The War for Durance

The specimen annex was Dores' least favorite place, not just on the PRUDENTIA, but anywhere he had ever been. The annex, a cube two kilometers to a side, was suspended in a cavernous void deep within the innards of the PRUDENTIA. A lonely bridge, lit by a flock of lumen-cherubs endlessly chanting warding hymns, was all that connected the specimen annex to the rest of the Ark Mechanicus. This was a defensive measure; should invaders attempt to breach the annex, the melta charges placed along the underside of the bridge could be detonated to confound attackers. This same failsafe could also be used to isolate the annex should any experimental subjects pose a danger to the ship. Were it up to Dores, he'd blast the supports instead, and smash the whole hellish place to pieces. Another defensive measure, which Dores loathed, was that the specimen annex was completely info-quarantined. Reports were physically transcribed and delivered via servitor to the SANGUINE VETERIS PRUDENTIA at...

++FROM THE OFFICE OF ARBITRATOR SOPHIA RACZAK++ ++EXHIBIT 381, RE: WALDEMAR FEYN, MARSHAL-GENERAL, "PATRIOT GUARD," PLANETARY DEFENSE FORCE OF DURANCE++ ++SUPPORTING CHARGE OF WANTON DERELICTION OF DUTY++ What follows are more data recovered from the grand strategium. By this point the Patriot Guard was overwhelmed with calls for aid. While the extent of the conspiracy against Durance was not fully clear by this point, Marshal-General Feyn had perhaps the clearest view of what was happening. His failure to act decisively is self-evident. Exhibit 381 consists of an annotated map of Talionis Prefecture after the uprising's first major acts of sabotage and terrorism. Annotations are transcribed below, for the sake of clarity. I am authorizing the deployment of Patriot Guard infantry and light armor companies to support Civil Security in Talionis Prefecture. While the unrest elsewhere on Durance appears to stem from the usual pain points - work conditions, health care, potabl...

In his free time, Second Lieutenant Lodz rehearsed The Speech. It focused his anger. He liked to imagine how the staff sergeant would react to The Speech. How his brows would lift in slow comprehension, and shame would fill his eyes. The captain would finally understand that Lodz was a hero of the Imperium for putting up with as much shit as he did. Any reasonable person could see Lodz was out of his depth. He knew how to handle the dregs that Civil Security dragged from the streets. Lodz could interrogate protest organizers and put the fear of the Throne into seditionists. What he could not do is extract information from an alien. He barely knew how to keep the thing alive. The black site’s life support equipment was calibrated to human tolerances. The witchbreed withered in his care while he waited for strategium command to send him… anything. Sanctioned support, xenospecialists, anything more useful than acknowledgements and promises. Surely a few hive riots weren’t taking up the w...

"Yeah, but we won though, didn't we?" "No, Pyotr, we did not win," Djura said. "The aeldari were after something , and they got their weird, spindly hands on it." Pyotr laughed and jumped down from his gunner's nest. "Sure, camarada, but does that look like winning to you?" Pyotr gestured with a wave of an arm at the dozens of figures sprawled about the district's Strada Primara, their strange armor cracked and leaking. The battle for the Strada had been a vicious knife fight, one of the worst Djura had been a part of; ungainly Mechanicus crawler-tanks firing their rockets danger close into aeldari shock troops, swarms of aeldari projectiles that shifted mid-flight to track their targets, the blessed Orphan itself bursting through a weakened wall to mince some unfortunate aeldari in ridiculous crested helms before disappearing again almost as fast. The aeldari had taken the worst of it, by far, but Djura couldn't shake the feeling...

Even among the dour, warp-cursed population of Altansar, Yasna was a hard one to like. The Dire Avengers came closest to understanding him, because he was once one of them. But murderous intent clung like smoke to Yasna’s mind ever since he walked away from their Aspect Shrine. In a peaceful society, Yasna supposed he would have either been treated, or dealt with as the serial murderer he would have otherwise become. But his trauma was a powerful asset to the Craftworld. So he took up the Warlock’s regalia and set foot on the Witch Path. Tonight, though, he and the rest of his warband set foot through a ruined human settlement. Hardy vegetation had already broken through the paved roads and crumbling, prefabricated structures. He felt the prickle of lingering radiation against his rune armor. Yasna watched a band of Guardian conscripts chatting near their Wave Serpent and thought about how he would kill them all. Yasna didn’t hate them. But the impulse had buried itself in his mind, be...

Valtr sat in his "office" - a command variant Chimera APC, buried up to the turret for additional protection, with additional seating largely torn out and replaced with a bank of tactical displays - resting his chin in his hand, absentmindedly running a finger over where the seating plate for his ocular augmetic met flesh. He wasn't quite sure when he picked up the habit; he had no recorded instances of it from his service aboard the PRUDENTIA, so he must have started after removal process. His undertaking was unheard of, the infiltration of a xenos cult by Mechanicus personnel, and required an "overhaul" of Valtr's augmetics. What that actually meant was a year long series of surgeries to remove the most intrusive augmetics and render Valtr as close to an unmodified human as possible. He had accepted the order without question or complaint at the time, but after years among the Choir, he couldn't help but feel a slight melancholy. Before him, every disp...

  ++FROM THE OFFICE OF ARBITRATOR SOPHIA RACZAK++ ++EXHIBIT 322, RE: WALDEMAR FEYN, MARSHAL-GENERAL, "PATRIOT GUARD," PLANETARY DEFENSE FORCE OF DURANCE++ ++SUPPORTING CHARGE OF WANTON DERELICTION OF DUTY++ The following evidence was recovered from the data loom installed in Marshal-General Feyn's grand strategium. Records of the Patriot Guard's defense of Durance were fragmented in a manner this arbitrator has found to be consistent with willful efforts to destroy proof of incompetence or malfeasance. Exhibit 322 consists of an annotated map of Talionis Prefecture, contemporaneous with the early stages of the conflict that engulfed the world of Durance. Annotations are transcribed below, for the sake of clarity: Our aerial reconnaissance substantiates reports from field command that observe rising unrest and orkoid hostilities. Additionally, Patriot Guard psykana auxiliaries say they have detected powerful warp fluctuations on the outskirts of the Exclusion Zone. The...

Provost-Biologis Willem, Archmagos of Xenos Acquisition Fleet 9-1 BYRGENWERTH, xenarite radical and future arch-heretek, was excited. Such emotion rarely broke through Willem's carefully cultivated logical detachment and the chemical suppressants pumping through what was left of their organic body, but this was a momentous opportunity. Outwardly, the only sign of this was an occasional twitch of a mechadendrite and increasingly frequent glances between the SANGUIS VETERIS PRUDENTIA's isolation vault's surgical tools and the vault's content. A curt noospheric command sent his attendants and their attendants from the observation chamber in an orderly procession, leaving only Willem and a handful of servitors, slaved to monitoring conditions inside the vault, deaf and blind. The vault's sole occupant, bound to an operating slab by dozens of Inquisition-rated restraints, did not move. If Willem didn't have access to constantly updating medical readouts, they could e...

 There wasn’t enough in the canteen to get properly drunk, but Arteban tried his best anyway. The aeldari squatted on his haunches, leaning against a ruined wall as he tipped the last of the canteen’s contents into his mouth. He ran a finger along the molded seam of the container and stared at the skull stamped on its face. “Tastes horrible,” Arteban said. “Isn’t that the point of it?” Another of Altansar’s conscripts drew close, her voice--like his--barely above a whisper. Pranamin kept her militia helm on, canting her head at an angle. She hefted a melta gun. It was unlovely, unmistakably of Imperial manufacture. Just like Arteban’s canteen. “I can’t believe the seers let you have that thing,” Arteban said. “It was a compromise. They needed the rest of our fuel for the young lord’s fire gauntlets,” Pranamin said. She hunched over, exaggerating her grip on the weapon. “Look, Ban! I’m a human! I barely have a soul! Very soon, I’ll grow old and fall over dead!” She let out a nasty, ...

++FOLLOWING MATERIALS JUDGED OBSCURUS MAXIMUS BY HIS MOST HOLY INQUISITION - DO NOT ENGAGE WITHOUT PERMISSION ON PAIN OF EXCOMMUNICATION AND DEATH++ *ENTRY PRIMUS Audio file seized from xenos cult safehouse, translated from Orthodox Binharic-Cryptus ex post facto by Inquisitorial Linguistrix [REDACTED]* Subject 001 (later confirmed as arch-heretek PROVOST-BIOLOGIS WILLEM): Proceed with your report, Valtr. Subject 002 (later confirmed as heresiarch and former Skitarius Alpha VALTR): I comply, Provost. My infiltration is complete. The so-called "Choir" accepts me as a primary authority on temporal military matters. I have achieved the rank of "Primus" which is roughly equivalent to the standard Imperial rank of Lord Commander, and much of the organization's military capacity answers directly to me. WILLEM: Excellent. Define military parameters of experimental organization. VALTR: Gene-modified personnel increase in number daily and are fanatically devoted to Exper...