Aaron Dembski-Bowden: Helsreach

Nerovar shook his head. He was the only one without his helm covering his features. Insofar as it was possible for an Astartes to look uncertain, he was doing so now.

'Reclusiarch.' He spoke Grimaldus's new title with hesitancy. 'How can we defend… all this? An endless road that leads into to a thousand others.'

' With blade and bolter,' said Bastilan. 'With faith and fire.'

Grimaldus recognised his own words spoken from the sergeant's mouth. He looked down in silence at the city below, at the insane stretch of road that left the entire hive open, accessible.

Vulnerable.

The Thunderhawks touched down on a landing pad that was clearly designed for freight use. Cranes moved and servitors droned out of their way as the gunships came down in a hovering shower of engine wash and heat shimmer.

Ramps clanged onto the landing pad's surface and the four gunships disgorged their living cargo - one hundred knights in orderly ranks, marching into formation before their Thunderhawks.

Watching this display, and desperately trying not to show how impressed he felt, was Colonel Sarren of the Armageddon 101st Steel Legion. He stood with his hands clasped together, fingers interlaced, over his not inconsiderable stomach. Flanking him were a dozen men, some soldiers, some civilians, and all nervous - to varying degrees - about the hundred giants in black armour forming up before them.

He cleared his throat, checked the buttons on his ochre greatcoat were fastened in correct order, and marched to the giants.

One of the giants, wearing a helm shaped into a grinning skull mask of shining silver and steel, stepped forward to meet the colonel. With him came five other knights, each carrying swords and massive bolters, but for one who bore a towering standard. Upon the banner, which waved lazily in the dull breeze, a scene of red and black depicted the skull-helmed knight bathed in the golden purity of a flaming aquila overhead.

' I am Grimaldus,' the first knight said, his gem-like eye lenses staring down at the portly colonel. 'Reclusiarch of the Helsreach Crusade.'

The colonel drew breath to make his own greeting, when the hundred knights in formation cried out a chant in skin-crawling unity.

' Imperator Vult!'

Sarren glanced at the ranks of knights, formed up in five ranks of twenty warriors. None of them seemed to have moved, despite their cry in High Gothic: The Emperor wills it.

'I am Colonel Sarren of the 101st Steel Legion, and overall commander of the Imperial Guard forces defending the hive.' He offered a hand to the towering knight, and turned the gesture quite smartly into a salute when it became clear the knight was not going to shake hands.

Muted clicks could be heard every few seconds from the helms of the knights standing closest to him. Sarren knew full well they were speaking with each other over a shared vox-channel. He didn't like it, not at all.

'Who are these others?' the first knight asked. With a war maul of brutal size and weight, he gestured to Sarren's staff arrayed in a loose crescent behind the colonel. 'I would meet every commander of this hive, if they are present.'

'They are present, sir,' Sarren said. 'Allow me to make introductions.'

'Reclusiarch,' Grimaldus growled. 'Not 'sir'.'

'As you wish, Reclusiarch. This is Cyria Tyro, adjutant quintus to General Kurov.' Grimaldus looked down at the slender, dark-haired female. She made no effort to salute. Instead, she spoke.

' I am to act as liaison between off-planet forces - such as yours, Reclusiarch, and the Titan Legion - and the soldiers of Hive Helsreach. Simply summon me if you require my aid,' she finished.

' I will,' Grimaldus said, knowing he would not.

'This is Commissar Falkov, of my command staff,' Colonel Sarren resumed.

The officer named clicked his heels together and made an immaculate sign of the aquila over his chest. The commissar's dark uniform singled him out with absolute clarity among the ochre-wearing Steel Legion officers.

'This is Major Mordechai Ryken, second officer of the 101st and XO of the city defence.'

Ryken made the aquila himself, and offered a cautious nod of greeting.

'Commander Korten Barasath,' Sarren introduced the next man, 'of the Imperial 5082nd Naval Wing.'

Korten, a lean figure still dressed in his grey flightsuit, saluted smartly.

'My men were in the Lightnings that guided you down, Reclusiarch. A pleasure to serve with the Black Templars again.'

Grimaldus narrowed his eyes behind his helm's false grin. 'You have served with the Knights of Dorn before?'

'I have personally - nine years ago on Dathax - and the Fifty-Eighty-Twos have on no fewer than four separate occasions. Sixteen of our fighters are marked with the heraldic cross, with permission given by Marshal Tarrison of the Dathax Crusade.'

Grimaldus inclined his head, his respect solemn and obvious, despite the helm.

'I am honoured, Barasath,' he said.

The squadron leader suppressed a pleased smile and saluted again.

And on it went, through the ranks of senior Steel Legion officers. At the end of the line stood two men, one in a clean and decorated uniform of azure blue, the shade of skies on worlds much cleaner than this one, and the other in oil-stained overalls.

Colonel Sarren gestured to the thin man in the immaculate uniform.

'The most honourable Moderati Primus Valian Carsomir of the Legio Invigilata, crewman of the blessed engine Stormherald.'

Grimaldus nodded, but made no other outward show of respect. The Titan pilot inclined his gaunt face in turn, utterly emotionless.

'Moderati,' the knight said. 'You speak with the voice of your Legion?'

'A full battle group,' the man replied. 'I am the voice of Princeps Majoris Zarha Mancion. The rest of Invigilata is committed to other engagements.'

'Fortune favours us that you still remain,' the knight said. The Titan pilot made the cog sign of the Mechanicus, his knuckles interlinked over his chest, and Sarren finished the final introduction.

'And here is Dockmaster Tomaz Maghernus, lead foreman of the Helsreach Dockers' Union.'

The knight hesitated, and nodded again, just as he had for the soldiers. 'We have much to discuss,' Grimaldus said to the colonel, who was sweating faintly in the stifling afternoon air.

'Indeed we do. This way, if you please.'

Tomaz Maghernus wasn't sure what to think.

Back at the docks, as soon as he walked into the warehouse, his crew flocked around him, barraging him with questions. How many Astartes were there? How tall were they? What was it like to see one? Were all the stories true?

Tomaz wasn't sure what to say. There had been little grandeur in the meeting. The towering warrior with his skull face had seemed more dismissive than anything else. The ranks of knights in their black armour were silent and inhuman, utterly separate from the hive's delegation and not interacting at all.

He answered the questions with a level of vagueness lessened by a convincing false smile.

An hour later, he was back in his crane's command cabin, strapped to the creaking leather seat and turning the axis wheel to bring the loading claw around again. Levers controlled the claw's vertical position and the grip of its magnetic talons. Tomaz slammed the claw onto the deck of the tanker ship closest to his station, and hauled a cargo crate into the air. The markings alongside the sturdy metal crate marked it as volatile. More promethium, he knew. The final imports of fuel for the Imperial Guard's tanks were arriving this week. Dried food rations and shipments of fuel were all they'd been unloading on the docks for months now.