Chapter 3:

	
	Colonel Appullo stepped outside of the Brother-Archigós’s command center, swiftly firing up his personal vox unit and getting his adjutant in motion, effectively calling for a staff meeting of sorts. The Commissariat of course, being a duty driven organization, and not necessarily beholden to the rank & file officers, both commissioned or otherwise took it’s time to arrive at the Guard command tent. The surviving Imperial Navy Constabulary Officers from the disaster in orbit had already taken a seat alongside the MPs as the Commissariat personnel walked in. “Commissar-Captain Kraine, a pleasure as always.” Colonel Appullo cracked wrly. The Commissar-Captain grunted, then replied swiftly with “Yes, a smuggling ring you said?” “That is Correct Commissar-Captain, the needs of the many made a sacrificial lamb for the excesses of the few; that is inexcusable, the men responsible must be found and made beholden unto the strictest terms of Military Law.” The Commissar-Captain took out a large pipe, seemingly made from a ceramic of sort and stuffed it full of a tar-smelling plant, flicked out his arc-lighter and gave it a ‘snap’ of ignition; he took a slow drag on it, then exhaled almost thoughtfully instead of his usual judgemental contempt for all living things. “Yes, your drive & devotion to duty does you credit; if you choose to, the Commissariat will take over the investigation of the PDF regiments’ survivors, if not, we shall assist.” The tent was deathly silent, Commissars never acted like this, it was a strange sight to behold.
	
	“Commissar-Captain, is everything alright?” Colonel Appullo asked, Commissar-Captain Kraine blew a few rings of smoke from the pipe, stood up from his seat at the table and then said “Gentlemen, I bid you farewell; I have some greedy scoundrels to catch and make humble.” The senior member of the surviving Imperial Navy’s Constabulary Officers a Sergeant-at-Arms by the name of Hayworth  spoke up after the Commissar-Captain left and said “I think he like the cut of your jib Colonel.” Colonel Appullo nearly snorted re-caff out of his nose, cleared his throat, then said “No Hayworth, I think he just enjoys his job; this gives him an opportunity to better pursue his Emperor-Given task.” That got a bit of a nod as one of the Junior Commissar’s stepped back in the tent, clearly having hung around to hear the conversation and said “He’s more right than you’d think.”. Appullo stood up from his seat, said aloud in an authoritative tone “Alright gentlemen, you know what to do, Hayworth, you gentlemen carry on; mission dockets and a suspect list will be sent to your respective adjutants accordingly.” The assembled men stood up, saluted & departed accordingly, each heading back to their respective section of the base camp that had been assembled assembled out of the ruins of an ancient city even the second wave colonists were afraid to aproach during the late 40th Millenia, respectively placed about 50 miles south east of the equally ancient spaceport. After roughly four years of fighting following the catastrophe in orbit, and the collapse of the “Titus Salient” both garnering great loss and enough of a standing triumph over the Adversary that could only be described as miraculous considering the circumstances. 
	
	The marines from what Appullo could only describe as “Archaic in every sense of the term” in regard to their chapter and methods of operation being equivalent to what would have happened had the Primarch of the Ultramarines not written the Codex Astartes & further developed the methodologies & hierarchical systems used by the Legiones Astartes instead of dividing the Legions and delivering an insult to the Emperor’s finest achievement over nature and the organizational structure that achievement was designed to thrive in. The Colonel strode carefully through the camp, with Staff-Sergeant Crassus always close with a hand on his Las-Pistol for fear of some trouble bubbling up from the millenia-old once-sewers turned warrens & catacombs like it had four months ago; the planet Decius has it’s fair share of problems, and constant warp incursions was certainly on that list. Colonel Appullo took out his pipe, lit the coals and took a few short drags from it, then observed the strange combat drills being performed by the Space Marines at the firing range in what could only have been a large former market place back before some nameless catastrophe came and tore any trace of mankind from this Throne-forsaken planet outside of crumbling ruins and abandoned infrastructure being consumed by arboreal forest.
	
	The Marines at one of the improvised firing stations were standing behind sandbags, with a Hoplítēs-Sergeant shouting orders for aimed & sustained fire drills. The Marine with the bronze crested helmet bellow out an order of “Tachýs!” or “Repetition” in their native language, the marines behind the barrier all flipped a fire-selector lever on their strangely proportioned bolters, with a loud snapping “clack” due to the weighty ceramite composition of the lever and it’s parts. The Hoplítēs-Sergeant ordered first aimed volley fire, then sustained volley fire; with a unique order for firing in pre-selected squadron based volley shooting, aiming at targets in between firing lanes and across the different firing lanes with both enfilading & raking fire. Colonel Appullo just muttered “huh” from between teeth clenched around his pipe’s mouth-piece; he waited till the drills were over and walked up to Hoplítēs-Sergeant and broke the question of “Beg pardon, but what was that for? I understand the practicality of sustained automatic fire & aimed, precise semi-automatic fire from a tactical perspective; but you are by far the only group of Astartes I have ever seen do something we lowly guardsmen pull out of our small-unit tactics books.” The Astartes Noncom chuffed, the noise sounded like a grating din of tedium & boredom being vocalized through his helmet. “We do these fire drills, and do not waste ammunition in this time of crisis fore’ when resupply is not in the Emperor’s tarot we must make every round of his holy instrument count; automatic fire is reserved for close combat, and even then controlled bursts of fire are encouraged and to be supplemented with righteous use of the bolter’s-stock and bayonet if possible.” The marine answered, almost as if reciting from an ancient doctrinal manual; Appullo feared provoking the visibly annoyed Astartes and just slowly nodded in agreement as an act of conversational tact.
	
	Colonel Appullo adjusted the collar on his officer’s coat and cleared his throat. “*ahem* Yes, it seems that adage from old Holy Mother Terra is true, Desperation is the Emperor’s Will guiding Invention.” The Astartes Noncom made an equally tedium-laden “Correct” in response. Staff Sergeant Crassus took a swig from his amasec flask and chuckled as the Astartes Noncom walked away, noticeably & aggressively knife handing at a Legion Scout for poor trigger discipline with non power-armor clad Marines about. “I had an instructor just like im’; he wasn’t a bad bloke; mind you, he just didn’t want those that fought in the Emperor’s Armies to be a bunch of lightweights that flinch from shellfire, I ope’ Master Sergeant Siricius is still breaking idiot boots and rebuilding em’ into right proper Guardsmen.” Colonel Appullo turned about face and uttered “Yes, I do hope the man is involved in shaping quality guardsmen out of the rabble most of us had the misfortune to harken from.” Then proceeded to walk back to his command tent with the rest of his staff and get the ball rolling on handling the logistical end of both such a massive sting operation & managing the non-astartes forces on this horrid little rock due to what could only be described as stellar isolation. Around four hours later, the sixth supply officer to run in reporting shortages of many of the original Astra Militarum provided & bountiful ordinance on several fronts chilled Appullo to the bone, Staff-Sergeant Crassus was sorting through field reports from two of the seperate fronts and from the fighting within the monolithic & decrepit space port. It seems that a unit of Space Marines cleared two floors going upwards and secured any potential choke points with the aid of re-directed PDF regiments taking up the slack for rearward security when the marines pushed the offensive. Using those damn power-spears they called “dóry” or some-such they pushed back Throne alone knew how many of the Adversary’s forces.
	
	The Emperor saw fit to make a wall of spear & shield, or as these Astartes of the “Hekatonkheires Legeónas” called themselves the “Stormlord’s Wall” Eventually, the unit-by-unit basis of the Tactical Situation would begin to reflect the greater Strategic situation due to the strange cosmic anomalaies afflicting the two closely-placed yet now highly isolated systems that had both endured two Human colonization cycles. The first cycle being that of great progress & growth as was made apparent by the vast ruins and crumbling wreckage. Found on most of the worlds & lunar bodies found in both systems. Decius was most decidedly a hell hole, but it’s mineral reserves, and position as a strategic asset & port made keeping and holding it vital in the eyes of the Astra Militarum. Unfortunately the Emperor’s Tarot didn’t read in the favor of the Imperial forces gathered to crush the heretical invaders, some viewed this as a sign of disfavor from the golden thrown amongst the locally conscripted forces, this attitude garnered the eye of the inquitorial detachment that survived the Catastrophe in Orbit; others of course viewed this as a challenge to further strengthen & steel their faith in the golden Throne, almost as if to spit in the eye of whatever ruinous forces were twisting fate to suit their needs through loyalty to the Emperor alone.
		
	The Colonel just sighed solemnly remembering what happened to the Furor Humanitas Mars Class Battlecruiser, major failures on the reactor decks, enormous crew casualties due to an unknown Warp Anomaly appearing out of the blackness of the Void. Appullo took a puff on his pipe, shuddered and muttered under his breath “Praise the Emperor enough crew got to the escape vessels.”. Staff Sergeant Crassus walked up, cleared his throat with a firm *Ahem*, then said “Sir, are you alright?”. Colonel Appullo took another puff on his distinctive ceramic pipe, then said aloud “No, nothings wrong Staff Sergeant; I just had the misfortune of remember the fate of the Mars Class Battlecruiser that brought us to this accursed system to begin with.” Staff Sergeant Crassus sighed, then snapped off a reply “Decius is a pisshole, that’s for bloody sure Sir; but it’s our Emperor given responsibility to kill anything that can’t make the sign of the Aquilla and actually have some bloody conviction while doing it.” Colonel Appullo let off a hearty roar of laughter due to the Staff Sergeants’ rather off-tune sense of humor; he checked his timepiece and began walking down to the motorcade gather all the necessary staff in tow, it was time to check on whatever progress the Commissariat had achieved through righteous interrogation of the responsible parties for what was apparently such a massive smuggling operation.