Thus Did The Imperium of Mankind Fight There

Part 3 The Lightning Bearer

It had been a week since the invasion of the strange primitive human army and their Xenos slaves. Malcador had just returned to the palace from the cremation ceremony of the fallen Arbiters of what was becoming known to the public through the pict-casts as The Stand for Lion's Gate Avenue or The Clash of Grigorovich's Few among the Imperium's soldiery. 

At the ceremony, a solemn parade was held in which thousands of Arbiters lined the streets as a procession carried the bodies of their honored slain atop platforms on their shoulders. Judge Mathew Grigorovich led the solemn march at the very front in full armor, despite still healing from his wounds. After the parade reached the crematorium, the bodies were carefully placed inside the great furnaces and burned to ashes. 

Malcador recalled how when he'd offered the Judge to go on leave with full pay, the man replied, ''With all due respect MI 'lord, I don't belong in a luxury hotel room drinking quality amasec. I belong where the Lex Imperialis demands me. Besides, my officers died taking one hell of an honor guard down with them, that's enough for me to know they didn't die in vain.'' 

So far, public unrest caused by the appearance of the odd phenomenon was minimal and what little unrest there was, was actually caused by reactionary members of the Imperial citizenry who called for a retaliatory invasion through the Gate to conquer whatever lay beyond and to bring the head of whoever ordered the attack to the chopping block. 

It was a notion shared by much of the Imperium's elite as well, most notably the Adeptus Psi, the Adeptus Mars, the Ordos of the Adeptus Umbrex, and virtually all the Imperium's armed forces.

Even the Custodians, normally silent on all matters not related to the Emperor's direct safety, pushed for a force to be sent through the construct immediately seeing the very existence of such an unknown variable so close to the Imperial Palace as an unacceptable risk to their lord's very seat of power.

Luckily, due to Malcador's close working relations with the Legio Custodes and his authority as the First Lord of Terra - as well as being the head of many other classified Imperial institutions - he'd managed to placate them all for now. 

That was not to say that he did not agree with sending a retribution force through whatever had manifested on Lion's Gate Avenue, he simply thought it was too soon. 

Malcador had sent a high-priority astropathic message to the Emperor and all twenty of his sons and although they'd all shown concern, they'd also stated that they could not divert forces to Terra for what was, in the end, a minor disturbance from their crucial war fronts.

As such, they entrusted him to control the situation and act in whatever way he saw fit, something he fully intended to do. 

His first course of action was to order the immediate quarantine of the area within a 25-kilometer radius around the Gate. A hardly necessary directive as the Imperial military and law enforcement had already done so right after the Gate's appearance. His next course of action was to conduct an audit on all military forces available for deployment on Terra itself.  

The results were not what he'd hoped for, there were billions of Imperial Army soldiers on Terra, but most were newly trained, green, and inexperienced as the demands of the Great Crusade meant the best of the Imperium's soldiers were halfway across the galaxy. There was only a billion Solar Auxilia in the entire Sol system, barely enough for the garrison needs as it stood.

In terms of transhuman forces, the numbers were nothing short of depressing. There were only around 30,000 Solar Wardens on the entire planet with a few others in the rest of Sol. Most of the Steel Wardens present were scheduled to be redeployed to the currently under-construction iron rings around the galaxy's largest warp storms and rifts. 

The only other Astartes units on Terra were three chapters of Phoenix Blades seconded to the Custodians by Iskandar Basileus after the events on Proxima and a single chapter of Night Lords, operating in Terra's shadiest zones, enforcing Imperial law and order where mortal personnel dared not venture. 

The Custodians, always scarce in numbers, had most of their strength currently deployed alongside the Emperor battling the Ork Ullanor Empire. Deploying the few Custodians who now resided in the palace through the Gate with the very real chance of them being cut off, for none knew how long the Gate would remain, ruled them out entirely. 

The option of sending a force of Sisters of Silence was likewise ruled out, for much the same reasons. 

This limited Malcador's options to sending a force made up of overwhelmingly, inexperienced, although highly trained and motivated Imperial Army regiments as well perhaps no more than a single regiment's worth (5,300) of Solar Auxilia. Along with them could also be sent some air wings and mayhaps a mixed company of Astartes. 

Ironically, Malcador mused, the one force he had nearby in abundance could not be used due to size limitations. Terra had no shortage of Titans and Knight walkers available for deployment, due to the nearby technological capital of the Imperium in the form of the red planet, but they were simply too large to enter the Gate. 

''I never thought that one day I would ask the hands of fate to lend me more infantry in exchange for Titans than vice versa, then again, I never would have dreamed of dealing with a situation like this,'' he spoke ruefully. 

Nonetheless, with the cards he had available, Malcador would require a player, a general who would lead this endeavor, who could act as a force multiplier to compensate for the mostly green soldiers he'd be commanding while being decisive enough to exploit the full power and capabilities of the few elites within the deployed army. Such an individual would usually be a Primarch, but there were none available on Terra...except one.

''It appears the Lighting Bearer shall have one more campaign to win.'' 

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