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Authors: Gav Thorpe

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Imperial Navy forward ground officers and Departmento Munitorum quartermasters marshalled the effort, and it was from one of these that Cassius's pilot received confirmation that General Arka had made his headquarters in the Teamster Guildhouse near to landing pad quatros. Directions were given and the Thunderhawk touched down in a spume of plasma and smoke in the north-west of Plains Fall.

Striding down the Thunderhawk's ramp, Cassius found himself greeted by a contingent of Cadian officers in long coats and peaked caps. Their uniforms were dark grey mottled with ochre, and every one of the five men had at least a half-dozen honour badges pinned to their breasts or stitched on the sides of their caps. No aristocratic officer class here, as was found in many Imperial regiments. These were Cadian commanders, raised on the most embattled world in the Imperium and promoted purely on merit and ability.

'I am Colonel Taulin,' one introduced himself: a short, wiry man with a thin, grey moustache and bright blue eyes. 'General Arka's aide-in-chief.'

Cassius nodded in greeting as the others stepped forwards and gave their names. Taulin waved to a half-track staff car parked at the side of the apron. Two gunners manned heavy stubbers in a compartment at the back, their weapons trained towards the sky.

'We have had sporadic gargoyle attacks for the last two days,' explained Taulin, noticing the object of Cassius's interest. 'No great numbers, just scouting forces we think.'

Without comment, Cassius followed the man to the vehicle and vaulted over the side into the space between the gunners, the half-track rocking on its axles from his weight. The officers sat down on the padded benches in front as the driver gunned the engine. Taulin twisted in his seat to continue the conversation.

'Sorry we couldn't find something a bit more dignified to convey you to the general, but all of the Chimeras are being used to ferry as many refugees as we can find into the city.'

Cassius tested a thick-sided ammo crate and found it sturdy enough to use as a seat. Still he towered over the other men as he looked down into the wood-panelled seating compartment.

'Do not bother yourself in that regard,' said the Chaplain. 'I expect to be treated with the minimum of ceremony and pomp. We are all soldiers of the Emperor here.'

'Of course,' said Taulin, stretching an arm along the back of the bench. 'General Arka would have met you himself, but we have just received word that contact was lost with a storm trooper patrol about eighty kilometres to the west. The general is coordinating our response.'

The staff car bumped off the apron access ramp onto a pot-holed roadway that headed west towards the edge of the city. To either side, doors and windows on the column-fronted grain stores were being barricaded, while more Guardsmen set up anti-air weapons atop silos and vast storage tanks.

'Arka is a man attentive to detail, if I remember him correctly,' said Cassius.

This raised an unexpected laugh from the cadre of officers.

'Yes, he is very keen on detail,' said one of the lieutenants. 'Arka would pick the target of every man and woman under his command if he were able!'

'I hope he realises that my force will operate with autonomy from the general command structure,' said Cassius. 'I will discuss strategy with him, but the operational implementation of our agreed plan will be my decision alone.'

'The general expected as much,' said Taulin. He pointed at a building a little way ahead with a wide portico at the front reached by a flight of shallow stone steps. Numerous communications masts and dishes had been set up on the roof. 'Our headquarters, Chaplain.'

A Leman Russ Demolisher was parked up by the entrance, the short but wide barrel of its howitzer directed up the street. A platoon of storm troopers in heavy carapace armour coloured a deep red, hellguns held across their chests, stood guard at the top of the steps. Their faces were hidden behind the black visors of their helms, reflecting the front of the building opposite as they watched the new arrivals disembarking from their vehicles. Their lieutenant gave a shout and they came to attention, presenting their weapons amid the clash of booted feet.

Taulin gave a fly-swat of a salute in return as he took the steps two at a time, trying to keep up with the long stride of Cassius, the other command orderlies trailing behind the pair. The Chaplain stopped and placed his fist against the Imperial aquila emblazoned across the gorget of his armour in a return gesture.

The interior was the same as Cassius had experienced countless times before; a mess of people and equipment that seemed to be teetering on the line between calm and anarchy. The doors to the guildhouse opened on to a tiled lobby, and through open archways to each side could be seen groups of Guardsmen clustered around vox sets, analytical cogitators, map tables and hololithic displays.

The soldiers of the Emperor were dressed in a variety of uniforms. Amongst the grey-and-tan of the Cadians were bright splashes of deep blue trench coats, which Cassius presumed were the colours of the Astcarians. Here and there, the sombre black of the commissars was present, watching over everything with stern expressions and hawk-like vigilance. Half-machine servitors babbled streams of information from the vox traffic, while young boys in tight overalls ran to and fro carrying messages from one command staff to another. A few tech-priests monitored the metriculators and sensor banks, their red robes standing out amongst the darker fatigues of the Guardsmen.

Taulin paid no attention to the throng, leading Cassius to another flight of steps that swept up from the far end of the lobby to the storey above. At the top, he turned and walked around a mezzanine overlooking the foyer, taking the Chaplain to a broad set of double doors leading to a room above the entrance.

Inside was a stark contrast to the activity below. The chamber was obviously some kind of meeting hall for the guild - their badge of crossed cranes was emblazoned at one end behind a stage of dark wood, with worker team banners and plaques mounted to either side. Chairs, cabinets and other furniture had been carefully stacked in front of the long row of high windows overlooking the street, leaving only the light from a huge chandelier at the centre of the hall.

In the wide space, General Arka had set up two distinct areas. On the stage had been mounted a larger projector mechanism, attended by a pair of servitors and a junior lieutenant. On the sheet-like screen beneath the guild seal was displayed a map of Downland, the continent on which Plains Fall was situated. Under the direction of the lieutenant, the servitors interfaced with their device, overlaying runes and sigils onto the chart to represent Imperial positions and the possible locations of the tyranids.

Cassius had studied the topography of Styxia Prime whilst travelling through the warp on the way to the system. It had three major landmasses, the largest of which was Downland, covering nearly twenty-eight million square kilometres. Many thousands of years ago, sometime during the Dark Age of Technology, the first human settlers had come to this world and re-ordered the planet to their liking. Mountains had been levelled, seas filled in and rivers diverted to create a land of pastures and gentle uplands. At the heart of Downland were four artificial volcanoes, delved into the earth to bring forth nutrient-rich expulsions that were conveyed by land and water to the mega-farms.

The hills around these volcanoes had been seeded with fast-growing trees to provide hard timber, and it was from this dense wood that many of Styxia Prime's buildings were constructed, with only the largest and most important edifices, such as the starport and governor's palace, being supplemented with ferrocrete panels and ornamented with sandstone blocks quarried from the coastal cliffs.

Plains Fall was located to the east of the continent; its name derived from the thousands of square kilometres of flat fields that surrounded the city. The highways that converged on the city traversed the length and breadth of Downland, crossing hundreds of rivers and canals. For much of their length, the carriageways were raised up on enormous piles fifty metres above the ground, enabling crops and livestock to be grown beneath and allowing the highways to traverse irrigation waterways without interruption. The longest of these stretches, the so called Minoran Gradient, lifted one of the east-west roads to the central highlands, not touching the fertile earth for two and a half thousand kilometres.

A cursory glance at the strategic map confirmed to Cassius that General Arka was concentrating his forces to the west of the city. Sensor reports had shown that the majority of the tyranid spores from the dying hive ship had landed in the volcanic uplands. There was nothing to prevent them ravaging the lands further westwards - there being no settlement or natural feature upon which to form a defensive salient - and so Arka had rightly drawn a cordon across the highways leading from the highlands to Plains Fall, to intercept any swarm-broods advancing on the city. The rest of Downland would be sacrificed for the survival of the world's only major conurbation.

A much smaller, more primitive, map was mounted on a wooden easel in front of the stage, depicting Plains Fall itself. It was a mass of colour, showing defensive lines surrounding the city and the labyrinth of communication and supply lines linking the growing fortification complex together. Around this map were about a hundred seats arranged like an amphitheatre, empty at the moment with no briefing in progress.

Far from the stage was a communications area. Several vox-sets were lined up on wooden trestle tables, manned by staff officers and attended by more youthful runners. A single cogitating machine stood close at hand, spewing mathematical reports on ribbons of paper, which were then passed to a waiting tech-priest to decode. The tech-priest's robes were marked with sigils that Cassius knew identified him as a lexmechanic - a statistical analyst who was expert at extrapolation and prediction. His hood was thrown back, showing the bulky metallic implants in the left side and rear of the tech-priest's skull, linked to the cogitator by three coiled cables. Processing the data-flow from scouting reports and orbital surveys, the lexmechanic translated this pure data into something comprehensible to a group of officers uniformed with the badges of the general's staff headquarters.

Not far from these aides was the commander himself, immediately recognised by Cassius. The general was a tall man, with narrow shoulders and a somewhat chubby face that looked too big for his body, made to look all the fatter by the thick bushes of his greying sideburns. He removed his forage cap and stroked a hand over his balding head, sweat gleaming in the artificial light. His drab uniform was crisply pressed, his left sleeve stitched with a long line of battle honours, his right breast coloured by the ribbons of more than twenty medals of heroic service. He moved slowly, with a stiffness that spoke of aging joints and old battle wounds, but his gestures were as neat and meticulous as his appearance, if somewhat laboured.

Arka was in conversation with a group of agitated-looking officers from the Astcarian Fourth, the gold frogging and gilded buttons of their dress uniforms a stark contrast to the general's nondescript battle fatigues. The general noticed the arrival of the Ultramarines Chaplain and dismissed his audience with a few words and a crisp nod of the head. A few seconds later, he was waving for Cassius to join him.

The general extended a hand in greeting, which Cassius shook gently, careful not to hurt the aging officer.

'It was with some pleasure that I learned the Ultramarines had heeded the call to arms,' said Arka. 'When I learned that it was the revered Chaplain Cassius in command, I thanked the Emperor profusely.'

'I was surprised that you are still on the Eastern Fringe, general,' said Cassius, releasing Arka's hand. 'Pleasantly surprised.'

'Thank you,' said Arka, nodding in acceptance of this rare praise. 'As we just missed out on the fighting at Ichar IV, I decided we should look for another war. This is our third encounter with the tyranids so far. I do not expect it to be our last.'

'I see that you have your strategy well in order, general.' Cassius waved a hand towards the briefing area. 'Do you have any request to make of me?'

'I do, I do,' said Arka. He gestured to Colonel Taulin, who had briefly conversed with the lexmechanic and his liaison officers. Cassius noticed that the general's knuckles were red and swollen, the skin thin over his fingers. Many a man in his position would have undergone anti-agapic therapy or other rejuvenat processes, but Arka was clearly determined to grow old and die within his natural span. As long as this had no effect on his mental faculties, Cassius was content to accept this foible without comment.

'It seems our early predictions were correct, general,' said Taulin, handing a schematic to his commander. 'Storm trooper and Sentinel patrols have confirmed significant tyranid infestation in the sixth quadrant of the highlands. Vanguard organisms have been seen moving eastwards towards the city in the last two days.

'The closest was fifteen hundred kilometres, moving along the main highway.'

'I would like you and your warriors to take the forepoint position at the heart of the predicted line of attack, Chaplain,' said Arka. He handed the schematic to Cassius. 'Three rivers and the highway intersect at a staging post called Cordus Via, some seven hundred kilometres west of here. The topography will force the bulk of any attacking force to convene. If Cordus Via can hold for a few days, it will allow us to finish the defensive perimeter closer to the city. It will be the hardest fighting, I expect. How strong is your force?'

'I have a complement of one hundred Ultramarines,' said Cassius. 'I concur with your plan. We will hold the lynchpin at Cordus Via to stall any advance on the city.'

'You'll not be alone,' said Taulin. 'The Warlord Titans Victorix and Dominatus Rex are to be stationed in that quadrant too.'

'Even better,' said Cassius. 'I will have my warriors drop directly to Cordus Via and will meet them there. We will have the position secure within five hours.'

BOOK: Catechism Of Hate
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