954.M30.
Cyclops Cluster, Mill World.
Jeremy, a Chaplain of the 13th Company of the Sixth Chapter, stood upon the city wall, his crozius in hand, his gaze fixed solemnly on the horizon.
Since the end of the Rangdan War, the Cyclops Cluster had been developed vigorously under the grand vision of the Fate Lord.
One hundred worlds were designated as industrial worlds. Mill World was one of them.
The world beneath Jeremy's feet was named for its fifteen large-scale agricultural processing complexes and thirty-one synthetic food complexes.
The fruits produced on Zavarichi, the agri-world gifted by the Primarch to Rogue Trader Lewis von Valancius, were processed here into salads, supplied to restaurants on worlds like Abyss Port and Manachia.
Beyond light agricultural industry, Mill World had also developed lasgun and Blyek battle tank manufacturing over the past fifteen years.
This stemmed from a mutual aid pact between Mill World and Valhalla, the Fourth Chapter's exclusive recruiting world, supplying the Auxiliaries named by the Primarch as the Valhallan Boreas Guard.
Jeremy looked skyward. Grotesque landers pierced the dawn clouds, streaking fiery trails as they entered the atmosphere.
Now, he was immensely grateful for that mutual aid pact.
He commanded only two hundred Shadows of Order, insufficient to repel the coming green tide.
But with thirty-six regiments of Valhallan Boreas Guard, he had a formidable force at his disposal.
Jeremy looked down at the anti-aircraft gun emplacements. The Fourth Artillery Regiment of the Valhallan Boreas Guard had replaced the planetary defense forces.
They adjusted the strength and caliber of the gun barrels, setting the optimal firing arcs.
Even simulating the battle with his superhuman mind, Jeremy could find no fault.
Ground-based defense turrets roared, firing volley after volley at the junk-built ships. Their swift strikes destroyed every flyer in sight.
Shattered junk ships burned fiercely, wreckage raining down.
Two Ork transports attempted to charge the city. Tusked roars echoed from the spires. The stench of fungus assaulted the senses.
Jeremy did not intervene. He watched the Valhallans at five gun emplacements act swiftly, adjusting their turrets' aim.
Their movements were precise, cold, methodical.
The five anti-aircraft batteries raced through their volleys. Rock-crete trembled.
The daring Ork transports were torn apart by shells, their burning wreckage crashing to the ground.
The 15th Infantry Regiment of the Valhallan Boreas Guard, stationed within the city, split into thirty-one teams to hunt down scattered wreckage and butcher surviving greenskins.
Boom!
Jeremy's body swayed. The city wall beneath him shuddered for the first time.
Ork ships flew beyond the range of the wall's defensive guns and opened their bays, disgorging massive Gargants.
The gargantuan machines crashed down in the forest, flattening stands of fir trees.
They rumbled forward, plumes of dust rising behind them.
Each steel beast was the size of a Warhound Titan. On their swaying backs were ramshackle howdahs, a mix of junk metal.
Howling Orks bounced and operated incomprehensible guns; black smoke billowed from muzzles before shells even left them.
"Reload!" the artillery regiment's commander ordered calmly beneath a fluttering white banner.
The wall shook again.
The heavy artillery batteries fired.
Then a second salvo. A third...
The greenskins roared, driving their ramshackle steel beasts forward, trampling their own kind mercilessly as they neared the wall.
The green tide surged, jaws agape, rushing the wall.
Jeremy raised his archaeotech pistol, firing a beam harvested from a planetary radiation layer.
A blazing light flew into a rickety howdah, incinerating an Ork.
As two Gretchin scrambled out of the molten scrap, the "Midnight Poet" twitched an ear. The crackle of thousands of lasguns formed a strange, haunting chorus.
A song of discipline, strength, and courage.
A song filled with fury.
A concentrated volley of beams shrieked, tearing green flesh, ripping Orks apart, felling them to be trampled into paste under their kin's feet.
Twenty-five Orks were the first to reach the wall. Their thrust packs smoking, they propelled themselves onto the battlements.
Within seconds of landing, bayonets had pierced the eyes and throats of the smaller Orks.
Larger Orks were stabbed in the chests and legs by the swarming Valhallans and kicked from the wall.
Piles of greenskin corpses accumulated at the wall's base. Foul fluids seeped into the ash-laden soil.
Woo!
Hundreds of horns blared. The greenskins retreated in a disorderly mob.
Jeremy's finger did not stop pulling the trigger. He watched with admiration as the Valhallans maintained a cold, relentless rate of fire.
The Valhallans' fury punished the greenskins just as it had punished their own earlier madness.
Hundreds of greenskins fell, killed in the withering volleys.
Jeremy opened the vox channel. His naturally resonant voice boomed over it.
"Valhallan Boreas Guards, I salute you."
"Most of you are fighting for the first time, but you have not been cowed by the hideous xenos."
"I now believe the praise heaped upon you is well-deserved. 'The Valhallans have ice in their veins, as surely as it covers their home world.'"
Silence hung over the vox channel for a moment before the low voice of the 12th Infantry Regiment's commander responded.
"Lord Jeremy, thank you for your praise."
Even in victory, praised by a Shadow of Order, the Valhallans remained coldly disciplined.
"Fighting Orks? We Valhallans know it best."
"Every Valhalan, man or woman, can kill two Orks."
Jeremy recalled the records he had read when learning Valhalla's history.
A comet had struck Valhalla, turning the entire world into an ice planet. The inhabitants were forced to burrow into the subterranean ice layers to build new shelters, seeking the residual warmth of the planet's core.
The harsh living conditions forged the Valhallans' indomitable spirit, their resolve to face and overcome any hardship.
Before the Shadows of Order's establishment, a vast Ork Waaagh! had invaded Valhalla.
The Valhallans, through sheer fortitude and the advantage of their natural environment, had won a bloody, protracted victory.
They had thus been driven by a lasting hatred for the greenskin race, fighting with the same courage and tenacity they had shown defending their home world.
'Another characteristically far-sighted and decisive move by Lord Flamini.'
Upon becoming Chapter Master, Flamini had secured the support of numerous Rogue Trader families like von Valancius, Navigator houses like Visscher, and many Astropath houses, gaining vast financial resources.
He had also established a good relationship with Patr before he became the Head of the Iterators.
The number of Chaplains within the Chapter was above average, and he had also gained access to Patr's political resources on Terra.
Tyache and other Terran nobles had injected capital and political backing.
The Cyclops Cluster had developed at a remarkable pace in less than a century. Several worlds, including Mill World, were now comparable to most Imperial industrial worlds.
His foresight was widely praised within the Legion.
He could spot every hidden opportunity and leverage it effectively.
Jeremy gathered his thoughts and continued.
"You have earned my respect."
"I will open the storehouses for you. However much Ovgia meat tins you can eat, that much I will give you."
"You will receive a portion of fruit salad with every meal."
Muted cheers, sporadic, sounded over the vox channel.
Before the Shadows of Order descended, Valhallans toiled in dark caves, cultivating the nutrient paste that sustained their populace.
This food, which had no taste but to fill the belly, was also extremely precious on Valhalla.
Even more precious than life.
Theft of even a handful was punishable by death.
After the Shadows of Order came, the Valhallans' diet improved; they occasionally ate grains.
The Auxiliaries fared better. Tasty nutrient porridge was standard, and they often received Ovgia meat tins, occasionally even tuna tins.
But now, they could feast. And even have fruit salad.
After the sporadic cheers subsided, Jeremy continued.
"After we drive the stinking greenskins from this world, the wine cellars will be opened for you. The wine, sealed forty-two years ago, will be yours."
"You may not know this, but Mill World's wine-making techniques were brought from Primarch Fulgrim's world of Byzance."
"There is no better wine in the entire Coronid New Zone than Mill World's."
"Drive out the green beasts. Drink the grape wine!" a voice bellowed over the vox channel.
The Valhallans' sudden, explosive cheers filled the vox channel.
In their makeshift camps, Orks set down their crude tools, picked up their weapons, and looked towards the humies' city.
Roars echoed over the Ork camps.
More landers brought more greenskins, gathering around their crude banners.
Hundreds of rough symbols, each representing a tribe.
Massive, ugly warships disgorged squat, heavy Gargants.
....
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