"There is simply no foothold left for us in the planet's orbit," Dorn stated gravely. "Even for the Phalanx, recklessly closing the distance with such a dense warship cluster carries immense risk."
"The Ork fleet is packed far too tightly. They can easily leverage their ships to initiate ramming actions and launch large-scale boarding operations against the Phalanx."
"When that happens, the Imperial Fists will no longer be facing the challenge of landing on a war-world, but rather an endless wave of Ork boarding parties."
Dorn was not voicing a challenge, nor was he offering an excuse to evade responsibility; he was stating an impending reality.
"Bring up Landing Contingency Plan 114," Perturabo instructed with a gesture, submitting a contingency dossier to the display. "If you have no personal objections, we execute this plan."
The lights flickered, bringing up a detailed operational landing procedure.
"Extremely bold!" Dorn's eyes widened slightly. For the first time, a flicker of genuine surprise showed through his stoic demeanor. "And exceptionally high-risk."
The tactical plan displayed on the hololith was daring and perilous; the slightest misstep would mean absolute catastrophe.
"Yes," Perturabo acknowledged flatly, his voice devoid of heat and rooted entirely in cold logic. "I do not deny the risks."
"If you find the risk unacceptable, you may take over the strike plans for the other worlds, and the Iron Warriors will execute this drop instead."
"Through my strict calculations, there is simply no better alternative."
He paused, his lead-gray eyes betraying a rare trace of regret. "I did not submit this plan immediately because I wanted to see if you had another option."
"Evidently, my brother—" Perturabo shook his head helplessly, "—you do not have an alternative either."
Silence fell across the bridge of the Phalanx. Dorn sank into deep thought while the senior command of the Imperial Fists pondered the situation, searching for other possibilities.
"You must make your choice quickly," Perturabo urged, pulling up the real-time predictive data for Planet Three. "That war-world currently holds a minimum of thirty billion Ork forces. Our brother is deep within enemy lines, utterly surrounded."
A sharp crack shattered the quiet as Dorn crushed his own ceramite gauntlet in his grip. He looked up to meet the troubled expression on Perturabo's face.
He finally understood where the anxiety in Perturabo's eyes came from—a man known for iron-willed ruthlessness, a leader who had executed a decimation upon his own Legion's sons.
At least thirty billion!
Without orbital dominance and stripped of orbital fire support, Blazkowicz and his Doom Marines were standing against an Ork force of that magnitude.
It was a staggering, agonizing number.
Their blood brother was currently enduring a total siege by the greenskins!
"There is no need to goad me," Dorn's face darkened as he met his brother's projection. "The courage of the Imperial Fists is more unyielding than that of any Legion."
"I leave the fleet in your hands. I will lead my genetic sons to execute the landing plan myself and reinforce Blazkowicz and his Legion."
"Very good." Hearing his brother's answer, a smile broke across Perturabo's face.
The smile resembled twisted rebar—harsh, cold, and rigid. "At least I won't have to re-plan the logistics of swapping operational objectives between two Legions."
With that, the holographic projection dissolved, and the Lord of Iron vanished without a trace.
Nothing more needed to be said. Strategic communications between Primarchs had always been direct and efficient.
The tactical objective was clear and unequivocal; its precise execution now rested entirely on how the Primarch deployed his Legion.
"Set course for the inner star system," Dorn ordered, turning around with a snap of his cloak as he issued commands to his senior staff. "Before we engage the enemy, consolidate the Legionaries across all vessels and prepare to execute the landing plan."
"The vast majority of the Legion's Astartes must drop from high orbit to the surface within a one-minute window. That is the only operational gap we will have."
"Understood!" the senior officers bellowed in unison, their voices echoing with unshakeable resolve.
Dorn nodded in satisfaction, then called out two names: "Sigismund, Habrecht."
Both warriors drew themselves straight and stepped forward from the line, awaiting their Primarch's orders.
"Sigismund, you will accompany me down to the war-world to reinforce my brother."
"Understood." Sigismund nodded respectfully, drawing his sword to his chest before stepping back into the ranks of the Templar Brethren.
"Habrecht." Dorn spoke the name again with solemn gravity, and the veteran lowered his head, listening intently. "I leave the Phalanx and the fleet under your command. Coordinate with the Lord of Iron and launch our offensive against the Ork fleet."
"Understood." The formidable commander accepted command of the fleet, turning immediately toward the primary tactical station to execute the transfer.
Beyond the key personnel, Dorn selected the specific contingents designated for the landing and those tasked with holding the fleet, before dismissing his officers to begin preparations.
With all arrangements finalized, he turned his gaze out through the massive armaglass viewport, watching the sweeping angles of the Phalanx's forward structure.
The cold void was already churning.
The arrival of the Imperial Fists had naturally drawn the attention of the greenskins.
Scattered Ork scrap-fleets across the system were revving their engines to maximum output, trailing plasma glows and thick plumes of dark exhaust as they surged toward the newly arrived human fleet.
"Waaaaaagh!!!"
They bellowed in sheer excitement, shaking off the frustration of being unable to land and fight the human "Big 'Uns" on the surface, having finally found a new source of carnage.
The Imperial Fists fleet showed no hesitation. Following the Phalanx, they launched a thunderous counter-offensive against the incoming scrap-vessels.
The six massive extending quadrants of the Phalanx unleashed a terrifying volume of fire. Lance batteries and macro-cannons fired in unison, instantly overloading the pale-green Waaagh! energy fields of the scrap-hulks and tearing the Ork patrol fleets to shreds.
Without overwhelming numerical superiority, individual Ork scrap-vessels were completely incapable of standing against the sheer firepower of the human fleet.
While pounding the Ork scrap-ships, transport craft crisscrossed between the vessels of the Imperial Fists fleet, frantically redistributing Space Marines and necessary personnel.
From the fleet under Perturabo's direct command, two Nour-class landing craft detached, moving to rendezvous with the Imperial Fists armada.
A high-stakes operation that would decide the course of the war was about to begin.
Time slipped away silently until the Phalanx, leading half of the fleet, initiated its strike on the system's key transit nodes.
The remaining half of the fleet—composed primarily of high-speed warships—ran their propulsion systems at maximum output, accelerating to absolute maximum velocity.
"Bracing for engagement with the Ork fleet!"
At the vanguard of the formation, a mortal naval captain roared from his bridge. Though his uniform was soaked in sweat, it did not dull his fearless resolve.
Along the perimeter of Planet Three, the Ork fleet swarmed like disturbed hornets, wheeling their ships around to pursue the fast-moving human force.
"Broadside locked! All weapons fire, clear out the magazines!"
The ship's gunnery officer roared into his vox-mic, eyes wide with fury, his voice echoing across the weapon decks: "Launch all torpedo salvoes! Servitor teams, reload at double-time for a second volley!"
Immense thermal blooms erupted across the void as the fast fleet locked onto their targets and unleashed a full broadside. Macro-cannon shells, lance beams, and spatial torpedoes smashed into the Ork lines, catching them off-guard.
After a moment of brief shock, the Orks roared back with furious Waaagh! cries, giving chase in a blind rage.
They swarmed like defenders guarding a hive, swearing to make the humans pay.
"Execute drop trajectory!"
At the rear of the human fleet, the landing craft detached from the main formation, carving a graceful arc through the void as they plunged straight toward the war-world below!
Within the ventral bays of the Nour landing craft, drop pods packed with lethal cargo stood primed and ready.
The magnetic launch rails had long since preheated, but the Imperial Fists warriors secured inside remained in stony silence.
For this atmospheric drop, the cogitator arrays had returned a risk assessment of a single, blunt directive: Do Not Execute.
Inside his pod, Dorn stood clad in golden power armor, clutching the Storm's Teeth chainsword as he locked his helmet into place.
"I have never ridden in a drop pod before," he remarked, looking up and around with a tone of faint, strange curiosity. "A novel first experience, courtesy of a Nour pod..."
Opposite the Primarch, Sigismund was held fast by hydraulic locking bars across his shoulders, his voice echoing with a slight hiss through his helmet's vox-grille: "It is one of the few models large enough to accommodate your frame."
The Nour drop pod was indeed immense; holding a Primarch alongside three Space Marines, it felt anything but cramped.
Hearing their gene-father's stiff attempt at lightheartedness, the two other Honor Guard members relaxed their taut postures slightly.
Dorn cared deeply for his genetic sons, though his stoic disposition rarely allowed him to express affection outwardly.
Offering a moment of quiet reassurance was the absolute limit of his emotional expression.
More often than not, Rogal Dorn's love manifested as silent support, unyielding defense, and steadfast vigilance.
That brief exchange softened the atmosphere inside the pod, driving back the gloom of the impending slaughter.
"Estimated arrival at release point: three minutes," the automated system chimed in its routine report, severing the fleeting warmth and reminding the Legionaries of the hell waiting below.
At the center of the pod, a hololith flared to life, casting green light across the golden armor in a rapid, alternating strobe.
The projection displayed the full operational status of the fleet.
The two landing craft flew in tight formation, the thermal backwash from the lead ship washing over the bow of the trailing vessel, slowly melting its alloy plating under high-temperature particle streams.
This extreme proximity was a mandatory risk—the brutal price of forced orbital entry!
Densely clustered around the landing craft were warships of the Imperial fleet, maintaining formation merely a thousand meters out to serve as sacrificial iron shields on the breach path.
`[All Engine Power Rerouted to Propulsion and Void Shields]`
`[Bow Ramming Prow Disintegration Field Active]`
Naval crews had already evacuated, leaving behind a hand-picked contingent of Tech-Priests to oversee the cogitator arrays and guide the vessels' trajectories.
These Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus remained to guard the ships, eager to unleash the Omnissiah's wrath upon the xenos who dared desecrate sacred machinery.
They knew their ultimate fate, willingly offering their lives as sacrifices for the Machine God.
"Praise be to the Omnissiah," echoed the passionate prayers of the Tech-Priests across the strike fleet's silent channels, entirely devoid of fear before the face of death.
The fleet transformed into a jagged dagger, thrusting straight into the outer perimeter of the "hive."
"Maintain fleet formation!"
"Maintain fleet formation!"
"Maintain fleet formation!"
Inside the drop pod, the vessel's automated systems endlessly repeated numerical protocols to keep the ship on a stable vector.
Yet the violent impacts of incoming macro-shells and heavy ordnance made the frame shudder continuously.
Amidst the flickering lights, the Space Marines glanced toward their gene-father, attempting to read his emotions behind the ruby-red lenses of his visor.
Their searching glances yielded nothing.
Dorn simply leaned both hands against the hilt of Storm's Teeth, intently monitoring the holographic display as the ship vibrated beneath them.
Along the outer perimeter, the escort ships acting as armor plating were disintegrating one after another under the overwhelming fire of the Orks.
It was a necessary sacrifice!
This was Perturabo's audacious strategy—using frontline warships as ablative shields to escort the landing craft into low-orbit, even if it meant crashing them directly into Planet Three!
Only through such desperate measures could the Imperial Fists reach the surface and reinforce the Doom Marines, whose survival remained uncertain.
"One hundred twenty seconds until drop pod release point."
The ship AI's voice remained utterly detached, even as the violent shaking intensified. Countless Space Marines clenched their gauntleted fists in silent tension.
Drop pod insertions were routine for them, but conditions this atrocious were something none had ever endured.
Outside the fleet, the void roared with blinding ordinance. The crude macro-cannons of the Orks unleashed a feral barrage, pounding the shield-ships so violently that their hulls shuddered to the point of structural failure.
The void shields had long since overloaded. Under the relentless pummeling, the outer armor plates melted into liquid iron, peeling away layer by layer.
The massive warships drifted and rolled slowly through the fire like dying leviathans.
With their void shields collapsed, the ships rotated their hulls to distribute armor exposure evenly against incoming fire.
Yet sympathetic detonations never ceased. Under a rain of macro-shells and torpedo strikes, the escorts turned into decaying slabs of metal, collapsing in the storm of fire before detonating into brilliant plasma flares.
"Sixty seconds."
The automated voice carried no emotion, yet its tone felt chillingly abrupt. "Crossing into planetary orbital envelope."
On the hololith, half of the planet was fully mapped out. The fleet's approach vector intersected the low-orbital plane like a thin, extending line.
The shuddering of the landing craft turned into violent, bone-rattling convulsions.
In the span of two minutes, the outer escort ships had been completely wiped out. Their burning wrecks, pulled along by the landing craft's gravity field, continued to tumble alongside, absorbing stray Ork fire.
The interior of the pod flickered erratically, as though detonations were going off inside the bay itself, testing the nerves of the Space Marines.
They watched as the landing craft's outer void shields collapsed after holding out for ten seconds against a hundred shell impacts per second.
Cold sweat trickled down Dorn's spine, triggering the environmental sensors within his power armor to engage internal climate purges.
He remained dead silent, his gaze fixed on the circular shield indicators surrounding the vessel on the hololith.
He could swear that in all his long years, he had never felt such deep anxiety—watching the fragile barrier holding the fate of his Legion tremble under the unrelenting storm of fire.
If time could be turned back, he would never have led his Legion into this suicidal drop over a crude taunt!
"Perturabo!"
Through the internal comms channel of the Imperial Fists, the Legionaries heard their gene-father let out a low, suppressed growl of anger.
"Thirty seconds."
The automated voice remained cold, though the ship's violent rocking grew severe. "Breaches detected on upper deck. Ork boarding parties confirmed."
"Deploying automated combat servitors. Drop sequence remains uncompromised."
"Dimensional shield failure imminent. Switching to ion secondary field."
Bad news arrived in relentless succession. The Imperial Fists warriors fell completely silent, stripped of any desire to speak.
The tension within had reached a breaking point, giving way to a state of absolute, eerie calm.
They felt like meat packed inside a tin can—fresh and helpless—waiting anxiously for the opener to strike, waiting for death to arrive.
"Surface signal acquired."
The sudden announcement from the ship's AI was instantly followed by the rapid construction of a tactical scan map.
The Legionaries realized with a jolt that the landing craft had punched straight through the Ork fleet and entered low orbit, locking onto planetary telemetric signals.
Within the rapidly sharpening scan, an allied fortress stood proud and intact amidst a hemisphere packed with crimson threat markers.
"Incredible..."
Sigismund murmured, his astonished eyes shifting from the hololith to his gene-father: "I recall that when your brother departed, he had only five hundred Legionaries at his side."
"And the Doom Marines' flight plan contained no provisions for rendezvousing with main forces."
He could not fathom how a Primarch and five hundred Legionaries, backed only by mortal auxiliaries, had held off an endless, day-and-night assault by the Orks.
No matter how powerful their Legion cousins were, exhaustion was inevitable; no matter how advanced their wargear, ammunition had to run out.
BOOM!
A violent explosion rocked the drop pod, causing the hydraulic shoulder locks to groan under the strain and cutting short his thoughts.
"Ion shield overload. Rerouting power to structural integrity fields to preserve hull armor."
Following the update, the main ship AI went offline, and the drop pod's local automated system took over: "Ten seconds to designated drop zone."
Across the flickering holographic display, multiple sections of the ship flashed red. The vessel carrying the Imperial Fists was losing power under the concentrated anti-orbital fire!
Viewed from low orbit, the silver-white hull of the landing craft was pitted with craterous shell impacts and bristling with embedded Ork boarding torpedoes.
Greenskins were already rushing through the corridors, locked in brutal close-quarters combat with automated servitors.
Battered, broken, and beset from within and without, the scarred landing craft rammed through a blocking vessel in its path, plunging straight into the world's atmosphere.
"Target coordinates reached. Deploying drop pods!"
The emotionless declaration of the system sounded like sweet music to the ears of the Imperial Fists.
Down on the planet's surface, Blazkowicz's finger paused on the trigger of his weapon. Looking up toward the sky as if sensing the moment, he watched the heavy storm clouds ignite as if catching fire!
The rain fell like a cascade, never pausing for a single moment as it poured the source of life into the desolate world.
Blazkowicz looked up toward the sky. Within the dark, heavy layers of cloud, a faint, hazy light slowly began to bleed through.
"My Lord."
Astelan stopped in his tracks and raised his left arm. As a holographic projection popped up from his tactical terminal, his voice vibrated through the freezing rain: "Allied signals detected. Have they breached the blockading lines?"
The Archduke, who had slayed tens of millions of Orks without a flicker of emotion, now wore an expression of genuine shock: "Did the Imperial fleet and the Nour fleet arrive?"
Faced with an orbital blockade of that scale, he could think of no other scenario that would allow a force to break through into low orbit without a full relief fleet mounting an all-out assault.
"No," Blazkowicz shook his head with absolute certainty. "If the fleet had arrived and launched an assault, our sky would be falling down in flames."
Beep... Beep...
The assault squad halted their advance. The holographic display on their armors shifted once more as a message transmitted from the ship AI: Orbital drop initiated!
BOOM!!!
While Blazkowicz was still processing the shocking news of an orbital drop, the gloomy sky was torn wide open. Burning vessel debris rained down like a swarm of blazing meteors, crashing toward the world below.
"Target orbital drop coordinates reached. Upper structure of the landing craft disintegrating; vessel attitude remains under control."
Inside the drop pod, listening to the automated system's continuous readouts, the Space Marines breathed heavily, their twin hearts pounding wildly against their ribs.
"Initiating drop pod release!" The ship AI's cold voice offered a strangely dry farewell: "Wish you a pleasant trip."
Krr-chhh—
The heightened auditory senses of the Space Marines picked up the faint, distinct sound of the pod being launched off the vessel via electromagnetic rails.
Along the ventral bays of the two landing craft, every single drop bay door slammed open amidst a flurry of electrical sparks.
In an instant, thousands of pods of every variety—personnel pods, supply pods, and war-machine deployment pods—were shot directly into the dark, swirling clouds of the planet.
Having fulfilled their ultimate mission, the two landing craft resembled a pair of giant blue whales yielding to a frenzy of sharks, plunging gracefully toward the planet's horizon.
And then—
Before the joy of escaping the iron coffins could even take root, the Legionaries felt an unnatural wave of nausea as their vision was drowned in a sea of red.
Redout!
Descending at extreme velocities, the staggering g-force pushed blood upward toward their heads, causing the capillaries in their faces and eyes to engorge and burst, veiling their sight in a crimson hue.
As many warriors hovered on the razor's edge between consciousness and blacking out, they caught a glimpse of the descent speed indicator out of the corners of their eyes—Mach 30. In that precise second, the mechanical voice of the automated system sounded like sweet music from the heavens: "Abnormal passenger load detected. Reducing speed."
The perceived speed plummeted instantly, allowing the Legionaries to exhale a massive breath of relief.
"Adjusting landing timing based on abnormal passenger parameters. Extending deceleration phase."
Listening to the drop pod AI's uninterrupted broadcast, the Imperial Fists warriors finally realized that they were the "abnormal passengers" in question.
The superhuman physiology they took immense pride in had been classified by the automated system as nothing more than "fragile, average-tier passengers" that needed to be accommodated.
Taking a heavy hit to their pride, the Legionaries found their mental ceiling for their Doom Marine cousins raised once again.
WOOOO—WOOOO—WOOOO—
The atmosphere wailed in agony as the drop pods violently ripped through the cloud layers, screaming with atmospheric friction as they hurled themselves toward the designated drop zone.
"Deploying ordinance. Clearing landing sector."
Inside his drop pod, Dorn calmly reviewed the hololith display while the automated system executed the final landing protocols.
Outer armor hatches slid open, releasing a salvo of clearing missiles toward the landing point to carve out a wide perimeter of safety.
"What are your thoughts?" Dorn asked in a low voice, addressing his fellow passengers.
"Exceptional," Sigismund replied, his tone earnest and sincere. "The Nour drop pod is remarkably advanced. It guarantees an unprecedented survival rate during orbital insertion."
He understood his gene-father's mind; in his heart, the Primarch held immense respect for this design.
Guided by intelligent systems, these drop pods could execute mid-fall trajectory shifts, carried active defensive weaponry, and were equipped with ion shields and deflector field arrays.
If the Imperial Fists could adopt this technology, it would represent a massive leap in combat efficiency for the Legion, vastly improving survival rates during atmospheric drops.
"However..." Sigismund hesitated briefly before stating the cold reality: "...we lack the underlying schematics, nor do we possess our own dedicated Forge World."
"This represents an entire technological ecosystem rather than a standalone weapon or isolated piece of wargear. It requires a complete industrial base to sustain."
"I am aware," Dorn nodded, sinking into a silent revery, his thoughts unreadable.
Sigismund averted his gaze, staring at the rapidly dropping altitude display as he braced his frame to absorb the impending deceleration impact.
Down on the surface, Blazkowicz dodged a wave of falling clearing missiles, roaring into his vox-channel: "Prepare to cover our allies!"
The combat fortress unleashed its full anti-air grid, magnetic AA batteries tracing bright blue arcs through the dark sky to blow falling warship debris to dust.
In an instant, the Adamantium Sinkhole erupted into total mayhem as Ork foundries and anti-air batteries opened fire, weaving a dense, sky-blotting net of flak.
"I need a squad!"
Blazkowicz pointed toward several Titan Throne drop pods plunging down in the distance, his voice laced with unprecedented urgency: "Go secure the Atlan Mechs!"
He was genuinely anxious now.
Who in their right mind had made the call to air-drop every single asset from the landing ships at once?
Those priceless Atlan Mechs could not be allowed to fall into Ork hands under any circumstances, lest the xenos turn them to their own horrific uses.
Their firepower was capable of leveling a combat fortress, which would strip both the landing forces and the elite Legionaries of their primary stronghold.
Before descending to this world, Blazkowicz had considered bringing Atlan Mechs along, but after careful deliberation, he had ultimately chosen against it.
If heavy war engines like those left a deep impression on the Ork collective psyche, their 'I Finks' reality-warping logic might end up crafting even more Waaagh!-infused, sacrilegious facsimiles.
"And those over there!" Blazkowicz added, his heart bleeding as he pointed toward the other vehicle pods. "Have the fortress deploy recovery teams to salvage every piece of heavy war equipment they can."
Those vehicle pods contained brand-new war machines delivered by the resupply fleet—customized vehicles engineered specifically for the Doom Marines.
To avoid handing ideas to the hyper-imaginative Orks, the Legion had not yet brought them onto the field, yet here they were, tossed down from the sky like common garbage.
Just who made this call?!
Looking up at the cloud of drop pods falling across the sky, Blazkowicz felt a stabbing pain in his chest as bespoke, astronomical-value wargear was scattered indiscriminately across the warzone.
This was never part of the plan—
"We're moving to secure the vehicle drops!"
From the gates of the combat fortress, dozens of high-speed trails shot out as Legionaries mounted anti-gravity bikes, racing to establish a perimeter around the Atlan Mechs and heavy vehicles.
"Watch the landing vectors! Cover our allies!"
Blazkowicz fired continuously, suppressing oncoming Orks while dodging incoming clearing missiles and keeping a tight eye on the massive drop pods.
It was absolute chaos. Everything had gone completely wild!
The pods raining from the sky had blown the rhythm of the battle to pieces, shattering all operational order across the field.
THUD!!!
A drop pod slammed into the earth in the distance. Its energy shields flickered under a hail of Ork fire before the top armor plates split open, deploying an integrated turret array that began raining relentless fire on all sides.
As the main hatch unsealed and hissed open, a tall figure clad in gleaming golden armor stepped out into the rain, clutching a massive chainsword in his grip.
Personnel drop pods slammed into the earth one after another. As their hatches hissed open, Legionaries surged out, their mustard-yellow power armor crushing through the warzone.
"For the Primarch! For the Master of Earth!"
The Space Marines roared their battle cry, their identity made fiercely clear to all.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The Imperial Fists opened fire, the iconic, brutal chugging of their bolters merging into an unbroken wall of sound to proclaim the Legion's arrival.
Masters of defensive warfare, the Imperial Fists immediately began anchoring positions using the heavy turrets and force shields of their drop pods.
They were Space Marines, forged for war, instinctively leveraging every tactical advantage in their environment.
Landing on a fluid, chaotic battlefield, their foundational doctrine dictated establishing a secure perimeter and awaiting orders.
Dorn stepped out of his pod, his sharp gaze sweeping across the chaos, piecing together the flow of battle within his superhuman mind.
The situation was grim: forces were scattered, supplies were dispersed, and order was shattered.
Yet piercing through the gloom, his sight locked onto his brother, who was carving a bloody swath through the sea of Orks.
Excellent.
The matchless King of Warriors was unharmed—standing unyielding against the storm, just like his fortress.
"Brother!"
Dorn let out a heavy roar. Swinging Storm's Teeth with his right hand to shred the oncoming greenskins, he drew his bolt pistol—the Voice of Terra—with his left.
The bespoke bolt pistol had been gifted to Rogal Dorn by the Custodian Guard to mark his solemn appointment as the Praetorian of Terra.
Storm's Teeth cleaved gaping tears through the green tide while the Voice of Terra detonated high-value targets. Leading his favored sons, Dorn carved a path of gore through the horde.
Blazkowicz heard his brother's call, but had no time to exchange pleasantries.
The Imperial Fists' drop had been completely unscripted, yet he had to adapt instantly to preserve their combat viability.
"Deploy supply drones with bolt ammunition. Establish allied comms networks. Sync tactical battle data."
Commands flowed from Blazkowicz without pause, maintaining the operational cohesion of the battlefield.
From within the combat fortress, swarms of low-altitude rotor drones surged forth, carrying crate after crate of ammunition directly to the Imperial Fists' positions.
The bulk of the bolt ammunition had been repurposed from Ork biomass—extracted from the churning Hungry Water, reassembled via matter converters, and cast with adamantium refined in underground foundries before being finished by automated assembly lines.
Under the original plan, these reserves were earmarked for the final purge—to be unleashed when the joint Imperial and Legion forces wiped out the Ork fleet and cornered the Warbosses on the surface.
Deploying them early was still a worthy expenditure.
The Imperial Fists needed this resupply desperately; their emergency drop meant they had landed dangerously light on ordnance.
As the drones delivered the munitions, the rhythmic chugging of bolter fire across every isolated strongpoint noticeably intensified.
The Legionaries could finally unloose their firepower without rationing rounds, unleashing their full combat potential.
As time ticked by, Rhino armored personnel carriers, Predator tanks, and Land Raiders rolled out from the heavy deployment pods, joining the mounting chaos of the battle.
Spearheaded by heavy armor, the Imperial Fists fought on the move, pushing steadily toward the intersection between their Primarch's position and the fortress's primary defensive arc.
Drop pods that had landed further out were guided by automated tactical feeds, navigating the labyrinthine defensive sectors under the covering fire of the fortress until they reached safety.
"Brother," Dorn said as he fought his way to Blazkowicz's side, his golden armor drenched in gore and Ork entrails clinging to his greaves. "I brought four full Companies—forty thousand Legionaries."
"Complete vehicular contingents per Legion organization, alongside three thousand Terminators."
Dorn skipped all fluff, laying out his exact force numbers.
As the Orks surged forward in endless waves, he swung Storm's Teeth in wide, sweeping arcs, its chain-teeth choked with green blood and thick fat.
With the Voice of Terra stripped of ammunition, the Primarch used it like a heavy club, shattering greenskin skulls with blunt strikes.
"Use these," Blazkowicz said, raising his super shotgun to blast open a wide vacuum zone in the horde.
A pair of Crucible swords slipped out from his dimensional storage, and he kicked them across the gore to his brother.
Dorn sheathed Storm's Teeth across his back, catching a Crucible sword in each hand before spinning on his heel to bisect a wave of Orks in a flash of energy.
"A drop in the ocean," Blazkowicz said as he surged forward, leading his Honor Guard to press the assault. "Forty thousand Legionaries can stabilize the current line, but they cannot mount an effective counter-offensive."
"The Ork population on this world has breached containment. It is no longer something two or three Legions can resolve."
"We will secure the vanguard, cover the Imperial Fists as they pull back into the fortress, and hold the line until true reinforcements arrive."
"Agreed!" Dorn accepted instantly, wielding the twin Crucible blades as he matched his brother's pace.
By driving forward, the two Primarchs would draw the brunt of the Ork firepower, creating a window for the drop forces to withdraw into the safety of the fortress.
Dorn recognized that breaking through the Ork blockade had not been about conquering the planet's surface, but about rescuing Blazkowicz and the Doom Marines.
With his brother and the fortress intact, the mission objective shifted naturally to force preservation.
He, too, knew that forty thousand Space Marines stood no realistic chance of eradicating tens of billions of Orks in open battle.
"Anchor a defensive perimeter around our armored assets. Cover the Legion's retreat into the fortress."
With the operational goal clear, Dorn shifted seamlessly into his element, ordering the Legion's heavy vehicles to lock into an interlocking defensive ring.
Under his command, the Imperial Fists funneled into position, leveraging their heavy firepower to establish a kill zone.
Guided by their Primarch, the Legionaries executed their orders with terrifying efficiency, building a multi-layered defensive line amidst the sea of Orks in a matter of seconds.
Every angle was covered by overlapping fields of fire, backed by staggered heavy armor emplacements.
Beyond the line, the Orks collapsed in heaps within the kill zone, shredded to pieces by bolt shells and heavy energy weapons.
The line engineered by the masters of defense became an unbreachable wall, no matter how fanatically the greenskins threw themselves against it.
"Outstanding work," Blazkowicz acknowledged. Turning his gaze toward the distance, he tapped a sequence into his arm console, executing a high-level security wipe.
The Nour-class drop pods housed core technological secrets that could not be allowed to fall into Ork hands.
With the security protocol triggered, the empty drop pods—incapable of returning to high orbit—initiated total self-destruction, sending mushroom clouds blossoming across the sinkhole.
Having eliminated the threat of technology salvage, Blazkowicz turned back, only to catch a subtle twitch at the corner of Dorn's jaw.
"Something wrong?" Blazkowicz asked, his brow furrowing slightly.
"Nothing," Dorn replied, turning his head away. The muscles in his face twitched subtly once more, his tone entirely flat.
Blazkowicz pressed no further, shifting his attention deeper into the warzone.
Farther off, between the mountain passes, the Titan Throne pods had opened. Driven by autonomous protocols, the Atlan Mechs were striding toward the fortress with thunderous, heavy steps.
Beneath the hundred-meter-tall war engines, countless Orks gave chase, pounding their dimensional force fields with scrap-artillery in a desperate bid to halt their advance.
In the eyes of the greenskins, a hundred-meter-tall walking death machine was simply too zoggin' dead-hard, shooty, and glorious to resist!