[center][h1][u][b]Slaughter of Sanctii[/b][/u][/h1]
[h3][b]Operation Winter Phoenix[/b][/h3]
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[i][b]Sanctii AOR, Outside Thermal Flue A00034/76B[/b][/i]

Stavin checked his watch from the stubber-cupola of the centaur prime mover he rode in. If the deep-scan auspex and Imperial tactical planning had been correct, the next exhaust dump would be in 5 minutes. They had made excellent time, the 31-3’s assault element using the cover of the blizzard to advance their motley collection of tractors, trucks, prime movers, and yes, even some armored personnel carriers, to an exhaust port several klicks from the hive itself. 

Taking the thermal flue station had been simple. As predicted, there was only a skeleton crew guarding it, a platoon of the city’s militia, armed with adrasite rifles and carapace. Those fifty men perished under the hail of radium slugs, bolts of lightning, and good old fashioned steel core solid shot from the stubbers of the 31-3’s motley motor fleet. It had been a textbook assault of superior numbers against an under-defended position. No, far stranger was the mission itself.

In all, it had been the strangest operational work-up Stavin had ever experienced in his brief time of being an Imperial soldier. He had not just been ordered, but invited to tactical meetings, asked for his counsel, even politely requested to repeat the fairy tales he had heard about the Deep Winter construct by important looking administrative officials. He had eaten with other officers, and, in what felt like a fever dream, had measurements taken for a new dress uniform. 

His men, the ones he had selected along with Severina and her cadre for the assault, had been fed, deloused, issued state of the art flak armor, and issued, one for every five of them, a boxy, ribbed barrel weapon that Stavin had initially mistook to be plasma guns. In fact, they were something far more dangerous; arc rifles, weapons capable of frying a man at lasrifle ranges. More to the point though, the ancient weapons were far more effective against delicate circuitry. A boon against such a technologically advanced enemy. The other eight men in each squad were issued guns Stavin had never heard of, nor in his most violent and cruel moments, even imagined; radium carbines, baroque looking weapons of brass and steel that shot radio-isotope impregnated solid shot. They were armed to the teeth. They would have to be - the mission promised to be brutal.
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In a truck half a klick from Colonel Stavin, Caleb Raum squatted on the truck’s hard, uncomfortable bench, his arc rifle between his legs, heavy and unfamiliar. He had initially been issued a slightly rusty, manual-action rifle that shot big stubber cartridges, the biggest he’d ever seen, but before this mission it had been snatched away. This gun made that rifle feel as outdated as a stone spear - part of Caleb was relieved that his first taste of combat would be with a weapon he was confident could kill whatever he hit squarely.

Across from Caleb, Sergeant Whitaker cleaned his shotgun, looking at the driver’s cab in annoyance whenever a bump in the rough terrain interrupted the reverie of cleaning the weapon. Whitaker was a scary man, whipcord thin, tall, and scarred. Caleb, however, was slightly grateful to the old soldier - being assigned to Whitaker’s squad came with an understanding you were not to be fucked with. At the cost of all of Caleb’s lho sticks and the good parts of his (rare) rations, Whitaker made problems disappear. A legionnaire, feeling her oats, had attempted to extort Caleb early in his career in the 31-3, and Whitaker, hearing that someone was muscling in on him, disappeared that night.

The next day, Caleb’s would-be racketeer was found dead in her bunk, her head twisted all the way round.

“You know what we’re doing, Troopie?” Whitaker yelled to Caleb.

“We’re going to advance down the thermal exhaust line.” Caleb said, “Then, using Auspex, find the vent control console, close the port, and destroy the console.”

“They make it sound so bloody simple, don’t they?” Whitaker yelled.

“...It’s not?” Caleb asked.

“It’s gonna be a mess. Trust me. When we get in that thermal flue, you book it. Stay behind me. Don’t let any other cunt get between you and me. Kill ‘em if you gotta. I ain’t gettin’ stuck in that flue when the city decides to vent again.”

Caleb imagined what would happen. It didn’t take much mental sweat. Anything caught in the flues when they vented would be, in short, obliterated.

“And after?” Caleb asked. 

“Same shit, Troopie.” Whitaker said, racking the shotgun. His radium rifle was slung over one shoulder, but it was clear he preferred the shotgun, an old, battered thing he’d clearly carried for a long time. “The first one that gets to the cogitator stack to disable it stands the best chance of living. We get pick of the places to hide when it goes nova.”

“And brings down the gate…” Caleb said, finally understanding. “...Sarge, are we meant to survive this mission?”

“No Troopie, but I intend to anyway.” Whitaker said, spitting a thin stream of lho-dip onto the deck. “Safest place in this mob is behind me, so stay there.”

–

Stavin checked his watch, again. Severina looked at him in clear annoyance. Stavin had been checking that piece of shit chronometer every thirty seconds for the past five minutes.

“Checking to see if it grew extra hands, Colonel?” She said.

“No, discipline mistress, I’m just trying to be efficient.” He growled. “There’s a mean woman who will shoot me if I’m not.”

She laughed, her laugh surprisingly pleasant and tinkly for a woman of such hard musculature and scars. 

Then, there was a loud, whirring noise, then a clank, then a thump so violent it shook icicles from the rockcrete surrounding the exhaust flue. A whoosh. Fire so intense, so hot, that briefly it warmed the faces of everyone looking at it so quickly that sweat broke out over their entire bodies. Stavin blinked sunspots from his eyes, his skin feeling slightly sunburned. He cursed, as now the pain of the icy winds was extra evident. The flame went on for minutes, eventually dying out with a sputter.

Stavin keyed his vox. “Alright everyone. Rebreathers on. Dismount. We’ve got thirty til the next vent, and five til the vents close. Only one way out of this. Get it done.”

He let the handset hang, and jumped down, helping Severina down, then the rest of his command squad. They began, along with the other five thousand damned souls of the assault element, to double time towards the exhaust opening. 
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[i][b]One kilometer behind Imperial Siege Lines[/b][/i]

One thousand power armored figures stood in perfect lines one hundred by ten, arms and armor still unmarred by conflict. The sons and daughters of the First Astartes Legion had barely tasted combat, kept in the rear of the Conquest of Ursh by the taunting command of the Thunder Primarch Gilgamenses.

So swiftly had they been sent to the front that they had not been equipped with their full wargear, only a tenth of them given full Thunder Armor. The Legion had endured the indignity of Gilgamenses’ castoffs, their ready wargear consisting only of gleaming chainswords untouched by blood or battle. When the order came, the newborn Astartes had dropped the lasrifles and slugthrowers in great heaps before the Thunder Warrior’s command tent before taking their leave.

Malcador himself had given them the order to make for Sanctii with all due speed, and they had obeyed. Lacking any mechanization,  the thousand warriors with powered greaves had charged out of camp as fast as their legs could carry, running without pause for over eighteen hours. They had stopped only to accept a shipment of fresh arms from the Terra-Watt Clans, heavily laden snowskimmers disgorging horrid Volkite weaponry freshly stamped from the forges.

Onward they had run as the remnant of the Legion followed far behind in their wake, rushing ever faster at the first sound of guns off in the distance. At last they fell in, Calivers braced across their chest, as the Mistress of the Legion Vairya Kurus took their measure.

Nine hundred, Vairya herself included, were Astartes in truth, the perfected fruit of the genecrafting process, warriors who could be mass produced without fear of degradation. The remainder of her advance force were her elder siblings, the First Hundred, failures so close to what they ought to be that they had been granted the dignity of a glorious death in their creator’s name. These proto-Astartes were already visibly ragged from their exertions, not-quite-right organs failing to fully sustain them through the hellish march they had undergone to enact the Sigilite’s will. She paid them little heed, for they would do as they were bid in the end. All would.

Though their armor was painted in conscious imitation of the God-Slayers, the First mirroring the First, they made no move to support them - or any other element of the Emperor’s forces. Instead they simply stood, stock-still, within sight of the walls, beyond the fury and fire of the assault and artillery. They knew their mission, and they would not permit anything to delay it. The Thunder Warriors and auxilia were distraction enough for the moment from the true strike force, and it was only if and when the condemned penal soldiers succeeded that the Astartes would take the field.
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[i][b]Merlon 2295-B, Curtain Wall[/b][/i]

Insanity fell well short of describing the slaughter taking place on the other side of the curtain wall. The Imperials, [i]damned be their souls[/i], had simply appeared out of the blizzard in fully formed battle lines over a million strong. They’d advanced upon the curtain wall with what Commander Yaroslav could only define as wreckless abandon, throwing themselves to be butchered wholesale at the hands of his brigade and the many others beginning to join the original defenders at their battlements.

Yaroslav turned to a compact holodeck of the battle, scoffing at the shear size of it all. He’d seen Sanctii through more combat than he cared to admit, but this, this was beyond his wildest imagination.

“Merlon 2112-A, reports Imperial troops at the battlements, they request aid from adjacent Merlon’s for fear of being breached.”

Yaroslav brought up a live holofeed of the merlon in question and was surprised at the group of Imperials taking up what cover they could against his wall. He did not see any of the genewarriors of the self-proclaimed Emperor, and thanked the stars for that. 

“Is that the only battlement with Imperial rats at their feet?” he asked pensively as he surveyed the battle taking place outside.

“Negative,” the professional voice of the vox operator came back, “Imperials advance on most of the battlements Sir, there are reports of genewarriors attempting to scale the walls in nine different locations.”

Yaroslav cursed and brought a hand to his own voxbead, “Captain Lebedev, I assume that your Wing is ready for combat?”

The voice on the other side seemed distracted as it answered, “On your command.”

“Take to the killing field Captain, burn the rodents from the foot of our home and push them back, the wall will assist, as always.”
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Credit: [@grimely] (Legio I Astartes), [@BornOnBoard] (Colonel Stavin/Thirty-One-Third Penal Legion), [@FrostedCaramel] (Sanctii/The Administrator)