Sergeant Kell of the 8th Cadian Shock Troopers stood with several other officers on the wind-scoured plain, all of them casting puzzled glances toward Lord General Ursakar E. Creed. None of them understood why Creed had spent the last several minutes persuading the High Castellan and Vice Castellan to withdraw from the landing zone.
To most officers, their presence here made perfect sense. The Tyrok Fields were sacred ground to Cadia, a place where regiments had bled, died, triumphed, and been remade into legends. If the two Castellans personally greeted the newly returned regiments, morale would surge through the mustering grounds like a charge through a power conduit. Every soldier stepping off a lander would feel that Cadia herself had noticed their return.
Yet Creed had insisted they leave. Politely. Firmly. Repeatedly.
Now the Valkyrie carrying them away climbed into Cadia's harsh violet sky, its engines whining against the thin upper winds. Creed remained silent as he watched it ascend, eyes narrowed against the glare until the brightness forced him to turn his gaze back toward the landing fields.
The first troop transports were already touching down. Heavy landers descended through dust and engine wash, their hulls marked by years of void travel, battlefield redeployment, and emergency maintenance. Ramps slammed open. Warning klaxons blared. From within the steel bellies of the warships, eight thousand troopers of the 8th Cadian marched onto the soil of their homeworld.
They came in disciplined blocks, squads and platoons forming almost before their boots struck the ground. Chimeras rolled down armored ramps with exhaust stacks coughing black smoke. Leman Russ battle tanks followed, treads grinding over the landing plates. Hellhounds, recovery vehicles, ammunition carriers, vox-tracks, field medicae transports, and command vehicles spread outward under the direction of barking sergeants and hand signals from traffic marshals in dust-stained flak coats.
Creed turned fully toward his regiment.
The men and women of the 8th had endured a long, grinding journey through the void. The lines cut into their dust-caked faces spoke of cramped berths, recycled air, bad rations, too little sleep, and too many years spent fighting on worlds that did not know their names. Their uniforms were clean enough for inspection, but travel fatigue clung to them more stubbornly than dirt.
Then their boots settled on Cadia.
Something changed. Not dramatically. Cadians were not a people given to theatrical displays of sentiment. But shoulders straightened. Eyes sharpened. A few soldiers bent down and touched the ground with gloved fingers before anyone could notice. Others looked toward the distant fortress lines, the gun towers, the hard horizon of their birthworld, and allowed themselves brief, guarded smiles.
Men began speaking of rest. Of families. Of old hab-blocks and Kasr streets. Of whether their favorite drinking holes still stood. Of whether leave would be granted before the next deployment. Some joked about sleeping for three days. Others promised to visit graves. A few said nothing at all, because Cadia had taught them early that wanting something too openly was an invitation for the galaxy to take it away.
Creed let the murmurs breathe for several seconds. Then he spoke.
"All units to combat readiness. If battle breaks out, the entire 8th must be ready to deploy at a moment's notice."
Kell snapped to attention at once. "Yes, Lord General."
Confusion flickered across the old sergeant's face, but it did not slow him. Kell had served long enough to know the difference between an order that required explanation and an order that required execution. Creed's voice belonged to the second kind.
Kell turned, drew in a breath, and bellowed hard enough to cut through engine noise, clattering treads, and the chatter of thousands of soldiers tasting home for the first time in years.
"Eighth Cadian! Combat readiness! Squads to assigned stations! Armor crews remain mounted or within ten meters! Vox discipline in effect! Ammunition checks begin now!"
The order rippled outward through officers, vox-operators, squad leaders, and vehicle commanders. Men who had been smiling a heartbeat earlier went still. Then training took over. Questions died unasked. The 8th moved.
Infantry squads formed around their sergeants. Lasguns were cleared, inspected, and reloaded. Power packs were counted. Bayonets were checked. Grenades were issued from locked crates and logged by grim-faced quartermasters. Heavy weapons teams broke open transport cases, confirmed firing assemblies, and began hauling their equipment toward preselected defensive points. Vox-operators raised aerials and tested channels with clipped precision.
Engineers marked firing lanes with survey flags and began cutting shallow fighting pits into the hardened ground. Supply crews dragged ammunition pallets into covered positions. Field medicae personnel established casualty collection points beside armored transports, not because anyone expected bloodshed on a welcoming field, but because Creed had ordered readiness and Cadians understood that readiness meant preparing for the worst before the worst introduced itself.
The armored companies reacted just as quickly. Leman Russ engines rumbled awake one after another, low and heavy, shaking dust from their own hulls. Chimera drivers checked gear response and turret traverse. Hellhound crews tested promethium pressure with the nervous reverence of men sitting beside enough fuel to turn a company into vapor. Vehicle commanders remained close to their machines, helmets on, sidearms secured, one eye on their crews and the other on Creed.
Within minutes, the 8th looked less like a regiment returning home and more like a blade laid carefully across Cadia's throat, waiting for a hand to close around the hilt.
Every soldier, every idling engine, every servo-whine and rattling ammunition crate became part of the same silent rhythm: Creed had seen something, or expected something, and the 8th would be ready when it arrived.
Klein watched the transformation from beside Creed, his expression shifting from curiosity to open admiration.
"Impressive," the Talon merchant murmured. "The famed discipline of the Cadian Shock Troops… I thought I understood it before, but seeing it like this is different."
A faint flicker of pride crossed Creed's otherwise unreadable face.
He had never cared much for praise aimed at himself. Compliments about his command ability were often political, flattering, or merely obvious. Praise for the 8th was different. That belonged to the regiment. To the officers who drilled until their throats cracked. To the sergeants who turned frightened recruits into soldiers. To the troopers who obeyed even when they were tired, hungry, homesick, and confused.
"Back on Talon, you definitely held something back, didn't you?" Klein asked, his tone light but his eyes sharp. "Even the Underhive veterans in the Talon Legions were never this drilled."
"No," Creed replied flatly. He did not even blink. "I gave you the most suitable training plan possible."
Klein raised an eyebrow.
Creed continued, "Your troops had teleportation technology, advanced battlefield networking, and equipment that allowed rapid concentration of force. For them, parade-ground discipline was not the priority. Deployment speed, target recognition, unit initiative, and immediate combat effectiveness were."
If anyone else had said it, Klein might have dismissed the answer as an excuse. From Creed, it sounded like doctrine. Worse, it sounded correct.
Klein knew Talon's weakness well enough. The Talon Legions could mobilize with terrifying speed. They could drop into a battlefield, seize the initiative, and kill with brutal efficiency. But compared to Cadians, their discipline still had rough edges. Their soldiers had learned war in the Underhive, in emergency campaigns, and under Qin Mo's relentless pressure for practical results. Eighty percent of new recruit training had focused on survival, weapons handling, battlefield movement, and how to kill efficiently before the enemy killed them first.
Cadians were different. Cadia had been drilling its children for ten thousand years.
Creed's gaze moved briefly toward Klein's bodyguard detail. The armed retainers stood nearby, alert but not fully at ease among so many Imperial soldiers.
"Prepare yourselves," Creed said to them. "When the fighting starts, I do not expect you to engage unless directly threatened. Keep yourselves alive, keep your ship intact, and do not interfere with my regiment's deployment lanes."
Klein did not take offense. The warning was too practical to be an insult. He nodded solemnly.
"Understood."
He knew exactly where he stood. He was a liaison, a merchant, a courier for Talon's interests, and perhaps several other things depending on who was asking. He was not a Cadian line officer, and this was not his battlefield to command.
....
The 8th remained garrisoned at the landing zone for six days.
Each day, more Imperial Navy vessels translated into orbit above Cadia. Some arrived in disciplined formations, escorted by patrol craft and defense monitors. Others limped in with scarred hulls, damaged escorts, and emergency repair crews already crawling over their plating before anchorage was complete. Orbital traffic thickened until the skies over Cadia seemed to hum with descending landers, rising shuttles, fuel barges, ammunition haulers, and vox-coded orders.
Thunderhawks, bulk landers, Valkyries, and heavy troop transports ferried down soldiers by the tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions. Entire regiments spilled onto the Tyrok Fields and surrounding mustering grounds: Cadians, off-world Guard formations, artillery brigades, tank companies, siege engineers, medicae detachments, command staffs, Munitorum clerks, preachers, commissars, and enough logistics personnel to drown a lesser world in paperwork.
The Tyrok Fields swelled with martial energy. Camps spread across the plains in ordered blocks. Fuel dumps rose behind armored berms. Temporary shrines were erected beside ammunition depots. Vox masts climbed into the sky. Field kitchens smoked day and night. Drill squares formed wherever there was open ground. Engines ran constantly, their growl mixing with marching cadence, shouted orders, machine-prayers, and the distant thunder of orbital traffic.
It should have been reassuring.
To many, it was. The sight of so much Imperial strength gathered beneath Cadia's sky felt like the Emperor's wrath taking physical shape.
Creed watched it all and grew quieter with each passing day.
On the seventh day, the High Castellan and Vice Castellan issued orders for a grand military parade. Officially, it was a show of strength and unity. Unofficially, it was meant to restore confidence, impress newly arrived commanders, and welcome a regiment whose reputation had traveled ahead of it through countless war zones:
The Volscani Cataphracts.
Preparations swept across the Tyrok Fields like wildfire. Officers polished armor. Standards were unfurled. Vehicle crews scrubbed dust from tank hulls that would be dirty again within the hour. Regimental bands practiced hymns and martial marches beneath the annoyed gaze of infantrymen who would rather have been sleeping. Munitorum officials hurried between command tents with data-slates, parade schedules, seating arrangements, and the kind of urgent self-importance only military ceremony could produce.
The 8th Cadian received orders to participate as well.
One of the Castellan's Honor Guard approached the 8th's encampment shortly after morning muster. He wore polished carapace armor over a dress uniform cut for ceremony rather than fieldwork, though the weapon at his side was real and well maintained. A pair of Cadian troopers guided him through the regiment's outer perimeter, past sandbagged weapon pits, idling Chimeras, and soldiers who had somehow made "standing at ease" look like a threat.
They found Creed standing atop the hull of a Leman Russ battle tank. Klein stood beside him, coat snapping in the wind, a pair of magnoculars pressed to his face. Creed held his own magnoculars steady, scanning the distant landing zones rather than the parade grounds being prepared behind him.
"Lord General," the guardsman said respectfully. He saluted with formal precision. "It is time for the parade. The Castellan extends a formal invitation and expects your attendance."
"My apologies," Creed replied. His eyes never left the horizon. "There has been a development on my end. I may be delayed."
The guardsman's expression tightened by the smallest degree. He did not believe a word of it.
There was no alarm. No visible attack. No emergency vox-traffic loud enough to justify a lord general ignoring a formal summons from the Castellans of Cadia. To the Honor Guard, this looked like evasion dressed in military language.
And that made no sense.
A parade was an honor. More than that, it was a symbol. For Cadia to welcome the Volscani Cataphracts in full view of so many gathered regiments should have been a privilege to witness. Every officer present would be seen. Every absence would be noticed.
Why would Creed avoid it?
"General…" the guardsman began.
"I will make preparations now," Creed cut him off, still watching the distant plains. "You may return and inform the Castellan."
Sergeant Kell stepped forward before the guardsman could argue. The old veteran's gesture was polite, but the meaning behind it was not. The conversation was over.
The Honor Guard hesitated, then saluted again with visible strain.
"Very well. I will report this exactly as it happened."
He turned and left, muttering under his breath once he believed distance and engine noise would hide the words.
"Ursakar E. Creed cannot even organize his own men for a parade… The Castellan will think I am lying…"
Kell watched him go with a flat expression. "Want me to correct him, sir?"
"No," Creed said.
"Shame."
Creed did not lower the magnoculars. Across the plains, allied regiments continued their preparations. Standards rose. Tank companies formed into parade order. Officers mounted command vehicles. Bands tuned instruments. The whole field glittered with ceremony, discipline, pride, and distraction.
Then a new transport shuttle descended from orbit.
Creed's posture changed. Not enough for most men to notice. Kell noticed. Klein noticed as well, though he understood the movement only as tension, not its cause.
"Volscani," Creed said.
He adjusted the focus of his magnoculars toward the landing site.
The heavy transport settled onto the field with controlled force, landing struts biting into the hardened ground. Steam vented from its flanks. The boarding ramp lowered with a hiss of hydraulics, and the first thousand Volscani Cataphracts marched out in immaculate formation.
They were impressive. No honest soldier would deny it.
Their armor was polished, but not ornamental. Their uniforms were severe, dark, and perfectly maintained. Heavy breastplates caught the cold Cadian light. Lasguns rested at identical angles across their chests. Their boots struck the ground in such perfect rhythm that the sound carried across the landing zone like a single machine stamping its mark into the world.
They did not speak.
Not one voice broke formation. Not one soldier glanced aside at the gathered regiments. No one adjusted a strap, looked for a friend, spat dust from his mouth, or made the tiny human movements that even disciplined troops made when they thought no one was watching.
They looked less like men arriving for a parade and more like weapons being unpacked.
Their eyes were the worst part. Every visible face held the same fixed resolve, not pride, not excitement, not relief at arrival, but a hard inward certainty that seemed to leave no space for doubt or fear.
They had not come to be welcomed.
They had come to war.
And this was only the first wave of a million-strong Volscani Cataphracts detachment.
Klein lowered his magnoculars slowly. "These are not average Guardsmen."
Creed nodded once, grimly. "The Volscani Cataphracts are considered among the most tenacious and unbreakable forces defending the Cadian Gate. If they fail a mission, it is usually because every last one of them is dead."
"Even tougher than your 8th?" Klein asked.
Creed did not answer at once. His gaze remained locked on the Volscani formation as they cleared the landing ramp and made room for the next block of troops.
At last, he spoke.
"We do not know that."
A pause.
"Not yet."
Klein looked at him sharply. The answer had not sounded like professional pride. It had sounded like assessment. Like Creed was measuring two blades and wondering which would break first when struck against the other.
Klein opened his mouth to ask what Creed meant, but another figure approached before he could speak.
This Honor Guard wore full carapace armor reinforced with the sigils of High Command. His helmet included a vox-augmented grille, and his posture carried less ceremonial irritation and more battlefield authority. He saluted from the base of the Leman Russ.
"General Creed."
Creed finally lowered his magnoculars. "Speak."
"The Castellan invites you and your merchant companion to the Leviathan Command Vehicle to observe the parade."
Creed did not respond immediately. His eyes shifted past the guardsman, following the freshly deployed Volscani troops. Several of their officers were already boarding a light transport headed toward the same Leviathan command platform.
Kell saw it too. His hand moved slightly closer to his weapon, not enough to alarm anyone, but enough to show he understood Creed's mood.
Creed climbed down from the tank with deliberate calm. Dust clung to the hem of his coat. His expression remained unreadable.
"Maintain open comms," he told Kell.
"Always," Kell replied.
Creed turned to Klein. "With me."
Klein nodded and followed him toward the waiting shuttle. His security detail moved as well, armored retainers falling into step with practiced coordination.
The Honor Guard looked mildly irritated when he saw the extra bodies joining them. His orders had likely mentioned Creed and the merchant, not an armed Talon escort. But he had enough sense not to argue with Ursakar Creed on an active mustering field surrounded by the 8th Cadian.
He said nothing.
.....
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