Editing Battle of Zhuko V (section)

=="Not a step back!"==

But what they did not realize was the fates of these Hives mattered little to the Zhukons. Their sacrifice had bought the others time. Telesnius II was able to rally the workers into an organized fighting force, not the confused and terrified militia rallied to face the Legion's wrath like before. The coming battles would not be stalling tactics or last stands, it would be the Zhukons best attempt to bleed the Traitor's dry. To the last drop of oil. 

The Mastodontii had thought the battle would be over that that point. After the bombardment and initial shock and awe assaults they expected little resistance in appropriating the war machines and manufactorums for the Warmaster’s armies. Their first battle losses corrected that understanding. Their response was to pour more forces onto the planet's surface. Ice-coloured macro-landers sank into Zhuko V atmosphere to dump armoured vehicles onto the varied plains that made up the planet’s surface.

Typhon siege tanks, Sabre tank hunters, Sicarans, Land Raiders, Predators, and Fellblades rolled from the landing grounds in neat formations. These were the vehicles of the Legiones Astartes, crewed by the Mastodontii, foremost in their use in battle. Beside them came detachments of Mechanicum war engines, Legio Cybernetica maniples, and the war machines of half a dozen human cohorts bonded to the XXIV Legion. Tens of thousands of vehicles spread out from a dozen dropsites across Zhuko V’s lone continent.

Mastodontii signals ran across the surface, blowing and clicking across bombed out factory cities and the rusting tank graveyards of previous battles. The signals rose from the slab-sided landing craft of the invaders, and ascended to the sky and the mighty warships that waited above. Buried in their shelters and cities the survivors listened. Comms Arrays trawled the air, snatching scraps of code and taking them beneath the earth to where men and women sat hunched in the half-darkness, listening to the intercepted signals. They did not know exactly what the Mastodontii were saying, but they knew that it meant that the enemy had now come in strength.

The defenders' own signals, carried on buried cables beneath the cities and under mountains, went unheard by the invaders. A few amongst the leaders of the scattered shelters spoke of waiting, of surviving beneath the earth in silence. The survivors were alone, they argued. They had no way of calling for help, even if there was help that could come to them. But more were the voices that said that the invaders must bleed no matter the cost.