Marshal Mowbray of the Black Templars watched from the bridge as the flagship of his tattered fleet, the battle barge Sigismund's Wrath, pull into the orbital docks circling the forge world of Draconis IV. Despite the visible signs of wear and tear, great gouges torn out of drifting battleships from sustained volleys of macro-cannons and cauterized blisters from lances, the Black Templars fleet remained a formidable sight.
Five battle barges, eleven strike cruisers and twenty-eight escorts.
"We had one hell of a harvest," Castellan Claudio remarked beside Mowbray. The marshal nodded, glancing at his second-in-command from the corner of his eye. Like him, Claudio's ornate MKX armor had signs of wear and tear, but the power sword sheathed by his side remained unblemished.
"The casualties were massive this time," Mowbray finally said with a sigh. "We captured two battle barges, five strike cruisers and a dozen escort ships...but at almost the cost of all the non-Primaris."
"It was sheer bad luck," Claudio murmured, his eyes lowered. "We should have known that the Word Bearers would resort to despicable means."
Mowbray closed his eyes, still recalling the bellows of rage and defiance over the vox during that last battle. The Black Templars had descended upon an orbital shipyard circling the daemon forge world of Malevolvis, and stolen the vessels that the Dark Mechanicum had constructed for the Word Bearers. The twisted priests of the Dark Mechanicum, along with the Dark Apostles and Masters of Possession of the heretic legion, were conducting rituals to bind daemons of the warp to the machine spirits of the recently completed ships, but the Black Templars and their allies had hit them hard before they could finish the rituals, banishing the daemons back to the warp and making their way off Malevolvis with almost all the ships that the Dark Mechanicum had built. They had lost some and scuttled a few that they couldn't capture, but no doubt the Word Bearers' wrath would fall upon them sometime in future.
Unfortunately, the Heretic Astartes would have no fleet with which they could chase the fleeing Black Templars with. Marshal Mowbray's fist tightened. He would have ordered an orbital bombardment of Malevolvis and the destruction of its vile orbital shipyard, but the accursed IV Legion had shown up shotly after they captured the ships. The fleet of the Iron Warriors had harried and pounded them as they fled, and though the Black Templars gave as good as they got, they were forced to retreat.
"Honestly, if it weren't for the Knights of House Yato and their Draconian auxiliaries, we might not have pulled it off. The tech-priests of the Mechanicus too...they provided the servitor-crew and experts we needed to man the captured vessels."
"Indeed." Mowbray agreed with Claudio's assessment. The noble Knghts of House Yato had been an indispensable presence, carving a route of devastation when they boarded the orbital shipyards and massacring the cultist slave-gangs and distorted cybernetic monstrosities of the Dark Mechanicum without impunity. Their Draconian auxiliaries, clad in void armor and riding in Taurox Prime APCs, had seized portions of the shipbuilding facilities in short order, occupying the target locations that the Black Templars had blown through only moments before.
For mere mortals, the so-called Kamikaze Troopers of Draconis III had fought like men possessed. The Black Templars couldn't help but be impressed by their tenacity and discipline.
However, the bulk of firepower still came from the Knights, who sawed through bulkheads and sealed hatches with their reaper chainswords and massacred corrupted Skitarii and monstrous cybernetic servitors. As befitting the Dark Mechanicum, there were a few daemon engines, which the Knights easily dispatched. Of course, the Black Templars still bore the brunt of most of the fighting, their bolter shells detonating within the hybrid bodies of flesh and metal, and slicing a bloody swathe through traitor Skitarii cohorts.
Then...Castellan Constantine's Fighting Company encountered the detachment of Word Bearers stationed within the shipyard.
Unlike the purely Primaris Fighting Company under Marshal Mowbray's command, Castellan Constantine's Fighting Company was composed solely of the so-called firstborn Space Marines. Unlike the Primaris Space Marines, Constantine continued to develop his neophytes through the traditional methods. Since they had proven their worth time and time again, Mowbray had not objected, and even welcomed Constantine's company as part of his Crusade.
Their zeal and ferocity had saved the day once more, Constantine leading his company to cut through the Word Bearers' stubborn defenses. As it turned out, the company of Heretic Astartes guarding that part of the platform were merely sentries. The core of the Word Bearers Host had been residing deeper within the vault, conducting a foul ritual.
Within moments of butchering the sentries, the Word Bearers completed their horrifying ritual and opened a portal to the warp. Daemons had flooded out, swarming the beleaguered Black Templars company and cutting them apart to a man. Even so, Constantine had his warriors stand strong and hold the near limitless numbers of daemons back, using the vault as a chokepoint to channel them into killing zones and contain the swarms that would have exited and overrun the entire shipyard.
They were heroes, all. But Constantine's company had paid a terrible price, and by the time they retreated to the last captured strike cruiser, now christened Constantine's Defiance, in honor of the feat he had accomplished in holding a relentless tide of daemons back, there was less than twenty of his once hundred-strong fighting company.
Constantine himself had survived, remarkably, carried back by his surviving subordinates. He had recovered, and even though he stayed silent, Mowbray could sense guilt from the reticent castellan. However, Constantine's actions were what allowed them to complete the mission. If the daemons had managed to break out of the chokepoint and swarm all over the station, the Black Templars and their allies would have failed to capture the vessels in the orbital shipyard. Ships that the Word Bearers would then put to use against the Imperium.
"He should stop blaming himself," he said out loud. Claudio nodded, and then tilted his head as he listened to the vox.
"You wish to see the magos?" It was not a question.
"Yes." Mowbray sighed. "We will have to discuss the issues of resupply and rearmament."
*
"What do you mean, you don't have MKVII or MKVIII power armor?"
Constantine's angry voice sailed through the forge. Mowbray winced before he joined his castellan. The thickset Space Marine was gesticulating in anger toward a strangely human-looking tech-priest, who had his hooded head bowed in apology.
"We mean what we say, honored Castellan," Magos Mansfield replied somewhat stiffly, though whether the lack of modulation was from his augmetics or he simply couldn't suppress his impatience despite a Mechanicus priest supposedly being above such petty things as emotion, Mowbray couldn't tell. "We do not produce the MKVII Aquila Armor or the MKVIII Errant Armor. Never have. We don't have the STC for it."
"Then what has your forge world being producing?"
"I am sure the Castellan is aware that we manufacture arms, ammunition and vehicles primarily for the Astra Militarum regiments of Draconis III, as well as cybernetic automata, Knight suits and Titans." Mansfield glanced at the conveyor belts where plasma weapons were being rolled out. In another section of the manufactorum, Leman Russ Executioner tanks were being assembled, with servitors attaching plasma cannon sponsons or putting the Executioner plasma cannon together. In the farther distance, Mowbray could make out a half-completed Stormblade. Mansfield continued. "If you wish to have a supply of plasma guns delivered to your Chapter, we can certainly accommodate that. But other than MKX Tacticus and MX Gravis armor, we do not manufacture power armor for Space Marines."
"You don't even have the Phobos pattern?" Claudio asked dryly.
"No, we do not," Mansfield replied seriously, missing the sarcasm in the Castellan's voice.
"This will not do!" Constantine growled. "My fighting company have lost many of its veterans, and we need to clad our neophytes in power armor. They cannot be fighting in carapace armor forever!"
Mowbray and Claudio exchanged understanding looks. With the horrendous casualties that Constantine's fighting company had suffered, he had to elevate the neophytes in order to replace the losses. However, during the battle in the Malevolvis shipyards, Constantine and his surviving men were forced to leave their fallen battle-brothers behind (no, not that kind of Fallen - they were Black Templars and not Dark Angels). The precious gene-seed and power armor, all left behind in the damned shipyard, as the survivors desperately fled the overwhelming numbers of howling and braying daemons, their ammunition running low and their wrecked armor failing them.
And now they had almost no power armor left.
"You can at least repair the damaged MKVII and MKVIII power armor that we have?" Mowbray asked, remembering that many of the armor was beyond the ministrations of even their resident Primaris techmarine. Constantine's own techmarine had perished, trying to hold back a Bloodthirster with a thunderfire cannon.
"Uh...we have a 17.2% of success with repairing MKVII and MKVIII power armor..." Mansfield began.
"Useless!" Constantine roared. His frustration, already compounded by the loss his fighting company had taken, swelled. Mowbray placed a hand on the cracked pauldron of his Castellan's squealing, sputtering power armor.
"Now, now, Constantine. Calm down."
"What use is a forge world that doesn't manufacture power armor!?"
"We do manufacture power armor," Mansfield protested. "Just the MKX variety."
"My men and neophytes can't wear MK armor! Our physiques aren't compatible with it!"
"I apologize."
"Why do you not produce other marks of power armor?" Claudio asked, genuinely confused. Mansfield whirled to him, his augmetic eye glowing brilliantly.
"We were told that the Primaris Marines are the future. After all, they were created by a being none other than the Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah himself! And so the other marks of power armor were becoming obsolete. Hence we ceased production of such an inefficient..."
"Inefficient?! I'll show you inefficient, you blabbering cogwork..."
"Enough!" Mowbray had to physically pull Constantine back to prevent him from striking the tech-priest. He turned back to Mansfield, who appeared giddy with delight as he spoke about Belisarius Cawl. From what he knew, the errant tech-priests of Draconis IV embraced Cawl's philosophy, innovating and experimenting, often with serious consequences. Apparently, they called themselves the second Ryza as they attempted to rival that esteemed forge world by developing their own industry of plasma weapons, but Ryza itself never took Draconis IV seriously. "So there is nothing you can do for non-Primaris Marines? Perhaps alter the MKX power armor to fit them..."
"That's too much work," Constantine cut his marshal off bitterly. "The systems and interfaces of the MKX power armor are complex...they might as well try building a MKVII armor from scratch."
"I wasn't asking you, Constantine." Mowbray's tone was mild, but firm.
"Well, it's not that we can't do anything," Mansfield began. The three Black Templar officers swiveled around to stare at him. The magos held up a mechadendrite. "We do not have power armor for the non-Primaris Marines, true, but we do have Tactical Dreadnought Armor."
"Say what?" Claudio blurted out.
"Tactical Dreadnought Armor. Ah, perhaps you might be more familiar with the term Terminator armor..."
"We know what Tactical Dreadnought Armor is," Mowbray interrupted. "How many do you have?"
"More than enough to supply three comapnies," the magos replied brightly. "And we can produce more if you want. We have the STC for them, after all."
He proceeded toward another segment of the manufactorum, waving a mechadendrite to beckon the Black Templars to follow him. They did, weaving past a row of MKX Tacticus armor, with belts of chainswords and heavy bolt pistols being rolled out. There were even MKX Gravis armor, along with heavy bolt rifles, which Mowbray took special note of.
However, Mansfield took them past the Primaris armaments and toward an isolatd section of the manufactorum. Constantine stopped short, his breath caught in his throat, when he saw the rows of heavy Terminator armor arrayed before them.
"This..."
"If you want them, you can have them," Mansfield said, checking through the noosphere. "It's not like we have any Space Marine Chapter in the sector, anyway."
They did, but Mowbray had heard about the grim fate of the Sapphire Drakes. Once staunch defenders in the Draconis Sector, they had been accused of treachery by the Inquisition and the entire chapter disappeared shortly after that. There were rumors that the Sapphire Drakes had been destroyed by a mysterious chapter clad in silver terminator armor, but Mowbray was unable to verify that.
"There's more than enough here to armor my entire fighting company," Constantine whispered in disbelief, gaping at the many Terminator armor arrayed before him. To his amazement, they resembled none of the Terminator armor that he was used to. Half of them displayed large, layered pauldrons and bore additional plating and shield generators when compared to the regular patterns. The other half was sleeker, allowing for more mobility. "And these are all...relics. Patterns usually only seen during the era of the Great Heresy. I have never seen these numbers of such ancient patterns gathered in a single place."
"Well, we have the STC for them, so we built them." Mansfield shrugged. "During the Great Crusade, Tactical Dreadnought Armor was originally meant to replace the standard power armor, so we stopped manufacturing power armor and focused on Termiantor armor instead. Until the Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah - bless his grace - brought the newer MKX power armor to our forge world."
"Incredible..."
On the other hand, Claudio was more circumspect, studying the barreled-shaped Cataphractii Terminator armor with interest, before turning his attention to the more graceful form of Tartaros Terminator armor.
"Huh? Where's the Indomitus pattern?"
"We only produce the Cataphractii and Tartaros patterns. We only have STCs for those." Mansfield looked sheepish when he explained. "Since the STC for the Indomitus pattern is held in sacred Mars and other forge worlds, we didn't bother to get a copy."
Mowbray, Claudio and Constantine exchanged glances with each other, and then the marshal nodded.
"See to it that our men are armed with these."
"Very well." Mansfield rubbed his mechadendries and biological hands in glee. "It would be great to put these suits to use rather than leave them here to collect dust."
"Constantine, you will continue to liaise with the magos and organize the rearmoring of your fighting company. Claudio, let's go. We will be checking on Brother Devin."
A look of anguish came over Constantine's face, but the castellan clamped down on his emotions quickly. Devin was one of the sergeants in his fighting company and part of he very few survivors from the devastating assault by the daemons summoned by the Word Bearers, but he had been too heavily wounded. His body was currently in stasis as the apothecary planned to install him within the sacrophagus of a Dreadnought.
Unfortunately, they would have to once again rely on the forge world of Draconis IV to provide a suitable Dreadnought chassis for Devin.
"We will check on him for you, Brother-Castellan," Claudio assured Constantine. He simply nodded, and at Mowbray, he returned to his task. The marshal and his second-in-command then left.
As the two Black Templar officers walked through the manufactorum, Claudio looked around, particularly at the conveyor belt that was churning out Leman Russ tanks. There was another pattern of tanks they weren't familiar with, but a rough search through his dataslate identified it as a Carnodon medium tank, which was armed with fearsome volkite weaponry.
"I don't know if you've noticed, Marshal, but...it seems like they only manufacture the Executioner pattern of Leman Russ tanks."
Mowbray glanced in the direction that his second-in-command was pointing. True enough, every single Leman Russ tank was armed with an Executioner plasma cannon and plasma cannon sponsons.
"There are no standard battle cannons, none of the other variants. I believe it's a throwback to the era of the Great Crusade, where the Draconian Armored Defenders fielded entire regiments of Leman Russ Executioner tanks and Stormblades, but this is..."
"Inflexible." Mowbray paused and glanced back at where Constantine continued to discuss with Mansfield. The lack of standard MKVII and MKVIII power armor bothered him, even though they solved the problem with a ridiculous number of Terminator armor. He glanced at the weapons, noting the lasguns, volkite chargers and plasma guns, but there were hardly any other variants. Meltaguns were produced in smaller numbers. Flamers and heavy flamers were far and few in betweeen. No grenade launchers, missile launchers, man-portable heavy bolters or autocannons. The weapons they produced for the Astra Militarum regiments of Draconis III were primarily energy based.
Mowbray was surprised that Draconis IV continued to produce volkite weapons, though. Volkite technology was incredibly complex and extremely difficult to replicate, even back during the days of the Great Crusade, but apparently Draconis IV produced them with astonishing ease. At the cost of manufacturing ballistic weaponry for the Imperial Guard, apparently. He sighed.
"Draconis IV may be brilliant in terms of plasma and laser technology, as well as holding precious STCs of what would otherwise be relics in other worlds, but their...rigidity and singlemindedness hold them back. No wonder Ryza doesn't take them seriously."
"Indeed."
The two were silent until they reached the apothecarion where Brother Devin's ruined body lay. A tech-priest was in the midst of conferring his body into the sacrophagus that would be installed within a Dreadnought chassis.
But when they caught sight of the chassis, both Black Templars stopped.
"Isn't that...a Contemptor chassis?" Claudio asked, overawed.
"Ah, yes." The Magos Biologis in charge of the installation straightened up, his mechadendrites waving cheerfully. Like Mansfield, Magos Brenan was mostly flesh and organics, with few visible augmetics apart from the mechadendrites from his back. "We only produce Contemptor chassises here on Draconis IV."
"You don't have the Castraferrum pattern?" Claudio asked, astonished.
"The what...? Oh, the box variant." Brenan had skimmed through the noosphere for a second before he understood what the castellan was referring. "Nah, they're too ugly. And we have the STC for the Contemptor pattern, anyway, so why would we bother with inferior variants?"
Mowbray's lip curled. "They are not inferior."
"You can't deny that the Contemptor pattern is superior to the Castraferrum pattern, can you? They offer atomantic shielding, on top of being more mobile and maneuverable. Also, their modular structure allows them to swap out weapons, affording unparalleled flexibility on the battlefield..."
"I am aware of the strengths of the Contemptor pattern," Mowbray interrupted, staring at the chassis with undisguised amazement. "I am just...surprised and impressed that you continue to produce them. Few forge worlds still manufacture the Contemptor pattern today, if any. They are usually relics from the Great Crusade."
"Oh, you'll be surprised. There are many forge worlds who have the ability to produce Contemptor patterns. They just don't want to. Usually because of stupid superstitious reasons. There are plenty in the priesthood who eschew the Contemptor pattern simply because they resemble the mythical battle-automata of the Legio Cybernetica." Brenan waved a hand airily. "But Draconis IV is famous for manufacturing Cybernetica automata, and since the Contemptor Dreadought shares many systems used by our Legio Cybernetica, it's only natural that we favor its production over the Castraferrum pattern. We do not share such ridiculous superstitions - in fact, we revere the Legio Cybernetica."
"Understandable," Mowbray said, though inwardly he wondered if the priesthood of Draconis IV was close to skirting the line of heresy. He had heard that the Adeptus Mechanicus banned reseach on artificial intelligences and the restrictions on innovating Cybernetica automata - the dreaded Men of Iron came to mind - but he wasn't too familiar with what was allowed and what wasn't. Those were the domains of the mysterious tech-priests.
All Mowbray had to concern himself with was the eradication of the enemy. Purge the xenos, the witch and the traitor.
"We will leave Brother Devin in your hands...uh, mechadendrites then. Let us go, Claudio."
"Where are we going, Brother-Marshal?" The Castellan hastened his pace to catch up with Mowbray, who had broken to a trot as he headed in the direction where his shuttle had been parked.
"We will be heading to Draconis III next. I should at least pay my respects to the Shogun, especially since the Knights of his House have aided us greatly during this last expedition." Mowbray glanced up at the darkened skies of Draonis IV, imagining that the many blinking lights above belonged to that of his newly expanded fleet.
Then he clenched his gauntlet into a fist. "And to discuss our next plan of action. Do you remember the astropathic signal for aid?"
"Yes." Claudio perked up at that. "We will be going to battle once more?"
"Of course." Mowbray glanced back at the manufactorum one last time before he strode toward the shuttle. "Once we finish resupplying and rearming, we will move out with the fleet. We will head for Kryptos VIII."
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