Grzegorz raised his right hand and tapped the hololithic display with his gauntlet.
He zoomed in on a bizarre structure and spoke to Mikhaeli at his side.
"It's hard to see any trace of a human hive-city in this ork fortress. The spire towers were torn down and used as raw material for these crude greenskin monstrosities."
The towers weren't slender like Imperial Gothic architecture, tapering elegantly toward the sky. Instead, they hunched together like jagged spikes, assembled from scavenged junk: sheets of iron, gears, chimneys, and broken machinery welded into chaos.
Mikhaeli laughed. "They're towers of a sort. Father's archives call them Waaagh Towers. They're like generators, they amplify the Waaagh energy of the orks, making them stronger, their dakka faster, their guns more brutal."
"Even if I can't fully understand the science behind it yet, once we breach the fortress, these must be destroyed first."
Grzegorz turned toward his friend. "Sounds like you already have a whole invasion plan worked out."
"Exactly," Mikhaeli replied with confidence. "We'll spread our forces and attack the fortress from four sides simultaneously. Since the southern sector has the fewest Waaagh Towers, that will be our entry point. Once we punch through, the orks will swarm south, opening gaps for the other flanks to advance."
He shut down the display and issued his orders.
"My Second Company will spearhead the southern assault. Your Third Company will strike from the north. We'll request the Fifth Chapter to attack from the west and east."
The Primarch had granted the Third Chapter command of the campaign against the Second Planet. Lord Carlo of the Fifth Chapter fell in with Mikhaeli's plan.
Mikhaeli left the command tent and climbed into his Vostroyan-pattern Rhino command vehicle.
This Rhino variant, based on the Deimos pattern, was longer, wider, and taller, designed to carry Shadow of Order troops with jump packs. Around him, the shadows were already in position within their armored transports.
Since the Third Chapter had entrenched itself on Mordian under Bukayo's reforms, its greatest change was complete mechanization. The Vostroyan factories churned out vehicles by the thousand, in accordance with STC templates, powering the Chapter's transformation.
At the head rolled the Malcador Defenders of the Mordian Iron Guard's 1st Regiment, followed by Vostroyan Rhinos, with the 1st and 2nd Company siege Dreadnoughts lumbering in the rear, fifty-two of them. Veterans of countless wars, interred after the bloody disobedience of Insamir, had been brought here to fight at Mikhaeli's side.
As soon as the ork fortress came into augury range, shells streaked down, trailing black smoke, hammering the black tanks below.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Most rounds fell wide, detonating in plumes of dirt. A few lucky hits slammed into Malcador Defenders, leaving their armor scorched but intact.
The Defender was the strangest and most effective Malcador variant, a true mobile fortress, designed to smash entrenched defenses.
Through fire and thunder the Iron Guard surged forward, undaunted. The Defenders rolled on, ice-cold juggernauts, unstoppable until close range.
From the walls above, Deathskull mekboyz shrieked as they saw the black line of Imperial armor surge forward like a tide. One, with a necklace of teeth, leapt up and shouted:
"Too tough! Smash da little black gits one by one!"
Dozens of Ork cannons swung, belching fire.
One ramshackle gun detonated in its own breach, hurling smoke and scrap skyward, blowing apart a dozen grots and carving a gap in the wall.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Some rounds struck home. A Defender was gutted, four of its eight crew dying instantly. The survivors staggered out screaming, cloaked in fire.
But the Iron Guard did not falter. The next Defender simply smashed through the wreckage and pressed on.
Three Defenders fell in flames, but the black iron tide rolled forward unbroken.
When the walls fell within range, fifty siege cannons fired in perfect unison. Unlike the orks' chaotic barrages, every shell struck true, shattering masonry, collapsing entire spans of the wall until a breach yawned dozens of meters wide.
The Iron Guard surged forward like sharks scenting blood.
The first Defenders forced into the breach. Five heavy bolters howled, spewing fire in every direction, cutting swathes of orks apart as they roared inside.
Tens of thousands of greenskins fired back, torrents of bullets shrieking into the black hulls. One Defender staggered onward like a burning furnace, crew frantically firing, reloading, and dying inside. Even as gunners fell, others took their place.
One Defender advanced nearly a hundred meters alone before finally being brought down, its death tally over a thousand orks.
One by one, the Defenders died blazing, their wrecks burning within the breach.
But more came. Behind them surged the black tide of tanks.
The Mordian Iron Guard punched through.
From the Vostroyan Rhinos spilled a thousand Shadows of Order warriors, jump packs flaring, vaulting onto the walls, slaughtering Death Skull mekboyz with clinical precision, tearing out every gun emplacement.
By the third hour of battle, the southern wall buckled under relentless assault.
Inside, the Waaagh Towers roared to life, vomiting green psychic haze into the air.
The orks screamed as one:
"WAAAGH!"
Thousands surged from the walls, their guns roaring with unnatural strength, their shells tearing into the Malcadors' steel hulls.
The tide of green crashed against the black flood of iron.
...
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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