weren’t sailing the sea of souls.
“Is there a muster before we jump? How long until translation do we have to prepare?” The chief attendant more demanded than enquired.
“There is no pre-jump muster and I expect to be en route to the Tripyat system before the end of this duty rotation.” Said Marius.
“Acknowledged, we will begin preparations to jump imminently. Is there a rally point in system?”
“Not exactly” Marius sighed. “We will link up with the Dauntless class light cruiser Divine Perdition so that we can welcome aboard Commissar Mertens of General Sarkovitch’s staff. From there we will proceed to the invasion of Tripyat alone.”
At this the rapt and respectful attention that the ready room had been providing degenerated into a chorus of whispers and confused expressions.
“Alone sir? We don’t have a troop compliment aboard this vessel…” The master of ordnance concluded.
“Yes I am aware of my ship’s capabilities old friend. We do have the Scions of the 33rd Militarum Tempestus aboard and they, along with our soon to be guest Commissar, will be tasked with the ground work. Our duty is to get them into position and support with everything we can bring to bear.”
“Preposterous!”
“This must be some mistake!”
The ready room erupted in irritating disorder.
“Silence!” Ordered Marius, briefly revealing the void warrior’s true bearing. “We have been given the order to accomplish this task in the name of the Imperium. In the name of the God Emperor himself! Difficulty is not a factor in duty. We will continue this briefing with the proper reverence for our responsibilities or I will…”
The doors swung open with a loud crack and Arjun Tuplin barged into the room.
“Sorry I’m late! Had a few kinks in the plan to work out with my staff.”
“So nice of you to join us Tempestor Prime” Marius composed himself as Arjun forced a junior officer out of his seat and planted himself down. “I was just explaining how we will be providing your air support during the Tripyat operation.”
“Aha yes, very kind of you Captain but I’m afraid you won’t be needed on this Op.” Smiled Arjun “That much…”
“Excuse me?” Marius raised an eyebrow.
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