[h3]I. Compliance[/h3]

A bolt travels a long way to the chamber of a boltgun. The finest materials traveled into the forges to be shaped by the machinery overseen by tech adepts. The acceptable quality of such an item was immense, and waste of resources or skill not tolerated. Once stamped with the seal, it was packed with other such items for voyage into the void, out to the ever-gapening maw of the Emperor's Legiones Astartes.

Thence it would find its way into the holds of a rogue trader transporting emergency resupply items into the warzone. The bolter rounds would sit in that case, in the hold of a ship, until the intended user, an Astartes, loaded the rounds into magazines and the magazines into their respective bandoliers and webbing.

It would be carried into a transport vessel, a civilian one obeying the orders of the Argyos planetary governor that a tithe be paid in material in these most unusual and harrowing of times. That the vessel carried the truth tithe, death from the Emperor, did not cross the minds of the men directing the traffic from space down to planetside, into the garrison that was the man's fortress, his center of authority. It was also the cancer in the center of this world, a place where the seeds of Chaos were being planted.

The enemy were not entirely without caution; the local forces were in on this governor's little rebellion, this balking of the Great Crusade and the Imperial Compliance. The expected little rebellions in response to the various edicts. They expected informed citizens, loyal to the Emperor of Mankind, to create mayhem, to resist. But they did not expect there would be Astartes involved. The hatch of the transport opened and prepared for inspection. The men piloting the transport found something solid to take cover behind. They knew what would come next.

And so when the bolt was fired, the casing ejected, and the bolt itself found a home in the head of a trooper that was not expecting that, fired by a man that was a Son of Horus no more. It wasn't the first shot Argyos ever heard fired in anger, but it was the first shot of a new war.

[@TemplarKnight07][@Jbcool][@MonkeyBusiness][@agentmanatee][@POOHEAD189]