Chapter I:

THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG

Orbit over Terra Nova, Terra Nova System,
Subsector Orwellia, Segmentum Tempestus.
Imperial Date: 3778084.M42

Brother Captain Raphael Acastus of the Crimson Fists, Master Of Siege, 9th Company, frowned as he viewed the battle unfold across the auspex. Terra Nova, a Class-M Civilized World, lay gleaming blue and green far below them, a deceptively beautiful pearl amidst the blackness of space, but he and his brothers knew the truth of what wretched heresies were lurking down on that rock.

Before the planetary governor had broken off from the Imperium, this world was known to have a population of around a billion souls. It was impossible to know as yet how much this figure may have changed over the last few months of bitter fighting between the traitor governor's cohorts and the loyalist forces still entrenched on the world. Either way, strong resistance was still to be expected. This was a world that still could be saved from straying any further down the path of apostasy and brought back into the folds of the Imperium... once it had been adequately purged.

"Brother-Captain!" called out a voice. It was Brother Kosmatos, of the 2nd Assault Marine Squad under Acastus' command. He continued: "The rebel's planetary defenses have been neutralized. Their pathetic little fleet has been put to flight!"

Acastus thanked the Sergeant for the report, though he wondered how necessary it was to inform him in person, seeing as the details were showing up now on the auspex. The few ships that remained of the traitors' would-be defense fleet were either in the process of being boarded or destroyed, or else in full retreat from the might of the Imperium, perhaps to rally on the other side of the system, or else flee elsewhere, forsaking the rebel governor just as they had forsaken the Emperor before him. The task of mopping up these stragglers was left to the Imperial Navy; the Fists' own chapter fleet was to be held in reserve.

When the news had come of Terra Nova's rebellion, the Inquisition and the Administratum had agreed to rally whatever forces were immediately available in the Sector. As it just so happened, the Ninth Company along with a couple others of the Fists were just wrapping up a Daemonhunt in the Mandragoran when the astropathic request came in. Acastus had been firmly against it, a waste of the company's time when there were so many other forces in the vicinity already en route, but he had been overruled by Brother Captains Syphro and Kadena.

The Fists were being joined here today by a company from their cousin chapter, the Templars, and one from the Salamanders, an Order of the Sororitas, as well as whatever disparate detachments of the Astra Militarum could be rallied in the immediate vicinity. All in all, a tad excessive for most operations of this level, but the Mechanicum had been adamant in their petition that the Terra Nova rebellion be quelled as expeditiously as possible with whatever reserve forces were available in this subsector, before it inevitably spilled over and threatened their nearby Forge World and Titan manufactorum on Bakka.

Indeed, these force represented but a mere preliminary strike force meant to secure landing zones across the planet and decapitate the rebel government. The rest of the fighting would be left to the additional Guard units making up the second and third waves, still as yet en route. Captain Acastus was usually loathe to be fighting alongside them, but alas the Imperium was rarely if ever in such a position as to decide when and how they would fight their battles.

Returning his attention to the auspex, he noted that the Templars were already deploying, several drop pods shooting forth from their barge Hammerhand. Castellan Falkhard had apparently decided not to wait any further, no doubt eager as he was to already get on with cleansing this world's surface of apostasy. Further afield, the green/grey hulk of the Salamanders' Pyre Of Glory was slowly maneuvering into place, ready to disgorge its own payload. Very well, there was no reason that the Fists too delay any longer.

"Begin the landings," barked Acastus, "all battle brothers to their pods at once!"

Orbit over Terra Nova, Terra Nova System,
Subsector Orwellia, Segmentum Tempestus.

The cramped passenger compartment shook and shuddered violently as the Valkyrie hurtled down towards the planet surface.

Capt. Hannibal Steele, Harakoni Warhawks, clutched his Lasgun tightly against his carapaced chest, and muttered a quick prayer to the Emperor. By now, Steele had served just over 10 years in the Hawks, had performed over three dozen combat drops, and so this one should have been just another task as any other. But something definitely didn't feel right about this drop. Serving in the Hawks this long, one comes to trust their gut instinct, and he couldn't shake the feeling that whatever was going down on that world was unlike anything he'd ever faced before. The rebel fleet had just melted away completely before the might of the Imperial Navy, but something told him that the biggest surprise was being saved for once they were groundside.

He looked left, and he looked right. Somehow, whatever he was feeling must have been shared by the rest of his squad. Certainly enough that Commissar Welker suddenly felt the need to launch into another one of his "motivational speeches"...

"Listen up!" barked Welker, waving his powersword in the air, "we are going in with the first wave! Means more rebel scum for us to kill! Our target is a secret weapon cache; you smash this entire area, kill anything that moves, and secure these weapons for the Emperor! Is that understood?!"

"SIR, YES SIR!" boomed all the men at once.

Welker smiled and was about to go on, when suddenly, the entire shuttle shuddered again, more violently this time. The commissar must've had his seatbelt only loosely fastened, or maybe it was his imposing height, or just the section of the cabin he was sitting in (and probably the great height of his headgear), but he ended up bouncing up from his seat and banging his head on the bulkhead above him, pushing his cap down over his eyes.

The Commissar probably meant to swear loudly, but then probably decided not to invoke His Holiness The God Emperor's name in vain, and so what ended up coming out of his mouth was unintelligible gibberish. Captain Steele noticed several of the men visibly fight their gut reaction to burst out laughing, lest one of them land up with a bolt in the brain. Steele knew he should probably scold the men for their ill discipline, but to be fair, Welker had probably brought this upon himself. In any case, it was good to see his squadmates holding onto their morale.

"Hang on tight!" boomed the voice of their pilot, Lt. Gallard, over the intercom, "Warp anomaly ahead! Taking evasive actions!"

Steele closed his eyes as the cabin began to shake even more violently than before. His mind flooded with images of his home on Harakon, the family he left behind, the grav-glider he used to fly as a boy and the festival they held every year. He then thought of the men and women he had trained with, of his first ever combat drop, or the operation on Cadia. No. This drop was not going to be his last. He tried to instead focus on the image of the Aquila, and prayed as hard as he could. If the Emperor willed it, he was going to make it through this day. He would worry about tomorrow when it came.

Somewhere In The Warp...

The entity in the Warp watched with growing amusement and eager anticipation as the petty mortals departed their fleet and made their way to the planet surface.

If it was being entirely honest to itself (not that this was particularly likely at all, given its penchant for deception), it had no real interest in this world at all; to it, this was just another tiny and insignificant rock among millions of others in this vast and unforgiving universe. No, the petty little Imperium could keep this worthless planet for all it cared; its real interest was in laying the kind of trap that would provoke them into exactly the kind of reaction it now beheld.

Let's see here, thought the entity to itself, yes. Ah, perfect. Just the right amount of force - too little and they would be quickly defeated wherever they would be going. Too many, and they would conquer with far too much ease. But just the right amount, and things would certainly be... interesting.

And with that, the entity summoned upon whatever energies it could, and set to work crafting its spell - on one hand, it could draw upon this entire galaxy and even a little beyond as its source of power. On the other hand, it had never really before attempted a feat on the scale that it now intended to - manipulation of time and space was but a regular and mundane task for an entity of its level, but this was something entirely new and untried before. Something that, it realized, could shake the very core of this universe... and possibly others as well. But it decided to go ahead with it anyway because... why not?

Whatever happened, the entity cared little for detail or outcome, only that its one and only desire be satisfied, and that was, of course, change. And so, with a devious and ever-scheming mind far greater than any other being, even those of its own realm, could ever truly comprehend, it set about its plans into action...

391km above the ground.

"Challenger, this is Houston. Sullivan, what's your status?" The voice was garbled slightly and hissed with static, as was usual.

"Houston, this is Sullivan," she replied, "condition normal. Replacing battery modules A1 and C." Her voice was calm and collected, but deep down, Kate could barely contain her excitement. Today, she would be making history: only the second woman ever to do EVA, and America's first - she would have been the first had the Reds not beaten them to it that summer. But regardless, today was a moment to go down in the history books - which was only more reason that she make good of herself and not mess up.

Kate took a deep breathe and looked away from her task, just for a moment. Even in low gravity, the suit felt incredibly heavy and bulky, her head movement severely restricted, and her vision limited even further by the helmet visor. But what she was able to glimpse was still breathtaking - even more so than when viewed from inside the orbiter. The vast blue and cloud-filled expanse of Earth dominated her field of vision. To her other side, Challenger stood against the infinite blackness of the void, resolute and defiant, like a warrior of old times. Only a thin lifeline connected her to the orbiter, and out here, the smallest mistake was a sure death sentence.

She frowned. Off in the distance, there was a small flash of light. And then another, followed by what looked like... purple lightning? Out here in space? She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again; she must have been seeing things. No. She was right: something had now appeared - it looked like a hole of some kind, like an... eye? Yes, like an eye had just opened up in space, though how large and how far away, she couldn't tell.

"Sullivan!" barked the voice of Robert, their mission commander, "status report?"

"This is Sullivan here," she began, shaking when she realized that the eye was still there. "Uh, is someone seeing this?"

"Excuse me?" replied Robert, "please explain."

"This is Ride here," came a different voice, "I see it too. Commander, we have an anomaly in Sector 47, Five o' clock!"

"Ride, are you sure? I've got nothing on radar..."

"I'm telling you, I see it! Take a look, starboard side!"

"Oh my god..."

"Are you seeing this?"

"Holy..."

"Challenger, this is Houston. What's the meaning of this? Status report."

"Uh... Houston," began Commander Robert, "we've got a visual on... on some..." he paused. "Houston, we have a problem."

Serpukhov-15 Satellite Ground Station,
Near Kurilovo, Kaluga Oblast,
Russian S.F.S.R., Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics.

*CTAPT*

*ПYCK*

*CTAPT*

*ПYCK*

The dreaded words flashed across the main screen of the control room. Red warning lights had started flashing and alarm klaxons were going off. Lieutenant-Colonel Petrov snapped to attention and stood up from his workstation and looked around. Everyone else in the command center, like he, was taken completely by surprise, but to their credit, had leapt to action, just as their training had demanded of them.

"What's going on?" barked Petrov, "what is the meaning of this?"

"Comrade Podpolkovnik!" replied Lieutenant Vasiliev, speaking up from his workstation several places down to the right of Petrov's. "We have unidentified object inbound!" True to his training, the lieutenant began to read from his display, but it was clear he was completely shocked and shaking from what he saw. "Altitude: 300km and dropping! Target coordinates based on trajectory: 55.7558N, 37.6173E... it's heading for Moscow!"

Petrov gulped. An object... no, a cluster of objects was plummeting towards Moscow from the edge of space. There were not many things he could imagine that would fit that description, other than the obvious. "Impossible," he muttered, "why... no, we would have detected the launches by now."

"This is just ground radar; nothing from Oko," spoke up Junior-Lieutenant Dovzhenko, stationed at Petrov's left. He did a better job than Vasiliev at concealing his shock - perhaps because he trusted in their satellite early detection protocols to be pretty sure it couldn't possibly be a surprise attack. But then if it wasn't, what else could it be? Or, worse yet, what if the system was wrong? It wasn't entirely flawless...

Petrov bit his lip as he watched the large world map that covered one of the walls of the bunker. Several small lights were blinking right over Moscow's location. The unidentified objects - whatever they were - were hurtling through the atmosphere towards the city. They would have, at most, a minute or so before impact and...

"Second unidentified object detected!" spoke up Vasiliev.

All eyes turned to the big map, where sure enough another group of lights were now blinking. Not one but several. Like a cluster of warheads from a single MIRV. Petrov gulped. It was over Leningrad. He was sweating now. Something was very wrong. Could this be a drill?

"Third unidentified object detected!" said Vasiliev. He was half-shouting now, his hands shaking visibly. This time, the blinking light on the world map appeared... just over the Urals, near Chelyabinsk.

Petrov turned to face Dovzhenko; the Junior-Lieutenant didn't need to be spoken to to know what his superior wanted. "Comrade!" he spoke, "still no confirmation of any launches."

Flight time was about 15 minutes, even for the Pershing-2s stationed in West Germany, so they would have been detected by now. Petrov thought this over in his head. What reason would the Americans have to attack now? And why only three? Surely, yes, but then... what else could they possibly be? Meteors? Like the Tunguska comet? Then why were they aimed almost precisely at three major population centers?

"We have impact!" shouted Vasiliev. Petrov grabbed his desk, as if expecting the shockwave to roll over their bunker any second now. For a few seconds, silence descended upon everyone gathered in the control room. Strange - if it was indeed an attack, they would have felt the shockwave by now.

Petrov turned to one of the officers manning the station on the level below him and commanded that they give him a direct phone line to the surface. He was immensely relieved that it wasn't what they had initially thought it to be, but he also had the uneasy feeling that whatever was going on, this was only the beginning.

Santa Monica Beach,
West of Los Angeles, State of California.

Even in autumn, the beaches were crowded by mid-morning, thousands of people: teenage boys were skateboarding along the boardwalk. Young women lay sprawled out on deck-chairs, taking in the sun. Little children were paddling in the surf or building sand-castles on land. Vendors, mostly Hispanic, were going about, selling t-shirts, suntan lotion, ice-cold Coca-Colas or ice-cream. That's when the first impact was felt.

Only a few looked up and saw the brilliant streak of light, careening through the atmosphere, glowing red-hot from reentry. In mere seconds, it came down and landed right in the most crowded part in the center of the beach. At least a couple dozen were killed immediately in the impact. Screams filled the air, and panicked beachgoers ran for their lives. A few remained where they stood or lay, glued to the spot partly out of curiosity and perhaps mostly out of fear.

A large, six-sided, roughly conical metal object now laid in the middle of the beach, half-embedded in the sand. The dark blue-painted metallic hull contrasted sharply with the blackened, smoldering sand and mangled bodies that lay around it. Several observers would note a large red fist painted on the side of the object.

And then, that's when all six sides of the cylinder slammed open, and the occupants emerged - a strange humanoid figure, towering above everyone else at eight, maybe nine feet in height, encased entirely in metal armor, eyes glowing fiercely, a glowing blade in his hand. Every step he took upon the ground was plodding and heavy, felt by everyone in the immediate area. And he was not alone.

What were they? Aliens? Communists? Demons from Hell? That was probably the very last thought to go through the minds of many on the beach that day - some stayed rooted to where they stood, frozen in terror. Everyone else turned to run, but many did not make it very far.

Landing Zone Rho-1136
Alpha-Quadrant, Northern Hemisphere,
Terra Nova, Terra Nova System.

Clearing the landing zone of any and all potential hostiles proved to be an almost insultingly easy task. Once they had sent a clear message to the natives, the rest had cleared out in a rush. Captain Acastus could keep on going, but he decided to take a moment to stop and get a bearing on their location.

He looked around him. This was very strange indeed. Their assigned target area was a large inland hilly area just north of Terra Nova's largest spaceport. Instead, they had found themselves standing upon a wide, sandy beach, blue ocean to the west of them. To the east lay a boardwalk and a small town of mostly low buildings but a few higher-rising square towers among them; further east he could glimpse a cluster of much taller glass towers reaching up to the sky, but nothing quite like the hive city they were expecting.

Sergeant Oriole and his pod had made planetfall about a few hundred yards west of them, somewhere in the town - Acastus could tell their position from the smoke now rising and the distant screams of the natives. Another two pods, carrying the assault marine squads of Brothers Sicario and Aguilo, had landed several miles to the east of them, somewhere right among those distant towers.

Acastus grimaced; the deployment was off from what they had planned. Perhaps the Warp energies they had encountered on their path down had something to do with throwing them off course. Acastus did not like the sound of this at all, for it only further confirmed his suspicions over just what they would be facing on this world. But thus far, thankfully, they had yet to encounter any meaningful resistance from the rebels - only a few of them in the landing area were found to be armed, and these weapons were tiny and pathetic; indeed, calling their stubguns "weapons" at all was being charitable.

All around him lay the broken bodies of dozens of the natives, cut down as they tried to flee the Emperor's Angels' righteous judgment. Civilian casualties were expected to be incredibly high (as was normal in any military operation), but considered acceptable, given the steep price otherwise paid for not stamping out whatever heresy and corruption was festering among them. And though it was now clear to him that they did not land where they had originally intended to, and did not find any of the rebel governor's forces hidden among the common citizenry, Acastus still almost wanted to spit out of hatred and spite for them - wretched creatures all of them, men and women, barely dressed in the barest of clothing.

Through the holographic visor of his helmet, his eyes focused on the broken body of one of the natives nearest him: a young woman, must have been twenty years of age, a hole burnt clean through her chest where one of the brothers had drove his powersword through her. Her clothing was most bizarre: skintight leggings of a bright florescent pink, a short skirt and top of florescent blue, tight and cut in a rather immodest way. Her footwear came in the most garish assortment of neon colors imaginable, and her hair was bleached and styled in a most unnatural manner. Acastus snorted in disgust. This beach was a pleasure ground that dripped in all forms of excess and immodesty. And given what they knew about the traitor governor's allegiances, there was good cause to suspect that the Prince Of Pleasure's influence might be afoot.

He looked up. Up ahead, one of the natives' ground vehicles was seen - a boxy groundcar but painted in black and white, a red and blue light flashing on its roof, and upon its doors were written out the letters: "L.A.P.D." The vehicle's two former occupants - or what was left of them - could now be seen spread out across the sand, their blue uniforms torn to shreds, when they had dared to shoot back at the Emperor's Angels.

He noticed one of his battle brothers stomping towards him. It was Brother-Adept Tektus, the Company's Techmarine, the dark blue of his armor punctuated by Mechanicum red, his four servo-arms protruding from his back and giving him the appearance of a mechanical human spider. Each of his four servos was clutching a different object.

"Any progress on contacting the fleet, Brother-Adept?" inquired Acastus as he approached. "And what is the meaning of those items you are carrying?"

"I've been gathering some of the native's devices for study," replied the techmarine, his voice sounding flat and synthesized, thanks in no small part to the Adeptus Mechanicus' many "improvements". Tektus' arms dropped the four trinkets they carried at Acastus' feet. "Primitive, yes, but curious all the same."

Captain Acastus took a good look at the collection of objects that Tektus had lain upon the sand. The first was but a simple piece of ovular wood, painted in pink and green and mounted on four small wheels - yet another form of transportation used by the locals.

The second was one of their pathetic "weapons", a slug-throwing semi-automatic pistol. Like other Imperial stubguns in service across the galaxy, it was no doubt effective against unarmored targets, but of course of no use whatsoever against power armor. From the looks of this particular one, this pistol-in-name-only would have trouble penetrating even the flak armor of the Astra Militarum's lowliest conscripts. Weak! It was clear these weapons must have been more for policing the native population than for military combat.

The third item was a small, blue, boxlike device, connected by a wire to a set of headphones like those used by Imperial pilots. Inscribed upon its surface was lettering arranged to form the word "SONY", though to whom that name was referring to, Acastus knew not. It might be a vox caster of some kind, no doubt used by the natives to communicate with one another, to coordinate their resistance against the Imperium. Curious indeed.

The fourth and final device was much larger, and silver in color, but it was also boxlike in shape. A row of buttons ran across the center of it, and there were two speakers on either side of it. It too had "SONY" inscribed along the front of it. It was this device that Tektus could be seen fiddling with.

"And what in the Emperor's Name are you doing, Brother-Adept?" asked Acastus.

"I am attempting to commune with this machine spirit," replied the Techmarine, flatly, "hmmmm, it appears to be completely lacking in one, though I suspect it is a musical entertainment device."

At that moment, the machine came to life with a shrill and agonized cry as it blurted out: "THISISNOTALUVSONG!" Tektus leaned in closer, somewhat amused by this. The machine continued droning: "THISISNOTALUVSONG! THISISNOTTALUVSONG! THISISNOTALUVSONG! THISISNOTALUVSONG! THISISNOTALUVSONG!" Its shrill cries were accompanied by the beating of drums and the strumming of what sounded like an electro-lute of some kind.

Acastus, however, was having none of this. Whether he was irked more by the music itself, or by Tektus' seeming infatuation, he immediately reached for his power sword, fired it up, and brought it down on the offending device, smashing it into pieces. Wiring and shards of plastic flew everywhere.

"Was that necessary, brother?" hissed Tektus, "I think I was just beginning to understand it."

"You are wasting time with this infernal machine!" snapped Acastus. "Yours, and mine too, Brother. Look around you! We are most definitely not where we were intended to be. Does something not behoove you about this situation?"

"Perhaps," replied Tektus, "but, if I may, I am fluent in over six million forms of communication. I believe the machine was crooning in an old tongue not heard since the Dark Age Of Technology itself; I believe it was trying to say something along the lines of this is not a love song."

"Brother, perhaps we can focus on sating the Mechanicum's curiosities once we have secured this region," scolded Acastus, "stay focused on contacting the fleet. I haven't heard from them since we entered the atmosphere."

"Brother-Captain, I have already checked our vox casters," replied Tektus, "their machine spirits are in order, no corruption that I can discern. If we are unable to contact the fleet, well, there must be something else at work here. I suggest we rejoin Oriole and Sicario first and see if their casters are having similar difficulties."

Acastus frowned and strode off, heading in the direction of the nearby buildings. The distant sound of gunfire and explosions could still be heard, though they had died down somewhat as the squad slowly cleared and secured this landing zone. Still, though, he had to wonder to himself: where in the Emperor's Sacred Name are we?