The heavy transport lowered its hatch, then deployed its boarding ramp amid scalding steam.
The neatly arrayed Death Korps of Krieg marched onto the ramp in almost perfect lockstep, while the tracks of Macharius heavy tanks slowly rolled across the steel bridge.
No extraneous sounds disturbed the assembly. There was only the tramp of military boots, the rumble of tank engines, and the Commissar's ringing commands.
An Ecclesiarchy priest stood atop the dais, roaring with impassioned fervor.
"Soldiers of the Imperium, the time of the alien menace's depredations is over!"
"Led by the sons of God, we shall utterly destroy them and drive them from the God-Emperor's domain!"
"Let the God-Emperor's light shine upon us! Let alien blood flow at his feet!"
Beneath the Emperor's Statue, Guilliman quietly watched this mechanical army, whose soldiers made not a single unnecessary movement.
Once he had gained sufficient authority, Guilliman had also learned a great deal. He already understood the Death Korps before him quite well.
Strictly speaking, these soldiers of the Death Korps of Krieg were not truly human. They were the creations of the Adeptus Mechanicus's Biologis.
Magos Koyul of the Adeptus Mechanicus had discovered an STC Template on a once-prosperous pleasure world that had fallen into decline. The template contained technology that the inhabitants of pleasure worlds during the Age of Technology had used to manufacture pleasure dolls.
Magos Koyul had struck certain secret deals with Colonel Yulten, allowing these pleasure dolls to be mass-produced on Krieg for the planet's reconstruction and atonement.
These Death Guard soldiers underwent brutal training and Imperial indoctrination from childhood, then charged onto the battlefield to serve the Emperor at fifteen or sixteen.
In truth, these Krieg soldiers would not live very long anyway. The powerful elites of the Age of Technology had only liked