Chapter 29: Harvesting Raw Material
A powerful engine roar tore across the plains. A blur of motion, fast as a lightning strike, kicked up a plume of promethium exhaust.
Fledri gripped the handlebars of his Assault Bike, weaving across the open grasslands at high speed. He listened to the targeting data crackling in his helm-vox, fed to him by the spotter-craft circling high above. Behind him, two neophytes on their own bikes held tight formation.
The Iron Warriors had never been known for rapid assault, and as a former member of the "Swift Siege Cohort," Fledri had never even seen a bike during his Legion service. But an Astartes learns fast. After the Lord of the Forged had acquired nine of these Assault Bikes from the Dark Mechanicum, Fledri had mastered the machine in hours.
He'd been shocked when he first saw them. He'd asked the Lord where they came from, and the answer was a simple trade. No resources were exchanged. Instead, the Dark Mechanicum had been granted a lien—a right to skim an undeclared percentage of the planet's resource output for the next several years. A simple, 0-down, high-interest loan.
Fledri didn't care about the cost. The bikes made this part of the operation brutally efficient.
He gave the hand-signal, and the three-bike lance formed a charging triangle.
Their target was ahead: a migrating column of over 500 primitives, completely unaware of their impending doom.
At Fledri's command, the formation split. Two bikes veered clockwise, one counter-clockwise, encircling the terrified cultists. The primitives panicked, drawing into a tight, defensive cluster, pointing their crude wooden spears and bows outward.
The bikes tightened the circle, forcing the cultists closer and closer together. A few brave warriors charged out, hurling spears or loosing arrows. The primitive weapons skittered harmlessly off the Astartes' power armor and the neophytes' scout-plate. The twin-linked bolters on the bikes answered, and the brave warriors were reduced to red mist.
With the targets contained, the neophytes tossed their stumm-grenades and fired gas-rounds from their launchers. A pale green fog billowed through the panicked crowd. The weakest of the mortals choked and collapsed.
Fledri, unmoved, drew his net-launcher as he continued his patrol, tightening the noose. This was simple work, fit for the neophytes. He was here to watch for the real threats.
The real threat appeared.
As the last of the warriors were falling, a figure in blue-feathered robes raised a staff and screamed. Fire, raw and unnatural, erupted from his hands, lashing out at the nearest neophyte.
Fledri reacted instantly, firing his net-launcher at the shaman. But the psyker, anticipating the move, threw up a hand. The net, sizzling with anesthetic and electric-shock charges, hit an invisible, shimmering barrier and was thrown aside.
Fledri didn't bother with a second attempt. He squeezed the handlebar triggers.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
The bike's twin-linked bolters roared. The first three bolts detonated against the shaman's psychic shield. The fourth punched through, blowing the psyker's torso into two separate, ragged pieces.
With a target that dangerous, you never, ever gave them a second chance. Fledri had personally seen a mortal psyker twist a full Astartes into a pretzel of ceramite and bone. Their mission was to secure servitor-stock; psykers were just a bonus. If they couldn't be captured easily, they were to be eliminated.
As the last of the cultists collapsed, rendered unconscious by the gas, Fledri checked his auspex. "Next target," he voxed. "Nine o'clock, thirty kilometers. Estimated six hundred contacts."
The three bikes revved their engines and sped off toward the horizon.
Behind them, hundreds of mortals lay sleeping in the grass, completely unaware that their lives were already over.
Fifteen minutes later, several heavy transport haulers rumbled to a stop. Dozens of PDF troopers, armed with lasguns, fanned out, accompanied by several combat-servitors and a single, rust-robed Tech-Priest.
They moved with practiced efficiency, clamping heavy iron restraints on the unconscious mortals. They dragged them like livestock, throwing them into the steel cages welded to the flatbeds of the haulers.
The Tech-Priest scanned the pile of bodies, its voice a dry rasp. [Cargo volume exceeds transport capacity. Forcing compliance will reduce optimal transit speed to temporary airfield by 32%.]
The Tech-Priest turned its optical lenses to the PDF officer. [Order: Reduce cargo by 172 units.]
The officer saluted. "Aye, honored Priest."
He turned to his troopers. "Purge the excess." The PDF troopers raised their lasguns and began to methodically execute the "overload," their weapons firing in grim, steady volleys. When the work was done, the haulers drove on, leaving the dead behind.
At the same time, on a hill 30 kilometers outside the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Petros and Antonius stood, observing the "city."
It was a sprawling, chaotic mass of stone and wooden huts, intermixed with hide tents. It looked like it could hold a million souls, though its true population was closer to 300,000.
The most interesting feature was a "dead zone" several hundred meters wide that split the city down the middle. Petros didn't know how they'd negotiated the truce, but the Tzeentchian cultists on one side and the Khornate cultists on the other were, for now, co-existing.
The city was surrounded by a dense forest—the last green place on the continent. Or, at least, it had been. The weather-grid had stopped the last of the rain ten days ago.
The trap was set. The circle had closed. Nearly every cultist on the continent was now gathered in this one place. The few stragglers who remained in the wasteland would be bleached bones within the year.
Beside him, Sachs—the former-captain, now a commander in Enforcer-pattern carapace armor—gave his report. "My Lord, the Auxilia are closing the net. But the forest is... dense. It is causing... difficulties for our armor."
Petros glanced at the man. With his twin-pistols and a ceremonial sword, he almost looked the part. On his chestplate was the new insignia of the mortal auxilia: a red spear piercing a silver roundshield.
The army's name was the "Spear of Hector." It had been a compromise. The Lacedaemonians had wanted the "Sword of Ares." The Nopaeans had wanted the "Shield of Miltiades." They had finally settled on Hector, a pre-Imperial hero from their shared, ancient myths.
Antonius, his chainaxe at his hip, stood silently at his captain's side. As Petros had planned, he had been phased out of command and now served as his primary bodyguard.
Petros looked back at the forest, his voice flat. "Do not worry about the forest, Sachs. I will solve that problem. You just worry about your men."
He turned his helmet to the mortal. "This army you are building... it will one day fight on other worlds. If I find they are substandard, I will personally place you in a Penitent Engine."
Sachs's blood ran cold. He had seen what was left of the men inside those machines. "My Lord," he stammered, "I... of course. Their training is proceeding. Just a few more years, my Lord, and they will be... they will be worthy of the Astra Militarum."
Petros stared back at the doomed city. "They had better be."