[center][h2]The Lines[/h2]
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[i]Deep Within the Himalazians
After the Assault of Macroway 80[/i]

[hr]
Vicente was in prison.

Granted, it was a rather nice prison all things considered, what with the immense four-poster bed he was currently lounging in and the similarly sized geneaugmented warrior woman he was sharing it with. But a prison it was all the same, no matter how free his warden was with her affections towards him. Such a fate would be a handsome reward for most any man, to say nothing of the fortress-palace he spent his days inside of or the riches of the empire which were his to enjoy as gifts of his host.

It was slowly driving him to insanity. To restlessness, at very least. An impatient energy coursed through him, an urgent need to [i]do[/i] that was forever denied him. That was his punishment, his sentence for however long the Emperor deemed it.

“You go to war tomorrow.”

The bluntness of the Custode struck him like a physical weight, the woman paying his shock no heed as she stretched out like a recumbent macro-predator, eyeing him as her next meal. She did not give him time to process, much less question, the words before she continued.

“A band of Pacifican rabble thought routed and dispersed has reformed, or perhaps merely concluded a ruse. The distinction is irrelevant. They march upon the Lines. You shall answer them.”

Reflex took over where reason failed, his mind falling into those old patterns even dulled by years of disuse and neglect.  “My forces?”

“Your regiment shall be issued live weaponry for the duration. I have prevailed upon the Captain-General to permit you the use of volunteers as well,” she answered, slinking off of the bed with a grace that ought to be impossible for one of her frame.

“This is likely to be ins-” he began, only to be immediately cut off by a laugh that was equally too joyous to come from such a killer.

“Insufficient to face them upon the field. Correct. You will most likely be outnumbered ten times over. You shall hold the Lines for as long as you may, as a pinning force for a detachment of Astartes sent to intercept them. You shall succeed, or die in the trying, but you shall not abandon the Lines,” she explained, her voice unchanging.

“Why are you telling me this?” the prisoner asked, leaving the bed in a daze. Not in shock at what was to come, nor joy, but from the grim reality that he already knew the answer.

“It is the plan you would have arrived at. It is a plan you have already executed.” Her voice was not cruel, but its stark finality somehow stung nonetheless. “You have held against the Master. Now hold for him.”

There was no response necessary. No further words needed to be said. Both knew that. She spoke regardless.

“Survive. You have yet to cry out all of my names.”

[hr]
The Varaguan Guard had once been the pride of Pan, of all Sud Merica. They had held against the forces of Hy Brasil since time immemorial, their victory standard festooned with the tattered remnants of countless humiliated foes. It now hung as a trophy of the Seventeenth Astartes. What soldiers of that elite force survived, those who had endured the Emperor’s might the longest and most directly, had been consolidated into a single regiment to follow [i]their[/i] Captain-General into his imprisonment.

A guard of honor to wile away their days in exile until death claimed him - or them.

They had spent that time in pointless parades and ceremonies, refusing to accept their irrelevance or admit despair at their captain’s fate. The Emperor had forbidden them weapons, so they marched and drilled with sticks. The Emperor had forbidden them home, so they made one in his halls in its place. The Emperor had forbidden them hope, and this they had simply ignored.

Now their long wait had at last come to an end. Crates of lasrifes and carapace armor bearing fresh maker’s marks from the Terrawatt Clans had been unsealed and distributed to the ordered ranks, each taking up their trade with the smoothness of the diligent. They had readied themselves for this day, for a calling that they knew would either never come or was little better than an execution deferred. Such thoughts hadn’t stopped them.

As Vicente looked out over the garden terrace he stood on, reviewing his regiment, his gaze eventually fell upon his motley band of volunteers. Prototypes and failures, these castoff children of Amar were deemed insufficient for induction into the Space Marine Legions and had instead accumulated in the fastnesses of Hymalazias like some children collected particularly interesting beetles.

Where his Varaguans now marched in ordered and uniformed ranks, drilling with their new weapons and becoming once more the finely honed machine that had defended the Cantons, the genefailures simply [i]were[/i]. Each suffered some kind of undermining flaw, each compensated in some unique way. They would never be able to form combat capable units, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

Every single soldier assembled here, himself included, was expendable.

It was freeing in a way, knowing that it didn’t really matter if he lived or died. Victory would be had regardless, and so the only thing truly at stake was glory. Even if he failed to capture any for himself, the Astartes would clean up the mess when they arrived. Just as they had always done.

They all knew it, too. From the lowliest trooper to the most malformed half-angel, they all knew the truth of the matter. None of them had cared. All had come to win themselves an ending worthy of being told, instead of a long fading and the final death of being forgotten for all time.

Vicente felt his hands tighten upon the marble railing, his elegant augmetics gently informing him he was dangerously abrading his outer dermal layers. He maintained the pressure for a five second count before relaxing at last, letting out a shuddering breath as he reviewed the ragtag army he had been given to take to his grave. A last gift from his conqueror.

It was a kindness he intended to refuse.

[hr]
Master of the Lines was not an empty title. As Mankind degraded itself with ever more destructive wars and internecine struggle, first in the apocalyptic conflict against their children and then the sharper and shorter futile bid to be the last king of the ashes, the man who would be Emperor had retreated from their pains. Great vaults he had dug in those days, and high walls he had thrown up in conscious imitation of the work of his own hands in an ancient dawn.

The Lines had emerged slowly, fitfully, down from the roof of the world, an island of serenity expanded by fire and sword. His Legions were his Lines now, but the ancient works still remained, and to the Captain-General their defense was charged.

Yet he was not [i]that[/i] Captain-General. Vicente Guillelmi was but a man, one who had defied the Emperor whose fastness he now swore to keep safe. Be this test, breaking, or execution, it no longer mattered to him anymore. All that was left was the burning need to remain standing at his post when the Astartes at last arrived and broke the enemy upon the walls.

High atop a mountain keep, Colonel Guillelmi bent himself to his work as the hololith sprang to life. Elements of the Guard had been scattered through fortresses and redoubts, some mere bunkers barely able to hold a full squad, others as large as the palace complex in which the Emperor himself resided within when not upon campaign. Even with the proto-Astartes volunteers to bulk out his numbers, he had been forced to garrison the outermost positions painfully thin, each serving as little more than observation post and tripwire. In the best of scenarios, those assigned would be able to retreat and regroup at the next layer in good order, preserving and concentrating his strength. In the worst, they would be defeated in detail, and only gain him the knowledge of which direction his doom would come from.

But war in the Himalazias was chaotic enough that even those scraps could prove valuable. Even before Terra had gone mad from the abuse done to her by her children and their children in turn, this had been a harsh land, with even orbital surveillance vague and uncertain. For reasons unknown to him, Vicente and his host had been denied the direct datalinks to those orbital platforms he knew the Emperor had already created or reclaimed, forced to rely instead upon hazy areas of probable enemy activity generated by Sigilites safe in their vaults.

One other symbol stood out bright and clear upon the map however. That of his salvation, the marker of his victory. The rune glowed strong and bright far to the map’s east, a force sent racing from Ouran to ensure that none who dared assault the Lines would survive the insult.

[center][b]XIII[/b][/center]

[hr]
+‘Go. Defend our Master. Let them know that the best of the Thirteenth comes to deliver retribution,’+ a man told him, a tone as deep and aggressive as the worst of Terra’s storms. Between the layers of aggression, though, there was pride and joy in a way that only a genewarrior could understand. He knew that the Legion Master was proud of what he’d done and the type of knight he’d transformed into. No doubt any commander would feel that way.

He was not alone in this venture. Forty-four others were in the same hold as him, each a veteran of countless skirmishes and campaigns alone. Their black-bronze warplate was decorated from top to bottom with fetishes, trinkets, and baubles to laud their victory over the techno-barbarian states. They were myriad in appearance as much as they were in armament. Talons, swords, chainsabres, bolters, volkite rifles, and more specialized gear rested beside them.

An auspex ping from within his warplate assured him of the other Stormbird hovering nearby. Fifty other Astartes were safe within their hold, equipped the same as his own warriors were. It would be the first time since Ouran that he’d led a full company against Terra’s worst. The veterans of that campaign remained with him as tokens in spirit. Few had survived the demolition that their company had caused within the hive-city. Those that had were lauded by the Legion Master and more, himself included. He turned to one of them now, formerly a sergeant and now a lieutenant, Hussan.

Or what was left of Hussan. That was one fate that he was glad he hadn’t suffered. The warrior was merely a sarcophagus laid into a machine that was as large as three Astartes. He had watched the surgery himself as Hussan was slaved into a vehicle built for war. It would’ve been a mercy to end his life, but the Scorpion had demanded it in his last moments of lucidness. Where powered talons would’ve ended in his arms were massive, behemoth claws that could shred the toughest foes. Each was underslung by volkite carbines. The Astartes’ greaves were replaced with four-pronged, metallic feet that could smash tanks. An ornate helmet with a scorpion atop stared out from the sarcophagus, where Hussan huffed and groaned. The frontal plate of his hull was engraved with the Raptor Imperials and bolts on one side, and the twinned scorpion of the Thirteenth on the other. His own attention was caught by the dreadnought, who stared back.

+‘Speak. Alim.’+ Hussan’s voice, previously a humorous and fastidious man, was unfathomably deep and enhanced by the machine’s external voxhailers. His tone was dreadful, ever in constant pain and ever ready to suffer the final death he was promised. He felt a kinship with Hussan to that effect. He should’ve perished in the hive-city of Ouran.

“Do you wish for routine maintenance?” Captain Alim asked, though he already knew the answer. He’d spent some time with the minds of the Sigilites after Ouran, imparting the knowledge of technology to him for several reasons. One of which was his own bionics, which whined and hissed less than Hussan’s sarcophagus. His arms and legs had been replaced with the best that the Emperor and the Terrawatt Clans could offer. Each was a biomechanical feat of legendary work, enhanced with the best that Terra could forge from the rare metals that the Custodes harnessed. He’d never know why he was given this treatment over others.

+‘Nonesense. I am here to hunt. My systems are as nominal as the sands of the dusk world,’+ Hussan replied with a snarl. He had started sounding like the Legion Master after his internment into a dreadnought. The phrasing at the end, however, was becoming a new and frequent trend. More applicable in Hussan’s case, but Alim had started to see in the rest of his brothers. The visions were beginning to affect them, himself included.

The voxhailers surrounding the cabin drew static for a microsecond as the pilot engaged the communications system. Each of the Astartes perked as slightly as a scorpion from drowned sands. Alim had already known that many chose to enter meditative states to engage the visions or live through the world that only they had seen. He had yet to know if Astartes from other legions were like this. His datascrying had confirmed that none exhibited such symptoms, but many of the genewarriors held secrets close to their chests. The captain turned his attention to the voxhailer as it spoke.

“Beginning descent. Prepare for engagement,” The pilot, one of his own by the name of Ramshirr, spoke. More and more Astartes were beginning to operate and utilize vehicles across the Legion. Less and less mortals were stuck having to guide the Emperor’s finest weapons across the planet. Alim knew this was an intentional move. The mortals were being phased out from their legionary operations just as the Thunder Warriors were swiftly becoming obsolete. 

+‘Good. Lead me to the slaughter.’+ The dreadnought growled, offering up chortles from several other Astartes around him. Alim grew a small smile on his broken lips. At least his old friend had managed to retain some of his humor despite the loss of his body.

Forty-four Astartes stood up in a synchronized motion as their restraints were unlocked. Chainswords were revved, boltguns were chambered, and powerweapons were activated. A final series of checks that each of the veterans, Immortals in their own right, performed as the Stormbird began to descend. Alim watched over them as he performed his final evaluations. The slight shimmering of a conversion field around him flickered to life with a tap of his thunderhammer. An ornate plasma pistol fit into his right hand, a rune was pressed to ensure no heat build up remained. The great lumbering dreadnought across the bay groaned with anticipation as his claws whirled menacingly.

Something rocked the Stormbird as telltale vertigo and gravitational acceleration began to shake his body. Turbulence, descent, and unleashing armaments gave away the aircraft’s position in the sky as it dove. Alim retreated into his mind to begin his final seconds of strategizing. He wondered how much of the allied forces remained with the time that had elapsed. A thousand and one different tactics drove into his mind. He knew they’d be greatly weakened by the sudden advance while Terra was actively being unified. The Captain simply decided on one strategy alone to prevail.

“Gloria Scorpii, Bronze Scorpions!” Captain Alim said with a voice that began to break it’s monotonic stride. The pommel of his thunderhammer struck the floor of the Stormbird. Forty-four boots responded with his warcry repeated. Whoever awaited them below in the Lines, Alim felt no sympathy. They were angels of death, gliding on promethium wings. None of their opponents would survive this day.

[hr]
“Contact with Watch-Post Aleph lost-”

“Communications trench coming under heavy fire from-”

“Enemy forces have secured local superiority at-”

Vicente let the reports wash over him as he gazed at the hololith, his dutiful adjuncts updating it as soon as fresh information came in from either the vox or messenger. It had been an hour since his first pickets had made contact with the enemy, and they had begun to know the face of their enemy in exchange for soldiers’ blood.

It was a cruel way his Emperor forced him to wage this war. But not a pointless one. No. There was an all too clear point being made here, forcing him to sacrifice for a chance at victory, forcing him to remake all of those decisions when he had defended his own lines.

The Emperor was a vindictive man, but he was not a foolish one.

“Send a squad of proto-Astartes to stem that advance, mark the complement non-operative,” Vicente ordered, the man surprised that he yet had iron left in his voice. He was sending one hundred souls to their deaths, and they would thank him for it. They yearned for it, and that was something he could not afford to not take advantage of.

There were perhaps ten-thousand Pacificans flooding through the snow-filled valleys beneath the Lines, marching over the bones of countless armies that had tried the same assault. It would be an extreme exaggeration to say that they were a coherent force however, and they had no order of battle as such. Rather they were a patchwork force made of whatever could be salvaged from one of the many columns fleeing the Imperial victory at Ouran, chased and degraded over hundreds of miles until only this ragged edge remained, consisting of a perverse combination of the hardiest technological horrors Dume could concoct and a mass of conscripts who seemed as surprised as their masters at their continued survival.

Vicente knew that the Custodians guarding the vaults and cells which riddled the mountains could have handily dispatched this force, but he knew just as well they would not lift a hand to save him. They would kill him if he tried to run, and only bring the fight to the enemy if his force had been spent to the last man. A fate that he, despite all of his clever stratagems, his feints and retreats and traps, knew would come to pass if but for one thing.

He had to hope that the Astartes would save him.

Yes, the Emperor was a vindictive man.

There was a blip on the hololith, as a junior aide, one who had been only a teenager at his last glorious defeat, paused in confusion. He already knew the truth of that. Only one thing could have caused it.

But not a foolish one.

“The Thirteenth have engaged the enemy.”

[hr]
Hundreds of eyes turned to the sky as the Stormbirds screeched overhead on metallic, screaming wings of promethium. Wing-mounted missiles dropped, retroactively engaging thrusters that drove them hard into the ground. Plumes of explosions announced their arrival to the battle just as twin-linked assault cannons peppered the snowy fields. Conscripts died in droves, soldiers bounced into ramshackle trenches, and genewarriors roared in protest with their heavy weapons unleashed into the sky. None of these actions would save them as the bronze-black Stormbirds circled back for another strafing run; however, this was no simple annihilation order. It was the delivery of a retributive payload.

Retrothrusters forced the Stormbirds to a faster than slow acceleration, dropping their assault ramps as their twin-linked armaments protected their precious cargo. A hundred giants in bronze-black ceramite egressed out of their enormous holds. Each slid to a grinding halt as their boltguns, volkite carbins, rotor cannons, and other weapons blazed to life. Only the lumbering form of a gigantic machine fell still as they collided with the snowy fields of the Lines. It soon rumbled back into fighting form as it sprinted across the battlefield with the other power armor clad warriors.

They came as an unstoppable force of carnage. Conscripts, thrown to the blender, were torn to shreds by power talons and power swords or vivisected by chainsabre and bolter. Soldiers were annihilated into molecules by volkite rays or exploded into chunks by savage rotor cannons. The few genewarriors that graced their pitiful ten-thousand were the only true challenge to the bronze-black giants; however, they were no match for the hulking form of a dreadnought.

+’Drown in umbral sands! Suffer midnight talons! Behold the majesty of the Malik!’+ The dreadnought roared out across the battlefield, hefting a genebrute into one of their claws and blending them into paste. Those that the lumbering machine-warrior couldn’t kill, their smaller comrades would with lethal efficiency that they had come to be known for. They poured over the trenches as bronze-black insects, advancing at terrifying speeds inconceivable to other Astartes.

The Stormbirds lifted off as the last of them leapt from the assault ramp, their twin-linked assault cannons murdering anything that dared. Captain Alim joined the last four with his bionics crunching against the snow of the Lines. Each was a proper Immortal, warriors worthy of being in a command squad, and each was bound by bionics suffered in the siege for Ouran. They sprinted on through the pandemonium that stained the fields, crushing Pacifican bodies beneath their feet as they beelined for the first visible structure.

+’Scorpions! Pincer and Claw!’+ Captain Alim ordered over the interlegionary vox, responded to by ninety-five blink-affirmations. His helmet’s display automatically recognized that his tactics were being applied as the ambush began to split. Forty bronze-black Astartes surged left along the Pacifican lines, while forty others surged right to engulf the ten-thousand. From there, he could tell that his sergeants were splitting into hunting packs reminiscent of their old clades. His lenses adjusted to the Himalazian flurry as they linked up with the dreadnought. The entombed warrior laughed with joy as he slaughtered the worst that the Pacificans had to offer.

Alim’s plasma pistol snapped up at the same time as the rest of his squad’s ranged weapons, annihilating the first of the conscripts that dared obstruct their path. They melted in a flurry of plasma, volkite ray, and boltshell. His helmet looked to Hussan, who seemed to understand the Captain’s intent and rushed forward ahead of the squad. A thousand and one different things needed to be complied with to ascertain their victory. Establishing communications with the defense leader was a priority amongst them.

+’This is Captain Alim of the Thirteenth Legio Astartes. We are currently engaged with the Pacifican backline. Direct us to the highest concentration of their forces, immediately.’+ He stated, patching himself into the local Imperial voxnet with a blink.

[hr]
The squeal of feedback in the command center nearly deafened everyone present as the Astartes vox override forced its way into the system. That sound. He had heard that sound before. That sound. That sound.

Vox feedback squealed from within the helmet of the Varaguan Guard vox operator currently impaled on the end of one of the Imperial warrior’s combat blades. Lieutenant Adao squinted through the darkness of the command bunker's unlit hallway as his vox operator’s hands clawed uselessly at the massive knife in his stomach. A baser part of his instinct overrode his morbid curiosity at the sight taking place before him and he began to scramble away on his hands and knees. He risked a glance back just in time to watch as his vox operator was flicked from the blade at speed, his flight abruptly arrested by Trooper Mateus with a sickening thud as the two men met their end. 

A rattle of gunfire erupted down the hall as another fireteam joined the fray.

“Up sir! Up!” Color Sergeant Dimas screamed as he hooked a hand under Adao’s armpit and hoisted him up to his feet, “Go go!” he yelled with a shove in the opposite direction as he brought his weapon to bear on the hulking giant. Sparks flew as solid rounds panged harmlessly off of the Imperial monster, and Adao took off running as the giant gutted the closest trooper with a swipe of their still wet combat blade.

He watched in horror as a single fist sent another trooper into the wall with enough force to leave a spiderweb of cracks in the reinforced rockcrete. Then it was on the rest of the fireteam. With speed beyond what such a hulking monster should have been able to achieve it dashed another trooper against its armored pauldron, emptying the contents of his head across its own armor and the ground before it. With no loss to its momentum the beast slapped out with its free hand as though swatting at a fly, crumpling the next closest trooper as a mere afterthought.

Adao felt warmth grow between his legs as he sprinted as fast as he had ever moved in all his twenty-seven years of life on Terra. He risked another glance back, in time to watch the armored monster crush the Color Sergeant’s head in its fist, Dimas’ stubber firing point blank into the beast's armor right up to the end.

The helmeted monstrosity turned its gaze toward Adao as he ran, and his heart sank to his stomach. His legs were as heavy as iron as he covered the last half dozen steps to the blast door. The beast was coming, it covered half the distance in just two bounding steps. Adao slammed his fist into the emergency release panel for the blast door. The huge door came screeching out of its overhead compartment and slammed into its hermetic seating at the bottom of the hallway. A series of clanks and a hiss signalled its locking to Adao, and he turned to the command center staff, terror on his face. He didn’t manage to warn them before the door mechanisms groaned in agony, the door beginning to rise back toward the ceiling against its will.

“Sir!” one of his aides shouted, in the middle of shaking him. There was blood in his mouth, flowing freshly from a bite he had put in his cheek.

“Do as he says,” Vicente absentmindedly replied, a portion of his brain having internalized the order even if the rest of him had drifted off. “No, wait, we can do better than that. Deploy all of the proto-Astartes to this bunker to pin the Pacifican gene-warriors in place for the Thirteenth to shatter. We can hold the chaff without them.”

It was an incredibly bold-faced lie, and everyone in the room knew it. The prototype Space Marines, flawed as they were, were the only thing close to a strong defensive line that they had access to. Stout walls and fresh lasrifles were fine things, but against a force that knew their only option was victory or death, they could hardly stop a tide that outnumbered them so severely.

Still, his order was followed. They all knew what they had agreed to.

None pointed out how hard Vicente’s hands shook.

[hr]
The Pacifican tide ebbed and flowed as a violent wave of defiance and bloodthirst. The frontlines, organized and fit, suffered and returned the brunt of the defensive force with autoguns, autocannons, and mortars. Genewarriors smashed through walls, slaughtering the slim Imperial garrison from within. Trained warriors, ordered unto the death march, weaved behind in tight squads to finish what their hulking compatriots started. Proto Astartes buckled under duress, feinting and retreating where their flawed mutations allowed or dying when they could not. The screams of the unmodified filled the air where the Pacificans ran through.

The backlines, however, suffered for the frontline’s success as the Bronze Scorpions pushed on. Alim tracked their movement through an encrypted auspex, now patched through to local Imperial command. He could see the battlefield in its entirety from within his helmet. The three-prong assault from the dropship was working. Their impromptu siege was reacting too slow to account for Astartes swiftness. The assassin packs of the Thirteenth were bleeding the enemy out in swathes. All the calculations he had prepared were coming to fruition.

Box-shaped vehicles, heavily laden with siege gear, drew his attention as they closed the distance from entry to frontline. The raw destructive output of the enemy genewarriors had allowed them free maneuverability through trench and ruin. It now gave them free reign over their midline equipment. He blinked-confirmed a new order for the dreadnought, who veered off from their spearhead to maim their artillery. Their own target lay ahead.

A bunker, if such a stout defensive platform could be called such, poured las down from kill holes. It was a great edifice of ferrocrete, reinforced by plasteel sheets and beams. If Alim hadn’t known it was a bunker, then he would’ve certainly mistaken it for a miniature citadel. A trio of heavy weapons – autocannons each – hailed hatred unto the enemy as they advanced. Mere mortals would balk at the sight of such impregnable defense, serviced by a tireless foe. The Scorpion knew well that this was no such enemy.

The discarded genewarriors of the Pan-Pacific Empire awaited them, hefting heavy armaments and gear by themselves. They were innumerable in their advance, specifically drawn by their ire and desire for destruction. Some, insane from augmentation, ran at a clipped speed towards the citadel, while others slowly advanced with experienced caution. Each was a miserable attempt to replicate the blade masters of Hongol. It mattered little. Their deaths were assured.

The first, a heavyset man with a bulky exopack and a chaincannon, exploded into atomized paste. Alim’s thunderhammer connected with the speed and power of an unnamed deity. Gore erupted sideways into the next enemy genewarrior, who attempted in vain to register a new foe. One of his Immortals vivisected them with a pair of powered talons. His squad delved in as a pack of serpents, sprung from dark dunes. They weaved into each kill, effortlessly murdering and supporting with the experience of a thousand skirmishes. Alim could feel them start to shatter even before the fifth was maimed, yet the Pacificans retaliated all the same. Those within the bunker took advantage of the ambush, offering a vomit of violent projectiles where the Thirteenth could not.

[hr]
“Contact upon the line! Watch-Post Gimel reports visual contact with the Thirteenth!” a vox-operator reported, the holo-tank updating moments later with the precise positions of the Bronze Scorpions.

Not for the first time, Vicente wondered what he might have been able to accomplish if he had held these lines back then. The fortress that shut out the world was formidable in the extreme, as if the standard the Emperor was building for was [i]himself[/i]. Every one of the squat bunkers, far from the most formidable fortification built into these mountains, could sustain itself for a year without resupply - not that they would ever need to, connected to the rest of the network by tunnels rigged to collapse in case of capture.

Perhaps if he had stood here, all those years again, it may have gone differently.

Perhaps…

[hr]
Emergency lighting outlined the Imperial genewarrior as it hefted the seven ton door with one arm. Adao didn’t manage his warning, his body evaporating at the waist as the Astartes in slate grey armor fired a single bolt round from the weapon in its free hand. The monstrosity stepped casually forward, the massive blast door slamming down behind it sealing the command staff in with their doom.

A cogitator operator stood to round on the armored Imperial, a laspistol rising from her hip holster as she screamed. The beast was far faster. A single fist punched out, leaving a headless body to crumple to the floor. The Imperial didn’t even look as it decapitated the woman, instead stepping forward to place precise bolter shots into the nearest of the command staff still frozen in the seats at their stations.

The bolter barked, flashes of blinding light heralding the death of twenty of the Varaguan Guards' brightest members. The bolt of the terror weapon locked back loudly, and a brave staff officer rose to engage the freshly out of ammo genewarrior. The Astartes flicked their weapon to their side and thumbed the magazine release. The empty magazine rocketed across the command room before taking half of the staff officer's face with the force of the impact.

The Imperial slammed home another magazine and continued its methodical slaughter as it moved slowly toward the Varaguan Guard standard at the head of the room. Solid slugs panged harmlessly off its armor, and las bolts left shallow craters and burned lines across it. The monster was at the standard now. 

An armored hand reached out for the flag, as the beast ignored the weapons fire landing harmlessly against it. A previously hidden man rose, this time from beneath a vox station directly behind the Imperial. He pulled the pin on a krak grenade and lunged forward. The beast spun around with speed beyond what should have been possible, swatting out with its weapon to redirect the explosive and its wielder. The stick grenade detonated as the Astartes' gauntlet connected with it, a bass [i]thump[/i] taking the hearing from those still alive in the room, filling their vision with smoke, and lungs with fyceline fumes.

Time moved slowly for the survivors. Smoke billowed from the site of the krak grenade’s detonation and obscured their view. After moments that felt like hours, lumen torches began to search the smoke.

The low thrum and whine of the Astartes powerpack heralded its survival as the dust and smoke began to settle to the floor around it. The monstrosity was where it had been before the explosion, its arm, amputated at the elbow, pumped ever-slowing amounts of blood from its stump as it stood defiant over the man that had nearly felled it.

“Your colors are struck,” the voxgrille of the Astartes boomed at the man, the Varaguan Guard color standard left behind by the late Color-Sergeant Dimas crumpled in the warrior's uninjured gauntlet.

“Spare what remains of your command, Captain-General,” it concluded, its turquoise lenses giving a cursory glance to the shoulder board ranks and the mortal’s missing arm beneath it.

“Send the last of the Proto-Astartes to reinforce Zayin, Yod, and Resh,” Vicente ordered, snapping himself from his reverie as his fingers danced over a dataslate. “Move the reserve companies to Qof, and alert all garrisons to remain vigilant. Something feels wrong,” he continued, voice trailing off to a whisper. His free hand continued to shake, until he took a hold of his own wrist after his tapping was complete, breathing uneasily for a moment.

“It’s too easy. What am I missing?”

A small, traitorous, part of him, a part that felt no love for the Cantons that had lifted him up and then left him to be their sacrifice, whispered in the darkest corners of his mind. Perhaps what he was missing was the realization that the Emperor was simply superior. Perhaps it felt too easy because he had spent so long in opposition to the rightful Master of Mankind.

With a shake of his head to banish those thoughts, he frowned more deeply at the holomap, tracing the enemy’s reported movements with his eyes. With a shock, his eyes widened as he finally noticed the pattern, a stone dropping in his stomach. “Get a message to whoever’s leading the Astartes. It’s a feint! They know they can’t take the Lines with this, they’re trying to distract us, keep us pinned here while they make a break for Indoi!”

[hr]
A cheer rose up from within Watch-Post Gimel from the Proto-Astartes as the last Pacifican died in the snow. It was a raucous sound, one filled with triumph and glory. He was surprised that his receptors could pick out the noise over the din of battle in the foreground. Their energy was redirected several seconds later, presumably from a command that he was not privy to. His attention quickly changed from the fortified bunker to the auspex. The assault was proceeding smoothly according to his calculations, each of his three prongs sweeping through the Pan-Pacific backlines with ease. Even the siege vehicles, painstakingly hauled towards the Himalazians, were being torn asunder in the snow. 

Captain Alim quickly expelled heat from his plasma pistol as the rest of his brethren rearmed for the next attack. He narrowed his eyes as the auspex weakly pinged inside of his helmet. A flood of data was filtering in from the mortal command structure, yet the absence of enemy presence at his location gave him pause. Several outposts were under assault, but where were the rest of their genewarriors? What was the point of this gamble? These questions were answered no sooner than he had finished the riddle himself.

+’Captain Alim!’+ A voice patched through the voxnet. Their tone was young and worrisome. He couldn’t fault them for their worry given the sudden change on the battlefield. His greaves were already moving southward away from the Lines with his Immortals as he responded.

+’I am aware. Send a forward party with a fast transport to hold down the feint in the name of the Emperor. We will arrive in minutes.’+ He responded without worry. It was something that he hadn’t accounted for when regarding the enemy assault, yet their actions made perfect sense. Indoi was still reeling from the fall of their High Padishah. It was weak, rebuilding, and prone to insurrection. They cannot allow this.

A blink-order saw the two other prongs of his strike force begin to curl inwards on the auspex, shifting from their straight assault to a closing pincer. Affirmative actions reflected as small emerald lumens on his screen, allowing him to move forward with his chase. If the mortal commander of the lines was able to sufficiently hold off the feint, then the rest of the Scorpions would be able to slaughter the Pacificans. Only time would tell. Time which was spent sprinting as hard and fast as his genewrought strength could muster.

[hr]
“Sir, the Astartes are redeploying the bulk of their forces to stymie the Pacifican breakout,” one of Vicente’s adjutants - a young man at the time of the surrender, now aged by long years of exile - reported, zooming the holomap in on the relevant ident runes.

“This is it then,” the Colonel - the [i]Captain-General[/i] - muttered, with renewed determination. “All garrisons not in contact with the enemy are to redeploy to the nearest active point along the line,” he ordered, tracing lines on the map. “They have no further reserves, but we’re losing the bulk of our hammer.”

He frowned for a moment, looking at the flickering unit identifiers along the line of contact. “We’ll simply have to firm up the anvil,” he announced, his hands falling still. “Inform the commander of Watch-Post Resh that I shall be reinforcing them presently. The time has come for the Varaguan Guard to show its quality.”

Upon the map, rapidly approaching Resh where the fighting was fiercest, was the first of the swift transports bearing the Bronze Scorpions.

[hr]
Watch-Post Resh was in chaos by the time Vicente had arrived, the Captain-General having opted to take his entire command staff into the heat of battle. They would be useless in their bunker now, their hololiths mere impotent symbols of the point of decision, but in person they may just stiffen the spines of the defenders for long enough for the Astartes to relieve them.

Old men stood to attention and saluted with their lasrifles held at parade precision as their commander passed them by, tired faces took on a firm resolve, and hearts that had sunk years ago into the pits of ennui found themselves stirring at the sight of the standard bearer parading the colors in their midst.

Vicente pretended as if he paid them no heed, while keeping within him a sigh of relief that this gambit had worked at all, as he approached the Watch-Post’s commander. “Time to arrival?”

“Too long, sir,” the old man replied, after sketching a hazy salute as he bent over his own, smaller, holotank. “Our center is buckling, even with the Astartes vanguard tearing up their rear. They’re not going to win this, and they know that, but if they break through here they’ll be making misery for years behind the Lines.”

What was left unsaid between Vicente and his lieutenant was the Emperor’s displeasure at such a failure.

“I will take to the line. Remain here to coordinate with the Astartes upon their arrival.”

“Sire.”

[hr]
Once upon a time, they had been known as a warlord that exerted some control over the Xeric tribes to the west of the Pan-Pacific Empire. In their reign, they raided from the Rindian Plains to the Papuan Deserts and into the Asiatic Dustfields of old. They had made a name for themselves but never dared to venture into the Pacifican Tyrant’s territory. They had been mocked for their cowardice by craven and cur. It was defiance that they would not allow. They defiled the sanctity of Cebu City, which overlooked the last oceans of Terra and the Marian Canyon. They had chosen poorly.

When the Tyrant intercepted them on their voyage back to Angkor, he had come with the fury keenly attached to his moniker as the Jade Master of Hongol. Their champions and dredges were defeated, mauled, and fed to the biomechanical monstrosities of Dume; however, he relented and pitied them. To the Mastermind of the Panpacific, they had been a wonderful experiment and tempting morsel for him to play with. So it was that they lost their identity, defiled by the likes of the Tyrant for little less than mild interest. They became a puppet in name and a brutal general in act.

They were the Scourge of the Xeric and they had come to break the False Emperor’s Lines. Behind them were the remnants of their mighty warband drawn from the labs of the Tyrant and strictly disciplined by their masterful mind. Their warriors were brutes not unlike themselves, genewarriors of another breed compared to the dogs of the Himalazians. The slave-warrior dregs followed after their party, hauling supplies with their gruesome external augmentations. They were things that could not fight nearly as well as the Scourge, but they were needed nonetheless.

The winds of the Himalazians beat upon their sculpted flesh, tempting it to bristle like armored plates freshly fabricated and unprotected. It did not bother them. They could not be harmed by such mortal means. It was the same for their brethren-in-arms. Assuredly not beneath their powered carapace, forged by the lightning of the Tyrant’s Enclave. To even think that their beloved armor could be compared to the likes of the Terrawatt was unthinkable, yet their opposition existed and thrived. They would not allow this. The fall of the Himalazian King has come.

Their access into Indoi was blocked. They knew well that the Lines stretched for long distances and such was their duty to break it apart. They had anticipated as such. By the Tyrant’s will, they would achieve greatness or they would perish in the snows of the Himalazians. The bunkers appeared sooner than they expected in their great sprint. They would waste no time attempting to demolish such a structure, but they were not dull of mind. The Scourge remembered much of its time as the Warlord of the Xerics. It was something that they revealed now as their brethren split into two parties and began to attack Watch-Post Resh.

[hr]
The brave sentinels of Watch-Post Resh, upon receiving word of the incoming detachment of Panpacific soldiers, had rapidly begun to prepare for an assault. Their defenses were as adequate as the next with autocannons and heavy stubbers ready to fire from raised platforms and walled corridors. Torn sandbags and rotting crates made for acceptable supports in most scenarios for them, yet their opponent was unlike those that fought at Aleph, Beta or Gimmel. The defenders of the Line were stricken in horror as something prowled out of the Himalazian snow.

It was a thing that dared to move beyond transhuman. Their form gave the impression of gigantism that paled that of the Astartes with more acute features and elongated limbs. They sprinted on legs that appeared both impossibly large and suspiciously thin. These Panpacific grotesques moved in a way that promoted heightened intelligence as they spread evenly with their myriad weaponry hefted. The horrifically augmented dredges that followed after them were barely comparable to the monstrosities these beings were. They were human, perhaps once, but now they were something both more degenerated and more evolved. It was almost too much to possibly perceive as the first of their unique weapons fired and tore through the plascrete fortification. 

The standard that flew behind them would’ve roused their spirits against the monstrosities born of the Panpacific Tyrant’s mind - were it not for the other half of the monstrosities sprinting at them. Some decidedly chose to sprint at the Imperials on all fours, eschewing tactical thought in favor of inspiring fear. Others galloped on all three with one limb used to hold their enormous close combat weapons. A final pair simply sprinted like humans towards the Watch-Post, reflexively raising their armaments to defend against the slaughter should it come to them.

In that moment, everything erupted into chaos as all manner of discipline split drastically between fight or flight. A few, younger than the veteran old by far, tried to flee. The majority unloaded whatever munition they had been in their hands in stark fear of the things that chased after them. Balls of plasma, highly-concentrated las, heavy duty shells, and more barked back at them from beyond the fortification. Men began to die faster than they could fire, engulfed in roiling plasma or shredded by precisely aimed heavy las. 

This was the chaos that greeted Vicente when he strode upon the field of battle, his men firing desperately into the charging horde while the proto-Astartes at last found the death they had craved by flinging their own bodies forward to stem the tide. Gene-warrior tore apart gene-warrior with an animalistic frenzy, while the Varanguan Guard once again stood against the madness that had taken the heart of man in these darkest of days.

And this time they would [i]stay[/i] standing.

“Viva Pan!” the Captain-General cried as at least drew his arms, his laspistol and power sword more works of art than functional weapons. Each was old, older his father told him than Old Night itself, and the brilliant beam of red light that shot from the barrel of the former seemed to prove that true. “Viva Pan! Viva el Emperador!” he cried again, his blade flickering to life as his command squad surged around him - the banner of the Guard flying in defiance of a foe once again.

[i]Save them, Astartes,[/i] Vicente thought to himself as he rallied the spirits of those doomed men manning the forward bastions of the Watch-Post. His death he had long ago accepted, yearned for even as an escape from his prison, but those of his men… He could swallow his pride for them.

The proto-Astartes stood no chance against the grisly monstrosities of the Hongol. The first of the wasting warriors was torn apart in a feral, animalistic display. Rows upon rows of adamantine-lined teeth pierced into the Imperial’s carapace with disgusting ease. For what the man was worth, he hammered the Pacifican with such ferocity that every strike further dented his killer’s helmet. The punches would’ve killed a mortal. These were no simple creatures of the Pan-Pacific Empire. In a fit of fury, the proto-Astartes was ripped in half with claw and tooth. The next Imperial genewarrior followed shortly after in bestial slaughter.

The valiant sacrifice of the proto-Astartes managed to prolong Watch-Post Resh’s inevitable massacre by several seconds. Those Pacifican abominations at the forefront slammed into the fortification with the force of a demi-god. Chunks of the structure exploded inward, scattering debris into the Guard’s futile formation. The more able-minded of the pack squeezed in through holes in the defenses, while the increasingly insane of their name continued to savage the wall. Mortals, stricken by fear, switched to bayonets, chainswords, and combat knives as the genewarriors wormed in.

With their objective completed, the Pacificans in the backline started to load up their heavy armaments onto their accompanying dredges. Satisfied with the chaos they created, the genewarriors slowly lumbered forward to rendezvous with their bestial kin. Their arrogance would be their undoing. Only one had the insight to act as rearguard against would-be intruders on the battlefield; however, even they were caught off-guard by how quick and silent the Imperium’s greatest warriors could be.

The head of the abomination exploded in a shower of gore, cascading chunks of metalbound meat in a wide radius around its descending corpse. The rest of the genewarrior’s packmates turned in time to see five sprinting knights in ceramite plating. Bronze-black giants smashed into their backline with cold ferocity. Hefty bolters mercilessly blew large holes in armored limbs, crippling the long-limbed Pacificans long enough for the Imperials to close in. Blade and talon met biomechanical flesh, spraying dark vitae across the snow. The stench of depleted ozone overwrote the iron reek of engineered blood as power weapons tore into monstrous hide. Three of the warriors remained behind to finish the slaughter, while two more rushed to reinforce Watch-Post Rest.

The remaining two bounded into combat, their warplate propelling them into a deadlong sprint. One wielded an enormous, lightning-wreathed hammer in their left hand and a plasma pistol in the right. The other ran with a pair of powered talons, lowered to the ground in a hunting stance. Those monstrosities that savagely attacked the fortification without thought greedily turned to greet the interlopers. Their excitement was quelled as the first of their number disappeared in a ball of overcharged plasma. The genewarrior screamed in agony as their insides were torched in azure flame.

Both sides collided into a melee of meteoric carnage. The bronze-black warrior with the lightning-wreathed claws deftly dodged the hulking, two-handed blade of the Pacificans. Their form was a flitting phantom in the snow, instantaneously feigning and cutting into the larger genewarriors like a striking scorpion. The other was wrath incarnate, hipfiring their plasma pistol into exposed joints only to follow up with supersonic swings of their hammer. The biomechanical genewarriors died as quickly as they engaged, each murdered with unfathomable skill. The last was pierced by rending talons to the chest and promptly decapitated for good measure. Their mindless assault ended no sooner than it had begun, yet more of the Pacificans remained in the fortification.

The mortals closest to the Watch-Post Resh’s walls had died seconds ago, shredded into chunky viscera. Five of the abominable genewarriors massacred through the crowd that vainly attempted to kill them with sword and bayonet. Powered greatcleavers tore through their ill-fitted carapace. Biomechanically enhanced muscles and power armor servos further pushed the heights of their carnage. Bodies were flung across the defenses like marionettes torn from their strings. These monsters slaughtered with their jaws unfurled, chewing into meat when possible or cackling loudly in sadistic delight. 

“Suffer not the abomination,” a vox-enhanced voice boomed against the shattered rockrete. Time seemed to slow as the biomechanical genewarriors regarded the voice’s owner. A pair of bronze-black giants pulled themselves through the holes in the wall. Their ceramite armor dripped with tainted gore and their weapons humming with power. Crimson lenses shone brightly in the dim of Resh’s frosty interior, glaring down at warriors wholly more insignificant to them. The one with the two-handed hammer hefted their weapon into their chainbound gauntlet. A snarl, uncharacteristic of their nature, bubbled up from their gullet.

“To live.”

They leapt into combat faster than the Pacifican genewarriors could react. The first of their five suffered the brunt of the bronze-black knight’s wrath. Their thunderhammer crashed into the abomination’s skull from above, vaporizing bone, flesh, and metal in a single blow. As the corpse began to drop, the Imperial whipped their sidearm up with mindnumbing speed. An eye-watering ball of plasma crossed the distance between themself and the next abomination, sinking its chest in with azure flame. The two sides collided by the time the interloper was running toward the third beast.

Genewarriors slammed into each other once again in a macabre dance of unimaginable brutality. The bronze-black giant with lightning claws entered the combat next to their comrade, their tabard wildly flicking with each stride. A harsh, bark-like laughter burst out of their helmet as they caught a genewarrior’s greatcleaver in their talons. Their follow-up attack saw the Pacifican’s chest fully disemboweled, steaming innards spilling onto the Watch-Post’s stony floor. They were too engrossed in slaughter to aptly evade the next assault, which crunched their helmeted head in biomechanical jaws. The taloned warrior crashed to the floor as vitae ejected out of their torn neck.

A bronze-black warrior and the last two Pacificans began to fight with mortals scurrying around them. The abomination that had torn the head from their companion spit out their helmet on the floor. If it was meant to elicit emotion, then the knight gave none as he launched forehead into a headlong charge. The pair anticipated an attack, but they were taken aback when the mortal guard latched onto them. Bayonets, combat knives, swords, and more bit deep into their flesh with wild desperation. Their vain assault bought precious reaction time for the giant, who slammed his thunderhammer into one of the genewarriors. The shockwave of the weapon obliterated the genewarrior’s shoulder and sent them tumbling further into the Watch-Post. Those mortals that had held the creature in place were knocked prone or outright pulverized by the blast. 

A final Pacifican remained - yet it wasn’t nearly as keen to die to mortal instruments. The genewarrior slammed their greatcleaver into the ground, scattering the guardians that dared to attack it. Debris and snow momentarily rained in the Watch-Post as the abomination backpedaled, ichor dripping from fresh cuts along their body. The bronze-black giant refused to allow their escape, recklessly charging into the midst with their plasma pistol raised. Their weapon was knocked out of their gauntlet as the creature stepped back into them. A kick to the chestplate saw the knight pushed backwards several inches. It wouldn’t be enough.

“There is no escaping His wrath,” the black-bronze giant coldly stated. Their gauntlet, now devoid of their sidearm, instantaneously locked onto the Pacifican’s leg. A grunt of effort resounded off the Watch-Post tile as the knight used their herculean strength to slam the abomination overhead. The creature’s body impacted the tile, knocking the wind from their lungs and the greatcleaver from their claws. An obsidian greave was lifted and rammed down on the genewarrior’s spine to pin it. They screamed out in animalistic fury as their leg was then torn from their body.

Righteous brutality became the norm for several seconds as the bronze-black warrior tormented their prey. The legless abomination viciously attempted to squirm out from under the ceramite-clad juggernaut, yet they did not relent. Their thunderhammer was brought into a two-handed grip with it’s head swinging by their knees. The mortals watched as the knight lifted the weapon and slammed down with retributive finality. Bioengineered vitae ejected up their armor, coating their umbral tabard in a shade of dark crimson. With the enemy defeated, the giant lumbered forward to the mortals and quietly scanned them.

“Watch-Post Resh has been liberated,” the knight stated flatly. Their blood-drenched form made for a terrifying sight among the mortals. The sound of armor servos, crackling power weapons, and howling Himalazian winds filled the silence where ragged, human breathing did not. 

The Colonel stumbled forwards through the charnel house as the last of the Pacificans fell, his uniform a mess of viscera and gore, laspistol gripped tightly. His power sword was lost, along with his pristine augmetic hand, the stump still sparking where the false-flesh gave way to bare circuitry. “Wrong, Astarte,” he coughed out, before carefully holstering his sidearm.

“Watch-Post Resh stands relieved,” Vicente said weakly as he pounded his fist to his heart in the warrior’s salute. “The Varanguan Guard requests permission to retire from the field.”

Captain Alim stared down at the Colonel for several, silent seconds. Flakes of ash and snow stuck to the bronze-black knight’s armor in the quiet. Unbeknownst to Vincente, the Astartes was watching the auspex in real-time as the Pacifican attack folded. A relentless tide of Scorpions had swept through the exposed flanks of the assault, eliminating everything in their warpath. Only small, insignificant packs remained to be thoroughly annihilated.

“Request approved, Colonel Vincente,” the monotone giant acquiesced. A blink-order confirmed the rerouting of a Stormbird, fresh from the Pacifican hunt. He returned the salute and continued to speak, “a transport is enroute for you and your men. My brethren and I shall continue the hunt, though the Pacifican menace has been drastically diminished.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Vincente said as he lowered the salute, keeping the surprise from his face. Behind him what remained of his staff reacted swiftly to the change of circumstances, medevac and triage plans being updated by seasoned professionals who did not have time to be shocked by this good fortune. “I will not forget this kindness, Astartes. If you would excuse me however, I must-”

“Come with me.”

A figure emerged from the shadows as the voice rang out, the auramite clad form of a Custode simply appearing from a space that had previously seemed empty. “The Emperor’s judgement awaits.”

The Bronze Scorpion blinked in muted surprise beneath his helmet. His optic servos whirred and clicked as he tried to process the sudden appearance of the Custode. The telltale sign of unrestrained curiosity filtered through his mind - yet it was tamed by the remnants of psychoindoctrination. He wondered if the Thirteenth could emulate such brilliant stealth. The thought was discarded in the same second. His attention returned to Colonel Vincente.

“Go. I will watch over your men,” Captain Alim announced. He moved forward before the man replied to him, temporarily assuming his command by presence alone. The Bronze Scorpions followed behind, assisting the mortals where they were needed and guided them where they were not. The boom of engines could be heard in the distance, approaching their position with every drawing second.

[hr]
The troop bay of the grav carrier was empty save for the two of them, the Custode’s expression hidden behind her helm as she spoke. “That was foolish of you, at the end. But brave,” she said, emotionlessly. “The Emperor typically shows mercy to such individuals.”

[i]Because they’ll just get themselves killed,[/i] Vicente thought to himself, keeping his expression still. “And my men?”

“Fools require minders,” she replied. “They bound their fates to you long ago regardless. The Master knows well the hearts of the proud.”

He released a breath he didn’t know he had held at the news. His losses had been catastrophic, every proto-Astarte had fallen in the last melee at Resh, and of his own men, those who had followed him so far from the walls of Pan had been decimated. But they would live. He had earned that much at least for them.

“Now come, banish those thoughts from your mind. You have earned yourself another name, my brave warrior.”

[hr]
[@MarshalSolgriev] [@FrostedCaramel]