Planet Tark-III.
"Bwooooo—"
A deep warning tone sounded across the surface.
The Desert Rats from Tallarn instinctively sprang up in their quarters.
Clad in Power Armour, they snatched up their weapons.
The instant the automatic doors opened, they leaped straight out.
They jumped from more than ten metres above the ground.
Formation after formation rapidly took shape amid the hissing of hydraulic dampers venting pressure.
In little more than a month, they had grown completely accustomed to everything here.
Compared with any Imperial garrison, everything here offered unparalleled convenience.
Of course, the intensity and precision of the training here also far exceeded anything they had experienced.
The cold, exact timing of the Men of Iron often kept deviations in training down to mere seconds.
If they failed to meet the training standards, the Men of Iron would take no action.
The Imperial commissars attached to the troops, however, were another matter.
Their long whips could lash a man's skin open.
After the soldiers had tasted that agonising pain, the Men of Iron would promptly provide proper treatment.
This ensured that no one missed training the following day.
Of course, it also meant that some unlucky souls could receive two or three floggings in a single day.
Deployed on Tark-III alongside the Desert Rats were the 227th Cadian Shock Army and hundreds of millions of Astra Militarum troops from the Imperium's many worlds.
Yet among all those formations, the warriors of Tallarn were indeed among the least adept at defensive warfare.
They were unlike other Astra Militarum units.
The warriors of Tallarn excelled at armoured advances and raids across desert terrain.
When they first arrived, they had questioned why the Men of Iron had ordered them not to bring any weapons or equipment.
After all, they needed camouflage to conceal themselves