Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Danger

The alarm began to sound all across the ship. There was confusion and chaos as men and women ran to take up their combat positions again. The Emperor's Judgement had been at a state of readiness anyway; they had never stood down from action stations after the battle, but rather had adopted a repair state, where half of the crew manned their stations while the rest worked on fixing up damage caused by the fighting with the Chaos fleet. Now, every man was back at his station. The alarm was accompanied by a broadcast over the internal vox net.

'Attention, all hands. Prepare to repel boarders. I say again, prepare to repel boarders.'

More boarders? Again? There were rapid-fire rumours quickly spreading around the lower decks as to exactly how that could have happened. The previous broadcast had assured them that the enemy fleet was dead, defeated in battle. The Chaos boarding party had been contained and presumed to have been wiped out. Had some of them survived, tucked away in the bowels of the ship? Was there another enemy vessel out there, hidden, that had somehow managed to slip more men aboard?

Armsmen squads quickly fortified every deck armoury and secured the key locations around the ship, while crewmen gathered up whatever weapons they could bring to hand. On the bridge, Lord-Admiral Marcos had received a string of reports from his scientific officers. Anomalous readings had been detected on deck 11, which had triggered the initial alarm. Internal sensors had picked up the readings and automatically transmitted the alert, relaying the message to the bridge. More detailed investigation revealed that the cause was the detection of the unknown particle, the apparent source of pony magic, according to the Magi of the Ferrus Terra.

Given the location of the particles being detected, it seemed likely to Marcos that there must be an infiltrator among the maintenance team coming aboard- a Changeling, he presumed, given that a pony, who could not change its appearance, would be detected immediately by the crew. They had had quite enough trouble with the Changeling who had successfully infiltrated the bridge disguised as Major Harding, and Marcos did not want a repeat. He had ordered a team quickly dispatched to the hangar bay in question, but before he could even complete his command, more alarms had sounded from two other hangar bays. All of them were the locations of incoming landing barges from the Polaris Maxima. Were there multiple infiltrators?

But it made no sense. From previous experience, Marcos knew that a Changeling in disguise, either as a man or as something else, could not be detected by the internal sensors of his ship. That was how the impostor Harding had managed to reach the bridge unmolested and kill his close friend, Lord-General Galen. Despite extensive work on the system by members of the ship's technical teams and input from members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, there had been no significant advances that would improve the ability of the sensors to detect a disguised Changeling. That meant, if it was indeed a Changeling infiltrator who had tripped the alarm, that it must not be in disguise at all.

But how could it infiltrate the ship if it was undisguised? Surely the members of the repair team would spot and react to its presence, either during the transit through space or certainly once they arrived. Unless it was hidden away somewhere in the unpressurised sections of the barge; could Changelings survive in the vacuum of space? Surely not.

Marcos had then been alerted by a shout from the science officer. The readings of the unknown particle in hangar bay 20 had just skyrocketed, pegging out the sensors and then essentially overwhelming them entirely. Something in the hangar was giving off an impossibly high reading. It was the same situation as when Princess Celestia had been aboard the ship.

Marcos had immediately ordered a shipwide combat alert. This was no coincidental appearance. This had to be a deliberate boarding action. There were readings in three hangar bays, all of which had just received landing barges or shuttles carrying the repair teams from the Polaris Maxima. Now this sudden spike in the readings; just how many Changelings were there in bay 20?

Deck 11 was quickly sealed off, save for incoming squads of armsmen who were sent to reinforce the defences there. A report came from the starboard midship security station on the deck. They had sent a team to check on the hangar bay, and that team had come under attack; wiped out, it seemed. The sole survivor had reported monsters, foul black creatures that had been swarming over the hangar bay. That was the confirmation Marcos needed.

It had to be the Changelings, making some kind of boarding attempt under the direction of their Queen. No doubt Celestia would be interested to know about this- but if the incident could be contained, there would be no need to mention it to her at all. After all, Marcos had not told her about the previous infiltrator who had made its way aboard. He did not wish to show her the weakness of Imperial security when it came to these creatures. He knew that Celestia's main priority was to locate the Changeing Hive and defeat their Queen, but her previous attempt had only been partially successful, viewed by Marcos from orbit as the bulk of the pony military forces struck at the volcano Hive. The Queen and many of her minions had escaped quite readily, it seemed, and she had apparently managed to fight both Celestia and her sister to a standstill, in a similar fashion to the Greater Daemon in Fillydelphia. What the Changelings might want with his ship, Marcos could only guess. They had attacked Marcos and Galen, it was true, but he did not know why. The truth of what they sought had never been revealed by the first infiltrator when it had been in captivity in the brig. What were they after this time? Technology? Weapons? Him?

It would be alright. They had just fought off a Chaos boarding party, and they would fight off a Changeling boarding party too. Marcos was confident. He ordered the vox officer to open a channel with the Polaris Maxima. They would need to be alerted to the possibility of more Changelings being aboard their own vessel. Clearly the contamination had come from the cruiser, and there could be more of the creatures hidden away in the lower levels of that ship also.

'My Lord, I have the Polaris Maxima,' the vox officer informed him.

'Captain Danrich, this is Lord-Admiral Marcos,' he began. 'Be advised, we have detected Changelings on board our ship, in the hangar bays where your repair teams docked. I advise you to go to battle stations at once and conduct a full investigation of your own vessel. There may be more of these creatures on your ship.'

'Understood, My Lord,' came the familiar voice of the Captain of the light cruiser. 'We shall conduct a sweep at once!' Danrich informed him. 'Are the enemy contained?'

'Yes, we have sealed the affected deck,' Marcos replied. 'I do not know how the Changelings managed to escape detection until they came aboard. It is possible that they were on the outside of the barges or in some unpressurised area. Conduct an external sweep of your vessel also,' he ordered. 'They might be hiding in plain sight.'

'Yes, My Lord. It will be done,' Danrich assured him. 'We shall check every inch of our ship for them.'

'Very good, Captain. Keep me informed if you find anything. We must rid ourselves of this scourge as soon as possible,' Marcos muttered, before signing off. His fleet did not need any further trouble from Changelings, not now. There was still much to be done; more Chaos ships to be cautious of, the Daemon to defeat or drive off. The ponies would not be abandoned, not under Marcos's watch, but his own house had to be put in order before they could return to their duties on the planet. The Archenemy would be defeated, but first, this small infiltration had to be dealt with.

Lieutenant Jarrick peered over the barricade. The armoury was fully manned, bristling with guns. Its defensive turrets were activated. A trio of gun-servitors were also in position, barrels scanning for targets, the pilot lights of their flamethrowers glowing faintly. They were watching the passageway that led out to the hangar bays, down which the bloodied survivor had stumbled. He was dead now; the medics had tried their best, but he had gone into shock and they had been unable to revive him.

The monsters he had reported must be the Changelings, Jarrick reasoned. He knew little of them, almost nothing in truth, but there had been reports of these strange new creatures disguising themselves as men. One of them had come aboard the Emperor's Judgement before, and been dealt with, though the specifics of that incident had not been revealed to the majority of the ship's crew. Jarrick, as a security officer, had been told more than most, because he would have to be on the lookout for just such infiltrations in the future- and now, here it was. Ironically, given all of the concern over their ability to disguise their true form, it seemed that the Changelings were not in disguise this time at all.

They were, however, still sneaky. While the defenders were focusing their attentions on the passageway to the hangars, not many eyes were turned upward. At the top of the armoury chamber were pipes and vents, supplying water, plasma, heating, sewerage and ventilation connections to and from various sections of the ship. Some of them connected to the hangar bays, providing emergency ventilation and supplies for compressed air, hydraulic fluid and electrical cables. The spaces were too small for a man to enter, or indeed for a Changeling. But Changelings were adaptable, and a small swarm of flies escaped through the vents in the air duct above the armoury, rapidly descending upon the waiting men, soundlessly and without any indication of their presence until they had closed the distance.

Suddenly, they were not flies anymore, but Changelings again, and they were upon the defenders. There were shouts of alarm and men turned, looking around in confusion. It was too late for several of them, cut down by sharp horns. Green blasts of energy flashed across the upper level of the armoury and more men fell with holes burned in their chests. Suddenly the fight was not outside the walls, but within, as Changelings descended upon them seemingly from nowhere.

Nobody had suspected such a move. No creature the size of a Changeling should have been able to get through the vents above, but that was the only way they could have outflanked the armsmen. None of the defenders knew the true extent of the shapeshifting abilities of the drones that faced them in combat. In fact, most of them had never seen so much as a picture or vid-image of the creatures. There were cries of dismay as many men thought they had been somehow discovered and boarded by Tyranids, for the Changelings bore a strong resemblance to some offshoot type of that foulest of alien species.

They fought with a speed and agility that terrified and stunned their human opponents, using their horns as bayonets as well as guns, firing off blasts of their magic as they advanced, swooping down from above with bared fangs and hissing tongues, shock and awe against the overwhelmed defenders. Now, as their attention was taken away from the passageway they had been watching, more Changelings began to pour forth, coming into the chamber from all three hangar bays which had been occupied on deck 11.

Lieutenant Jarrick knew his position was immediately in trouble. The armoury was not supposed to be attacked from above. It could not physically be, by most enemy forces; the pipes and vents were too small for a man, Eldar or Ork to crawl through, and it would take an age to cut through the thick deck above with plasma cutters. Enemies capable of flight could in theory climb above and attack from the top down, but such enemies were relatively rare, and since even they would have to enter the chamber from one of the passageways around the edge, they certainly could not achieve the element of surprise the way the Changelings had.

Jarrick's hellgun flashed and cut down one of the drones as it tried to get inside the barricade. It flailed and fell, dropping down to the deck outside. The auto-turrets rattled away as and when they got targets, but since the Changelings were coming from above, outside of their line of fire, only the two turrets aimed at the passageway from the hangar bays could actually engage the enemy with any kind of regularity. Where they hit, they did damage, tearing through the chitinous armour of the drones, at least those who were not protecting themselves with forcefields of green magic, shielding themselves from the majority of in coming fire. Only the few hellguns of the senior crew were able to penetrate their shields, as las weapons seemed to be, from the field reports, the only one which could reliably do so.

Another fearsome component of the armoury's defences were the trio of servitors. Two were armed with flamers and the other possessed an assault cannon. The flamers were proving a deadly threat, scorching and burning some several dozen of the Changelings as they swarmed in from above and below. Changeling horns and even their magic blasts could do little more than char and scorch the metallic, mechanical components of the man-machines. They were effective at holding the tide at bay; at least, for a while.

Just when it seemed the servitors might prove the vital link in the defensive chain, one of them exploded violently in a green and orange flash, spurts of burning Promethium splashing onto unlucky armsmen nearby and igniting their uniforms and flesh. A servitor couldn't just simply explode- could it?

Another green flash tore one of the armoured turrets from its wall mounting, ripping open the ammunition feed belt and sending unspent bullets tumbling and clanging from the deck. Jarrick looked around in confusion as deck plating, solid, steel deck plating, began to rip itself free, wrong-footing many of his men and sending them tumbling. Where they fell, the drones were upon them in moments, stabbing and biting ferociously. He did not know what was happening, but then suddenly he could see the source.

Out among the sea of drones, one figure stood out. It stood tall above the others, more than twice the height of the rest. Its horn was not curved like the others, but rather crooked, like a jagged cliff face rising from the green sea of hair that formed its mane. Even if its sheer size had not been an indicator of its status, then the aura it gave off would have been. It did not radiate evil in the way that a Daemon would, but it most certainly radiated intent, power and control. The lesser Changelings parted like a field of corn before it, allowing it to pass among them while still providing a protective screen against Imperial fire from the armoury. Not that it needed it; the creature possessed the ability to produce a shield with its psychic powers, but unlike the smaller drones, this one was proof even against las-fire, which had been identified as a weakness of all magic save for that of the pony Princesses and the Changeling Queen.

That left little doubt in Jarrick's mind- they were not only facing Changelings, but their leader as well. He did not know what her exact powers or abilities were, but he feared they had just experienced a display of them. The assault cannon-wielding Servitor turned its weapon toward the Queen, riddling her shield with a stream of bullets from the six blazing barrels. There was an impressive show of sparks, but the shield was untroubled, and the Queen now had a new target. The servitor suddenly lifted into the air before being slammed back bodily against the barricades. It did little to the tough, mostly metal man, but then it found itself being tossed across the chamber like a ragdoll, assault cannon still firing ineffectually into the ceiling as its targeting sensors were thrown off, unable to gyroscopically compensate. The servitor smashed into the far wall of the chamber at high speed and tumbled down into a heap. Still, the resilient cyborg tried to rise, but its mostly organic left leg was broken down to a pulp, and a dozen drones swarmed onto it, cutting and stabbing and burning with their magic.

Now there was just the one servitor left, and it was struggling against the sheer numbers of drones. Their shields were able to protect them against the flames, at least for a while, but they moved much too fast to be able to put the exact durability of their magic against heat to the test. Gunfire was also ineffective, but the drones had to lower them to attack physically, or to make use of their magic for other purposes, as they lacked the dexterity and power being exhibited by their Queen. That made them vulnerable to shotgun blasts at short range when they lowered their shields to lunge at their enemies, and several went down hissing. Others were caught by the bursts of flame from the servitor as they tried to leap in and attack it with their horns and fangs. After several notable failures to inflict any damage on its mostly metallic surface, however, the methods of the Changelings changed notably. Instead of leaping at the servitor as they did with the armsmen around it, they stayed back, horns lowered and firing.

Just like the dreaded Tyranids which they so resembled, these Changelings were learning en masse, thanks to the neural connection they shared through their Hive Mind. Whereas a human soldier might shout a warning to his squad, or make a vox call to his platoon, about the strengths and weaknesses of an enemy, the Changelings were seemingly able to alert their entire assault force, perhaps their entire species, at once through the sheer power of the mind. It was deeply terrifying to witness; what else might they be capable of doing with such mental abilities? What other information might they have already gleaned and shared from their brief time aboard the battleship?

All Lieutenant Jarrick was concerned with was how the armsmen could defeat them. The Changelings were proving surprisingly resilient for such a technologically primitive species. Their shields, though natural in origin rather than technological, seemed to be very effective against almost everything the defenders could throw at them. Even where they had been struck without their shields, the chitinous bodies of the Changelings appeared able to shrug off quite a lot of violence, and not every shot would kill or even delay a drone that was in the process of launching an attack of its own. Their numbers also gave them another advantage- and then there was the Queen. With so many other targets around, the armsmen were not able to focus their fire upon her, but Jarrick felt sure that even if they did it would make little difference. She seemed completely indifferent to the shots that did come her way, and focused her attention instead on taking care of particular strong points in the Imperial defences- turrets were torn from their mountings, and the final servitor, surrounded by drones and taking a toll with its flamer, found its head separated from its body by a disc of glowing green energy; perhaps not the biggest problem for a being that was more machine than man at this point, except for the fact that its targeting sensors were in its head, and without a connection to the logic engines and servo-motors that powered the rest of the body and the weapon, the servitor was nothing more than a useless lump of metal. The drones surged in as one, on cue from their Queen, and tore the rest of the thing to pieces.

Jarrick knew they were in deep trouble now. He kept low, as blasts of magic were flashing across the barricades, and headed back inside the armoury to his station. He keyed the vox and sent out a call.

'Security to Deck Command, come in! We are in danger of being overrun, I say again, we are in danger of being overrun!' he called urgently. 'Requesting reinforcements!'

'Deck Command to Security. The deck has been sealed,' came the reply. 'No reinforcements can make it through to you.'

Jarrick's heart sank. Surely the only chance they had was to stop the Changelings here. They had fallen on the armoury from above, meaning they had found a way through the pipes and vents, and while the ship's crew may have sealed off all bulkheads, turbolifts and stairwells, they could not close off every single vital artery that the vessel depended upon for operation. Without hydraulic fluid, fresh air, water, sewerage, electricity, plasma, and communications, the Emperor's Judgement would be a dead entity, just a huge lump of metal hanging in space with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

'Deck Command, that won't be enough!' he shouted. 'The Changelings can get through! They know about the pipe chases and the ventilation ducts! I don't know how, but they do! It's the only way they could have gotten the drop on us here.' There was a pause before a reply from the vox.

'We will pass on that information, Security. The deck will remain sealed, however. No reinforcements can be sent.'

'Copy that...' Jarrick replied. So that was it, then. They were all going to die, it seemed. No rescue, no backup coming to help. No escape, either; the armoury was designed to be held, not to be abandoned, and fighting their way through so many drones seemed an unlikely prospect. The armsmen were taking casualties, being pressed from all sides now as the Changelings swarmed around, some taking to the air while others remained on the ground level, crawling all over the outer barricades which had been overrun already.

Jarrick shouted an order for the armsmen to fall back to the inner cordon. The exterior defence guns had been lost, and ammunition needed to be resupplied from the stores. The men fell back in bounds, covering each other as best they could, though their shotguns lacked range and only a relatively small number had autoguns. There were fewer of them now, having taken casualties in defending the walls. They had failed to keep the Changelings out of the Armoury walls, and all they could do was retreat to the inner fortress structure itself. Jarrick ordered the doors sealed, and they clanged shut, armoured firing ports being used to good effect along each wall for armsmen to poke their barrels through and engage at point blank range as the Changelings began to approach closer, clawing and banging at the metal, unable to break through.

Jarrick checked his hellgun's power cell. He still had half of its charge remaining, enough for plenty of shots. He sent another message pleading for support to Deck Command, but received the same negative response. A few grenades were tossed out through the firing slits, doing an unknown amount of damage to the Changelings. The exterior vid-cams which had dotted the outside of the structure had been destroyed or damaged in the fighting, and all of the feeds on the security monitor were blank. Jarrick didn't know what was going on outside.

He soon found out. The Changeling magic seemed unable to penetrate the thick steel, though drones were clearly firing at the Armoury, but something certainly could. He looked up in alarm as the roof and the top few feet of the Armoury structure began to peel away like the lid of a tin can containing emergency rations. Other men looked up as well, aiming their guns in confusion. The roof fell aside like the petals of a flower opening up, and revealed a single Changeling.

It was the Queen, floating above the structure. Her crooked horn glowed menacingly. A hail of bullets and shells greeted her appearance, and they all bounced harmlessly off of her shield. After a few seconds of firing, most of the armsmen had emptied their magazines at her to no effect, and had to reload. Sweaty hands scrambled in ammo pouches and belts for new shells, new clips to load.

At an unspoken command from their Queen, a hundred or more drones suddenly appeared over the lip of the now open-topped Armoury. They dove down upon their all-but defenceless foes, and the Armoury became a slaughterhouse.

The Chaos fleet had been shattered, thrown into deep disarray by the destruction of the pursuit force they had sent to bring the Imperial Crusade to heel. They had taken heavy losses, and though it was not their entire force which had been lost, it was a significant fraction of it. That did not, however, mean they were defenceless, nor did it mean that they did not have a plan.

With ships still in orbit around the planet, the Chaos fleet still controlled access, either to or from the surface. Imperial reinforcements could not reach those on the ground already, nor could any evacuation take place. A new stalemate had formed. No longer did the Chaos remnants on the planet have to contend with the threat of orbital bombardment. Though few in number after the relentless Imperial efforts to eradicate them, they could still pose a threat in numbers, and they still had in their possession the city of Fillydelphia, a key target for their opponents.

Their Daemonic ally had proven key in forcing the Imperials back from the city, mostly through fear rather than overt action. But more needed to be done. There were plans which, though temporarily derailed, could now be put firmly back on track. Keen minds intended to do just that. And so, from the bowels of the ships now in orbit around the planet, came dozens of landing barges and shuttles. There were no dedicated transports among the fleet, but each capital ship and destroyer had at least some troop carrying capacity of its own. Each craft carried men both for defence against boarding, but also to conduct such operations themselves and to make landfall planetside when needed.

Down into the atmosphere went the numerous craft, escorted by several hundred fighters and bombers. They had targets, hastily drawn up by tactical planners aboard ship. The situation was markedly different to the last time Chaos forces were able to launch aircraft for a ground attack sortie from orbit, but, if Tzeentch was willing, the outcome on this day would be successful, a victory for the Dark Powers and for the Lord of Change.

Lower, still lower they descended, hulls glowing white hot from the forces of reentry as they made the passage into the atmosphere of the planet and stabilised their approaches. Some split off from the main group to proceed south to Fillydelphia and reinforce the friendly units stationed there, but the vast majority of the force continued on to the main objective, set in their sights. They were going to finish what they had once started, and capture it permanently.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Chrysalis wants the flagship, and theres nothing that can stop her. Even a warp force injection into the hive mind would limit her?

The ships crew are feeding her. The more powerful she gets, the more destructive she becomes, the more fanatical the Emperors follows pray, the more they feed her.

The Emperors judgement on Chrysalis? Exterminatus.

As for the Chaos crew heading for Canterlot?

Let the ground meet them.

What would be intresting, if Celestia, etc between them could duplicate a strange defensive device from EE Doc Smith.

The HILL.

[logros13]

And once again the Imperials are portrayed as completely and utterly incompetent, how surprising.

I have to wonder what the crusade fought previously if they have supposedly conquered several systems already. I won't claim to remember the entire story up to now with perfect clarity but i think the Imperials have literally never won a battle against anything not human without the ponies help?
Be it demons or xenos the Imperials apparently need Celestia to babysit them through all of it, despite the fact that humanity are supposed to veterans of ten millennia of fighting just these kinds of foes and being vastly technologically superior to any local forces.

I'd say maybe i will be surprised and the humans will actually be able to take care of themselves without calling their babysitter to come and save them but after the space "battle" i'm not holding my breath.

[BRBrony9]

10315674
Well I would certainly challenge the assertion that the Imperials are being portrayed as "completely and utterly incompetent," but disregarding that, how competent would you expect any military force to be, exactly, against an enemy they have never fought before, using powers they have never encountered before, and with the ability to turn into a perfect copy of another human or indeed any other creature? How effective do you imagine the first response to the Tyranids was, for example? We know the answer to that- the world of Tyran was wiped out, and that was the first of many.

If the Imperials just waltzed in and wiped everything out, there wouldn't be much of a story at all, would there?

[warpsmith]

10316704
Ou i could make a whole book of how incompetent these imperials are. From Their whole crusade size that would be considered too small to be called crusade, a patrol at best. To not reporting to sector command. Or using heat detectors to find intruders like in Eisenhorn book. Or how they do not use anti genestealer cult protocols of using auspex scanners to check peoples DNA, like in Ciaphas Cain book. Or how they speak about videos even thous that is not how imperials speak about cameras, they say pict instead of cameras like shown in all of the 40k books. Or how they over step their jurisdictions. And oh sou much more.

[BRBrony9]

10317555
Well in no particular order;

The Crusade fleet has been whittled down considerably by fighting both in this story and prior to it, plus it was not necessarily a full-scale Crusade like that led by Macharius, even if it fulfilled a similar role. The part of the galaxy it was sent to meant they were not expected to encounter a huge insurmountable level of resistance that would require a much bigger fleet, Astartes involvement, etc. The vagaries of the warp make resupply hit or miss at the best of times. They have been reporting to HQ, but again, communications over such vast distances are spotty.

They don't say cameras, they say vid-screens or vid-picts or similar. If I've slipped up somewhere and called it a camera, please let me know which chapter and I'll be happy to correct it.

I was unaware of the Imperium having any DNA-scanning technology available to the rank and file. It sounds to me like it would be far beyond the reach of Navy/Guard forces and something available only to the Ad Mech, or perhaps Inquisitors. Likewise heat detectors/thermal scopes are indeed used, in the tank battles for example. I'm not sure what use they would be against Changelings when Changelings would have absorbed the knowledge of such devices and could easily turn themselves into a cold-blooded creature or something like a fly with a minuscule thermal signature.

Overstepping jurisdictions- that's basically what most Imperial commanders do, otherwise the whole empire would collapse in on itself. It's basically an Inquisitor's job description, whose to say others can't do the same when the need arises? We already know that they do.

[warpsmith]

10318280
Well let me show you some numbers of reclamation fleet.
Battlegroup Geratomro, 398.M41

Astra Militarum

–>Battlegroup Geratomro [note, initial reclamation force. Much depleted. Reinforced]

Commanding officer General Jonatan Hern

415th Cadian (foot) [@18%]

754th Cadian (armoured) [@28%]

89th Cadian (support) [@76%]

Fourth Jupian Ironlords (foot) [note, low technological base, supplies inadequate. Petition #100003427328905, filed 976.M40, unresolved] [@17%]

36th Ogryn Auxilia [@63%]

First Drani New-Pledged (foot) [@56%]

Second Drani New-Pledged (rough riders) [@72%]

->->Battlegroup Kalidar

(cross ref. Dentares Wargroup of the Indranis Campaign sheet #71, Cc/ref Eldar attach. 391-394M41]

Commanding officer, Captain-General Iskhandrian [advised, Grand Captain Olgau. Cc/ref Atraxian command protocols, Sibellius’ Guide to Imperial Guard Regiments of Segmentum Tempestus]

23rd Paragon (foot) [@50%]

322nd Paragonian Armoured Veterans (armoured) [@29%]
62nd and 84th Mechanised Infantry/Infantry Paragonian (merged, Mech. Inf.) [@83%] Vet./Non-national officers (cross ref sheet#2066; Lost Regiments of the Dentares Suppression)

Seventh Super-Heavy Paragonian (multiple role) [@full]

18th Atraxian Super-Heavy Tank Company (generalised) [@full]

12th Savlar (light infantry; toxic environment specialists) [@72%]

13th Savlar (light Infantry; toxic environment specialists) [@57%]

121st Atraxian Mechanised (heavy infantry) [@37%]

122nd Atraxian Artillery (support) [@90%]

Atraxian Guard Paramount (heavy infantry) [note, Tempestus Scions]

Reinforcements, Battlegroup Kalidar [raised Paragon VI, 6, {Primus, Moon} “Paragon”, Paragon System, 395.M41]

63rd Paragonian Mechanised [@26%]

42nd Paragonian Armoured (number reassigned, 42nd disbanded regiment – cross ref Appendix 101, Emperor’s Gift Grants to veterans, Segmentum Pacificus, 4th century, M41). [@54%]

Reinforcements, Battlegroup Kalidar [raised Artemis V {Primus}, “Bosovar”, Artemis System, 396. M41]

31st, 32nd, 33rd and 34th Bosovar Levies [@99%, 100%, 100% respec.] (cross ref. feral world troopers of Artemis Subsector +++document missing+++)

ADDITIONAL

Command assets incl. Leviathan-class command vehicle, Magnificence [undeployed?query?]
–>–>Second Gulem Recovery Force

Commanding officer, General Maden Heldor Lo Basteen

Eighth Paragonian Super-Heavy Tank Company (assault)

477th Paragonian (foot) [note, double-size raising]

Tempestus Scions ‘Black Suns’

84th Paragonian (armoured)

109th Paragonian Artillery (support)

Beginning of Departmento Munitorum listing of Astra Militarum assets present on Geratomro. In total three merged battlegroups were present with an overall strength estimated at five million men
From Shadowsword.
Or how in Eishorn, xenos. A world to muster had given troops of 750 thousands to be a part of crusade in offio sub-sector.

[warpsmith]

Then comes the Dna auspex in Ciaphas Cain book emperors finest.

They were keeping their lasguns trained on us, just as they should have done with so much PDF kit still in the hands of insurrectionists and troublemakers, and I was pleased to see that they kept them on aim even after my uniform had become visible. ‘Commissar.’ The sergeant nodded a greeting, no doubt wondering if he or any of his men were in trouble, but determined not to show it. Very few Guardsmen are pleased to see a red sash, which no doubt accounts for the inordinate number of my colleagues felled by friendly-fire accidents. ‘We weren’t told to expect you.’ ‘Probably because I had no idea any of our people were down here,’ I said, noting the faint stirring of relief among the soldiers. ‘My aide and I are on our way to the aerodrome.’ I smiled at the troopers, who were still keeping us covered. ‘You can stand down. We’re not hybrids or ’stealer puppets.’ ‘Of course not,’ the sergeant agreed, stepping forwards, a trifle nervously, with a portable auspex. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind indulging me, sir? I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to neglect our orders.’ ‘By no means,’ I agreed, reholstering my laspistol and climbing down to the roadway so he could take his genescan a little more easily. The unit beeped, and a rune flashed green, after which everyone looked a little more comfortable, particularly once Jurgen was confirmed to be a reasonable approximation of a human as well.

[warpsmith]

And what come to jurisdiction, anyone in astra militarum cannot give any and i mean any order to thous of mechanicus. They are protected by treaty of olympus by the emperor himself. Sou someone in extremely high ranking of arch magos would not take orders from anyone.
And then Someone in astra militarum cannot make alliances that whole imperium would have to follow. And what comes to diplomacy in the first place, would be given to a professional diplomat from adeptus administratum.
And what comes to wordings, there have been words such as computers and cameras. One notable comes from chapter 2 where computer is said even tho is would be cogitator.

[BRBrony9]

10319091
Thanks for pointing out that error, I have corrected it to cogitator now.

I'm not sure your list of units is incompatible with the numbers of troops that the Crusade has- I've probably listed the same amount of different Regiments throughout the story, with a minimum of hundreds of thousands of men, probably millions, being deployed. There was mention of one transport being damaged in one compartment that resulted in thousands of dead Guardsmen, there are siege regiments, super-heavy tanks, airborne infantry, armoured Regiments etc. As a counterpoint, someone else criticised my depiction of an armoured Regiment as being far too big according to some other 40k source, so it seems I can't win either way!

The DNA scan/genescan would presumably not work in detecting Changelings, given that the ships' internal sensors failed to do so, for example when bringing passengers or support crews aboard. The Changeling infiltrator who killed Lord-General Galen passed every security check which would undoubtedly include such a scan if the technology is as widespread as the excerpt you posted suggests. Additionally medical tests on living, disguised drones have already been mentioned as coming back identical to those of a normal human. To quote from the chapter Discovery;

This meant, the medicae had warned, that even a blood test could not determine a man from a Changeling.

As to the Mechanicus, there have already been issues between them and the Lord-Admiral and following his orders, for example their unilateral taking of prisoners and corpses for study, sending reports back to their superiors, etc. They only follow his directives when it suits them and there will be more mentioned about this in the story.

[warpsmith]

10319557
If changeling change form in a gene level, then they become that thing. There would be no turn back at that point. There cant change their whole body without consequences in certain points. If they turn to a fly and inherit all of their dna and structure to perfect point. Then their brains would be that of a fly meaning that they lose rational thinking and ability to change back. To be a psyker one has to have specific mutation to allow this, like pyriah gene. Hell they have not done anything similar in the show and saying that their horns could pierce imperial navys armsmens carapase armor is just silly.
They are still armsmen of imperial navy, they are elite force that has taken down forces outnumbering them and outgunning them. Hell i can even link a point where they do just that.
https://youtu.be/Zesx5biBMCM?t=16459

[BRBrony9]

10319777
The show has not delved into the specifics of pony/Changeling genetics or indeed magic to any meaningful degree. We've seen Ocellus turn into various creatures, so we know that such shapeshifting is entirely possible (i.e. it's not just ponies they can transform into). In this particular story, they can do what they do. That's just how I chose to interpret them and their abilities.

[Divine Avenger]

10319777
Improbably armsmen are fine against the space crews on imperial warships and against orks but not eldar or space marines in the one of the night Lord's book a squad of night Lord wiped the floor with them all the way to the ship command bridge

[warpsmith]

10322726
Ofcourse they don't, its not like armsmen have boarding shields as thick as tank plate on addition of power armor. But at the same time i can probably find that specific text is pandorax book where simple crew of a battleship charge a red corsair space marine on a corridor, rip off his helmet and stab him to death.

[Divine Avenger]

10322912
And am sure some of his crew mates died while the chaos marine was distracted by killing them first

[warpsmith]

10323696
No he was not distracted, they just ran at him straight on, some of them died yes but still. If you want one on one then at the same story a catachan killed a plague marine by slitting his throat, then taking several grenades that she planted below dead plague marine. Then second plague marines came to check his brother, turned his body around and activated thous grenades killing him.

[Divine Avenger]

10324056
Well that not surprising from someone from an Imperial Guard regiment that is literally a planet full of Rambos.

[RDDash]

The human commander better report his incompetent ass to Celestia. There had to be self destruct protocols to blow the ships sky high.