Chapter 39
The Wolf , The Wall, The Warlord?
Tanya Russ
Meeting another sibling so quickly after Dorn was unexpected; usually there was at least a couple months in between meeting them. In theory this wouldn't be that different, but in practice a new co-worker being added to the group months into the project rarely worked without friction. I should know, I had to deal with the complaints. New hires always upset the dynamics for a short while as all sides got to familiarize with one another.
That being said, as the shuttle I was in transporting us to the second Primarch's Gloriana battleship, the
Quiet Thunder, I'll be sure to keep my eyes open to try and learn as much as possible about this legion and the people who serve under it. After all, the more info I could gather the better of an impression I could possibly forge with them, at least that's how I thought.
I'm sure Dorn was doing the same, I think he is as interested in these Legionnaires as I am. With each of us we brought a section of our crew: he brought four Marines of his legion while I brought three Marines and a member of my Valkyrie. To be more exact, Lord Wolfen, or Little Tanya as I noticed some of my Marines said behind her back. I couldn't exactly blame them for coming up with that nickname, she was nearly an exact duplicate of me, only shorter. Currently her face was hidden behind the valkyrie helmets that had been created by Miss Adelheid, with a wolf's head and attached pelt draped over her shoulders and head to act as a cloak and signify her status as my Adjutant.
She's been training with the rune priests and myself, and was officially part of their order, even if she wasn't an official member of the Space Marines. She does, however, make an ideal go-between for the more human Rune Order and the marines. As a result, she had a sort of non-official role in my command.
Besides her, I'd also brought along Logistic Commander Mackenzie Buckle. Unlike theother two regular Marines that were my honour guard sent by my First Great Company, Buckle was a so called 'Tanya' variant. These poor employees had inherited my logistical ability but also my appearance, leading to the unfortunate nickname. 'Tanya' would soon appear as often as 'wolf' in the reports.
Who Dorn brought was probably someone similar to me, officers that were important to the day-to-day operations of his legion, and two guards. I wasn't very familiar with his legion or who was inside it yet, I only knew what he had allowed me to see from the Fist's deployment on the planet of Rennimar.
And I will say it again, what I'd seen was a force capable of holding a fortified position well past the point of butchering the enemy trying to defeat them. Not to mention the man was built like an implacable wall. He took the reveal of a daughter of the Emperor pretty well. Granted, many of the legions so far had taken it in their own passive indifferent ways, besides Mortarion who seemed to have cared not at all, Dorne was really the first one to just shrug and go with it.
Meanwhile, Horus and Perturabo had all been shocked in one way or another, and Vulcan had been more than accepting, which was the opposite of uninterested but not quite the same as just accepting something as it is.
All in all I have had six interactions with six different Primarchs. Every single one had a slightly different reaction to the realization they had a sister. I wonder if I would get another unique reaction with this Primarch, as the shuttle finally came to a stop aboard the gloriana class battleship.
A Marine, whose name was Sueaki, welcomed us aboard. "Follow me to the Primarch's court." As the door was lowered everything looked as official as it should have been for this kind of situation. The main docking area reminded me of my own Gloriana, with Marines moving about gear, as well as hundreds of human personnel helping in their own way. I took a few steps out of the ship and looked around, noting quite a large amount of tanks to one side of the docking bay and enough transports to launch them all at once.
This was somewhat odd when it came to deploying vehicles, those were usually the second line of deployment because Marines could land easily enough and secure their landing site on their own. The only reason you would have that many tanks out is if you did things the other way around, tanks first or perhaps a combined mix of tanks and infantry. If this Primarch favored tanks that would make some sense, after all, every legion had something they were naturally good at.
Mine was good with closing distance and CQC, Dorn's were good at defense, Perturabo preferred siege and force recon, Horus in applying pressure and battlefield manipulation. And Mortarion seemed to favor a slow and creeping advance of infantry, And I think I'd actually seen less tanks with his forces.
So it made sense that this Primarch favored tanks just based on the amount of equipment I saw.
Of course, that wasn't the only thing I saw. Sure, big tanks kind of draw your eyes, but the little things can do the same if you're perceptive enough; especially when it leaves you a bit confused, stumped and wondering why there are so many people with cat ears and tails around.
About half of the humans appeared to have cat ears and tails, or at least what looked like cat ears and tails. Either way, that was still quite a lot of them. So, this seems like a stable mutation that had been allowed to take up service within the Imperium.
Still, it was unsettling to see neko-mimi people of all things walking around, as if it was an everyday thing. My eyebrows were well and truly raised.
"Hmm, there is something strange about this ground crew, but I can't seem to put my hands on it." Came Dorn's voice, causing me to look at him wondering if he was blind; though the smile on his lips told me that this was some form of joke.
Chuckling, Marine Sueaki of the Second Legion said, "When we first met up with our Primarch, we were a bit confused when we ran into them. The planet seemed to have been divided evenly between these felinids and the more normal humans. Mechanicus was going to throw a fit when they first saw them, but the Organicists discovered that they were a stable human strain. And since our Primarch is good friends with many of the leaders of the cat people, they have to let it slide.. Oddly enough, not so much with the local humans." The Marine said as he led the way.
"Why is that?" Dorne asked as we followed the Marine across the landing area towards a hallway that probably led towards the central elevator.
The Space Marine shrugged before saying, "He was raised by them, from what I understand. The planet was based heavily on a class system, with the extremely poor and beast folk being at the bottom, so when our primarch landed on the planet they were the ones who found him."
I nodded my head as I said, "First people who found him, first people who showed him kindness, and so a bond was formed right?"
The Marine nodded saying, "Exactly, he helped them conquer the wilderness that they lived in. And when the humans tried to undo his progress, he defeated them."
"That sounds like a story that I would like to hear." Dorn said, though I didn't care that much myself. I wouldn't mind listening, but Primarch's stories all pretty much seem to have the same beginning, middle and end. Land on a planet, join the people that showed you the first kindness, conquer the planet, meet the emperor. I'm sure that it worked out very similarly for the Second Legion's Primarch.
My wandering eyes found something strange as we continued down the hallways. Much like my own, this ship's bulkheads were decorated with wood carvings. They were still bulkheads in between the sections in case of an emergency, and this ship was similar enough in that regard.
What drew my eyes was that each bulkhead had been painted a strangely familiar red, going up the sides and across the top and having a very rounded exterior to the edges.
It reminded me of a Japanese temple entrance, which was odd. When I looked at the Second Legion emblem again I started to get a feeling that I might have more of an idea of the current situation than I wanted to admit.
But, I would withhold my estimation until I met the Primarch of the Second Legion, which reminded me.. Making a coughing sound, I asked, "What is the official name of the Second Legion? I've yet to see it in a report."
The Marine stopped as we came to a door and he pressed the button, obviously calling down an elevator before turning and saying, "Officially, we're going by the
Flying Castle. We always use a lot of armored warfare and drop ships to bring it in, so it kind of works for us. Our Primarch is considering renaming the legion but for the moment, he's more interested in getting the job done then worrying about the semantics around it.
I nodded my head to that, as I could quite get behind such ways of dealing with the world. Details sometimes didn't matter, what mattered was getting the job done; and if they wanted to get the job done, I didn't mind if he happened to name his legion after a Flying Castle. The name vaguely reminded me of Howl's Moving Castle… Probably unrelated. Probably.
Hopefully.
Shaking my head, I was about to say something when Dorn spoke up. "While Flying Castles is not a bad name, it doesn't really fly off the tip of the tongue very well. I will speak to him on this matter when I get the chance. I'm sure we can come up with something better."
I shrugged. If Dorn wanted to get this Primarch to think of a better name, that was his prerogative. Personally it didn't matter that much, though I guess Flying Castles doesn't exactly sound as impressive as the Wolves of Fenris and the Imperial Fists, but in my case I could say that I had named my group. After all they had been originally called the Route, and that wasn't exactly a stellar name. I dare say it was a terrible name compared to the Flying Castle.
The elevator arrived and we both stepped on along with our Marines. It was a large area, definitely meant for a Primarch to be allowed in, though I would note it wasn't exactly the most comfortable fit for Dorn, he did have to lower his head a bit.
I fit, thankfully, so it was no concern of mine; but I wondered if the Primarch had the same issues, or if he was around my range in size. It would only have to be about a foot shorter than Dorn to fit comfortably so they probably were a foot taller than me.
Before I could ask more question, a door was open ahead of us; revealing answers to many of my questions, while creating new ones in the process.
Before me was a throne room not too dissimilar to my own, except while mine was based on hardy Fenrizian viking stylizations of runes and visual representation of combat, the one before me appeared to be based on culture of Japan. There were many paper thin panels with beautiful artforms depicted in medieval Japanese style.
The style of clothing worn by the Marines, who were currently having what appeared to be a small but honored meeting, was very Japanese as well, reminding me very much of depictions of samurai Daimyo from the 15th century.They were even sitting to either side with low tables in front of them, enjoying drinks poured exactly like I would expect from a samurai drama.
All in all I think I figured out that yes, there was a Japan preserve, and the Primarch of the Second Legion had landed there.
Well, that was something I would have to file under my '
things I did not expect to come across, but had' category. Although looking at the head of the two tables at the throne room added more things I did not expect to find.
Laying there without a care in the world was obviously a Primarch, about 11 ft, and completely relaxed with his head vertical to the entrance so we could get a good look at his size.
He had the same skin tone as Khan. Though where he wore jackets and kept his hair up into a top knot, this man was barely wearing half a shirt and had a lot of wild untapped hair that was currently being brushed by probably the plushiest woman I'd ever seen, who was offering her lap as a pillow for the man's head. Oh, and if that was not insane enough on my scale of things I did not expect to see today, you could add to it the fact that said woman was in mico robe, and had at least one foxtail. There might be more, I couldn't tell from this angle and it could just be decorations on the back of the Miko robe, but there were definitely fox ears on that girl's head.
I was left rather stunned at the whole sight before me, but it can only get worse from here. That's what my mind was telling me as I watched Dorn walk forward first, heading towards the man lazily styling himself a Shogun.
"Brother, it's an honor to meet you." Dorn called, as he made his way forward at a steady pace. Said brother turned his head to look in our direction, not even moving from the lap he was relaxing on before smiling and finally starting to get up, pulling himself into a seated position.
"Brother, and sister, I've been expecting you." He said with a rather calm but commanding voice. "Well, come forward, Wolf Girl. You must be a Primach, otherwise you wouldn't be as tall as you are. Let's get down to business, Father sent me here to get you up to date on the current situation, and there's not much time to waste as the Dark Angels are fighting a delaying action."
'Wolf girl?' of all the things I've been called, I did not expect that from a Primarch. Have I ever been called that before? I don't think so.
Shaking my head, I approached my newly met brother, "I'm Tanya Russ, of the Wolves of Fenris. Wolf Girl is an unneeded title."
The master of the Second Legion cracked a smile at that, "Very well,
Tanya, good to meet you, and you must be Dorn of the Imperial Fists, of the planet Inwit."
"That would be correct." Dorn said as we came to the edges of the raised platform and he began looking around for a place to sit.
Being that I could see the way how the leaders of this legion were kneeling and had some understanding of ancient Japanese customs, I understood right away that we weren't actually going to get any chairs. So in a rather simple motion, I just sat down on the ground, legs crossed before me.
"Please take a seat, Dorn. I'm afraid the customs of my world aren't exactly in favor of being too far off the ground, too much chance that the chair will break." He said with a smile, obviously making a joke at the size and weights of the Marines surrounding him, and it seemed to amuse them. Without waiting for Dorn's response, he pressed the button in a large pillar that had risen from the floor near him, and a halo map of the Galaxy appeared.
"Ah, yes. I nearly forgot." The dark haired Primarch said with a smile before continuing, "I am Nobunaga, reincarnated demon king of Zipang."
"I'm sorry, reincarnation?" Dorn said as he raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Yes, reincarnation. We're all reincarnations of some great hero from the past, are we not? I believe so. At least our sister here is probably one from far off Scandinavia, based on the taste of her people I would assume; and you perhaps somewhere in Germany, based on your reports I've seen."
"Reincarnation is not real, it's never been real." Dorn said with such certainty that if I hadn't known that it was a thing I wouldn't question it. I wisely kept that to myself as I was still trying to figure out if I was dealing with the actual Nobunaga sitting in front of me, or if the Primarch was insane. Neither one was really a good option.
Nobunaga for his part simply shook his head at Dorn, before saying, "Brother, we exist in a universe with thousands of aliens fighting creatures and monsters beyond our understanding, and you don't think reincarnation is real.?"
"I understand the universe fine enough." Dorn said with a shake of his head, "It works on principles of biology and mechanics, and that's all I need to understand."
"Yes, and what about the warp?" Nobunaga said with a keen eye focused on Dorn.
"My understanding of the warp may be lacking, but I don't need to understand it. Ships travel through it, we fight occasional boarders from this dimension, and that is all that I need to know. Father and Malcador can handle everything else."
He wasn't wrong with that; I mean yes, you could stand to know more, but , it would only make the worrying worse. It might be preferable for most to not know much more about it.
I was going to keep my opinion shut on the matter, except Nobunaga noticed my silence, "And what about you, sister? What is your opinion on reincarnation? Do you feel some ancient spirit of the Scandinavian warrior inside of you?"
I stifled a laugh at that, before clearing my throat, "If reincarnation is real, there's no guarantee that our souls come from regions that reflect our original home. For all we know, if I was reincarnated, I might be from the ancestral home of the people of this Zipang, I think you called it." If memory serves, there was a long running alternate history manga about people from the modern age trying to stop World War II from being as bad as it was, perhaps creating some sort of peaceful version of Japan called Zipang. Even before my death, I wanted to catch up on that story.
Nobunaga looked me up and down before shaking his head saying, "I don't see it. I mean, I was that one time, but no, no. I don't think so."
"One time?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. I was trying to get some clarification. "How do you know you're a reincarnation?"
"Oh, it's quite simple. I have read the history books my people keep, and there was always this story of a warrior coming back to try and help his people. Sometimes he knew what was happening, sometimes he didn't, but his goal was always to unify his homeland. The similarities were close enough that it was obvious. Granted, I never was completely the same. In fact there was one time this warrior was a blonde girl like you, but they called her Nobunaga nonetheless."
My eyes slowly creeped open as I realized I knew what he was talking about. There was a damned anime that came out a year before my death about a female blonde Nobunaga. He wasn't reading histories, he was reading manga that had been misinterpreted as histories! The chances of him being the true Nobunaga had gone down, but if he had modeled his life off the interpretations of a manga, that would have made him a bit more dangerous.
A general weeb in control of an army, modeling himself off an ancient warlord, was probably not the greatest thing to have running around. Not to mention the original Nobunaga was always trying to become de facto Shogun and/or Emperor of Japan, depending on the interpretation. What happens when the Galaxy is united under the Imperium, but he's not the leader?
Concerns for later. For now I simply shook my head and said, "It may be that the idea of reincarnation is not as well studied as it should be. For now though, what's this about the Dark Angels?"
Nobunaga nodded his head, before waving his hand over the hologram. Apparently someone was off to the side running a panel and was just watching what we were doing as the hologram changed to show lines of contact between a blue and black force spanning most of the northern regions of the Galaxy.
"As the Primarch of the Dark Angels has suspected, the enemy is a more enlarged force of Rangdan, the same enemy his forces encountered in this region a decade ago."
"These aliens apparently have large stocks of mercenary orks and other species under their command, and are rampaging throughout our space; but they also have their own unique technologies and horrors they've unleashed as well. So far, the Dark Angels have done their best holding the line, but they have a breakthrough here, here and here." He indicated three areas within the north, one of them seemingly heading to Fenris. My concerns were immediately towards that particular hole in the line. I have to send a message back to Fenris so they get their forces ready in case anything pushes further south, or so my armies could move North to reinforce the line. Either way something had to be done about that.
"About a fourth of the legions have been called up for this conflict," Nobunaga continued. "We're to secure the Dark Angels line wherever we can. The Death Guard is already on the way, along with the White Scars and, of course, my legion. Your legions will be joining us as well, so that'll be six legions deployed along with the Emperor himself as reinforcement, with more incoming as well."
"That's a lot of manpower." Dorn said, stating the obvious. It caused me to raise an eyebrow at him again. He seems to have a personality quirk where the obvious needed to be stated. I wonder what other personality quirks he has that I don't have to deal with.
Nobunaga nodded his head in agreement, "Our latest reports indicate that the enemy has quite a substantial force at their disposal, enough that we'll probably be fighting them for the near future."
"Unfortunate." I said with a shake my head, "A prolonged war in the North is a waste of resources, considering that it is not the most well settled of regions."
The Primarch of the Second nodded in return before adding, "That may be true, but we can't leave a flank open like that, especially with the rumors going on that something uncanny is happening on the worlds that these creatures have taken over."
"Rumors?"
Nobunaga nodded his head. "Reports are a bit muddled at the moment, but the Dark Angels have reported that they've been fighting Imperial citizens that appear to have lost control of themselves."
"Mind control?" I asked.
"Possibly. How they're doing it is a bit unknown at the moment, but it's got a bit of unrest going on in the Imperial Army. They're worried that if they send more troops into the region, we'll just end up feeding more soldiers to them."
"I imagine the Mechanicum has a similar opinion on the matter," Dorn said with a nod. "They are just as human as the imperial army, and so they would be understandably weary of sending their own troops into the region, let alone possibly supplying the enemy with additional technological resources."
"Hmm, meaning that this will mostly consist of Marines as the main fighting force, until we can figure out how they're doing this." I said, leaning back in thought. "Without the manpower support of the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum, we're going to need to play the long game. Delaying them as long as possible while we try to gather as many samples of their equipment, tech, and personnel as possible to send back for study; and hope that we find out enough to create countermeasures."
"Exactly what Father said." The Primarch of the Second's nodded before adding, "Though he does believe that some of the Imperial Army could possibly be deployed to the second line fortifications that Dorn has been building here, so his men can be freed up to progress to the contested region."
Dorn nodded, saying, "More men in the forward lines means less likely they'll break through to the rear lines." Of course that's a risk. If they do manage to break through and spread whatever mind control they have to the forces behind us, we now have an enemy blocking our logistics line."
"It is a risk, but what if we put into place proper quarantine procedures between planets on this back line? Might be something we can pull off. No transferring units without confirming that they haven't been anywhere near the frontline." I said, rubbing my chin as I thought.
"So long as we are careful." The Second said with a smile,, "We should need to figure out how we're going to deploy our forces. The situation to the north is ever changing, though there is one key point right now." He pointed to an area in space bringing up what appeared to be a Forge World. "This is the Forge World of Xana, it is on the front line and our lynch pin that holds the entire defensive line together; and it's currently being defended by detachments of the White Scars and the 19th Legion as well as local Mechanicum forces. So long as this planet stands, we have a supply point for the entire front. From what I understand, the Primarch of the First, Second and Mortarian of the 14th Legion are going to be gathering their forces there to defend it, and subsequently break the current eighth month siege of the system."
"Eight months?" I said, raising an eyebrow. How come we're just hearing about this now if it's been going on for at least eight months?
"Technically the war's been going on longer." The Second said with a shake of his head. "The First believed they had control of the situation, and the Emperor believed them. Credit where credit is due though, when they realize they don't have control, they do sound the alarm eventually. Just, well, it took them a while to realize that they needed the help."
Oh that wasn't good. A stubborn brother was probably a prideful brother. It was likely he hadn't called for help because he thought all the glory should belong to him. Gloryhogs are always a problem. I'll have to keep an eye on them when we finally meet.
Pushing those thoughts aside for now, I said, "If the enemy is currently focusing on that planet, we should probably focus our reinforcements there as well; unless there is something we need to know beforehand?"
The Second said, "There might." Before moving the map over a bit, showing a star system to the west of the Forge World and North of Fenris. I already had a bad feeling about this.
"It appears that a small enemy formation is gathering here. No doubt they're attempting to punch southwards and cause as much chaos as possible while disrupting our existing supply lines. We need to deploy a legion there, however we also need to deploy it here." He indicated another position. "And here," And then another, "Those areas are defensively weak at the moment, and our recon indicates an imminent Rangdan assault."
"Three holes to fill, three legions at your service. I could have a large detachment of the Imperial Fist moved to that position right away." Dorn indicated the closest one that was just north of the current lines he had been holding.
The Second nodded, before pointing to the other position that had no interest to me, "This place is close to my homeworld of Zipang, so I have a personal interest in moving my forces there as quickly as possible. As soon as this meeting is done, I will meet this enemy before they can come for us."
"Which leaves the hole right above Fenris." I said with a nod.
Dorn looked at the map and said, "Not really right above. That's a good several light years travel between Fenris and the hole by my estimation."
I sighed. He was right, but he was also kind of wrong. Yes, there was a good distance between Fenris and that hole, but it was a direct shot with nothing currently there to stop them.
Shaking my head, I said, "I have to leave most of the legion I have behind me to clean up the rest of that waaagh, thankfully I have some reserves units on Fenris. I could call them up and have them reinforce me there quickly."
"…
Reserve units?" Dorn asked, sounding confused.
I looked at him and shrugged before saying, "It takes time to train a legionnaire, so I would give the newly trained legions some easy blooding and practice with local problems before deploying them with veteran units. Not to say all the units with the reserve legions mainly consist of rookies, there's still those that served exceptionally well from the Wheel of Fire campaign."
"Hmm. When my forces are ready, I just deploy them directly into the line, I'll have to keep that in mind for the future." Dorn said thoughtfully, while the Primarch of the Second shrugged.
"No better experience than fighting in the front lines as far as I'm concerned." He said with quite a lot of surety in his assumptions. I let that pass. The front lines can teach you some bad habits if you let it, especially if you were being taught by people who didn't understand what the conflict they were going into would be like. Memories of my last life and how certain officers had done things strictly by the book instead of adapting their understanding proved that to me.
Shaking my head, I focused on the now and ask, "Are there any other legions on their way that we are currently aware of?"
The Primarch of the Second shrugged before saying, "I've heard scattered reports that there might be two more on the way, the 11th and the 4th."
"Perturabo." I said with a nod. "Well, he's good for defensive and siege warfare. I'm assuming we will probably run into a bit of that as we move deeper into the Rangdan Space."
"Hmm, I rather not have the corpse grinders guarding my flank." Dorn said, sounding rather disapproving of the Iron Warriors Primarch..
"Not a fan of his siege warfare?" The Second asked with a smile.
This seemed to have had some sort of effect on Dorn as he looked up at him and said, "Are you?"
"Not really. I do acknowledge that his jobs do get done, but I think he could have limited his losses properly if he didn't abuse the Imperial Army as he did."
Oh boy, inter-legion politics. Not a fan of that, personally. I had no problem with Perturabo, but if he was having some sort of issue with causing unnecessary deaths amongst the Imperial Army, I should probably have some conversation with him to see if I couldn't get him to better direct his efforts more efficiently.
Outwardly though, I said "This may be true, but Perturabo himself is quite a talented architect and artist. He would, understandably, be a bit upset and overworked even for a Primarch by the amount of sieges he has to manage."
"Are you suggesting that Perturabo is not a good fit for the legions?" Dorn asked, looking at me. He raised an eyebrow as I deciphered how he got to that conclusion. It wasn't a hard jump if you were already thinking about it. This is a bad sign for the relationship between those two.
Shaking my head, I said, "No. I'm sure that he is anxious to go back to actually rebuilding and restoring humanity as much as possible. ."
"Why?" The Primarch to the Second said, sounding confused. "Why should we have to when this is the greatest calling in the universe, restoring humanity to their previous glory and spreading it across the Stars?"
"Yes, exactly." Dorn said with a nod.
I blinked and said, "You haven't even considered what comes next, haven't you?"
They both shook their heads no, causing me to sigh, "I'm going to retire to Fenris to raise wolves and hunt monsters. Perty wants to become an artist and build structures that will stand the test of time and monuments to the glory of humanity for generations afterwards; once the Galaxy is united you two need to have
something to look forward to, or you're going to be left figuring it out for the rest of your long life."
Dorn shook his head and said, "I'll be building defenses. Humanity will always need defending from the creatures out in the dark. It's that simple, and I will be there to defend it."
"Ha! Simple, I like it!" The Second said with a nod. "Me, it looks like I'm going to go take my forces and explore the unknown. I always wondered what's past the galactic rim? Granted, I know it's going to be dangerous. Just a few years back I went exploring a little too far out to the Galactic East, and I stumbled on some rather interesting architecture. Dangerous too, I did get some neat toys though. Hey Himiko, bring out that thing."
He turned to his right and called out to two more foxtail girls standing by the edges of his Court, wearing priestess robes as well.They modded and walked into a side room, coming back with a long metal halberg with a blade that slightly glowed green. Carefully they walked it over to their Primarch who reached out and grabbed it on one hand without issue.
"Ever seen giant pyramids made of metal?" He asked as he showed off the spear.
"No." Dorn answered.
"Neither had I until I visited the planet that this thing came from, but they exist. Weird green crystals and tombs full of metal skeletons. Aesthetically very much like ancient Egypt, you know ancient Egypt, right?"
At first I felt a stab of annoyance at the question. Of course I knew Ancient Egypt! But then I saw Dorn shaking his head, and remembered that few people in this galaxy knew any of Earth's history at all.
Spinning the halberd around, he said, "This thing cut through anything. I've tried it, though I think it was meant for different hands. I jury rigged a big switch for anyone who uses it. I thought about launching another expedition to the planet I found this on, but the mechanicus aren't very happy about me discovering things they feel they should be the ones exploring. There's no rush at the moment, so if we could get a legion armed with such weapons we could cut through this new enemy quickly."
"Hmm, that may be true." I nodded as I was looking at the strange weapon, wondering what it was constructed of, and where it originated from?
Though the metal skeletons thing was a bit of a memory jogger. I was reminded of a certain Terminator franchise. I wonder if that ever got any better…? What am I saying, they probably got much worse. Either way though, I probably have to talk to the Emperor about this, see if he knows anything about metal skeletons with some Egyptian motifs.
If there were similarities between the pyramids, something suspicious was going on, so it would be best to ask questions of the witnesses who claimed to be there for most of human terrestrial history.
But that was a conversation for another time I saw the Emperor, which shouldn't be that far off, if the Second's comments about him coming north were true.
If that was true, then this
Rangdan is more of a threat than anyone realizes; if the Emperor was willing to forgo the quest for his missing son to meet them head-ons personally.
It looks like I have to give everything I could to this fight, otherwise, humanity would fall apart again; and if that's so then my retirement plan falls apart as well. I was not going to let that happen.
"So,
Wolf Girl, how come you have a normal human in your company?" Said the Primarch of the Second, drawing my eyes from my internal thoughts to him, causing them to narrow in annoyance.
"As I said, it's Tanya, and calling her human is a stretch. This is Lord Wolfen, personal assistant, member of my
Valkyrie, and former Space Marine aspirant.."
The Second blinked and looked at her confused, before asking "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"Yes." I
sigh, still looking quite annoyed at him not wanting to say what he was going to want me to say.
He laughed, and said, "I'm glad I'm not a female primarch! Must be troublesome to build a legion if you can have accidents like that happen."
Was he provoking me deliberately? It was even more annoying because I didn't think he was. "It's an extremely rare case, and they're still combat efficient; they're just not as good as regular space Marines, but they have their uses."
"I somehow doubt that. After all, there's a reason Father chose men to be the Astartes, because they have a greater chance of survivability in combat than women." Dorn commented.
"Not exactly arguing that," I said, "But having my own auxiliaries and having less dependence on the Imperial command for logistics makes everything a lot simpler. Coordination and morale is more efficient when you have commands over units from your Home World.."
"Hmm, really?" Dorn pondered, rubbing his chin. "I wonder if I should give that a try then? Most of my units are all Space Marines, but there is always quite a large detachment of units within the former empire I ruled that could be brought into line if needed."
The Second shook his head before saying, "I'll keep that in mind as well. Though I must admit my planet's too underdeveloped to produce an army outside the Space Marines."
"If you know your planet is underdeveloped then you should develop it." I pointed out.
"And let the planet lose its charms? No, no I don't think I can do that." the Second Primarch said with a shake of his head, before adding, "Taking away what makes my Home World special would just ruin its appeal. Destroy what has been preserved for so long. no, I will do my best to preserve it the way it has been for the last millenniums. It's a cultural hub that holds the keys to the history of the far East of Ancient Earth."
I shook my head, already suspecting that it was more likely that it was a damned amusement park before the fall of the Human Federation, but that was a concern for another time. Instead I simply said, "Fine, fine but surely there is a planet within range that I'm sure you could convert for your forces? Keeping your planet as you say. close to its original form, is ideal. But the closer your logistics are, the more well-supplied your frontlines and defenses would be too. "
"Hmmm a solid point, though doesn't that imply we should be looking towards creating our own mini-empires within the Empire? After all, in order to gain control of other planets I would need to export the culture of my homeworld to some extent, make the planets interested in being a part of my mini-empire."
I turned and shrugged at Dorn and said, "Did you not just say that you had an empire when the Emperor found you?"
"Yes, nearly 100 worlds. And still growing a bit as planets within range of my homeworld are brought into compliance, with elements of the imperial army given to me by Father."
I nodded and said, "For my part, I'm doing my best to convince the many worlds in close proximity to my home world into a mutually beneficial alliance, in order to make sure Fenris is as protected as possible. I don't know what the other Primarchs's are doing. I know Perturabo is literally building his own empire, and I'm sure as we spread out amongst the stars we'll find others doing the same. And it would be foolish to not try and build their own sphere of influence within the Empire. To not do so would leave us at the mercy of the Mechanicum."
"The mercy of the Mechanicum?" Dorn asked with a raised eyebrow.
"The Imperium relies on the Mechanicum's forge worlds." I said with a shrug. "As long as the Empire is split between the Imperium and the Mechanicum, yes there's always the potential for the Mechanicum to withhold vital logistical supplies and equipment as they probably did with my legion. They feared we were no better than the ancient techno barbarians that once raided Mars from Earth."
"That's why I went out of my way to invite the Squat Leagues to join the Imperium, as they represent another agent that could counterbalance the Mechanicus influence and reach. Creating an empire that directly responds to us is simply creating proper vassal states to contest a larger and more powerful vassal state, if it ever decides its ambition is harmful to the Imperium."
"Sister, are you suggesting the Mechanicus may try to betray the Imperium?" Dorn asked with a serious tone.
"Suggesting? No, but acknowledging that it could happen? Yes. People are weird, unpredictable. More so when they are religious zealots proclaiming the weakness of
flesh. We might think we understand them, before someone more radical takes control of its governmental system."
"For instance the Mechanicum thinks the Emperor, our father, is an aspect of the Machine God, and our father, if you didn't notice, is against religion. These two things are not compatible with one another. The Imperial Truth and the Omnissiah will not be content to stay constant forever. Sooner or later, one will have to give. Knowing the Emperor and his worries about the denizens of the warp, I believe that the Imperial Truth will eventually win out in the end. And there will be reactionaries and costs to this, sooner or later, and it won't be pretty nor quick.."
"Hmm, the mountain preserves always cause me similar trouble. That sounds about right for this universe." The Primarch of the Second said, reminding me that he still thought he was Nobunaga.
Shaking his head though, he simply said, "Well that's a problem for the future, but I can understand your point of view. Seeing that we all have our own little fiefdoms within the Imperium, we can always combine our forces to bear in case of an emergency. I'll have to look into that as time goes on, and I'm sure there's plenty of planets that wouldn't mind having the protection of the Flying Castles."
"I will be honest, brother, could you think of a better name for the Second Legion? Flying Castles don't really have a good ring to it." Dorn commented.
I would have been a little bit more circumspect about saying what Dorn said, but he wasn't wrong. The real question was how would the Second Primarch take that statement?
He chuckled before saying, "Everyone thinks that name is poor. Even the Emperor wasn't a fan of it. I'll look into my books when I get back to Zipang, see if I can find something that better represents my legion.."
"Yes," Dorn said, relief in his voice.
I could not make any comments, though several more of those priestess servant girls showed up carrying large crates of alcohol, setting them right next to us.
"I was wondering when those would get here!" Nobunaga said with a smile. Leaning over, he put his cup underneath one of the faucets and unleashed a torrent of what looked like clear alcohol.
Two of the serving girls prepared cups for both of us and gave one each to me and dorn.
"Well, now that we've had our planning session, let's get a little drunk before getting on our way." He said with a smile while raising his cup.
Raising my own I said, "Sounds like a plan."
Doran sniffed the alcohol, before shrugging and saying, "I have nothing better to do."
Xana 2
Captain Arkhas Fal
"Another bombardment incoming." A lieutenant called, drawing my attention from the map of the situation.
"Do these things ever run out of soldiers?" I muttered as I shook my head.
"If they ran out of soldiers I don't think we'd be trapped here, cousin." Came the voice of Captain Karael of the white scars, as he leaned against the wall across from the table.
"Fair point. Still, sitting here and taking an unending bombardment is just not what my men are made for."
"Yes, yes, Horus' hidden dagger in the back of the enemy, we all know the preferred style of the Pale Nomads." Captain Karael said with a smile, before adding, "And you know as well as I, that this is not how the White Scars like to fight either, but the fact of the matter is we have no choice. Our enemies will not let us choose our battlefields; they prefer to choose ones for themselves."
I shook my head at that common knowledge. "I wish we had been given some choice. The enemies are pushing further and further towards our fortifications, and the local Mechanicus forces are down 30 percent."
Captain Karael nodded, but said, "There are primarch's in the area, and other legions that could be called upon to support us, we just need to hold on until they arrive."
"Well, I hope they make it soon." I muttered as I looked at the map. Said map was showing the capital city of Xana II encircled by lines of bio-forms and mercenaries in service of Rangdan.
We have been fighting them for eight months already! Eight long months, from holding most of the large cities to now we barely holding on to the capital. Reports on what happened in the other cities were dubious at best and some unsubstantiated claims of their population being fed to the bioforms..
Sooner or later we were going to run out of ammunition and supplies, and then it wouldn't be the dead they'll be eating.
They usually sent the bioforms in first, large monstrous creatures with claw arms and four clawed legs, a massive jaw in front sitting on a spindly central section with a scorpion like tail that could be whipped around for additional damage. They would come on a dead sprint, and would tank plenty of damages before dying, and hopefully they stay dead. Then they'd send in their servitors species, mostly Orks though there were the occasional small group of humans and other xenos within their ranks, who came charging over the already muddy field of bioform corpses only to meet the same fate.
The enemy command had no regard for the soldiers beneath it, and fed them into the meat grinder as eagerly as a scavenger would eat at a corpse; not caring how old it was in the process.
This wouldn't be so bad if we had secure lines of ammunition coming in from outside of the forge world. After all, we could keep up the fire if we had the ammunition. The forge world was doing its best, but it was put under a lot of strain.
But the enemy fleet in orbit was doing a good job of preventing ours ships from supporting the besieged capital. If not for anti-orbital weaponry within the forge city, those ships would be giving them even more trouble with their orbital bombardments; but thankfully they still had and held them, and those ships were staying far enough away.
Though anti-orbital weaponry can't stop the bombardments from regular artillery. Said bombardment was now starting up as an officer called incoming as large explosions rippled through the forge city. Thankfully, the forge didn't have anything in reach of the bombardment that could cause secondary explosions. Not anymore at least; there had been a few incidents near the start of the fighting and why the suburbs were lost, but the masters of Xana had learned their lesson and moved those explosive materials further into the forge with safer containment.
The first few months were some of the hardest fighting I think I'd ever been in, and I served with the legion during the later days of the unification wars. Granted, we mostly worked with Horus for the majority of the time since our founding, some even jokingly said something about us being Horus' second Legion. But we were slowly being sidelined as more Legions with their Primarchs are becoming more active.
Nowadays, the Pale Nomads were mostly used for occupation or protection duties, and why we were even here in the first place. We weren't even supposed to be at the front lines, we were supposed to be overseeing Xana's integration into the Imperium, not defending it against an unending horde of monsters.
But here we were. Everyday was just another bombardment, sometimes it was enemy artillery and others it was specialty bio forms, designed to be thrown large distances and cause mayhem within the city. Even while shells were falling, we still had to defend the perimeter from bioforms and Ork charges.
I was shaking my head as I considered how we were going to survive today when the communications officer suddenly jumped up from his seat.t.
"Sir! Sir! A fleet has entered the system!" He called in a proud tone as he got up and turned to give a salute.
Turning to face him properly, I said, "Whose, ours or the enemy??"
"Report indicates that it is broadcasting friendly signals and is of Imperial make and design."
"That's better." I said with a smile. "Reinforcements have finally arrivedto rescue our ass from the fire. I want to know who I have to thank for it."
"Yes sir." He turned to the screen before calling back, "It's the Gloriana ship,
Invincible Reason, and the Gloriana ship,
Endurance, at the center of the formation."
"The Primarch of the First and the Primarch of the Death Guard, not a bad day." Captain Karael said with a nod. "I was hoping it would be my own Primarch, I've yet to actually meet him."
"I'm sure he's on his way." I waved it off, and tried not to think about the fact that we had yet to even meet our primarch. As far as I knew we hadn't even found him yet, which was annoying. So many legions have been introduced to their Primarchs by this point, it was rare for a legion not to have their own.
Turning to the radio operator I said, "Send our thanks to the Primarchs and give them access to the current information on our networks. Let them make up their own mind on how they're going to break this siege from the outside."
"Will do, Sir… wait, they're calling right now." The officer said, as he put his hand on the side of his helmet listening in to something.
"It would seem that the majority of the fleet is heading to fight the blockade, while the Gloriana's are going to try and take up orbit above the city and start dropping troops directly into the enemy's rear."
"Bold plan of action." Captain Karael commented." Going to guess that's the plan of the Lion."
"Of course it's the Lion's plan." I said with a shake of my head. Most of this frontier was pretty much under the Lion's jurisdiction anyways, and he had been running this campaign from the start. And they have only gotten bolder..
After all, how else were they going to get their daily dose of glory hogging.
"Inform the Lion and the Death Guard Primarch that our formation is incapable of committing an assault outside the city. We do not have the troops nor would we be very useful in that situation with the losses we have taken."
The officer nodded and went to work as I moved across the room to pick up a chair and bring it back to the table with the hollow map, pressing a few buttons to expand the view so I could watch the show.
Captain Karael did the same, putting his chair on the other side. "Yeah, unfortunate thing about all the losses we've been taking, we can't help push out which means they're going to have to take the brunt of whatever the enemies got behind their lines."
"Exactly, but hopefully the Lion knows what they're doing. they're the Emperor's own child, and they do have a reputation so presumably they'll be able to pull this off."
Sitting back, I watched the screen as the battle played out for the fate of the city and the planet itself. Forces from both the Death Guard and the Dark Angels deployed to either side of the city, drawing off the enemy in both directions and slaughtering them as they moved out of position.
Air superiority was slowly coming, watching the second screen I saw that slowly and steadily the enemy fleet was pushed off and out of sight of the Capital City, meaning now the enemy didn't even have partial air superiority.
With those ducks in a row, fighters began to come down from orbit launching strikes against enemy positions all across the battlefield, pushing them out of their holes and into the waiting bolters and volkite weapons of the Death Guard and Dark Angels. It was a slow roll up, but it was a roll up. The enemy had nowhere to go but into the city as they were pushed from all sides, and my men only had to sit in their trenches and fire at anything that tried to escape in their general direction.
It was actually very well organized and the enemy was completely crushed within the course of five hours. It was the first real victory of this damn war. The question was, now how are we going to capitalize on that victory?
Only time will tell. Hopefully the Lion would have a plan because I doubted that the Rangdan were done. More likely there would be another wave coming and another after that, and we would have to hold this position until they were either weakened or we found a way to hit them where it hurts.
And where would it hurt? That was a question that I didn't have the answer to.
Writers note: Oh hey, chapter where we got to know Primarch 2, and tease of Primarch one? Wonderful. Now some of you thought I was going to do a Youjo Senki charter for a second… I decided to go another road and stay as close to canon as I could while having fun.. That is the point of this, to have fun.
Edited by: L, Ernesto Aviles, Michael Sauer, Y1
Community edited by:Just Rafi, C104, Edwin Kang
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The irony of a savage brute calling others savage brutes.
