The Fourth Lord shifted in his throne the stone showing through his translucent gelatinous skin as his many eyes looked over his human servants. "Greedy, Greedy, Greedy. They ask for dues they pilfer our worlds and steal our slaves, but what do we get for this tax? Nothing, trade ships flow as they have before, these Orks attacked us with no response from the imperium." His voice is wet and garbled as if several rocks were talking in a deep pond full of slime. The other four individuals around the room murmured in their own exotic tones and intonations.
"The Imperium has been dealing with many Ork incursions. Fourth Lord the League can't renege on an agreement so willingly, even if the imperium does not smite us it will poison our trade agreements and future contracts." The other jellylike figure gurgled, squelching in emotion at the other Lord.
"Fifth lord you feel that they will aid us that their Legions that scour worlds clean of life would be a shield?" The Second Lord spoke with none of the accusations of the fourth but her wet squirming voice carried a mix of mirth and curiosity.
"Ye, we pay their dues, we uphold the contracts, failure from the imperium may hurt the League but we can endure and it would be a greater blow to this Emperor's credibility. What use is the larders being filled if any horde can ravage them?" The Fifth pointed out squirming in its own throne as the other lords of the League of Cull'k considered the position. The first lord held out a limb grabbing a squirming creature from the hand of a human slave before consuming it at hand.
"The Imperium is large and we strain their edicts as it stands, which makes you feel that they will not make claims of our unwillingness to accept aid or other trifling actions that would make us the blame." They murmured in agreement between each other, then began to work on contingencies and plans, scheming and piloting as politicians are ought to do.
Nalcoa shifts the vast forces of the world starting with a lurching belching flame. Another forge city began increased production, the Fabricator General of the forgeworld watches as the magi across the world report the new outputs and measure them against the quotas needed to maintain the war effort. Below the great smoking chimneys and churning forges of the forge city tunnels transported heavy trains loaded down with billions of tons of raw ore coming in from the space port. The Fabricator General of the forgeworld frowned as the reports are at the head of his cerebral readout. With a flick his dataslate a display the same.
"Route this data to the Twin Legion fortress." The Magi attending him raised an eyebrow.
"Would that be the IVth or Xth." The Fabricator General pulled the Magi up.
"There is no Tenth Legion on this world. I don't accept incompetences in my subordinates, consider your thoughts or you may do better as a Servitor." The Magi sent a burst of affirmative lingua techna, the Fabricator General nodded. "See if the Titan's spirit can be roused and prepare the fortification's machine spirits for the incoming storm. We must be able to withstand, we must be able to produce.
"Mister President, what does the United Republics have to say about the failure of the Imperium to respond in a decisive way to the growing Ork threat." The man in a tight suit waved to the crowd and smiled vacantly. He looked to the teleprompter on his right slowly scrolling with text.
"The Imperium has long been an ally to the UR, and PEDI the recent attack on the edge of the system was unexpected, but imperial astropaths have relayed that they are dispatching support and that they expect we can hold. They will not be disappointed, PEDI held off the Orks with chemical rockets and magnetic lances the new gifts of the imperial monitors shall allow us to hold the line. We stand strong, we stand proud. Eternal and Vigilant." He was speaking louder not shouting but letting patriotic fervour sweep is voice and a tense strong energy raise his tone the quiet mumbling of the reporter died and he smiled at them all his uniform of office glinting with small metals. A scattering of responding Eternal and Vigilant echoed through the hall as he introduced the Second Navel Grand Admiral to the stage and stepped off. His energy evaporated and he looked all of his 90 years of life, the lights of the backstage not designed to hide the paleness of his skin or how loose the old uniform hung on him. He had been starting imperial life extension operations but he started late and he was already old. He smiled at the beautiful young woman who approached him. "Sarah, the First Admiral has reported then? Do we still hold the outer system?"
"No, the the system defense fleet was broken over Tabcot, the Orks haven't pushed in deeper but the Admiral says it's only a matter of time. He recommends beginning mass evacuations using the fleet to load up the population and fleet towards the imperial core." The old man's face lit up with fury and he turned on Sarah, eyes burning with rage.
"Tell that sea hag that we will not abandon our home, we stand. The UR is strong. We withstood the old night. We can take whatever these Orks can bring to bear." He marches off making vox calls to see how much of the UR and PEDI could be mobilized.
The Ork died and the soldiers had no time to celebrate, their stubbers were running low and the world was burning around them. The slave soldiers deployed alongside the volunteers were doing the best they could to hold out. The position so untenable that thier Cull'k minor lord had pulled himself from the wreck of his command crawler and using a pair of heavy stubbers and a scrap of armor as a shield his gentalous form had led a counter charge breaking some of the Orks but the lance hand found itself now closed. The large eye of their minor lord whelled with fear as more of his slaves and soldiers fell. Then a resigned determination set in and when the stubbers ran dry he shifted forward using the great weapons as clubs leading his forces in a final charge.
One of many battles over the Leagues' dominions that played out as the others did. Forces that were not crushed by the first wave were washed away by a tide of green. Each world lost millions died.
Talar looked over the positions of the Orks the skitarii maniples and their many pieces of armor. "Gargants? How many?" He requested the Iron Shield next to him read through the dataslate as serfs processed the vast flux of information from across the forgeworld. With a sigh Talar marked the Gargants on the battle map. "If we pull from forge city Echo 7 Delta then we can use it's skitarii complement to reinforce the nearby forge cities, primarily Gamma 2 Charlie. If we can hold off longer the Titan stationed there can be awakened. We would need to move the shield to the city from the monastery to assure that as many of the menials and skitarii can be evacuated."
"We would lose the monastery. It is the most defensible position on the planet but even it can't be defended unmanned." Talar nodded, then looked over the fields of battle the Orks had come down hard. A single world should have fallen but this was a world protected by the Twin Legions. The Iron Wanderers had prepared a thousand defenses to abandon the headquarters would save the day but doom the war.
"The Aspirants?" Talar nodded as the idea unfolded in his mind and he started to shift a thousand battle orders. "We arm the Serfs and the Aspirants, between them and the Shipborn Dyad we have on hand we will hold the monastery and safely pull out of Echo 7 Delta." He had run the calculations. It would be a bloody war regardless of what he did, but the shifting battles would put the Legionaries in the way of the worse. The Hammer was already out striking into the Rok that had crashed into the world as the herald of the war for Nalcoa.
"In other news Disho has fallen to the Ork fleets the System defense fleet pulled out of the battle quickly and many say that they are abandoning millions to their death, the UR navel command has refused to give a statement on why the 5th planet was abandoned or what will happen now that the Orks next target will be the homeworld." The soldier listened to the newscast as he slowly checked the magazine for his stubber.
"Damn civilians don't understand that Disho hasn't fallen just because the orbit was lost." The soldier next to the reloading one joked and elbowed the first. The tight air sealed bunker one of hundreds across the world holding onto the nuclear IPBMs that had been the original defense lines waited for the Orks to clear from the otherwise abandoned world the hundreds of hidden bunker complexes not daring to do anything to attract attention as they waited to have an opening to hit the enemy fleet as they moved on.
"Top secret defense tends not to be on the top of the reporters headlines I guess." The first soldier smiled back with his own joke and the tense waiting continued. It was unlikely that the bunkers would be unnoticed after launch and it was likely Orks would still be on the surface the moment the buttons were pressed they would be consigned to death. However the other option was assigning that death to the Motherworld.
"The fleet is moving on, we are in situation red." The intercom blared and the soldier snapped his mag back into his gun looking up at the other soldiers abandoning games of cards and dice to move to their stations.
"Today's a good day to die."
The Sector Manager was not having a good day, the Imperial man wasn't old he hadn't lived through the unification he had been deployed after the sector had been brought into compliance. He had been expecting decades of putting his training as an imperial beuracract to work as he integrated the subject nations into the growing mechanism of the Imperium. Now he was dealing with the largest counter offensive in the great crusade, his subjects crying out for aid as he prepared his small defense fleet and imperial Army detachments to go support the many weakened worlds already he was seeing the IVth legion preparing a Hammer force to break through the Ork forces on one of the major locations where they are pushing through while his defensive armies are able to support the other. He could call upon the Imperium for a legion to support but it would interfere with their own counter attacks. That and he had reports that the Xth and XVth where trapped deep in the Orks territories.
[]He left the Leagues unsupported.
While the Xenos where a constant thorn in his side he doubt that they would go quietly in the Imperium.
[]He left Nalco unsupported.
The planet was heavily defended and receiving some of the worse of the Orks. Making it the hardest to support, however if it falls the subsector would be low of vital supplies for years.
[]He left the Republic unsupported.
One of the most populous systems the Republic ultimately ment little in the upcoming war and the Imperium would have to accept the loss.
[]He called for legion support.
He calls for a legion to support the subsector depriving the imperium from their strength in any direct assualt.
-[]Number
