40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 119: Moloch

I first directed a Drop-cruiser to secure a landing zone, while a squadron of Fury interceptors took station above the tundra.

Damn winged bugs could ruin your day if you were not careful.

Then I gathered my bodyguards, and a hundred Armed Sentinels in a few dropships and descended onto the surface of Jollov, with a few wings of gunships as a vanguard.

Passing through thick smoke from burning fields and houses, we began our landing approach just a few minutes after the drop pods, descending in a pandemonium of teeth and claws, while the Tarantula turrets were butchering millions of Tyranids gorging on lichens and grass and even soil. Well, I guess there would be roots and worms and bacteria of every kind inside the soil.

As soon as the ramp lowered and we started emerging from the dropships, the Tyranids suddenly perked up and began rushing towards us.

Reason's auto-senses targeted a smaller organism for some reason, but I wasn't going to argue with my Machine Spirit. Surely the Mechanicus had studied this enemy and matched priority targeting accordingly.

The Volcano Lance flared with impossible brightness, evaporating that target, and a hundred other creatures beside and behind it.

And then the secondaries began firing automatically, and I pushed towards the largest swarm, and began slicing with the Power Glaive.

This time it worked! Every single strike butchered dozens of Tyranids, while the Flare shield blocked most of the incoming spits and spines and whatever other projectile weapons.

Each time the Lance was recharged, the Knight would target yet another innocuous creature, and then urged me forward to capitalize on the stunned Tyranids disoriented from losing their synaptic leader.

Then I slashed, pivoted and slashed again, every strike eerily accurate and deadly. I felt like a sword master, dancing on the battlefield, not a mere pretender with out-of-context knowledge.

Hours later, I remembered I wasn't alone on this tundra, and urged Reason to return and check on my comrades.

My sons were simply walking slowly, in a kilometer wide line, and exterminating whatever escaped from my dash across the tundra, followed by the Sentinels watching over them from twice the height and shooting lascannons as distant targets, or burning corpses with their flamers.

"Thank you for leaving something for us to do, Lord Lancefire." I heard Brother Cassiel joke and saw him wave at my Knight as I approached.

"Hey guys! Knights are very fun!" I explained without saying anything.

"Hey dad! You were amazing! Do you think I could get a Knight suit like yours?" I heard Jonas plead on a different vox channel. Soon, all my kids were begging for a Knight suit and awesome weapons.

"Perhaps a couple, one day. They won't really work for boarding actions, or sneaky missions." I answered after a few seconds.

Reason's Machine Spirit disagreed, and promised we could sneak about if we really tried. I highly doubted that. The lance strikes were visible from orbit!

Afterwards, we proceeded at a slow powerwalk, and simply cleaned out every enemy we could find, until we crossed the entire tundra and reached the Cadian armor regiment.

General Venn was waiting on top of a Macharius tank, and wasn't so sour anymore. "You even have a Knight, Lord Lancefire?" she asked to make sure.

"Why? It was a gift! And it does a good job in the field." I explained in a childish voice.

"And it has a very long lance too." the general quipped and patted the Volcano Lance of her Macharius tank.

"All right guys! We rest here for a while, and then trek the planet clockwise. If we move fast enough, we'll be done in a single day!" I joked and opened the Knight's cockpit to get some air. It was freezing, because tundra, and smelled of burned meat.

"I bet my tanks will move faster!" the old woman replied as her Cadian soldiers cheered. It felt like a picnic, at the edge of the galaxy.

Soon enough, I rushed inside the command tank to get some food and a cup of caf, and stood to hear the General complain about her Lord Commander of Spite and how bad it was.

Well, I couldn't steal an armor regiment, as those were fewer and more valued by the Imperium. But an experienced General was good too.

"If you want, I can conscript you and some of your staff to my Auxiliaries. We have a 20 Doomhammers and 500 Hydras per regiment, and will soon receive 100 Macharius..." I began my argument, a bit timidly.

"Yes! Dear Emperor, I thought I would have to fuck you to escape from that idiot, Lord Lancefire." the grizzly woman proclaimed in a breathless rush.

I nodded cautiously. "We'd have to get you back to youth, but that's not a real problem. Sister Letitia over there is over 70, and looks young and pretty now. And I'm even older than you, I guess."

The General glanced at my face in disbelief. "I'll be 200 next year." the old soldier explained in a serious voice. Well she did have a wealth of experience then, and took some rejuvenate treatment.

"Still not a problem, dear lady. That Blood Angel, Brother Cassiel is over ten thousand years old, and he used to rub elbows with Sanguinius. Good genes help." I said with a smirk, and laid back on the leather seat, which smelled new.

Well, this tank was brand-new.

"Well, I guess it's possible. Primarch Khan is same age and looks rather fit too. I heard he was scouting Commorragh for that great raid. And he didn't stay on ice like Guilliman." she mused and sipped some caf in a thoughtful voice.

She wasn't exactly wrong, but I wouldn't shatter her illusions.

"Primarchs are rather special though. So, you'd like to become a Lamenter troop commander? We do fight a lot though. Sometimes at bad odds." I explained in a gentle voice.

"War is my profession, my lord. But Astartes Auxiliaries have different regulations than the Imperial Guard. Not sure what they are." General Venn said in an unasked question.

"That depends on each Chapter, their Primarch and the legacy they carry. Psykers and sorcerers for Magnus, Swordsmen and harassing attacks for Khan, dotting every line and sheer brutality for Ultramarines. I personally prefer air power as the main weapon for my Chapter Auxiliary. Static positions for my infantry and enveloping maneuvers for armor. The Battle Brothers sent in for boarding ships or boss killing, and other precision strikes. Not that I have any Lamenters to deploy yet." I said a sadder voice.

"I heard about the Badab War. Must have been horrible, battling traitor Space Marines." she said in a compassionate voice.

"Yes and no. Those Lamenters were flawed, like many successors of Sanguinius. Going mad with rage and blood thirst, howling and biting their enemies and allies alike. They call these flaws the Black Rage and the Red Thirst. Also, quite unstoppable until they fell dead. Those battlebarges were filled with dismembered corpses, some of them still gripping flesh in their teeth, even in death." I exposed in a grieving voice. They were still my Brothers, dead as they were now.

Ludvaius coughed discreetly at the door, perhaps to admonish me. But his chapter had a Death Company too, mad and sent to one last battle, not expected to survive.

"But it won't happen anymore, right? Surely you can fix the problem." the old General asked, maybe too hopeful.

"I am working on that, dear General. It's hard work, but I won't shy away from duty. Well, I guess you'll find out when we return to our base in the Fringe." I replied in a teasing tone, then walked past her to return to my Knight.

These Tyranids won't die by themselves, and I could use some target practice.

Took an entire month to clean the planet of insectile invaders from outside the galaxy, because they were like cockroaches, spawning some place else just when we thought they were gone.

Back at the main starport, Magos Stannum Vir was loading his STC fragments into a gun-cutter that would lift them into orbit, but he possibly misplaced the memory unit with his research. Certainly, with all those fragments in his possession, he should be able to research everything again, and even faster.

I detached a dozen corvettes to escort his Explorer Ark Mechanicus to the Warp limit, and bid him farewell. The ingrate tech-priest did not ever bother to reply.

What can you do? Except disseminate that research to twenty Forge Worlds and steal away his glory. Beside that.

Soon after, we had to rush and help out at Karak Prime, after conscripting some troops other local regiments to replenish manpower losses.

This was a much larger tendril, but we also had more regiments and ships available, as more and more local Chapters and Navy warships gathered to repel the threat.

I wasn't able to walk on the surface in my huge Knight suit, being too busy commanding the fleet and holding millions of bioships at bay.

The Hive Cities were ordered to mobilize en masse, and I sent most tech-priests and servitors to establish extra layers of fixed defenses, from duracrete walls and bunkers to armored gates protected with drum flails, and even gigantic flamers pumping arcs of burning promethium kilometers away. We also scoured the underhives for gangers and criminals, and had them gassed with soporifics, then imprinted with crude loyalty mnemonics and sent out to fight for the Emperor.

These conscripts were not well-armed but that wasn't the real purpose. Metal shields and spears, or even cheap autoguns and stubbers didn't quite work against the Tyranids, but they did hold them in place, enough for artillery and aviation to bombard the packed masses of Tyranids, while the escorts lanced the more distant hordes from orbit. And with the Hive Cities slightly less inhabited and violent, they could focus more efforts on external defense.

They had no other choice but fight or die. Entire PDF regiments were raised in a single week, given minimal training and sent atop of walls or manning the bunkers, only to return battered and needing a complete rebuild by the next week.

Governors needed to be encouraged or publically executed, weapon caches made available freely, or under protest, Adeptus Arbites conscripted as Commissars to maintain discipline.

In the end, we didn't lose a single city, although casualties exceeded 20 percent of the entire population. Over two billion people, giving their lives for the Emperor. 

The surface of the planet was left even more baren and polluted, but at least the Hive Cities were set in order, and even became more productive and profitable. Turns out having a few thousand tech-priests repairing old reactors and factories, as well as reducing crime and population pressure was quite beneficial.

For my efforts, I loaded five milion young women working in various factories and a few thousand scribes aboard a fleet of troop transports and had them sent to the Fringe, mostly on the hundred jungle and forest worlds that needed population growth and industrial production. They will have fresh air and natural food there, plus plenty of living space, not ten in a single room.

Sure the Catachans will need to protect them, but they wouldn't mind being gifted ten wives each. Population will grow fast after this, but those kids will be locals and raised with slightly different rules.

Meanwhile, the star system was slowly being cleaned of dead husks of bioships and drifting winged bugs, only this time we cut off some of the larger bioships' teeth and claws, because those bones were strong enough to bite into starship armor.josei

I was also out of munitions already, after a single year of constant fighting a small Tyranid Hive Fleet.

So, I left Captain Aphael in command of the Moloch Crusade, to find and finish off the remaining Tyranids splinters and I sailed for home.

Of course, my dear Inquisitor Vail had to stay and oversee the project for the sake of her career, and I took her baby home with me. We named him Aeneas, like the mythical hero.

He now sleeps on top of Canis, beside a young puppy sired by my wolf.

"Wooo?" my wolf asks as he saw me leave the nursery.

"Yes, Canis. Going back to make more puppies." I explained patiently as Canis licked both of his young ones.

The wolf nodded wisely, then glanced at my left glove.

Perhaps later, you smart friend. I did need to sort out those Sisters of Battle, one way or the other.