Gabriel Valkos- Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, tasked with getting reinforcements from the Free Enclaves.
Whinumere- An Eldar Ranger from Ulthwé Craftworld, and master sniper.
Cordas Davi- Cadian and Captain of Valkos' Inquisitorial stormtroopers.
Karen- Valkos' Navigator.
Shas'O Vior'los Or'jkarra'myen (Commander Mirrorstar)- Commander of the Hunter Contingent attached to the Sendus system and master of Mont'Ka.
Shas'el Salas'he Sha'nas (Commander Hiddenblade)- Enclaves Commander who specializes in stealth and hit-and-run attacks.
Shas'el Vior'los An'ilane (Commander Deathrain)- Enclaves Commander who specializes in long-range support and logistics.
Shas'el Vior'los Shase'por (Commander Darkwater)- Enclaves Commander who specializes in training and defensive warfare.
Brutus Ixion- Ultramarine Captain from Macragge Sept. Member of the Ultramarines 7th Cadre, which was given to the Enclaves by the Omega.
Marc Teiresian- Ultramarine of the 7th Cadre who bears a Fusion Blaster.
Shadrak Meduson- Warmaster of Chaos, champion of the Machine-God, and absolute leader of the Iron Legion.

The palace of King O'Shovah was simple for the capital to an empire. The throne room was a simple hall, with old pattern Battlesuits lining the wall between the forty great bronze pillars. The most elaborate feature in the hall was the small stasis dome containing the Dawn Blade on a wall-carved Eldar plinth. On the simple wooden throne at the end of the hall, King O'Shovah the Farsighted sat, next to his deactivated Battlesuit. It was to that figure that Valko walked to and kneeled.

"I bow to you, King O'Shovah, Lord of the Fire Caste, Over-Shas'O, Beastslayer, Farsighted One. I seek audience and fair discussion with you."

The stern facial expression on Farsight's face slowly morphed into a kind, genuine smile.

"You may rise, Gabriel Valkos, Emissary to the Free Enclaves, Inquisitor Xenos."

Valkos stood up and took a seat upon a slightly cushioned wooden stool.

"What do you desire to speak to me about?", continued O'Shovah.

"The forces of the Machine-God have been sighted near our neighboring forge world, Sendus Delta. We need support to keep our Alliance alive."

O'Shovah sighed. His eyes held weariness beyond his years.

"Although I am a warrior above all, our worlds cannot spare the amount of troops you would need to fight those monstrosities. I can provide advisors, trainers, and a handful of warriors in Battlesuits, and they would fight bravely, but they could not make enough of a difference to defeat the Machine-God's Iron Legion."

Valko shifted slightly and handed Farsight a dataslate, which the Tau scanned quickly and frowned.

"I am afraid that the Omega got the favorable end of that deal. Those that we have, we lack the facilities to make large quanitities."

"Could you spare even a squad? I am sure that even a squad of them on my lines would give our troops hope."

"I believe we could, but what are you willing to offer for our support?"

"Our spies have finally retrieved copies of schematics for the Omega's tanks. We are willing to offer half of them now, and the rest after the Iron Legion is defeated."

"I will consult my advisors. I do believe those schematics are worth the cost."

Farsight slowly rose, and lead a group of robed Tau into a side room. Valkos remained seated, waiting for the King to finish his meeting. His eyes wandered across the face of a few fellow emissaries, retainers, and entertainers, and finally settled on the King's old Crisis suit. Designs of ceramite and copper were masterfully worked into the red surface, giving the armor a ancient, regal appearance. A shattered Omega was worked into the chestplate, the symbol of the empire that Farsight had seceded from. The shiny, green glass lenses of the armor's sensor array shone brightly. The battlesuit was clearly extremely well maintained, and most likely ready for use at a moment's notice.

After two hours of waiting, O'Shovah finally emerged from the chamber, escorted by his advisors. He strode back to the throne, with his smile restored.

"That price will be sufficient. I will provide all of my available forces, and a squad of Ixion's Marines. I bid you success in battle, and may the Machine-God yet fall into ruin upon Sendus Delta."

With that, Valko bowed again, and made his exit, rejoining his retinue outside the hall. His Navigator, Karen, greeted him first.

"Greetings, Inquisitor Lord. I receive tidings of a broken cog, an empty room, and a bruised giant from the Tarot. The Empyrean forms paths for thousands of ships."

The Captain of the storm-trooper platoon under Valkos, Davi, and his ally, the Ranger Whinumere, were sitting under the wing of Valkos' transport, arguing about energy weapons. They both snapped hasty salutes when they saw the Inquisitor.

"Sir!" Said Davi, smiling. "I thought you would be an hour more, at least! What did he say?"

"I am afraid not", said Valkos. "I am promised a squad of Space Marines under Sergeant Ixion, and some general Battlesuit equipped advisors and trainers."

Davi's smile faded. "That's nowhere near enough. Tac Logis says that-"

Valkos interrupted.

"I am aware of the predictions Tac Logis has made. I know that it's not enough, but Ultramarines are a rare commodity. The shipment of Pulse Rifles we retrieved in our latest raid on the Omega should be enough to equip at least two regiments of Guardsmen, which will be trained by O'Shovah's warriors."

"Then we will still die, but we will die covered in the blood of the Machine-God's sons of bitches."

"Is it not a worthy death?"

With that, Valkos stepped into the small Valkyrie transport. His Mechanicus accomplice, Kent-34, canted greetings, and stepped to the side to allow Valkos to pass through and access the loudspeaker to the outside of the Valkyrie.

"Takeoff in 1! Get inside! We are to return to G'Enya and board the conveyor there! Ixion and his men will meet us!", the loudspeaker blared.

Precisely a minute later, the hatch was shut, with every henchman inside and strapped into their flight-seats. The Valkyrie retracted it's sturdy landing legs, carefully rose into the air, and accelerated towards G'Enya, city of the Fire Caste.

An Inquisitorial Valkyrie in the sky of an Enclave world was an unusual sight, causing Valkos’ craft to be noticed by a vast amount of the inhabitants of G’Enya. Sergeant Ixion was waiting next to the landing pad when Valkos arrived, calm in his azure, gold, and crimson armor. Valkos could appreciate the hybrid design, which took cues from both Imperial power armor and an Omega Battlesuit.
“Inquisitor.” Ixion rumbled curtly.
“Where are your men?” Valkos observed. “Are they at the spaceport?”
“We are Ultramarines, Inquisitor. We do not separate. We are all brothers in blood.”
The nine other Ultramarines stepped out from behind the Valkyrie, the servo-motors in their armor whirring slightly.
“I present to you my brothers.” The Ultramarine continued warmly.
The other Marines bowed slightly to the Inquisitor. Valkos could see that their armor was newly polished and well maintained.
“And I greet you, Space Marines.” said Valkos, completing the ritual by bowing low.
One of the Marines, a shining Omega fusion blaster strapped across his back, removed his helmet and looked at Valkos. He was dark-skinned, with very short hair and brown eyes.
“How are the Enclaves so far, Inquisitor?” The Marine inquired.
“It seems far less oppressive than the Omega’s realm, and also somehow more rustic and quiet, despite the advanced technology. I went to a Battlesuit show on my second day on Vior’Los. There was a rather spectacular purple XV-86 that won the acrobatics competition easily. Definitely far more interesting than most Imperial sports. Do you have anything comparable in Macragge sept?”
“There are the hover-races, although I have never participated. Have you ever piloted a Battlesuit yourself?”
“No. I thought they were only useable by Tau?”
“Only in the military, and even then, the Omega is phasing the ‘Tau only’ rule for Battlesuit piloting out.”
“Really? To take advantage of their human population? Do they have more humans than Tau?”
“Actually, equal population. The humans of Ultramar are our partners in the Omega, after all. It is only fair that both Tau and Humans could live on each other’s worlds. Is it not the same in your Imperium?”
“Our Imperium has no formal Xenos allies. All we have are simple non-aggression pacts and small trade agreements. To fight the honorable Eldar and Omega would be our death kneel. We cannot afford distractions from wiping out traitors, heretics, and the more… distasteful Xenos. I have autonomy, however, and the sector I serve has an agreement with the Free Enclaves for military support and trade goods. I am glad the Imperium learned the importance of tolerating Xenos after the Tarsus Incident. I wonder what would have happened if Lord Fulgrim hadn’t listen to that Eldar seer?”
“Let us all simply be glad that the Imperium is a tolerant power. When the Warp Storms around the Omega disappeared and the Imperium made contact with us for the first time, I dread to think of what would have happened if they had sent an extermination fleet instead of ambassadors.”
Both the Ultramarine and Valkos sat quietly for a minute. Davi broke the silence, striding up from the Valkyrie’s belly.
“Is it time for us to go yet? My boys are itching to meet this O’Myen character. I’ve heard some interesting things about her.”
“Oh? Do tell…” Valkos replied.
“Total hardass, of course, like the rest of these Enclavites, but apparently the best damn Battlesuit pilot on Vior’los.”
Valkos shot him a dirty look.
“After Farsight and his bodyguard, of course.” Davi added hastily. “I hear that she dueled an Emperor’s Children captain in the air and won.”
Valkos looked somewhat interested. “Oh? Which Captain?”
“The Eighth Company, I believe. The one in charge of their Assault Marines and Land Speeders.”
“So we’re getting the best of the best? Seems that somebody is smiling upon me from up very high. Could you get Whin? Patience is not a trait present in many great beings.”
Davi stepped over to the Valkyrie, knocking vigorously on the rear assault hatch.
“Whin! 34! Get out here! None of us are getting younger!” Davi yelled.
A soft, melodically accented voice in his ear startled him.
“I am already out here. 34 is staying with the Valk to fly her to the orbital transport. He doesn’t seem the type to trust her to anyone else.”
Davi looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Alright. Did he ask Valkos?”
“I believe he passed him a note on the flight. Valkos agreed.”
“Well, whatever he says. Let’s get a move on.” With that, Whinumere and Valkos joined with the rest of the now-considerably large group, and filed into the two waiting Mako transports. Davi, the fusion blaster-bearing Marine, Ixion, Whinumere, Valkos, and Karen filed into one of the hovering vehicles, and the Stormtroopers and the rest of the Space Marines boarded the other. The inter-transport commscreens flickered to life, and the Enclavite pilots began masterfully driving the vehicles onto the main elevated highway of G'Enya.
Valkos stared out the wide, bulletproof left-hand window, marvelling at the elegant white-and-brown skyscrapers that rose like stalks of grass. The highway curved gently, and entered a large glass dome. Valkos could see Enclavite Tau and humans walking along glass catwalks above the road, stopping to buy from automated kiosks.
As the Makos passed into another elevated road, a piece of graffiti featuring a shattered Free Enclave symbol flashed by.
"What was that?" Inquired Valkos. Ixion responded, sounding annoyed.
"Pro-Omega graffiti. Not every citizen enjoyed the split of the Enclaves and the Omega. Some still crave unity and the influence of the Ethereals."
"Are those... unionists dangerous?"
"Not that I know of. They seem to mostly protest peacefully, or vandalize signs, but last week a firebomb went off in this city's War Museum. Killed a city council member and seriously burned his bodyguard."
"I saw that on the holoscreen. O'Uaine?"
"Enclave ambassador to the Craftworlds. Unfortunate that he should meet his end in such a cowardly manner. The perpetrator has been executed, but the unionist movement still isn't dead."
"So be the fate of all cowards and heretics."
With that, the short conversation ended and Valkos went back to staring out the window. The elegant, white skyscrapers soon transformed into small farm-domes, and then approached into large rock formations.
"Heads up, five minutes to arrival." The pilot voxed from his seat at the front of the vehicle.
The Makos took a turn, following the now grounded road, and entered a tunnel through a stout hill. Suddenly, the lead transport halted. The pilot of Valkos' Mako swore and swerved left, stopping the vehicle brutally.
"The feth was that?!" Davi squaked indigently from the seat next to Whinumere. Karen suddenly shut her two primary eyes, her third eye beginning to glow under its protective membrane.
"Trouble. A phosphor-fly blinks and devoures the moth. Trojan Horse."
Valkos took a glance out the window. There was a two-meter tall barricade, littered with stacks of stolen EMP grenades and rusty metal spikes.
"Fething down!" Davi shouted as all the EMPs went off at once, and plunged the interior of the craft into darkness. Ixion immediately pulled a small lamp-pack out of his belt, and activated it. Karen had hidden under one of the seats, and Whinumere was splayed across the fusion blaster-bearing marine's lap. He groaned as he untangled himself.
"Fething really? Not a single damn day." The Eldar grunted, as he pulled an elegant pistol from his holster.
Valkos looked around to see the occupants of the vehicle drawing their weapons, and the pilot manually screwing down the windshield's blast-proof shutters.
"I shall assess the situation." said Ixion bluntly, as he crossed the transport compartment and pulled the emergency door open. He was immediately greeted by a pulse carbine shot that bounced off his thick helmet. There was the throaty boom of a boltgun firing, and the unionist attacker's torso exploded into red mist.
More shots cracked out from behind the barricade, one smashing into Valkos' Mako's windshield and one hitting the engine intake, causing one side of the skimmer to smash into the ground. The rest of the Ultramarines and Stormtroopers spilled out of the other Mako, punching hellgun, plasma rifle, and boltgun shots into the improvised barricade. A unionist with a mounted burstcannon opened up, stitching a line of shots across the ground and decapitating a Stormtrooper, who fell with a scream.
Valkos, Davi, and the fusion blaster-bearing Marine jumped out of the downed Mako. Valkos hit the ground rolling and came up firing his laspistol with both hands at the burstcannon operator, who fell with a shout, shot through the chest and shoulder. A badly-aimed autogun shot whickered through Valkos' stormcoat, causing the Inquisitor to roll behind the damaged engine of his transport. Davi joined him, and began yelling into his wrist-mounted vox.
"We are being engaged by active, armed hostiles! We will need medevac and support! Status: One transport downed and one transport-"
Davi's shout was drowned out by the sound of a boltgun opening up mere feet away from him. Another unionist screamed, and a retaliating autogun shot hit the pavement two feet from Davi's outstretched hand.
Valkos, using the engine as cover, snapped off another shot at a ducking unionist, and missed. A return shot hit the Inquisitor directly in the chest, and caused him to hit the ground, the shock almost causing him to pass out. The slug had almost penetrated his protective carapace chestplate.
There was a thin-sounding crack, and the unionist that had shot Valkos' eye exploded, causing him to drop like a dead fish. Whinumere saluted the downed Inquisitor, and fired another sniper shot, killing the another unionist taking aim at Davi. Valkos watched as the fusion blaster-bearing Ultramarine fired at the barricade, and then charged through the hole, drawing a wicked honor blade. Two other Marines followed him, and the air was soon filled with the screams of dying unionists.
The gunfire stopped, and the relative silence of the tunnel returned, only puncuated by the crackle of the fires ignited by the fusion blaster shot.
"Casualty count!" Valkos yelled to Davi, who was leaning to inspect the fallen Stormtrooper.
"One blue dead, one blue wounded. Looks like nine reds dead and none wounded."
Valkos nodded slightly at the effectiveness of the Ultramarines and his Stormtroopers.
"Send word to that unfortunate soul's family with my condolences. Make sure to tell them that it was quick, at least."
Davi nodded once, and moved back into the downed Mako, helping Karen to her feet.
"Situation as I said, of course." The psyker woman said. "It is unfortunate that one brave soul made his end in the dark."
Valkos nodded once and went to inspect the barricade. It had clearly been thrown together quickly, being primarily made out of chunks of rockcrete and rusty barrels. The shape of a technical drone turned on its side stuck out of the improvised roadblock, as well as some hastily-made weapon mounts. Valkos could see that only one was occupied.
"Is it possible to move this thing?" Valkos said to Davi.
"Seems possible, but I think I got the rust disease just by looking at it. The Ultramarines could probably clear a path through it."
Thankfully, they did not have to. There was the sound of an anti-grav ram firing, and the roadblock was violently shunted to the right side of the tunnel. In its place hovered a heavily-armed Hammerhead tank, escorted by a Devilfish transport. The Tau commander of the Devilfish took a bow, and shouted to the scattered group on the ground.
"O'Myen got worried at your lateness. I am ordered to give you a ride." The commander stated, in labored Gothic. "Could you get those transporters off the ground?"
"One of them is intact, but the other has a wrecked engine. Do you have towing capability?"
"Yes. Your crashed transport could be towed by mine. Do you have any wounded?"
"Only one. My Stormtroopers and the Ultramarines are effective soldiers."
"Place him in the back of my transport, on the medical bed. My medics will assist him. What is your composition?"
"Ten Ultramarines, five Stormtroopers, three of my associates, and myself. We don't have much baggage."
"Split your party, the Ultramarines in my transport and everybody else in yours. That should suffice until we get to O'Myen's location."
With that, Valkos climbed the ladder into his Mako, followed by Karen, Whinumere, and Davi. The Stormtroopers joined them a moment later. There was a loud noise of shrieking metal as the downed Mako was lifted by the Devilfish's recovery drone, and then a jolt as the now larger convoy started moving.
Valkos turned his attentions to the window again, mentally preparing himself for meeting the esteemed Tau commander. He hoped that they had sufficient time to beat back the Machine-God's forces, and that the Imperium and Enclaves combined could truly survive the birth of the new god...

The drive to Contingent Base G’enya took much longer than projected, as the towed Mako slowed the small convoy down significantly. By the time the procession of vehicles left the tunnel, the sun of Vior’los was beginning to merge with the horizon. As the sky turned salmon pink, the Makos entered the massive structure, dropping off their cargoes and moving to the grand vehicle elevators that carried them up to the hanger bays near the roof. Valkos finished looking out the entrance to the base, and stepped off the rockcrete floor of the disembarkation bay into the smooth alloy floor of the hallways of CB G’enya.


The Contingent Base was clean and white, like most Omega and Enclaves architecture. It was a multi-level, hexagonal, ziggurat-like design, with rounded edges and shieldlines lining each tier. One large ramp stood at the front, protected by another shield barrier and two drone sentry turrets, which whirred their plasma cannons as they searched for threats. This main ramp entered the first tier of the base, and split off into two elevator blocks, both surrounding a main elevator which could carry a Baneblade. These elevators went through armor-glass tubes through the multiple levels of the facility, past blocks of drilling Fire Warriors, hydroponic farms, and dormitories until they reached the colossal hanger decks of the second-highest tier. It was a self-contained military city, covering slightly more than two square kilometers horizontally, and fully capable of orbital deployment with the aid of a small starship.
Valkos watched the Mako go up the elevator until it disappeared, and gestured to the nearest off-duty Fire Warrior, showing her a statement of purpose, signed by King O’Shovah.
“Shas’O Myen’s overseeing a new wing of Crisis Suit pilots. Observation-Training room two. Hurry, please.” She said as she nodded to Valkos.
Two of the Ultramarines lead the way, seemingly instinctively following the Fire Warrior. The group passed two Ultramarines with subtly different markings, who saluted Ixion as he jogged past. The sergeant gave a slight bow and continued following the stout Fire Warrior guide.
After a minute at a mild run, Valkos’ group arrived in a large, glass, disk-shaped construct that stuck out of a wall above a tall, hexagonal chamber. In the training chamber, Battlesuits were practicing mid-air combat doctrine. A half-squadron of four new, shiny Crisis suits was mock-battling an old, red, grey and white Enforcer suit.
The Enforcer suit was utterly crushing them, outflying the entire squadron seemingly effortlessly. Two tiny red dots appeared on two Crisis suits armed with a disarmed plasma Rifle and missile pods, and they carefully jetted over to a painted yellow square on the floor, to be joined a second later by a suit with dual Fusion Blasters. Another of the Crisis suits swung its burstcannon around, a hail of red dots appearing on the wall around the Enforcer, but none hitting it. The Enforcer replied with a single shot from its plasma rifle, but the suit swung in midair, and the red dot hit the smooth, white floor.
The Crisis that had evaded the plasma shot fired another burstcannon shot, two red dots cleanly hitting the tip of the Enforcer's shoulder plate as it quickly spun and activated a simulated Battlesuit-grade honor blade. The massive curved blade, made of red light, swung towards the Crisis suit, dissipating when it hit the Crisis suit's "neck" and causing the pilot to maneuver his suit to join the others in the yellow square.
With that, a large door midway along the wall, and the suits flew into it gracefully. It seemed that the battle had concluded.
The Fire Warrior guide began to explain. “A simple level two training exercise. She is initiating new Shas’Ui in midair Battlesuit combat. The Commander should be up here shortly.”
With that, their guide departed, to continue with her duties in the cafeteria. There was a three or four minute silence.
“So that Enforcer suit, that was O’Myen? Didn’t seem nearly as good as the vids made her out to be.” Davi said, bewilderedly.
“Probably toning herself down for the purpose of training those recruits. I could see the underlying talent down to every individual jetpack pulse she made. The only reason that one suit hit her was because she made that blunder on purpose. Definitely took that suit out in a flashy manner.” Whinumere explained, gesturing emphatically.
“Damn, that sword. Modelled on the King’s? I thought the Tau weren’t that skilled at bladework."
“The Enclaves place a mite more emphasis on the sword than the Omega, as the Dawn Blade is the symbol of Farsight. Much like the Inquisition teaching the use of Thunder Hammers over more practical weapons.” Ixion interjected to clarify.
“Don’t bring my training into this.” Valkos groaned as he sat down in a spartan, white plastic chair.
This awkward exchange was brought to a close by the click of a hoof. Shas’O Myen had arrived in the observation chamber. She still somewhat shone from recently-cleaned off Battlesuit amniotic fluids, and wore a simple white bodysuit.
“I witnessed you observing my training exercise.”
“Yes, we did.” Said Valkos, clearly wrong-footed by the Commander’s sudden arrival.
“You would have noticed the similarity to our esteemed King’s fighting style.”
“Absolutely.”
“I studied directly under him, before he dedicated himself mostly to matters of state. He is a master of the Mont’ka. I believe you will find I am as well.”
“Yes, Commander. Is that what you would like to be called?”
“My Underlings call me Commander. You may call me Or'jkarra'myen, or simply Myen. I hope you believe yourself to not be my underling.”
"Or'jkarra'myen... Mirrored Sun Unexpected. Commander Mirrorstar?."
"That is my name. Do you respect me?"
"Yes, of course! Anyone who achieves such high rank should-"
"I do not respect any being until I see their accomplishments firsthand."
"Then, I hope you find my accomplishments worthy, if only to allow you to fight even harder against the Machine-God."
"I was instructed to take you to the hangers to allow you to meet with the leaders of my cadres."
With that last curt statement, the party began moving again, following the Commander. As they passed through a hallway lined with different marks of Battlesuits, Myen allowed herself to become less robotic.
"That", she pointed at a XV86 Coldstar, "Is my old battlesuit. I decided I preferred maneuverability to raw speed. A jetpack is superior to massive thrusters in a battlefield situation, as the Mirrorcodex says."
"That's... Farsight's book?" Davi asked tentatively.
"Yes. It is our King's book on tactics. Second after great Puretide."
The party exited the small "museum" and continued on, into a large elevator.
"Level seven. The sensor requires the blood of authorized personnel, to prevent infiltration." Myen placed her finger on a small black pad to allow the needle to test her, and then pressed the number seven on the wall, causing the elevator to immediately rise.
"Our King has seen fit to provide me with three full Hunter Contingents to act as advisors and auxiliaries to your fight in the Sendus system. You shall meet my Shas’els in the hanger, and we shall take a dropship flight to the local spaceport. Please, do not wander off."
"May I ask a question?" Whinumere piped up.
"If it does not compromise security."
"What's on the eighth floor? If hangers are on seven, why build a floor above them?"
"The eighth level is where the Omega... Aun rule from in their bases. Our engineers have redesigned that level to contain more air defense equipment and drone deployment racks."
"I see... The Enclaves have no Ethereals?"
This caused Myen to actually show emotion. "Those slave drives are not permitted in the Enclaves! That their brainwashed drones are is bad enough! We will have no more talk of the damned Aun!"
Whinumere raised his hands submissively. "Right, sorry for bringing that up."
Myen was silent until the elevator doors opened. The hanger deck was a truly cavernous space, filled with Devilfish transports, Hammerhead gunships, and two colossal Tiger Shark aircraft, which had folded their wings to fit in the space. A full escort wing of Barracudas was landed next to them, also parked wingtip to wingtip. Valkos could see a telltale wall with a shielded blast door, which clearly lead to flight control and sensor suites. Myen's three Cadre leaders stood underneath the wing of their Barracuda. One was tall for a Tau, with a scar across his nose-slit, and a pin with a curved blade on it attached to his red bodysuit. Another was of middling height, with a slight discolored patch on his cheek, and a permanent mildly disturbed expression.
The last commander, a wiry figure with darker grey skin than the others, began to speak. "These are the humans we are aiding, Honored Mirrorstar?"
Whinumere winced slightly.
"Yes, they are. You will introduce yourselves to them so they may recognize you." Myen responded.
The scarred commander spoke first. "Shas’el Salas'he Sha'nas."
"And I am Shas’el Vior'los Shase'por" The dark-skinned commander said.
"Commander Coldsword and Commander Darkwater." Valkos guessed.
"Incorrect." Said Sha'nas. "It means Hidden Blade."
"Commander Hiddenblade then."
"It will suffice."
The disturbed-looking commander spoke last. "Greetings. I am Shas’el Vior'los An'ilane."
Valkos nodded his respect. "Commander Deathrain. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Would you be willing to provide a dossier of you and your colleagues' dispositions and individual skills?"
"There will be no need for a dossier. We are willing to tell you whatever you need to know, as long as it does not compromise the security of the Enclaves."
"Then, shall we find a room so we may speak freely amongst ourselves?"
"We may talk on the dropship over. We are already late."
"That reminds me... Where are your forces?"
"All assembled at the spaceport. We are going to be the last to arrive there."
"Where is this dropship?"
"On the roof. We should be going now."
Myen lead the group to the elevators, and the elevators begin to rise. Karen, silent the whole journey, finally piped up, her third eye glowing. "The Sendus system sends a message, Epsilon has contact with the enemy. Two weeks."
Valkos reacted with near physical shock. The Machine-God's forces were reported as taking their time with the two uninhabited worlds at the system's edge, converting them into the maddening engines that supposedly pleased the Machine-God. That they had abandoned those projects to race towards Sendus Epsilon was quite worrying.
"How long until the evacuation and defense takes place?"
"The day of the birth of the Emperor in the future..."
Sonsday, Valkos mentally corrected. "Only a day?"
"The engine-blasphemy is a true threat, the ships depart for Sendus in five days ago, and arrive tomorrow."
Not for the first or last time, Valkos cursed the psyker's lack of sense of time.
"Six days there... Six days back, and then another try. That's only three quarters of the population, if the evacuators are willing to risk the Iron Legion snapping at their heels."
"It is the Emperor's will. It cannot be changed."
Karen closed her third eye again, and returned to her usual borderline-sleepwalking state.
Nearly a second after the exchange finished, the elevator arrived at the roof, and the party stepped into a waiting Orca dropship. They were joined a minute later by the Ultramarines, who had taken the vehicle elevators. Valkos and his relatively humanoid companions took the seats to the edge of the troop bay, and the Ultramarines settled into the specially reinforced seats designed for Battlesuits.
As soon as the boarding ramp slammed shut, Valkos resumed his conversation with An'ilane.
“So, specialties and Cadre composition?” Valkos inquired.
“I specialize in long-range fire support, Mont’ka via missile, not by close range shots. O’Myen is a master of Mont’ka as well, but prefers to lead from the front with her Crisis Suits. Shase’por is the Commander who will be educating your defense forces. He is a master of taking and holding ground, a Kauyon practioner. Finally, Sha’nas. He specializes in stealth attacks, ambushes, and espionage.”
“Not many opportunities to practice espionage against this foe.”
“That is unfortunate, but I am sure that there is a use for stealth. Now, onto our compositions. Sha’nas is commanding a force composed mainly of mobile close attack teams in skimmers and stealth-pattern Battlesuits. He will be piloting a Ghostkeel battlesuit."
“The XV95 has command capability?” Valkos asked, interested.
“His XV95 does. It is not a standard feature.” An’ilane said. “Shase’por has an element of Gue’vesa instructors and wargear for your planetary defense forces and Guardsmen. He will not be on the front line, however, he pilots a Crisis Enforcer with primarily battlefield control systems. I, of course, have multiple firebase support groups and Pathfinders with me. I will be piloting a Crisis Enforcer equipped with long-range support systems and weaponry.”
“And Myen?”
“She will be bringing along her Battlesuit squadrons, as always. You already saw her mantle, I hear.”
Valkos leaned back in the impact-cushioned seat. He was feeling slightly better than before, and looked to Ixion and the Ultramarines, admiring the design of their armor again.
“What is the flight duration?” Valkos asked to Myen, who was near-religiously study an image of a new-pattern Omega Rhino.
“Five of your hours. Is there a need to disturb me for that long?”
“No, not at all. I was thinking of catching a nap, actually.”
“If that is your goal, please do.”
Valkos nodded and opened up a pocket in his stormcoat, withdrawing a small pill, which he dry-swallowed. The Inquisitor fell asleep to Davi talking to Darkwater about Kauyon.
The Ultramarines continued talking among themselves, and Whinumere eventually fell asleep as well, bored without something to read or his rifle to clean.
The shock of landing and the flash of daylight from the boarding ramp jarred them both awake, along with two Stormtroopers and An’ilane, who had also fallen asleep.
“We have landed.” Said Myen, who was pushing her stack of papers into her bag. “Please follow me to embark upon the orbital transports.”
Valkos stepped out, shielding his eyes from the glare of sun on sand. He was joined by Whinumere and Davi to stare at the sight of the Manta dropships that the assembled Enclaves forces were embarking upon.
Thirty of the vast vessels, each a small spacecraft in their own right, were landed on the vast embarkation fields outside the spaceport. A virtual river of materiel was flowing into the hungry boarding ramps of each of them. Another, even larger vessel, a Startide transporter, was accepting a parade of large Battlesuits. Stormsurges, Supremacy suits, and Riptides marched into it, and were connected to their protective cradles by recovery drones and their Earth Caste controllers.
“This is what the King considers a handful of forces?” Valkos said, astounded.
“O’Shovah led entire Hunter Coalitions. This is but a fraction of the Free Enclaves’ might. It is a shame that we are defending from the Tyranids on one front, or else we would have much more to support you with.” An’ilane clarified, standing calm in his sunglasses.
The group watched, astounded, as the last Battlesuit embarked upon the Startide, and the mammoth vessel took off the ground. It levitated fifty meters off the ground on its powerful grav plates, and slowly turned, searching for a trajectory its computer could use to dock with the bulk transports in orbit. The ground shook as it found a course and ignited its massive engines, propelling itself into the air with the grace of an airwhale taking off, back on Valkos’ homeworld. Myen sharply nodded as the craft vanished into the distance. It was quickly followed by four full Mantas.
“Our transport is Manta Eight, on the end over there. Please embark now. We will have to walk.”
The group began jogging across the sands to the prepared Manta, when a fast-moving shadow suddenly streaked across the desert. A civilian aircraft came into view, flying strangely low.
The sensor array on a Manta that was in the middle of taking off spun around, hailing the vessel. Valkos watched as a few Sky Rays on the ground immediately illuminated the threat, and launched a missile each. Valkos saw that it would be much too late, as the aircraft sped fanatically towards the launching Manta. A cacophony began, as long-barreled burst cannons on the outside of the Manta began blazing away at the aircraft, shredding the target apart. The burning, exploding wreck’s engines cut out, but it was too late to stop it. As the seeker missiles piloted themselves into the ground to avoid colliding with the Manta, the wreckage hit. The massive craft physically rocked, and a crater formed in it's deep sides, but it still managed to execute it's takeoff successfully.
"Fething Unionists." Said Myen, swearing. "They should be perfectly fine. Manta armor is strong, and they're still spaceworthy, even with a massive chunk ripped out of one side."
With the potentially horrific event over, the group continued their jog to the waiting Manta, and eventually began walking up the massive embarkation ramp. The craft was full of Tau and Humans in red combat armor, all seated in the large rows of seats.
"Mind if I sit here?" Valkos said to a woman who was reading a magazine in her impact-seat. She nodded and moved her spare gear out of the seat Valkos was pointing at.
"Will you be educating the Sendian Guard?" Valkos asked her.
"No. I am a.... Pathfinder for Commander An'ilane's ballistic suits. I am to defend on Sendus E, and move to-redeploy to Sendus D." She said, in halting Gothic.
"First battle?"
"No, no, I fought against the... devourer. Many died. I did not."
Even Valkos couldn't find a way to recover the situation, and he just looked out the window, watching the curve of Vior'los and seeing G'enya turn into mere dotted lights. The fate of the Sendus system was in his hands, and the hands of O'Myen...

The entity howled in the Warp, as it became vaguely aware of its constructs being shattered. The howl was a sound of metal against metal, of a million million drills creating holes in skulls, and the impossible landscape of self-creating machines and Infinitely repeating fountains of liquid metal shook as the entity’s rage manifested itself as small warp storms throughout the Segmentum Obscurus. One of the entity’s greater daemons, a maddening creature that was once the great titan Magnificatus Malleus looked up at the entity on it’s great throne of gold and gears and skulls, and whirred the gears and other moving parts that made up its body, creating a demented, high pitched, grinding voice out of the sounds. It asked its duty, and the souls to be found, and the meat to be killed. The entity on the throne responded in the same way, the million speakers of all kinds dotting its body screeching out an answer. The unholy sound caused mechanical devices throughout realspace to mutate and flow, turning into bladed, flailing spiders and silent Crusaders, shredding their former owners until they collapsed, their brief energy expended in one burst of energy. The machine-spirits of the vanquished machines joined the vast daemonic legion surrounding the entity on the throne, joining the vast army that somehow marched in every pattern at once while staying still and was constantly expanded by the destruction machines, once-worshipped, and now damned forever to be nothing but yet more moving parts in the endless sea of eldritch complexity and the great machine which made infinite progress in all locations yet looped in on itself endlessly.
With a sudden, unholy flash of light, pure, black and yet also somehow unholy and perverted to an extreme extent, a small fraction of the massive legion vanished utterly, cast into realspace to join the colossal armada of the Iron Legion. Vast living starships, flowing like sea snakes studded with insane amounts of armor and guns that defied description, boiled into life next to the ancient starships of the Iron Legion. The mad zealots of the Iron Master, Meduson, cheered and raised their arms and mechandendrites, their hands replaced with unfeeling daemonic metal, as is the tradition of their lost, forgotten Medusa.
One of the new, living ships, a Leviathan, extended massive barbed, tentacles of living metal, and dragged in a small frigate, consuming it with its mouth full of enormous industrial machinery. Meduson himself watched rapturously as a colossal bridge-like structure emerged from the Leviathan’s back, the frigate repurposed and processed into something new. The crew of the unfortunate craft sung in an ecstatic chorus as they asphyxiated in the vacuum, and then were dragged into a row of living lathes that formed the Leviathan’s throat.
Meduson’s massive array of mechandendrites and manipulator arms flailed malevolently in the air as he spoke a single sentence from the ancient annals of history, half bastardized Gothic and half noospheric code-blurt.
“Let the galaxy burn!”
With a storm of unreal, blue lightning in the void, each bolt a hundred kilometers long, the small Enclaves flotilla pushed itself out of the warp at Sendus Epsilon’s Mandeville point. Two hours of sublight travel later, the carrier begin dropping Mantas and Startides, to land in an empty spot near the planet’s capital city of Pastos. Valkos went down to the mass transporter’s cargo bay to watch the deployment of a firebase on the planet below.
An army of recovery drones gently floated the massive construct out of the cradle attached to the bottom of the transporter. Valkos watched through the shield-floor of the cargo bay as the firebase finally exited the cradle, and fell slowly to the planet below, guided and cushioned by the thousand recovery drones that held it up. The base would be fully operational within an hour of hitting the surface.
As he turned to leave, Valkos almost walked into Myen, who was watching the deployment from the shadow of the wing of a Barracuda.
“One base will be sufficient. The earlier plans had three dropped in the same general area.”
“Why limit the amount of firebases you deploy? Would three not offer a greater area of control?”
“Because this fight is futile. I know that your true forces are pulling out and digging in on your forge-world, the third planet of the system. I read the deployment manifest. All Krieg soldiers, PDF, regiments of Guardsmen, and a selection of Space Marines from different companies of the Forge Guard. Logically, this means that your commanders selected volunteers to defend this world, while moving the majority of their forces back. Where is the Mechanicus?”
“The Mechanicus is working to fortify Sendus Delta.”
“They are pulling out because it is not worth their time to defend this world. We are here to blunt the hammer blow, so they hit Delta with less force than they could.”
“Your appraisal of the situation is appreciated, Commander. Are your soldiers ready to deploy?”
“They were deployed on the surface eight of your minutes ago. By now they should be activating final fortification procedures.”
Valkos nodded and exited the chamber, taking an elevator to his quarters. Myen stayed behind, as if she could somehow see the dropships landing on the surface of the world.
After walking through the curvy, twisted corridors of the Enclaves vessel, Valkos finally ducked through the door to his cramped room, and sat in his desk, writing the latest warp readings on a dataslate. “Hostile arrival, twenty hours. Warp conditions rough, daemonic activity mostly Machine-Godly and/or unaligned. Four casualties during transit, none fatal, far less than predicted. Machine-God saving power/needing ship intact?”
He shook his head and crossed out the last sentence. Convoluted plans were more of a Tzeentchian tactic. The Machine-God favored brutally breaking enemies with the Clockwork Plague or his legions. It was then that he became aware to a slight humming noise, at odds with the hum of functioning starship. Taking pains not to move his head, and continue giving the idea of an unaware worker, he moved his eye around, focusing on a slightly shimmering patch at the foot of his bed.
He paused writing, calmly picked up a letter opener, and flung it the space.
The knife bounced off something in midair with a low-pitched cracking sound. Valkos knocked over the chair in haste, launching a quick driving tackle at the thing the knife had hit. A quick, invisible fist hit him in the shoulder, spinning him around. It was followed by a high-pitched whine as an Omega XV35 Infiltrator battlesuit decloaked, its primarily yellow armor clashing with the prominent red and white décor of the Enclaves. The symbol of the Omega was proudly engraved in its curved chestplate. Valkos could see the inspiration the suit had taken from Imperial power armor and scowled.
The battlesuit started spinning the barrels of its stalker-pattern pulse cycler, and the blades in its wrist popped out, shining with deadly light. Valkos dived to one side as the battlesuit opened fire, tearing a long hole in the wall of his room and setting off a weapons discharge alarm. The sprinkler on the ceiling activated, spraying the battlesuit with carbon dioxide foam. Valkos dived to one side, bringing up his laspistol and firing at the battlesuit’s leg. The shot created a crater in the suit’s thin knee-plate, and the pulse cycler swung around again, shredding the bookshelf behind where Valkos’ head had been a second ago. The XV35 lunged forward to impale Valkos on its wrist blades, but the Inquisitor turned around it like a bullfighter, and jumped onto it, holding onto its “head” and desperately stabbing the lenses of its sensors with his combat knife. The suit suddenly and violently turned around, almost dislodging Valkos as he fought to maintain his grip. His flailing ankle hit the desk, spraying his drink of water everywhere and breaking his foot. The pain caused him to let go momentarily, hitting the floor and rolling under his bed.
It was then that the security team finally burst through his door. Noticing the foam-and-debris covered Infiltrator suit, the Enclaves security officers immediately opened up with their shotguns, blowing a hole in the battlesuit’s chestplate and exposing the now slightly-bleeding human inside. The battlesuit’s reprisal shots sawed three of the lightly-armored security officers in half, and wounded one more, causing the one remaining member to duck back behind the door.
Valkos spit a curse, took aim, and shot the XV35 five times, aiming for the hole the security team had made in its chestplate. Three hit, one entering the hole in such a way that it hit the pilot’s pulse cycler arm. Working quickly and carefully, Valkos pulled out a syringe full of tranquiliser from his desk drawer, and jabbed it through the hole into the chest of the pilot. The suit slumped over.
The lone security officer re-entered the room, covered in the scorched blood of his three comrades. After taking a moment to check on his wounded team member, he staggered over to Valkos.
“Threat has been removed from play.” Valkos said. “Now, does this look like a diplomatic incident to you?”
Valkos kneeled down in front of the unconscious Infiltrator suit, waving in a reinforcing security team. A security officer wearing an XV26 Breacher battlesuit took a look at the downed Omega battlesuit, and began to snap pictures using her suit’s inbuilt camera, making sure to capture the devastation wrecked upon the small quarters and blood spatter from the dead security officers. Two reporters entered the room and set up their cameras near the ruined bed, despite the security officers’ protests. A human reporter stepped up to Valkos.
“Inquisitor, can you be sure that you were the target of this assassination attempt?”
“It was either me or some other person aboard this vessel. I will not slander anybody until this situation is resolved, as the assassin could be a defector or traitor from the Tau military, or even a privately hired assassin. Please, speak to the security section on this ship, not to me.”
The reporter turned to the camera. “This is Enclaves holo-cast, on the mass conveyor Vior’los Six. This just in, an assassination attempt of an Imperial diplomatic official! Could you tell our viewers how you feel about this occurrence?”
“You know what, mamzel? I suppose you could say I’m incredibly fething pissed off. What makes you think you can bother an Inquisitor for ratings?”
The reporter gestured to the Tau cameraman slighty. “Is it true that you’re extremely distraught that the Omega would target you like this?”
Valkos attempted to duck around the outstretched microphone. “As I said before, there is no evidence that this was the Omega’s doing, and I never said distraught!”
Valkos casually picked up his laspistol from the desk, and shoved the barrel into the reporter’s forehead.
“I am an Imperial Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos. I need to answer to no one! My word is law! Now get that fething camera out of my face or I will end you!”
Shaken, the reporter waved the Tau cameraman off.
“There’s no need to be abusive, Inquisitor. Could you just tell us what went-“
Valkos fired his laspistol. The camera exploded, showering the cameraman’s hand with sparks, and causing him to leap back into the wall. He moved the gun back to the human reporter’s forehead.
“All non-essential personnel! Clear the room now! I am not a man to be trifled with!”
It was then that a trio of Inquisitorial stormtroopers, accompanied by a rather irritated Shase’por, entered the room. Shase’por surveyed the room for a moment, settling his eyes on the Talassar Sept markings on the Infiltrator suit’s chest. He then looked at the reporters with absolute loathing.
“Out. Now.” He growled, carefully enunciating each word. The reporters fled, the cameraman having abandoned the wreck of his equipment.
After looking at the Breacher suit, who had now moved into the doorway, and nodding curtly, Shase’por moved over to the fallen Infiltrator suit, unceremoniously pulling a vibro-blade from his belt and sawing the helmet off, revealing the tranquilized face of the pilot. A Stormtrooper grabbed a glass of ice water from the bathroom, and splashed the face of the assassin, causing him to shiver and wake up with a start. Shase’por immediately grabbed the assassin’s throat and growled two more words, his furious face almost glowing blue.
“Off. Now.”
The XV35 immediately disengaged, the rear of the suit unfolding to deposit the assassin on the floor. The assassin winced as the neural input wires of the XV35 forcibly removed themselves.
“Follow me. You’re coming with us. Inquisitor, come.”
Two Stormtroopers hoisted up the assassin’s armpits, while the third pushed milling crewmen out of the way in the hallway, until the group arrived at an elevator.
“Deck two, training and military command.” Shase’por explained, as the Stormtroopers dragged the now limp assassin into the elevator.
The trip was silent except for Shase’por’s quiet cursing. Valkos tried to ask him a question.
“Where are you taking him?”
“Myen. She’ll talk to him. Of course those tyrants send a coward after us.”
With a ding, the elevator landed and the assassin was dragged out and deposited at the feet of Myen, who was sitting cross-legged on a bench in the elevator bay.
“Who is this?” She inquired, taking note of the assassin’s disheveled, covered in battlesuit amniotics. He was shivering in the cold air of the training deck.
“Some assassin coward, tried to murder the Inquisitor here. Had a battlesuit to help him, still lost. Let’s have a nice chat with him.”

The palace of King O'Shovah was simple for the capital to an empire. The throne room was a simple hall, with old pattern Battlesuits lining the wall between the forty great bronze pillars. The most elaborate feature in the hall was the small stasis dome containing the Dawn Blade on a wall-carved Eldar plinth. On the simple wooden throne at the end of the hall, King O'Shovah the Farsighted sat, next to his deactivated Battlesuit. It was to that figure that Valko walked to and kneeled.

"I bow to you, King O'Shovah, Lord of the Fire Caste, Over-Shas'O, Beastslayer, Farsighted One. I seek audience and fair discussion with you."

The stern facial expression on Farsight's face slowly morphed into a kind, genuine smile.

"You may rise, Gabriel Valkos, Emissary to the Free Enclaves, Inquisitor Xenos."

Valkos stood up and took a seat upon a slightly cushioned wooden stool.

"What do you desire to speak to me about?", continued O'Shovah.

"The forces of the Machine-God have been sighted near our neighboring forge world, Sendus Delta. We need support to keep our Alliance alive."

O'Shovah sighed. His eyes held weariness beyond his years.

"Although I am a warrior above all, our worlds cannot spare the amount of troops you would need to fight those monstrosities. I can provide advisors, trainers, and a handful of warriors in Battlesuits, and they would fight bravely, but they could not make enough of a difference to defeat the Machine-God's Iron Legion."

Valko shifted slightly and handed Farsight a dataslate, which the Tau scanned quickly and frowned.

"I am afraid that the Omega got the favorable end of that deal. Those that we have, we lack the facilities to make large quanitities."

"Could you spare even a squad? I am sure that even a squad of them on my lines would give our troops hope."

"I believe we could, but what are you willing to offer for our support?"

"Our spies have finally retrieved copies of schematics for the Omega's tanks. We are willing to offer half of them now, and the rest after the Iron Legion is defeated."

"I will consult my advisors. I do believe those schematics are worth the cost."

Farsight slowly rose, and lead a group of robed Tau into a side room. Valkos remained seated, waiting for the King to finish his meeting. His eyes wandered across the face of a few fellow emissaries, retainers, and entertainers, and finally settled on the King's old Crisis suit. Designs of ceramite and copper were masterfully worked into the red surface, giving the armor a ancient, regal appearance. A shattered Omega was worked into the chestplate, the symbol of the empire that Farsight had seceded from. The shiny, green glass lenses of the armor's sensor array shone brightly. The battlesuit was clearly extremely well maintained, and most likely ready for use at a moment's notice.

After two hours of waiting, O'Shovah finally emerged from the chamber, escorted by his advisors. He strode back to the throne, with his smile restored.

"That price will be sufficient. I will provide all of my available forces, and a squad of Ixion's Marines. I bid you success in battle, and may the Machine-God yet fall into ruin upon Sendus Delta."

With that, Valko bowed again, and made his exit, rejoining his retinue outside the hall. His Navigator, Karen, greeted him first.

"Greetings, Inquisitor Lord. I receive tidings of a broken cog, an empty room, and a bruised giant from the Tarot. The Empyrean forms paths for thousands of ships."

The Captain of the storm-trooper platoon under Valkos, Davi, and his ally, the Ranger Whinumere, were sitting under the wing of Valkos' transport, arguing about energy weapons. They both snapped hasty salutes when they saw the Inquisitor.

"Sir!" Said Davi, smiling. "I thought you would be an hour more, at least! What did he say?"

"I am afraid not", said Valkos. "I am promised a squad of Space Marines under Sergeant Ixion, and some general Battlesuit equipped advisors and trainers."

Davi's smile faded. "That's nowhere near enough. Tac Logis says that-"

Valkos interrupted.

"I am aware of the predictions Tac Logis has made. I know that it's not enough, but Ultramarines are a rare commodity. The shipment of Pulse Rifles we retrieved in our latest raid on the Omega should be enough to equip at least two regiments of Guardsmen, which will be trained by O'Shovah's warriors."

"Then we will still die, but we will die covered in the blood of the Machine-God's sons of bitches."

"Is it not a worthy death?"

With that, Valkos stepped into the small Valkyrie transport. His Mechanicus accomplice, Kent-34, canted greetings, and stepped to the side to allow Valkos to pass through and access the loudspeaker to the outside of the Valkyrie.

"Takeoff in 1! Get inside! We are to return to G'Enya and board the conveyor there! Ixion and his men will meet us!", the loudspeaker blared.

Precisely a minute later, the hatch was shut, with every henchman inside and strapped into their flight-seats. The Valkyrie retracted it's sturdy landing legs, carefully rose into the air, and accelerated towards G'Enya, city of the Fire Caste.

An Inquisitorial Valkyrie in the sky of an Enclave world was an unusual sight, causing Valkos’ craft to be noticed by a vast amount of the inhabitants of G’Enya. Sergeant Ixion was waiting next to the landing pad when Valkos arrived, calm in his azure, gold, and crimson armor. Valkos could appreciate the hybrid design, which took cues from both Imperial power armor and an Omega Battlesuit.
“Inquisitor.” Ixion rumbled curtly.
“Where are your men?” Valkos observed. “Are they at the spaceport?”
“We are Ultramarines, Inquisitor. We do not separate. We are all brothers in blood.”
The nine other Ultramarines stepped out from behind the Valkyrie, the servo-motors in their armor whirring slightly.
“I present to you my brothers.” The Ultramarine continued warmly.
The other Marines bowed slightly to the Inquisitor. Valkos could see that their armor was newly polished and well maintained.
“And I greet you, Space Marines.” said Valkos, completing the ritual by bowing low.
One of the Marines, a shining Omega fusion blaster strapped across his back, removed his helmet and looked at Valkos. He was dark-skinned, with very short hair and brown eyes.
“How are the Enclaves so far, Inquisitor?” The Marine inquired.
“It seems far less oppressive than the Omega’s realm, and also somehow more rustic and quiet, despite the advanced technology. I went to a Battlesuit show on my second day on Vior’Los. There was a rather spectacular purple XV-86 that won the acrobatics competition easily. Definitely far more interesting than most Imperial sports. Do you have anything comparable in Macragge sept?”
“There are the hover-races, although I have never participated. Have you ever piloted a Battlesuit yourself?”
“No. I thought they were only useable by Tau?”
“Only in the military, and even then, the Omega is phasing the ‘Tau only’ rule for Battlesuit piloting out.”
“Really? To take advantage of their human population? Do they have more humans than Tau?”
“Actually, equal population. The humans of Ultramar are our partners in the Omega, after all. It is only fair that both Tau and Humans could live on each other’s worlds. Is it not the same in your Imperium?”
“Our Imperium has no formal Xenos allies. All we have are simple non-aggression pacts and small trade agreements. To fight the honorable Eldar and Omega would be our death kneel. We cannot afford distractions from wiping out traitors, heretics, and the more… distasteful Xenos. I have autonomy, however, and the sector I serve has an agreement with the Free Enclaves for military support and trade goods. I am glad the Imperium learned the importance of tolerating Xenos after the Tarsus Incident. I wonder what would have happened if Lord Fulgrim hadn’t listen to that Eldar seer?”
“Let us all simply be glad that the Imperium is a tolerant power. When the Warp Storms around the Omega disappeared and the Imperium made contact with us for the first time, I dread to think of what would have happened if they had sent an extermination fleet instead of ambassadors.”
Both the Ultramarine and Valkos sat quietly for a minute. Davi broke the silence, striding up from the Valkyrie’s belly.
“Is it time for us to go yet? My boys are itching to meet this O’Myen character. I’ve heard some interesting things about her.”
“Oh? Do tell…” Valkos replied.
“Total hardass, of course, like the rest of these Enclavites, but apparently the best damn Battlesuit pilot on Vior’los.”
Valkos shot him a dirty look.
“After Farsight and his bodyguard, of course.” Davi added hastily. “I hear that she dueled an Emperor’s Children captain in the air and won.”
Valkos looked somewhat interested. “Oh? Which Captain?”
“The Eighth Company, I believe. The one in charge of their Assault Marines and Land Speeders.”
“So we’re getting the best of the best? Seems that somebody is smiling upon me from up very high. Could you get Whin? Patience is not a trait present in many great beings.”
Davi stepped over to the Valkyrie, knocking vigorously on the rear assault hatch.
“Whin! 34! Get out here! None of us are getting younger!” Davi yelled.
A soft, melodically accented voice in his ear startled him.
“I am already out here. 34 is staying with the Valk to fly her to the orbital transport. He doesn’t seem the type to trust her to anyone else.”
Davi looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Alright. Did he ask Valkos?”
“I believe he passed him a note on the flight. Valkos agreed.”
“Well, whatever he says. Let’s get a move on.” With that, Whinumere and Valkos joined with the rest of the now-considerably large group, and filed into the two waiting Mako transports. Davi, the fusion blaster-bearing Marine, Ixion, Whinumere, Valkos, and Karen filed into one of the hovering vehicles, and the Stormtroopers and the rest of the Space Marines boarded the other. The inter-transport commscreens flickered to life, and the Enclavite pilots began masterfully driving the vehicles onto the main elevated highway of G'Enya.
Valkos stared out the wide, bulletproof left-hand window, marvelling at the elegant white-and-brown skyscrapers that rose like stalks of grass. The highway curved gently, and entered a large glass dome. Valkos could see Enclavite Tau and humans walking along glass catwalks above the road, stopping to buy from automated kiosks.
As the Makos passed into another elevated road, a piece of graffiti featuring a shattered Free Enclave symbol flashed by.
"What was that?" Inquired Valkos. Ixion responded, sounding annoyed.
"Pro-Omega graffiti. Not every citizen enjoyed the split of the Enclaves and the Omega. Some still crave unity and the influence of the Ethereals."
"Are those... unionists dangerous?"
"Not that I know of. They seem to mostly protest peacefully, or vandalize signs, but last week a firebomb went off in this city's War Museum. Killed a city council member and seriously burned his bodyguard."
"I saw that on the holoscreen. O'Uaine?"
"Enclave ambassador to the Craftworlds. Unfortunate that he should meet his end in such a cowardly manner. The perpetrator has been executed, but the unionist movement still isn't dead."
"So be the fate of all cowards and heretics."
With that, the short conversation ended and Valkos went back to staring out the window. The elegant, white skyscrapers soon transformed into small farm-domes, and then approached into large rock formations.
"Heads up, five minutes to arrival." The pilot voxed from his seat at the front of the vehicle.
The Makos took a turn, following the now grounded road, and entered a tunnel through a stout hill. Suddenly, the lead transport halted. The pilot of Valkos' Mako swore and swerved left, stopping the vehicle brutally.
"The feth was that?!" Davi squaked indigently from the seat next to Whinumere. Karen suddenly shut her two primary eyes, her third eye beginning to glow under its protective membrane.
"Trouble. A phosphor-fly blinks and devoures the moth. Trojan Horse."
Valkos took a glance out the window. There was a two-meter tall barricade, littered with stacks of stolen EMP grenades and rusty metal spikes.
"Fething down!" Davi shouted as all the EMPs went off at once, and plunged the interior of the craft into darkness. Ixion immediately pulled a small lamp-pack out of his belt, and activated it. Karen had hidden under one of the seats, and Whinumere was splayed across the fusion blaster-bearing marine's lap. He groaned as he untangled himself.
"Fething really? Not a single damn day." The Eldar grunted, as he pulled an elegant pistol from his holster.
Valkos looked around to see the occupants of the vehicle drawing their weapons, and the pilot manually screwing down the windshield's blast-proof shutters.
"I shall assess the situation." said Ixion bluntly, as he crossed the transport compartment and pulled the emergency door open. He was immediately greeted by a pulse carbine shot that bounced off his thick helmet. There was the throaty boom of a boltgun firing, and the unionist attacker's torso exploded into red mist.
More shots cracked out from behind the barricade, one smashing into Valkos' Mako's windshield and one hitting the engine intake, causing one side of the skimmer to smash into the ground. The rest of the Ultramarines and Stormtroopers spilled out of the other Mako, punching hellgun, plasma rifle, and boltgun shots into the improvised barricade. A unionist with a mounted burstcannon opened up, stitching a line of shots across the ground and decapitating a Stormtrooper, who fell with a scream.
Valkos, Davi, and the fusion blaster-bearing Marine jumped out of the downed Mako. Valkos hit the ground rolling and came up firing his laspistol with both hands at the burstcannon operator, who fell with a shout, shot through the chest and shoulder. A badly-aimed autogun shot whickered through Valkos' stormcoat, causing the Inquisitor to roll behind the damaged engine of his transport. Davi joined him, and began yelling into his wrist-mounted vox.
"We are being engaged by active, armed hostiles! We will need medevac and support! Status: One transport downed and one transport-"
Davi's shout was drowned out by the sound of a boltgun opening up mere feet away from him. Another unionist screamed, and a retaliating autogun shot hit the pavement two feet from Davi's outstretched hand.
Valkos, using the engine as cover, snapped off another shot at a ducking unionist, and missed. A return shot hit the Inquisitor directly in the chest, and caused him to hit the ground, the shock almost causing him to pass out. The slug had almost penetrated his protective carapace chestplate.
There was a thin-sounding crack, and the unionist that had shot Valkos' eye exploded, causing him to drop like a dead fish. Whinumere saluted the downed Inquisitor, and fired another sniper shot, killing the another unionist taking aim at Davi. Valkos watched as the fusion blaster-bearing Ultramarine fired at the barricade, and then charged through the hole, drawing a wicked honor blade. Two other Marines followed him, and the air was soon filled with the screams of dying unionists.
The gunfire stopped, and the relative silence of the tunnel returned, only puncuated by the crackle of the fires ignited by the fusion blaster shot.
"Casualty count!" Valkos yelled to Davi, who was leaning to inspect the fallen Stormtrooper.
"One blue dead, one blue wounded. Looks like nine reds dead and none wounded."
Valkos nodded slightly at the effectiveness of the Ultramarines and his Stormtroopers.
"Send word to that unfortunate soul's family with my condolences. Make sure to tell them that it was quick, at least."
Davi nodded once, and moved back into the downed Mako, helping Karen to her feet.
"Situation as I said, of course." The psyker woman said. "It is unfortunate that one brave soul made his end in the dark."
Valkos nodded once and went to inspect the barricade. It had clearly been thrown together quickly, being primarily made out of chunks of rockcrete and rusty barrels. The shape of a technical drone turned on its side stuck out of the improvised roadblock, as well as some hastily-made weapon mounts. Valkos could see that only one was occupied.
"Is it possible to move this thing?" Valkos said to Davi.
"Seems possible, but I think I got the rust disease just by looking at it. The Ultramarines could probably clear a path through it."
Thankfully, they did not have to. There was the sound of an anti-grav ram firing, and the roadblock was violently shunted to the right side of the tunnel. In its place hovered a heavily-armed Hammerhead tank, escorted by a Devilfish transport. The Tau commander of the Devilfish took a bow, and shouted to the scattered group on the ground.
"O'Myen got worried at your lateness. I am ordered to give you a ride." The commander stated, in labored Gothic. "Could you get those transporters off the ground?"
"One of them is intact, but the other has a wrecked engine. Do you have towing capability?"
"Yes. Your crashed transport could be towed by mine. Do you have any wounded?"
"Only one. My Stormtroopers and the Ultramarines are effective soldiers."
"Place him in the back of my transport, on the medical bed. My medics will assist him. What is your composition?"
"Ten Ultramarines, five Stormtroopers, three of my associates, and myself. We don't have much baggage."
"Split your party, the Ultramarines in my transport and everybody else in yours. That should suffice until we get to O'Myen's location."
With that, Valkos climbed the ladder into his Mako, followed by Karen, Whinumere, and Davi. The Stormtroopers joined them a moment later. There was a loud noise of shrieking metal as the downed Mako was lifted by the Devilfish's recovery drone, and then a jolt as the now larger convoy started moving.
Valkos turned his attentions to the window again, mentally preparing himself for meeting the esteemed Tau commander.
The drive to Contingent Base G’enya took much longer than projected, as the towed Mako slowed the small convoy down significantly. By the time the procession of vehicles left the tunnel, the sun of Vior’los was beginning to merge with the horizon. As the sky turned salmon pink, the Makos entered the massive structure, dropping off their cargoes and moving to the grand vehicle elevators that carried them up to the hanger bays near the roof. Valkos finished looking out the entrance to the base, and stepped off the rockcrete floor of the disembarkation bay into the smooth alloy floor of the hallways of CB G’enya.
The Contingent Base was clean and white, like most Omega and Enclaves architecture. It was a multi-level, hexagonal, ziggurat-like design, with rounded edges and shieldlines lining each tier. One large ramp stood at the front, protected by another shield barrier and two drone sentry turrets, which whirred their plasma cannons as they searched for threats. This main ramp entered the first tier of the base, and split off into two elevator blocks, both surrounding a main elevator which could carry a Baneblade. These elevators went through armor-glass tubes through the multiple levels of the facility, past blocks of drilling Fire Warriors, hydroponic farms, and dormitories until they reached the colossal hanger decks of the second-highest tier. It was a self-contained military city, covering slightly more than two square kilometers horizontally, and fully capable of orbital deployment with the aid of a small starship.
Valkos watched the Mako go up the elevator until it disappeared, and gestured to the nearest off-duty Fire Warrior, showing her a statement of purpose, signed by King O’Shovah.
“Shas’O Myen’s overseeing a new wing of Crisis Suit pilots. Observation-Training room two. Hurry, please.” She said as she nodded to Valkos.
Two of the Ultramarines lead the way, seemingly instinctively following the Fire Warrior. The group passed two Ultramarines with subtly different markings, who saluted Ixion as he jogged past. The sergeant gave a slight bow and continued following the stout Fire Warrior guide.
After a minute at a mild run, Valkos’ group arrived in a large, glass, disk-shaped construct that stuck out of a wall above a tall, hexagonal chamber. In the training chamber, Battlesuits were practicing mid-air combat doctrine. A half-squadron of four new, shiny Crisis suits was mock-battling an old, red, grey and white Enforcer suit.
The Enforcer suit was utterly crushing them, outflying the entire squadron seemingly effortlessly. Two tiny red dots appeared on two Crisis suits armed with a disarmed plasma Rifle and missile pods, and they carefully jetted over to a painted yellow square on the floor, to be joined a second later by a suit with dual Fusion Blasters. Another of the Crisis suits swung its burstcannon around, a hail of red dots appearing on the wall around the Enforcer, but none hitting it. The Enforcer replied with a single shot from its plasma rifle, but the suit swung in midair, and the red dot hit the smooth, white floor.
The Crisis that had evaded the plasma shot fired another burstcannon shot, two red dots cleanly hitting the tip of the Enforcer's shoulder plate as it quickly spun and activated a simulated Battlesuit-grade honor blade. The massive curved blade, made of red light, swung towards the Crisis suit, dissipating when it hit the Crisis suit's "neck" and causing the pilot to maneuver his suit to join the others in the yellow square.
With that, a large door midway along the wall, and the suits flew into it gracefully. It seemed that the battle had concluded.
The Fire Warrior guide began to explain. “A simple level two training exercise. She is initiating new Shas’Ui in midair Battlesuit combat. The Commander should be up here shortly.”
With that, their guide departed, to continue with her duties in the cafeteria. There was a three or four minute silence.
“So that Enforcer suit, that was O’Myen? Didn’t seem nearly as good as the vids made her out to be.” Davi said, bewilderedly.
“Probably toning herself down for the purpose of training those recruits. I could see the underlying talent down to every individual jetpack pulse she made. The only reason that one suit hit her was because she made that blunder on purpose. Definitely took that suit out in a flashy manner.” Whinumere explained, gesturing emphatically.
“Damn, that sword. Modelled on the King’s? I thought the Tau weren’t that skilled at bladework."
“The Enclaves place a mite more emphasis on the sword than the Omega, as the Dawn Blade is the symbol of Farsight. Much like the Inquisition teaching the use of Thunder Hammers over more practical weapons.” Ixion interjected to clarify.
“Don’t bring my training into this.” Valkos groaned as he sat down in a spartan, white plastic chair.
This awkward exchange was brought to a close by the click of a hoof. Shas’O Myen had arrived in the observation chamber. She still somewhat shone from recently-cleaned off Battlesuit amniotic fluids, and wore a simple white bodysuit.
“I witnessed you observing my training exercise.”
“Yes, we did.” Said Valkos, clearly wrong-footed by the Commander’s sudden arrival.
“You would have noticed the similarity to our esteemed King’s fighting style.”
“Absolutely.”
“I studied directly under him, before he dedicated himself mostly to matters of state. He is a master of the Mont’ka. I believe you will find I am as well.”
“Yes, Commander. Is that what you would like to be called?”
“My Underlings call me Commander. You may call me Or'jkarra'myen, or simply Myen. I hope you believe yourself to not be my underling.”
"Or'jkarra'myen... Mirrored Sun Unexpected. Commander Mirrorstar?."
"That is my name. Do you respect me?"
"Yes, of course! Anyone who achieves such high rank should-"
"I do not respect any being until I see their accomplishments firsthand."
"Then, I hope you find my accomplishments worthy, if only to allow you to fight even harder against the Machine-God."
"I was instructed to take you to the hangers to allow you to meet with the leaders of my cadres."
With that last curt statement, the party began moving again, following the Commander. As they passed through a hallway lined with different marks of Battlesuits, Myen allowed herself to become less robotic.
"That", she pointed at a XV86 Coldstar, "Is my old battlesuit. I decided I preferred maneuverability to raw speed. A jetpack is superior to massive thrusters in a battlefield situation, as the Mirrorcodex says."
"That's... Farsight's book?" Davi asked tentatively.
"Yes. It is our King's book on tactics. Second after great Puretide."
The party exited the small "museum" and continued on, into a large elevator.
"Level seven. The sensor requires the blood of authorized personnel, to prevent infiltration." Myen placed her finger on a small black pad to allow the needle to test her, and then pressed the number seven on the wall, causing the elevator to immediately rise.
"Our King has seen fit to provide me with three full Hunter Contingents to act as advisors and auxiliaries to your fight in the Sendus system. You shall meet my Shas’els in the hanger, and we shall take a dropship flight to the local spaceport. Please, do not wander off."
"May I ask a question?" Whinumere piped up.
"If it does not compromise security."
"What's on the eighth floor? If hangers are on seven, why build a floor above them?"
"The eighth level is where the Omega... Aun rule from in their bases. Our engineers have redesigned that level to contain more air defense equipment and drone deployment racks."
"I see... The Enclaves have no Ethereals?"
This caused Myen to actually show emotion. "Those slave drives are not permitted in the Enclaves! That their brainwashed drones are is bad enough! We will have no more talk of the damned Aun!"
Whinumere raised his hands submissively. "Right, sorry for bringing that up."
Myen was silent until the elevator doors opened. The hanger deck was a truly cavernous space, filled with Devilfish transports, Hammerhead gunships, and two colossal Tiger Shark aircraft, which had folded their wings to fit in the space. A full escort wing of Barracudas was landed next to them, also parked wingtip to wingtip. Valkos could see a telltale wall with a shielded blast door, which clearly lead to flight control and sensor suites. Myen's three Cadre leaders stood underneath the wing of their Barracuda. One was tall for a Tau, with a scar across his nose-slit, and a pin with a curved blade on it attached to his red bodysuit. Another was of middling height, with a slight discolored patch on his cheek, and a permanent mildly disturbed expression.
The last commander, a wiry figure with darker grey skin than the others, began to speak. "These are the humans we are aiding, Honored Mirrorstar?"
Whinumere winced slightly.
"Yes, they are. You will introduce yourselves to them so they may recognize you." Myen responded.
The scarred commander spoke first. "Shas’el Salas'he Sha'nas."
"And I am Shas’el Vior'los Shase'por" The dark-skinned commander said.
"Commander Coldsword and Commander Darkwater." Valkos guessed.
"Incorrect." Said Sha'nas. "It means Hidden Blade."
"Commander Hiddenblade then."
"It will suffice."
The disturbed-looking commander spoke last. "Greetings. I am Shas’el Vior'los An'ilane."
Valkos nodded his respect. "Commander Deathrain. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Would you be willing to provide a dossier of you and your colleagues' dispositions and individual skills?"
"There will be no need for a dossier. We are willing to tell you whatever you need to know, as long as it does not compromise the security of the Enclaves."
"Then, shall we find a room so we may speak freely amongst ourselves?"
"We may talk on the dropship over. We are already late."
"That reminds me... Where are your forces?"
"All assembled at the spaceport. We are going to be the last to arrive there."
"Where is this dropship?"
"On the roof. We should be going now."
Myen lead the group to the elevators, and the elevators begin to rise. Karen, silent the whole journey, finally piped up, her third eye glowing. "The Sendus system sends a message, Epsilon has contact with the enemy. Two weeks."
Valkos reacted with near physical shock. The Machine-God's forces were reported as taking their time with the two uninhabited worlds at the system's edge, converting them into the maddening engines that supposedly pleased the Machine-God. That they had abandoned those projects to race towards Sendus Epsilon was quite worrying.
"How long until the evacuation and defense takes place?"
"The day of the birth of the Emperor in the future..."
Sonsday, Valkos mentally corrected. "Only a day?"
"The engine-blasphemy is a true threat, the ships depart for Sendus in five days ago, and arrive tomorrow."
Not for the first or last time, Valkos cursed the psyker's lack of sense of time.
"Six days there... Six days back, and then another try. That's only three quarters of the population, if the evacuators are willing to risk the Iron Legion snapping at their heels."
"It is the Emperor's will. It cannot be changed."
Karen closed her third eye again, and returned to her usual borderline-sleepwalking state.
Nearly a second after the exchange finished, the elevator arrived at the roof, and the party stepped into a waiting Orca dropship. They were joined a minute later by the Ultramarines, who had taken the vehicle elevators. Valkos and his relatively humanoid companions took the seats to the edge of the troop bay, and the Ultramarines settled into the specially reinforced seats designed for Battlesuits.
As soon as the boarding ramp slammed shut, Valkos resumed his conversation with An'ilane.
“So, specialties and Cadre composition?” Valkos inquired.
“I specialize in long-range fire support, Mont’ka via missile, not by close range shots. O’Myen is a master of Mont’ka as well, but prefers to lead from the front with her Crisis Suits. Shase’por is the Commander who will be educating your defense forces. He is a master of taking and holding ground, a Kauyon practioner. Finally, Sha’nas. He specializes in stealth attacks, ambushes, and espionage.”
“Not many opportunities to practice espionage against this foe.”
“That is unfortunate, but I am sure that there is a use for stealth. Now, onto our compositions. Sha’nas is commanding a force composed mainly of mobile close attack teams in skimmers and stealth-pattern Battlesuits. He will be piloting a Ghostkeel battlesuit."
“The XV95 has command capability?” Valkos asked, interested.
“His XV95 does. It is not a standard feature.” An’ilane said. “Shase’por has an element of Gue’vesa instructors and wargear for your planetary defense forces and Guardsmen. He will not be on the front line, however, he pilots a Crisis Enforcer with primarily battlefield control systems. I, of course, have multiple firebase support groups and Pathfinders with me. I will be piloting a Crisis Enforcer equipped with long-range support systems and weaponry.”
“And Myen?”
“She will be bringing along her Battlesuit squadrons, as always. You already saw her mantle, I hear.”
Valkos leaned back in the impact-cushioned seat. He was feeling slightly better than before, and looked to Ixion and the Ultramarines, admiring the design of their armor again.
“What is the flight duration?” Valkos asked to Myen, who was near-religiously study an image of a new-pattern Omega Rhino.
“Five of your hours. Is there a need to disturb me for that long?”
“No, not at all. I was thinking of catching a nap, actually.”
“If that is your goal, please do.”
Valkos nodded and opened up a pocket in his stormcoat, withdrawing a small pill, which he dry-swallowed. The Inquisitor fell asleep to Davi talking to Darkwater about Kauyon.
The Ultramarines continued talking among themselves, and Whinumere eventually fell asleep as well, bored without something to read or his rifle to clean.
The shock of landing and the flash of daylight from the boarding ramp jarred them both awake, along with two Stormtroopers and An’ilane, who had also fallen asleep.
“We have landed.” Said Myen, who was pushing her stack of papers into her bag. “Please follow me to embark upon the orbital transports.”
Valkos stepped out, shielding his eyes from the glare of sun on sand. He was joined by Whinumere and Davi to stare at the sight of the Manta dropships that the assembled Enclaves forces were embarking upon.
Thirty of the vast vessels, each a small spacecraft in their own right, were landed on the vast embarkation fields outside the spaceport. A virtual river of materiel was flowing into the hungry boarding ramps of each of them. Another, even larger vessel, a Startide transporter, was accepting a parade of large Battlesuits. Stormsurges, Supremacy suits, and Riptides marched into it, and were connected to their protective cradles by recovery drones and their Earth Caste controllers.
“This is what the King considers a handful of forces?” Valkos said, astounded.
“O’Shovah led entire Hunter Coalitions. This is but a fraction of the Free Enclaves’ might. It is a shame that we are defending from the Tyranids on one front, or else we would have much more to support you with.” An’ilane clarified, standing calm in his sunglasses.
The group watched, astounded, as the last Battlesuit embarked upon the Startide, and the mammoth vessel took off the ground. It levitated fifty meters off the ground on its powerful grav plates, and slowly turned, searching for a trajectory its computer could use to dock with the bulk transports in orbit. The ground shook as it found a course and ignited its massive engines, propelling itself into the air with the grace of an airwhale taking off, back on Valkos’ homeworld. Myen sharply nodded as the craft vanished into the distance. It was quickly followed by four full Mantas.
“Our transport is Manta Eight, on the end over there. Please embark now. We will have to walk.”
The group began jogging across the sands to the prepared Manta, when a fast-moving shadow suddenly streaked across the desert. A civilian aircraft came into view, flying strangely low.
The sensor array on a Manta that was in the middle of taking off spun around, hailing the vessel. Valkos watched as a few Sky Rays on the ground immediately illuminated the threat, and launched a missile each. Valkos saw that it would be much too late, as the aircraft sped fanatically towards the launching Manta. A cacophony began, as long-barreled burst cannons on the outside of the Manta began blazing away at the aircraft, shredding the target apart. The burning, exploding wreck’s engines cut out, but it was too late to stop it. As the seeker missiles piloted themselves into the ground to avoid colliding with the Manta, the wreckage hit. The massive craft physically rocked, and a crater formed in it's deep sides, but it still managed to execute it's takeoff successfully.
"Fething Unionists." Said Myen, swearing. "They should be perfectly fine. Manta armor is strong, and they're still spaceworthy, even with a massive chunk ripped out of one side."
With the potentially horrific event over, the group continued their jog to the waiting Manta, and eventually began walking up the massive embarkation ramp. The craft was full of Tau and Humans in red combat armor, all seated in the large rows of seats.
"Mind if I sit here?" Valkos said to a woman who was reading a magazine in her impact-seat. She nodded and moved her spare gear out of the seat Valkos was pointing at.
"Will you be educating the Sendian Guard?" Valkos asked her.
"No. I am a.... Pathfinder for Commander An'ilane's ballistic suits. I am to defend on Sendus E, and move to-redeploy to Sendus D." She said, in halting Gothic.
"First battle?"
"No, no, I fought against the... devourer. Many died. I did not."
Even Valkos couldn't find a way to recover the situation, and he just looked out the window, watching the curve of Vior'los and seeing G'enya turn into mere dotted lights.
The entity howled in the Warp, as it became vaguely aware of its constructs being shattered. The howl was a sound of metal against metal, of a million million drills creating holes in skulls, and the impossible landscape of self-creating machines and Infinitely repeating fountains of liquid metal shook as the entity’s rage manifested itself as small warp storms throughout the Segmentum Obscurus. One of the entity’s greater daemons, a maddening creature that was once the great titan Magnificatus Malleus looked up at the entity on it’s great throne of gold and gears and skulls, and whirred the gears and other moving parts that made up its body, creating a demented, high pitched, grinding voice out of the sounds. It asked its duty, and the souls to be found, and the meat to be killed. The entity on the throne responded in the same way, the million speakers of all kinds dotting its body screeching out an answer. The unholy sound caused mechanical devices throughout realspace to mutate and flow, turning into bladed, flailing spiders and silent Crusaders, shredding their former owners until they collapsed, their brief energy expended in one burst of energy. The machine-spirits of the vanquished machines joined the vast daemonic legion surrounding the entity on the throne, joining the vast army that somehow marched in every pattern at once while staying still and was constantly expanded by the destruction machines, once-worshipped, and now damned forever to be nothing but yet more moving parts in the endless sea of eldritch complexity and the great machine which made infinite progress in all locations yet looped in on itself endlessly.
With a sudden, unholy flash of light, pure, black and yet also somehow unholy and perverted to an extreme extent, a small fraction of the massive legion vanished utterly, cast into realspace to join the colossal armada of the Iron Legion. Vast living starships, flowing like sea snakes studded with insane amounts of armor and guns that defied description, boiled into life next to the ancient starships of the Iron Legion. The mad zealots of the Iron Master, Meduson, cheered and raised their arms and mechandendrites, their hands replaced with unfeeling daemonic metal, as is the tradition of their lost, forgotten Medusa.
One of the new, living ships, a Leviathan, extended massive barbed, tentacles of living metal, and dragged in a small frigate, consuming it with its mouth full of enormous industrial machinery. Meduson himself watched rapturously as a colossal bridge-like structure emerged from the Leviathan’s back, the frigate repurposed and processed into something new. The crew of the unfortunate craft sung in an ecstatic chorus as they asphyxiated in the vacuum, and then were dragged into a row of living lathes that formed the Leviathan’s throat.
Meduson’s massive array of mechandendrites and manipulator arms flailed malevolently in the air as he spoke a single sentence from the ancient annals of history, half bastardized Gothic and half noospheric code-blurt.
“Let the galaxy burn!”
With a storm of unreal, blue lightning in the void, each bolt a hundred kilometers long, the small Enclaves flotilla pushed itself out of the warp at Sendus Epsilon’s Mandeville point. Two hours of sublight travel later, the carrier begin dropping Mantas and Startides, to land in an empty spot near the planet’s capital city of Pastos. Valkos went down to the mass transporter’s cargo bay to watch the deployment of a firebase on the planet below.
An army of recovery drones gently floated the massive construct out of the cradle attached to the bottom of the transporter. Valkos watched through the shield-floor of the cargo bay as the firebase finally exited the cradle, and fell slowly to the planet below, guided and cushioned by the thousand recovery drones that held it up. The base would be fully operational within an hour of hitting the surface.
As he turned to leave, Valkos almost walked into Myen, who was watching the deployment from the shadow of the wing of a Barracuda.
“One base will be sufficient. The earlier plans had three dropped in the same general area.”
“Why limit the amount of firebases you deploy? Would three not offer a greater area of control?”
“Because this fight is futile. I know that your true forces are pulling out and digging in on your forge-world, the third planet of the system. I read the deployment manifest. All Krieg soldiers, PDF, regiments of Guardsmen, and a selection of Space Marines from different companies of the Forge Guard. Logically, this means that your commanders selected volunteers to defend this world, while moving the majority of their forces back. Where is the Mechanicus?”
“The Mechanicus is working to fortify Sendus Delta.”
“They are pulling out because it is not worth their time to defend this world. We are here to blunt the hammer blow, so they hit Delta with less force than they could.”
“Your appraisal of the situation is appreciated, Commander. Are your soldiers ready to deploy?”
“They were deployed on the surface eight of your minutes ago. By now they should be activating final fortification procedures.”
Valkos nodded and exited the chamber, taking an elevator to his quarters. Myen stayed behind, as if she could somehow see the dropships landing on the surface of the world.
After walking through the curvy, twisted corridors of the Enclaves vessel, Valkos finally ducked through the door to his cramped room, and sat in his desk, writing the latest warp readings on a dataslate. “Hostile arrival, twenty hours. Warp conditions rough, daemonic activity mostly Machine-Godly and/or unaligned. Four casualties during transit, none fatal, far less than predicted. Machine-God saving power/needing ship intact?”
He shook his head and crossed out the last sentence. Convoluted plans were more of a Tzeentchian tactic. The Machine-God favored brutally breaking enemies with the Clockwork Plague or his legions. It was then that he became aware to a slight humming noise, at odds with the hum of functioning starship. Taking pains not to move his head, and continue giving the idea of an unaware worker, he moved his eye around, focusing on a slightly shimmering patch at the foot of his bed.
He paused writing, calmly picked up a letter opener, and flung it the space.
The knife bounced off something in midair with a low-pitched cracking sound. Valkos knocked over the chair in haste, launching a quick driving tackle at the thing the knife had hit. A quick, invisible fist hit him in the shoulder, spinning him around. It was followed by a high-pitched whine as an Omega XV35 Infiltrator battlesuit decloaked, its primarily yellow armor clashing with the prominent red and white décor of the Enclaves. The symbol of the Omega was proudly engraved in its curved chestplate. Valkos could see the inspiration the suit had taken from Imperial power armor and scowled.
The battlesuit started spinning the barrels of its stalker-pattern pulse cycler, and the blades in its wrist popped out, shining with deadly light. Valkos dived to one side as the battlesuit opened fire, tearing a long hole in the wall of his room and setting off a weapons discharge alarm. The sprinkler on the ceiling activated, spraying the battlesuit with carbon dioxide foam. Valkos dived to one side, bringing up his laspistol and firing at the battlesuit’s leg. The shot created a crater in the suit’s thin knee-plate, and the pulse cycler swung around again, shredding the bookshelf behind where Valkos’ head had been a second ago. The XV35 lunged forward to impale Valkos on its wrist blades, but the Inquisitor turned around it like a bullfighter, and jumped onto it, holding onto its “head” and desperately stabbing the lenses of its sensors with his combat knife. The suit suddenly and violently turned around, almost dislodging Valkos as he fought to maintain his grip. His flailing ankle hit the desk, spraying his drink of water everywhere and breaking his foot. The pain caused him to let go momentarily, hitting the floor and rolling under his bed.
It was then that the security team finally burst through his door. Noticing the foam-and-debris covered Infiltrator suit, the Enclaves security officers immediately opened up with their shotguns, blowing a hole in the battlesuit’s chestplate and exposing the now slightly-bleeding human inside. The battlesuit’s reprisal shots sawed three of the lightly-armored security officers in half, and wounded one more, causing the one remaining member to duck back behind the door.
Valkos spit a curse, took aim, and shot the XV35 five times, aiming for the hole the security team had made in its chestplate. Three hit, one entering the hole in such a way that it hit the pilot’s pulse cycler arm. Working quickly and carefully, Valkos pulled out a syringe full of tranquiliser from his desk drawer, and jabbed it through the hole into the chest of the pilot. The suit slumped over.
The lone security officer re-entered the room, covered in the scorched blood of his three comrades. After taking a moment to check on his wounded team member, he staggered over to Valkos.
“Threat has been removed from play.” Valkos said. “Now, does this look like a diplomatic incident to you?”
Valkos kneeled down in front of the unconscious Infiltrator suit, waving in a reinforcing security team. A security officer wearing an XV26 Breacher battlesuit took a look at the downed Omega battlesuit, and began to snap pictures using her suit’s inbuilt camera, making sure to capture the devastation wrecked upon the small quarters and blood spatter from the dead security officers. Two reporters entered the room and set up their cameras near the ruined bed, despite the security officers’ protests. A human reporter stepped up to Valkos.
“Inquisitor, can you be sure that you were the target of this assassination attempt?”
“It was either me or some other person aboard this vessel. I will not slander anybody until this situation is resolved, as the assassin could be a defector or traitor from the Tau military, or even a privately hired assassin. Please, speak to the security section on this ship, not to me.”
The reporter turned to the camera. “This is Enclaves holo-cast, on the mass conveyor Vior’los Six. This just in, an assassination attempt of an Imperial diplomatic official! Could you tell our viewers how you feel about this occurrence?”
“You know what, mamzel? I suppose you could say I’m incredibly fething pissed off. What makes you think you can bother an Inquisitor for ratings?”
The reporter gestured to the Tau cameraman slighty. “Is it true that you’re extremely distraught that the Omega would target you like this?”
Valkos attempted to duck around the outstretched microphone. “As I said before, there is no evidence that this was the Omega’s doing, and I never said distraught!”
Valkos casually picked up his laspistol from the desk, and shoved the barrel into the reporter’s forehead.
“I am an Imperial Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos. I need to answer to no one! My word is law! Now get that fething camera out of my face or I will end you!”
Shaken, the reporter waved the Tau cameraman off.
“There’s no need to be abusive, Inquisitor. Could you just tell us what went-“
Valkos fired his laspistol. The camera exploded, showering the cameraman’s hand with sparks, and causing him to leap back into the wall. He moved the gun back to the human reporter’s forehead.
“All non-essential personnel! Clear the room now! I am not a man to be trifled with!”
It was then that a trio of Inquisitorial stormtroopers, accompanied by a rather irritated Shase’por, entered the room. Shase’por surveyed the room for a moment, settling his eyes on the Talassar Sept markings on the Infiltrator suit’s chest. He then looked at the reporters with absolute loathing.
“Out. Now.” He growled, carefully enunciating each word. The reporters fled, the cameraman having abandoned the wreck of his equipment.
After looking at the Breacher suit, who had now moved into the doorway, and nodding curtly, Shase’por moved over to the fallen Infiltrator suit, unceremoniously pulling a vibro-blade from his belt and sawing the helmet off, revealing the tranquilized face of the pilot. A Stormtrooper grabbed a glass of ice water from the bathroom, and splashed the face of the assassin, causing him to shiver and wake up with a start. Shase’por immediately grabbed the assassin’s throat and growled two more words, his furious face almost glowing blue.
“Off. Now.”
The XV35 immediately disengaged, the rear of the suit unfolding to deposit the assassin on the floor. The assassin winced as the neural input wires of the XV35 forcibly removed themselves.
“Follow me. You’re coming with us. Inquisitor, come.”
Two Stormtroopers hoisted up the assassin’s armpits, while the third pushed milling crewmen out of the way in the hallway, until the group arrived at an elevator.
“Deck two, training and military command.” Shase’por explained, as the Stormtroopers dragged the now limp assassin into the elevator.
The trip was silent except for Shase’por’s quiet cursing. Valkos tried to ask him a question.
“Where are you taking him?”
“Myen. She’ll talk to him. Of course those tyrants send a coward after us.”
With a ding, the elevator landed and the assassin was dragged out and deposited at the feet of Myen, who was sitting cross-legged on a bench in the elevator bay.
“Who is this?” She inquired, taking note of the assassin’s disheveled, covered in battlesuit amniotics. He was shivering in the cold air of the training deck.
“Some assassin coward, tried to murder the Inquisitor here. Had a battlesuit to help him, still lost. Let’s have a nice chat with him.”