Solar Auxilia Officer Quest. A 30k Early Great Crusade quest.

"Show these hill-tribes true valour!" You yell out as you leap into the ongoing trench-fighting, taking the enemy in the flank as they drive back the Upland Tercio troopers. The trench is a scrum of green and sand-colored carapace armour as the Scott Upland are driven back by the Nord-Am First Lancers.

The First Lancers have some tough as nails infantry, and so far their night raids have been the most dangerous opponents that your regiment has faced in the wargames. The First Lancers are all clad in thick suits of supported Carapace, their helmets covered with advanced targeting and visual systems that glow green in the dark. You rush forward and slam your stun-prod into the head of the first to come within range of you. Your training pistol opens fire, barely scoring the paintwork of a First Lancer and making his armour lock up.

With dulled bayonet blades, your command Squad rushes up behind you, stabbing out with their rifles and hacking into them. Clad as you are in sturdy carapace armour, the fighting within the trench is brutal and with little held back. Stun prods, body-slamming, and brutal punching being thrown around willy-nilly as people fight until they are beaten into submission, give up, or are dragged out of the fight by the white-armoured observers of the Medicae.

Soon the last of the First Lancers has given up, dragged out of the trench by the Medicae or marched out of the wargame so that it can continue. The First Lancers leap from their transports under the suppressing fire of their tanks, troops in drab desert carapace, carrying an abundance of pouches and grenades as they head into battle.

The Scott surge back into their positions, most of them squaring up your troops and examining them as you share the same firing steps. They seem unimpressed by you, speaking with each other in a thick language that could be Gothic, although you're not sure. Their commander, a heavyset man with armour modified to take account of his bulk, yells something. Your heads up display marks him as 'Lieutenant Hargrim'. He yells at the top of his lungs, helmet augmenting the voice.

"Upland Tercios! Ho! Show these hive boys and girls how real Terrans fight!"

"Soldiers of the republic, show these Hill-dwellers how to fight!" You yell out.

"Hive rat!"

"Mud-dweller!"

Hargrim laughs uproariously ans shouts his war cry again. "Upland Tercios, Ho!" His soldiers repeat the cry and ascend the firing steps, pouring fire into the oncoming foe. Taking out the next wave of enemy attackers and blunting their assaults.

In the distance, First Lancers grav-tanks are unleashing their firepower upon the bunkers that your men are holding. Each of the vehicles hovers ominously on twin catamaran grav-emitters, sweeping their primary cannon from side to side at blurring speed and taking dozens of soldiers out of the fight by shooting directly through the firing ports.

The Superheavy Strongarm tanks trundle forward, the relic-tanks making even the Baneblades on your side look small. Each of the vehicles is twice the size of a Baneblade, requiring anti-gravity systems just to be mobile enough to be useful. Each of the vehicles is fit with a triple-barreled turret capable of 'destroying' a tank or bunker with each shot, four sponsons, and numerous multilaser turrets.

You curse. This will be the third time that the First Lancers beat your regiment in a war game. Vox-Trooper Cartier huddles down next to you, her vox transmitter sparking. One of the First Lancers took a shock prod to the thing and she is attempting to fix it.

"Gods of Old Earth" She yells, looking up at something leaping over the trench. It is one of the most beautiful things that you have ever seen.
Massive bay and black pelts, ornate luscious hair braids, their bodies merged with elegant gold cybernetics engraved with ornate astrological signs and calligraphy. Leading them are officers astride gleaming white stallions armoured in silver cybernetics. Their manes flow through the air. Each of the horses is massive, as much cybernetic as they are genetically augmented horseflesh.

The riders are no less intimidating, black armour adorned with gold and silver calligraphy with strategically placed mirrors that make their formations gleam so bright that to look at them is painful for unshielded eyes. Their armour sparks from the sandblasting by rocks and dust of the cloud they race through.

A great war cry almost like a chant is raised through vocal emitters, a noise of such pitch and intensity it sets the hair on the back of your neck on end. "Labbaik Ya Imperator!" The Golden Hegara spread out into smaller groups as the 'enemy' vehicles take aim at them. The ancient banners each squadron of riders carries with them erect energy fields that absorb incoming small arms fire and disrupt targeting systems. The large flutes carried by each squadron's musicians are raised to modified masks, each rider playing a tune that overloads a section of the electromagnetic spectrum, switching their music as the enemy attempts to adjust their targeting and communications.

You observe through your viewfinder as an officer of the Golden Hegara atop an energy-shielded white horse goes directly for the command vehicle at over a hundred kilometres per hour, dodging the manual fire of the superheavy's pintel and sponson mounts. The horse leaps into the air, cybernetic legs swivelling inwards as it lands upon the barrel of the main gun and runs down the length. The rider yells in joy as he pulls a device from his side and throws it down onto the tank. If the bomb had been armed, it would have destroyed the tank. The rider guides their mount, making it leap onto another tank across a forty metre gap with a grav-assisted leap, firing an ornate pistol with one hand just for the sheer thrill of it, as each shot bounces off armour.

The Golden Hegara are among the First Lancers within moments, racing between vehicles and marking them with their sticky charges, or firing low-powered blasts with their lances into the sides of vehicles. The holo-tank showing the extent of the Wargame has half the markers of the North-Am first lancers disabled by now.

You mount the trench and raise your weapon. "The enemy wavers. Elan!" Leading Primaris Tercio from the trenches and bunkers into an attack. The First Lancers, utterly disoriented by the Golden Hegara racing through their formations and taking out their tanks and transports, break upon seeing Franc soldiers with glinting bayonets charging towards them. Most throwing down their weapons to spare themselves a beating.

---

After the battle, as cleanup begins, "Glorious! Absolutely glorious!" Legate Marshal Mardon rushes forward, followed closely by his bodyguards. Your Sub-Tercio immediately stands at attention and salutes at the unexpected arrival. "Such beauty. Such elegance. I have not seen anything so beautiful in all my life! Give me the name of that rider, I will have him over for dinner this evening!"

The Golden Hegara are the most magnificent force you have ever seen in battle, and you get up from your position to celebrate their arrival. Such glory, such valor! You wish you had a horse. Something to keep in mind perhaps. Perhaps you can ask your parents for one?

You approach Lieutenant Hargrimm and offer him a respectful handshake. Both of you grabbing the other's forearm and holding on firmly. A warrior's introduction. "Next time, we'll take out more than you." Hargrimm says.

"I hope to see you try." You say with a smile.

The Lancers are glaring daggers at you as they begin leaving. They are outraged that the cream of Imperial armoured forces have been defeated by -horsemen-, hive scum, and hill savages.

But you don't care. That night, the Franc regiment breaks open its larders and produces a feast, both for their Scott rivals and the Golden Hegara. Oaths are sworn over wine and bread, promises to stay together no matter what happens.

Your heart soars at the sights. Men and women whose ancestors fought each other, now united under one great banner, fighting for the restoration of mankind. You look up into the sky, to where you know the Emperor's great warship is located. The stars are out there, and you want to grasp them.

The Cohort has made friends with other regiment, and found a rival in another. It has successfully undergone a serious retraining programme to add an ability to wage war in hot biomes and on the surface of desert, martian, and mercury type worlds. You yourself are to be put through the ringer to command a Tercio of the Auxilia. But the sight you saw today has inspired you like nothing before.

The Chemical Engineers are now universally equipped with vacuum-rated Malcador and Dracosan transports. You have named you Section's vehicle:

[] Write in a name for your section's Dracosan.

---

After months of training, the call goes out for the training fields. Terra's might is being mustered for the most important conflict. The whole of the Gyptus muster is being prepared to assist the final push into the Outer Solar System. Gloriana-Class warships are test-firing their drives, and the Imperator Somnium is preparing for its maiden voyage. The target is clear.

Nemesis awaits. The false moon Sedna.

The first vacuum-rated Malcador main battle tanks and Dracosan transports will be loaded onto landers and conveyed to the ships. You have been told naught but to bring Phosphex, ditch the nerve gas and rad weapons. The exact nature of the threat isn't told to you, which puts you on edge. It reminds you of the stories of the wars to root out the keeps of Psyker Kings. Wars where those who went to attack could not know what they'd face, lest they be damaged somehow by this knowledge.

But you are a soldier of the Imperium. Going to a threat you know little about, sent to fight and die? That is something you are used to. Maybe the Imperium doesn't know much either. Just that the threat needs to be dealt with.

The Verdyne Chemical Engineers alongside the rest of the Gyptus Muster are assigned to aid the following Legions in the assault upon Sedna:

[] The First Legion:
The uncrowned princes of the Adeptus Astartes will need troops to guard their landing zones. That will be your task. Honour and glory await.

[] The Third Legion:
Fellow sons of Europa, the Emperor's Children legion will be supporting your deployment onto Nemesis. There you'll be part of a larger Imperial Army force that is to put its new tank forces to good use. Their forces will integrate with you, and lead you to glory!

[] The Fifth Legion:
The Star Hunters are to deploy from orbit onto targets of opportunity. You are to remain in reserve to drop onto them and provide assistance for whatever breach into the enemy forces they manage to break open.

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Surprise!

12 Hour Moratorium.