Chapter 7 With the end of one war another one begins

With the fall of the leadership of nostramo quintis , konrad's forces swept across the city. with every bit of the city and its resources now his he began to set up new laws, launching investigations into the pdf and local government and with every sign of corruption being quickly purged from the hive, the preparation for war began anew with many of the homeless and unemployed being swept off the street conscripted into konrad's growing army.

Konrad POV

With the city under my control, I've had to reorganize and ramp up recruitment of my judges, creating three branches separated into three main groups.

The enforcers, taking the name of the original police force of nostramo. They are my shield to dissenters and criminals alike. They are charged to protect the civilians and keep society going by any means necessary in the hive city and soon all civilian centers.

The night children, the smallest of the three, consisting of the most stealthy and secretive of all judges, they are my eyes and ears, and most of all, my knives in the dark. They commit my most clandestine missions, whether that be information gathering and assassination of targets. I don't plan to kill myself or with soon joining the imperium, to kill those I can't have connected to me. They will be my greatest secret outside of my origins, I can't have them found by the likes of malcador or God Emperor forbid the high lords of Terra in the future for humans have an insatiable hunger for control over one another. For when I'm dead and gone from this universe. They shall be the searching knife hunting the foes that would do my people harm. They also have all my current and the soon to be found, so they can complete their tasks better than any other.

The final branch and possibly the most important in any military campaign in this galaxy, the judges of battle. They alone carry out punishments among the armed forces and all involved by inspiring the men to keep going, whether that be through valor or fear it matters not but to keep to the battle going. They hold similar duties to those commisars of the future. Hell, they already have a saying among the troops that being "Fear me BUT follow." They shall ensure that the very fiber of my men never become corrupted by the dark powers laying deep in the darkness waiting to pounce and conquer all of reality. These men and women will be the scalpel cutting away any rotting flesh growing on my military arm to forever deny the great enemy a pawn to use against me.

I shall only tell my judges the true dangers lynging in waiting to take humanities very soul. For how is a force to destroy something when they don't know the enemy they're even fighting and it's dark tactics.

It is not just my judges needing reorganization but the very city itself in each sector to be upgraded and polices made to ensure complete efficiency and a greater effort to encourage progress and adaptation to reward those who help in the march of time.

With new factories being built and the resources of war grow so does the newly developed egineer core made specifically to find upgrades to current equipment and possible new ones to be tested and if successful to be added to the pile of tools to be used in the campaigns of war to come. It may not be much now, but I can already see a growing group of technicians wishing nothing more than to provide progress.

To tide any corruption I centralized everything that could be a tool of power ranging from media to every arms factory all under my ownership with trusted and loyal people at their helms to keep it all in line with my desire to expand and grant justice on those remaining criminals in the four remaining hive cities.

Standing in front of a map, I slam a wax seal bearing the now signature mark of a human skull with batwings on a document to be sent to the remaining hive cities demanding surrender of the remaining hive cities. This demand will be denied, but I need documentation to prevent people from saying that I never tried diplomacy first.

So, while waiting for the rejected response of three of the four remaining targets and the final one not responding period. I inspect the waiting freshly made and training mobile infantry division practicing drills of dismounting the taurox into a mock urban environment. Next to the infantry section was the armor section practicing their accuracy and reload drills firing from tanks with a similar chasis to the leopard 2 tank model ofcource with upgraded armaments due to my refusal to use tanks based off the mark 1/2 great war model hoping with a different model I can use more dug in tactics to work in tandem with me or my soon to be legion for what way outside of machines could a regular human keep up with a space marine.

Eventually, after a few hours of waiting, I received word of the responses. All I can do is grin while looking into the dark and dusty distance as I hear of the other cities sound refusal to my demands.

"We are coming for you, and nothing you can do will stop the reckoning coming your way, leaving you, but nothing more than a foot note in the history is cam see unfolding before my very eyes."

3rd Person POV:

All the hives on nostramo are preparing for war, while some are merely readying their defenses. Some are even gearing up to invade hive nostramo quintis. All but one hive is taking the threat seriously, and this one arrogant city is called hive tenebrosus.

Normally, most hives on nostramo are not in easily defensible positions, but tenebrosus is the odd one out in this situation being situated on top of a 3 way split canyon with the only access points being two large bridges each guarded with walls set before the bridges themselves creating a layer of defense that to the mostly unorganized crime lords would find impossible to breach and for most of this hives history it's has shown to be true.

As for the other three cities affectionately called the three hags. It has long lost their original names to time, but being the smallest hives, they have held an alliance for many generations to fend off the larger hives and to them this is no different.[AN:oh how wrong they are hehehe]

Two of the three are preparing trenches and makeshift explosives along with a wide assortment of guns and mele weapons being prepared as the gangs quite literally whipping the civilians to pump out equipment to arm the gangs in preparation for the fight. With miles of makeshift chain traps and i.e.d. spread out around the hive and hundreds of jurryrigged catapults loaded with improvised explosives, they wait for the war to come.

The last of the three on the other hand is actively fueling what can only be described as a veritable fleet of civilian vehicles modded with explosive lances for suicide charges to mounted turrets to hose lead at great speeds on to their enemies. Though each vehicle is ill maintained, they hope their weight of numbers can see them through to victory or die trying, knowing what fate awaits them should they fail. Being the closer of any of the other hives, they know who the night haunter is and his crusade against criminals, so every criminal in this hive is preparing for the fight ahead in a all pr nothing assault hoping to catch the forces unawares on their march. It will leave the hive completely empty of defenders, but they could care less about it after hearing what good it did for the gangs of hive quintis.

In one of many of the current mechanic camps a hulking size of a woman could be seen shouting around at the mechanics to hurry up in up armoring her large truck mounted with what appears to be 20mm cannons. As for the woman herself standing around 6 feet tall and with a bulk that looks like she could eat nails for breakfast. She is preparing for death in her own aggressive way.

"I want this shit done like it was due yesterday, you maggots!"

"But boss lady, we can't move much faster without risk of compromising your cars frame. At this rate, she'll be ready in about eight hours. We understand what's at stake here, and we agree to die for our way of life."

Looking around, the lady sighs

"I know, but I can't just stand here doing nothing but sharpen my axe and count the ammo to my shotgun. We need to see this fight done. Win or lose our hives, and fate will be decided on our terms."

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Author here once again. Thank you for reading, and I have some sad news. I can't come up with a good name for the mortal army under konrad, so if you have any suggestions, please do comment them down here. I have a few, but I don't think they would fit

Army names

rolling shadow

the terror guard

other (your guys' suggestions)