Chapter 16 – Boot Camp
Eighteen Weeks After the Destruction of the Tyranid Fleet
"A recruitment drive?" Rex asked, more than a little surprised by the suggestion. Though perhaps he shouldn't have been.
"Yes, the planetary defense forces are a shadow of what they once were," Gaius explained. Several other members of the Gansoran Provisional Government's Ruling Council nodded at that. Of the seven total councilors, he was the only one who wasn't a native. They'd tried to put him in charge of it after all he'd done, but he'd refused and suggested Gaius continue to lead. Rex didn't know anything about ruling a hive city. Granted, neither did Gaius, but the lieutenant was doing a far better job than Rex was. "The guard is too few and we don't even have full control over this city, let alone the planet. Rebuilding the force would allow us to alleviate the Guard and send them to reestablish contact and control over the other cities."
They were not aware that he'd sent troops already to take control of those cities. There were governing bodies in some of those cities, but they held little actual power, less than the council here did. It was mostly just his units going around and making sure no one starved or killed each other. He'd blocked communications from the hive cities to the capital to ensure they were not aware of his efforts. Now, he was starting to regret his rush to help the people there as he realized he might be forced to reveal just how… numerous his forces really were, at least to a larger degree than he would prefer.
"Why not utilize my soldiers to re-establish contact?" Rex suggested, "They would be able to manage this sooner than the guard and are better suited to ensuring order returns swiftly."
He'd waffled on what to say his Riflemen were, since they were clearly robotic in some way. He wasn't sure how the tech-priests would take it if he said they were purely robotic. While some tech-priests might use Kastellans, he didn't know how they'd react to an army of such bots. In the end, he'd claimed them to be extensively cybernetically modified humans used in the future and implemented by the Primarch. He'd said that only their brains remained and that they weren't unlike servitors, if more advanced than most.
One ambitious tech-priest had secretly attempted to ambush one of his Riflemen, presumably in an attempt to capture it for study. He had been found the next day, dead after a random mechanical failure in his life-support systems had caused him to suffocate to death. If one had looked closely at the failed part, they'd have discovered a thin coating of dust upon it.
"With respect, Archmagos Rex, I must disagree with you on that." Surprisingly, Agnes was the one to speak up. Since Gaius was the chair of the council, she was the acting councilor of the military, even if she still followed Gaius' orders. "Your servitors, while impressive, are… not entirely suitable for this task."
If he'd still been human, he'd probably have been offended. After all, the 'servitors' were actually all extensions of himself and she was unintentionally calling him unsuitable for taking back a few cities? If he was so unsuitable, then how had he already done that very thing?
Yet he was not human, nor was he acting out the role of a regular human, so his mimic simply tilted its head in curiosity.
"Oh? And why is that?"
Agnes was choosing her words carefully, a rarity for her, trying not to offend him. Not only for his previous actions but also because she knew he was the only one with any functioning ships and if he so wished could easily let them all starve. "Well, what I mean is that your servitors are… limited in the amount of interaction they are capable of. They have a hard time adapting to new situations."
"You have seen this from them yourself?" Rex had intended the question to cut off any more debate. After all, he was the one controlling every minute motion of his units at any given moment. True, he'd played up the act of 'mindless machine' a bit, but not enough to inhibit his effectiveness or get anyone killed. So, imagine his surprise when she nodded her head confidently and continued to speak.
"Yes. In comparison to a guardsmen, your servitors lack a certain… Throne, I'm sorry, I can't do this fancy talk," She said, even as one of the councilors, a nobleman named Nathanael Tiberi who had somehow managed to get elected to the only democratically chosen position on the council, the councilor of galand, scoffed under his breath. Not that his position was really democratically elected, it was more just that no one else had tried to campaign like he had and he'd ended up the only person on the ticket other than the write-in option. He'd gotten around a hundred votes in a city with ten billion people living in it. Not that so many had bothered to vote to begin with. "Your servitors can't stand up to a guardsman in a fight. They shoot well and you have a lot of them and they're better than most civilians, but they're not able to fight well in the hive city. They don't take cover when fighting, their armor is shiny and obvious, they don't bother to check corners or even look around. They'd do better as a patrol force than as an army. I'm sorry, but it's what I believe."
Gaius was staring at Agnes, as were the other councilors, as though she'd turned into a chicken. A few glanced at Rex's mimic, but none spoke, all waiting for his reaction.
For them, a long moment of silence passed. For Rex, hours.
He spent the first of those hours working through his annoyance at his troops being called so impotent. He wanted to argue, to deny it, but he had gotten to know Agnes rather well over the last eight weeks. She was as straight a shooter as she came and brave as well, even if a bit hot-headed. She seemed like the kind of person who would jump on a grenade for someone she considered a comrade as soon as shove an incompetent superior on top of it. He respected her and he was liked her direct way of speaking. She was one of the few people in this city, possibly this Imperium, who didn't stand for bullshit.
So, he spent the next several hours of his mental time going over previous engagements, trying to ascertain if Agnes' points had any truth to them. Indeed, he found that they did.
He didn't have an issue with supply of troops, so he had never been concerned about the loss of any individual rifleman. They weren't that valuable individually, so why bother with taking cover? If they were destroyed, he could reclaim their metal and just build more. He had always been more concerned with taking out whatever target he had in his sights at the moment. He found thousands of instances where he had ignored having his Riflemen take cover in an attempt to futilely fire at an enemy. Instances where they could have survived and been far more effective with proper tactics. He had based the appearance of his Riflemen off clone troopers, but he now realized he had been using them far more like battle droids.
As for the armor, there was little he could say about that beyond that it was true. His troops were shiny, the white stood out like a beacon in the dark halls of the hive city. Personally, he thought this was a good thing. He didn't want his riflemen to be sneaking around, they were meant to stand out, to draw attention, to show the people of this world that his forces were there. Yet, in a combat situation, it was certainly a weakness.
Finally, her point that they didn't look around. While true, this was because they didn't actually need to. Every one of his squads patrolled along with a large swarm of dust locusts hidden all around them on constant look out. In many areas like the new food storage facilities he even had swarms large enough that they covered everything for kilometers around. Still, the fact was that he had neglected to have his troops at least look like they were checking the area, a serious oversight on his part.
Rex was beginning to realize that despite all the battles he had been in, he had very little actual combat experience. He had become overly reliant on his industrial capabilities, his technology, and the use of overwhelming numbers that he had neglected to improve the quality of his troops in other ways. Specifically, by learning how to better utilize the individual, he should have been able to have a far more effective fighting force, even if it was the same size and tech-level.
Had he fought the necrons more tactically, rather than trying to just drown them in waves of bots and tanks, perhaps he would not have been forced out so easily. Still, a plan came to mind to deal with his lack of
"You are correct," Rex stated, breaking the silence that had fallen. "I admit, the programming the servitors possesses is… rudimentary at best. I had hoped to improve it with time, yet I have been busy with other projects."
Everyone seemed to relax at his words, especially Agnes, who breathed a sigh of relief at how well he was apparently taking it. Gaius still shot her a glance that let her know they would be talking later on.
"I agree with the plan for a recruitment drive for the PDF," Rex continued. "Furthermore, I think we should look into training new Guardsmen as well. Your numbers are greatly depleted and, should an attack come, we can never have enough well-trained soldiers to defend ourselves with."
"Training Guardsmen and PDF are two very different things," Agnes stated, her brow furrowing a bit. "I don't believe we have the facilities or equipment to train or even supply new guardsmen. We barely have enough for ourselves as it is."
"My ships' industrial abilities are quite extensive, as you all know. After a few weeks, they should be able to gather enough raw materials to produce whatever you might need. Within reason of course, don't expect an entire armored division to show up one day."
That drew a few laughs from the other councilors, Agnes and Gaius included. Rex would have smiled himself if he had a mouth, albeit for entirely different reasons.
With proper utilization of the resources he would provide, his newest plan should be of great benefit to both the Gansorans and himself.
Meanwhile
"Been a while, little giantess," Rex said through the Rifleman. Long ago, he had marked this one's helmet with the jaig eyes of captain rex so the girl could recognize it from among the identical bots. "How have you been?"
"'M 'live," was her reply as she wolfed down another moss bar as though it were candy. Even after weeks of being able to eat her fill, she still ate as though she was worried it might be taken from her at any time. It hurt to think about what that meant her life had been like.
"That's good," He replied with a chuckle, not letting his moral outrage affect his unit's voice box. They were still in the depths of one of the other hive cities, next to the same generator they'd first met at. It had become a sort of soup kitchen-type place, where people could come, get food and water, supplies like blankets and clean clothes and then go. Alternatively, they could stay and sleep there under the protection of his riflemen, in actual beds. Some did, most didn't. Trust was a hard thing to build with these people.
The girl was an odd one. Most who did not stay for their sleep cycle (there was no night in the depths) would just leave with the food and eat somewhere they felt safe. Only those who stayed would eat in the presence of his riflemen. The only exception… was her. She ate with his Riflemen around once every day, or rather with the unit who spoke to her now, but did not ever stay after she'd ate her fill, around six moss bars, and taken another twenty in a sack along with a few bottles of water. Then she would leave and not return until the next day usually for more. This time, she had stayed away for several days. The swarm that secretly protected her had shown she was searching ever further below in the deepest reaches of the hive city for something, though what he could not say. He'd worried she might not come back.
"So, what have you been up to recently?" He asked, trying to be nonchalant. The girl glanced at him, a small amount of suspicion in her eyes. It was far less than it used to be, but she still did not fully trust him.
"Stuff." She never gave him long answers. Her first sentence to him had been three words long and that had been the most she'd ever spoken to him.
"Secret stuff?" He asked, tilting his head in a gesture he hoped conveyed amusement. She just shook her head hard, refusing to talk. A few dried moss crumbs that had stuck to her mouth were dislodged by the motion and flew through the air, striking his armor. "Alright, alright, no need to pelt me with your food. Eat up all you want, I have something for you."
Her face snapped up to his unit's helmeted head so fast he was worried her neck might get wrenched. "Relax, it's a gift."
His unit got up, its actions slow as it walked over to a sealed crate nearby. The rifleman opened the crate and withdrew a package wrapped in shiny, silver paper, something that drew an astonished gasp from the girl. That just made him feel worse since it was probably her first time seeing such vibrant color. A kid didn't deserve a life like this and he was damn well going to do his hardest to give her the one she did.
His unit strode over with the small box, placing it on the rock where she sat. She eyed the package with wariness, not sure what to make of it, so Rex opened it for her. He peeled away the wrapping paper, carefully so as to not startle her, and opened the box that was revealed. From within, he withdrew the single, small item and held it up for the girl to see.
The girl stared at the teddy bear. The teddy bear stared back.
