"Order the 75th back! They're going to be cut off!"
"2984th! You must hold the line! I don't care what you are facing—fight to the last man if you must!"
"Sector 23 is being overrun! What units can we send there!?"
Inside the command center of Hive Aegiron, chaos ruled.
Shouting echoed through the chamber.
Vox-officers barked orders into crackling channels.
Servitors dragged fresh data-slates from station to station.
Red warning runes flashed across the hololith, bathing the room in bloody light as the battlefield map shifted by the minute.
Enemy markers spread like disease.
Friendly icons vanished one after another.
It had been only seven hours since the fall of Hive Diana.
Seven hours—
And the traitors that came from Hive Diana had already broken through the defense lines set to stop them.
Worse still—
They were not even the main force.
The traitor marines had not yet arrived, nor had there been any confirmed sighting of them.
Those who shattered the lines were a vast horde of Chaos cultists, thrown forward as cannon fodder. They soaked up ammunition, drew fire, and forced the defenders to waste strength.
Then the real blow came.
Behind the mob waited disciplined traitor guardsmen.
When the loyalist lines were exhausted, they advanced and finished what the cultists began.
A massive wave of Chimeras rolled through the smoke, engines roaring as they pushed over broken trenches and barricades.
Sentinels stalked beside them in large numbers, autocannons flashing as they cut down defenders in cover.
Rear ramps dropped open.
Traitor guardsmen poured out in organized ranks, lasguns firing in volleys as they spread through the breaches.
They were unusually disciplined and effective for Chaos mortals—even for traitor guardsmen.
They advanced under cover.
They rotated firing lines.
They used armor support properly.
This was no rabble.
As the enemy pushed deeper and more reports were gathered, the defenders learned the truth.
These traitor guards were no ordinary regiment.
"Sir," an adjutant said, stopping beside the Colonel. "79th, 85th, and 87th Sentinel Squads have finished assembling at the rally point."
He handed over a datapad.
"Good," the Colonel said as he signed it, confirming the order. He set the pad down upon the holotable.
"Tell the High Sergeant to begin his attack."
"Yes, sir."
The adjutant turned to a nearby vox-operator and gave a sharp nod.
The operator immediately transmitted the signal to the three squadrons.
Outside, engines roared to life.
In a ruined manufactorum yard, nine Armoured Sentinels stood waiting in rows, weapons loaded and cockpits sealed.
Four were armed with lascannons.
One carried a plasma cannon.
Three mounted autocannons.
The last bore a heavy flamer, its fuel tanks chained to the rear hull.
Their commander, High Sergeant Varik, received the order rune across his display.
He smiled grimly.
"About time."
He keyed the squadron channel.
"All walkers advance."
"Line formation."
"We hit their flank hard and fast."
One by one, the Sentinels strode forward through smoke and falling ash.
Heavy feet crushed debris beneath them.
Servo joints hissed.
Targeting optics glowed in the haze.
They moved through side streets and broken loading lanes, using the ruins for cover as the sounds of battle grew louder ahead.
On the hololith inside the command center, the symbols of the three Sentinel squads moved closer and closer to the traitor advance.
The Colonel's face grew grimmer with each passing second.
After all, with only nine Sentinels sent against that enemy force, this was little more than a suicide mission.
"Are you sure this was the right move, sir?" the adjutant asked quietly.
The first attack run struck.
Three allied Sentinel symbols vanished from the display.
Explosions flashed across the map.
The Colonel did not answer.
The second attack came moments later.
More enemy markers disappeared—but so did three more Sentinels.
Smoke filled the tactical projection.
The adjutant looked away.
Then came the third and final strike.
The last three friendly symbols blinked out.
Silence hung over the chamber.
The Colonel kept his eyes on the map.
In their place, the enemy spearhead had stalled.
Several Chimera markers were gone.
Infantry icons scattered.
The advance had slowed.
"This is the only way to buy time," the Colonel said at last.
His voice was calm.
"How is the defense line?" he asked after a short silence.
"All the main parts of the line have finished construction," the adjutant quickly answered as he took out another datapad and checked the reports. "Part of the labor force has been armed with weapons and armor, and are now standing ready in the secondary trenches."
The Colonel gave a small nod.
"Artillery?"
"Gun batteries repositioned and loaded. Ammunition remains low, but enough for several major barrages."
"Minefields?"
"Outer roads seeded. Detonation codes issued."
The Colonel looked back to the hololith.
New blue lines appeared across the southern districts.
Barricades.
Kill zones.
Fallback positions.
"What of morale?" he asked.
The adjutant hesitated.
"The regular troops remain steady."
"And the laborers?"
Another pause.
"They are afraid, sir."
The Colonel let out a slow breath.
"They should be."
He straightened and looked around the chamber.
"Fear means they understand what is coming."
Another officer stepped forward.
"Scouts report enemy armor regrouping beyond the smoke line. More infantry gathering behind them."
The Colonel nodded once.
"Good. Let them come."
He tapped the hololith where the new defense line stood.
"We will make these traitors bleed for the sins they committed during the Heresy."
His eyes lifted from the defense line and settled on two symbols marked upon the display.
One was ancient, but still proud—the mark of the Solar Auxilia.
The other was more obscure.
Yet because of treachery, it had become remembered.
The mark of the Barbaran Ambaxtoi, Solar Auxilia Regiments that were raised from Barbarus, the Homeworld of the Death Guard.
The adjutant looked at the icons.
"I still can't believe the any of them still survive," he said with disbelive tone. "especially in such large and still discipline formation."
"And still much humans," the colonel said as he now looking at the photos of the dead traitor Auxilias being display.
Though many of the traitor guards that desert the Emperor's light and went into darkness still able to retain their human form and not be corrupted, most of them will begin to show Warp corruption according to the Chaos gods that they worship or just the normal flesh mutation due to the Warp.
But, he see no such thing on the dead Auxilias.
They have no flesh mutation or even the corruption of the Dark God on them.
The weapons, armors and vehicles they used still look just like the ordinary one, other than the profane sigils and heretical icons on them.
A truly strange situation, one that contracting with the things he learn back at the Academy.
"It's not important," the colonel said as he shake his head, focusing back on the task. "what's important is that we hold the Hive as long as we could so that Hive Virtus can finish their preparation on their defenses."
The fighting in and around Hive Aegiron continued without pause.
The defenders kept throwing back attacks from the south, while the Colonel mobilized more and more conscripts to reinforce the lines against the Barbaran Ambaxtoi.
Street by street.
Wall by wall.
Hour by hour.
As the hive continued to burn, a change began to come.
Above the smoke-choked sky, hundreds of falling stars appeared.
All of them were descending toward the hive.
At first, many thought them meteors.
Then the sound came.
A chorus of shrieking screams grew louder and louder, echoing across the city.
Hearing it, much of the fighting stopped.
Only those battling deep underground continued, cut off from the sky above.
Across trenches, rooftops, barricades, and ruined streets, men and women raised their eyes upward.
Even the traitors paused.
The falling stars grew larger.
Shapes could now be seen inside the fire.
Drop-pods.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
Imperial aquilas marked upon their hulls.
The first slammed into the outer districts like thunder.
Then another.
And another.
The ground shook across Hive Aegiron.
The Colonel stared at the hololith as fresh blue runes burst across the map.
Then, a message suddenly cut across the display—bearing the sigil of the Dark Knights.
"For Camelarion!" the Colonel shouted the moment he saw it. "Our reinforcements have arrived! Time to make them pay!"
"For Camelarion! For Camelot!" the command center echoed as every voice in the chamber joined the cry.
Across the districts, the drop-pods burst open.
Their lethal passengers flooded out.
Black-armored Space Marines advanced through smoke and flame with perfect discipline.
Bolter fire began to echo through the streets.
Mass-reactive shells tore traitors apart in bloody bursts.
Chainswords roared to life, joined by the sound of flesh being ripped open.
The traitor advance stalled at once.
At one of the defense line facing the Barbaran Ambaxtoi, two squads of assault marines charge straight into the traitor ranks.
Lasfire sparked harmlessly from ceramite armor.
Then the marines hit them.
Chainswords and thunder hammers made short work of the traitors.
Bodies were hurled aside.
Armor split open.
Weapons shattered in their hands.
The first rank died before they could fall back.
The second tried to hold formation.
They lasted only seconds longer.
One assault marine landed in the center of a heavy weapons team, his chainsword roaring as he cut through crew and gun alike.
Another swung a thunder hammer into a Chimera's hull.
The transport folded inward and exploded, throwing burning debris across the street.
Yet unlike common traitor rabble, the Barbaran Auxilia did not break at once.
Officers shouted commands.
Rear ranks stepped forward.
Volley fire resumed.
Missile teams repositioned.
Before long, the Astartes began to suffer casualties as missiles and plasma fire struck home.
One assault marine was hurled from the air by a missile blast, crashing into the roadway below.
Another staggered as superheated plasma scorched through a shoulder plate.
A third fell when concentrated fire tore through his jump pack, sending him spinning into a ruined wall.
Even so, they did not slow.
The jump packs ignited once more, and the Astartes launched directly into the heavy weapon teams.
They crashed among missile crews and plasma gunners like falling meteors.
Chainswords rose and fell.
Thunder hammers crushed men and weapons alike.
Gun emplacements were smashed apart in seconds.
As the Astartes wreaked havoc, the defenders began their counterattack.
Guardsmen charged out from their defensive emplacements, bayonets fixed and lasguns firing into the now half-disorganized traitor ranks.
They shouted as they ran.
Some from courage.
Some from fear.
But they ran all the same.
The traitors tried to reform lines and answer with volleys, but now they were pressed from two sides.
Inside the walls, the defenders drove forward street by street.
Outside the hive walls, a different battle was unfolding.
None of the drop-pods sent to relieve Hive Aegiron had landed beyond the walls.
There, another force had been chosen.
At the same moment the drop-pods struck the city, small silver Warp rifts began to open across the traitor emplacements outside the hive.
Before many could understand what was happening, hundreds of Terminators charged out of the breaches.
Their armor was black and silver.
Their steps shook the ground.
Storm bolters ripped through flesh and steel alike, cutting down rows of traitors in seconds before turning to reap more.
Assault cannons spun to life.
A storm of shells tore through trenches, bunkers, and weapon pits.
Heavy flamers washed barricades in burning promethium.
Men ran screaming.
A traitor tank crew tried to turn their guns.
Too late.
A Terminator with a thunder hammer smashed through the turret in one strike.
Another squad teleported directly into an artillery battery, slaughtering the crews before they could fire again.
===
"My lord, the relief force for Hive Aegiron has arrived at its destination and is currently engaging the traitor force," Viktor reported to Atharion.
"Good," Atharion said with a nod. "Then we need only deal with the plague marines. After that, we can focus on reconquering the hives."
Atharion stood within the troop bay of a Stormbird gunship, with Argent Wardens by his side.
Around it flew a formation of Thunderhawks, engines roaring through the ash-filled sky.
Each carried Terminators of the 2nd and 5th companies.
One hundred and fifty in total.
Veterans clad in ancient Tactical Dreadnought armor, armed for slaughter.
There were also several Thunderhawk Transporters in the formation.
They carried twenty-five Deimos Pattern Predator Destructors.
Five Deimos Pattern Predator Executioners.
Five Land Raider Redeemers.
And two Land Raider Terminus Ultras.
An armored spearhead hanging beneath the gunships, ready to be unleashed.
They were flying toward the Death Guard force that had conquered Hive Diana and was now marching on Hive Aegiron.
Reconnaissance from Hive Aegiron had reported only scattered squads of plague marines.
That report was wrong.
The truth is the main Death Guard force sent to conquer Virtus was there.
Three hundred plague marines advancing in grim formation.
They were supported by a sizeable armored column of Predators and Land Raiders, escorting the Rhinos use to transport the rest of them.
Though, according to Atharion vision and the Emperor's Tarot result provided by the Librarians, other than the three hundred plague marines, there also multiple squads Blightlord Terminators lead by a Lord of Contagion, the Death Guard warlord assign to conquer Virtus.