V2 Chapter 91: Operation Designation: Hellstorm
Duvette boarded a large transport vessel alongside the Ash Watchers-Eisenmark 112th and the Krieg 1173rd Combat Group.
The ship was travelling through the Warp, following a designated transit route toward the expedition's assembly anchorage. The Gellar Field maintained its fragile barrier against the void outside the hull, and every deck aboard was kept at combat readiness. The Krieg soldiers had been billeted in the lower troop compartments; the 112th occupied several sections positioned closer to the armoury and landing craft bays.
Duvette was in his new quarters.
It had to be said: Slaydo's regard and his own change in standing had finally made certain details considerably more comfortable.
The quarters were considerably more spacious than before. There was a dedicated desk, a tactical projection unit, an encrypted vox port, and a chair that could actually be sat in with some degree of comfort.
At the moment he was leaning back in the soft leather of that chair, with a glass of wine and a fresh meat cut on the table in front of him.
These were not common commodities on an expedition transport. Most Astra Militarum soldiers spent their transit time on compressed rations and reprocessed nutrient paste. Duvette was under no illusions about what had changed to produce this particular arrangement.
He cut a piece from the meat with his knife, ate it, and continued reading the data-slate on the desk.
The battle reports on the slate were not updated in real time.
Before the transport entered the Warp, the expedition's command had synchronised a batch of highest-classification files. Beyond those, there were brief dispatches received by the astropathic choir, purified and reconstructed before transmission. Those messages came with significant delay, and some had been recorded by the astropaths as fragmented impressions before the scribes assembled them into readable text.
Even so, they were more than sufficient for Duvette to read the shape of the entire crusade's trajectory.
Nadzybar's counter-offensive had been stopped.
In Duvette's memory of how events were supposed to unfold, that counter-offensive would have dragged on considerably longer, pinning the expedition down for years. It had lost its rhythm entirely instead.
He had changed several key points.
Those changes, stacked together, had been sufficient to knock Nadzybar's extended counter-offensive off its tempo before it could find its footing.
The Sveren direction had been reversed ahead of schedule. More significantly, the decoy plan involving the Fabian Russ system had been exposed before it could be used.
Marshal Slaydo had already sensed on his own that the enemy intelligence about the Fabian Russ system was coming through too cleanly and in too much detail. Duvette had indicated he had noticed certain specific inconsistencies, and the Marshal had confirmed what he already suspected: it was not an opportunity but a prepared encirclement trap of Nadzybar's design.
Slaydo then arranged the countermeasure personally.
False intelligence was fed to the agents still undetected within the expedition's ranks, leading them to report to Nadzybar that the Imperial main force would proceed toward the Fabian Russ system as the original routing suggested.
A purge within the expedition followed shortly afterward. A number of enemy informants embedded within the vox networks, supply chains, astropathic relay channels, and fleet coordination systems were identified and removed.
The purge did not make the expedition clean.
The Imperium's armies were never truly clean.
But it was sufficient to deny Nadzybar accurate intelligence on the movement of the Imperial main force. Simultaneously, the Imperial fleet used the reverse-engineered assembly routes to strike the enemy fleet elements just beginning to gather for their operation, eliminating the largest remaining threat before it could mature.
All of this had caused Slaydo to regard Duvette with even greater appreciation than before.
Duvette exhaled slowly and lifted the wine glass.
Now, under the Marshal's orders, all principal expedition fleet elements were converging on several designated assembly anchorages following the conclusion of their current engagements.
Those anchorages were not far from Balhaut. A few short Warp transits would bring the fleet into attack position.
The briefing did not record the true names of the assembly systems. Only three sets of High Gothic designations and Warmaster cipher codes were used. The fact that Duvette could see this information confirmed that Slaydo had placed him on the Balhaut core conference list.
At that moment, his personal data-slate produced an alert.
Duvette set down the wine glass and opened it.
It was an encrypted notification from the Warmaster's office.
After the transport fleet reached the assembly anchorage, Marshal Slaydo would convene a full command conference. All generals and special operations commanders on the core list were required to attend. Duvette's name was on the list, at a clearance level considerably higher than before.
Following the notification was a brief operational overview.
The Balhaut total assault operation designation: Hellstorm.
Duvette read those words and his gaze paused for a moment.
He knew what that name meant.
Then he continued reading.
The core principles of Operation Hellstorm had been compressed into several Warmaster-level directive lines.
Phase one: the Imperial fleet would use deception, raid actions, and multiple short Warp transits to seize orbital advantage over Balhaut before the enemy could complete its response, and would inflict maximum damage on enemy warships and orbital defence platforms in the process.
Phase two: the fleet would conduct sustained orbital bombardment of key surface targets. Priority objectives: anti-aircraft positions, fire-direction nodes, primary vox towers, command fortifications, and enemy armoured assembly areas.
Phase three: before the enemy command structure could complete its adjustment, rapid assault landings on primary planetary objectives. Landing coordinates to be confirmed at the last possible moment before the attack, with full coordinates visible only to the Warmaster's office and the core commanders.
Phase four: based on conditions at the primary landing zones, supplementary landings and mobile reinforcement on secondary objectives, ensuring Nadzybar could not use his outer forces to cut the Imperial main force's supply lines.
Duvette leaned back in the chair and looked at the briefing. A slight smile came to his face.
This was why Slaydo had made the removal of Nadzybar's embedded informants a prerequisite.
Hellstorm's decisive element was not troop strength, and it was not firepower.
It was the time gap.
The Imperial fleet had to reach Balhaut's orbit before Nadzybar fully understood Slaydo's intent. The landing forces had to hit the surface before the enemy could complete its redeployment. If this plan leaked in advance, Nadzybar would have the time to turn Balhaut into a fully prepared killing ground.
But the enemy had already lost its most reliable eyes and ears.
Duvette continued through the briefing.
Balhaut was the most important engagement of the Sabbat Crusade's first phase. Nadzybar would be there. Slaydo would be there as well. If Nadzybar died at Balhaut, the Chaos forces' will to push their counter-offensive across the Sabbat Worlds would be broken.
The subsequent war would still be long.
But from that moment forward, the expedition would hold the advantage completely.
Duvette's fingers rested on the edge of the data-slate.
After Balhaut, Slaydo would in all probability make good on his commitments. Major General's rank. Special Commissar-General authority. A Warmaster-direct special mobile operations group. At that point, the forces at his disposal would no longer be limited to the 112th and temporarily seconded units.
Certain things that he had until now been able only to wait for as the original sequence unfolded around him would become something he could move against directly.
The contaminated Men of Iron STC. And the fate of Tanith, and the fate of Gaunt and his First-and-Only, which this timeline would see changed by his own hand.
Duvette looked briefly at the Hellstorm designation on the data-slate, then closed the briefing and lifted the wine glass again.
The Warp transit continued.
A low vibration ran through the ship from somewhere in its depths. The sound of prayers from the chapel compartment reached faintly through the metal walls. The entire transport was moving toward the assembly anchorage before Balhaut.
Duvette cut the last piece from the meat and ate it slowly.
What remained now was only to wait for the decisive battle.
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