CHAPTER SEVENTEEN -- THE LONG VIEW
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{Map: Archon IV, apocalypse version; Arisen and Vols vs two CSM Emperor Children teamed. I fought this one on UltApoc’s version of hard.}
“Well met, Canoness!” boomed the Volunteer Force Commander -- he had not stumbled across her group by accident. “How goes the war against Chaos on this Kasr?”
The Canoness called a halt to her troops and directed them to prepare for ambush. While they were dispersing into a good attack formation she called back, “You would know that better than I, traitor scum!”
Pauel sighed. “Indeed, we have rescued nearly a million civilians from Partox so far, thank Justice, and have destroyed several contingents of Chaos raiders; thus drawing a little attention back in our direction, and giving Imperial forces room to maneuver and counter-attack -- even returning to Partox in some numbers!” He gestured to the obvious group of Sisters.
“So does Chaos ever destroy itself! The Emperor be praised!”
“Agreed! -- even though we have different ideas about who counts among the forces that slay and exploit civilians.”
“And how many have you harvested? Nearly a million, did you say?”
“Neither to be slain nor exploited. But since you ask: the Volunteer Army is currently preparing to complete an encirclement and final assault on a large contingent of the Emperor’s Children -- I mean the Chaos Marines, not legitimate Astartes, of course.” That didn’t get a reply, but the Canoness was busy receiving scouting reports and giving further directions. “It will be a difficult fight against a shamed force which has committed major resources to defending and striking back at our audacities. Consequently, we have no way to care for a large pocket of civilians about forty klips in that direction,” he waved generally. “Therefore, we ask if you would be interested in saving them. Of course, you’re welcome to join the fight against the Chaos Marines instead! -- although, we would rather you didn’t attack us in the back while we were distracted: we should still defeat them but everyone would take more casualties. Anyway, if you prefer -- and if you care for the civilians and are worried about us doing something horrible to them -- you may freely move in and rescue them off Partox yourselves. We won’t interfere, and once done with our fight we shall simply create a perimeter to ensure you aren’t interrupted by Dark Eldar or whatever, until you are done.”
“...sounds like an opportune time to hit them from the flank, Canoness.”
But the leader was recalling her prior talk with Pauel. “That would be cowardly, and he would mock us for it. Let them attack each other in the back.”
“But, Lady,” an ecclesiarch protested, “this must be some sort of trap.”
“Naturally. But one we shall disarm.” Then activating her armor’s speakers she called back to Pauel -- though not by name, she wouldn’t give this traitor that honor, “We will see what we can do while you are distracted with your problems, traitor!” Then more quietly again, “This has to be some sort of ambush. I need to know, now, their troop disposition so that we can attack him and his squad most effectively. Before he escapes! Get to it, officers! I haven’t heard back what I need to know!”
“Then I ask only one thing!” he called. “Of course, here it comes,” smirked a Sororita sergeant.
“I ask that you swear on your honor as a Canoness of the Fervent Heart, and upon the honor of the Emperor’s name! -- that you will will feed, heal, and rescue the civilians, giving them over to the Imperial resettlement departments to be safely escorted out of the system and given new homes where they can be useful to the Empire.”
“Obviously,” chuffed the sergeant. But then her eyes widened.
Her Canoness wasn’t answering.
“Lady? Is this also a trap of some sort?” the sergeant asked in some confusion.
“...I swear!” called the Canoness.
“Your speakers may be damaged from a previous battle. I am sorry, but I didn’t hear you swear by your honor and the honor of the Emperor of Humanity!”
The Canoness gritted her teeth; but looking around she saw serious confusion in the eyes around her. She knew, no one better, how easily suspicions of heresy could turn lethal, to one’s life as well as one’s career. She had no desire to spend her days hanging in a penitent engine, fighting with her body exposed. “I swear upon my honor as a Canoness of the Fervent Heart, and upon the honor of the Emperor’s name, may his name be praised!” She had managed not to pause even a little while saying so.
There was, however, a pause as Pauel conferred on his headset; her under-officers were reporting that they hadn’t found the ambush yet, but she reminded them that this blasphemer consorted with elves, and insisted they continue searching.
Then, “Excuse me, Canoness, but my leader insists that you specify what you are swearing; he wants to make sure you aren’t trying to lie behind an evasion. I realize that can’t help but be insulting, but he promises he will accept your word as true, if you specifically tell him, under oath, that you will do your very best to see that the civilians are safely escorted off the planet and out of the system in good health, to be cared for and resettled elsewhere.”
She bared her teeth in an unconscious grimace -- but only for a moment, firmly clamping her lips shut before... but surely her advisors and guard had noticed. There was only one way around their growing suspicions for now; as for later, she would have to take a longer view... “I swear upon my honor as a Canoness of the Fervent Heart, and upon the honor of the name of the Emperor of Humanity, blessed be his name, that I shall do all in my power to take care of those civilians! -- I mean,” she bit her lips, “that I shall safely remove them out of the system to be cared for and resettled at my first available opportunity... always granting that military necessity might delay or disrupt that plan! If so, I shall still have kept my word that I have given, so far as I was able!” And she nodded to the others. “This is propaganda,” she said. “He means for us to try and fail.”
“Oh, I see!” the ecclesiarch nodded. And a sergeant said, “He must think the civilians will be under attack, one strong enough that he cannot entrap them for himself, and so if he sent you and you failed against your promise under your honor and that of the Emperor...!”
“That theory,” said the Canoness, “has much to commend it.” And she raised an eyebrow archly with a brisk nod. “Now get ready to assault this fool. I want bolter shells going downrange the moment we understand his ambush plans.”
“My leader,” called Pauel, “accepts your word on this! Thank you for your patience; I’m sorry to have given even a little insult to the question of your honor.” And he bowed.
“We shall see whose honor is worth nothing,” she promised him -- not with the speakers, only muttered. But that might sound suspicious, so she triggered the suit speakers and shouted, “WE SHALL SEE WHOSE HONOR IS WORTH NOTHING, TRAITOR! Not yet,” she motioned to startled subordinates who had taken more proper firing stances. “We have to be sure where his ambush will strike us first. Keep watching the sides.”
“As you say. May we all keep our honor under Justice Most High! Have a good day, Canoness. I hope we meet again under better circumstances.”
“As do I,” she grumbled, “so I can shoot you in the face properly.”
“He is retreating! Lady, now? He will get away!”
“Then my scouts have failed and must be severely punished for their laxity! But no matter, we shall nip his sweet little plan off the bud and throw it into the furnace of fire.”
Pauel returned to where his Volunteer Legion’s local regiment was making final preparations for the assault. “I hope and pray you are wrong,” he told me over the vox.
“As do I. But I have to take the long view; and either she would attack us from the rear at an inopportune moment, or she would be overrunning the civilians and all our forces are already stretched thin elsewhere. At least there’s some chance now, that more will be saved.”

“How go the Arisen in their preparations?”
“I don’t think we can do more before the assault. I have an Arisen Lord, two Tomb Spyders, some elite Deathstrike and Deathtouch, plus two squads of normal Warriors...” I hestitated.

“Did you bring the Flayed Ones?” he asked.
“...yes. I wouldn’t normally want to use them, but they were easy to set up and I can send them as a melee strike force which should affect the morale of the enemy. As much as Chaos can have their morale affected.”
“They aren’t exactly brittle. Not always.”
“They have their moments. Your own initial assault company is prepared?”
{Gamenote: I started all sides with a small army for this battle, as well as builders.}
“As you say, I don’t think we’ll get more time to prepare. Our Eldar allies indicate the enemy has detected our advance into these forward bases, and has started shifting to meet us, away from defending against the D’oru’kan horde’s preliminary assault.”
“Good. The Combat Gretchen company did their job, allowing us to build up that ‘Waugh’ and launch it. But as happy as everyone is over there to be fighting -- on both sides! -- the Children have staked their own honor on winning despite their insulting losses here. They will be hitting us with their own elite companies, supported by well-developed bases. I will take the Arisen company about halfway forward, and set up a position to draw attention toward us. Our forces are more expendable, and also reassemble back to life sometimes,” I lopsidedly smiled.

“Agreed: we should deny them map control as much as possible, in order to out-produce them and win over time on logistics.”
“This area has seen too much fighting already in the recent past, and looting from Chaos afterward -- which, being Divided, they aren’t overly willing to share!” I observed. “No one can expect to harvest more than half the usual energy and requisition supplies here from the mining/storage points.”
“And we’ve all almost spent our budgets on setting up these forward bases and strike teams, so none of us will have much to work with going forward either.”
“In that regard,” I said, “the Arisen will have an advantage: we only need energy to work with! We don’t even need requisition exactly; it only speeds up deployment. So we can focus our builders early on the logistic problem and mostly ignore capping the logistic points.”
“So, I can come get some of your points eventually?”
“Sure! -- but don’t be surprised if Chaos sends teams into our backfield. This will be to our advantage in the long view... here we go, first customers. They could be hitting us with a combined stack, but they’ve sent a substantial fraction out in all directions to go around us, trying to requisition the supplies they desperately need! It’s a hard fight, but we’re doing okay. I’ve given the Tomb Spyders long-range anti-vehicle guns, so they’re ripping the Chaos Dreadnaughts apart.”

“Ah. Perhaps I should have done the same: brought our people together in the middle, and taken apart the enemy by pieces, before going after requisition. We’re... having some problems,” he said.
“Fatal?”
“...no. Probably not.”
“I can’t spare anyone yet. I had to deep-strike the Flayed to our central position as backstops, and I haven’t gotten the local teleportation network set up yet, to bring them back to the monolith where they can enter and re-teleport.”

“You wouldn’t get here in time otherwise. Necrons aren’t known for running!”
“Not unless we get their skimmers out, no. I can send you a couple of wraiths, but...”
“They wouldn’t make much difference. Send them to go decap and protect the relic position. We’ll get around to it eventually.”
“Will do. Ah, some more opponents!”

{Gamenote: a lot of our fighting centered on keeping this advanced point!}
“You’re helping indirectly,” Pauel reported. “The enemy keeps being torn apart by assaulting your position in pieces, and their commanders are clearly worried you’ll advance farther upfield! So they’re taking combatants away from my side, to hit the greater remaining threat.”
“All according to plan. Mua ha ha.”
“Your evil laugh needs work, but will suffice.”
“I don’t think the Arisen ever had an evil laugh, per se, even when they were Necrons, so I suppose it’s fitting since I’m commanding them today. I’m at the point where I could spare you some energy...?”
“No need, thanks. We’re recovering now.”
It took some time, and matters were dire occasionally on the Legion’s side of the field. Even when they managed to advance, they could easily find major Chaos units behind them requiring a withdrawal to meet the threat.

I tech’d up the Arisen and advanced them forward one notch to deprive the Children of another logistic point -- also getting their attention again, and away from the Legion. This was enough distraction to allow the Volunteers to make several assaults on the leftmost corner of the enemy’s base; to which I sent some Flayed for aid (much to Pauel’s understandable annoyance.)

After the third Legion wave or so, the Children’s base had been cleared on that side, and Pauel took some time to consolidate the rest of the operational area before advancing on the final two thirds of the enemy base; while the cluster of Arisen served as a distraction threat. And of course all of this weakened the Children’s defense against the D’oru’kan waaagh!

Between one thing, or two things, and another, the Children’s leadership eventually withdrew, leaving their bases to fend and die for themselves. Many fallen souls were collected for purging clean of chaos-warp; I don’t think the enemy had yet understood what was happening there. The Volunteer Legion, largely composed of former fallen souls given new bodies from Astartes geneseed, thanks to the Eldar/Necron spiritual technology, bore the lion’s share of the assault on our side -- as was only proper, under the circumstances.

But as I had feared, and somewhat expected, those weren’t the only casualties...
“The purging... has been completed. Lady,” reported an officer of the Sororitas.
“I applaud your foresight, Canoness!” nodded a satisfied ecclesiarch. “You hid your intentions from that traitor very well! And now their miserable plan has been foiled! -- by your steadfast will and...” A sound from above had arrived and was growing louder. “...uh.... that’s odd,” he said looking around, and upward, “that sounds like...”
“INCOMING!” “On our position!?” “Why, how -- “ “Scatter, hurry!”
The ecclesiarch tried to hurry, but he couldn’t scatter effectively.
Not until the drop-pod hit nearby, blasting him to a mess among the rubble. So did four others, crashing in a standard pattern around the center.
“CANONESS!” boomed a voice of wrath. “YOU WHOSE NAME I NO LONGER CARE TO LEARN!”
Force Commander Pauel trod out, clad in Terminator command armor, leading a force of Volunteer Terminator Marines. Our only ones currently, but the sisters wouldn’t know that. Their shock was duly noted.
“FOUL WRETCH! YOU SWORE TO SAVE THESE PEOPLE! SHOW YOURSELF IF YOU DARE,
COWARD!”
The Canoness had been thrown aside along with her officers, but all had survived, by fortune or by fate, and... “That couldn’t be true Terminator armor. It has to be a trick. Comms, order assaults from the north and the west at once!”
Pauel instantly demonstrated that, among the various technological groups in our force, we had succeeded in creating more of the lost technology of such armor. And had improved it substantially to modern standards.
“THUS SHALL FALL ALL WHO ATTACK US! STAND DOWN! -- AND COME FORTH, WRETCH, AND WE SHALL SEE
WHOSE HONOR IS WORTH NOTHING!”In truth, when she had given the orders concerning this population, once found, she had received more than a few worried looks. But she had explained the truth as she thought it, and they had no longer given her such looks. Much.
Now Pauel was calling her honor as payment for her deed, thrusting what she had done into the face of her honor, and the honor of the Emperor. For her own people’s sake, she had to go forth and try to answer.
“You have failed, fool!” she broadcast as loud as she could through her armor’s speakers. She wouldn’t have bothered trying; Pauel would surely outclass her with all the Terminator speakers together in concert. But this was for her people to hear, not him. “I saw through your plan, and I have burnt it to the ground!”
“YOU UNJUST CRETIN! YOU SWORE TO HELP AND SAVE THOSE PEOPLE!
NOT BURN THEM ALL TO THE GROUND!!”“And now you will not have them as your spies and puppets, dispersed throughout the Empire, to sow your treachery and heresy!”
“WE HAD NEVER CONTACTED THEM YET! THEY WERE EXPECTING THE EMPIRE TO SAVE THEM! YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT HAD YOU DONE WHAT YOU PROMISED,
WHAT YOU PROMISED IN THE EMPEROR’S NAME AND IN HIS HONOR -- TO SAVE THEM!”
She flinched. Hard. Her own honor was of no small concern, to her at least, but to have taken the Emperor’s honor in vain...! No, he had to be lying. This was a trick, a trap. She had prevented it from springing! She was faithful to the Emperor!
“I promised to save them unless military necessity arose! And that is exactly -- “
“FIEND! YOU ARE SAYING YOU PROMISED IN THE EMPEROR’S HONOR AND BY YOUR HONOR YOU WOULDN’T
SAVE THEM FROM YOURSELF!! THUS YOU SHOW:
“WE INDEED HAVE DIFFERENT IDEAS ABOUT WHO COUNTS -- AMONG THOSE THAT SLAY CIVILIANS.”
He wasn’t even shouting now. He sounded sad, more than angry. Sad for them.
Sad for her.
“YOU HAVE SHOWN YOU CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO SAVE THE PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD. SO WE WILL NOT TRUST YOUR HONOR AGAIN. I SPARE YOUR LIFE, DOER OF INJUSTICE, MERELY FOR THIS: AT LEAST YOU WILL FIGHT CHAOS, TOO. SOMETIMES.”
“...
all the time!
All the time, you... you traitor! You
traitors!” And she stamped her foot. And winced; she hadn’t done that since being a little girl, so long ago.
“I hope,” Force Commander Pauel said, reducing the volume somewhat, but rumbling deep, “we will meet again, some day, in better...” his voice cracked, and he shook his head in grief, as much as his armor allowed, “...in a better day to come. May mercy and justice most certainly hound you forever.
“Oh. The drop-pods will self-destruct in about half a minute. As you might expect. I recommend you be gone by then. But, I can’t say I really care if you stay nearby,” he grated. “Squads, teleport.”
She didn’t stay. But she managed to walk away. With some dignity still intact.
Over the ashes of her victims.