From Interesting Places and Tedious People: A Wanderer's Waybook, by Jerval Sekara, 145.M39.
THE AGRI-WORLD OF Vidia lies a little to spinward of the more populous regions of the Damocles Gulf, but can be reached surprisingly easily, due to the large volume of traffic to and from the neighbouring hive-worlds. This makes it a useful stopover point, since passage there, and to whatever eventual destination the wayfarer may settle upon once its decidedly bucolic charms have begun to pall, may be easily obtained.
It is, however, worth a brief sojourn, as it manages to combine both rural simplicity and urban sophistication in a manner which, if not unique, is certainly uncommon in this part of the Imperium. In part this is due to the sheer volume of shipping, since enterprising grain barge captains compete energetically with one another to wring some kind of profit from the inward leg of their journeys, ensuring a steady supply of offworld merchandise of a variety almost unparalleled elsewhere in the subsector. As the local saying has it, if you can't find it on Viridia, it probably doesn't exist.
All of which has made the world itself tolerably prosperous, with a thriving mercantile class, who, in the manner of parvenus everywhere, fritter away their profits on grandiose architecture and philanthropic enterprises intended to better the lot of the artisans, whether they want it bettered or not. As a result, the planetary capital, Fidelis, is positively awash with grand public buildings, ornamented to within an inch of their lives and separated by a profuse scattering of parks and gardens. The local populace is hardworking and pious, to such an extent that almost every street contains a chapel or shrine to the Emperor. Notwithstanding, they throw themselves into any excuse for a celebration wholeheartedly, with the annual festivals dedicated to some aspect or other of the agricultural cycle being particularly popular. The epitome of ecclesiarchial architecture, however, must surely be the cathedral in Fidelis, which in size and splendour can rival those to be found on far more populous worlds, and which attracts pilgrims from all over the Viridia System.
For, unlike most other agriworlds, Viridia exports a great deal more than just foodstuffs. The rest of the planetary system of which it is a part is exceptionally rich in minerals, and millions of its citizens live offworld, in orbitals, void stations and mining habs, dedicated to harvesting this bounty as assiduously as their pitchfork-wielding cousins on the surface do theirs. In fact, it's no exaggeration to say that around half the total Viridian population have never set foot on the planet they nominally call home, and never will. The raw material they gather is dispatched to the manufactoria of the neighbouring systems in a never-ending stream, slaking the hunger of their production lines just as efficiently as the grain barges do the workers who labour thereon.
THREE
DUPANYA AND HIS bodyguard led us through the palace at a rapid pace, down carpeted corridors lined with tapestries and through wooden-floored galleries whose polished surface fared badly under the heavy stride of the Space Marines, the rich, warm sheen of generations of waxing scuffing and splintering wherever they set foot. The deathmasked faces of the governor's ancestors stared down disapprovingly from the walls at this casual vandalism, although DuPanya didn't seem to mind much, or even notice; after all, the damage was slight enough, compared to the devastation the rebel artillery had already wrought on his home.
The Astartes seemed equally indifferent, walking in the same synchronised fashion I'd noticed before among their comrades, each left foot striking the floor at exactly the same time, then the right, with the precision of servitors. Every time they took a step the floor shuddered under the combined impact, and I felt the shock of it travelling up my legs, to the point where I began to feel as though I was aboard some slightly unstable watercraft. Fortunately the sensation was relatively short-lived, as, before long, the wooden floor gave way to bare rockcrete, the walls roughly finished in the same material, and I realised we were now in a bunker beneath the palace itself. As we descended several levels, I found my unease diminishing; this hidden redoubt had survived innumerable artillery bombardments unscathed, and would undoubtedly continue to do so. It was, therefore, with something approaching a light heart that I stepped through a pair of reinforced blast doors, currently propped open by a brace of guards in the same comic opera uniforms as their compatriots, who at least had the grace to pull themselves into a semblance of attention as we passed them, to find myself in a reasonably well-equipped command centre.
Dragging my attention from the solid buttresses and thick ceiling protecting us, I caught intermittent glimpses of pict screens and data lecterns between the towering figures in power armour which blocked most of my view, but could make out little until they fanned out, indicating that we'd reached the operational area at last.
'Governor.' A middle-aged man in a rather more practical uniform than the ones we'd seen so far, resembling standard Imperial Guard fatigues, mottled in greys and mid-blues[12], looked up from the hololith which dominated the centre of the space. A faintly flickering image of the city was being projected in it, spattered with icons I was fairly certain marked the positions of friendly and enemy troops. 'The Astartes are assaulting the enemy outside the east and north-western gates.' If he was surprised to see me or my companions, he gave no sign of the fact, merely nodding a preoccupied greeting in our direction, and I decided I liked him, whoever he was. Either he was keeping his mind on the business of defending our enclave, or he'd simply decided he was damned if he was going to look impressed by us, a game I knew well, and always enjoyed playing myself.
Gries nodded, no doubt being kept up to date with his men's progress by monitoring systems built into his armour, and I began to regret discarding the bulky headset I'd been wearing before we left the Thunderhawk. It had been heavy and awkward, true, having been designed for a head far larger than mine, but I'd got so used to following the progress of a battle through the comm-bead I habitually wore that I found myself feeling cut off from events without it - a sensation no member of the Commissariat ever feels comfortable with, particularly one as paranoid as me. Well, I'd just have to make do with the hololith to follow what was going on. 'They are,' the Reclaimers captain confirmed, 'and proceeding to their objectives. Resistance is light.'
From where I was standing it looked like the enemy were throwing everything they could at the two combat squads, but I suppose from Gries's point of view, having just seen off a tomb world full of necrons, a rabble of rebellious PDF troopers afforded little more than a handy bit of target practice.
'Thank you, general.' DuPanya discarded his robe with evident relief, turning out, to my surprise, to be wearing a uniform similar to the officer who'd greeted him beneath it, but without the rank pins at the collar. 'That's better.' He handed the richly patterned material to the nearest guard, and smiled at me, in the manner of a man imparting a confidence. 'Can't stand the blasted thing,' he said. 'Makes me look like a sofa.'
I couldn't really argue with that, so I didn't try. Instead, I turned to the hololith and addressed the general. 'You no doubt know who we are,' I said, 'so I won't waste time with introductions.' Especially since I didn't have a clue who three of Gries's companions were in any case; with their helmets on they all looked alike to me, and I doubted that removing them would have left me much the wiser. 'What are we looking at here?'
12
Though Cain doesn't say so explicitly, no doubt expecting his readers to be sufficiently au fait with matters military to recognise it, this is almost certainly some form of urban camouflage pattern suited to operations in Fidelis.