Chapter 89: Preparations Before the Blind Drop
Duvette walked out of Strategic Command Room One the moment Calgar had finished with him.
He moved at pace through the flagship's wide, cold metal corridors toward the assembly area where the Ash Watchers-Eisenmark 112th Regiment was waiting, passing mortal logistics personnel and servitors of various configurations hurrying in both directions.
The armoured corridor walls vibrated at low, continuous intervals.
Macragge's Honour was still fighting. The Gloriana-class battleship was still locked in the orbital engagement with the Tyranid void fleet, and through the thick blast-proof viewports along the corridor's length Duvette could see the darkness beyond strobed by macro-cannon salvoes and lance strikes, and the alien bio-ships pressing toward the human fleet in continuous waves, each new hull replacing the one the previous salvo had destroyed.
The remaining human fleet would breach the Great Devourer's outer orbital blockade in two standard Terran hours and take up position above the equatorial zone: Macragge City, and Hera Fortress above it. The time available was short, but they had to wait here, aboard this moving fortress, for the window to open.
When Duvette opened the hatch to the assembly area, the smell of blood hit him first.
Departmento Munitorum medical staff and hovering medicae servo-skulls were moving through a packed space. Per Calgar's directive, all soldiers who had been rendered combat-ineffective by their wounds would remain aboard Macragge's Honour for proper treatment. The rest of the 112th's survivors, their wounds stopped with emergency haemostatic gel and their bodies pushed upright by stimulant injections, were assembling in place and preparing for whatever the next assignment required.
The Quartermasters had kept the commitment Calgar had made. Complete resupply was arriving in bulk: crates of fresh high-energy laser cells stacked in rows, full fragmentation grenades, intact carapace armour, all of it being delivered by heavy cargo servitors in continuous loads.
But a piece of news had already spread through the ranks, and it was the kind of news that changed the atmosphere of a room.
The equatorial airspace above Macragge City was, by any assessment of current conditions, one of the most hostile approach environments in the engagement. Gargoyles and acid-bearing Spore Mines packed the air above the city in sufficient density that heavy landing craft would have poor prospects of surviving the approach at all. The calculation was blunt: no heavy vehicles could be air-dropped. The 112th, which had received a full complement of Leman Russ tanks and Chimera transports at Parmenio, was once again a pure infantry regiment.
This had produced visible unease in Kleist and his armour crews. These were Eisenmark soldiers, trained to fight from behind heavy armour, operating through scopes and main guns, converting distance into protection. Sitting now with a lasrifle in their hands and nothing between them and whatever they would face below, they had the particular look of soldiers who had lost a layer of themselves.
Kleist was sitting on an empty ammunition crate, brow set hard, his fingers running without intention along a tank commander's vox cable that no longer had anything to connect to.
"What is it, Major?" Stroud was leaning against a metal column nearby, cleaning his combat knife with a strip of cloth. He looked at Kleist with the expression of a man who has already worked out the answer. "Can't fight without your iron coffins?"
Kleist's head came up with a flash of something in his grey-blue eyes. He stood straight, looked the bald veteran in the face, and answered with the particular coolness of a man who has been challenged on something he takes seriously.
"Every Eisenmark soldier is forged into the finest warrior in the Imperium from the day they enter the training grounds. Whether they are sitting in a cockpit or holding a lasrifle, whether they are armour crew or line infantry, Eisenmark honour is not something that lives in the vehicle. It lives in the bone. You will see that in the fighting ahead."
Stroud gave a shrug that committed to nothing and slid the knife back into its sheath.
Nearby, in the quieter part of the assembly area, Anderson was sitting in silence on a bench. The large man was bare to the waist, allowing two Mechanicus Biologis apprentices to work on the deep lacerations across his shoulders and back without anaesthetic, sealing the damage with synthetic skin, artificial tendons, and haemostatic gel. The cuts were deep enough to expose the underlying muscle groups of Anderson's body, which bore the unmistakable evidence of the crude biochemical augmentation that had been done to him years before something had gone wrong with the aspirant process.
In the close-quarters fighting of the previous engagement, Anderson had produced a performance record that sat well outside anything a standard Astra Militarum soldier would have been expected to achieve. At the moment when the defensive line came closest to giving way, operating on the combination of his augmented physical capability and the Soul of the Legion's reinforcement and his own absolute refusal to stop, he had killed three high-tier Tyranid Warriors in direct melee with bladed weapons. That record would be worth describing in dispatches in any regiment in the Imperium. It had been sufficient to make the Ultramarines take note of a mortal veteran's face, which was not something that happened often.
Among the 112th's soldiers gathered in the assembly area, both the newly integrated troops and the surviving veterans, the looks directed toward Anderson's broad, scar-covered back carried undisguised awe. In their eyes, at this distance and in this context, the line between Anderson's silhouette and that of a true Astartes had become difficult to find.
On the opposite side of the assembly area, Finn was sitting cross-legged on a supply crate, his mechanical eyes emitting a faint red glow, his mouth moving with words that had found their own quiet rhythm.
"The God-Emperor's light breaks through all illusion. His power forged our flesh and blood. His will marks the path before us..."
His voice was hoarse and even and it carried through the ship's ambient noise without difficulty. What was surprising was the circle that had formed around him. The Eisenmark armour troops, who had lost the protection of their tanks and were not comfortable with that loss, were sitting with their heads down, listening to the prayer with full attention. Under the steady cadence of this scarred, devout, partially rebuilt sniper, the fear of an unknown blind drop was being displaced, degree by degree, by something with more weight to it.
The hatch opened with a dull metallic sound. Duvette stepped into the assembly area.
His black commissar's greatcoat and the expression he wore pulled every eye in the space to him in the same instant. The noise in the room settled and stopped. Soldiers stood straight and brought their fists to their chests.
Duvette walked to the front of the assembled regiment and swept his gaze across the faces of soldiers who were going back down for another engagement before anyone had adequately processed the last one. He did not waste time on anything that wasn't the briefing.
"The fleet will reach the airspace above Hera Fortress shortly. The approach conditions prevent us from dropping heavy vehicles." His voice was clean and carried. "Do not treat this as a reason for concern. We are being deployed to the capital of Macragge. We are returning to the domain the 112th knows best: urban warfare."
The word urban warfare produced an immediate reaction from Stroud. One eyebrow went up. A sharp whistle followed. He turned and put a hand firmly on Kleist's shoulder beside him.
"Hear that, Major? Sewers and city ruins coming up. Stay close. Don't wander off. I'll watch your back."
Kleist turned to look at him with an expression that was clearly the prelude to a reply, then both of them felt a cold, specific attention fall on them from the front of the room. They looked up directly into Duvette's expression, which communicated exactly what it intended to. Both faces went still. Whatever had been coming next was swallowed, and both men stood straight.
Duvette returned his gaze to the regiment at large and continued.
"We are not walking into a death trap. And do not underestimate the depth of what is waiting to support us."
His voice moved through the space with no effort.
"Per the high command briefing: the Ultramarines have concentrated substantial core forces in Macragge City. The 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th Companies, four full Ultramarines companies, are deployed in the capital and will serve as the unshakeable anchor of our defensive line."
He held a moment, letting that settle.
"And filling every street and every plaza in that city are hundreds of thousands of Ultramar auxiliary troops with sufficient heavy artillery and prepared defensive positions to grind down the swarm's assault momentum against urban terrain. The support behind us is real and it is substantial."
He looked at the faces in front of him and saw what was in them.
"The 112th will serve as the sharpest blade in this force. We drive into the most complex sectors, the positions that require the most from whoever holds them."
He reached up and closed the remaining buttons on his greatcoat, one after another, and his eyes did not change.
"We depart on light assault craft in two hours. No ground guidance. No navigation coordinates. We drop blind." He let the silence sit for exactly the right length of time. "All personnel inspect and check weapons and equipment. Be ready."
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