The twelve Marines stood assembled before their commander, naught but loincloths on their frames as their skin glistened with the snowflakes melting from the moment they touched each body. Captain Krassus looked upon his troops, then to the data-slate that summarized their combat records, their biometrics, the complete transcripts of every word they ever said in proximity of a means to record them.

“In twelve hours, we will take Fort Orti.” No cheers, just a few lips curling in half smiles. A small mark was made on the dataslate with an imperceptible move of the finger.

“Anwar. You will lead the infiltration of the facility. Brothers Karduk and Axios will assist.” All three Marines named were exceptionally short, of them only Axios bowing at the command. Another mark on the dataslate.

“I will lead the overwatch team.” A few snickers came about, comments about not wishing to risk himself in the thick of it. Another mark on the dataslate. “Brothers Gamaliel, Iskander, Perrax, Tojar, with me. The rest of you are on the assault team. Make your preparations, acquaint yourselves with any information on your respective dataslates you have not yet considered. The operation begins in four hours.”

With that Krassus departed to the Rhino, his own preparations yet to be made. [hr]

“In place. Go.” That was all that the trio needed to begin the ascent of the wall. Cameleoline cloaks covering their Urshite dress were just enough to hide them from sentries along the walls of the frosted settlement. It was important not to slay them, and before descending the walls they waited through a full two patrol cycles huddled near some munition crates covered with fresh snow. 

Eventually they descended, and went to the central compound that composed the largest portion of the settlement of Fort Orti. “Move to the West Gate. The South has too much scrutiny now.”

Immediately the three Astartes shifted their movement, wheeling around to the alternate entrance to Fort Orti. The place was not just a fort, that much was clear. It was just a manner of naming the site, for hundreds of civilians were milling about the place. For one, the extraordinary cold made the cooling of many archaeotech computers very simple. But it also pumped rich dark promethium component substances deep from the ground, and it was thus that the civilians by far outnumbered the warriors in the place. Their lack of armament would not save them from the Will of the Emperor. The Marines were exceptionally tall for humanity, but at about two meters with a few more or less centimetres they could all plausibly pass for an ordinary person, perhaps one on some combat stims accounting for the bulk beneath their thick coats. Such after all were not uncommon, for looking left to right the infiltrators saw men that would probably have as much muscle as them, even if it was merely the physique of homo sapiens and no performance enhancing chemicals could bring it to the caliber of an Astartes. 

Now the three infiltrators split into different directions. There were three main targets that each would have to secure. The auspex and vox augurs would have to be overridden first and foremost to prevent reinforcements being dispatched in a timely manner. Second, the climate controls would have to be disabled. The inhuman frost which a person could withstand for mere hours even covered from head to toe in the heavy layers that were uniform here would set in upon the climate regulation being disabled. It would kill all present as well as any bullet or blade, or at least bring them to submission. Finally, power would have to be cut in a very strategic and specific manner to ensure the present work of the Marines could not be undone, yet very carefully to not give nearby forts the notification that quite abruptly all activity in Fort Orti had ceased. 

Anwar arrived at his target first, smashing apart the lightbulb in a service elevator to the roof of the main building of the Fort. Thus clinging in a spider-like fashion to its ceiling amidst a changing of the guard, dropping down behind them as they exited the carriage of the elevator, the ceaseless blizzard masking his sound. The old guard was going off duty, and in their weary state they didn’t notice the new guard had one extra fellow among them. As the elevator closed, the Space Marine hefted his heavy stubber and unleashed a brief rain of bullets on the mortals, until each was fallen. He did not execute those gurgling on the ground. They that survived the extraordinary firepower could yet make productive turncoats. Once more shouldering the machine gun he ran forth to the console and got to work. Unfortunately, as his fingers did their work he heard the sounds of the elevator opening once more. Brief panic gripped the Astarte, some sort of workers appearing. The civilians looked at him in a similar state of fear after they saw the corpses, hurriedly pressing the buttons to send the elevator back to where it came from. The doors closed just as a grenade passed them, a brief hiss of triumph escaping the Marine’s lips as at the very least the security would now have to manually ascend to his position rather than using the same elevator. 

“Overwatch! They know I’m here.” he growled into his vox-bead. “We are well aware. Stand by.” was the sole response he got. He began demanding everyone hurry, but quite unfortunately he heard the high pitch whirr as he spoke that told him there was nobody listening to him. For now he was alone as he heard distant screams as Urshite troops began the slow ascent to get to his position without an elevator. Thankfully, he heard the faintest crack of a bullet whirring some few dozen metres from him, the overwatch team’s sharpshooters already thinning the ranks of the rapid response teams. 

Climate control was manipulated shortly after in a very timely fashion. Brother Axios had made his way to the control room for it, and with a rap of either knuckle brought the duo of technicians there to an unconscious state. A great deal of irrelevant machinery was torn out of its position by Axios, who used it to barricade the entrance after closing the door. Finally, he got to work. The life support systems that kept the inside of Fort Orti relatively warm were turned against the thousands present, gushing freezing winds inside where previously it cycled them out. It would be mere minutes before the first screams would come that something was wrong, people comfortably in bed suddenly shivering. The first deaths would happen in less than an hour. 

Brother Karduk however, proved to be a weak link. Strolling down the mess hall on the way to the power controls of the structure he did not notice that his uniform had the same serial number on his breast as one of the guards that he passed by. He did not recognize the sound of a drawn pistol, and while he was fast enough to stop the bullet aimed for his head its strike to his neck was enough to bring him to his knees. As more bullets riddled his flank, he fell to the ground as the world went black. The last thought he had was that he had failed in more ways than one. In his effort to save himself he had still died, yet now the progenoid gland in his throat was ruined. He would be a shame, forever cursed in the annals of The Undying Onslaught.

“Overwatch! My right, my right!” Krassus heard the pleas in his own vox bead. With a sigh, he had to write off Karduk. “Assault team, move out.” he gave the order, and at once four missiles flew out from the hill the Marines were camped on to each destroy a long targeted stationed vehicle. 

The four Marines in the assault team ran towards the walls, gaining some initial height by using chain-axes as picks to help them climb swiftly. Jump-packs roared, and the assault team entered sky before each crashing down in a brutal impact crater on different parts of the ramparts surrounding Fort Orti. It was a very brief skirmish to tear apart the defenders there, but a quite necessary one to prevent return fire upon the overwatch team, for now two heavy bolters began their fire. Snow sizzled and evaporated as it fell on barrels hot enough to melt flesh, Brother Anwar at last getting wonderful respite as many dozens of men climbing stairs and ladders or pulling their way up grapples turned to gooey piles of meat and bone. Muttering some thanks to his vox-bead for now being unpinned, Anwar rose and ran through what little remaining stub and auto-weapons were arrayed at him and forced apart the doors of the elevator before jumping down the dark depths of the ruined shaft.

The assault team zipped and zoomed about the exterior of the Fort, the sky brightening with fired bullets and heavier munitions as absolute chaos reigned from the jump-pack borne Marines’ efforts. Soon though, Krassus gave them the order to get inside. Indoors, they at last discarded their jump-packs and each drew an autogun, preferring them to a bolt-pistol against these oh so fragile yet numerous mortals.

Fort Orti was damn well labyrinthian, the facility’s complexity only navigable to the superhumans thanks to the HUDs that gave them exact directions of how to get to the internal comms room. Unfortunately, Karduk’s failure was now showing its fruit. As the four Marines turned a corner, a turret came from the wall behind them and bisected a warrior at the waist before his thrown chainaxe destroyed the bullet-proof emplacement. The stricken Brother was left to fend for himself, crawling into a room where he could perhaps at least defend himself until the Imperial flag flew here and he could get help.

A door was soon after activated as a trap, the Marine it was aimed to squash just narrowly avoiding death and merely losing his shooting arm for it. 

They did eventually get to the comms-room, the place conveniently having cameras to observe the whole Fort. A very brief firefight with the mortals within ended when the last man standing surrendered, getting a swift backhand into unconsciousness as the Astartes entered the room.

“Attention people of Orti. If every single one of you unloads and lays down his arms, you will be spared a slow, painful death of freezing.”

Briefly, men kept pushing towards the climate controls, to the comms room, to the roof. But with every person that fell to the creeping chill, morale cracked. One by one, squads of soldiers would stand before cameras with their weapons in a pile, the munitions for them some distance away. Krassus chuckled as he watched the feed from a camera of one of the Assault-Marines. In some instances, the little humans would kill the more heroic of their own number that refused to surrender, such that perhaps they would get reprieve from the frost.  

Hundreds had already began to succumb to hypothermia when the last unit had dropped their guns. Using their jump-packs the Assault team swiftly navigated the structure such that they could goad all the formerly armed men of the place together. 

Grinning happily to himself behind his helmet, Krassus gave the order to restore the heating of the place, a figure falling over after a bout of paradoxic undressing in a camera feed. 

“Brother Gamaliel begin duties as Apothecary. There are more than two hundred viable youth specimens to examine therein.”

The Captain got up, and stretched, before heading off to the Rhino they had arrived on to communicate with higher command. “Krassus out.” he told his force, before tearing out the vox bead.