Outside New Kato's command building, four regiments stood in formation, every rank aligned with parade-ground precision despite the war waiting beyond the perimeter. Armor seals were checked. Power packs were slapped into lasguns and locked with practiced clicks.
Medicae orderlies moved along the lines with diagnostic auspexes, while squad leaders inspected straps, ammunition, grenades, rebreathers, and the small locator tags fixed to each soldier's kit.
The air carried the smell of machine oil, cold ferrocrete, ozone, and the distant exhaust of armored vehicles idling somewhere behind the command compound. Beneath the discipline, anticipation ran through the soldiers like current through a charged cable. Men shifted their grip on rifles. Veterans rolled their shoulders inside flak armor. Younger troopers tried to look calm and only succeeded in looking eager.
It had been several days since their last engagement. Too long, by the standards of men who had survived one slaughter and now felt useless while waiting for the next.
Now, at last, they would spill blood again.
"Spread out, lads!" one sergeant barked from the flank. "I'd rather not scrape your fused corpses off each other and explain the mess to your families!"
"The Lord Commander! He's here!"
"I won't be wearing a helmet in battle, sir!" another soldier shouted with theatrical confidence. "That way, you'll see my bravery firsthand!"
"You'll see his brains firsthand too!" someone yelled back.
A wave of cheers, laughter, gallows humor, and half-sincere bravado rolled through the ranks as Lord Commander Qin Mo advanced across the mustering ground, flanked by Klein and Creed. The noise did not break formation. If anything, it steadied the men. Fear was easier to carry when it had room to laugh.
Creed observed the assembled troops with an analytical gaze.
Something was wrong.
The regiments were armed and ready, but no marching columns had formed. No transports waited at the gate. No armored personnel carriers rumbled forward to receive them. Supply crews stood clear of the formations instead of loading them. Even the officers were not facing outward toward the departure routes. They were watching Qin Mo. Waiting.
For a moment, Creed considered the possibility of a final briefing, but the answer came to him before he could voice the thought. Obvious. Absurd. Almost unthinkable.
They were not preparing to march into battle.
They were about to be teleported.
Qin Mo glanced sideways, saw the realization settle across Creed's face, and confirmed it without ceremony.
"They'll be teleported," he said.
Creed exhaled slowly through his nose. Mass teleportation of infantry was not merely rare within the Astra Militarum. It was functionally nonexistent as a routine deployment method.
Teleportariums belonged to voidships, elite strike forces, Astartes boarding actions, and ancient relic systems maintained with more prayer than understanding. Moving entire regiments as a normal logistical operation was the sort of thing a Munitorum adept would reject as either heresy, insanity, or an accounting error.
"Is the technology stable?" Creed asked. Skepticism entered his tone despite his effort to keep it contained.
"Stable," Qin Mo replied at once. "Provided the landing zone is clear and the coordinates are clean."
Creed studied him for another heartbeat, then looked back at the regiments. His mind was already racing ahead. If this was true, if Qin Mo could deploy large forces without roads, transports, bridges, chokepoints, fuel columns, or exposed embarkation routes, then the entire shape of war changed.
Supply lines became less vulnerable. Defensive depth lost certainty. Fortified fronts could be bypassed. Reserves could arrive before an enemy understood they were needed.
A useful miracle, Creed thought. Which meant it would have limitations. All miracles did.
....
The War Room
They entered the highest level of the command spire and stepped into a war room washed in blue light. The chamber was circular, armored, and windowless, its walls covered in layered tactical screens, vox-relay charts, ammunition projections, and live feeds from reconnaissance drones.
The air hummed with quiet machinery. Cogitator banks processed targeting data in cold streams of binharic logic, while hololithic emitters projected the battlefield over a massive central table.
The model rotated slowly above the table: a hive district under enemy occupation, rendered in shifting layers of ferrocrete streets, industrial corridors, shattered hab-stacks, manufactorum yards, exhaust towers, and buried transit routes. Red glyphs marked known enemy positions. Amber sigils marked uncertain contact. Blue lines traced possible insertion corridors.
Above the enemy-held sprawl, reconnaissance drones prowled through the tangled exhaust towers and pipe networks. Their optical camouflage bent light around their narrow frames, turning them into faint distortions against smog, rust, and heat haze. They skimmed past shrine-roofs, smokestacks, barricades, and half-collapsed loading platforms, feeding silent images back to the war room.
Qin Mo flicked one hand. The battlefield sharpened. Enemy movements, reserve concentrations, artillery sites, vehicle parks, suspected command posts, and projected supply routes appeared across the display in layered detail.
On the side of the hololith, a running data-scroll listed troop strengths, estimated reserves, fuel depots, defensive installations, and casualty projections.
"Two hundred thousand troops," Qin Mo said.
The number did not surprise him.
What did surprise him was the Imperial Knight.
He expanded the projection and zoomed in.
There it stood at the center of the enemy formation: an Errant-pattern Knight chassis, or something close enough to one that the distinction mattered less than the weapons aimed outward from its armored frame.
Its heraldry had been scorched away and replaced with crude rebel markings. Both primary weapon mounts had been altered, each carrying an Avenger Gatling Cannon whose rotary barrels rested in a downward angle like restrained execution devices. Heavy flamer vents glowed beneath the weapon housings with residual heat, and its carapace sensors swept the battlefield with predatory machine precision.
The war engine towered over the surrounding infantry, a walking fortress of ceramite, adamantium, armored pistons, and ancient reactor power. It stood more than 12 meters (forty feet) tall, each step capable of crushing men, barricades, and light vehicles beneath its armored feet. The ion shield around it flickered faintly in the projection, visible only when the drones caught the distortion at the correct angle.
"How do we kill that?" Klein asked. He tried to keep his voice casual. He did not quite succeed.
For the first time since they entered the war room, Qin Mo remained silent.
Creed did not.
"If we lack war engines of equal class," Creed said, eyes fixed on the projection, "we force it into terrain where size becomes a liability. Fast assault elements get under its firing arcs, close inside the minimum elevation of its primary weapons, and plant melta charges around the ankle actuators, knee assemblies, reactor shielding, or hip joints. Bring it down first. Kill it after."
Klein turned toward him with open disbelief. "You have got to be joking." He stabbed a finger toward the hololith. "That thing has two Avenger Gatling Cannons. Do you understand what that means for infantry? They chew through tanks, let alone infantry. Two can rake an entire approach corridor clean before the first man gets within charge range."
"He's correct," Qin Mo said.
Klein's expression tightened, but he did not argue further.
A Knight was not merely a large vehicle. It was a symbol of dominance, a legacy of the feudal houses of old Terra, clad in armor forged during the Age of Technology. Designed for single-combat duels and mass battlefield control, it could lay waste to entire companies with its heavy weapons while weathering return fire like a fortress on legs.
On an open battlefield, it could alter the tide of war by its presence alone. Infantry formations were forced to scatter or hide, armored divisions redirected to avoid direct confrontation, and air support limited to skimming strikes to avoid the Knight's powerful anti-air flak systems.
A Knight was best answered by another Knight, a Titan-grade weapon, concentrated heavy armor, or air support with enough firepower to overload its ion shield and crack its hull.
Without those, only ugly options remained.
A high-speed assault. Charges placed at weak points. Terrain chosen carefully enough to deny the Knight clean lines of fire. Decoys and smoke dense enough to split the pilot's attention between both gatling cannons. Timing measured in seconds. Courage measured in casualties.
In theory, it was possible.
In practice, failure would look like brave men dying beneath a machine that barely noticed them.
Creed stared at the display, already calculating smoke coverage, approach angles, decoys, suppressive fire, and the number of squads likely to vanish before one reached the Knight's legs. He did not enjoy the answer. That did not make it wrong.
Qin Mo minimized the Knight's enlarged display and shifted his attention to the wider battlefield.
Compared to their last engagement, the rebel formations had changed.
"They've tightened their ranks," Creed muttered.
The spacing between enemy regiments had narrowed to less than a kilometer in most sectors. Reserve groups sat closer behind forward units. Heavy weapons overlapped more carefully. Defensive clusters had been arranged so that a sudden insertion behind one line could be met by fire from two others.
It was not brilliant. It was not elegant. But it was practical. The traitors had adapted to teleport insertion.
No fool commanded two hundred thousand soldiers. Whoever directed this army understood that Qin Mo's advantage had to be constrained, not ignored. Circumstances had forced the rebels into a denser deployment, and density made them vulnerable to artillery, but it also made isolated teleport strikes more dangerous.
Qin Mo marked the Knight's location on the map.
"I'll deal with the Knight personally."
He turned to Creed.
"You are not under my command, but if you have tactical suggestions, I would appreciate them."
Creed looked at him for a moment. Qin Mo's tone was not flattery. It was not empty courtesy. It was a commander recognizing a useful mind and making room for it.
Creed was not yet the Lord Castellan who would one day become a legend. But even now, he was an exceptional strategist, and he knew enough to understand the value of being heard. Qin Mo had given him power armor, shelter, and trust. Creed did not confuse favors with chains, but neither did he ignore debts.
"What forces do we have?" Creed asked.
He hoped the infantry regiments he had watched mustering outside were not the entirety of Qin Mo's army. If they were, this operation would become far more difficult.
Qin Mo gestured over the hololithic table.
The full military strength of New Kato unfolded before them.
Seventeen combined-arms regiments of infantry and armor.
Two thousand fully autonomous self-propelled artillery pieces.
Five additional elite warriors.
Creed frowned. "Five men?"
Klein smirked. "They are worth entire regiments on their own."
Creed gave a curt nod. He would reserve judgment until he saw them fight. Men who were called irreplaceable often died exactly like everyone else once the shooting started. Still, Klein did not sound like a man boasting for morale. He sounded like a man stating a logistical fact.
"Can we teleport our forces directly to the front lines?" Creed asked.
"Of course," Qin Mo replied. "With conditions."
He expanded a blue overlay across the battlefield and highlighted safe insertion zones.
"Mass deployment requires either a clear landing zone or an active beacon. If the destination is cluttered, shielded, unstable, or obstructed, there is a significant risk of troops materializing inside walls, vehicles, debris, or one another. Small teams can be inserted with tighter tolerances. Regiments cannot. Not safely."
Creed absorbed the limitation and immediately understood its shape.
"So the enemy's tighter spacing matters," he said. "They are trying to deny clean landing zones."
"Yes."
Creed's eyes sharpened. The miracle had rules. Rules could be used.
"By the Emperor," he murmured, leaning over the display. "I have never fought a war with this level of logistical advantage."
He studied the battlefield for several more seconds. Then he began to speak, not as a guest, but as a commander building a campaign inside his head.
"Deploy ten regiments directly against the enemy's forward line. Not scattered. Concentrated. Sectors thirteen through seventeen." He marked the zones one by one. "They establish defensive anchors immediately after arrival. Shield projectors forward. Armor in support. Infantry digging in around hard cover. Their purpose is not immediate breakthrough. Their purpose is to hold the enemy's attention and prevent advance."
Qin Mo nodded for him to continue.
"The remaining seven regiments should be teleported around the perimeter, but not thrown into close combat at once. They probe. Scout. Pressure. Locate structural weaknesses in the enemy's formation. Ammunition dumps, relay nodes, exposed flanks, unstable barricades, thin reserves, poorly supported armor groups."
Creed moved another series of markers across the display.
"Once the weak points are identified, we strike decisively. Shock units follow through the breach before the enemy can redeploy. The objective is to tear open the formation, split their command response, and force the Knight to move."
Klein folded his arms. "And then?"
"Then we kill it," Creed said. "Or we make it enter ground where it can be killed."
He highlighted several dense urban corridors near the hive's inner districts.
"If the Knight remains in open ground, it dominates the field. If it pursues a breakthrough into the city, its maneuverability suffers. Streets limit rotation. Ruins obstruct lines of fire. Elevated structures allow charges, mines, and heavy weapons to attack from angles its pilot will hate. Prepare ambush positions. Collapse routes behind it if necessary. Force it to choose between staying back and letting the army break, or advancing into a trap."
He shifted the artillery icons behind the city.
"The artillery deploys outside direct retaliation range, behind the urban mass. Their arcs cover the full battlefield. Primary targets are infantry concentrations, enemy guns, supply stores, and any exposed Knight shield angle. A direct hit on the Knight would be welcome, but we should not rely on it. The ion shield will favor whatever direction the pilot prioritizes. We use artillery to control movement, not to pretend we are guaranteed a kill."
Creed finished and straightened.
"These are recommendations. The final decision is yours."
Qin Mo studied the map for a long moment. The blue light reflected across his face, sharpening the stillness in his expression. Then he smiled faintly.
"Looks like we think alike."
He lifted a vox-unit and began issuing orders. His voice carried through the command net with clipped precision. Regiments received destinations. Artillery received coordinates. Drone relays shifted to support insertion lanes. Logistics units began pushing ammunition, medicae supplies, replacement power cores, and emergency beacon kits toward designated teleport staging zones.
As the army mobilized, Creed noticed something peculiar about the regimental numbers scrolling past the display.
They were not sequential.
The first regiment listed was the 48th. The next was the 31st. Then the 87th. Others followed in the same uneven pattern: gaps, missing numbers, surviving designations placed beside newer formations as if no attempt had been made to tidy the order.
For a moment, Creed thought it was simple administrative disorder. Then he remembered what the soldiers had said. The First Legion had been nearly annihilated in the Underhive. Entire units had died before Qin Mo forged the survivors into something new.
Perhaps the gaps were not errors.
Perhaps they were memorials.
A regiment number was a small thing to preserve. In the Imperium, small things often mattered because no one else bothered to protect them.
Qin Mo ended the transmission and turned back toward Creed.
"You have been extremely diligent these past few days," he said. "And I know you are planning beyond simple troop training. You are trying to establish a full officer training program."
Creed did not deny it. There would be no point.
Qin Mo continued, "Once I repair your ship, I will grant you one additional request as a reward."
Creed shook his head at once.
"There is no need for a reward. This is my duty."
Klein chuckled from beside the table.
"You might want to reconsider that," he said. "Or you'll regret it for the rest of your life."
Qin Mo's smirk deepened.
"He's right."