Esoteric Art: Concealing Troops

Several more years slipped by as they traveled between alien worlds. The recruits were approaching their tenth year of service, the minimum required to graduate. This time, Evan would prepare a rebellious planet as their final test.

Ten years had passed, and the Adeptus Mechanicus's second shipment of materials for Astartes recruits had arrived. There were only sixty sets, but the Techmarine had already left to oversee the next recruitment drive. Naturally, it would be on another planet; the five colonies took turns.

Atris needed time to recover, so no large-scale events would be held there for now.

That left miserable Taste, the poor colony that Khorne had slaughtered once before the Dawn Angels came through and hacked it up again.

Although the Dawn Angels had given Taste a thorough beating, they had simply dusted themselves off and left afterward, without notifying the Ecclesiarchy or anyone else to take over.

This unfortunate rebel planet had originally had several hundred million inhabitants. Now, who knew whether even a hundred million remained?

Of course, the recruits' mission could not be that simple. The locals would probably swear allegiance to the Imperium the moment they saw Astartes. Evan's assignment was for them to transform the local government and rebuild a red society with a comprehensive institutional framework.

As for how they would accomplish that, they would have to analyze the intelligence gathered during reconnaissance and make their own decisions.

Under cover of night, forty-two recruits descended onto Taste. They used disposable aircraft, abandoning them after entering the atmosphere and slowly gliding down on wings. Like the spacecraft debris that had become so common in recent years, the aircraft turned into fireballs in the atmosphere before vanishing completely.

Ha, spotted in space? Pieces of the space station were still drifting up there. If you could spot them from the ground, your eyes deserved a diagnosis of trachoma.

Huh? Why forty-two? Recruits could die or get injured during training, too. Despite Evan's precautions, four had died, and another eight now wore prosthetics.

Fortunately, Annos had not lost his touch, and the prosthetics he made were reasonably good.

Evan would not participate in this operation. This test belonged entirely to them. Before they departed, he said only one thing: "We are a force that is very friendly to the people. Only to the people."

After the recruits descended for their trial, Evan leisurely went to find Chief Apothecary Situval.

Every Astartes Chapter had its own unique rites, performed either during the recruits' augmentation or during their training.

The White Scars, for example, carved special symbols and totems into their faces.

Those three Chapters posed no particular problem, but they genuinely knew nothing about the Luna Wolves' rites. After all, before his transmigration, Evan had only learned a little about the Warhammer World through late-night storytelling sessions in his dorm.

Evan wandered over to Situval, who was checking whether all the "metal cans" were functioning properly.

"Did you need something, Evan?" After several years of working together, they had gradually grown familiar with one another, although neither Situval nor Annos particularly liked Evan's utterly informal speech and easygoing manner.

"Situval, at our current pace, how long would you need to restore the Chapter to its full strength of a thousand?"

"Under current conditions, at least two hundred years, provided absolutely no one interferes with my work."

"Then have you considered taking apprentices? Obviously, we don't have the means to send Astartes somewhere for professional instruction right now."

Situval paused. Although Apothecaries in many Chapters developed by studying under their Chief Apothecary, that was generally something Chapter Masters operating outside the Imperium did. In a Chapter like the Storm Will, most went elsewhere for specialized training.

"I could train Apothecary Aspirants, but teaching students from scratch might take close to a hundred years."

Situval was not certain, either. He had never taught students with no foundation whatsoever.

"Then let's start now. Do you have any suitable candidates?"

Situval really had not given the matter much thought. He was simply too busy.

"Do you have any ideas, brother?"

"Ten will go to a Forge World for a hundred years to train as Techmarines. Another ten will study under you to become Apothecaries."

"Isn't that far too many? Are you trying to train an entire Chapter's technical personnel in one go?"

"A hundred years. Within a hundred years, we need to reach full strength at the very least."

"Impossible. That's completely absurd." Situval maintained that even if all hundred recruit augmentation tanks ran constantly, they could not reach full strength that quickly.

Evan, meanwhile, looked ready to go seize a few more motherships for him.

Evan was panicking, and growing more anxious by the day. Why was this Warp Storm still here? Had Abaddon still not gone home? Had something disastrous happened on the Imperium's main battlefront? Guilliman should be around by now, so why was everything still deadlocked?

On the Techmarine's side, things were simpler. One of the eleven sons of the Iron Hands had happened to die in an accident, so he would send all ten survivors to the Adeptus Mechanicus to study for a hundred years.

Under Evan's vehement objections, however, they settled on sending two from each Gene-seed lineage, with four from the Iron Hands.

Techmarine Annos would teach the remaining six himself, even if they only helped him with odd jobs.

As for the other major problems... the Librarian was still sleeping in a cobbled-together Dreadnought. They needed to find him a replacement.

The Techmarine temporarily set everything else aside and began instructing Evan.

It was a little embarrassing, really: a Chapter Master who had never worn Terminator armour. And not the crudely made Errant-pattern Terminator armour that was little more than Mark VIII Power Armour with extra protection, either, but Cataphractii Terminator armour, which the Imperium had used for untold ages.

Naturally, this was the enlarged version for Primaris Astartes.

Astartes needed considerable training to fully master such specialized armour. Even Primaris Space Marines had to spend a great deal of time on it.

Meanwhile, a terrifying threat lurked beneath Taste's tranquil night sky.

Humanity no longer had anything that could be called a Hive City. Those had been reduced to rubble in the war more than a decade earlier. Now, the survivors had established settlements and erected primitive walls to protect themselves.

Terrifying beasts lurked in the towering forests and winding rivers beyond. With heavy firepower now scarce, only the toughest and bravest warriors dared venture out to hunt.

Not everyone skilled at building machinery had perished. Although the machinery factories had been priority targets, a few underground facilities had escaped destruction.

All their resources went into military production. Without Hive Cities or organized armies, they needed more firepower to suppress the ferocious predators in those terrifying jungles.

Using warehouses and factories concealed beneath the jungle as their foundations, they built rudimentary defenses and began taking in refugees from everywhere. The entire planet of Taste had fallen into a high-tech tribal social structure.

These so-called underground factories were not to be underestimated. Factories in this era were enormous industrial facilities, each requiring hundreds of thousands of workers to operate.

Now, the leaders of the various "tribes" were holding a summit.

After capturing a hunter who had ventured outside, the recruits learned of the meeting and hurried to the tribes' gathering place.

Elite guards from the various tribes were scattered throughout the forest. Now, they fell without a sound.

The recruits' attacks were exceptionally precise. Behind each tiny wound lay a brain that was already completely dead.

The leaders and their personal guards, meanwhile, were still glaring at one another with hostility.

"What exactly was your Forest Wolf Tribe thinking? We agreed to explore the ruins together, so why did you run halfway through the fight? Do you know how much your actions cost our tribe?"

"And that's our fault? We found a Tasté Spike Mammoth, and you still wanted to fight? We told you to run! Why did that commander of yours, whose skull must have been stuffed with something other than brains, shout that the Blood God would protect him and charge in with his blade?"

The Blood Gem Tribe's chief was helpless, too. That man had been close to death when he first arrived. After everyone finally managed to save him, they discovered he was an excellent fighter who brought back plenty of food from his hunts.

So they elected him to lead their hunting parties.

Only after this failed hunt did the chief discover that the man was a Khorne Cultist who had corrupted quite a few others in the tribe. The chief himself had carried out a painful purge.

"But that's no excuse for retreating. Our men must have had a way to deal with it when they went in. They simply couldn't put it into practice without your support." It might have been his fault, but he absolutely could not lose the argument. Even a dead duck had a stubborn beak, let alone a living man of Taste. Hmph. We men of Taste are hard all over.

"All right, all right. We didn't come here to argue about that. We're here to discuss our future. At the very least, we need to decide whether to unite. If that's impossible, we should at least settle our territorial boundaries." Someone immediately stepped in to smooth things over. Everyone was busy, for crying out loud. Who had time to watch these two bicker?

The thirty-odd leaders present might have called their domains tribes, but every one of them commanded a million or so people.

The organizer of this meeting was the most powerful of all, ruling nearly ten million people and occupying part of the shattered Hive City.

Of course, he had earned it. Amid the despair of Khorne's invasion, he alone had continually led the people in counterattacks. Taste's people were exceptionally fierce. Had they not been utterly outmatched in equipment, they could even have achieved a nearly equal casualty exchange against Khorne's mortal followers.

This great leader, Puccini, hoped to reunite all the humans on the planet and rebuild their home together.

He spoke first. "As you all know, our planet has suffered an unprecedented catastrophe. Now we must unite and rebuild it, keep the beasts confined to the jungles, get our factories producing supplies again, and rebuild our space stations. We have little time. Before the other planets recover, we must immediately organize an army capable of resisting them, or we'll be lambs to the slaughter."

"Of course, that's our shared goal. But who will lead us? Or rather, why should everyone accept that person's authority?"

Objections were inevitable. This sweeping upheaval offered ambitious men their best chance to turn a tiny stake into a vast fortune.

"Puccini, you know perfectly well that however strong you are, we could easily crush you if we united."

"But do you have a better candidate to lead us? Do you really think establishing a parliamentary system would accomplish anything? Look at us now. We could debate for a year without reaching a conclusion."

"Then are we supposed to fight it out? If so, what's the point of us being here?" This tribal representative spoke without restraint because he was merely an envoy. Not every chief had the courage to attend the meeting in person.

"Indeed. Why not hear my opinion?" One moment, everyone had been arguing fiercely. The next, the entire gathering fell silent.

"Aaaaaah! Astartes!"

"Hello. I represent the Imperium. You may call me William. There's no need to look around. Rest assured that my brothers have secured the surrounding area."

Several more Astartes revealed themselves to support William.

His words sounded like the whisper of death. Even the Khorne Cultists who had once charged at them roaring had not frightened them as much as this situation did.

Puccini mustered the courage to speak. He understood that, whatever happened, everyone present was now trapped.

"Then what does the Imperium propose?"

Puccini's manner made it sound as though he had invited the Imperium himself. Quite a few chiefs glared furiously at him.

"We'll help you unite. We'll help you rebuild. We'll help you deal with the threats from the other planets. Or perhaps... bring them into the fold?"

"And what is the price, representative of the Imperium?"

Puccini suppressed his anger and waited for the other man to make his outrageous demands.

William was simply completing his assignment. He explained the central program Evan had given him, and every doubt was eliminated on a physical level.

The system's core included giving the people unlimited opportunities to rise through tests of ability, which naturally also meant unlimited possibilities for those at the top to fall. Representatives of the people would form an assembly to voice their demands, while an enforcement apparatus ensured that everything complied with the rules.

And what enforcement apparatus could work better than Astartes? This was the second esoteric principle of concealing troops among the people: county battalions and district squads-no, wait, the grassroots "cadre" method.

The Astartes would establish guards directly under their command and ideological training centers. Graduates would enter grassroots military units as elite personnel and become Commissars. With military power firmly in their hands, everyone else could only compete over administrative authority.

They also abolished the nobility. Although existing personnel would temporarily retain their administrative posts, after five years everyone would study and take the same examinations, with jobs assigned according to ability. If anyone wanted to cause trouble, heh, five years was surely enough for Astartes to train an iron army.

Puccini's little mustache quivered with anger. The veins bulging along his arms showed just how furious he was. These terms aren't just coming for my life. They're coming for every noble's life.

But did he have a choice?

Other chiefs were already voicing objections. But if they fought politically, were there more people at the bottom or at the top? And if they resorted to violence, were they really going to fight Astartes?

They still had objections. After all, relatively few Astartes had revealed themselves. If they hardened their hearts and ordered their troops to saturate the area with fire, they could probably eliminate most of the Astartes present.

William raised a finger and pointed overhead. Here, let me show you two big beauties.

Everyone looked up. Good grief. Even in space, the two Battle Barges were clearly visible.

Fine, fine. Whatever you say.

Several squads of Astartes departed for the territories of the most powerful chiefs.

A very difficult period followed. Even the Astartes recruits faced numerous dangerous assassination attempts, while the actual functioning of government presented many practical problems to resolve.

After successfully bringing most key officials under their control, the recruits issued formal decrees.

When the doubtful populace saw the Astartes appear, everyone erupted with excitement.

Ordinary people eagerly participated, and various voting systems and military forces were established.

Joining the Imperium meant paying the Imperial Tithe, but could it possibly be heavier than the taxes these people already collected? A colony isolated in the universe, with visible competitors nearby, offered precious little in the way of human rights. Everything served the survival of its planet and people.

Now they no longer needed to worry about those matters. Better still, most officials and nobles were removed from their positions for reassessment. The people struggling at the bottom finally had a glimmer of hope.

At least their descendants now had a chance to become respectable people who could live decent lives.

Wailing shook the Upper Hive, while enthusiasm for production in the Underhive rose several notches.

Even basic education was extended to the Underhive. Of course, they first had to count its population.

Like cutting meat with a blunt knife, they stripped away the nobles' power bit by bit. Everyone would earn their living through ability.

The advantage was that planets could also specialize in particular functions without worrying that an imbalance in one area would cause disaster.

They had rebelled because they could no longer survive, only to find survival even harder afterward. They might as well try returning to the Imperium now.

Naturally, the minor chiefs who had no Astartes accompanying them quickly formed an alliance. If their money and status were going to be taken away, their lives might as well be taken instead.

Taste plunged into war once more, but this time, Astartes were involved.

Expecting the recruits to charge through battle and take enemy heads was unrealistic. Those who had not yet undergone the armour bestowal ceremony wore only Scout armour. But putting a bullet through someone's head from several kilometers away was hardly difficult for an Astartes.

After another thirty days of war, the planet finally returned to peace.

The Astartes still suffered casualties. One battle-brother joined the ranks of those with prosthetics. With the Techmarine absent, he had to make do with a standard mechanical arm for now.

Of course, the official records stated that only thirty-three had passed the Astartes recruitment trials. Every other recruit had perished during the "brutal recruitment trials."

A grand armour bestowal ceremony was held aboard the Battle Barge. Freshly forged Power Armour-literally fresh from the furnace-was fitted onto the Astartes recruits.

These recruits were now proper Astartes warriors. Although they had endured battles sufficiently grueling for recruits, they still lacked experience against the Imperium's principal enemies, such as the little green ones, the little red ones, and so on.

Besides, ten would study under the Apothecary, ten would go to a Forge World, and ten would remain hidden on Taste. They had Power Armour and matching weapons, but no one knew where they were concealed. All anyone knew was that they appeared in groups of three, with one man's whereabouts always unknown.

Evan had only twelve Astartes available for deployment. For now, they would form the provisional Second Company. Six of them were still serving as the Techmarine's assistants, but since he was currently aboard another warship, those studies were temporarily suspended.

Once they earned sufficient experience and honors, they would be promoted to the First Company. Every one of them brimmed with fighting spirit, eager to become its first soldier.

After more than a decade as a commander without troops, Evan finally had soldiers he could use. It had not been easy. For the first time in his life, he was properly in charge of a class.

Everything was moving in the right direction, wasn't it?