Noctem Oritur: Chapter 1

The near future

From high above the world of Lujan II was a shining sapphire on the velvet backdrop of space, startlingly bright and blue. The sunward hemisphere was nearly bereft of cloud cover allowing the few stunted continents and millions of tiny volcanic islands to be seen with eye watering detail.

Unlike most worlds Lujan II boasted two rings; the first was made of pure meteorological activity that banded the planet along its terminus between day and night. Made up of tempests, gales, cyclone and hurricanes they travelled at exactly the same rate as the planet's slow rotation, creating a phenomenon at each dawn and dusk known to the native inhabitants as the Emperor's Storm.

The second ring was in orbit of the world and was made up of plasteel and ceramite; it was comprised of dockyards and repair bays, orbital defence stations and space elevators. On any given day countless ships would move between the orbital assemblies, cargo barges, passenger liners or smugglers and even a few system defence boats though these were few and far between.

Some days the clouds of drifting metal would part to allow vessels of a completely different order to pass, brutal and ugly as sin they were Astartes Strike Cruisers. They would perform live-fire training exercises over their homeworld and other pilots would stay far away, knowing full well how little patience the Space Marines had for interlopers in their affairs.

Despite the daily bustle of activity and wide variety of ships present they were always vastly outnumbered by the largest group of all: Pilgrim ships. Lujan II was a vital port on the long trail between Terra and Ophellia VII and at any given time thousands of pilgrim ships would be serviced, their wounds tended and their stores replenished, for a price of course.

The halos of orbital stations were Lujan II's chief source of prosperity, the entire planet given over to servicing the passing ships and filling their holds with the rich bounty of the world's vast oceans. Thus the ring of drifting orbitals was their greatest endeavour, the focus of all planetary industries as the people poured their efforts into it.

It was more than the work of a hundred generations; it was a testament to mankind's drive to conquer the void itself. It was man's defiance against the cruelty of the universe writ large; it was human pride brought to life.

It was burning.

In the harsh sunlight ships, shuttles and stations were exploding in sequence, torn apart as they sought to flee, spilling their contents and crew into the pitiless vacuum of space. Energy blasts and shells were crashing through their ranks, obliterating all as waves of doomfire bombers pounced upon the stunned defenders. Everywhere vessels were being violated by the weapons fire, their spines and engines shattered into metal kindling as officers and crew screamed over the vox in terror.

Panic spread like wildfire as ships tried to light their reactors and escape, some pilgrim ships even leaving their docks without first disconnecting their umbilical ties and so ripping open their berths to kill hundreds of workers. Two pilgrim ships tried to flee through the same point in space and managed to ram into each other, their prows smashing together and fusing into one mass of metal to create a strange two tailed comet. Their drives continued to run, pushing the conjoined pair into a decaying orbit and they began to burn as they touched the atmosphere in a death spiral.

The cause of these calamities was a ship, just one ship all alone but what a ship.

An Imperial battleship could be described using terms like vast and gargantuan but this vessel defied all such hollow epithets, it was as far beyond those mighty vessels as they were beyond a simple cruiser. It was a dinosaur in an age of rodents and it eclipsed the sun itself with its sheer bulk for it was built to a size and power of which the shipwrights of this lesser age could not even dream. The monster was simply beyond anything the locals had ever seen, a power that should not exist and nothing could stand against it but that was not the worst thing.

The worst thing was that it had simply appeared from nowhere, one second the orbital vectors had been clear then a brief distortion had been all the announcement anyone got before it shimmered into existence and started firing. Few in the Imperium had even heard of Reflex Shields and none of those had ever seen them in actual life, if the Raven Guard still held those arcane secrets then they were doing a very good job at keeping that fact to themselves.

As the SDF panicked a few very senior officers with high enough clearance were able to query the identity of the attacker but the reports coming back made no sense. The logic engines were telling them the invader was a myth, a ghost from a fable told in the alcoves of naval bars and around cloistered banquets to frighten younger men.

It was a dark legend about a Drop Site Massacre so tragic it had scarred the Imperium to this very day. This ship featured prominently in those sagas and it was one whose tragic death yet haunted the Imperium. When they heard the name of the ship being reported the officers screamed in denial calling it a trick and an insult to the mythic XIXth Legion flagship. They bellowed that this invader was not the Shadow of the Emperor, it could not be.

As the defenders wasted precious time repeating queries and challenging orders the battleship was rampaging among the defender's lines laying waste to all it saw. As panic swept before it like a bow wave the Shadow of the Emperor cruised leisurely along the orbital lanes, not pushing its engines at all, it didn't need to.

Lance turrets the size of transport ships discharged searing blasts into the void, gutting everything they touched. Even ships that thought they were safely out of range were given cruel surprises as the devastating columns of energy tore through their void shields and gored them stem to stern. Even those who fled to lower orbits, seeking to hide in the atmosphere, were not safe for they were sought out by wave upon wave of doomfire bombers that spilled from the Shadow's echoing launch bays in a ceaseless tide.

The mighty vessel did not go unchallenged though, on the surface a handful of defensive torpedoes roared out of their silos and began the long slog into orbit in an attempt to wound the attacker. The Shadow paused in its rampage for a minute, disgorging a wave of Swiftdeath fighters which scrambled to meet the attack and scattered the torpedoes with ease.

While the Shadow was distracted a lone defence station spun on its axis bringing its guns to bear but the monster didn't even react, a flash of light heralded the first shot then another and another and another as the platform unleashed its power. The shells bored through the vacuum to impact directly on the titan's hull, shields curiously absent, blowing out armour and venting compartments. The attack was well aimed, the platform's crew showing either incredible bravery or desperation as they threw absolutely everything they had towards the intruder and smote it with all the righteous fury of a lightning bolt.

It didn't matter.

The Glorianna class had been designed during Great Crusade and was intended to lead an entire Legion to war, bringing extermination to whole civilisations of Xenos. The Shadow simply shrugged off the attack, seeming almost contemptuous as it disregarded the pin pricks to its hull; in return it unleashed a barrage from its flank weapon batteries that effortlessly reduced the station to burning wreckage.

Yet the distraction had not been in vain, from behind the twisted pile of scrap arose a genuine threat at last: a trio of Astartes Strike Cruisers moving fast and armed to the teeth. They roared forwards with broadside guns and bombardment canons gleaming in the sunlight, they pushed their engines hard for they knew if they could fire before the monster could raise its shields they had a chance of inflicting real damage at last.

They were cruelly disappointed, before they could even enter range the Shadow's bow erupted with spears of lance fire, torrents of pure destruction streaming out from its twin prows. The beams caught a strike cruiser dead on, punching through its void shields like they weren't even there and ripping deeply within to wreck carnage. The cruiser listed over as it bled out from a hundred rents but then the titan's dorsal lances swung about and unleashed a second volley to finish the job.

As the hulk spiralled into a death roll the other cruisers raced forwards, they were determined to press the attack but the monstrosity was not yet done. From its launch bays emerged clouds of doomfire bombers, pouncing to meet the challengers with plasma torpedoes loaded and ready. The cruisers spat turret fire into the void and managed to swat a handful down but in doing so revealed their hidden weakness, they were not flying Thunderhawks: their battle companies were absent.

The delta winged attack craft dived upon the pair of embattled cruisers like birds of prey and let fly, streaks of missile contrails leaping from their wings and falling upon the vessels as their outlines disappeared in starbursts of blazing plasma. For long seconds nothing could be seen but then one of the cruisers plunged out of the fireball as a blazing inferno with its spine twisted and broken.

The last strike cruiser rose out of the conflagration with flames trailing down its flanks, its drives flaring as it prepared to ram itself into the intruder as one last gesture of defiance but before it could close the situation changed. From out of the pitiless depths of deep space came the second wave of the attack, a pair of fresh Chaos cruisers and half a dozen escort frigates leading dozens of ramshackle transports into orbit.

The battle was utterly lost and it seemed the Strike Cruiser deemed discretion the better part of valour as it heaved away from the battle and ran out its engines. With fresh waves of dart like bombers still nipping at its heels it fled for the sanctuary of the deep void, already broadcasting Astropathic distress calls out into the dark.

The Chaos fleet left their fleeing foe to the attack craft and instead swung around the shattered wreckage that had once been a supposedly impregnable line of defence. With the mighty Shadow of the Emperor looking on like a mother hen the cruisers began targeting the ground based missile silos as the transports opened their holds to disgorge wave upon wave of shuttles, drop pods and gunships. They plunged into the atmosphere leaving blazing contrails of re-entry behind them as they fell upon the helpless world and there was no way to avoid the truth that the invasion of Lujan II had begun.