EVENT - The Schism of Mars

[bluntblade]

Be odd not to

[Beren]

The decontaminators have always been there. The rest I added in earlier whilst boosting the piece to around 500 words.

[bluntblade]

Right, thoughts on the early sections. I think there's a bit too much "previously on" in the first one. The mention of Blackshields strikes me as rather premature, and in truth I'm inclined to suggest we leave the Insurgos stuff for when they pop up. I'd rather keep things immediate and the focus on Mars.

 

Also, given that the Schism in canon breaks out with Isstvan III, I think the buildup should start shortly before the DoR.

[Beren]

By premature, do you mean chronologically lore wise or for practical reasons regarding the book?

[bluntblade]

Both, really. There's a good reason Blackshields only appear from 4 onwards in the FW books. Our hypothetical reader has come to this from Book 1 eager to read about some red hot Martian action, and suddenly he's up to the eyes in a heap of other stuff.

[Beren]

Fair enough.

[bluntblade]

I'll fiddle with it tomorrow, probably chisel the DoR stuff away to the bare essentials, and see what I have then.

[bluntblade]

Finished this:

 

Forbidden Knowledge

For some, rebellion was a matter of opportunity. We cannot know if Artificial Intelligence had ravaged Mars directly, so depleted is the historiography of the Dark Age of Technology, but all Mankind suffered when the Men of Iron turn against their masters. Certainly Martians understand better than most the dangers of machines allowed to run amok. Certain kinds of war machine and Skitarii were devised with the express purpose of cleansing such threats from Mars, and there are catacombs where, in recent centuries, men have only ventured as visitors and plunderers, never able to reclaim the territory.

 

And yet hubris is a powerful thing. Few societies have been known to persist in or revive the use of AI, but the campaign rolls of the Crusade show that some did. On Mars, a few ambitious magi were suffused with confidence that their new god, their Omnissiah, would provide the insight that eluded them. The Quest for Knowledge demanded that in all areas of understanding they run faster, stretch out to grasp it. Not yet, they told themselves, but one fine day they would have mastery over the technology that had nearly destroyed their species.

 

The Pact of Mars brought fresh restrictions to this work. No longer prohibited only by religious edict, now the word of the Emperor Himself - the Omnissiah incarnate - forbade all such work. So too were the Moravec Vaults, full of Warp-tainted archeotech, sealed and their location withheld to keep a vast store of technology and knowledge from the hands of men.

 

Other sciences were forbidden, and while most on Mars were willing to leave these avenues of enquiry alone, and toil to supply the Crusade and the worlds it rendered Compliant, others refused to forget. Privately, they questioned how a man who forbade the pursuit of knowledge - of any kind - could be their divine ruler. The Omnissiah embodied perfect mastery of technology; therefore that same entity would have no reason to sequester that technology. Therefore, they decided, the being who had come to Mars with hand of iron in velvet glove was a pretender to the glory of their god, a blasphemer who had shackled the priesthood to unholy ends. This made His overthrow a sacred duty, and the works He had forbidden should be an instrument in that uprising.

 

Foremost among the blasphemers was Lukas Chrom, Master-Adept of Mondus Gamma. Dignitaries within and without the Mechanicum deemed him odious, but his forge’s productivity was undeniable, and Chrom himself was a master when it came to making weapons of war, especially automata. The finest of these he gifted to Kelbor-Hal as a bodyguard, and doubtless the Fabricator-General counted Chrom among his foremost lieutenants from the start of his planned subterfuge.

 

By Kelbor Hal’s authority, a veil of secrecy was thrown over Mondus Gamma’s deepest sanctums and forges, so opaque that none glimpsed the work within who was not loyal to Chrom or his master. Yet whispers ran in the machine-codes of Mars, carrying a single word: Raijin. Magi across the planet were left baffled as to its nature, until in the wake of the Tharsis reactor attack, all became clear.

 

Chrom had gifted the Traitors one of their most potent weapons in the war for Mars. A monstrous, tracked engine of ruin, the Raijin Machine was taught the rudiments of friendship with the personnel who aided in its construction before Chrom set in motion a chain of events which would force it to kill them. Whatever passes for a soul in a thinking machine was thus darkened and corroded within the Raijin. From that day on, it was one of Chrom’s deadliest weapons, and the mystery that surrounded it were of great benefit to the Insurrectionists.

[Beren]

Kaban Machine to Raijin Engine. Otherwise, looks good.

[simison]

I think you need to capitalise 'Compliant', but all else is good.

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"Soldiers, the enemy taunts us. I hear the ghost-words over the vox as clear as any of you. Even with his armies broken across the Red World, Kelbor Hal fleers at us. Against the Grand Mountain, his sermons claim, we have no hope of prevailing.

 

Does that daunt me? Do I hear those words and feel a pinprick of apprehension? Does it hell!

 

I look upon the army around me and I see more than a host of men and women and their weapons. I see a fearsome tally of victories, some of the greatest won in our Crusade. Among my kinsmen are hands that built the Ebensagab on my home world, a fortress hardier even than the one that stands before us. Here I warriors who have torn down the mightiest holdfasts of a score of civilisations. Do I not see here veterans of Kasun? Of Dresq? Qarith Prime? Stengah?

 

Then hear me now and know that we will smash down Kelbor Hal’s defences and take back Olympus Mons. His soldiers will be broken by our guns and ground beneath our boots. The false Fabricator General will be rendered down to cinders for his treason.

 

Mistake not my words for any claim that this will be easy. But then when has ease had any place in our wars? The victories we have won have always been bought with blood. If you fall upon the Grand Mountain, you will have found as glorious an end as any soldier of the Emperor has earned. You will be a martyr to Imperial unity. By your sacrifice the Arch-Traitor’s fall will be guaranteed.

 

Blood and victory! For the Emperor and his Warmaster, shake Olympus Mons to its roots! Onward!”

 

Sovereign Shamgar Arnath’s address to Escalade Force Eta

[simison]

The Warmaster's Own and Allied Forces

 

These are the units of the Fifth Legion and banners tied to their fate, including the Knight House of Zivich and the Legio Tempestus. Initially, only a fraction of the Halcyon Wardens were present at the beginning of the Schism, soon reinforced by nearby detachments who answered the Warmaster's call for aid. Even then, the Fifth Legion enjoyed an unusual strength of force due to the presence of Alexandros VonSalim, Irvin Ruel and Prisfira Sauhan. The latter two had brought a significant core of their brigades to review the Terran recruiting regions, the planetary defenses and to add weight to the Warmaster's political efforts against the Lords of Terra's attempt to weaken the War Council. 

 

In contrast to the piecemeal arrival of Halcyon Wardens, the entirety of the Legio Tempestus units involved in the Martian Schism would see the beginning and the ending of the entire conflict. 

[bluntblade]

I think each faction's summary should fit on a page with a big symbol a la the FW books, so the Halcyon Wardens stuff should be elaborated on a fair bit. Like the composition of Ruel and Sauhan's Cohorts/Chapters (I forget which one we're using). So like Ruel having a disproportionate number of heavy armour units which were key to the defence of Magma City.

 

Hang on, are you saying Alexandros doesn't have any Tempestus maniples summoned back? Cos that's how it sounds. Also if it's any help, we could name one of the key expeditionary maniples for the Warlord Titan Enelysia.

 

Be worth mentioning any Secutarii and general taghmata elements too, as Tempestus will definitely have some.

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In an age of profligacy, humanity strode across the stars, taking for granted our impiously presumed mastery of technology.

Many miracles were achieved in that epoch and we raised ourselves to unprecedented heights, only to be cast low by our hubris.

In the Age of Strife, unquantifiable stores of knowledge, our gift from the Omnissiah, were lost through our folly.

Much that should be common knowledge was forgotten.

Of all the scattered civilisations encountered during the Great Crusade it was the Machine Cults born of the Red Planet, who held the most secrets of the past. It was they who held the responsibility of seeking out the knowledge of the ancients, they who held the ability to comprehend it and implement it. Alas, progress is never perceived by two minds alike, and sometimes the sweet lure of progress by any means leads only to damnation.

Icarion claimed that it was for the sake of progression stymied and stifled by the Emperor's edicts that Mars would be liberated from His rule. Those who had chafed at what they saw as a conquest in all but name took up the cause of secession to further their own quests for knowledge pried from the hands of the dead. The disciples of Kelbor-Hal saw the countless dead and ruined worlds of humanity as an imperative to accept no restraint.

They should have heeded those charnel worlds as a warning.

We sought to build upon the ashes of history whilst avoiding the mistakes of the past. We failed, for our arrogance had not been entirely excised. In the name of progress and through dark and twisted paths, the Stormborn's allies would raze our best hopes for the future. Now we are but a shadow of a shadow.

We forgot how we fell once. We will not survive, should we let it happen again.

I saw with eyes of consecrated glass and steel, forged and gifted to me that I might gather information for the Omnissiah, and as part of that sacred duty I offer up this testament. I had my data banks store images as the forges of the Red Planet burned, and recorded the loss of more knowledge than I will ever recover. My implants hold images of Titans, the Omnissiah’s avatars, locked in internecine battle. I saw hoards of Mankind's inheritance purged, and mourned.

For the resurgence of Reason, we keep fast this knowledge.

-B. N.

The Blade Falls
The day the dream of the Great Crusade died is one of the best known in the history of the Imperium. The Day of Revelation. Icarion Anasen, once favored amongst the Emperor’s sons, led nine of the eighteen Legions into treachery against their father. Of the rest, eight stood defiant under Alexandros, Warmaster of humanity's armies, and one stood aside. Some, such as the Godslayers and the Steel Legion, followed Icarion in the belief that his rule would herald a brighter future for mankind. Others sought only to further their own agendas, as was the case with the Eagle Warriors, Drowned and Berserkers of Uran.

Worse, factions from several Loyalist Legions also joined Icarion. Halcyon Wardens under Malis defected at Madrigal, and the Morning Stars fleet of the Void Eagles abandoned the Primarch they despised. The Dune Serpents were by far the Loyalist Legion worst affected by this, with a full two-fifths turning traitor. Regardless of their motives, when the time came each one took up arms against their comrades. The Stormlord, as Icarion now styled himself, had spent years planning the rebellion, gathering allies and manipulating his unsuspecting enemies into positions where they would be vulnerable. The Day of Revelation was not marked by a single battle, but encompassed a score of betrayals across the galaxy.

Of the worlds upon and over which the first shots were fired, the most pivotal were Kataii and the Stormlord’s own fief. The significance of Daer’dd’s murder and the scattering of the Iron Bears hardly requires explaining. But the defiance of Pyrrhicles over Madrigal, and his determination that word reach the Warmaster, would prove perhaps even more telling in the course of the Insurrection. By Pyrrhicles’ sacrifice, the surviving Halcyon Wardens who followed him brought the full, awful truth to their father.

Wracked he was by shock and grief, Alexandros moved swiftly to counter his brother’s treason, for only by prompt and resolute action could Icarion be halted. But Icarion had planted the seeds of rebellion throughout the Imperium, and even as violence flared in a hundred systems, the Loyalists made a dreadful discovery. Traitors were already at work on Terra’s doorstep.

Corrosion
Discord was not confined to the Legions and the Imperialis Auxilia. Every facet of the Imperium was riven, and not least among these was the Martian Mechanicum, where corruption did not merely extend to the upper echelons but encompassed them. Kelbor Hal, Fabricator-General of Mars and de facto head of the Mechanicum, had long come to resent his position within the Imperium. Under the terms of the Treaty of Mars, the Mechanicum existed independently of the main Imperial structure, free to carve out its own empire within an empire, yet in practice its domains were utterly dwarfed by the broader Imperium. The great majority of Mechanicum produce was given over to the Legiones Astartes and the Imperial Army rather than its own Taghmata. Likewise Titan Legios were placed at the service of these forces instead of Mechanicum Taghmata.

Worse still, to Kelbor Hal’s eyes, there were provinces of the Cult which had submitted to the hegemony of a Primarch. The Three Fires and Lasaris were the most egregious to him, but there were many others. He remembered every slight and perceived attempt to erode his authority, his anger growing all the while. He had aggressively defended his position against several Fabricator-Generals of other Forge Worlds, in one case ordering Phaeton to greatly diminish the forces it had built up. It is likely that he suspected that the Emperor meant to replace him with a more biddable replacement. Perhaps he genuinely feared that in time, the Imperium would turn on the Mechanicum wholesale, or perhaps he simply fretted for his own power. It is unsurprising either way that, when Icarion’s representatives came to offer an alliance, Kelbor Hal was all too ready to listen.

The Cult of Mars has no afterlife in its creed. Martyrdom, by its dogma, has meaning only if it ensures the survival of the faith and knowledge. The Omnissiah’s victory must be achieved in this life. So there could be no doomed uprising against insurmountable odds for the Fabricator-General. Righteous failure was failure nonetheless, and it would bring down the order Kelbor Hal had guarded so jealously and for so long. That he committed to Icarion’s rebellion demonstrates that he was thoroughly prepared for the conflict.

Whether Kelbor Hal and his minions had plotted subterfuge on their own, we do not know. The proliferation of Forge Worlds and their fiefs in certain territories, the increasing production of battle automata, have been taken as hints, but we cannot deem them any more than that. So much has gone unrecorded, so much knowledge was destroyed or hidden from all but the most powerful. What is known is that Icarion, when he first began to plot, sought to exploit existing divisions within the Mechanicum, and the divisions he found ran through the structure from top to bottom. Kelbor-Hal worked doggedly to suborn his own subjects, swiftly assembling a faction with which to purge those who would not fall in line.

For their service, Icarion gave his Mechanicum allies a number of guarantees. The first of these was a consignment of archeotech wrested from the depths of Madrigal, delivered by a delegation from the Cognis Mechanicum and the Eagle Warriors. As well as these gifts, it was promised that they would bring a means to open the Vaults of Moravec, a repository sealed by the Emperor and forbidden to all on Mars. Finally, Icarion assured Kelbor Hal that the Halcyon Wardens would be swayed to his banner, paralysing Imperial forces in the Sol System and allowing Kelbor Hal a free hand on Mars at long last.

Gambit
A few weeks before the Day of Revelation, a plasma generator in the Tharsis region of Mars was attacked and destroyed by a construct which defied categorisation. The blast left only three Knight Scions of House Taranis, charged with defending the generator, shielded from the blast by by their war engines. The strange war machine vanished. In hindsight, this can be seen as only the first shot fired in a war that would tear the Red Planet asunder.

This violence did not arrive ex nihilo. Mechanicum priesthoods were prone to internecine violence for reasons of both doctrine and ambition, factional and personal. Espionage among magos and posturing among the armed wings of the Mechanicus was commonplace. It was the Legio Mortis, who had long hungered for domination of the Tharsis region, who took the brunt of the accusations immediately afterwards. They had ever been a bloodthirsty gathering, bolstered in their aggressive conduct by the favour shown to them by the Fabricator-General.

Ever since Mars was absorbed into the Imperium, it has been a seething hotbed of tensions, but never more so than at this time. Kelbor-Hal's gambit would ignite rivalries that were decades in the forging. Of the various Magi of the Red Planet there were two triumvirates who are particularly significant to the Martian Schism. The first was led by Kelbor-Hal himself, ruler of Olympus Mons and master of the entire Mechanicum. In keeping with his station, his was the most extensive and prestigious forge on the entire planet, and contained perhaps the most prized store of records acknowledged by the Mechanicum. He was abetted by Lukas Chrom, a powerful magos renowned his skill in designing automata. His was a surpassing combination of learning and ambition; he had amassed sufficient expertise to create the ancient blasphemy of Abominable Intelligence. Adept Urtzi Malevolus completed the dark triad, pledging his forge city’s labour and fearsome taghma to the Fabricator-General’s agenda.

The opposing triumvirate, while lacking a leader, was not bereft of political influence of their own. Best known among them was Adept Koriel Zeth, for the construction of Magma City, miraculously built within an active volcano. More pertinently, she was famous for inventing the noosphere net as a means of communication, which had already been adopted by sects beyond Mars. Consequently her unorthodox views and loyalty to the Emperor were well known throughout the Mechanicum. Beside her was Fabricator-Locum Zagreus Kane, second in command of Mars and one of the chief suppliers of power armour for the Legions of the Astartes. Equal to neither but still greatly influential was Ipluvien Maximal, whose expertise in plasma generators was responsible for powering forges across the surface of Mars.

The rivalry between Zeth’s faction and Kelbor Hal’s had been simmering for decades, with Kelbor-Hal moving to suppress his opponents' influence wherever possible and stifling the proliferation of the noosphere. In return, it would be Maximal who first suspected of the Fabricator’s loyalty to Icarion, and linked the mysterious construct now known as the Raijin Engine to Chrom’s work. Kane would, just briefly before the shattering of the temperamental peace that stretched thin across the forges of Mars, realise that additional supplies and resources had been directed to those Legions loyal to Icarion.

In the latter half-century of the 30th Millenium, a further complication entered the mix. The powerful and stubbornly independent Abyssii sect, in preparation for campaigns near the Galactic core - where among other conflicts, the Qarith Crusade would be fought - established a holding on Mars. Kelbor Hal viewed Archmagos Mortera as a rival greater than any figure on Mars itself, perhaps even more than the masters of Phaeton and Anvillus. Quite apart from outright political machinations, she was likely to patronise unorthodox individuals of Zeth’s ilk. This would pose a subtle, creeping threat to the Fabricator-General’s power.

Mars was not under the sole purview of the magi however. Away from the grindings of industry and among the red dunes, it was the Titan Legios and Knight Houses that held dominion over much of the planet. The divisions between these warrior factions were revealed clearly at the council of Tharsis, held at the Tempestus fortress of Ascraeus Mons, called to address the generator attack. Normally Lord Commanders Verticorda and Caturix of House Taranis could be relied on to moderate at such gatherings, but this time things were different. Upon the arrival of the Legio Mortis delegation, Caturix openly accused Princeps Camulos of complicity in an assault on Taranis holdings. The Mortis Princeps was no more conciliatory, leaving only after he made a statement that verged on a declaration of war.

It is all too easy to forget when embroiled in the intricacies of Mars that it was part of a wider star system, and one of the most heavily garrisoned systems in the Galaxy at that. Alexandros’ position on Terra meant that the Halycon Wardens were in range to intervene in any struggle that was more than a brief conquest, let alone the Abyssii war fleet docked at the Ring of Iron for repair and resupply. According to Icarion’s scheme, the V^th Legion would take his side and seize Terra, but even then risks remained. Thus he sent a delegation of Eagle Warriors to Mars, accompanied by their allies in the Cognis sect.

It is important to note that while Icarion had given up hopes of gaining Alexandros’ allegiance after the Day of Revelation, this had not been communicated to his Martian allies in time. Regardless, the treacherous Astartes and magi he sent would find themselves even more critical to the revolt than he had planned. Furthermore, the Cognis and Eagle Warriors delegation had brought with them new weapons for data-warfare, in order to eliminate the Abyssii.

Even limited by Icarion's reluctance to use tools that might devastate Mars entirely, these were potent weapons. Had the Martian Schism gone as the Traitors had envisaged it, they would have seized the heart of the Mechanicum industrial base within striking distance of Terra and eliminated a major portion of the military threat posed by the Abyssii in the process. It is an unappreciated irony that for all this scheming, the most devastating blow of the entire war was dealt seemingly by accident.

[bluntblade]

Red Box: Forbidden Knowledge

For some, rebellion was a matter of opportunity. We cannot know if Artificial Intelligence had ravaged Mars directly, so depleted is the historiography of the Dark Age of Technology, but all Mankind suffered when the Men of Iron turn against their masters. Certainly Martians understand better than most the dangers of machines allowed to run amok. Certain kinds of war machine and Skitarii were devised with the express purpose of cleansing such threats from Mars, and there are catacombs where, in recent centuries, men have only ventured as visitors and plunderers, never able to reclaim the territory.

 

And yet hubris is a powerful thing. Few societies have been known to persist in or revive the use of AI, but the campaign rolls of the Crusade show that some did. On Mars, a few ambitious magi were suffused with confidence that their new god, their Omnissiah, would provide the insight that eluded them. The Quest for Knowledge demanded that in all areas of understanding they run faster, stretch out to grasp it. Not yet, they told themselves, but one fine day they would have mastery over the technology that had nearly destroyed their species.

 

The Pact of Mars brought fresh restrictions to this work. No longer prohibited only by religious edict, now the word of the Emperor Himself - the Omnissiah incarnate - forbade all such work. So too were the Moravec Vaults, full of Warp-tainted archeotech, sealed and their location withheld to keep a vast store of technology and knowledge from the hands of men.

 

Other sciences were forbidden, and while most on Mars were willing to leave these avenues of enquiry alone, and toil to supply the Crusade and the worlds it rendered compliant, others refused to forget. Privately, they questioned how a man who forbade the pursuit of knowledge - of any kind - could be their divine ruler. The Omnissiah embodied perfect mastery of technology; therefore that same entity would have no reason to sequester that technology. Therefore, they decided, the being who had come to Mars with hand of iron in velvet glove was a pretender to the glory of their god, a blasphemer who had shackled the priesthood to unholy ends. This made His overthrow a sacred duty, and the works He had forbidden should be an instrument in that uprising.

 

Foremost among the blasphemers was Lukas Chrom, Master-Adept of Mondus Gamma. Dignitaries within and without the Mechanicum deemed him odious, but his forge’s productivity was undeniable, and Chrom himself was a master when it came to making weapons of war, especially automata. The finest of these he gifted to Kelbor-Hal as a bodyguard, and doubtless the Fabricator-General counted Chrom among his foremost lieutenants from the start of his planned subterfuge.

 

By Kelbor Hal’s authority, a veil of secrecy was thrown over Mondus Gamma’s deepest sanctums and forges, so opaque that none glimpsed the work within who was not loyal to Chrom or his master. Yet whispers ran in the machine-codes of Mars, carrying a single word: Raijin. Magi across the planet were left baffled as to its nature, until in the wake of the Tharsis reactor attack, all became clear.

 

Chrom had gifted the Traitors one of their most potent weapons in the war for Mars. A monstrous, tracked engine of ruin, the Raijin Machine was taught the rudiments of friendship with the personnel who aided in its construction before Chrom set in motion a chain of events which would force it to kill them. Whatever passes for a soul in a thinking machine was thus darkened and corroded within the Kaban. From that day on, it was one of Chrom’s deadliest weapons, and the mystery that surrounded it were of great benefit to the Insurrectionists.

[bluntblade]

The Death of Innocence

With the records from Olympus Mons largely devastated, corrupted or stolen away, our understanding of this incident has been gleaned overwhelmingly from a set of communiqués between Icarion and Xander Travier, Arch-Magos of the Mechanicum Cognis. According to these, a few days after presenting Kelbor Hal with gifts of technology plundered from the tomb of the Thunder King, a small portion of the delegation travelled without sanction into the depths of Olympus Mons. There they found the Vault of Moravec, a location long denied to the Mechanicum by word of the Emperor.

 

Moravec had been an extremist of the Mechanicum, driven out and his works kept under guard even before the coming of the Emperor. Yet whispers remained of them, and they were coveted. What truly occurred at the Vault is unknown, but Travier later testified to the Stormborn that his ambassadors had taken some of their prototype scrapcode variants and used them to unlock the doors. Just after the first dawn to follow the Day of Revelation, the Vault of Moravec opened. What happened next can never be forgotten.

 

The virulent scrapcode unleashed was largely halted at Olympus Mons by safeguards put in place by the Cognis. Beyond its bounds, however, it bypassed every security measure, spreading into the wider data-net. It moved with some twisted parody of intelligence, overwriting and replicating itself in any system it touched. Sinus Sabeaus, Tycho Brahe, the Schiaparelli Repository at Acidelia Planetia, Vastitis Borealis, Medusa Fossae - all suffered. Databases were corrupted into meaninglessness, machines grinding to a halt or malfunctioning in lethal ways. Millennia’s worth of knowledge was lost in the space of hours.

 

The malign data constructs reached into the void around Mars, killing millions more. The Ring of Iron itself was stricken in places, whole districts suddenly venting their air and leaving menials to perish in the vacuum. Ships too were affected, sending their crews into a frenzy as they sought to restore life support systems. The constant traffic of people and raw materials through Mars’ ports ground to a halt.

 

The collected might of the Taghmata Mortera hung in orbit above the Western Hemisphere, resupplying after long campaigns in the galactic west. Titanic macro-haulers shuttled back and forth between the fleet and the surface of the Red World, bearing much-needed supplies. Many ships of the Taghmata sat within docking cradles in the Ring of Iron, menials swarming over them to repair damage that could not be dealt with on campaign. Exposed, they would only be saved by a distress signal from the Antionradi Forge Temple, caught in its death throes.

 

This missive would be their salvation, giving Mortera time to broadcast a critical alert across the fleet. Priests and servitors raced to disconnect themselves, partitioning the cogitator systems on each vessel. It was barely in time, the scrapcode infecting every vulnerable system it found. The battleship Excessive Gravitas suffered the depressurisation of an entire deck, thousands perishing with the loss of air. The Application of Force teetered on the brink of a reactor overload until the magi aboard restored its failsafes.

 

On the bridge of Mortera's Ark Mechanicus, the Glory of Summer, Magos Itrax was struck down by the malign code, several servitors and magi joining him in agonised deaths as their augmetics rebelled with lethal effect. Mortera herself was stricken, saved only by her rigid will and her extensive cerebral augmentation. Partitioning her own mind to stave off the worst effects of the scrapcode, she and Adept Crastus Mhal tended to the wounded Machine Spirit of her flagship. All around the Glory of Summer, the Abyssii fought to undo the damage, purging tainted code from their systems.

 

On the surface a war maniple of the Legio Tempestus, provoked into a standoff by the Legio Mortis, were stricken, losing the Warlord Titan Victorix Magna to the death of its machine spirit. The survivors were among the lucky few who had disconnected their domains from the network before the damage became too severe. In particular Magma City and its satraps found that their noosphere networks shielded them from the worst damage. Nevertheless, all but the Fabricator-General's allies were thrown into disarray except for a handful of forges.

 

Despite facing a threat far greater than that designed to destroy them, the war fleet of the Mechanicum Abyssii endured. They may have been damaged, losing a ship and hundreds of adepts as they attempted to rein in the attack, but nothing more. Here the skill of Mhal, Mortera's machine-touched Master of Automata, was telling. He had spearheaded extensive research programs into data-warfare and now, backed up by the data presences of the majority of the Abyssii adepts present, he was able to fend off the attack. Even as they recovered the interdiction fleet, already in defensive position, began to power up weapons batteries and void shields. Below them Mars screamed out in pain, and the whole system heard its cry.

 

The Sands Run Red

With anarchy now running rampant, on Mars it was still uncertain what or whom had initiated the attack. The period of confusion would last weeks. The first act of open hostility came with the crossing of the Tempest Line by the Legio Mortis, the same incident referred to above. Brazenly violating the border of Legio Tempestus territory, they provoked their old rivals almost to the point of opening fire, though for Tempestus to do so would have been to invite their destruction by the Imperator Aquila Ignix. Instead, however, the scrap code did its malign work. Mortis retreated with their enemies badly wounded, but no cassus belli.

 

In the time between the scrapcode outbreak and the marching of the Legio Mortis, Kelbor-Hal's mind and those of his analysts and commanders had been working at a furious rate. In places, his allies were not yet ready, having been arming at a cautious rate meant to avoid suspicion. At others, the initial targets had been destroyed or crippled. The Fabricator-General took this into account and amended previous plans as he directed his forces to where he believed they would be needed most. Even as he did so, further steps were taken in order to misdirect those presumed to have remained loyal, so that his victory might be seized untarnished.

 

It is clear that while he may not have engineered the scrapcode attack, Kelbor Hal now sought to take advantage of it. Perhaps he suspected that the contamination would eventually be traced back to Olympus Mons and the Cognis delegation, seeking to take the initiative before the Loyalists could recuperate. One way or another, the forces beholden to him and his allies marched forth. They would not be unopposed. Even as he ensured that Mondus Gamma continued to churn out Legiones Astartes power armour, Fabricator-Locum Kane contacted his allies to coordinate a response to the unfolding crisis.

 

It is also known that Adept Zeth received a visit from Ambassador Melgator, a servant of the Fabricator-General, accompanied by a cyber assassin of the Cydonian Sisterhood. The conversation itself is unknown, but it can be presumed that she refused whatever terms offered, as the Ambassador departed afterwards. Kelbor Hal’s allies declared that Zeth had confessed to an unforgivable blasphemy; she did not believe in the Omnissiah. Mere hours later Melgator returned at the head of 300 skitarii, proclaiming a summons from the Fabricator General to account for charges of tech-heresy. This attempt to cow the ruler of Magma city proved both futile and outmatched as she revealed the presence of the full might of House Taranis, poised to fall upon the intruders. Melgator's hurried withdrawal was prudent, for soon after Legio Tempestus itself, with Princeps Calvalerio recovered and installed in the ancient Warlord Titan Deus Tempestus, would reinforce Magma City. Not all would be so fortunate.

 

Minor outposts were wracked by sabotage and assassinations, leaving the way clear for the armies of the traitor Mechanicum to bring their full strength to bear upon their opponents. The forge of Mattias Kefra in the Madler Crater, responsible for supplying the Solar Guard, was razed by Titans of the Legio Magna. The Cassini Crater holding the engine yards of Magos Ahotep was annihilated by an atomic missile strike originating from the Nilo Syrtis region. Maxen Vledig’s Deathbolts lost 19 of their Titans when their fortress was the subject of a surprise attack by their old rivals, the Death Stalkers under Princeps Ulriche. The battered Loyalists withdrew into the wastes, cries for aid unanswered. Elsewhere, the Athabasca Valles were the site of a bloody stalemate between the Legios Ignatum and the Burning Stars. Thousands of Skitarii clashed within the Herschel Crater, to neither side’s avail.

 

The taint of treachery had not been merely limited to the upper echelons or military components of Martian society, for thralls rioted seemingly without cause, or took their own lives at the prompting of hijacked electoo implants. Ipluvien Maximal would be the first prominent Loyalist on to suffer the Insurrectionists’ attentions, his city surrounded by hostile Skitarii and bombarded by Ordinatus siege engines. His compatriots were unable to aid him as they themselves found themselves besieged. At Magma City the combined weight of Zeth's Taghmata, the Knights Taranis and the Legio Tempestus slaughtered the attackers in droves. Yet still they came on, and the defenders knew that when the war engines of Legio Mortis arrived, their fate would be sealed. Each held on, for the moment.

 

Once Kelbor Hal learned that the Abyssii had survived the scrapcode attack, he reverted to his original plan to dispose of Mortera. A clade of Thanos assassins, cybernetic killers so deadly as to rival their counterparts in the Terran Officio, launched from the surface two days after the code attack. Their target was Mortera, their orders to bring her head to Kelbor Hal. A combination of esoteric cloaking devices, the debris-choked void and the lingering effects of the scrapcode served to mask their approach. They cut their way into the massive Ark and proceeded to the bridge, killing anyone who crossed their path.

 

Mortera remained wired into the ship’s systems, unable to defend herself. Her elite guard of Myrmidon Custos responded immediately as the assassins entered, and the bridge became a flurry of blades and gunfire. The Custos killed several of the assassins but were themselves slain, Magos Militant Jagrus falling to the wasting effects of their sinister blades. Mortera was only saved by the intervention of Charon Discut, a sinister Adept of the Ordo Reductor whose arsenal made ashen ruin of the remaining assassins. Now wise to the danger, Mortera's fleet readied itself for open battle. Seething, Kelbor Hal ordered his ships to do the same.

 

It is believed that mere days into the Fabricator-General's own uprising his forces had either eliminated or hampered the majority of their opponents on the surface. Countless manufactorums and repositories of knowledge were either razed or firmly under his control. The cog was already turning and the numbers appeared to be in the Traitors’ favour. Loyalists were either outcast from their sanctuaries and fleeing into the wastes to be dismissed as insignificant fragments of once proud armies, or surrounded and under siege, their armies pinned in place and with nowhere to run.

 

The cost in civilian lives remains staggering, even now. Entire hab-blocks were obliterated by uncaring Titan maniples. Ismenius Lacus came under assault with virus bombs, which killed millions in minutes. This was the single greatest loss of life in the early days of the Schism, and yet it was just another atrocity among many. Masses of people, priest and thrall alike, were scythed down by rapid fire weapons as they fled or suffered a prolonged death in the wilderness, bereft of the climate support systems of the Mechanicum enclaves. To the magi, this was but a shadow of what they saw as the greater tragedy; unquantified stores of data and technology. Amidst the havoc, no one on Mars noticed the ravaged Space Marine fleet that had entered the system in a staggering sprint, racing for Terra.

 

For high above the burning foundries and cratered dunes, the sky of Mars was also ablaze. In space it is easier to observe an enemy approach, for there is rarely anything to impede the view. This was not the case above Mars, where hundreds of dead and compromised ships littered the world’s orbit. The fighting was to be at close range by voidwar standards, waged in brutish fashion. When the first Traitors struck, the fire of conflict spread rapidly across the entire Ring of Iron. Outside in the cold void, hundreds of Mechanicum vessels clashed, no quarter asked or given. They exchanged broadsides at point blank range, tearing ragged gashes off one another's hulls.

 

Many of these would fall crippled and maimed to the surface below, in incandescent trails that meted out even more injury to the planet’s abused surface. The Mechanicum Gloriam plummeted, engines destroyed, and ploughed deep into the dust of the Cydonia Mensae region. In doing so it obliterated the Basilica of the Blessed Algorithms and the Technotheoligians sheltered within. They had been the last group on Mars preaching rapprochement in the face of catastrophe.

 

The interior of the Iron Ring became a single great, winding battlefield. Alternations of narrow, twisting, conduits and corridors with spaces open enough for war machines to manoeuvre in made for a nightmare rife with confusion and bloodshed. Assaults spearheaded by Myrmidons, Empyrite Thallax and Vorax automata scythed through the masses of tech-thralls arrayed to stop them. In desperation the Loyalists often sabotaged what systems they could before being cut down. Entire decks were rendered open to the void. Battlefleet Solar, witness to the slaughter taking place, attempted to distance itself from the chaos. They were unable to identify who fought or for what cause.

 

As soon as they had recovered from the scrapcode attack, Mortera's forces had began moving to secure control of the portion of the Ring they were closest to. Resistance erupted almost immediately. The docking region of the cruiser Aspect of Zeal, undergoing an almost complete rebuild, became the site of an especially ugly struggle as the Traitors sought to claim what they thought was an easy prize. In truth, for once it was the Loyalists who held the initiative and pushed onwards. Decontaminator Skitarii, heavily armed close-quarters specialists, proved lethal in the facility’s cramped confines, entire corridors drowning in chem and rad onslaughts. In order to reinforce her troops yet further, Mortera deployed four of the Legio Carnifex's Warhound Titans to the larger docking and cargo bays.

 

Unable to answer such a display of force, Kelbor Hal's allies were driven back. Outside the structure, the Basilikon Abyssii fought a battle far greater in scope, but no less furious and with much less certainty of prevailing. Their Interdiction Fleet had been first to engage hostile warships, but now every ship capable of fighting was called upon. Kelbor Hal had seen to it that several fleets had been directed to the Sol System under various pretences. Some had orbited Mars, others came from shipyards around Saturn and Jupiter under the pretext of rendering aid to stricken vessels.

 

Mortera ordered the Glory of Summer into the fray, followed swiftly by the battleships Haloed in Flame, the Void's Justice and Fleetmistress Ariana Furia’s own vessel, the Armageddon's Blade. These were only the start. Soon all the weapons of the Abyssii fleet, be they conventional or esoteric, were giving voice to the anger of their masters. The havoc wrought upon the foe was so great that the battleship Last Unto Twilight broke off to pursue hostile ships throughout the Ring’s Abysii-held portions without support. Two waves of Traitor ships were blasted into ruin by the Abyssii fleet, giving other Loyalist vessels time to regroup or withdraw to safety. The Traitors’ seizure of control over the skies of Mars stalled.

 

But the battle remained hard-fought, and with the third wave’s approach the Cognis and Eagle Warriors vessels joined the fight. Having been berthed above Deimos, they had waited for the Abyssii to be ground down. Deciding that the time had come to make their attack, a powerful Cognis battleship accompanied by four Secutor cruisers closed in. Prowling at the edge of their formation was a XIII^th Legion strike cruiser named the Unforgiving, a void predator of ancient provenance and deadly armament. Striking the beleaguered Abyssii fleet, they swiftly set about their bloodletting, and the Haloed in Flame was gutted and burned by their attack.

 

Mortera and her magi grimly watched the developing picture, pulling back and consolidating their positions as increasing numbers of Traitor vessels attacked. They would inflict murderous casualties on their attackers, but the noose was pulling inexorably closed. Then fresh signals appeared, approaching from the system core. Another fleet, come from Terra itself. Either this would be the salvation of the Loyalist forces on and above Mars, or it would seal their doom.

 

The new presences hove rapidly into scope-range, revealing themselves as capital ships, hued in imperial purple and scarlet, with dozens of smaller vessels flocking around them. The Abyssii noted the signatures of famed vessels; mighty, unmistakably belonging to a Legion Astartes. Zanskat Oath, the venerable Solar Tempest and the Goliath-class Delian Spear, born of Nox’s own shipyards. Vast as they were, none rivalled the Gloriana-class monster that reared up behind them. Twenty-two kilometres from bow to stern, its prow crowned with nova cannon, it was instantly recognisable as the Elpis, flagship of the Warmaster himself. The Halycon Wardens had arrived over Mars, and as they assumed attack vectors, Alexandros spoke across the vox.

 

“For the Emperor.”

[bluntblade]

The Emperor’s Shield and Sword

Icarion’s belief that Alexandros would join him proved utterly misplaced. Perhaps it would have gone otherwise if not for events at Madrigal and the arrival of the survivors on this day, though these days it had become an act of blasphemy to question Alexandros’ loyalty. Far from securing Kelbor-Hal’s uprising, the Warmaster’s Legion was well-placed to counter it. Alexandros himself, whilst commanding from the Elpis, was besieged by the fallout from the Day of Revelation. He was therefore unable to take direct action on Mars, save for the void battle and perhaps one other, singularly devastating intervention.

 

The Sol System had not seen such violence since the blood-red dawn of the Great Crusade. The Halcyon Wardens speared into the Insurrectionist formations with thickets of las-fire and swarms of torpedoes, rapidly fragmenting them as the Abyssii continued to press their own attacks. Nothing could match the Elpis, its spine and flanks studded with guns the size of Imperator Titans, and the Halcyon Wardens’ other battleships were proven warhorses in their own right. Like hooked claws, they plunged into the Traitor fleet and ripped it open.

 

The Elpis and her escorts made straight for the Eagle Warriors and Cognis, accompanied by the Delian Spear. The Unforgiving, a ship which had carved a bloody trail across the Galaxy since before the Great Crusade, lasted less than a minute under the guns of the Elpis. With no consideration for taking the relic-ship intact, the Gloriana obliterated it with its nova cannon. Then it was among the Cognis ships, broadsides ripping the shields of two cruisers away and tearing the vessels apart. The third was bisected by vortex missiles from the Delian Spear. The fourth fell to the Armageddon's Blade and the battleship, reeling from the Elpis’ broadsides, to the Glory of Summer, Mortera having rallied her fleet with preternatural speed and joined the counter-attack.

 

The balance in the void was reversed. As the Traitor formations collapsed, the seventeen-kilometre Solar Tempest led a spearhead of Halcyon Wardens ships into the battle around the Ring of Iron, abetted by a flotilla of the Saturnine Rams, oldest of the Solar Auxilia cohorts. From the warships came the V^th Legion’s vaunted fighter and interceptor squadrons, falling upon enemy transports flocking to the Ring of Iron and sending them spiralling down to the surface.

 

The void around Mars thronged with far more than warships. Transports of all kinds, several dwarfing even the Elpis, filled the world’s orbit. Some had succumbed to the scrapcode and drifted, their crews still working to revive the systems or killed by a host of malfunctions. To those that still flew, Alexandros sent a command over the vox, ordering them to pull clear of the theatre and lay themselves open to the Loyalist vessels. Most complied, pulling out of orbit and striking their flags with all the speed they could muster. A few, however, continued with their attempts to reach Mars. In this they declared themselves apostates and made themselves prey for the Warmaster's fleet.

 

Several strike cruisers broke off from the Loyalist formations and pursued the mass conveyors. Although the transports were truly gargantuan, they lacked the weapons to fend off a warship of the Legiones Astartes or the Solar Auxilia, and could never outrun them. Swiftly they were cut out, disabled by fire from the cruisers or overrun by boarders. The 52^nd Solar Auxilia, the Zanskat Guard, committed a third of their manpower to this task, their tercios seizing the bridges and vital systems of the massive vessels and stamping out resistance with lethal force. As a result great stores of materiel were secured for the Loyalists and denied to the Insurrectionists, a success which would have major implications for the developing conflict.

 

Far below, ensconced in his temple, Kelbor Hal cogitated. The Warmaster was his enemy, and therefore the Legion meant to safeguard the subjugation of Mars would be fighting to avert it. He knew well the threat that Alexandros and his fleet posed. The Traitor fleet would not survive more than a day of further fighting against them, if that. At the same time, he was painfully aware that the Abyssii forces above Mars were still largely intact. To successfully weather their assault, he must do so with his Martian enemies broken. If he could cement his grip on the surface, he could endure almost any incursion, secure in the knowledge that the Loyalists would not dare raze Mars entirely. Even as his fleet prepared to spend themselves delaying the Loyalists in orbit, he turned to wipe out those who remained on Mars itself.

 

With Magma City most prominent among the Forges that had survived the data-djinn attack, Kelbor-Hal ordered the Legio Mortis to march with all the force they could muster. A great host went with the Death’s Heads; legions of Skitarii, tank squadrons, Ordinati, maniples of automata and baleful slave-Knights of House Morbidia. It was a force sufficient to bring low entire worlds, as inexorable and merciless as any Space Marine Legion. The surviving engines of the Legio Tempestus and the Knights of Taranis prepared to resist alongside Zeth’s army, but the cold arithmetic of war could not be ignored. This was to be a last stand that could only slow the enemy, and it was next to impossible that the Halcyon Wardens could intervene, let alone save the city.

 

Yet into this equation, an unexpected factor intruded. Mere kilometres from their objective, the Imperator Aquila Ignis turned upon its lesser brethren with murderous violence. The cause is contested even now, and with the fragmentary evidence left by the Hereteks, the truth will likely remain shrouded for all time. Fragmentary data-ledgers attest to Princeps Camulos declaring judgement and sentence for high treason, claiming to be Alexandros. Some suggest that the volatile and prideful Camulos, corrupted by the tainted gifts of Kelbor-Hal, gave in to madness or was overwhelmed by the bloodlust of the Titan itself. Another interpretation, enthusiastically promulgated by the Loyalist Mechanicum, was literal divine intervention; the Omnissiah venting wrath upon those who turned its avatars to blasphemous ends. Alexandros never commented, and if he was responsible, such an act speaks to power beyond anything he ever overtly displayed.

 

Whatever the reason, the Aquila Ignix laid waste several of its fellow Titans before they attacked it in turn, the Imperator dying in a spectacular reactor-breach. Those not destroyed by its guns had, in the final moments, succumbed to a rage which overrode any tactical sense or self-preservation, cited by many who believe the theories of madness or Omnissian judgement. Attacking at close range they killed the Imperator, but were themselves consumed in the explosion. The result was the entire Martian contingent of the Death’s Heads destroyed and their accompanying Knights all but eradicated, to say nothing of the tanks, other war machines and soldiers caught up in the devastation.

 

The scales, so far tilted overwhelmingly in favour of the Traitors, were suddenly shaken, and now the Halcyon Wardens and Abyssii came to the surface, further evening the odds. Led by the former Legion Master Irvin Ruel and Legate Prisfirah Sauhan, V^th Legion forces landed at those Forge cities which remained loyal, supported by Knights of House Zivich and Solar Auxilia cohorts, both stationed in-system and embedded alongside the Legion.

[simison]

"...the future.[ ]Now we..."

 

"...to purge[ ]those who..."

 

"...left only [three] three Knight..."

 

"...linked the Raijin Engine to Chrom’s work." [Nothing wrong grammatically, but this name is just dropped without context. I'd add a quick phrase to link it to the mystery attack machine.]

 

"...scheme, the V[^th] Legion would..."

 

"... this had [not ]been communicated..."

 

"...before the [L]oyalists could recuperate."

 

"...of the [T]raitor Mechanicum to..."

 

"The Mechanicum Gloriam plummeted, engines..." [is this a ship name? If so, italics.]

 

"...the cruiser Aspect of Zeal, undergoing an..."

 

"...was a XIII[^th] Legion strike..."

 

"...came the V[^th] Legion’s vaunted..."

 

"...The 52[^nd] Solar Auxilia,..."

 

"...Sauhan, V[^th] Legion forces..."

 

~~~

 

That was an extremely enjoyable read. Excellent work, Beren and Blunt.

[bluntblade]

Storm Upon the Sands

It is true that, even in the days of Ruel’s tenure, the V^th Legion’s reputation had been that of a blunt instrument, brusque in manner and bellicose in conduct. Yet the Irvin Ruel of the new millennium was a very different commander, tempered by over two centuries of war and the example of his Primarch. Arriving on Mars, his flinty character brooked no impetuous rush to slay the rebels, and instead he began to carefully allocate forces, judging what he could afford to commit and where the Wardens’ intervention would be in vain.

 

In some cases, particular individuals were prioritised by the V^th Legion commanders. Perhaps the best-known was Arkhan Land, a technoarcheologist who had unearthed the STC patterns for, among other things, the Raider Tank which bears his name. Land and other notables were to be extracted from Arsia Mons by gunship and brought to the nearby holdfast of House Taranis before the enemy could attack, but a shock attack by strange, savage automata threw the plan into confusion.

 

Unable to hold the city entire, Centurion Kamenos had his men bundle the various worthies into tanks and flee through the city. A frantic pursuit ensued, with tanks, Skitarii dunestrider cavalry and even ornithopters giving chase until a wing of V^th Legion fighters and bombers reached and shielded the convoy. Within the city, the remainder of the Wardens inside the city held out for another day, loading their gunships with all the wargear they could carry before fleeing.

 

The Abyssii, recovered from the djinn attack, were commanded to entrench forces within the districts of the Ring of Iron where they already held sway; the Jovian Grenadiers would reinforce them. The main Abyssii force, however, was needed below. Mortera was intent on preserving her holdfast at Solus Lacus, but beyond reinforcing its garrison, she complied with the Warmaster’s lieutenant and sent her armies to defend the cities Ruel had identified. A few Titans of Nox’s Legio Carnifex deployed to Solis Lacus in a move that proved prescient, as Traitor forces drew near with the intention of laying low this threat to Kelbor Hal’s rule.

 

In the meantime, Alexandros pressed nearby Forge Worlds for aid, and their taghma began to muster, filled with both zealous anger at the heresy of Kelbor-Hal and ambition. If the centuries-long reign of Kelbor-Hal and his acolytes was to end, there would be a great deal to play for in the aftermath. In due time, whether for honest motives or otherwise, vast armies of Skitarii, automata, Knights and all the other weapons the Mechanicus could assemble descended to fight upon Sacred Mars.

 

Above all, Ruel’s primary objectives were the forges of Mondus Occulum, Mondus Gamma and Magma City. The former two produced the majority of the arms and armour Mars provided to the Astartes, and would be of vital importance to the retaking of Mars. Magma City, while less of an industrial powerhouse, nonetheless held a great many forges along with stores of esoteric technology. Moreover, its symbolic value as was not to be underestimated.

 

Ruel himself led the relief effort at Mondus Occulum, abetted by the main strength of the Legio Carnifex and the Abyssii’s largest Cybernetica cohorts. Led by the fiery Princeps Gallia and Archmagos Crastus Mhal, this force brought a staggering array of firepower, enough to destroy a hive city, let alone defend it. But Zagreus Kane, receiving his allies with little ceremony, warned them that all these forces would be sorely needed to hold the city.

 

Sure enough, when the Insurrectionists drew near it was with over sixty Titans, taken from various Legios but primarily the Legio Magna, fresh from the burning of Noachis. The great guns of Mondus Occulum rumbled, sending lightning sparking across the plain as their blasts met the Titans’ overlapping shields, but failing to penetrate them. Carnifex, nearly equal in number to the attacking Titans but with several of their engines still not fully repaired, exercised rare restraint, only engaging the enemy when they drew within range. The result was another vicious but inconclusive battle, after which the Traitors withdrew to wait out the Loyalists.

 

While they lacked a crushing advantage, their forces were sufficient to keep the Loyalists hemmed in. Urtzi Malevolus came to oversee the work, and a prefabricated city of depots and gun emplacements sprang up around Mondus Occulum. For their part, Ruel and Kane focused on ensuring that Occulum’s produce was taken to its spaceport, ready to be spirited offworld if the defences fell. Carnifex’s Titans were discreetly repaired, the Loyalists taking any advantage they could in the circumstances.

 

Throughout the siege Malevolus had his forces attempt to infiltrate the city with Termite Assault Drills, and intermittent fighting flared up in the depths. Both Ruel’s Astartes and Mhal’s automata, chiefly his Cataphracts, Castellax and Vorax, were kept busy combatting the intruders. The Cataphracts were frequently equipped for excavation, collapsing the tunnels bored by the enemy or burying bombs for future attempts. In one case, early on, the Loyalists took an Assault Drill intact, and Mhal decided to repurpose it as a weapon. Filling it with explosives and placing a carefully programmed servitor at the controls, he set it on a course for the Traitor lines. By calculation or simple good fortune, the tunnelling bomb detonated underneath a Legio Magna Reaver Titan, shearing off its leg and leaving the machine to crash ignominiously into the dust. Such were the dirty tricks that Mhal played on Malevolus’ besieging army, taunting the Traitors with his ruses.

 

Tribune Pheidias moved to relieve Ipluvien Maximal’s forge, his forces braving heavy fire to land in the shadow of Pavonis Mons, but he found that he was unable to break the Traitor lines around the city. Several times the Halcyon Wardens and Satyrnine Rams attacked, only to be beaten back with heavy losses. Ruel was forced to admit defeat and quickly redirected Pheidias to Magma City, where a second besieging force had arrived and was attacking in great strength, led by thirty Titans of the Death Stalkers. Maximal, knowing his fate, resolved to deny his enemies their prize, evacuating what units he could and overloading his reactors as the Traitors breached the inner defences.

 

In return, Sauhan and Mortera prised a victory from the Insurrectionists’ hands at Magma City. Sauhan took with him two Battalions of Astartes and the Satyrnine Rams, knowing that compared to Mondus Occulum, Magma City’s volcanic moat rendered it far more defensible by infantry. Any attacker, unless they could force a costly landing from the air, would have to cross the mighty Typhon Causeway and breach the city’s gates. Mortera set two of her lieutenants to the defence: Skatha Mawren, master of her Skitarii regiments and Charon Discut, a grim Adept of the Ordo Reductor.

 

Princeps Cavalerio’s Titans and the Knights of Taranis were the match of Princeps Ulriche and his Death Stalkers, but the Traitor Legio, brought with them a force which, once again, greatly outnumbered the taghmata of Magma City. It was a cruder force than the one that had gone before, the cream of Olympus Mons largely replaced with servitors and Adsecularis, cannibalised from prisoners and the Traitors’ own hives alike. Still, six million machine-thralls were hardly to be underestimated. Armed by the forges of Olympus Mons and accompanied by thousands of tanks, they boasted more than enough firepower to batter down the gates of Magma City.

 

Worse still, Zeth was already dead. She had been fatally wounded by a tech-assassin of the Cydonian Sisterhood, though Zeth had slain the murderer in turn. Given the events which had gone before, Ambassador Melgator had most likely arranged this base act. Now, having barely survived the disastrous first assault and the destruction of the Legio Mortis, he had returned and waited to see the ruin of all Zeth had wrought. Quite aside from Melgator's own vindictiveness, Kelbor Hal had ordered him to prevail, or not to return at all.

 

Sauhan made the grim calculations and accordingly divided his own forces into three, doing the same with the Abyssii forces available to him. The first deployed into the city itself, setting down and hastily taking up positions among the taghmata. Sauhan wasted no time in assuming command of the defence, and his first order was a grimly calculated one. Six companies deployed into the outer districts of the city, taking up positions as Mortera's personal taghma landed at the spaceport and hastened to the walls. The Titans and Knights feigned being driven away from their position, moving north and allowing the invaders to advance onto the Typhon Causeway. Melgator's forces took the gate, undeterred by the guns of the defenders. Sauhan knew well that an enemy is most vulnerable when he believes his victory assured, and the minds of the Mechanicum priesthood are not exempt from mortal hubris.

 

The defenders on the battlements sacrificed much to further the illusion. Under the direction of the formidable Tribune Vasilios, they resisted doggedly, mortal and transhuman alike, though gunfire raked across the walls. Discut’s artillery units sent volleys ripping over the walls and the volcanic moat to hammer the Insurrectionist lines, even destroying three of the Traitors’ lesser Titans and buying Tempestus the breathing room to withdraw. Above them, aircraft on both sides wheeled and burned.

 

For all their resolve, however, the defenders were unable to hold off such a bloated host indefinitely. They blasted several enemy tanks to blackened wreckage on the Causeway, but the enemy dragged the remains aside and continued their advance. When siege tanks placed themselves before the gates and choked the Traitor advance with debris again, Thallax, Adsecularis and automata were sent in by Melgator. They depended on their sheer numbers for success, surging on over the broken vehicles and the corpses of their comrades with an inhuman lack of self-preservation. On the battlements, twenty thousand Solar Auxilia and half that number again of Skitarii and Thallax shouldered their guns and fired.

 

The Typhon Causeway shook. Armour ran molten and spiralled in fragments. Broken and dismembered bodies cascaded from the Causeway in their thousands. Vasilios saw to it that an unbroken torrent of fire fell upon his targets for over an hour. Faced with such punishment, a mortal army would have been driven into retreat, their resolve disintegrating and commanders desperately trying to find an alternative approach. But the shackled minds of the thralls and the robots would not allow for anything but the completion of their task.

 

Though hundreds of thousands fell, finally Melgator’s host reached the gates. Defenders on the walls began to die in their hundreds and then thousands as the attackers brought more guns to bear. Thanatar robots dragged themselves within range and destroyed the tanks which barred the way with searing plasma. The gates fell soon after, and fighting raged within Magma City as the Halcyon Wardens met the attackers, shields linked and bolters roaring. Beside them were Mortera's personal forces and the Knights of Zivich, and it was only by their valour and the power of their weapons that Melgator's heavy automata did not sweep the Astartes aside. Pheidias’ arrival shored up the defences, as he brought another eight hundred Astartes and ten thousand Auxilia, but it was only a temporary reprieve. At the far end of the Causeway, work had begun to haul away the broken Traitor machines, which would allow more tanks and then the Titans to cross.

 

As a second wave of iron rumbled onto the vast bridge, Sauhan’s second force emerged; Caestus Assault Rams which had dived into the the crater to elude enemy craft, trusting their thick armour to withstand the furnace heat. Climbing steeply and aiming for the Tempestus positions, they swept up to ground level north of the Causeway, magna-meltas incinerating nearby vehicles. Boarding ramps slammed down, and breacher and heavy support squads emerged. As soon as a beachhead was established, the devastators turned their guns toward the Causeway, las-fire and missiles slamming into the Traitor flank. More craft followed, Abyssii robots and Myrmidon Destructors preventing the inevitable counterattacks from overwhelming their allies.

 

Now back came Tempestus and House Taranis, their fury renewed. Ulriche, filled with zeal and battle-fervour, ordered the entire Death Stalkers force to confront and wipe them out. As far as he was concerned, Magma City was as good as conquered, and he had no desire to nursemaid what he saw as mere dregs when there was glory to be earned in Titan-killing. Intercepted communications suggest that Melgator and some of the magos under him felt otherwise, but their faith would not permit them to withdraw when the Death Stalkers’ blood was up, and risk the loss of god-machines through negligence.

 

Hopeless as the Loyalist position seemed, such misgivings would not prove misplaced among the Traitors. Sauhan played his third card. Already engaged against Zeth’s air force, the fighters and gunships Ulriche had brought with him were set upon and overwhelmed by a fresh force of V^th Legion and Abyssii interceptors and fighters. Thus his ground forces were laid bare to attack from above. Even as bombers strafed the Traitors, killing tens of thousands, Melgator drove his army on. Yet his efforts were in vain, as the third force, far larger than the second, set down to encircle Ulriche’s army.

 

Held in reserve until now and inserted by gunships, Tribune Tannhauser led a monstrous force of tanks against the Traitor’s rear, hundreds of Vth Legion vehicles churning the sands. On their flanks were Solar Auxilia and the Abyssii tank echelons led by Silon Rex. Combined, their armoured units outnumbered the Astartes twice over. Jaws of steel had closed around the Traitor army. Six spearheads of Sicarans and Krios tanks raced ahead, splitting the Traitor lines and leaving them exposed for the Predators and heavier tanks which came in their wake. Rhinos and Land Raiders carried Astartes and tech-guard into the midst of the attackers, there to make mangled corpses of Melgator's cyborgs.

 

The Traitor Skitarii held out longer, pushing on to the Causeway, but there they met their Abyssii counterparts, marching with tanks and automata of their own. As the encircling attack bled their momentum, they were less able to press the attack, though they had cost Sauhan’s marines and Auxilia heavily. At Mortera's word, eight Triaros transports rumbled through the broken gates. The Taghmata Mortera followed, a lance sweeping aside the scarlet column and plunging into the main body of Melgator’s army.

 

On the plain beyond, the Halcyon Wardens’ heaviest elements advanced over the broken bodies of their foes as Tempestus closed with the Death Stalkers. Tannhauser himself rode with one of two squadrons of Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyers, and their prey was the Traitor Titans themselves. Caught between their neutron lasers and the weapons of Tempestus, the Traitor Titans were rent apart and toppled, crushing the troops around them. Ulriche perished when his Warlord’s head was severed by Cavalerio's Deus Tempestus, and the last Traitors were swept over the crater’s edge to perish in the caldera below. Magma City had lost its mistress, but it endured. Mortera took control of its forges without delay, commencing a program of salvage within the city and outside on the plain. Melgator’s shredded remains were identified two days after the battle.

 

These were the grandest Loyalist interventions, but far from the only ones. Individual Brigades and cohorts of Solar Auxilia deployed to lesser Forges, shoring up their defences. Retreating armies loyal to Kelbor Hal were set upon by strike forces deploying by drop-pod. Smaller forces, centred around the Legion’s swiftest armour companies and Skyhunter units, were set loose to harry the opposition, striking at isolated units and supply lines in a series of risky but effective attacks. Wherever the Halcyon Wardens struck in force, they were followed by the Magos of Sarum, salvaging any wargear that was not blasphemous in its origins.

 

Such dramas played out across all the remaining Loyalist strongholds on Mars over the next two weeks as Ruel and Sauhan fostered proper strategic cohesion. With Mortis in ashes and Magma City secure, the presence of the Legio Carnifex deterred the Burning Stars from another attack on Ignatum, who were now free to undergo much-needed repairs. A handful of V^th Legion companies sought out the distress calls from what remained of the Legio Honorum, finding them in the chill northern deserts of Olympus Undae. The Raijin Machine, meanwhile, had vanished after attacking a civilian transport, and while captured Traitor archives have done nothing to disperse the mystery around this event, it was a boon to the Loyalists. None of Chrom’s other creations approached the cunning and malevolence of its machine spirit. Some conjecture about its disappearance has emerged, but it falls outside the purview of this history. The fate of the Raijin Machine, therefore, must remain among the unsolved mysteries of the Insurrection.

[Beren]

"Ambassador Melgator had most likely arranged it."

I've been trying to put a name to it, but something about this sentence strikes me as a little off compared with the surrounding text.

[bluntblade]

The Fire Rises

The fighting entered a phase of strange inertia, though still violent enough to stain the sands red anew, for the Traitors brought out fresh weapons from stores previously forbidden. Equilibrium could not last, and every Forge churned out weapons and the soldiers to wield them. Now fresh actors arrived to usher the drama into the next phase, some summoned, other arriving utterly unlooked for.

 

The latter were the core of the Iron Bears’ First Grand Wartribe aboard the Dragon of Autumn, accompanied by a few escort vessels and the handful of survivors they had rescued in the battle over Kataii. The Bears were sorely reduced, having borne the corpse of their Primarch back to the flagship and then endured a harrowing Warp voyage. Lord Chief Cass lay in stasis, wounded unto death and awaiting internment in a Dreadnought sarcophagus, while command had passed to Achille Nibaanisiiwi of Clan-Company Tacharian. The Daughters of Daer’dd were similarly mauled. Nonetheless, the remaining Bears were welcome allies, and brought with them Knight walkers and a War Maniple of the Legio Auris.

 

The Fire Keepers arrived in far greater strength over two months, recalled from the tasks Niklaas had set them to in the wake of the betrayal. By strange chance, the warriors of Tribe Barinthus brought with them a few dozen Scions Hospitalier from their search of Untara, led by a single Praetor - Second Captain Odyssalas, honour-brother to Nibaanisiiwi. Bereft of his own Legion save for his fellow survivors and a company stationed on Terra, Odyssalas would spend the campaign at his friend’s side, the warriors of Barinthus, the XIX^th and the VI^th forming a hybrid force as the war turned to sieges and lightning raids against Traitor-held forges.

 

As more of the Halcyon Wardens came to the Sol System, they were joined by the first of the taghmata Alexandros had summoned. Voss, Phaeton and Stygies answered soonest. The V^th Legion’s own allied world, Sarum, was already blockaded by Icarion, and Ryza and Lucius could spare little in the way of troops or materiel with the Insurrectionists so close to their own borders. Alexandros set the new arrivals to purging the Ring of Iron, which they carried out with brutal fervour. Graia and Gryphonne would answer soon after, the latter dispatching a Demi-Legio of their vaunted Titans. None of these forces even approached the strength of the Abyssii contingent, but their presence was still a great help to the Warmaster.

 

Mortal soldiers too came to Mars, regiments attached to Legion fleets or seconded from garrison duties. For the most part these were unexceptional bodies, but a few such as the Jurad Rangers were renowned among the Auxilia, potent additions to the Loyalist cause on Mars. The Jovian Grenadiers, Zanskat Guard and Satyrnine Hoplites, who had bled heavily in the early stages of the war, were relieved and placed on garrison duty at Magma City and Mondus Occulum, where production was stepped up even further, fed by a steady stream of bulk landers from orbit.

 

At Mondus Occulum, the siege was finally lifted when four Battalions of the Halcyon Wardens made planetfall with the Balovian Vanguard and, more pertinently, Titans from Voss and Phaeton. The Traitors fell back in good order, but menaced by the new arrivals and Carnifex, they were forced to abandon much of their weaponry. The Legios Osedax and Invigilata harried Magna as they retreated, felling several Titans before the Traitors got beyond their reach. Kelbor Hal made another attempt to crush the House Taranis stronghold, but his forces were stymied by the arrival of Fire Keepers from Tribe Mogon. Mogon’s contingent of Legio Tonarum Titans had been lost in the ambush on Mena-goth, but a maniple of the Legio Accatran proved an effective substitute.

 

Upon Niklaas’ arrival, with his forces reinforced by fresh V^th Legion detachments and taghmata from half a dozen Forge Worlds, Alexandros went on the offensive. His Athenoi guards were now commanded by Xeonikes, Pyrrhicles' long-serving second. The fighting on Mars now entered its most ferocious stage, as two Primarchs brought their mastery of war to the surface. Niklaas’ wrath was volcanic, dormant ever since Mena-goth and now given license to erupt. With Ordinati, Titans and all the terrifying works of the Ordo Reductor at his fingertips, he embarked upon a campaign of destruction which Kelbor Hal was able to slow, but powerless to halt.

 

As the Loyalists struck at Traitor forges and fortresses, Mortera elected to lead the seizure of Mondus Gamma. It lay in the hands of Lukas Chrom, and she asserted that her understanding of his works was greater than that of any Halcyon Warden. Alexandros thought it prudent not to argue, and acquiesced to her demand. While Mortera's ambitions of seizing Lukas Chrom's facilities intact precluded the unlimited use of Titans within the forge’s boundaries, this was an acceptable limitation, given that the heretek lacked such war-engines of his own. With the Legio Carnifex and Osedax deployed to blockade the city and provide ranged bombardment if necessary, the Abyssii began their assault. For two nights of savage violence, the walkways ran with blood and toxma.

 

First came the ranks of tech thralls, Thallax and lesser Skitarii, supported by many of the less arcane artillery vehicles of the Ordo Reductor. Initially they seemed unopposed, outlying structures abandoned. Yet within minutes of breaching the defenses proper, the dragon's half closed eye snapped to full alertness. The Abyssii vanguard was beset by Skitarii whose savagery outstripped their discipline and maniples of strange automata, whose design went against every tenet of the Legio Cybernetica. Here was a foe that would not reel or break under pressure. The Abyssii vanguard seemed to waver as tanks were torn open and infantry reduced to bloody viscera. From her position in low orbit, observing the battle, Mortera decided that the requisite sacrifice had been made and sufficient data collated. Now the assault began in full.

 

Airstrikes and Titan fire reduced the largest concentrations of hostiles into craters. Defensive installations suffered the same attention. A shock force of the Abyssii's own Cybernetica, led by Mhal and backed by the Knights of House Lancea, punched through the breach left by remnants of the first wave. Where Chrom's constructs fought with a lethal bestiality and were prone to uncontrollable bursts of malefic action, Mhal's automata operated in flawless cohesion. When a Scion of Lancea seared away a swathe of combat servitors or shattered a maniple of heretek battle robots, the Abyssii robots pushed forwards as one. When it seemed they might be buried beneath a tide of steel, they retreated seamlessly. Their combined and concentrated firepower overwhelmed the increasingly disorderly opposition.

 

At the same time, roving cohorts of Thallax and Ursurax tore into unsupported infantry, utilising their mobility to identify and exploit any weaknesses in Chrom's battle line. The Traitor forces began to find themselves surrounded and cut off. The mightiest war machines, if they were beyond the Knigts’ reach, were brought down through either carefully targeted attacks or sheer weight of fire. The combat zones shrank to the forge perimeters, where Chrom now had new war machines joining the battle fresh from the production lines. Even facilities as industrious as his, however, could not counter the Abyssii's now crushing advantage.

 

With the scales of battle tipped in her favour, Mortera had little intention of giving Lukas Chrom time to escape. As the second dawn rose over the embattled city, Silos Rex's Mymridon Custos were inserted atop the heretek's sanctum via a single Warmonger Gunship. Cleaving their way into Chrom’s quarters, they found no trace of their target. Instead they witnessed an unholy pattern of Scylla Guardians networked together into a single conscience. Despite their ire at Lukas Chrom having escaped them, the destruction of the Scyllax abomination seemed to rob Mondus Gamma’s defenders of what little coordination they had.

 

With another bloody night's work, the city was purged. The convoys of tanks and transports that attempted to flee ran straight into the shadow of the Legio Carnifex. Chrom was presumed to have fled aboard his personal gunship, leaving his forge in Mortera’s grasp and surrounded by charred vehicles. Halycon Wardens interdiction craft intercepted several vessels en route from Mondus Gamma to Olympus Mons, although Chrom's craft was not confirmed to be among them. It can only be presumed that if he did indeed survive to reach Kelbor Hal's domain, he was slain in the tempest that followed and the last of his abominations with him.

 

The fall of Mondus Gamma is of a piece with the other battles fought at this time. The calculus of war had shifted heavily in Alexandros’ favour, and with total control above the planet, his forces could deploy with overwhelming speed across the planet. The strongholds of Traitor Titan Legions were taken intact wherever possible and their facilities used by the Loyalists’ own. Fortresses were torn down and armies scattered until, two weeks after his arrival, the Primarchs brought the war to the Fabricator-General’s doorstep.

[bluntblade]

"Ambassador Melgator had most likely arranged it."

I've been trying to put a name to it, but something about this sentence strikes me as a little off compared with the surrounding text.

I'm on it

[simison]

"... by the V[^th] Legion commanders."

 

"... him two Battalions of Astartes..." [is this just a general way of saying 1,000 legionaries?]

 

"Six companies deployed into..." [Again, is this just a casual use of 'company' or is this supposed to be a specific unit size?]

 

"...established, the [devastators] turned their..." [No devastators yet, not until the Codex.]

 

"...hundreds of V[^th] Legion vehicles..."

 

"... when four battalions of the..." [same question]

[bluntblade]

Re: points two, three and six, yeah. Is that OK?

 

Viz point four, devastators are a colloquial term for heavy support in some 30K material (Path of Heaven being one). Less of a mouthful than "heavy support marines"

[bluntblade]

​The Mariner Plain

  The Loyalists might have simply crushed Kelbor Hal with orbital bombardments, but the void shields over Olympus Mons were as potent as those of any fortress outside Terra. Besides, the forges and the technology within were of incalculable value, to say nothing of the mountain’s holy status to the Mechanicus. It would have to be taken in the old manner, and Kelbor Hal’s remaining armies barred the way. Though the Death Stalkers and Legio Mortis were reduced to a war maniple each and the Burning Stars hardly more numerous, his forges had been busy indeed. Lukas Chrom had designed machines that rivalled Titans in size, driven by Abominable Intelligence. Even if the heretek had been slain, his blasphemous vision endured. Olympus Mons and its neighbours were purged of useless mouths, who were converted into millions of fresh soldiers. Any spare organic matter became nutrient gruel.

 

  The Loyalists knew well that before they could reach the city's walls, they would have to give battle in its shadow. The resulting Battle of the Mariner Plain has been the sole subject of multiple books by an assortment of military scholars, such was its scale and importance. It raged for forty hours, covering the fifty kilometre-deep defences which Kelbor-Hal had set about his stronghold. Over one hundred and twenty Titans and some six hundred Knights clashed above the masses of tanks and infantry, whose own numbers were more typical of a planetary Compliance campaign than a battle for a single city.

 

  The first ten hours of the battle took the form of an artillery duel; primarily waged by Titans on the Loyalist side, but the Abyssii brought their Ordinatus Majoris to the battle, with firepower that exceeded any single Titan weapon. On this scale, there was no room for subtlety; embodiments of the Omnissiah’s wrath, unleashing all of their power upon one another. The Martian night was banished across an area of seventy kilometres to the north of the Grand Mountain and anything not warded by Olympus Mons’ shields was reduced to dust. The sands lay glassed and strewn with the remains of fortifications.

 

  Then came the bombers, slipping through the city’s shields to bathe gun emplacements with fire as tank companies raced forward and Ordinati Minoris rumbled behind, crunching over the piles of slag left by the Ordinati. In response, Kelbor Hal sent forth his own armour and the last Titans left to him. These were still a deadly host, fifty god-machines with their retinues of Knights, war-sirens blaring. The Loyalist Titans responded in kind immediately. Alexandros watched the god-machines of a dozen Legios stride into contact, and ordered his own forces forward. 

 

  The Legions and their allies fought through the carnage with a precision that defied sense, defeating their enemies piecemeal. The Fire Keepers and Halcyon Wardens formed the vanguard in the centre, backed by the Solar Auxilia and their allied Army regiments. The recently arrived Mechanicum armies, cohering around the proven Archmagos of Gryphonne IV, took the left wing. The Abyssii and Phaeton taghmata, both eyed warily by their fellows, took the right. In truth, each wing functioned as a force unto itself, multiple spearheads striking into the Traitor formations. Super-heavy tank squadrons converged on Titans and artillery emplacements, softening them for the hammer blows of the lesser Ordinati.

 

  Mortera hovered above the battlefield on a grav-pulpit, her augmetics enabling her to perceive the entirety of the Abyssii’s fight through the eyes of her troops. At her direction soldiers advanced, Titan guns spoke and the entire taghmata moved as if governed by one intelligence. In a way this was indeed, the case, Mortera steering her cult with adamantine ruthlessness and a skill which rivalled the Primarchs themselves. Her Martian foes were practiced commanders, no doubt, but against a cult so steeped in blood as the Abyssii, their power was the lesser. If the Abyssii lacked the flair which the Legiones Astartes possessed, they made up for it with unerring precision, and outpaced their fellows on the left wing, even the vaunted army of Gryphonne.

 

  Except perhaps for the slaughter on Kartyga, this was the most devastating terrestrial battle yet fought in the Insurrection. Any cover that had existed before was gone, erased by the Ordinati and Titans. The shields of a god-machine or super-heavy tank might provide shelter, but even that was far from certain to last. Hundreds died with every blast of the greater Titans’ guns, pockets of the battlefield becoming utterly impassable when the largest of them clashed. Several Titans suffered reactor failure, nuclear fire washing over the sands around them.

 

  Here the telepaths of the V^th Legion came into their own, reading the intentions of enemy leaders and putting their talents to more devious, aggressive use. Traitor units abruptly turned on one another, opening gaps in the line. Their acts of betrayal naturally earned them summary execution by their fellows, and the Traitor lines convulsed. As a Vorax maniple attacked and killed the Skitarii Commander RTY-342, the Halcyon Wardens and Fire Keepers attacked en masse, splintering the disordered ranks they struck. The Traitors grew desperate, seeing how Alexandros intended to split their formation down the middle.

 

  At the height of the battle, Alexandros and Niklaas fought side by side with their guards against Domitar robots, Ursarax thralls and less recognisable foes, Kelbor Hal’s commanders attempting to overwhelm the Primarchs and cripple the Loyalist leadership. Irvin Ruel saw the danger, however, and launched a counter-attack which, coupled with the Terminator elite of both Legions, crushed the decapitation force. Together, the two sons of the Emperor were unstoppable. Alexandros, finding openings before they appeared, his gladius punching through the weak points in armour as if his kills were fated. Niklaas, his hammer shearing through plate that could stop a barrage of bolter fire, his strength sufficient to overpower even a Domitar robot.

 

  Leaving a trail of broken metal in their wake, the Primarchs dismembered the machines sent to slay them and parted Kelbor Hal’s sea of iron. Cut in two and assaulted from multiple sides, the two halves of the army were doomed. The order was given to retreat, but the wreckage-strewn plain prevented any orderly withdrawal. Squadron by squadron, maniple by maniple, the Traitor forces were dismantled. Now the siege of Olympus Mons commenced.