The Fated Slaughterhouse III Planet

"Sir!"

Lin En was resting that day, half-lidded in a lounge chair on the second floor of the Governor's Palace, holding an introductory Adeptus Mechanicus textbook Iron Hammer had found for him.

Sunlight streamed through the window, leaving him pleasantly drowsy.

Ah, what a life. He couldn't ask for more.

001100,110011. It was about tractor maintenance. He couldn't make much sense of it, but he was bored enough to use it to pass the time.

He had just reached an illustration on hydraulic-rod upkeep when someone slammed the door open.

Phoros rushed in.

He hadn't even knocked. His blond hair was plastered messily to his forehead, and instead of armor he wore only a short dark-gray robe. His chest heaved. He had clearly run here.

Startled, Lin En sat upright and looked at Phoros. "What happened?! What's wrong?!"

Phoros swallowed hard.

For the moment, he couldn't speak. He stepped forward and handed Lin En the Dataslate in his hand.

Lin En took it and looked down.

The Lamenters' frontline scouts had received new intelligence: Greenskin Orks had captured three million civilians and taken them to Slaughterhouse III Mine as slaves.

Lin En scanned the message. His face darkened bit by bit.

The Lamenters' fated Battle of Slaughterhouse had arrived.

Slaughterhouse III Mine.

Slaughterhouse Three had once been an Imperial mining Industrial World. Giant open-pit mines covered its surface, while tens of thousands of kilometers of mining tunnels crisscrossed beneath it.

The Ork warlord Skargel had conquered the planet, and the Greenskins had captured all three million civilians. The bastards had driven the people out of their settlements, chained them together in lines, and dragged them into the underground mines like livestock to extract ore and build war machines.

The planet itself held little strategic value and mainly produced crude metals.