Besides that, Governor Cornwall sent Chuck some fresh troops.
This was not because Cornwall was particularly fond of Chuck. He was mainly afraid that Chuck would fail to hold the line and let the Orks into the northern hemisphere, leaving him to answer for it too.
The strongest of these reinforcements was a full-strength armored division equipped with no fewer than seven hundred Leman Russ Tanks.
In the end, Chuck assembled eighty thousand Planetary Defense Force troops. These were his most capable forces, and he assigned them to defend his headquarters and the city's core districts, leaving everywhere else to the hastily conscripted militia.
There were so many militia members that even arming them all was difficult. The city's arms factories began working overtime around the clock to produce weapons, equipment, and ammunition.
As for the refugees flooding toward Capello, Chuck sent troops to block them at every key intersection and left them to fend for themselves. Under no circumstances would they be allowed into Capello.
Chuck ordered machine-gun positions built along the main roads and intersections, barbed wire strung up, and large numbers of land mines laid.
These measures effectively cut off every southern city's last chance of survival. Escape north became impossible. Chuck's defenses might not have been enough to stop an Ork assault, but their firepower was just right for dealing with ordinary human refugees.
Chuck's plan was simple: he needed to hold Capello for three days, until Commissar Kester's Astra Militarum forces arrived.
Nothing could have been better than using the people of the Southern Hemisphere to distract the Orks. In the best-case scenario, these bloodthirsty Orks would become so engrossed in slaughtering refugees that they would forget to gather for an attack on Capello.
In Chuck's eyes, the loss of hundreds of millions of lives