The Weaver Option Chapter 53: Extinction 11-1 Know no Fear, a Warhammer + Worm Crossover fanfic

Extinction 11.1

Know no Fear

My name is Lord Inquisitor Odysseus Tor.

I am a member of the Ordo Malleus of the Holy Inquisition. In the lifetime of work since I was ordained by my master and given the Inquisitorial Rosette of my station, I have cleansed countless planets of the threat presented by the Enemy Beyond, no matter if it appeared in the form of Traitor Astartes, corrupt Governors closing their eyes on their friends' abominable crimes, heretic cultists, or denizens of the Warp.

This does not mean I am not familiar with the threat posed by the xenos. When you live as long as I have, you are one day or another forced to keep one eye on the machinations of the enemy species living across the stars. And besides, it isn't like there are no worshippers of the Ruinous Powers among the ranks of the space-faring alien races wishing to exterminate us. Sometimes, the enemy at the frontiers can be left to its own devices until the Ordo Xenos has the opportunity to deal with it permanently, but there are cases, admittedly rare, where the enemy demands a joint intervention of the two Ordos Majoris. Commorragh was such an instance. I wasn't present, but I personally interrogated many of the Drukhari and other xenos prisoners in the years after. No matter how long I have yet to live until the God-Emperor calls me back to him, I will remain convinced the destruction of the Webway's Dark City was one of the best things that could have happened to this sin-plagued galaxy.

Unfortunately, Commorragh also led many Inquisitors, including myself, to make an erroneous judgement. With the perfidious Drukhari of Commorragh wiped out, we naively thought the Ork threat would be the greatest challenge of the Ordo Xenos for at least the next several centuries.

It was a challenge, let there be no mistake about it. Any Inquisitor or senior Imperial Commander who has read even a single treatise about the War of the Beast will be unable to forget the sheer danger of a greenskin warlord once more uniting the vociferating hordes and launching a galaxy-spanning WAAGH. As the Orks would evolve and bring back their damned Attack Moons, the Imperium would again have to fight for its very life. A defeat would be synonymous with the collapse of Mankind as a civilisation, and enslavement under the merciless fist of the Beasts would be the best possible outcome.

But as the Cataclysm of Macragge began, I learned there was a xenos race far worse than any greenskin onslaught. It is a cancer born to eat and to devour. If it is given the time, it will leave a dead world in its wake. This horror, this abomination, this Tyranid, has thought and purpose. It functions on an unimaginable galactic scale. And its first, second, and third instinct is to unleash bio-engineered monsters against us which will be a match for anything in the Imperium's arsenal.

It devours. And with every species it has devoured, it adapts.

The name Lady Weaver gave this threat is incredibly accurate, and I am not stupid enough to believe it is not going to spread terror when quadrillions of beings will become aware their imagined fears about the monsters are in fact understating the magnitude of the problem.

For Behemoth is aware of our existence now, and it knows us as Prey.

I suppose every new gallery opened deserves a written explanation of how it was acquired. The future visitors of my incredible museum deserve no less...

Where to begin? Ah yes, the First Tyranid War. The humans have given it a lot of meaningful and easy-to-remember names, you know. Let's see...there is the Cataclysm of Macragge, the Siege of Macragge, the Battle of the Swarms...and that's for all the major names which describe the overall slaughter. Sub-theatre assaults are called, in relative order, the Cauldron of the Death Korps, Valens' Folly, the Revenge of Calth, the Battle of Pharsalus, the Tide of the Tyrants, and the Hera Counterattack.

This spectacular battle, whose prime and only reconstruction is in this humble gallery, took place in the Macragge System.

For Necrons and non-Necrons not familiar with the Macragge-that-was, in 310M35 [human Imperial calendar] this part of the Ultramar realm included the following planets:

MACCRAGGE: the Chapter Planet of the Ultramarines; extremely mountainous and boasting enormous military defences; approximate population 2.4 billion; presence of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Companies of the Ultramarines, the 3rd Company of the Genesis Chapter, and the 2nd Company of the Praetors of Orpheus confirmed.

LAPHIS: the Paradise World of the Macragge System; little defences and little in the way of things of interest to any would-be conqueror save an intact Webway Gate; approximate population 910 million; defended by the 8th Company of the Ultramarines.

NOVA THULIUM: a typical Agri-World of the humans; solely devoted to agriculture and food production; approximate population 1.73 billion; presence in orbit or on surface of the 7th Company of the Ultramarines and the 4th Company of the Brazen Consuls.

THULIUM: the usual world filled with unruly beasts and deep jungles; why anyone would choose to live there is beyond me; approximate population of 520 million; the Space Marines had the 10th Company of the Ultramarines and the 5th of the Obsidian Jaguars stationed there.

ARDIUM: a Hive World; far less populated than the one my dear friend Weaver rules, and also far less productive and interesting; approximate population 82 billion; defended by the 3rd Company of the Ultramarines and the 2nd Company of the Iron Hounds before the Tyranids and other dangerous creatures attacked the system.

MORTENDAR: a cold planet, the Imperium somehow thinks it is suitable to garrison their troops upon; approximate population 2.7 billion; presence of the 9th Company of the Ultramarines confirmed.

In addition to the planets, the blue-armoured order maniacs had the massive thing they call 'Starfort Galatan' in the outer system, though given the distances involved and the 'Shadow in the Warp' phenomenon, it and the 4th Company of the Ultramarines would play little part in the opening stages of the battle.

Now for the recounting of the battle itself, credit must be given to-

I think we always knew they would try to come back and finish their treachery.

The Mark of Calth still burned. Captain Ventanus and his warriors exterminated the Word Bearers in the catacombs, but we soon learned that despite the destruction of the Infidus Imperator by the Macragge's Honour, that animal Kor Phaeron somehow managed to escape.

The Mark continued to run through the Horus Heresy, and it never stopped. How could it, when tens of thousands of the Seventeenth Traitor Legion escaped into the Warp Storms so that our vengeance would be denied?

But they are here now. And the command of the Primarch is clear.

All the bastard sons of Lorgar are to be exterminated. And if their abomination of a Primarch is with them, he will suffer the same fate as his misbegotten progeny.

Know no fear, brothers.

Ultima Segmentum

Realm of Ultramar

Macragge System

High Orbit over Fenris

11 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Thought for the day: They are coming.

Tyranid Hive Ship 'Behemoth'

The Hive Ship had no self-given name to designate itself, and had never felt the need to have one.

What it desired, at this very moment, was to feed.

Waking up from its long hibernation had cost it a lot of biomass. Returning to the surface of the oceans it had slept at the bottom of was anything but cheap in term of calorie reserves too.

Some of it had been compensated by consuming hundreds of whale-sized beings.

But then the Hive Ship's danger senses had warned it staying where it was would be courting disaster.

The ancient void leviathan had escaped the gravity well of the ice planet where it had hidden for so long.

Its hunger increased, and so did an emotion most races would have recognised as frustration.

The unknown psychic phenomenon had sent it far away from its previous hunting grounds, and for all its great purpose of devouring everything which stood in its way, the Hive Ship was suddenly very, very aware there was far more Prey than it could safely engage.

The creatures spawned from its bio-essence would be returned back to its control, of course. The Hive Mind had not used the synaptic link in an eternity, but enforcing the Hive domination was incredibly easy for something of its power and terrifying ruthlessness.

In the meantime, the Hive Ship would-

The lone Hive Ship paused.

There was a connection coming from the outer void.

If the Tyranid entity's sense of self had been similar to that of a Human or an Eldar, the beast would have roared and told itself it was impossible.

The brood it was part of had been exterminated by the C'Tan, and the ones like it which escaped this purge had been hunted across the galaxy.

But the red-black Tyranid Hive Ship was not human, and had not been conceived by the Old Ones for anything approaching what a human mind could do.

The synaptic connection was tenuous.

But it was established.

And for all its individual power, the entity the Imperium would call Hive Fleet Behemoth in the future took over.

Quadrillions of minds more powerful than any psychic gestalt ever conceived by the Old Ones turned their attention in the direction of the Macragge System, and as they focused on it, the phenomenon of the Shadow in the Warp, already impressive for a lone Hive Ship and some debased creatures bearing their bio-essence, grew tenfold.

Hundreds of Astropaths in the realm of Ultramar died screaming, and hundreds of latent psykers awoke their powers in those disastrous seconds, only to lose control of them moments later. If not for the baleful influence of Behemoth's Shadow in the Warp, Macragge would have likely suffered major demonic incursions on several of its worlds.

The Hive Fleet's Mind could not know about it, but had they been able to evaluate the damage caused, the cold intelligence of billions of merged Norn Queens would have appreciated the advantage.

The Hive Mind's mental judgement only took five point four seconds to arrive at its final conclusion.

An unprecedented opportunity had been given to the Hive Fleet.

This system was filled with an abundance of different star-faring Prey. There was something else too. Something which pushed against the connection of the Hive Mind.

That could not be tolerated. The beings behind the light were to be consumed at once.

Fighting and conquering the different planets would give the Hive Fleet an excellent pantry and vital biomass after its long travel across the intergalactic void.

The Hive Ship didn't roar or show any inclination to grandstand.

It was intended for unrelenting aggression when its creators planned its birth in their secret laboratories, and it was not calmer now it had merged with the Hive Mind.

The plan was solid. The opportunity was priceless. It would Devour.

And in the hours to come, the Prey would learn that Hive Fleet Behemoth was their Predator.

Gloriana-class Beta

First Harrowmaster Machiavelli Gonzaga

Eleven hours ago, and to be fair in all the hours since then, Machiavelli Gonzaga had thought the worst that could happen was that he and his loyalists would die. The prospect of letting anyone, Imperium or worshippers of the Ruinous Powers, take control of the Beta, would be horrifying in normal times, but since the Legionnaires and cultists they were fighting were their own brothers hours ago, there was the very likely possibility the Beta would be repaired in short order and commissioned anew flying the banner of Anarchy.

Assuming the squeaking rats and the Legionnaires he had killed by the dozens could agree upon something as mundane as a banner, obviously.

And then a section of a compartment he fought in to deny the enemy as it would grant access to the Beta's bridge exploded. Machiavelli was experienced enough that the effect of a boarding attack craft didn't exactly trouble him anymore, but no Caestus Assault Ram or any Imperial-built machine emerged from the smoke.

Instead what appeared was best described as a maw. It was a horrid colour of red...and then it proceeded to get a lot more nauseating by vomiting some kind of red fluid into the heavily contested compartment.

And as the liquid touched the floor, it was quickly revealed to be corrosive.

"What in the name of Malal is-"

The black-white armoured Space Marine of the Alpha Legion didn't finish his sentence as a six-limbed monster jumped out of the freshly opened conduit and dug its claws into the ceramite.

Machiavelli felt sudden shock at the sight, though he rapidly fired at the creature, and to his deep satisfaction, the abomination didn't resist the five shells of his Great Crusade-era Bolter.

But in its death, the six-limbed...thing had somehow still been able to tear apart the Mark IV Astartes Armour and drive its fangs into the exposed throat of the Anarchy-worshipping Space Marine.

Fortunately, as more emerged, a coordinated barrage of Bolter shells killed them before they could do more damage.

"The beast," Machiavelli arrived at the unpleasant conclusion at the colour and unnatural aggressiveness of those xenos, "it is not just a single being which was sleeping under Fenris, it is a carrier for more horrors and-"

The compartment's walls exploded on his right, and this time the impact was far more violent...and the conduit of red vomit-acid expelled was larger too.

Hundreds of creatures shrieked and charged. The Bolters killed half of the wave, but more came from other compartments, and rapidly it devolved into a brutal melee.

"I AM ALPHARIUS!" Machiavelli shouted the war cry while pulverising two creatures which had tried to assault his back while he was busy with the other xenos.

The irony was difficult to overestimate. A few minutes ago, they were all busy killing each other, and now...

And now, Anarchists and non-Anarchists fought together like daemons for the sake of staying alive.

"I AM ALPHARIUS!" He repeated while drawing his power sword to meet another wave of monsters crawling out of several small corridors they definitely shouldn't have the mobility or the size to use. "I AM ALPHARIUS!"

"I AM ALPHARIUS!

"ALPHA AND OMEGA!"

"I AM ALPHARIUS!"

Machiavelli would never know the Tyranid forces the Alpha Legion crew of the Beta would be called 'Genestealers' by the Imperium.

But if he had been aware of it, the First Harrowmaster would have not been surprised by it as the tube-like tongues of some of the creatures were inserted into serfs and operatives they had managed to neutralise.

And he could do nothing to kill them, busy as he was fighting for his life.

Emperor-class Battleship Hydra's Scales

Harrowmaster Phocron

First Harrowmaster Machiavelli Gonzaga's armour, once something impressive, was a ruined thing and would likely need hundreds of hours of work from a Techmarine if its owner wanted it restored back to its previous glory.

Assuming the Techmarines in question were still alive...

And the first words coming out of his mouth were not of a nature to reassure anyone.

"They have taken the approaches of the bridge." The former adviser of their Primarch announced bluntly. "I don't know how Fenris or any Death World managed to spawn such a horror, but the creatures this monster uses as shock boarding parties have claws and other weapons which can pierce ceramite in mere seconds."

"This is-"

But the other Alpha Legion officer didn't let him finish.

"The Apothecaries managed to destroy the Apothecarium before the abominations could feast on organs and gene-seed, but we weren't so fortunate with the Enginarium. And more than two-thirds of the Beta is lost by now."

"I lack the resources to board a Gloriana and retake control." Phocron admitted stiffly.

Even if he for some insane reason felt the stakes were worth it – and they could be, the Beta was the pre-Heresy headquarters of the Twentieth Legion – there was no way his warband could fight its way through the corridors and the command control stations fallen to the xenos and repair everything so that the Beta escaped the Macragge System.

"I know." Machiavelli Gonzaga nodded. "That's why I am implementing Lost World right now. And in the next minutes, the Hydra's Scales will have to destroy us."

Many Astartes and non-Astartes next to him gasped.

The communication between the two ships, despite being at less than two hundred thousand kilometres, chose this moment to shut down.

When it was finally re-established, the quality of the vid was abysmal.

"It will be the end of the Legion if you do something that...permanent." Phocron warned.

"The Legion...is...dead..." Machiavelli admitted reluctantly between electronic screeching and parasite interferences. "Save...what...you...can...Phocron."

"Herzog," the Harrowmaster corrected for the first, and likely the last time, "Captain Herzog."

"Ah..." An enormous hammering sound was heard, and this time he was sure this wasn't a problem with the communication. "Yes, I am Alpharius...I see."

Yes, that was kind of the point: when you were a copy of the Primarch, who was to say you couldn't act in his stead?

"Destroy...the Beta. I have...no...clue...if the xenos...can decipher...our encrypted...archives. But where we are...the Imperium...will...bring...Isley. Let...the...Legion...die."

Some part of him wanted to scream there had to be another way. A Gloriana was a prize like no other. And yes, there was no way his warband could launch a rescue operation alone and unsupported, but give it a few standard months, and with proper countermeasures against those ceramite-carving beasts – some sort of gene-targeting gas, maybe? – they could retake the Beta and tow it to a shipyard whose allegiance was to an Alpha Legion-friendly master.

But the scions of Alpharius had always been pragmatic, and in that instant Mathias Herzog, former Captain of the 2nd Company, acknowledged the First Harrowmaster was right. If the Imperium won this battle, the 'Heracles Wardens' would have a golden opportunity to learn a lot of things they had never been privy to, and then they would share it with the rest of the Imperium.

If the Word Bearers somehow pulled off a miraculous win, it wouldn't be any better. It was entirely possible it might be worse. Weaver's new auxiliaries would make sure they would be hunted relentlessly for hundreds of years, unravelling millennia of effort and generations of genetically-improved operatives; the Word Bearers were the kind of enemies who spread dissent with unverifiable information. The archives of the Beta would therefore be a dagger ever at risk of slicing their own throats.

And if none of those things happened, the Beta might become part of a Space Hulk, carrying a lethal cargo of horrors and priceless information anywhere the Warp threw it to.

"Prepare the Lances." The Harrowmaster ordered, before turning to Machiavelli Gonzaga. "And I'm sorry for...everything."

"Don't...be. The plan...was..." the communication became a mess of garbling sounds for three seconds. "Too desperate...they are breaking the doors! Stop them from-"

The screams which came after that should not have been made by any human throat, but they were.

"You know where the weaknesses of the Beta are, artillerists. Give them a quick death."

Fenris

Asaheim

The Fang

12 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Callidus Assassin Elena Kerrigan

Elena was amused that her being 'adopted' by an enormous mother Frostlion had instantly divided the Space Wolves' ranks where she was concerned.

Oh, most of the Astartes the young Assassin had spoken with professed to not hold a grudge against her for her 'choice'.

It was too bad for them, but most of the Space Wolves couldn't lie convincingly.

So as a result, Elena found herself congratulated by the local Astartes who had bears as companions, while those who rode and did not leave the side of the giant lupine creatures steered very clear of her unless they were ordered not to.

Yet in the last hour or so, Elena had realized this was just not a difference of opinion which was dividing the sons of Leman Russ.

The Third and Eighth Great Companies' survivors – though everyone here called them the Great White Bears and the Silent Wolves – were the original force of Space Marines which had defended Fenris when the Black Crusade smashed their homeworld's defences apart.

The other Companies? They were the reinforcements which had joined the Primarchs for the space battle, and if the grumbling was any indication, it had been quite a few years since they last returned to Fenris.

Under the gaze of the Primarch, everything was forgiven...but whenever they went to spread the Fenrisian tribes' refugees and their Kaerls' escorts throughout the Fang, it did not take long to show little had been forgotten.

Elena didn't mention it. Shadow-improved powers or not, the internal affairs of a Chapter as famous or infamous as the Vlka Fenryka – the locals were quite proud of this name and disdainful of the Imperium's designation – was not the business of an agent of the Officio Assassinorum.

When in doubt, speak of the subjects they all loved, not the ones expected to cause strife.

"You have a nice collection of Terran blades." The female parahuman complimented the young Astartes who had been assigned to her as a guide to some human-purposed armouries.

"Ha!" the feral-looking, blonde-haired transhuman replied. "This 'collection' you saw is only one of the smallest ones we have! In the Jarlheim, we have hundreds of them for each battle-brother!"

Elena Kerrigan was really surprised, and not just because of the quality of the weapons contained by the armoury they had just left behind.

"How...the Wolfblade Honour Guard of Holy Terra provides you the blades?"

"They do that..." The Space Wolf confirmed. "And a lot more things we aren't supposed to talk about."

"Don't tell me your Wolf Lords are spying upon the Vlka Fenryka, I won't believe it."

If there was a Chapter less suited for sneaking through the palaces of the Throneworld without the Custodes and the billions of defenders raising an alarm, Elena had never heard of it.

The Space Marine burst into laughter.

"No, no! Though the Ancients insist it's quite practical to be warned in advance when we need to be...err...a bit more discreet? And the Wolfblade members are practically a law unto themselves, assassin. I've never seen one return alive, and if I survive this year, I will be-"

The stench chose this moment to assault her senses.

Elena had discovered in the last hours everything she took for granted had been heightened to a ridiculous degree, be it her reflexes or her hearing, and in general it was a pleasant surprise.

But this time it was just horrible.

It was like someone had detonated a bomb whose sole purpose was to stink, and then multiplied the effect until it fully rivalled the putrefaction and pestilence of the Death Guard Traitor Astartes incinerated after the Primarchs' battle.

Next to her, the Space Wolf was experiencing the same olfactory attack she did, and it was as repugnant for him as it was for her...she thought.

"By the guts of my first kill! Red Cyclops' cursed backside!" If it wasn't stinking so much, Elena would have laughed at the insult. "This...oh, this better not be Tobias' newest trick!"

"It smells..." oh by the Golden Throne, it was going to take several showers for her to stop smelling like a diseased grox, "I think it's coming from that direction."

"There's nothing but the Trophy Hall that way..." Her guide shook his head. "Right. Stay behind me, assassin. I don't think the Primarch and the Jarls would punish me for showing you those halls, but better-"

The Astartes coughed, as the closer they got to the source of infection, the worse it got.

Fortunately, the hall in question was not locked, and only a significant push – after a brief gene-scan, Elena noticed – of the son of Russ was needed to open it.

The duo froze as the source of the stench was revealed.

What had been a Wolf-themed decorated hall of the Fang was stinking so hard it could be considered a chemical attack in its own right.

And over the multitude of stasis fields proudly displaying the most impressive kills and looted artefacts the Wolves had acquired in their campaigns, there was an enormous amount of red slime spreading.

The source of it was not difficult to find.

The creatures were hexapodal, and their faces were a mix of tentacles and fangs.

"By the Ancients' sermons...the Kraken's Egg has hatched!"

Indeed, with her training, the young Callidus had no problem spotting a large object which looked like it could fit the definition of 'egg'. Well, if by an egg you thought of something as tall as she was.

But as yet another creature emerged from it, there wasn't much doubt this was both the origin of the abominable stench...and a threat it was better to neutralise immediately.

"Let's hurry and kill them!" her Astartes guide roared. "With any luck, the ruckus and the stink will alert the packs we have a new mess on our hands!"

Sunrising Gate

Wolf Lord Olav Direbear

"My Jarl, we have a problem."

That wasn't what he wanted to hear, but not answering the communication and blaming it on the damned interferences would not convince the problem to go away.

"I hear you, Tyr," he growled, and winced, as the vox-caster went on to torment his ears again. "What sort of annoyance has reared its nasty head now?"

By the bones of the Thunderfist Clan, he really hoped this wasn't the announcement they had missed a tribe or two in their evacuation efforts. The Traitors and the never-cursed-enough Maleficarum had exterminated so many proud tribes and untold generations of hunters that-

"The Kraken's Egg hatched. And it was filled with small horrors having too many common points with the big horror which hangs out above our head."

"As the Gates of Morkai are my witness..." then the Lord of the Great White Bears truly assimilated what Tyr had just told him. "Wait a minute, Tyr...if the thing which is currently trying to eat all warships in orbit is linked to the Egg..."

"So are the Krakens, yes, Jarl," words he didn't want to hear arrived a heartbeat later.

Boo's paws struck the corpse of a Chaos Marine, throwing it onto one of the big pyres with the rest of the Traitors and their Maleficarum works.

"Is the problem in the Hall of Trophies handled?"

"It is," the Long Fang assured him. "One of our Grey Hunters arrived to slay the beasts, and he was with the shadow assassin. They made short work of the creatures...I almost pity the young fools we will make clean up this red slime. It stinks horribly."

"Pick Tobias," Olav had thought he was rid of the irritating Blood Claw after the retreat to the Aett, but of course his luck was not that good. The young hot-headed menace had come back at the vanguard of an army of Wrath-badgers...an army of dangerous animals Boo and every living being with a dose of sense was extremely wary of, for good reasons. "The Allfather knows he deserves it. Now I'm unsure what do you want me to do? I mean, this is bad news, and we will have to go on several kraken hunts once we have dealt with the Traitors, but-"

The fog which had obscured most of the landscape suddenly lifted, and Olav stopped speaking.

The Wolf Lord was familiar with the enormous tentacles of the adult Krakens.

He was not hunting them like Hakon Krakenslayer, but he knew what they looked like.

Thus there was no need to call for an expert and wait before describing what he saw.

"I see...at least three massive tentacles. All belonging to Krakens...they have all mutated to reflect the colour of the big monster. They are...they look like they are spawning small creatures in our direction..."

And where the tentacles were protruding from the ground – locations which were nowhere near the sea, his mind pointed out – it was like the Fenrisian soil was contaminated, the snow being painted a dark red, dark blue which could mistaken for black, or some sort of ugly mix between the two.

"Warn the Primarch, Tyr. Everyone must return to the fortress immediately. Whatever the Great Wolf intends to do, we must close the gap where the Bloodfire Gate was quickly!"

"Jarl, there are-"

"WITHIN THE HOUR!" Boo helped him support this opinion. "THE KRAKENS ARE WEAPONS OF THE ENEMY! THAT'S WHY SO MANY ANIMALS AND TRIBES WERE FLEEING BEFORE WE SOUNDED THE ALERT!"

Olav Direbear cut off the communication, and urged the Fenrisian men and women to enter the Aett. Their slowness had been mildly frustrating before, but now it was a grave peril.

The hordes of crimson-dark predators were not slowing down, and as the sun of the Macragge System chased the darkness away, the size of the hordes crawling out of the ocean bordering Asaheim grew more and more numerous...to the point of representing a real threat, even for the shields and batteries of the home of the Vlka Fenryka.

"TO THE SUNRISING GATE! TO THE SUNRISING GATE! IT IS THE WILL OF RUSS!"

What in the name of the Fenrisian blizzards were the Ultramarines waiting for to intervene?

Laphis

Outer Perimeter of the Webway Gate

12 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Captain Aeonid Thiel

Aeonid wondered what the Thirteenth Legion and its Successors had done so wrong for four millennia that on this very afternoon, the galaxy saw fit to punish them by having things go absolutely to hell.

There had to be a reason, but for the life of him, he couldn't guess what it was.

At least he had a direct vox and lithocast link to the squad he had ordered to watch over the Webway Gate; and he had been able to give orders not to fire before communications went down.

Otherwise, the Ultramarine Captain had no doubt each and every battle-brother present there would have been dead by the time he arrived.

It could still happen, and this was why his words were relatively polite when one considered the one he addressed was a xenos.

"Queen of Blades. While there is no formal accord preventing you from stepping on an Imperial world, it is considered...polite...that you would avoid doing so. The Imperium through the voice of Lady Weaver promised there would be no invasion of the Webway...we expected in return no forces coming on planets claimed by Mankind."

"Please, don't hide behind the name of my Empress," the ancient being who could be mistaken as a red-haired female Eldar if you looked at her from far away chided him, "and this is not my fault. I blame the clowns."

"This is necessary, Bearer of the First Sword!" one of the multi-coloured xenos sang, and yes, 'clown' was indeed appropriate to describe it. "According to the dance of Crone, supported by the prophecy-"

"Prophecies were useless at Commorragh."

The blunt assessment generated plenty of silent outrage on several of the clowns' masks, as well as the faces of the Craftworld Warriors present.

"What matters right now is that the Herald of the Great Devourer is here, in this very system." The eleventh most wanted being of the Imperium deadpanned as if she lived through that sort of situation on an average day.

"The Great Devourer? Is that the name your race had for the Tyranids?"

The communication had been garbled, but the name had begun to spread despite how erratic and fragmented the non-astropathic messages were. As for astropathic exchanges, they were all down. That was what happened when half of your available Astropaths died, and the other half had to be sedated before they shared the same fate.

"Tyranid," Lelith Hesperax uttered the name slowly, like she was tasting it, "not a bad name, I suppose. And no, it is the name Vaul had for them. The Old Ones who were involved in the improvements of the Aeldari project dubbed it a folly. And they were completely right."

"But you have experience fighting those beasts-"

"They are not beasts," the Queen of Blades interrupted him with a haughty look which made the best efforts of arrogant Planetary Governors look like inelegant tantrums and poor imitations of her behaviour. "They are an uncontrollable weapon. And my forces, back in the final stages of the War in Heaven, did not 'fight' them. We hunted the fleeing remnants after the C'Tan incinerated the entire galactic region where they were feeding after escaping the Old Ones' control."

Aeonid Thiel didn't like that. He didn't like that at all, both from a theoretical and practical perspective.

"How does one incinerate an entire 'galactic region'?"

Lelith Hesperax gave him the equivalent of a mocking smile.

"You prime hundreds of suns to be on the cusp of going supernova, then trigger them all at once."

Aeonid had not been given all the information the Imperium had gained from the Necrons about what was certainly the first great primordial conflict in recorded galactic history, but the more he learned about it, the more he was certain he would not under any circumstances want to live through that era.

"Well, enough about that," the Queen of Blades' face returned to a more neutral expression. "I have a Tyranid to hunt before it creates so many creatures that life will begin to be a little too exciting even for my taste, and you have a planet to defend."

"We are not under attack!" Marcus Flaminius protested.

"Yet," the ancient being corrected him. "My precognition abilities are unreliable due to the devouring shadow, but I can tell you the city westwards had been marked for tragedy and war. Moreover, with travelling abilities...severely disrupted, the Webway Gate is one of the most reliable remaining paths to leave this stellar system."

The female Eldar gave a glance to his assembled Ultramarines. Most xenos reacted to the sight of them with terror, or at least with a lot of wariness.

The being who answered, sometimes, to the name of Aenaria Eldanesh looked at the sons of Guilliman like they were a band of dumb children.

"In my great and very limited generosity," the red-haired Aeldari spoke after a loud sigh, "you can keep the Alaitoc Rangers and the clowns."

The reaction was immediate on both sides of the structure where Astartes and Eldar were staring at each other.

"Captain! We aren't going to listen to his Eldar blade-dancer! The Codex does not approve-"

"Queen of Blades! My forces and I will not help those brutish-"

"Quiet."

There was no power behind the word, it was barely above a whisper, and yet everyone fell silent.

"I don't care about your prophecies, clowns, the ridiculous 'Codex' you worship, humans, or the nonsensical pride you should have lost after Commorragh, Rangers. What matters is stopping the Tyranids from devastating this region of space, assuming you care about living in it after the slaughter. The C'Tan are shattered and imprisoned, and most of the weapons of the Old Empire are gone. This is not going to be an easy battle."

Aeonid was far from convinced by those words.

"There are numerous recordings of your duel against Lady Weaver. Fighting a psychic being, even if it is one the size of a Battleship, will be no trouble whatsoever for you."

"Maybe," Lelith Hesperax smiled again.

"Maybe?"

"Maybe," the gladiator-clothed female repeated herself. "It entirely depends on whether this beast has devoured and assimilated Aeldari essence before staying dormant for millions of years."

Emperor-class Battleship Majestic Mandate

13 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Warmaster Ender Trevayne

The battle in the Fenris System had been a nightmare of dying ships, heretical sorcery, and surprises any officer could live without.

The battlefield had changed, but the nightmare was far from over.

"Our starfighters and bombers have been savaged, Warmaster. Any further operations beyond defensive manoeuvres are completely unacceptable."

"Then place us on an escape course. We need to get away from that...thing." Without its wings of starfighters and bombers – half of them already lost at Fenris – the capabilities of an Emperor-class Battleship were massively reduced, and this didn't count the other damage the Traitor Battleships had inflicted upon it. "The Invincible Reason?"

"Supreme Grand Master Lucifer was confident he could eliminate the infection of the xenos monsters which boarded his ship...but we have received no news from him in the last fifteen minutes."

"At least the Dark Angels' Gloriana is still moving..."

The enormous beast attacking everything and everyone that was in its range of engagement had decided to focus on the Super-Battleships first. The heretics' Trisagion had managed to get away nearly unscathed, but the Beta of the Traitor Alpha Legion hadn't. The Hrafnkel of the Space Wolves had to leave the battle after hellish acids opened large sections of the ship to the void. The Wolves' crew was still fighting to save the Gloriana. At least they didn't have to request the Implacable Justice to fire upon them. Speaking of which...

"Status of the Traitor Emperor-class Battleship the Traitor Astartes used to destroy their own ship?" How bad must it have been aboard the Beta for Astartes to consider it a lost cause, Ender Trevayne preferred not to think about.

"No change so far, Warmaster. It continues to run away."

"Hum." The problem was that this move was likely to work. The anti-Warp effect the beast was generating had a tremendous range, but it couldn't engulf more than a few light-months. Sooner or later, this Battleship was going to reach the limits of the field preventing warships from making a Warp translation.

Ender was tempted to order one of his ships to break formation in pursuit of the Traitor Astartes. The idea of letting any of those bastards go unpunished after the ruin they had caused to Cadia, Fenris, and many other planets was revolting, as it should be for any loyal officer of His Most Holy Majesty.

But his firepower was extremely limited. He had three Battleships, and all of them were heavily damaged. None of the Imperial Navy's warships would win a one-on-one fight against a warship defended by Traitor Astartes in significant numbers.

And the Battle-Barges and Super-Battleship of the loyal Space Marines were fighting under their own authority right now, mainly trying to slaughter the murderous things the sixty kilometres-long beast had sent to board their ships.

"The rest of the great heretic fleet?"

"Still trying to regroup one million kilometres away from our location," one of the Lieutenants in charge of the auspexes answered as the technological devices of the Adeptus Mechanicus fizzled and projected garbled images and data. The communication problems had not diminished in the slightest during the last two hours, and trying to wake up an Astropath was a death sentence for the psyker. "It looks like they're waiting for the Battleship we identified as the Great Slaughter of Beta-Garmon." The officer shook his head. "So far, the Battleship of the heretics has activated some kind of sorcery which burns the 'boarding tendrils' of the beast and-"

"Energy spike!" A Magos interrupted the report. "Massive energy spike coming from the beast! The readings, they are blasphemy against-"

The auspexes stabilised for a couple of seconds, allowing the bridge crew of the Majestic Mandate an excellent view of the colossal xenos creature firing an enormous blast of red-coloured energy at the Great Slaughter of Beta-Garmon.

The Void Shields of the Traitor Battleship were up, and its heretical commander had diverted what had to be most of its surplus power to it.

Yet when the terrible attack hit, it went through the shields' like they didn't exist. There was an enormous flash.

And when the auspexes were able to give a frazzled view of the war zone again, the Great Slaughter of Beta-Garmon was gone. There was no crippled hulk or some massive debris field of adamantium and machinery; the Traitor ship was truly gone.

"By the Golden Throne..."

"God-Emperor save us..."

"Warmaster...that was a psychic attack." The Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest informed him. "Probability: 99.12%. Estimated optimal range of the psychic phenomenon...unknown."

Ender Trevayne wasn't willing to take chances...not after seeing that.

"Get us at least one million and two hundred thousand kilometres away from that Super-Battleship-sized beast! And pass the word to the Adeptus Astartes, we can't fight this monster at anything even resembling close-quarters!"

Legate-class Battleship Hand of Destiny

Chaos Lord Moefranc

Moefranc bowed and delivered the bad news. No doubt the Supreme Dark Apostle knew exactly why and how it had happened, but it was better to fulfil his duties perfectly.

"The Great Slaughter of Beta-Garmon is gone, Hand of Destiny."

"Tsorr'Kanath chose his fate."

"Yes, Hand of Destiny."

"We haven't yet heard from our great ally Kor Phaeron?"

"No, Hand of Destiny," this time, Moefranc permitted himself a smirk. None of the Faithful here were admirers of the Black Cardinal. Had they been, they wouldn't have been invited to serve aboard this Legate-class Battleship; they would have been purged the moment they stepped foot inside one of the hangar bays. "Not a word."

"Typical," the reply of his Lord came after a snort. "Well, enough is enough. If the Dark Council wants to die here, who am I to stop the mighty Dark Apostles? They can wait for the curse or the xenos to slay them...without us."

"I have no objection to this, Hand of Destiny." Moefranc replied sincerely. Like all Legionnaires of the Seventeenth Legion, he was resisting the curse through sheer willpower and several blessed artefacts of the Gods. "But this xenos is generating a system-wide field which prevents us from making a Warp translation. And while the dogs of the False Emperor ignored the Hydra's Scales' escape...I don't think they would ignore the Hand of Destiny. Especially as the Vindication of Loyalty is able to intercept us without moving from its current position."

"Fleeing through the Warp would provide no salvation," the Exalted Dark Apostle declared, and his words rang like divine truth. "It will take too much time to accede to the Realm of the Gods in any case, but once we are inside it, the curse of the Flesh Change will be magnified, not lessened. Anarchy has enforced its dictate upon the Seventeenth Legion, and it won't relent until we are Spawns or we crawl at its feet. Yet for all its scheming ability, Anarchy has committed a mistake. There is a realm where the Flesh Change's effect can be kept at bay indefinitely."

"Why then didn't the Thousand Sons use it before the rebellion against the False Emperor?" The Chaos Lord asked.

"Because that realm is the Webway."

Yes...yes, it made sense. Unfortunately, Moefranc could see a glaring problem with this strategy.

"That is...that is extremely interesting, Hand of Destiny. But we are in the Macragge System. Surely the rigid dogs of the False Emperor who recite the platitudes of their dead father would have discovered any Webway Gate they found near their home...and then destroyed it."

"As it happens, you are wrong. The fools of Macragge are blind and ignorant. And my wyrd-slaves can feel the Webway Gate of Laphis being activated as we speak."

"Laphis?" a Captain repeated with a shadow of annoyance in his voice. "But we aren't anywhere near Laphis, Lord! Fenris is currently on a collision course with Macragge, we won't be able to go anywhere near that planet without being intercepted by the defences of the Ultramarines or the other dogs of the False Emperor!"

"Everything you have just said, Captain...is false."

The Hand of Destiny seized from the nearest altar a dagger most loyal sons of Lorgar had heard of at one time or another.

It was an athame.

It was likely the last athame in possession of the Legion, since so many had been lost during the Rebellion against the False Emperor and many were broken, stolen, or lost in the millennia after.

Moefranc felt himself grinning. With this apparently unimpressive dagger, the members of the Dark Council could carve up reality as they desired.

"Call our allies and friends in the Grand Armada. Within this anti-Warp field, the effect won't last long. If they are loyal to our cause, they will act without delay."

"Yes, Hand of Destiny!" the loyal sons of Lorgar chorused.

"In the immortal words of that blinded fool Kor Phaeron," Dark Apostle Erebus proclaimed, "we are the Warp!"

The athame struck, and reality screamed.

High Orbit over T'au

Battleship Enterprise

14 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lady General Taylor Hebert

It had been a vain hope. The galaxy wasn't going to stop sending her horrors and evil surprises just because she was exhausted.

But even after a few hours of rest, several injections of Golden Bacta, and a short nap while she returned to the Enterprise, Taylor had not expected the galaxy to go crazy like it did.

In no particular order, the highlights could be listed as follows.

The Behemoth Tyranid had Dynakinesis psychic abilities.

Anarchy was a very sore loser; not only had the planets of Tau and Fenris been sent into the Macragge System, one or more Ruinous Powers had engineered things so that they were on a collision course with Macragge itself.

The Astropathic communications were down. The non-psychic means of communications were so unreliable at long-range they might as well not exist. For all intents and purposes, this meant that the Battle Groups of Operation Stalingrad were all she could control as they were coalesced in a massive fleet, and if she was forced to detach them, there would be little oversight and coordination.

As if things couldn't get worse, the Word Bearers had somehow found a way to displace their Battleships in the equivalent of a short Warp jump, and three of their heavy warships along with hundreds of small craft were rushing towards Laphis. Why the Traitor Astartes wanted to despoil this Paradise World in particular Taylor didn't know, but she was willing to bet the answer wouldn't be enjoyable.

So many problems. Fortunately, the warning of Hanzo Hattori had given her the time to deploy some of her contingencies, and this meant the battlefield was merely a disaster in the making, not something they would need the Emperor Himself to overcome.

"Let's begin with the most urgent problem," the Lady General commanded as all high commanders' hololithic representations answered her summons. "If nothing is done, two planets are going to ram Macragge in less than fifteen days, and I think we would all prefer to avoid that kind of cosmic catastrophe. Archmagos Belisarius Cawl. Please tell me you have the tools and the skill to teleport Fenris and Tau away before they collide with the Primarch Guilliman's homeworld."

"I do," the Archmagos answered, visibly relishing being the centre of the high-ranked audience's attention. "Though technically it is not teleportation; such a thing is impossible with the shadowy field spread by the Tyranid. What I propose is to-"

Taylor cleared her throat, ironically a fraction of a second before Dragon did.

"But the technical data will be explained in good time," the Radical Archmagos assured them. "To answer the original question more accurately, yes, I have the skills and the tools, though some will need to be duplicated, since moving the first planet away in a gravitic tunnel will impose the creation of secondary tools-"

"Archmagos Hediatrix will give you the resources available to our Arsenal-class Star Galleons...within reasonable limits."

It would have created countless political issues to make such a request under normal circumstances, but right now? With two planets about to collide with a third, and two out of the three being famous First Founding Chapter homeworlds, there was no time for pretences and influence quarrels.

"It will be done, Chosen of the Omnissiah."

Taylor silently thanked the Voice of Mars and the other Archmagi who had backed her up of their own volition.

"I am beginning the preliminary procedures and the deployment of all required instruments as we speak," Cawl continued. "As we are in high orbit of this xenos world and it is currently uncontested, I think, we can all agree, it is best to begin with the simpler task. However, there are some issues which need to be resolved."

"Name them." The golden-winged parahuman pressed on.

"First, this...not-teleportation scientific exploit will not be able to move all the Tau orbital fortresses with the planet."

"What would happen should it be attempted?" inquired Chapter Master Ta'Phor Hezonn.

"At best, they will be disintegrated by the transfer energies," Cawl shook his head. "At worst, they will collide with the planet."

There was a decision to be made...damn it.

"Fine. General Flabanico, your men have taken significant losses against the Flayer Necrons," the report her chief of staff had given her about the fighting to secure the Noctilith was not the kind of reading one wanted to be given. "Ten regiments of Ventrillian Nobles will supervise the orbital-to-land transfer of xenos civilians to their homeworld and then begin garrison duty. The Mechanicus ships will tow the orbital fortresses and the shipyard away when the evacuation is complete."

If they won, everything would be disassembled and studied by the Tech-Priests before being moved elsewhere.

"There is also the problem of the destination this planet must be moved to."

The tone and facial expression of Cawl – though the latter was almost hidden by his red hood – were enough for anyone who had met him several times before to know what was coming.

"You have an idea, Archmagos, and I don't have time to waste."

"In this case...in order to avoid jurisdiction conflicts and various problems from several narrow-minded bureaucrats, I propose to send this world, Tau, to the Nyx Sector. Since you are Lady Nyx, any planet within your frontiers falls under your responsibilities."

Taylor didn't know if she wanted to laugh or sigh.

But Cawl had a point. When this battle was over, an outcry to purge the Tau species was likely unavoidable. And the Tech-Priests of uncountable Forge Worlds were going to be salivating and shaking their mechadendrites in jealousy at the idea of having the Earth Caste's works under their optical augmetics.

"Where?"

"The Ouralia System. It is definitely within range of my...instruments and devices."

It was a system of the Moros Sub-Sector...and there was only a dead world there, if she remembered correctly. Unlike most stars which didn't have an Imperium-inhabited world orbiting them, there were Warp trails leading there, and not just because it was next door to Fay and Petersburg...but this was something that could wait.

The Lady General turned towards Dragon, who gave her a noncommittal shrug.

Assuredly, Cawl had his own ambitions where Tau technology was concerned...but in this instance, their interests aligned.

"Then Ouralia it will be. Continue your preparations, Archmagos Cawl. The El Dorado and Battle Group Berezina will assist you."

Most of the Mechanicus' hololithic representations flashed out, though there remained enough Magi and Archmagi to form a very respectable tech-delegation.

"Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller, your report on the second threat, please."

"By some foul heresy, three Traitor Battleships were somehow able to bypass Macragge and its defences and flank us. They are racing to strike directly at Laphis. No matter how we react, they're going to be in position to launch a direct assault on this Paradise World in one hour."

"Strength of the garrison?" Princeps Senioris Darius Sobek inquired.

"Based on the most recent information available, there was a Company of Ultramarines and an Army Group of Ultramar Auxilia stationed on Laphis."

Some of the Guard officers present clearly expected the Lord Admiral to add more. But the tally of the order of battle – if Laphis deserved such a generous description – was complete.

"That's all?" muttered an officer Taylor didn't manage to identify.

"Laphis is a Paradise World on the doorstep of the Ultramarines' homeworld," Dragon interjected. "Normally, it shouldn't require more."

"But it clearly needs more than they currently have," the High Marshal of the Black Templars proclaimed. "Your Celestial Highness, allow me to take the Black Templars to Laphis. I vow that before-"

"I am sure you and your battle-brothers would slaughter the Traitor Word Bearers with ease, High Marshal," the Lady of the Nyx Sector assured him. "But we must keep our focus on what is important: eliminating the majority of the Traitor fleet present in this system, and slay the monster codenamed Tyranid Behemoth as fast as possible. If you go to Laphis with your Black Templars, the absence of the Eternal Crusader might be the difference between victory and defeat."

And the Gloriana of the Seventh Legion wasn't the only thing which would be missing in the order of battle if the Black Templars departed. They had several Strike Cruisers, about one thousand and seven hundred battle-ready Astartes...the list could go on for quite a while.

The insect-mistress addressed her chief of staff, because she had to find a solution, of course...

"General Rokossovsky. I noticed that between all Battle Groups, we still have a large reserve which was left idle."

"Yes, Lady General." The Vostroyan replied. "You're thinking about sending an army in particular?"

"I was thinking about the 10th Korps of Krieg." It was a very large army with six hundred-plus regiments and approximately ten million men. If it couldn't stand against the Traitor guardsmen, then Krieg wasn't worth anything as a Guard recruitment world. For an instant, she considered giving a Krieg General the theatre command, but it was too risky. "General Schwarz, you will have command of the Guard regiments sent to protect Laphis from the heretics."

"Yes, Lady General!" The Catachan officer grinned carnivorously.

"Lady Weaver, if I may?"

The supreme commander of Operation Stalingrad gave a respectful nod to the Dreadnought who had just asked for the floor.

"Yes, Ancient Rylanor?"

"I do not doubt the courage of the Ultramarines or the training of your Krieg guardsmen, but your forces will be massively outnumbered in Space Marines. They need someone to bolster their spirits when they will face transhuman shock for the first time in battle-conditions. The White Thunderbolts' Company I have the honour to command is trained to bolster Guard regiments. And unlike the valorous Black Templars, our absence is unlikely to weigh down the Battle Groups."

"The Angels Vermillion are ready to help our cousins!" because, of course, once a Chapter of Space Marines 'volunteered', the others were not far behind.

After five minutes of proposals, Taylor considered it a near-miracle she had managed to keep the forces down to four Companies of Astartes, the 10th Korps, the 12th Artillery Army of Nyx, two air forces of the Aeronautica Imperialis, and the Lances of House Terryn.

"Ancient Rylanor will have overall command over the Astartes Companies. In order to ensure the best possible coordination, elements of my Templar Sororitas and Adjutant-Spiders will act as liaisons between all components, with General Schwarz in theatre command. Admiral Oskar von Reuenthal will take command of the naval theatre forces. His forces will include the 4th Battleship Division and three Astartes Strike Cruisers. They are to be reinforced by the Audacious in carrier support, and Battle Group Don will divert four flotillas of Hoplite-class Destroyers."

The discussion was not nearly finished. There had to be ships to detach from the main Battle Groups, squadrons to reform, and obviously the orders had to trickle down the chain of command.

And this was just for Laphis.

"Lord Inquisitor Tor?"

"Given the psychic taint inflicted by the Archenemy on this system," the old man declared bluntly, "I am going to deploy Inquisitorial Task Forces on every planet answering to the rule of Macragge. Between the danger of this xenos influence and the sinister corruption of the Enemy Beyond, I think it is vital the Holy Ordos is certain of the rulers' purity and loyalty."

"Surely not Macragge?" an officer of the Vostroyan Firstborn asked.

"Especially Macragge," Odysseus Tor retorted icily. "You don't think the heretics would have come here if they didn't already have infiltrated cultists ready to wreck havoc upon the Ultramarines' defences, do you?"

High Orbit of Macragge

Battle-Barge Caesar

14 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Chapter Master Cato Valens

The Ultramarines were almost certainly on the eve of the most critical war of the 35th millennium as far as their Chapter was concerned, and the last thing the Regent of Macragge wanted to hear was that the citizens of Macragge were unsuited to fulfil the duties they had sworn their existence to.

Unfortunately, looking at the Auxilia General who had somehow been able to take command of the Illyrium military district, this was exactly what he had just been told.

"Theoretical: you are incompetent and stupid."

"Lord Regent! I must protect-"

"Practical: you are incompetent, stupid, and your own reply should have been: I take full responsibility for my subordinates' colossal mistakes." Cato Valens managed to articulate without adding an execution order for the man, who had clearly been elevated way beyond his real command aptitudes, to his scolding. "You are relieved of your command, effective immediately. General Trapezus! You are promoted to the command of the Illyrium military district. Your first duty is to exterminate this cultist rebellion, no matter the cost. Those treacherous wretches have chosen to side with the enemies of Guilliman and the Emperor. They must pay the price for it."

"Yes, Lord Regent." The blonde-haired officer in blue carapace armour saluted. "They will all be dead within twenty-four hours."

The hololithic projections vanished, and the Ultramarines Chapter Master permitted a grimace to appear on his face, something he wouldn't have done if there were non-Astartes present in the war conference room.

"He somehow missed more than twenty thousand cultists, and when they revolted, ordered a retreat...unbelievable..."

"In all fairness, Illyrium has always been a breeding ground for unsavoury elements," Captain Torquatus Rebilus of the 6th Company pointed out. "And some insurrections happened while the Primarch, blessed be His name, walked among us."

"That doesn't excuse this massive failure!" The Regent of Macragge snapped, before calming himself. "Let's go back to the general situation."

"The situation remains disastrous," Gaius Pompeius, Captain of the 1st Company, answered. "There are still two planets on collision courses with our home, and it must be hoped that the loyal fleet orbiting the second planet has some way to destroy them and expel the remnants out of the system, because our Chapter does not have the armaments required to destroy something so massive in the days we have left."

"Maybe the Macragge's Honour-" Cassius Bacurius began, only to be interrupted by the man he considered his rival.

"The Macragge's Honour is a mothballed museum ship, Cassius!" Gaius retorted. "And even if it wasn't, it hasn't been modernised since we used it in the War of the Beast. Moreover, there are so many Glorianas currently in the system that I don't think one more will be very useful if the massive fleet which must be Weaver's 'Operation Stalingrad' can't do it. There can't be many loyal fleets of that size operating near the Eastern Fringe."

"True," Cato Valens conceded. "Do you believe they can deal with the planets?"

"Theoretical: I believe so," the 1st Company Captain nodded. "Since our communications are unable to reach them, we can't be certain, but there has to be a reason two Arks Mechanicus and many capital ships are staying around the intruder-planet while the rest of the fleet rushes towards Macragge."

"Practical," Cassius Bacurius' voice was loud and sounded ready to object, "Weaver can't be-"

"Stop."

The Captain of the 2nd Company went silent.

"The more time I spent analysing your decisions at Nyx, the less confident I grew we followed the path which would have pleased the Primarch," Cato Valens knew it was far too late and he had supported Bacurius, but it needed to be said now, before it caused another disaster. "But the hour is too grave to spend it in recriminations and complaints. We have neither the firepower nor any solution to deal with those planets. We have Exterminatus weapons, but ours kill worlds by scouring a planet of all life...something that will be absolutely useless when the cleansed but structurally intact planets will still collide with Macragge."

And the prospect made him nearly mentally ill. Macragge was more than the recruitment headquarters of the Ultramarines, the place where the Codex was penned, or a formidable fortress where they could let the citizens of Ultramar prosper in peace; it was where the Shrine of the Primarch had been built, and both the resting place of their Lord Father and priceless treasures of the time before the Heresy were protected here. The thought of losing this legacy, the thought of Guilliman's wisdom and inheritance being no more...it was unbearable.

"If Weaver – or any Archmagos she has allied with – possesses a solution which won't result in Macragge being destroyed, we will have to pay the full price for it, even if it requires closing our eyes against multiple Codex infractions. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Chapter Master." Bacurius replied unhappily.

"Good. Status of the other Companies?"

"We can't expect any help from Thiel," Captain Torquatus Rebilus explained to no Space Marine's surprise. "The Imperial fleet is sending reinforcements to Laphis, but the Word Bearers are going to arrive first with a lot of margin to launch an unimpeded planetary assault. As far as we can tell, the Mare Nostrum is manoeuvring to ambush them, but I doubt its crew will be able to hinder more than one Battleship. The 8th Company is going to fight for its life, and the garbled communications before everything was cut mentioned Eldar. Practical: the 8th Company will be unavailable for operations outside Laphis."

This was a positive way to look at it. In reality, if the 8th Company were not led by a hero of the Great Heresy, Cato Valens would not be very optimistic about the chances of survival of his Ultramarine battle-brothers. Three Battleships like the ones the hated oath-breakers and demon-worshippers used could contain as many as three or four thousand Traitor Astartes supported by half a million cultists and mutants. Whereas the 8th Company had ninety-six Space Marines...

"The Seventh has left Nova Thulium with the Brazen Consuls, but their course will not allow them to do more than catch up with the Imperial fleet in a few hours. The Third Company and the Iron Hounds seem to be completing their redeployment, but they too are more than a standard day away. Only the Tenth and the Obsidian Jaguars may reach us before the battle against the Word Bearers' fleet begins."

"The Tenth is not trained for a naval battle of this magnitude." They were Scouts, by Guilliman's laurels! If he threw them into a space boarding action, they were going to be slaughtered by the bastard sons of Lorgar, who for all their crimes were veterans of millennia of murderous void battles. "We must hope Captain Fabius Decius will try to return to Macragge as fast as the engines of his ships allow."

"The Fourth and the Ninth are too far away for us to see anything, given how bad the psychic and non-psychic interference is." Rebilus concluded. "The theoretical is of course they will take as many as their forces with Galatan and return to protect Macragge, but Mortendar is so far away our preliminary calculations predict the Companies will not be able to participate before the first four days of battle are over."

"In that case," Gaius Pompeius said, "it is more vital than ever we hold our ground and-"

"You would hide behind the orbital grid like a coward?" Bacurius hotly demanded.

"I would." The Captain of the 1st Company replied, his blue eyes shining with distrust for his fellow Captain. "The Word Bearers have a crushing advantage in tonnage and capital hulls. They may have lost one Battleship and sent three others to Laphis, but that leaves them twenty-four, plus the monstrous Trisagion. Why would we risk the future of our Chapter when Weaver's fleet is going to be the hammer and our orbital fleet will be the anvil?"

"Because it won't be the hammer you want it to be," the Captain of the 2nd Company answered more reasonably after the Regent of Macragge gave him a glance warning him to not go further than he already had. "The Trisagion is able to tear apart our orbital defences like it did at Armatura four thousand years ago. And the Traitor Fleet will arrive far earlier than Weaver's. If we stay here, we are going to be slaughtered at high anchor!"

And the sons of Guilliman, for all their polyvalent skills, honed by millennia of Codex wisdom, were not the masters of defensive warfare. This distinction went to the sons of Dorn...as long as they weren't Black Templars, of course.

"Gaius, execute Plan Calth's Revenge."

The Captain of the 1st Company obviously didn't like it, but unlike Bacurius, Cato knew he could count on the leader of the Warriors of Ultramar giving everything to its accomplishment now that the order was given.

"The civilian population's evacuation protocols must be activated. The Auxilia will have to make sure as many people as possible find refuge inside the polar fortresses." As a proud son of Guilliman, he wanted to save them all, but no matter how much time the Ultramarines bought with their lives, there were going to be Traitors sullying the soil of Macragge...and maybe something worse coming behind the bastard sons of Lorgar too. "The Army Groups must proceed with all due celerity. By the time the first enemy boot touches Macragge, I want at least seventy-five percent of our military assets ready to defend the Sirocco line to the north and the Pharsalus line to the south."

Theoretical: it wasn't ideal.

Practical: even during all of the most stringent military exercises Cato had participated in, no Ultramarine commander had ever thought to evacuate more than two billion people in so little time. Not to mention that Illyrium wouldn't be evacuated: you could fight cultists, or you could conduct an evacuation, but you couldn't do both at the same time.

"The Traitors are here, brothers, and the orders of our Father still stand." Cato Valens declared to the three Captains and their high-ranked subordinates who had participated to this war summit. "Kill them all."

Carrion-class Heavy Battleship Vox Dominus

14 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Dark Apostle Paristur

There were a lot of things to be furious about.

The Black Crusade had utterly failed. Anarchy had ascended to become a Ruinous Power. That unworthy pile of rat excrement had transformed their Father into a Chaos Spawn.

The Grand Armada was still powerful, but it was a shadow of its former self. All Battleships were damaged to varying degrees, and the hastily-made repairs were so pathetic the problems would reappear the moment the battle started again.

Even the prospect of fighting Ultramarines, the possibility of breaking the faces of the sons of Guilliman and defiling their gold-blue banners, seemed unimportant now.

And Erebus had betrayed them...again.

Despite all their contingency plans to prevent it, despite spending a fortune in spies, pacts, and measures to pulverise the Vile One the moment he made his move, they had failed.

Erebus had used the last athame, the last dagger of its kind to be in possession of the Seventeenth Legion, to cut his way through reality and attack Laphis.

This was truly a plan worthy of the Vile One's treacherous mind. The warriors of the 8th Great Host may survive if the plan was successful. Or not. There were plenty of Legionnaires who had deserted their original Great Host to throw their lot in with lackeys like Lucius and Moefranc, but Erebus had never won any great victory when he was the supreme military commander.

This was infuriating. But at this very moment, even the anger Paristur directed towards that vermin they should have killed aeons ago was fading.

Because in a few hours or days, it wouldn't matter.

The Word Bearers Legion had been sentenced to death.

Paristur felt it pressing against his mental defences and the pacts protecting his flesh.

Sometimes, it was like a berserker of Khorne trying to crack your bones; in several instances it was like a choir of Neverborn trying to charm you into embracing them.

The Curse's assault had failed...for him...for now.

Every hour now, one or two Legionnaires were abandoning the struggle and transforming into Chaos Spawn.

And Kor Phaeron and Jarulek, as they were transported away by the Warp tides, had made many divinations and studies, and arrived at the unpleasant conclusion the precious gene-seed of the Seventeenth Legion was contaminated by the Flesh Change Curse.

The unworthy Fourth Ruinous Power had damned them for all eternity. Worse, it was originally a curse of the Great Architect, and this meant it had been devised to bring down the Thousand Sons, and for all the hypocrisy of the sons of Magnus, there was no doubt they were all psykers.

That was not the case for the average Word Bearer. Oh, all Dark Apostles were Sorcerers and knew how to wield the power of the Gods. But the majority of the Legion had nothing but the blessings of the Gods to help them withstand this dark time.

And now the Gods were abandoning them. No, they had abandoned them. It was just taking a few hours for the effects to become impossible to deny.

"The Invincible Reason, the Hrafnkel, and the surviving ships of the False Emperor are engaging the xenos beast at long-range. They don't seem to be having a lot of success."

"Let's be thankful the beast is here in the first place," assuredly Tsorr'Kanath would disagree, given how the Great Slaughter of Beta-Garmon had been disintegrated by the flesh-abomination, but instead of fleeing, he had tried to fight a sixty kilometres-long beast. He couldn't complain about the outcome. Or rather he could...but his soul was in the claws of the Gods now. "Otherwise the Dark Angels would be pursuing us now."

Minutes were spent in complete silence. They had lost, and no bluster could hide that.

"Communications from Lord Kor Phaeron, Lord Paristur."

"Open our most reliable hololithic-link." Even with the Trisagion so close to the Vox Dominus, psychic communications were extremely unreliable. It took three seconds before his fellow member of the Dark Council – what was left of the institution at any rate – materialised.

"Paristur. I have a plan."

"I'm all ears," the Dark Apostle replied sarcastically.

"We are going to attack the Ultramarines fleet which is preparing to intercept us."

The leader of the 3rd Great Host blinked in surprise.

"And why would we do something so stupid? I thought the course we were taking was merely to get away from the First Legion's ships and the beast as quickly as possible, not to slam our head against the gates of Macragge!"

"We massively outnumber them," Kor Phaeron haughtily declared, and Paristur chuckled darkly.

"Yes, they have only five Battle-Barges and a dozen Strike Cruisers...may I remind you that all our Battleships have just come out of a massive void clash...a clash we lost by the way."

Paristur shook his head.

"We have the Trisagion and twenty-four Battleships. If we engage them, it won't matter whether they are predictable or not thanks to their ridiculous Codex. We are going to take massive losses. Ultramarines always die killing a lot of enemies...I thought you had learned that at Calth."

The Black Cardinal's expression after that was literally murderous, but Paristur was not sorry to have spoken the words in the slightest. They had begun this Black Crusade with more than two hundred thousand Legionnaires; they had less than forty thousand when they were ejected into the Macragge System...and of course between the death of Tsorr'Kanath and Erebus' desertion, they had lost more. And he was not counting the losses of the Flesh Change Curse.

"I have. But we don't have any other choice. The only thing that can ensure we are forgiven by the Gods is to finish off Guilliman and destroy the Ultramarines."

Paristur winced internally. Something like that would have been difficult to accomplish with the full strength of the Black Crusade...a strength they didn't have anymore.

"Let's say I believe what you just said. Let's say we beat the Ultramarines and pay the price of doing so. We still don't have the strength to storm Macragge anymore. It is a heavily defended Mountain World. The Trisagion will dismantle the orbital defences, but too slowly. And by the Eye of Terror, we don't have time on our side. Weaver is here. The Warp is screaming her name from the other side of the shadowy veil. She's already on her way to Macragge, and the moment she realises we're truly trying a headlong assault, the False Saint is going to accelerate her offensive schedule."

And unlike the Ultramarines, she had enough Battleships to keep a large reserve around the planet she had come with and still launch an assault led by two Gloriana Super-Battleships supported by some nasty new designs of capital ships.

The Great Plan had always been to fight Weaver, but not under conditions as unfavourable as these.

"We can storm Macragge. We have the Legio Vulturum."

"Correction," Paristur opposed, "Sota-Nul has the Legio Vulturum. And I very much doubt she's going to let us borrow her last major force for a vague promise. We already didn't honour our previous commitments, and unlike us, she doesn't suffer from any curse. In case you haven't noticed, her squadron is already abandoning us."

It was something...intriguing. Per the goals every notable leader had sworn to their gene-sire, the alliance between all factions was far more than a mere vellum parchment. Of course, as he had just acknowledged, they hadn't exactly honoured their part of the deal. The participation of the Word Bearers during the Siege of the Fang had been at best limited, at worst counterproductive.

The other explanation was that Sota-Nul was obeying the orders of someone else.

Before Fenris, discovering the true allegiance of the Hell Forge-Mistress were it to ever come into doubt would have been something high on his priority list.

Today it was just something to let go, especially as they didn't have the warships to waste on a direct confrontation.

"Sota-Nul is not going to be in a position to oppose us. Vorrjuk has collected several Necron artefacts which we are about to test."

If Kor Phaeron had thought this was going to reassure him, the Black Cardinal was completely wrong.

"What sort of desperate betrayal do you have in mind?"

"We need a distraction to delay Weaver. We need the Titans of Legio Vulturum. I think Sota-Nul has become an obstacle...wherever her true allegiances are, she is no longer on our side."

Paristur could have replied to the other member of the Dark Council that after the punishment the Grand Armada had received, anybody would have been far less 'loyal' – if such a thing truly existed among the True Legions and their allies – than they had been at the beginning of the Black Crusade. But what would be the point of wasting time and words when they had so little left?

"If you are wrong about Guilliman's corpse being an adequate sacrifice, the Legion will die."

"What is your alternative, then?" Kor Phaeron asked. "Thanks to the flesh-beast and the Anarchy pretender, we are months, maybe years away from any of our strongholds like Ghalmek in the Maelstrom. We have to secure a cure for the Flesh Change Curse, and a new Blessed World which will allow us to recover and rebuild our forces. Macragge offers both."

"If things go well," Paristur tempered. "I know we sometimes improvised on the path and that we have a few outdated contingencies for the Ultramarines, but we are a fleet of wrecks and Russ' dogs have slaughtered more than half of our officers. In my opinion, we are far too likely to lose far more than we already invested-"

"This isn't about winning anymore." And for all his seniority in the Dark Council, rarely had Paristur seen the Black Cardinal with such a devoted expression on his face. "It's about making sure that everyone else loses."

Unlike many cities of the realm of Ultramar, Ravenna, capital of the Paradise World of Laphis, was never built with war in mind.

This was one of the many reasons why its citizens loved Guilliman so much.

Ravenna was an ancient memory of a time when the Expeditionary Fleets were triumphant on every front, an era when Mankind's dominion of the galaxy was all but assured.

It was the proof a Primarch had thought that war would end one day. It was an ideal which was destroyed by the Horus Heresy and the Battle of Calth.

But if the Fortress of Hera and many citadels of the Ultramarines guarded the realm of Ultramar, Ravenna continued to stand.

Ironically, in spite of many successive Chapter Masters discouraging the practise, several quarters of the city had been converted into churches and sites of worship. This wasn't limited to Ravenna itself; across Laphis, there were many settlements which were entirely dedicated to the Saviour Emperor and his Avenging Son.

Unlike on a proper Shrine World however, Laphis was certainly not ruled by the Ecclesiarchy; the Ultramarines and the authorities they delegated their executive and legislative power to were the sole source of government.

As a consequence, while pilgrims arrived and left, Ravenna remained a curious melange of secular traditions and new devotion, all the while prospering on a trade of artisan mosaics, ancestral metallurgy, and several other famous artistic pursuits, ranging from architecture of water fountains to sugar sweets.

Situated on the banks of the Polenta River, Ravenna was a jewel which remained unaffected by time and the numerous military campaigns waged by Ultramar and the Imperium.

Until the Cataclysm of Macragge.

Until the day the vile Word Bearers and their hordes of heretics came.

From Hell Cauldron: the Battle for Ravenna, by Julia Scribonius, Ultramar Rose Edition, 315M41.

Laphis

Ravenna – West of the Polenta River

15 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Maia Numerius

Maia screamed alongside tens of thousands of other Laphisers when the Guilliman Bridge was destroyed.

One moment the largest bridge to have ever connected the two sides of the Polenta River was standing high, as it had done for more than a millennium...the next a red bolt from the heavens struck it.

While mag-trains and uncountable people trying to evacuate were on it.

The young mother at that very instant felt the terrible certainty they were all dead.

Maybe the Ultramarines could survive that, but unaugmented men and women couldn't.

All around them the alarms continued to blare, sirens shrieking as the civilians were ordered to evacuate and their entire world unravelled into chaos.

People who had been running to the Guilliman Bridge were now trying to push through everyone else to escape.

People screamed, begged men and women they had never met for a solution, or prayed to the God-Emperor for salvation.

Several enormous turrets rose from their hidden positions on the eastern bank, and went on to shoot at targets so high in the sky neither Maia nor anyone else could see them.

But as the minutes passed it didn't reassure her that her daughter and she were on the wrong side of the river. Everyone knew the new Ultramarine commander had begun building new defences in eastern Ravenna to train his troops – how could it not be the talk of every person frequenting the Laphis markets, when nothing so extraordinary had happened for as long as anyone could remember!

"Don't worry, Celestine," she told her young daughter, trying to put up a smile. "Everything is going to be fine." Hopefully, the Auxilia would organise another plan. Hopefully, there was someone competent who had predicted something like this could happen. And hopefully, this sight wouldn't be one her daughter would remember for the rest of her life.

But as for her two first hopes, the next minutes were disappointment after disappointment. Everyone was screaming, trying to attract the attention of thousands of members of the Auxilia who were arriving from the south.

But no one looked to be in charge. Many times the military broadcast messages for the people to go back to their homes. Maia wanted to scream at them that they should make up their minds: it was the evacuation procedures which had ordered them to leave everything they had behind, and now they wanted them to go back?

Maia didn't know if she had the strength to do that. It had already taken so long to reach where she was, with Celestine in her arms, for what had to be an evacuation exercise like the ones the Ultramarines had taken to organise more and more those last years. Going back was-

The sky, so blue, was turning an...an ugly colour.

And more 'bolts from the heavens' like the ones which had destroyed the Guilliman Bridge struck their side of Ravenna.

Maia thought she had seen panic before. She was wrong. The screams grew to another level of fear, and everyone was running everywhere like those poor lizards they presented tail-less in the markets.

And then the first thing descended upon Laphis.

It was far away, no detail could be seen from where she was...but it felt incredibly evil from just a glance.

"Don't cry Celestine, we're going south. Daddy will join us there." In truth she didn't know if her husband would ever have been able to find them in this mob, even if he had the most perfect devices of Ultramar. Everyone was pushing everyone, and Maia had to hide behind an archway at the end of a street which was in reality a dead end.

That's when she heard it. That was when everyone on Ravenna heard the cursed words of the heretics.

"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!"

Lord Commander Lucius

It was really too easy to be considered a fight.

"COME ON!" One swing of the Lash of Torment, and five useless heads of the Ultramar Auxilia were severed. "COME, SLAVES OF GUILLIMAN'S CORPSE! TRY TO KILL ME!"

The insult struck true, and no matter how cowered they were by his glorious presence, all attempts to flee stopped.

"COURAGE AND HONOUR!"

Lucius laughed and began to use the Laer Blade for the first time.

There were about a hundred enemies here, and he wasn't going to make it too easy.

"WHAT PITIFUL WORDS!" The Lord Commander of the Emperor's Children taunted them as he parted arms and limbs from their owners before hitting them with their own severed limbs. "COURAGE AND HONOUR! COURAGE AND HONOUR! I HAVE BETTER WORDS! EXCESS AND PERFECTION!"

Lucius tried to use some of the influence he held over the...blessings of the dead Goddess, but this time, even this miniscule attempt failed.

And this made the highest-ranked survivor of the Emperor's Children extremely angry.

A second later, he stopped toying with his prey. The Auxilia fell first, and then he sated his bloodlust on the useless mortals, pursuing them house by house, sometimes letting one or two fire a shot with their laspistols, just for the pleasure of watching their horrified expressions when it failed to leave even the tiniest paint scratch on his armour.

It was still too easy, but-

"What in the hell do you think you're doing, Lucius?"

The Lord Commander snarled at the Word Bearer 'commander' who had interrupted his fun.

"Ah, Marduk. I see you have finally broken the leash of Jarulek and enslaved yourself to Erebus."

The Dark Acolyte of Jarulek – and yes, this had likely enraged the leader of the 2nd Great Host beyond reason – seemed really furious he'd insulted him that way. It was too bad, because it was the truth.

"What do you think of my new...redecoration? Are you pleased?"

He had lacked the time to do more than arrange the blood and viscera of Guilliman's Auxilia-dogs in complex patterns, but it was already a nice beginning in his opinion, and-

"You are a perpetual disappointment and an insubordinate wretch! You were supposed to help our vanguard take the eastern bank of the city! Because of your tomfoolery, many of our battle-brothers have been slain by the Ultramarines!"

"Yes, well...I suppose you're getting used to it after what happened at Fenris and Cadia?" Lucius mocked him, keeping a tone of boredom which was absolutely not feigned. This was one of his curses, since the Naga was gone, he was surrounded by absolute boredom. "Look, Mardok-"

"It's Dark Apostle Marduk!"

Oh, Erebus had 'rewarded' him with a Dark Apostle title for his betrayal? They were really handing those out to anyone and anything these days...

Ah, oops. He had said the last part aloud.

"Yes, Marluk. Tell me, what is the point of hurrying too much? It's not like a company of Ultramarines is going to last long once we launch the real assault. We already have more than two thousand Astartes and-"

"The Ultramarines are led by Aeonid Thiel."

Lucius' smile vanished. Though he had not participated in the Shadow Crusade against Ultramar or been involved in any action near the sieges where the Ultramarines fought, that name had become a legend in its own right.

"He's still alive?" Granted, all legendary Space Marines lived long, but it had been a long time since the end of the Siege of Terra and...ah, of course. He had probably been involved in the assault of Commorragh, and only then fled out of the Webway where he'd hid for centuries.

But now this veteran of Horus' War was here, where he could kill him.

His two hearts beat faster.

"At last a kill worthy of being claimed by my blades," Lucius hissed, "thank you, Mardak, you have proven you were not totally useless in the end."

It was fortunate many Legionnaires of his new warband, former Night Lords and Word Bearers desiring to experience the bliss of Excess, were taking position around him, for several lines of Word Bearers were advancing through the avenue, before stopping a couple of feet behind the arrogant Acolyte.

A heartbeat later, a blue beam went through the head of the Possessed 'Champion' of Jarulek's treacherous disciple.

Lucius was impressed by the accuracy of the shot. It was right between the eyes, and Possessed or no Possessed, that was an instantly fatal wound if there ever was one.

But as the red armour and its owner fell in a pleasing cacophony, Lucius compared his own handiwork to the coin-sized hole which had slain the Word Bearer.

And he knew instantly it was no Imperial weapon which had made the kill.

"Eldar! Perfect Legion, the long-ears are here! At last we will be able to punish them for Commorragh and their crimes against everything rightfully belonging to Excess!"

"NO!" Erebus' lackey screamed. "WE PUSH TOWARDS THE EASTERN BANK! WE HAVE LOST ENOUGH TIME AS IT IS!"

"Yes, yes, oh Grand Dark Acolyte. What a boring leader you are..."

Ravenna – East of the Polenta River

Captain Aeonid Thiel

"If the Guild Council of Laphis had listened to you, we could have avoided this disaster, Captain."

Aeonid sighed.

"With 'ifs' like that, Marcus, I could be Chapter Master by now. If is the bane of the theoretical and the practical...combined."

With enough ifs, you could wonder what the Imperium would look like had nine Primarchs not turned Traitor.

"And practically," the Ultramarine veteran commanding the 8th Company continued, "there was never any reasonable way to make Ravenna West defensible. Three-quarters of the population lives on the western bank, Marcus, and to make it even moderately defensible, we would have to raze it entirely."

"I know," the Champion of his Company nodded. "But it looks like the Traitors are doing their best to do that anyway."

Aeonid agreed silently and grimly.

From a strategic and tactical perspective, the Traitor Astartes' assault – the majority were Word Bearers, but elements of most of the Damned Legions had been spotted – was a chaotic mess. Their sneak attack upon Ravenna East and the Marius Gage Spaceport forty kilometres eastwards couldn't be described as anything but an epic defeat.

Those oath-breakers had arrived expecting a one-sided slaughter. Their expressions must have been quite a thing when the secret batteries he had spent years building for his exercises began to return fire.

"Ravenna West is going to be destroyed." Aeonid declared unflinchingly. "And while I absolutely hate it, a lot of the civilian population is going to share its fate. Without the bridges, and the enemy landing their macro-landers on the Aquila Fields some fifty kilometres west, we can't do anything like a proper evacuation."

"Typical of your slow race," a voice which was not human and seemed to insult Low Gothic every time it arrived to his ears uttered. "You are unable to-"

"Farseer Starbane," Aeonid smiled with a courtesy he definitely did not want to give. "With all due respect for the efficiency of the elite snipers your Queen gave to help us, I would thank you to close your mouth and let the professionals do their jobs. And if I remember correctly, Commorragh and Biel-Tan proved the Eldar race was not beyond failing to evacuate its civilians either."

"That arena monster is not my Queen!" the ridiculously armoured xenos blurted out with an expression of horror on his alien cheeks and mouth, and behind their helmets, Aeonid was sure many of his battle-brothers were smiling.

"Could have fooled me." Though in private Aeonid might be willing to admit it was better to obey Lelith Hesperax in order to save many lives, the son of Guilliman wasn't going to voice it in public. "But since the enemy has done the stupidest thing they could do and is engaging in a battle for the streets of Ravenna West, I think it would be rude to discourage them from throwing their army into this bloody quagmire. Remember brothers: the longer they are trapped in the city, the more time our reinforcements will be given to deploy."

"Theoretical: it's almost too perfect to not be a trap." Sergeant Furius Purpureo commented.

Aeonid turned towards the most...well, the Sergeant was certainly the most conservative member of the 8th Company, and the closest he had to a 'problematic recruit'.

"I understand, Sergeant. But we have to look at the practical: the Mare Nostrum is able to launch hit-and-run attacks against the enemy fleet, and their auspexes are still functioning. The reinforcements are truly on their way."

Artillery shells began to fall upon the nicest villas of the western banks. The actual purpose of those strikes escaped Aeonid, but then apart from the initial brilliance of blowing up the four bridges linking the two parts of Ravenna, the enemy was truly following a 'doctrine' which was truly chaotic.

So far he hadn't been able to figure out who was in command of the Traitors, but by all evidence, said Traitor was really an awful strategist.

"The barges are ready?" He asked Marcus after turning elsewhere to not have to look at the devastation the bastard sons of Lorgar were wreaking on the city he was supposed to protect.

"The barges?" Marcus lightly replied. "I thought those were the yachts of the Macragge aristocracy we just repurposed into troop transports?"

"That was what I meant," Aeonid managed to keep his seriousness. "The barges."

"Well, in that case, I would say we have enough to ferry a couple of Auxilia Divisions onto Ravenna West. But we are going to be forced to commit most of the aircraft we have in reserve, save those who protect the Marius Gage spaceport, Captain."

"So be it."

"That is not a strategy approved by the Codex-"

"No, it is not."

It somehow always amazed Aeonid that people wanted to remind him about the tenets of Guilliman's greatest and longest work when he had been one of the veterans chosen to give his opinion on the preliminary versions written before it was officially published.

"And if I had a choice, I would never use the Ultramar Auxilia like this," the survivor of Calth continued as the Word Bearers landed more of their mutated landers and flying abominations. "But we do not have a choice. We must keep the Word Bearers' eyes on us for as long as we can. And if we must throw two divisions into this inferno in order to let its feeding spiral out of control, so be it. The Word Bearers won't escape through the Webway Gate or via some other trick this time. Courage and Honour!"

"Courage and Honour!"

"We march for Ravenna!"

Now to anticipate which nasty surprises the Traitor Seventeenth's daemon-masters had for him...

"The Traitor Legions are, by their very nature, not something you are able to feel respect for. They have betrayed the very ideals they swore to defend, and the Ruinous Powers have made sure they are so lost there is no way they realise the monstrous hypocrisy of their words and actions. Yet among the ranks of those treacherous monsters, the Word Bearers are somehow able to make the others look good. As far as we are aware, their senior leadership truly tried its best to betray all its allies before, during, and after their Black Crusade went down in flames..." Words attributed to Lady Magos Dogma Dragon Richter, spoken some time after Operation Stalingrad.

Macragge System

Ark Mechanicus Technologiae Potestas Est

18 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Hell Forge-Mistress Sota-Nul

Before Lorgar's latest and final folly – although he'd labelled it a 'Black Crusade' – was launched, Sota-Nul had calculated there was a likelihood of 0.00009% that she wouldn't be able to successfully complete any of the objectives given to her by Warmaster Abaddon before abandoning the Word Bearers to their well-deserved fate.

Clearly, her calculations had been wrong.

The assumptions...her assumptions of the minimal levels of competency their forces could expect from the Seventeenth Legion had been extremely overoptimistic.

Several improved enslaved cogitators continued to insist nobody could be that incompetent. Unfortunately, the evidence suggested otherwise.

"The survivors of the Grand Armada of Lorgar are still trying to redline their engines to reach Macragge as quickly as possible, Hell Forge-Mistress." One of her many subordinates announced.

"What new disaster are the idiots trying to plunge into?" Sota-Nul canted in an extremely new variant of Techno-lingua she had personally invented. "Do they want atonement for their previous failures by committing suicide against the Ultramarines' defences and fleet?"

From a purely tonnage comparison, the Word Bearers still outnumbered the Chapter which was all that was left bearing the Thirteenth Legion's heraldry massively.

But in reality, this comparison was extremely flattering for the delusional sons of Lorgar the Chaos Spawn. All of the surviving Word Bearer Battleships were severely damaged, and at least two would not survive another battle. At the first serious salvo which broke through what remained of their crippled Void Shields, those ships were dead.

Since exactly twenty-nine ships – the Trisagion and twenty-eight 'conventional' Battleships – were all that had escaped the Fenrisian defeat and that Erebus had deserted with three of those...calculations suggested the Word Bearers' crippled Armada was going to die if they fought the Ultramarines and the defences of Macragge.

Oh, they were going to hurt the sons of Guilliman. They could wipe out several Companies, kill millions of their population, destroy their war machines, humiliate their Champions, and prove that nowhere in the Imperium was truly safe.

Sota-Nul would concede all of those points.

But all these small victories to be gained for those who opposed the False Omnissiah were nothing in comparison of the utter destruction which would be unleashed upon the Seventeenth Legion.

Already losses in Astartes and warships were far above the threshold required to meet the classification of 'catastrophic'. If they continued, they were going to lose their entire Legion for nothing.

They didn't have the time to destroy Macragge. Weaver's fleet – and yes, Sota-Nul was able to count up to fifty Battleships and add two plus two and conclude it was her – was already in the system. There had been pleasant news the ruler of the Nyx Sector was in an economic and technological conflict of influence with Macragge, but if she had to pick between slaughtering Word Bearers and the crippling of the Ultramarines, the 'choice' wasn't going to be difficult for the Destroyer of Commorragh.

And as they went deeper inside Macragge's gravity well, all that Kor Phaeron, Paristur, Mothac, and their last fanatics were going to achieve was die a glorious death.

And it would be for nothing. Many of her best auspexes and augurs were dead, as the anti-psychic field of the Fenrisian monster had destroyed them, but the non-psychic ones, reverse-engineered from the work of some interesting rebel Forge Archmagi of Mars, could clearly indicate to her there were other Ultramarine Battle-Barges coming to reinforce their homeworld.

Unless the Seventeenth Legion could kill them half a system away, the Ultramarines would not die today...and they hadn't even managed to exterminate the Space Wolves with far more time given to them.

"Hell Forge-Mistress! The Trisagion has opened fire...on us!"

Sota-Nul at first believed her battle-control nodes had taken more damage than previously thought.

They were constantly increasing the range between the 'Grand Armada' and her battle-squadron.

She wasn't fully out of torpedo range of the Trisagion, true, but the hundreds of thousands of kilometres were sufficient to negate any element of surprise of this betrayal. And this wasn't even the strangest thing in this new episode of sheer foolishness.

"They fired only one torpedo."

"Yes, Hell-Forge Mistress. Authenticity of the data confirmed. Only one torpedo is in active mode."

The minutes passed, and there was no communication from the Trisagion...though given how bad the interferences were if you weren't at close range, that was hardly surprising.

"I don't think there is any danger, but ready the decoys and the anti-torpedo measures." Sota-Nul ordered as the distance of the 'threat' fell under two hundred thousand kilometres. "And-"

Suddenly an enormous explosion of green light began to appear on her displays, and all her machines began to shriek in pain.

"Evasive action! Evasive manoeuvres-"

The entire system disappeared in a vortex of green energy, engulfing the Ark Mechanicus Technologiae Potestas Est and her two large escorts.

It was like her warship and everything aboard were propelled at an extreme velocity before coming to an extremely abrupt halt.

Finally, the stars reappeared. Along with a lot of ships.

Ships not on her auspexes, but mere hundreds of metres away from the Ark Mechanicus Technologiae Potestas Est.

Ships that according all laws of physics she couldn't be close to, because there was no way to-

"NO! KOR PHAERON, FALSE OMNISSIAH'S SPAWN! LAUNCH ALL ULTRA SCRAP-CODES! ACTIVATE ALL FURTIVITY MEASURES! DO IT OR WE ARE ALL DEAD!"

The Word Bearers had somehow teleported her into the middle of Weaver's armada, and...yes, there was no trace of her Titan-Barges...

Kor Phaeron had better pray the Ultramarines kill him because otherwise, she would make a servitor out of his flesh carcass!

Battleship Enterprise

19 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lady General Taylor Hebert

For a second, Taylor stayed simply speechless.

Her thoughts were a combination of 'they've done something diabolic again', and 'how the hell did the heretics managed to grab Necron artefacts?'.

The scrap-code struck a moment later, and all the IFF ship codes suddenly fell apart, rendering her entirely blind and deaf, unable to distinguish friend from the three foes which had just been teleported into their formation.

"Dragon!"

"I'm already on it! It doesn't look like any chaotic scrap-code I've ever worked with! This is...it looks like a sort of hybrid scrap-code with multiple xenos signature emissions!"

"My Lady, we should use the macro-"

"If we use any sort of major void weapons when they have us at close-quarters, we are just going to end up shooting our own ships!"

She shouldn't have shouted, but how the hell did you prepare for something as insane as that?

"We will deal with them the old-fashioned way! Chapters of the Blood, the Traitor Ark is yours! I'm coming to support you as fast possible! Black Templars and sons of Vulkan, you take care of the Battleship closest to you! The rest of the Sons of Dorn neutralise the third Traitor Battleship!"

"By your will, your Celestial Highness!"

Ark Mechanicus Technologiae Potestas Est

Warsmith Charyx

With the benefit of hindsight, Charyx should not just have just abandoned the Siege of the Fang.

He should have turned his guns and other assets on the Word Bearers the moment they began to renege on the accords they had themselves proposed.

The leader of the Steel Brethren shook off the pleasurable thoughts of vengeance. The Word Bearers were too far away to be destroyed, and it would be a miracle if they survived this last act of spite of the cowardly 'priests'.

Iron within. Iron without. The equations of war were implacable, and now the first and only priority was to get out of this trap their 'allies' had condemned them to.

"They are-"

Explosions rocked the hangar bay, and despite the mag-locks in place to avoid something like this happening, plenty of machines, tech-horrors Sota-Nul called 'servitors', and many more things went flying, creating more chaos and killing several Astartes of his warband.

The red-armoured Astartes boarded two seconds later.

For all the disasters suffered, Charyx smiled as he recognised the familiar sigils of the blood tear and the wing.

If they had to die, if the Long War was to end here and now, there was no shame ending it against the Blood Angels and the gene-line of the Ninth Legion.

"FIRE!" The Warsmith ordered, and he went on to lead by example, sending hundreds of rounds at the enemy with his Assault Cannon. Ha! This was going to teach them to bring no boarding shields to the party and-

Charyx was halfway through his ammunition supply and no Blood Angel had fallen. What by the putrid wastes of the Eye of Terror was-

By the damned wrath of Perturabo.

The Blood Angels had armours equipped with proper ion shields. Curse it! The shimmering fields around them were a dead giveaway, and it was clearly not something hastily done for one or two Champions, not with hundreds equipped with it.

"Stop firing! They have ion shields! STEEL BRETHREN! We will kill them with our blades where their pitiful technology can't save them! IRON WITHIN!"

"IRON WITHOUT!"

"FOR SANGUINIUS AND THE EMPEROR! WE MARCH FOR MACRAGGE!"

Charyx laughed at the stupid warcry...and the next chuckle died in his throat as several of his Astartes veterans fell screaming in infernos of green flames.

They had Volkite weaponry. The Blood Angels had functional Volkite weaponry, and in large numbers.

Charyx screamed as one of the Mechanicum's horrors, in its haste to escape the pyre which was consuming it, pushed him right into a Volkite volley and his armour began to burn.

"See you all in hell tomorrow."

And then there was nothing but horror and the flames of war.

Chapter Master Malakbel

The Mark IX Power Armour might have been declared a stop-gap measure before new and better patterns were introduced by its own creators, but Chapter Master Malakbel was of the opinion they were a bit too pessimistic.

If two Companies under his command had tried to board a Traitor ship and met equal numbers of Traitor Marines – certainly an Iron Warrior splinter band by the colours – with nothing but Mark VII, they would have lost far more than one dead and two wounded.

"Deployment pattern Archangel's wing."

"Chapter Master? We have killed the oath-breakers and their heretek horrors!" Two of his Marines loaded a shell into their 'macro-bazooka', which once fired went on to spread a gigantic quantity of Volkite-extinguishing foam across the hangar bay.

Most of the Blood nodded in appreciation. The Tech-Priests were often insufferable, but here, all veterans who could compare how much easier a fight against the Traitors had turned out to be with the new equipment they had received lately.

"We have killed many of them, yes. But it's an Ark Mechanicus of the Dark Mechanicum. If there were this many damned sons of the Fourth here, there may be others. Avoid the Volkite Blasters if we are not fighting somewhere where we can use the special foam afterwards. I am not explaining to Barbarossa and Hezonn how you were killed by your own weapons!"

"That would be embarrassing indeed..."

"Onwards! For the Blood and for the one who shields us from the Rage!"

"For Sanguinius, Lady Weaver, and the Emperor!"

Bays and corridors fell one after another. And unfortunately, his prudent warning had been extremely necessary. Malakbel didn't know how many horrors this Ark Mechanicus contained, but the hereteks ruling this domain of corrupted technology had been very busy. Few constructs had anything looking even vaguely like humans left: most of the time, even the 'servitors' were mutants with quantities of armament mutations...unless those were augmetics?

The Companies of the Blood slaughtered them all. Volkite weapons past the initial boarding were unfortunately too dangerous to use, but the Plasma Weapons were there to provide a potent replacement, and as the ion shields of the Mark IX were providing a protection the enemy had no answer to, it was a one-sided slaughter.

"Lord Malakbel!" a Brother of the Red called out to him as they arrived in a new hall filled with machinery in disrepair, including a Land Raider which looked like it had been half-digested by something before being deemed inedible. "New Traitor Astartes' presence confirmed! Those are-"

"AVE DOMINUS NOX!"

This time was the second instance the ion shields truly saved their lives.

They had improved systems, and the Space Marines of Baal and their Successors were no young-blooded warriors, but they really didn't see the ambush coming before it was too late.

One second the hall had been empty, the next the Night Lords were falling from newly created holes in the metal above their heads or crawling out from debris and machines.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

The Plasma guns only had time for one volley, and dozens of the damned sons of Nostramo fell...but there were hundreds coming, and Malakbel like all his battle-brothers had to fight with the Axe Mortalis to remain alive.

And he did it. He was the Regent of Baal, and in this hour, he would be the light the Blood needed him to be!

One Night Lord fell, decapitated. One more died. And then one more, though this one would live for a little longer...with missing arms.

Hundreds of years of battlefield experience were barely sufficient to parry the next blow.

Nobody could be-

Fast!

In a couple of seconds, Malakbel was suddenly on the defensive. What was he fighting? And how the hell was his opponent so surrounded by shadows and darkness? Worse, the Axe Mortalis was outranged by the Chain Glaive! How did-

Several Heralds and Champions tried to give him space to breathe and adapt his style of fighting, but with a nightmarish facility, one by one they fell and-

Malakbel felt the Chain Glaive stab his two hearts in close succession, and suddenly...there was light.

The Prince of Crows

It had been as perfect an ambush as he could prepare at such short notice.

The terrain had been theirs.

The advantage in numbers had been overwhelmingly theirs: more than one hundred Night Lords against forty-one Blood Angels.

And it was a disaster.

As the Blood Angel Hemek had identified as their Chapter Master fell dead, Jago Sevatarion already knew that.

There were still nine Blood Angels standing, and more than seventy members of the Eighth Legion were dead.

The Prince of Crows killed one who roared in vengeance and charged him, but a second later, two more Night Lords fell and if Hemek claimed one more kill after that, the odds weren't getting any better.

And then he heard it. A sort of buzzing sound coming from above.

"Hemek! Fighting retreat. I'm grabbing one of the Blood Angels' corpses! Grab a few of their weapons and follow me!" The First Captain commanded.

"Why? We don't need-"

"Don't be stupid," Sevatar chided, using the next seconds to kill yet another of the sons of Sanguinius. "Those Space Marines have equipment so superior to that of the sons of the Lion that it must be a new generation of power armours and offensive weaponry. We must get some samples to Sota-Nul and her Mechanicum, otherwise the next fights are going to be-"

The ceiling came down in a far more massive explosion than the charges used before, but to his surprise, it wasn't Space Marines who counterattacked. It was a swarm. It was a swarm of metallic insects. And what they did to the first two Night Lords-

By the ruins of each world they had punished, what the hell was that?

"RUN! RUN! RUN TO THE STORMBIRD NOW!"

Sevatar didn't wait to see if the other Night Lords obeyed, not as another gate exploded and something looking like an enormous scorpion rushed to kill them.

His hearts were beating faster. His head was preparing countless ambushes' plans and contingencies...which were rejected one after another.

Was it fear, what he was feeling right now? Was this what the Night Lords had inflicted on the humans for so long?

It was...it was not very enjoyable.

They had been used to fighting enemies which considered them prey, of course.

But here, somehow, it was different. It was...like fighting an elemental force. Something that couldn't be stopped, merely delayed, by every blade and gun they fired at it.

The First Captain had a perfect map of the corridors and the detours they needed to reach the Stormbird whose pilot was warming up the engines.

It was nonetheless a series of near-deaths to reach it. Luminous flies were providing targets for the Astartes snipers. Enormous ants were appearing in teleportation flashes, and by the hells of Nostramo, what did the sons of Sanguinius feed those beasts to have them sprout so many spikes and natural weapons? And of course there were the metal insects and the swarm pursuing them.

When they climbed aboard the Stormbird, there were only five Night Lords alive, and he counted Hemek and himself among that short list.

"By the merciless punishments of the Night Haunter," Sevatar asked as their pilot finally landed them on the sole Battleship of the Mechanicum after long minutes of acrobatic moves he didn't know a Stormbird could do. "What was that?"

"That," Hemek snarked, "was Weaver's swarm. And now that we have survived it, may I suggest we run to the other end of the galaxy and avoid a second round of fighting with her? I think we angered her a little by killing all those Blood Angels, and I don't really want to give her a second shot at planting my head on a spike."

"That may be the most intelligent suggestion of your life." Jago Sevatarion replied seriously and with almost no irony.

Lady General Taylor Hebert

There were days when victories tasted bad.

And then there were days when you wondered if the battle you just fought was truly a victory at all.

"It wasn't your fault, your Celestial Highness." Captain Valerian Benlio consoled quietly as her golden fingers touched the immobile mask of Chapter Master Malakbel. "You couldn't have predicted there would be so many Traitor Marines aboard this Ark Mechanicus."

"You are right," the Lady General acknowledged after several seconds. "But that is very cold comfort right now."

The Blood Angel Captain was speaking the truth, she knew. Though no one had thought they would have to fight them with absolutely no warning, the Magi of Operation Stalingrad had tried to guess – given the lack of data, it couldn't called by another description – how many Chaos-worshipping Marines an Ark Mechanicus might have defending with.

The most pessimistic estimate had suggested around two hundred Astartes. Notorious hereteks were rarely friendly with the Traitor Legions, as both the Dark Mechanicum and the millennia-old Traitors wanted to have the best war machines available and weren't shy about killing the other oath-breakers to reinforce themselves.

From the eyes of her swarm, she had confirmation of five hundred and ninety-eight Traitor Astartes laying dead right now aboard this Ark Mechanicus.

And several enemy leaders had escaped, including the killer of Chapter Master Malakbel.

"He died killing a lot of Traitors." Benlio declared. Indeed, there was a sizeable pile of ugly midnight-armoured corpses around, and the majority had not been made by her swarm. "I must bring him back to the Covenant of Baal."

"Gamaliel will help you."

"My Lady, I-"

"He was your Chapter Master, Herald. I think...you all deserve a few hours to grieve. The Ark Mechanicus has been captured, and so has one of the other Battleships. The Battleship which escaped somehow managed to teleport far away...I don't think we will see it coming back for another boarding battle, even if it admittedly did somehow manage to pull off something which let them repel the assault of Black Templars as they tried to gain a foothold."

Taylor sighed. Was this what the Emperor and other confidants of his had felt during the Heresy? All the victories losing their meaning, as hard-fought battle after hard-fought battle killed the people they had befriended, and the cost of it became so expensive the bright future was extinguished?

"Thank you, my Lady."

"Unless my...duties force me away...I will return with you to Baal."

Valerian thanked her, and quickly Sanguinary Priests and other Space Marines of the Blood went on to organise their Honour Guard for the fallen Chapter Master and the Blood Angels who had perished. It was a considerable number, for nearly half of the 1st Company had fallen during the extremely violent series of ambushes aboard the corrupted Ark Mechanicus.

"Something on your mind, Sigenandus?" She asked as thirty of her Dawnbreaker Guard silently volunteered to join and help their gene-line while 'accidentally' trampling the Night Lords' corpses.

"I had the privilege to spar a couple of times with Chapter Master Malakbel, your Celestial Highness," the Emperor's Champion stated in a firm voice. "He was really, really good."

"As he should be," Taylor gave him the shadow of a smile. Blood Angel or no Blood Angel, no Space Marine arrived at the rank of Chapter Master because he was easy to kill.

"As he should be," the Black Templar of the Dawnbreaker Guard agreed. "But that leads me to what I don't understand. The Night Lord who killed him...the survivors told us he was so good he could fight him and several of his 1st Company simultaneously...and win. Yet we, of the Eternal Crusade, know that the pirates of the Traitor Eighth are not noted for their strength or their martial prowess. Not unless they've made pacts with heretics or worse."

Taylor had not thought much about the subject, as she had been too busy trying to kill the Traitor Astartes in question and then every heretek and other Chaos Marine who hadn't escaped.

But now that Sigenandus mentioned it...

"It had to be a famous veteran of the Heresy. Librarians will try, with the Blood Angel's permission, to see if we can identify this Traitor from the survivors' memories. Someone that good must have committed plenty of carnage elsewhere."

"Perhaps," Techmarine Silveira of the Death Knights spoke up with a concerned tone. "But I have my doubts. The circumstances are...troubling."

"On that point, I can safely say we are of the same opinion."

"If it's all right with you, my Lady, I will try to access the data-banks of the bridge. If the Traitors didn't expect the Word Bearers to use them as a distraction...it's possible they didn't bother to hide their identities or the reasons why they took refuge aboard this ship."

"By all means," the commander of Operation Stalingrad approved the display of initiative. "And since my beetles captured a lot of interesting things there, I think we can all head there for a short visit before returning to the Enterprise."

It wasn't a long walk. Between Lisa's and her own efforts, the Ark Mechanicus had been bombarded with so much golden energy that anything corrupted still intact was necessarily protected by extremely powerful stasis shields...and a lot of those which had been active before the battle were now destroyed, courtesy of a lot of Bolter shells and her insects acting as a very thorough wave of annihilation.

The bridge itself...Taylor was going to say that if this was the reflection of the heretek's personality, the Mechanicus traitor in question could barely be considered human. Everything was clearly optional here: comfort, order, beginning with a lot of missing seats and ending with a god-awful number of heretek servitors, some of them clearly xenos which had been repurposed for the latest madness of the Dark Mechanicum.

"How the hell did anything get done in this...err...mess?" T'klis Rubix asked before shaking his head. "My Lady, I think the bridge alone is going to need months of reconfiguration in Mechanicus yards before it can be commissioned again in loyal service."

"Well, the bridge needs months, the rest of the ship needs years," Forgefather Vulkan N'Varr commented philosophically. "I know the Aethergold, Lisa the Moth, and so many things are constantly purifying the ship, but have you seen the number of xenos devices on our way here? Many of them I've absolutely no clue how they work or even which race they came from, and-"

Taylor listened to his words amused, and then used the Baalite Scorpion which had been stationed on the bridge after killing most of its occupants to use its stinger where she had thought a cache was hidden from Astartes and human eye.

Predictably, the plasteel caved. You could hide your treasures from a lot of things, but Taylor had many, many insects susceptible to vibrations, and the generators which were supposed to hide the presence of the cache had in reality been a siren for her swarm.

"What...the..." Vilanova was the first to ask as the large pincer recovered under her mental command the contents which had been hidden. "Golden Throne of Terra! Is that what I think it is?"

"That depends," Vulkan N'Varr replied humorously, "if you think they are STC templates...can I examine them, my Lady?"

"Go ahead," Taylor told them as the predator of Baal placed three little black coloured cylinders in front of him.

For a minute or so the Salamander Forgefather manipulated the first cylinder carefully, before finally using one of his minuscule artisan unlocking devices to access a panel, and an audible click resonated.

A second later, a hololithic device activated.

And-

Taylor froze, for what was broadcasted was certainly not schematics of some weapon or an explanation of how to forge something extraordinary while only using limited resources.

No, the hololithic projection...it was the three-dimensional vid-cast of a Primarch.

And the worst part...Taylor recognised him. How could she have forgotten his face? It was of course a record taken on a very different day, but there was no confusion possible: not when the Primarch had his enormous signature power claw, a thunderhammer, and a black armour decorated with the infernal eye which would set in motion the most devastating civil war the Imperium had ever experienced.

"Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal," Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Sixteenth Traitor Legion, began, "I have heard you had reservations about the place a Martian Empire would have within my Imperium. Let me assure you it is not in my intentions to limit the autonomy of your Forge Worlds and the technology prerogatives discussed during our last meeting. To prove my good will, I deliver the two STC templates recovered from the Auretian Technocracy into your emissary's hands. May the prosperity of your lines of production and the skill of my warriors open the Gates of Terra."

The rest was just diplomatic grandstanding, but Taylor hardly bothered giving it her full attention.

This was...this could create a civil war if it wasn't handled right.

Couldn't the heretek have bothered to delete the message once it took control of the STC templates?

"That was...him," Diamantis' voice rarely seethed with hatred, but here...yeah, the Imperial Fist truly loathed the dead Warmaster. "And now I think I want to have a little conversation with whoever ruled this Ark Mechanicus before we took it over."

"So do I," the insect-mistress nodded. This message had been sent to Mars millennia ago of course, but there was a very high likelihood the heretek in command here had been a high-ranked Traitor of Mars during the Heresy, at least enough to recover this when the Traitor Legions had fled Terra after Horus' death. "So do I..."

Heavy Battleship Vaults of Moravec

23 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Hell-Forge Mistress Sota-Nul

Sota-Nul had believed she had long since – alongside her flesh – left the ridiculous emotions of her human origin behind.

It was with a certain amount of surprise the Hell Forge-Mistress discovered she was wrong, after all. She could feel relief.

"The H-1 special drive has successfully launched the Vaults of Moravec past Ardium, Hell-Forge Mistress," Tech-servant 010 informed her as she stepped upon the bridge which belonged to her.

"Damage reports?" the Martian Arch-Heretek canted. There had to be. The H-1 drive was a combination of machinery from a race she had exterminated in the Eye of Terror – though as always in that prison of unreality, it was very difficult to confirm the certain annihilation of anything – and remained a prototype which had been tested no more than eight times.

"Extensive," the Tech-Servant replied. "And with the loss of the Technologiae Potestas Est, the repair response teams are missing sixty percent of the spare parts required to return it to functionality."

"Problematic, but given the lead we have over our pursuers, the H-1 special drive is nonessential at the moment. The critical device is the furtive system."

"It functions within your exacting specifications."

The cursed flesh-emotion of relief flooded into her once again.

This was...a weakness. A weakness Sota-Nul would have to remove...in time.

The Arch-Heretek had not the time to ponder upon this flaw any longer, as Sevatar of the Night Lords invited himself upon her bridge.

"You survived."

"Don't sound so disappointed, Hell Forge-Mistress." The lips of the Astartes twisted in an expression she wasn't able to identify. Grimace? Smile? Mockery? "I must admit it was a very close thing up to the last moment. The Blood Angels are not easy opponents, and they had better equipment than the Night Lords I commanded. And of course we encountered Weaver's swarm after killing the Chapter Master of the Blood Angels."

Sota-Nul left the latter deed go uncommented. While it was a good exploit for an average warlord to kill a Chapter Master, it wasn't spectacular coming from someone like the Prince of Crows. And besides, it had been done plenty of times before. Yet every time, the Blood Angels swore vengeance and generally made good on their vows to kill the one who had slain their leader.

As for Weaver's swarm...it was the reason she had left her seat of power without taking anything more than the essential pieces of technology necessary to assume supreme command of the Vaults of Moravec and her most precious relics. Otherwise the Hell Forge-Mistress had calculated there would be a one hundred percent likelihood of being skewered by a scorpion or devoured by metallic ants, scarabs, and spiders.

The point about new equipment, however...that was new. Sota-Nul had only seen by intermittent flashes the battles opposing the boarding Astartes with the Steel Brethren and the Night Lords.

"New equipment? Tell me more."

"Gladly," Sevatar took a step forwards and presented a red helmet which, once properly scanned, showed three major modifications compared to the most common patterns of the Mark VII from basic preliminary analysis.

"We did not have the time to evacuate a power armour with us, unfortunately," the Night Lords' First Captain continued, "but what I've seen from the servo-sensors and in my fight with them has been enough to confirm someone has integrated a miniature ion shield into the defensive systems of this new Astartes armour."

Sota-Nul paused, before shaking her mechadendrites to work.

"That is...simple, yet brilliant."

Mass production of Astartes power armour had never been among her list of Alpha-class priorities, but the Hell Forge-Mistress instantly recognised the sheer advantage it would give to any force of transhuman warriors equipped with it.

"It is," Sevatar confirmed. "I think it was developed a bit too quickly, as the shields don't have a fraction of the resistance Knights take for granted, and there are some other problems I've noticed. But compared to the sons of the Lion's armours I saw in the bowels of the Rock, the difference is like night and day. The new armours have better protection for the neck, the chest, and seem to be more efficient when interacting with its wearer than with the old Marks. Add the Volkite Blasters they used in the first part of the assault, and they slaughtered the Iron Warriors with minimal losses."

Sota-Nul didn't need many simulations and cogitation power to arrive at an unpleasant conclusion.

"It's Weaver. She must have sponsored Mars and the other blinded followers of the False Omnissiah to develop this new power armour for this very campaign."

"Thus why it was rushed out." The Prince of Crows pointed out the logical conclusion. "It was the best they could develop and produce in considerable numbers for the battles in the Eastern Fringe."

"Yes."

And now the Heretek who had been once the Apprentice of the Fabricator-General deeply regretted leaving so many of her technological assets behind, and the STC templates most of all. They were well-hidden, but this was Weaver and her swarm they were speaking of.

The False Saint of the False Omnissiah would undoubtedly find the cache, if she hadn't already.

And one of the templates was a model of transhuman armour she had used for centuries to increase the deadliness of her slaves and tech-servants.

This time, the flesh-emotion was frustration. There was an unpleasant possibility she had just given Weaver a lot of data to further the goals of the False Omnissiah.

No, she had to be mechanical and cold.

No matter the outcome – and it was a massive defeat, there was no doubt about that – there was nothing she could do about Weaver. The scrap-code had done some damage, but trying to recover her ships would end in the loss of the Vaults of Moravec and her permanent death.

"Our arrangement is still valid?" The Hell-Forge Mistress asked. With the loss of Legio Vulturum by the fault of that cowardly waste of flesh named Kor Phaeron, it was out of the question to return to the Warmaster without some sort of victory. And the knowledge of the threat Weaver posed was greater than anticipated wasn't sufficient.

"It is." The Night Lords' commander confirmed.

"Then we get out of this system, refuel, and you will lead us to the coordinates of your secret base. Let the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines slaughter each other. I'm done with this ridiculous Black Crusade."

Battleship Enterprise

25 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Rogue Trader Wolfgang Bach

By the time Wolfgang arrived, the Lady Magos Dogma Dragon Richter was already in the process of making her report to the Living Saint.

And there was no way to present it in a positive light.

"And the two Frigates Gorilla and Attack of the Khan collided with each other. But the greatest damage this cursed scrap-code did to us was how it convinced the systems of the Battleship Admiral Greenwich and the Battlecruiser Tribune to vent their compartments into space. We lost more than two-thirds of the crew for each before the Dark Mechanicum's xenos-derived onslaught was purged from them."

The Basileia nodded grimly. The Rogue Trader noticed she had removed her golden armour and replaced it with a long golden robe hiding most of her body.

"In total that makes one Battleship, one Battlecruiser, four Cruisers, two Light Cruisers, five Frigates and three Destroyers, plus several hundred light craft and starfighters we lost just to scrap-code?"

There was no anger in the saintly voice. There was just...exhaustion. And the reply of the draconic-clothed Tech-Priestess was at the measure of this remark.

"Yes."

"Formidable, really...formidable. That's a massive defeat the Traitors have just handed us there."

"I'm not really sure I would consider it a defeat, your Celestial Highness," Wolfgang interjected respectfully.

"We lost the Regent of Baal and more than two hundred Astartes in that fiasco." The supreme commander of the Stalingrad Battle Groups disagreed. "I could have ignored the fact the High Marshal's strike teams were somehow ejected without being able to capture a Battleship, but it didn't stop there. The ship which escaped us had the Arch-Heretek Sota-Nul aboard. She is the 42nd most wanted being of the Imperium, and while I know it's nobody fault we weren't able to catch her, I am not exactly thrilled to see she got a good look at our military and then managed to get away."

"But she lost two out of three of her ships, including her flagship." The Minister of Industry of Nyx supported his viewpoint. "I don't know what kind of resources in shipbuilding this Traitor of the Dark Mechanicum commands, but I doubt it is going to be sufficient to replace a 30th Millennium-built Ark Mechanicus. And if the rumours I've begun to hear...you proved true to your reputation and recovered several STC templates."

If anything, the sourness of the Living Saint's expression increased, not decreased, at this latest reminder.

"One of the STC templates is a ticking time-bomb, Dragon. The being who recovered it from some policy called the 'Auretian Technocracy' was the Arch-Heretic."

"What?" Wolfgang was not the one who said it, but he was in the same mood.

"Yes, I have a nice vid-casting of the First Traitor Warmaster whose name begins with 'H' announcing he was sending the STCs to buy off the allegiance of Mars over four millennia ago. If you think it's a political issue which looks enjoyable from light-years away, raise your hand."

Predictably, no one did so.

The simplest thing would be to erase everything and pretend the Traitors had wiped out the STC templates. But if the truth came to light, it would be a revelation which could spark a civil war. By the Golden Throne, even if it was carefully handled, it could still spark a civil war...one directed at the Adeptus Mechanicus. It was one thing to joke that the Tech-Priests were ready to sell mother and father for a barely readable STC fragment, but it was absolutely not funny when Lady Weaver had just gotten proof many of the Mechanicus Archmagi may have turned against the God-Emperor for this very reason.

"I am going to take a plunge in a vat of Bacta," the Lady General informed them. "I have been making too many mistakes due to exhaustion in the last hours, and if nothing is done, I am going to commit more and more until I lead you to disaster. I must have a few hours of rest. General Rokossovsky, you will assume operational command of the Guard units in my absence. If Schwarz requests several regiments, as long as they can be limited to the diversion of a light flotilla in terms of escorts, give them to him. For the Navy, Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller has operational command. All ships, including those of the Astartes are to repair and regroup. I give everyone ten hours of rest...and then we will reaccelerate in battle-formation to exterminate the Word Bearers and whatever they have to stand in our way."

Gloriana-class Battleship Invincible Reason

26 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Supreme Grand Master Lucifer

It was a rare occasion when each of his bones and muscles was asking for rest after the multiple hunts led in the lower decks of the Invincible Reason.

Lucifer ignored this exhaustion with the contempt it deserved.

There were Traitors and xenos still breathing in this very system, and other more important things which could not wait.

Those more important things included the serf he had just killed, and by the grim expression his Interrogator-Chaplain gave him after making a brief genetic analysis of his human essence, the doubts he had had been more than fully confirmed.

"His genetic legacy is tainted beyond redemption," the owner of two black pearls announced. "How this fell creature achieved that," their eyes fell upon the corpse of the red-black six-legged xenos lying dead mere metres away, "is a mystery, especially when many heretic cults aren't capable of such a feat despite having years of blasphemous experience under their belts. I will need to vivisect the corpses of the boarders and the surviving serfs. And of course to analyse the genetic blueprint of every serf which might have been in contact with this...this xenos infection."

The last two words were uttered with heartfelt distaste, as they should be.

"Further recommendations?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." The Interrogator-Chaplain spoke. "While our Librarians have proved they can locate the xenos if given a purely support role while the rest of the Order hunt them, I believe we need to seriously begin entertaining the possibility of placing the entire Macragge System under quarantine."

Lucifer stared levelly at his subordinate.

"That is a measure which mustn't be contemplated lightly," his words were neutral, but the accusation behind them wasn't. "Macragge is no backwater Frontier World."

"I am aware, Supreme Grand Master. But the xenos have cost us fifty battle-brothers spread over five different Chapters. And now they have proven their ability to taint the very genetic legacy of Mankind itself. I don't know what would have happened if it had been left unchecked, but my personal opinion is that any child sired by someone infected like this is going to be a thrall of the xenos. When in a few minutes the creature could convince our serfs to lie for them, incite in them partial and total memory loss, and finally trigger in them a pseudo-berserker rage to make them attack us...those creatures are potentially capable of spreading faster than greenskins anywhere there are humans to contaminate."

Lucifer mentally probed this logic from all angles, but didn't find a flaw.

"Check our dead brothers too. No one died alone, but we don't know if those creatures can do the same to us. I believe the augmented immune system of an Astartes is sufficient to fight back against these horrors, but it is better you make sure."

"This is going to stretch the capacities of the Interrogator-Chaplains to their limits, Supreme Grand Master."

"I am aware." Lucifer sighed. "It's a risk we will have to take. For now, we haven't been able to locate any Fallen since our arrival in the Macragge System. And with the Word Bearers charging towards Macragge and us unable to intervene..."

They had not been able to capture that many of the ancient traitors of Caliban during this 'Black Crusade', to be fair.

There had been only three black-armoured followers of the Arch-Traitor Luther neutralised and brought back to the Rock in chains, and nine others had been killed. They had confirmed the presence of two others who had fled to other Word Bearer Battleships which had yet to be destroyed.

Surprisingly, unlike the major campaigns of the Despoiler outside the Eye of Terror, the Fallen had a very unimpressive presence among the Traitor Legions. There could be a lot of reasons why this was so, of course. To begin with, a lot of those ancient oath-breakers may have descended upon Fenris hundreds of hours ago, and still be there.

Unfortunately, given that the large beast had returned to hovering in high orbit above Fenris, it was nearly impossible to verify this 'theoretical'.

"Given how fast the xenos infection can spread and how dangerous the psychic blast of the original xenos abomination can be, resuming the conventional battle is out of the question."

"I agree," the Grand Master of the Deathwing said. "The Vindication of Loyalty and the Implacable Justice would never survive such a trial. And the Gloriana of the Wolves is in an even worse shape than we are."

"Then it's time to consider new tactics which aren't written in the Codex." Lucifer declared. "By the time I return to the upper decks, I want a direct communication with the trio of Rogue Traders who followed us."

"Are they going to like what you've in mind for them, Supreme Grand Master?"

Exhaustion was a foe to be banished. And Lucifer would not let frustration affect his words.

"I don't care if they like it. I just want them to obey."

Bellerophon-class Heavy Assault Cruiser Dragonslayer

27 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Rogue Trader Guts

The communications were screwed up, but the three members of the Band of Hawk present heard enough to answer negatively, if not using the same words to share how suicidal the 'plan' was.

"This sounds like a very bad idea." Griffith noted politely.

"No." Casca told the Dark Angel in a stern tone.

"Over my dead body," he added...oops, the 'Supreme Grand Master' hadn't liked his answer at all. Well, it was too bad...for him.

"You seem under the misapprehension you are-"

"Supreme Grand Master," Griffith interrupted again. "While my rude companion was a tad undiplomatic, I believe we gave you our answer. We aren't going to be your distraction for the xenos beast."

"It is our best chance to kill it in a few minutes," Warmaster Ender Trevayne's voice was heavily distorted, and his image was extremely blurry, as he was far more distant than they were from the Invincible Reason.

"I have a lot of doubts about the chances of success of this stratagem," Griffith replied. Which was a roundabout and overly long way to say: no, it won't work, you morons. "And even if it did, our ships won't survive. This xenos abomination had sent mid-ranged attacks which heavily damaged three Gloriana ships, and resulted in the necessary destruction of the one owned by the Traitors because they couldn't possibly recover it. We have a Cruiser, an Assault Cruiser, and a Heavy Cruiser. If you're telling me the Princess Charlotte is going to emerge unscathed, I would say you're simply delusional or you're lying, and so far you have shown a firm grasp of tactics."

"You are right," the man chosen by the High Lords to command the defences of Cadia and the battles against the heretics admitted. "Your ships won't survive. Yet I have contacts that can-"

"Give us inferior replacements?" Guts asked rhetorically. Griffith gave him a silent warning...why did they have so little faith in his words? "I haven't been able to find a shipyard that built new Assault Cruisers like the one I use. To get the spare parts I wanted was already hard enough. It took...ahem...finding another one in the mothball fleets. And the same is true for my friend's Indrajit-class Heavy Cruiser."

"For good reason," the leader of the Dark Angels growled, "those Heavy Cruisers were among the gifts the Traitors of Chemos often gave to their allies! If Commorragh hadn't happened, I would-"

"Supreme Grand Master," Ender Trevayne interrupted him, "given the stupendous array of classes the Traitors showed at Cadia and Fenris, I'm sure more or less every class ever built by the Imperium had at least one unit under heretical control before we blasted them apart. Unless you have very specific reasons to believe Rogue Trader Griffith is getting corrupted by owning this ship, I would suggest you abandon this line of accusation."

The communications were screwed up, but Guts could tell the 'Supreme Grand Master' didn't like being rebuffed by mere humans.

"Very well, but your cowardice is nonetheless inexcusable."

"We are Rogue Traders." Griffith countered...diplomatically. "Without our ships, we are nothing. We agreed to a partnership with the Warmaster...and it certainly didn't mention anywhere the 'military assistance' was requiring the Band of the Hawk to give up everything we had while the military operations continued. I'm sorry, but the debts alone we would be unable to pay while newer ships had to be built would crush us."

"This is-"

"Warmaster, something is happening with Fenris!" an officer appeared on the hololith next to the Warmaster and Guts winced, because when after so many hours of battle involving sorcery and other nasty enemies a veteran looked to be panicking, it was going to be bad.

It was a feeling which was justified five seconds later as the strained devices showed Fenris on the Dragonslayer's bridge.

Fenris had been bad before. It was supposed to be an orb of ice, but thanks to the Word Bearers and their monstrous partners, it was looking like a mad painter had used too many buckets of the wrong colours everywhere.

But the male Rogue Trader was pretty sure he would have noticed the enormous red-violet thing which was growing on the surface. And there was also the fact of the enormous things which were trying to crawl out of the planetary gravitic well...

"By the damned beasts of Midland...the big bastardly beast is breeding other monstrosities."

Ah, in hindsight he was being...undiplomatic again. Oops.

Fortunately, this time no one seemed to care.

"Warmaster Ender Trevayne," the Dark Angel announced, "please warn the Space Wolves that if they are able to evacuate the planet, they must do so immediately."

"What are you going to do?" the officer chosen by the High Lords was not angry or panicking, but his expression was beginning to be displeased. "There are Primarchs down there, you can't-"

This time it was the Space Marine who interrupted him.

"Fenris is tainted beyond redemption. This is not in doubt. The Primarchs being present is the exact reason why I have not yet launched an Exterminatus to stop the xenos infection."

Macragge System

Fenris

The Fang

27 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Primarch Corvus Corax

There had been many times Russ fell into a deep depression that little seemed to be able to drag him out of. After the Siege of Terra, for example.

Much like that time, the Primarch of the Raven Guard wasn't going to say it was undeserved. If Deliverance had been experiencing the same level of destruction, he wouldn't feel good either.

It took thirty seconds for Leman Russ, Great Wolf of Fenris, Master of the Sixth Legion, to regain some fire in his eyes.

His next words weren't exactly reassuring, however.

"Fenris is lost."

"JARL!" an irate Dreadnought bellowed. "DON'T SAY THINGS LIKE-"

"Fenris is lost, at least to us." His brother repeated with a voice which, if not shouting, tolerated little contradiction. "Assuming all the Maleficarum corruption could be removed, the damage still would have been too much. But now we have confirmation from the sons of the Lion and the other survivors in the void the...the xenos infection...is too much. There are too many xenos and they are using the fauna and the flora to feed their enormous stomachs before jumping into the void."

"BUT...IT IS FENRIS!"

"It is." The Primarch agreed. "But why is the planet our home? It is because we are in love with the icebergs, or because the Fenrisian tribes live here?"

"That's very philosophical from you," Magnus applauded with difficulty, given how restrained he was...obviously he had ruined the solemnity of the moment. "I think you could almost make a book out of it and-"

"You. Shut. Up." Leman Russ growled before turning his eyes back on Bjorn the Fell-Handed. "We have saved all what he could from Fenris, Bjorn. Everything we want to protect is inside the Aett, be it Vlka Fenryka, warriors of the tribes, wolves...and yes, even Wrath-Badgers. With the Bloodfire Gate sealed again," and what a surprise it had been to learn Leman had somehow 'borrowed' the formula for the liquid ferrocrete Rogal had used during the Siege and stockpiled enormous quantities of it in his fortress, "the Aett is impregnable and between shields, guns, and all the other protections, those xenos won't hurt what we've saved."

Corvus Corax nodded, and asked the unpleasant question he felt many in the Chamber of the Watch were thinking but holding back with all their self-control.

"Those are noble feelings, brother, but the Astartes who is commanding the Invincible Reason was speaking of Exterminatus weapons. I don't know if he has all the special weapons the Lion was granted custody of, but I'm pretty sure he has some, like the Life-Eater Virus or a Cyclonic Torpedo. And while your fortress is extremely resistant, if something like that manages to break through its shields, the Fang will crumble and be destroyed."

This was blindingly obvious for a Primarch, and he was sure his brother had thought of it hours before. For all the insults hurled at him, Leman was rarely guilty of the sin of not preparing enough to face a threat.

"I know. This is why we must get away before the planet-killer begins its work upon the xenos."

"My King," one of the 'Jarls' of the Space Wolves bowed respectfully, "we haven't a thousandth of the aircraft we would need to conduct a proper evacuation. And we would need high, middle, and low orbital superiority, which we definitely don't have..."

"I'm aware," his brother said, hammering a series of levers before striking at an enormous black button.

"My Jarl, that thing never worked..."

"Not if you didn't use the right combination," Leman Russ grinned, and several of his sons blinked as one of the massive command stations in the hall opened, and antique panels which must have been left unused since the Heresy were returned to their proper place. Stasis fields flickered out an instant later. "Let's see...we begin with this."

And the Primarch of the Sixth Legion slammed his right fist into a red button. Corvus did his best not to roll his eyes. Sometimes, he wondered if their father had not split his gene-code with Ork traditions to give birth to Leman.

It was just the first red thing of a long series to be smashed.

"This is all very funny to watch," Magnus pointed out. "But what is it this is supposed to accomplish?"

"It awakens the thousands of Iron Masters who voluntarily went into hibernation-stasis after the end of the Scouring. And this," a new red button was hammered, "is going to prepare the machinery for what's to come."

"AND WHAT IS TO COME?"

"Why," the Primarch who had crash-landed on Fenris laughed. "Our return to the stars, of course!"

"I have a feeling every law in the Lex Imperialis is about to go through a Fenrisian blizzard," Magnus commented drily.

"Magnus, shut up! I am making sure the saga of the Sixth Legion won't end today. Everything else can wait for its turn...and my axe!"

Gloriana-class Battleship Invincible Reason

29 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Supreme Grand Master Lucifer

"The Space Wolves haven't responded to our messages?"

"No, Supreme Grand Master. Though there is-"

"No, there isn't any more time." The numbers of xenos abominations on Fenris were growing beyond comprehension, and already one entity the Dark Angels' serfs had labelled a 'Kraken escort' had joined forces with the bigger beast in high orbit. "The more we wait, the more horrors the Imperium will have to fight in the next hours. Prepare the Life-Eater Virus. Given the biological nature and weapons of our foe, it should prove extremely devastating."

"In this case," the Grand Master of the Deathwing, "the Atmospheric Incinerator may be overkill...but better be sure with this Extremis xenos infestation."

"I couldn't have said it better myself, brother," Lucifer complimented. "It is extremely regrettable, but I can't condone-"

"Massive energy spike, Supreme Grand Master! We have an unexplained energy spike at the coordinates of the Fang!"

"Massive movements of the xenos numbers towards the Wolves' defences!"

It said quite something about the unprecedented numbers the threat must have that auspexes, even with major interferences, could see the hordes move towards the Fang.

"Now we have a psionic spike and...what is happening?"

It wasn't a doctrinally acceptable remark. But Lucifer let it pass.

For on Fenris itself, at the limits of the red-violet scar indicating the extent of the xenos' domination and corruption, fire and ice seemed to be fighting.

It was like a maelstrom of every metal and elements making up the homeworld of the Wolves.

And the fires began to spread. Whatever the Wolves were doing, it was inflicting a tremendous amount of damage to the world itself; a massive rift opened, and the lava of the planetary crust was revealed.

"They must be using illegal psychic technology..." the Interrogator-Chaplain closest to him murmured. "More illegal technology...but for what purpose?"

As if the Primarchs had just waited for someone to ask aloud the question, the maelstrom of ice and fire began to diminish, or rather it would be more accurate to say the shockwaves were spreading all across Fenris, and where the devastation had been relatively constrained around the coordinates of the Fang, it struck everywhere else like a tidal wave of annihilation.

And a second later, they saw it on their auspexes.

"By the ashes of Caliban..."

"This is...ridiculous..."

Lucifer's mind for a second conjured an image of the old Terran myths...a flat world suspended in the heavens at the top of an enormous void tree...a world where human-like lords ruled and protected the very heavens from fell creatures.

But his mind quickly retook control.

That was a myth from before the Old Night.

It couldn't-

Lucifer gaped.

"THIS IS BJORN THE FELL-HANDED. THE PRIMARCH APOLOGISES FOR THE DELAY."

"This is blasphemy!" one of the Inner Circle exclaimed. "This is against everything the Codex and the Legion traditions stands for! This is...this is..."

Many Starforts of the Great Crusade-era had crashed on planets since the glorious time the Emperor walked and fought for the right of Mankind to rule the stars. And some of them, with great effort and expensive investment from the Mechanicus, were returned to a space-capable capacity.

But the fortress of the Fang had never been a void-capable Starfort.

Something which apparently hadn't troubled the Primarch or his troops before strapping disposable reactors to it so that right at this moment, the implausible assemblage of mountain and Fenrisian snow was rising ever higher into Fenris' atmosphere.

"Mountain," a serf reacted.

"Not...possible..."

"How...what about...the laws..."

The flying xenos hordes reacted. In numbers beyond counting, they threw themselves at the rising mountain to prevent the Fang ascending further, but the power of the shields protecting the Wolves had spectacularly increased in an inconceivable manner.

"The Exterminatus weapons are to be fired immediately." Despite the outrageous tactical situation, the opportunity was there. Fire and ice seemed to engulf everything, and even some of the massive 'Kraken Escorts' were trying to escape rather than perish in the major eruptions and cataclysms. "Yes?"

"Supreme Grand Master, the communications from the Hrafnkel are...extremely insulting. I demand permission to-"

"FOR RUSS! THAT'S OUR PRIMARCH! WHOOOOO! YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD THE BIGGEST SPACE SPATION IN EXISTENCE, LION'S WHELPS?"

"Interrogators," Lucifer hissed, "add to the list of crimes of the Space Wolves: utter disrespect on the command frequencies, insults to a cobelligerent Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes...and plagiarism."

He really wanted to add 'use of forbidden technology', 'multiple violations of the Edict of Nikea', and countless other violations, but unfortunately they had already been listed...several times.

And now that he thought about it, how long was it now? He had never stopped adding to it since arriving in the Fenris System and-

The hololith flashed, and before four of his heartbeats passed, the Primarch appeared.

"I'm taking back command of this engagement." The Lord of the Space Wolves spoke as if transforming a mountain-fortress into a vulgar orbital space station was nothing to be concerned about. "It's time for this...this Tyranid... to fight something worthy of its size."

Emperor-class Battleship Majestic Mandate

Warmaster Ender Trevayne

"Well, you don't see that every day..."

"Omnissiah's Holy Cog! How did they find proscribed technology able to do this?"

Ender didn't know if he should be relieved or terrified that a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus was as ignorant about the specifics of the latest 'tactic' adopted by the Space Wolves and their Primarch as he was.

At least several people were reacting like him. Conclusion: he wasn't hallucinating.

And in the end, was that a not very reassuring thought?

Because the Fang was rising to the heavens, fighting against the gravity well of Fenris...and winning.

A moment later, several enormous holes opened on the thing which was becoming a very unconventional orbital station, and they were revealed to be the exits of torpedo tubes.

The beasts, the...Tyranids...suddenly stopped going on the offensive.

Instead they immediately sacrificed themselves trying to intercept the torpedoes at the price of their very lives.

And second after second it appeared to be working...well, until most of the atmosphere caught fire and the 'Starfort' of the Fang rose ever higher.

"This must be something that their Primarch prepared long ago and the Space Wolves themselves were unaware of," a Navy operations staff officer concluded, "otherwise the Fenrisians wouldn't have resisted the temptation of using it before..."

"I agree." The Warmaster nodded. "Still, I think the Primarch overlooked one detail."

"A detail, Warmaster?" his chief of staff asked as Fenris died under what was the most impossible clash of frost and fire energies to ever be witnessed in the last millennium.

"Yes, a detail. They have rid us of the overwhelming majority of the xenos, but the Fang itself is deep inside the killzone of the Tyranid prime-beast. And the reason the big enemy didn't fire its lethal bio-spores so far can only be that it is preparing something even nastier."

And given how easily that psychic ray of annihilation had destroyed a Battleship, the last thing Ender wanted was the entire Chapter of the Space Wolves being on the receiving end of such an attack.

But there wasn't anything he could do.

The Majestic Mandate could only load its tubes and fire its torpedoes, for all the good it would do.

The Tyranid beast opened its maw, and once again, a terrifying attack of psychic red light illuminated the Macragge System.

It hit the shields of the Fang dead-on...and stopped.

"Beloved God-Emperor..."

The enormous red spear was stopped, and then it was as if it was being absorbed inside a cube of ice, shard by shard of light.

It was impossible, of course. Reality didn't work that way.

But it was happening before their eyes.

And the Fang opened fire again with more torpedoes, and this time there were no lesser beasts to play the role of meat-shields.

There was a brilliant flash of blue light, and everyone felt the echo of something roaring in pain.

"They hit the big bastard! Warmaster! Permission to return to the fight?"

"Permission granted," Ender replied automatically, before frowning. "Keep the Fang as an improvised shield while we approach, though. Whatever the Space Wolves used to pull off this apparent miracle, we don't have it. And it would be a shame to die now that it is proven this thing isn't invincible..."

High Orbit of Fenris

Tyranid Hive Ship 'Behemoth'

The Hive Mind didn't know what the emotion of hatred was, but if someone could have lasted long enough to explain it to the Great Devourer, maybe it would have accepted it had merits.

Maybe.

It was the Hive Mind, an implacable and utterly alien intelligence which existed to devour.

And at this very moment, the reserves of biomass which had been painstakingly assembled had been destroyed.

This world, where it had slept for so long and abstained from harvesting too much prey from in order to avoid a decrease of the pantry, was dying, and would clearly not offer any additional biomass for hundreds of thousands of local solar cycles.

The Hive Mind couldn't be said to like or dislike something, but the alien intelligence guided by an uncountable number of Norn Queens assessed the new odds and the hunger grew worse.

This was before the prey which had somehow managed to challenge it once more evaded all its defences and inflicted two wounds breaking through the psychic shield and the colossal 'skin' protecting it from the outer void.

'Behemoth' didn't falter. Its regeneration abilities went to work nearly instantly, but the cold energy contained in the torpedoes was like nothing the Hive Mind had ever experienced.

It was as if the ammunition used had been conceived to hurt it specifically.

The Hive Mind couldn't know it without Genestealers giving it the information, but this was indeed the case; the Rune Priests of the Fang had poured what they believed to be the 'dying essence of Fenris summoned to strike down its tormentor before oblivion' into their torpedoes.

Many Traitor Astartes would have scoffed at the hypocrisy. The Hive Mind cared nothing for human emotions, and only considered results.

The biomass of the planet had been annihilated. Two lesser units had been saved and could be deployed as lesser escorts and ambushers. And the entire fleet of surviving prey was trying to close the distance in order to slay it.

The Hive Mind calculated the odds of victory, and they were below what a Tech-Priest would have assessed to be the one percent threshold. This new construct of mountain and metal-technology built by the prey was extremely resilient, and immune to the most dangerous weapon of the great predator.

Yet it had a weakness. It was slow. And evidently whatever it used to propel itself into high orbit had been consumed in large quantities. It had escaped the gravity trap, but the nest of prey had an immobile weapon. And since it was immobile, the other prey-ships would hide behind it, knowing only it could protect them, even further decreasing the possibilities of gaining more biomass.

This was an unacceptable outcome.

The Hive Mind of the Great Devourer gave the signal to its greatest asset in the system and commanded the two lesser units which accompanied it to abandon the ruined pantry.

There were far more biomass-filled worlds around this star. Those were the planets which mattered. And the Hive Mind would devour them, like it did everything.

Still, the ancient intelligence waiting beyond the borders of the galaxy promised itself that those howling prey would not howl so much in triumph when it came back for them.

Carrion-class Heavy Battleship Vox Dominus

31 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Dark Apostle Paristur

Past the long minutes of surprise at what the dogs of Russ had done, there was nothing to do but groan in disappointment.

"So much for the idea of the beast...what do they call it, a Tyranid?"

"Yes, a fitting name," Vorrjuk Kraal confirmed.

"Then so much for the idea of the Tyranid and the Wolves taking each other out." Paristur finished.

"By our actions, the Wolves have been driven to their knees." Jarulek disagreed. "Fenris has been devastated beyond recovery, and all the Companies which fought against us are devastated."

"Except they have Russ back," Mothac went on to expand on his viewpoint. "As long as he's alive, they can rebuild their damned Legion again. It may take them centuries, but they will do it. Unlike us."

"If this is about the Flesh Change curse-" Kor Phaeron began.

"It is, but there are other complications, aren't there?" The Lord of Torment reminded bitterly. "Your little diversion failed to kill Sota-Nul. As a result, I think it's safe to assume Kelbor-Hal and the other Hell-Lords of the Mechanicum are going to want to flay us so that no one else ever betrays a pact negotiated with them ever again."

The sinister reality was that if anything, Mothac was understating how bad it was going to be by several orders of magnitude. For all the forges and resources a Legion like the Word Bearers took for granted, there was no denying that the heart of the industrial power the True Legions had access to came from the great Forges built after the Siege of Terra and their exile. And those Forges were under the control of the Mechanicum and the Iron Warriors.

Even if they didn't die at Macragge, the Seventeenth Legion was going to be hunted for what they'd done.

"Sota-Nul's goals didn't lean towards the success of the Black Crusade," Kor Phaeron answered in a half-virtuous voice which fooled absolutely no one. "I seized an artefact made of pure Octarite aboard one of her Titan-Barges! Pure Octarite, Apostles! It is obvious she was in league with Abaddon and the Black Legion from the start!"

"This may be true," Grand Apostle Ekodas didn't pretend to be convinced for a heartbeat, "but it doesn't matter. What the True Legions and everyone looking at this campaign will see is that we've betrayed nearly everyone we could betray, fulfilled none of our pacts or promises, and now are trying to weasel out by pretending our allies weren't loyal to us when staying by our side resulted in the destruction of their forces. I wouldn't be surprised if right now in the Eye, what's left of our holdings and allies are being massacred in swift retribution. Using Sota-Nul like we did may very well sentence us to death in the end."

"In the end..." the Black Cardinal repeated the words mockingly before hissing, "the end is here, Ekodas! The Flesh Change has taken more than fifty Legionnaires since we last spoke! Now at least we have ninety-four Titans of the Legio Vulturum and their support assets to fight off the Curse eating our souls."

"This is all very interesting," Vorrjuk Kraal spoke again, "but I thought we were going to speak of the Ultramarines. You know, they have a fleet trying to flank us as their Codex prescribes."

"And it has been anticipated," Jarulek boasted. "Seriously, trying to pin us between their orbital grid and their warships, do they really think we have never seen this tactic before?"

Paristur didn't feel very reassured by the apparent arrogance of the leader of the 2nd Great Host.

"May I remind you," the veteran Dark Apostle hissed acidly, "that all our ships are badly damaged. By the Blood God's wrath, we don't even know how much is breaking down because of the shadow field projected by the Tyranids and how much is falling apart because of the damage we sustained in the Fenris System! Yes, the strategy of the Ultramarines is predictable, but it isn't by any means ineffective! Situated on our starboard like they are, we must keep the Trisagion engaged against the orbital grid while our Battleships deal with their Battle-Barges and Strike Cruisers."

"But when they try to board us, we will have the advantage," Kor Phaeron grinned.

Everyone save Jarulek stared at the Master of Faith of the Legion in alarm. Granted, they had all known the Black Cardinal was not an expert in void warfare, but still...

"If they were intending to board us, they wouldn't try to stay so far away," Paristur spoke for the rest of the Dark Council. "By now, even with the interferences on their auspexes and the psychic energy released in the system, they can't have missed the extensive damage all our ships have taken. Not unless they are completely blind. They are predictable, yes. This is why they're going to pound us with their intact warships, and demolish us one by one. It's our forces which have to board them."

And by now Paristur knew better than to hope for a clean victory. The Legion, trying to keep the Flesh Change at bay, reeling from the blows Anarchy had inflicted upon them while depriving them of their Primarch, was at its lowest historical point...and it was going to get worse.

"We unleash everything we have," Mothac declared. "And we pray that it will be enough."

Battle-Barge Caesar

32 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Chapter Master Cato Valens

The moment the Traitor Battleship identified as the Colchisian Revenge began to implode, the Regent of Macragge knew what was about to happen.

"Tell the counter-boarding parties to be ready," the Ultramarines Chapter Master ordered as the warship of the Word Bearers lost its macro-batteries, air, water, and pretty much everything contained in a hull. "Their ships are even more damaged than we thought. They can't expect to win a battle of attrition. And shift our fire to the Unbelievers' Judgement. Our target is dead, no need to waste our time on a wreck."

Less than a second later, his command was proven prescient as the Colchisian Revenge blew up. But the boarding torpedoes of the ship in question were already inbound, along with all sorts of heretical attack craft and Daemon Engines.

"The Strike Cruisers are to focus their fire on the boarding craft. The Battle-Barges will continue to concentrate on a single Battleship until it is crippled."

Given the quantity of Imperial firepower present in the system, a warship which had lost most of its crew, firepower, and engines was a dead warship. Since these were Word Bearer hulls, Cato would have dearly wanted to keep hammering the bastard sons of Lorgar until there was nothing left of them, but he couldn't. There were too many enemy Battleships, and many of them were fighting back. Practically, this couldn't be but a fifth or a sixth of what they should have been able to send at his Battle-Barges, but that nonetheless remained a dangerous amount of explosive ordnance, especially as the enemy too fired on a single target.

"The Traitors have chosen to kill the First Guardian, Lord Regent. It is a curious choice."

"Theoretical: they're trying to capture our most powerful Battle-Barges while destroying the weakest."

"Practical: the majority of their boarding torpedoes are heading towards the Caesar and the Excelsior. Therefore I believe your theoretical has its merits."

Yes, yes it did. If they were going after all the Ultramarines' Battle-Barges, they would have targeted the Spear of Macragge too. But the warship assigned to the 6th Company was smaller and less powerful, as were most of the recent patterns, and the Traitors were ignoring it...for now.

"I leave the naval battle in your hands, Master of the Fleet," the Chapter Master announced at last after assuring himself all the orders that could have been relayed had been transmitted. "Courage and Honour."

"Courage and Honour, Lord Regent."

Once outside the bridge, his brother and equerry Cadmus handed him his personal weapon, the Hammer of Macragge. Cato remembered fondly the looks of surprise many Captains had shown years ago when he had chosen this relic from the vast armoury of the Fortress of Hera. While it was a great weapon, the indomitable thunderhammer of the Thirteenth Legion was wielded occasionally when a Champion or a Captain felt the xenos threat deserved to have its skull splintered and the moderate options had failed. In his Artificer Armour, the Armour of Adrianople, he could fight with the thunderhammer in one hand and yet also use a Bolter or another ranged weapon in the other.

Cato had been the first Chapter Master of the Ultramarines to choose the Hammer of Macragge as his personal weapon...and hopefully he wouldn't be the last.

"Fifteen seconds estimated before Traitors' boarding." The Techmarine assigned to the 1st Company informed him as he arrived in the node where they would be able to answer the enemy's attacks best. "The barrage of the Strike Cruisers has been able to eliminate over twenty percent of them but-"

The middle deck of the Caesar where he and twenty Terminators of the 1st Company were waiting shook like an earthquake had somehow been replicated in the Battle-Barge.

And the communications mere seconds later were ...concerning.

"Daemonhosts! They're deploying daemonhosts!"

"Death to the False Emperor!"

"Do you hear them scream, blind idiots?"

"How are they coming from this section? It was sealed...ARRGH!"

"DEATH TO GUILLIMAN AND HIS SONS!"

"With me," Cato said. "We go with Ultramar-Quintus-Primus-Argent."

He ran and less than ten seconds later, he and his battle-brothers arrived just in time to see a wave of red-armoured Traitors finish slaughtering the Ultramar Auxilia.

"KNOW NO FEAR!" The Regent of Macragge shouted as the Hammer of Macragge hit the helmeted head of a first Traitor and killed the oath-breaker instantly. "WE MARCH FOR MACRAGGE!"

The fury of the Ultramarines and their greater tactical acumen devastated the formation of the bastard sons of Lorgar, and in less time than it took to say it, they were all dead on the floor.

But it was just the beginning.

Just as they pushed towards the compartments where the torpedo tubes were loaded, a new wave of Traitor Astartes charged, and this time they had things hovering above the deck which couldn't be described as anything else but daemons.

"KILL THEM ALL IN LORGAR'S NAME!"

"DEATH TO GUILLIMAN!"

"ONWARDS! WE MARCH FOR MACRAGGE!"

And the blue-gold of the Ultramarines and their armed auxiliaries clashed with the crimson horde of abominations.

Battle-Barge Excelsior

Sorcerer Kael Phallo

Kael snarled in satisfaction as his last daemonhost and the survivor of the Ultramarines' squad viciously murdered each other.

The essence of the Warp contained inside its human 'prison' had of course a few adverse effects once it was released in the Ultramarines' Battle-Barge, but compared to the rest of the collateral damage done so far, a few mutations to the metal and some teeth here and there weren't worthy of consideration.

Too bad the Ultramarine was already dead. He would have been given a long and horrible demise.

"Now, the melta charges," Kael Phallo ordered to the Word Bearers waiting behind him. "This is the last adamantium door between us and the bridge. When it falls, we will be able to hunt whatever pathetic remnants of their worthless 'Auxilia' remain alive."

"Yes, Lord Sorcerer, though there is a-"

The Captain suddenly stopped speaking, and hastily took two steps back. Why was the imbecile failing to-

Kael Phallo's gaze fell upon his right arm. Or rather, what until one moment ago had been his right arm. Now it was nothing but an ugly black tentacle.

"No! No, no, no, I did everything the Master of the Faith recommended! I sacrificed eight-fold the number of slaves prescribed and bathed myself in the blood of-"

The Word Bearer Sorcerer lost his equilibrium, as suddenly his legs began to grow at a different rate, something which also strained the ceramite of his power armour before it shattered completely. On the left, an enormous talon akin to a Night Lord Raptor appeared, but on the right, the leg was covered in a multitude of eyes and a number of spikes formed at its extremity.

It was only a question of will to repel this ignoble curse. He had the will! He had been...no, it wasn't possible that brief emotion of satisfaction had...no, he refused to accept it!

"I am not...don't retreat, you faithless bastards!" the Sorcerer screamed as the Legionnaires he commanded were now running back to the other compartment. "The Dark Council will have your heads!"

A heartbeat later, he felt an unnatural hunger in his throat and maw.

His blessed teeth changed and increased in length and sharpness.

One of his eyes outright disappeared, and Kael Phallo shrieked at the loss of sensation...which rapidly became insignificant as his entire body suddenly became uncontrollable.

Something wormed its way past his psychic defences and self-control.

"Gods...no...not...not this! Haven't...I served you faithfully! I fxj jfliexe fmjtjg!"

His mouth ceased to be able to utter human sounds, and two seconds later, the transformation into a Chaos Spawn was complete.

Battle-Barge Excelsior

Captain Cassius Bacurius

"The bridge is gone, Captain. Theoretical: the last explosion was Battle-Brother Vellisus detonating several melta warheads in order to deny the Traitors their prize."

This was a solid assumption, and knowing Vellisus' loyalty to the Codex, Cassius Bacurius was extremely confident that the practical matched the theoretical.

"Then the scum of the Traitor Seventeenth will soon be here," he replied. While Cassius was sure most of the oath-breakers and heretics had no idea of the majesty and the elegance of the Codex, some of them must have read a tactical treatise in their lives, and there were not that many critical locations an enemy might want to seize.

The bridge and the armoury had been blown up. He didn't know what had happened to the Apothecarium, but it had not been filled before they departed from Macragge; with the battle so close to the Temple of Hera, the gene-seed and anything not indispensable for simple healing purposes had been left inside the Temple of Hera.

That left the Enginarium. And the forty survivors of the 2nd Company still controlled all the approaches to it.

"Yes, Captain. And they certainly are going to use their cultists and Chaos Spawns as shock troops to storm our positions."

"And we will deal with them like the Codex prescribes," the commander of the Guardians of the Temple answered.

"With all due respect, Captain, the tactics prescribed by the Codex have always been theoretical and practical depending on the opposition having one or two large-sized horrors like Chaos Spawn. The enemy has brought dozens. We need to adapt the doctrine, or it's going to be the same thing which happened next to the Lance decks all over again, except we won't be able to make a fighting retreat here."

Cassius was utterly appalled. Sergeant Victor had been a perfect subordinate, eager to defend Guilliman's Codex whatever the circumstances.

"The Codex Astartes is perfect, Sergeant! It is the wisdom of the Primarch incarnate, flowing in its purest form to increase our tactical superiority. There will be no 'adaptation' or 'reform' of the Codex! Do you want us to fall on the path of barbarism? Do you want us to become the new Black Templars and Flesh Tearers?"

"Now you're completely ridiculous," the Sergeant redonned his helmet. "It was just a suggestion, Captain. I was just trying to say-"

Something incredibly heavy struck the last armoured gate preventing the Traitors from flooding the approaches of the Enginarium with their slaves and worse things.

"Stand ready. In the name of Guilliman and his Codex, we are going to teach them they should never have come to Ultramar!"

The familiar – and utterly abhorred – odour of ozone reached his nose, and a fraction of a second later, enormous holes burning with eldritch energies drilled into the three-layered defence built by the best artisans of Ultramar centuries ago.

And as the wall's gaps grew almost transparent, Cassius Bacurius saw what the Traitors had sent to the fight. There were countless Daemon Engines, most of them defying any attempt to classify them. And there were over a hundred Chaos Spawn, half of them bigger than any Dreadnought. Those horrible things were already fighting each other in their haste to arrive first at close-quarters. Behind them, there were more cultists and misbegotten mutants, before...a new wave of Chaos Spawn...

Cassius opened his mouth. It was a disadvantageous position, yes, but they had seen worse. No, he wasn't going to accept the blasphemy of Guilliman's words being incorrect. The Codex was Order. The Codex was their Legion. It was civilisation and the rightful legacy of Mankind!

"COURAGE AND HONOUR!" He screamed to make sure his voice was not drowned by the shrieks and the daemonic chorus of the Traitor Host charging. "KNOW NO FEAR!"

"It is only with the benefit of hindsight that a sound theoretical becomes an unwise practical. Attempts to blame oneself afterwards are generally counterproductive and ill-timed. Failing to rectify the problem with the appropriate practical, on the other hand, is unbefitting of a leader." Words of Primarch Roboute Guilliman, page 583 of the Codex Astartes.

Battle-Barge Spear of Macragge

34 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Chapter Master Cato Valens

The Regent of Macragge opened his eyes, and for all the resilience of his transhuman body, nearly everything was pain.

A couple of seconds later, several syringes plunged into his right arm, and the suffering lessened, becoming more bearable.

"Practical: I recommend little to no movements, Lord Regent," an Apothecary revealed himself before him. And he wasn't one of his battle-brothers, but a member of their brothers of the Genesis Chapter. "The horde of Chaos Spawn came quite close to killing you. Battle-surgery had to be performed immediately, and then I had to make a second extensive chirurgical intervention when you arrived in this Apothecarium."

Cato remembered the Chaos Spawn in question. One moment he had been massacring a company's worth of Traitors, and suddenly all of them had began mutating and tripling in size, with claws, pincers, tentacles, and maws appearing and trying their best to kill him.

"We're not aboard the Caesar." He couldn't say he'd frequented the domain of the Apothecaries too many times, but he would have recognised the rooms.

"No, Lord Regent. We are in the Apothecarium of the Spear of Macragge. The Caesar broke in half when Captain Pompeius did his best to deny it to the enemy. But the majority of the injured and the crew were able to be evacuated beforehand in a splendid fighting retreat, let us thank the spirit of Guilliman for that."

More substances were injected into his bloodstream, and those didn't lessen the pain. Unfortunately, being able to see more and more of the enormous wounds which covered his body, the Chapter Master's theoretical was not pleasant. They were here to keep him alive.

"We lost the battle." It wasn't a question. "Where is Captain Pompeius?"

"He went back to Macragge in order to assume direct command, Lord Regent." The white-armoured Genesis Marine replied. "Once they defeated us, the Traitors launched everything they had against the orbital grid and the rest of the defences. All the uninjured battle-brothers of the 1st and the 6th Company went back to Macragge in anticipation of the coming planetary invasion."

"What about the 2nd Company?" Cato asked, and his two hearts – yes, they at least were still there – were already dreading the answer.

"The Second Company perished with the Excelsior," his healer revealed grimly. "They managed to blow up most of the engines and everything valuable before dying, but no one escaped."

Cato for a moment didn't say anything. This was a black page in the Ultramarines' history, and it was entirely his fault. He should never have approved the nomination of Cassius Bacurius to the leadership of the Guardians of the Temple, no matter how popular a choice it had been.

"How many ships we did lose?"

"The Caesar, the Excelsior, and the First Guardian of our own Genesis Chapter, reason why I'm treating you here," the Apothecary reported bluntly, "three more Strike Cruisers and over a dozen of lesser ships were lost alongside them. The Orpheus' Gladius is severely damaged, as is the Battle-Barge Sedition Opprimere of the 3rd Company. It tried a desperate flanking attack followed by a boarding operation on one of their flagships to turn the course of the void engagement."

"So many..." the grief let the words escape his lips.

"The depraved sons of Lorgar were forced to pay a heavy price," the shadow of a centuries-old pride echoed in the Apothecary's voice, "counting the Colchisian Revenge, we destroyed six more Traitor Battleships in three hours, and the grid destroyed one more. And for all the fact that they managed to storm the defences aboard the Caesar and the other lost ships, they did it by burying everyone under the corpses of their own treacherous warriors. We think they lost over one thousand Traitor Astartes just for your flagship, Lord Regent."

This was utterly insane. But then every young Aspirant who successfully completed the first trials on his way to become a Space Marine learned that the Traitor Seventeenth had thrown in over fifty thousand of its own at Calth to make sure the Ultramarines died with them.

Compared to that, one thousand was nothing. And he hadn't stopped them. This was the worst part. He had failed Guilliman.

"What now?" This may seem a strange question to ask from a Chapter Master, but right now, Cato Valens was not going to pretend he had anything but a superficial understanding of the battlefield. In his state, unable to even stand on his own two legs, there was nothing he could do but let Gaius Pompeius continue assuming command so that Macragge was defended by someone competent. And trying to interfere would not only be violating the tenets of the Codex, it would be stupid too.

"After withdrawing from the battle Captain Pompeius ordered that the Spear of Macragge was to take all the wounded and bring them to the Imperial fleet. Communications are as bad as they have been for the last several hours, but the Admirals of the Imperial Navy have begun deploying Destroyers to use as short-range 'relay nexuses' so that we have a small degree of coordination. As we have more than one hundred Astartes, including yourself, who have been rendered unable to fight for months or years given the gravity of their injuries, Captain Pompeius, with the support of Captain Rebilus, declared himself willing to pay any price Lady Weaver would set for a large stock of Blue Bacta."

The irony burned like the bile of the damned monsters the Word Bearers had transformed into.

Cassius Bacurius had refused the Bacta Accords in Valens and the Ultramarines' names, and now the only option Macragge had was to accept the Bacta anyway and hope it worked exactly like the Lady of Nyx had boasted, because the Ultramarines had no alternative to propose.

"Though it does not solve the problem of the power armours," the Apothecary continued, injecting more medical substances and deploying new healing devices. "Most of the battle-brothers we have here had their equipment battered and the Techmarines' reserve of Mark VII has evaporated such are our needs."

"I thought...Captain Dacius...would...try to find a solution."

The Captain of the 3rd Company, Maxellus Dacius, was one of those battle-brothers who, as far as everyone who remembered, had studied the Mark VII and the Artificer Armours of the Chapter so much that one wondered how he hadn't been chosen to become a Techmarine in the first place.

"Captain Dacius is dead, Lord Regent. He died in his ill-conceived attack on one of the enemy flagships."

Two Company Captains dead, one Company exterminated, three Battle-Barges gone...the enemy had beaten them like they were novices. No, not like they were novices. They had been anticipated, and outmanoeuvred. The Traitors had predicted each action they committed before it was implemented.

The heretics had turned the Codex against them. This was a practical impossible to refute.

And Cato Valens didn't know what to do anymore after this revelation.

Infernus-class Battleship Delightful Agony

Dark Apostle Mothac

Before the terrible slaughter at Fenris and the curse taking hold, the sight of Ultramarines' Battle-Barges fleeing with their tails between their legs, their pride humbled, and their morale in tatters, would have made him laugh.

Today Mothac didn't smile.

There was nothing to rejoice about.

The Ultramarines were fleeing, yes, but they were fleeing towards the fifty Battleships of the False Emperor who had reorganised their formation.

Assuming they tried to use some xenos artefacts again – and they couldn't, most of the ones they had activated were now either destroyed or in need of days of reconfiguration before they could be unleashed again – the tactic wouldn't be as effective. Not that it would have been a second time – Paristur had been the first to admit that the reason Sota-Nul had been able to do so much damage was thanks to her innovative scrap-code.

Since somewhere about a third of the Mechanicum Tech-Priests they had aboard their ships had to be put down permanently after they learned of how Kor Phaeron had neutralised the favourite apprentice of Kelbor-Hal, scrap-code was not an option for the Seventeenth Legion.

No, Weaver was coming.

And while Lorgar had been wrong about many things, there was one thing he hadn't been wrong about at all: this campaign was going to be decided between their Grand Armada and Weaver.

That much was true.

But even if the False Saint was forced to divide her strength and firepower between the Word Bearers' ships and the Tyranid beast rushing ahead behind them...no, it was a vain hope. There was little to suggest the woman who had wiped out Commorragh was a competent naval strategist, but she was a military officer. She wasn't going to try to divide her fire when both enemies, Astartes and xenos, could retaliate and survive.

Weaver was going to strike hard at the weaker enemy first. And since the Grand Armada was a fleet of wrecks which somehow managed to remain in a single piece, there was no denying they were the weaker target.

Kor Phaeron had indeed been a prophet before the battle. It was not a question of if they were going to lose; their purpose was to make sure everyone else lost with them.

Was this the case?

It took one second to realise he had spoken the words aloud.

"Lord Apostle?"

"I was merely...thinking...contemplating the situation we find ourselves in, Coryphaus." The member of the Dark Council explained. "Will it be enough to make sure the Ultramarines lose?"

"I...I do not think so, Lord Apostle," the Legionnaire officer admitted after a short silence of deliberation. "They will likely take centuries to recover from the losses we are busy inflicting on them. The Trisagion is battering their orbital grid into impotence, yes. But it's just the outer layer of Macragge's defences. It's going to take hours before we can even think about launching the Kharybdis Claws. Right now, any drop assault would result in a lot of our warriors blasted out of the sky without a single one touching the ground. And there are still a lot of Ultramarines to defend their fortifications, supported by millions of the False Emperor's slaves. Until we break through their 'Fortress of Hera', they can recover."

And what a remarkably honest analysis it was.

The Ultramarines could recover, even if their Primarch was kept in a stasis casket two seconds away from Death.

The Word Bearers couldn't. From the very moment the Battle of the Macragge System had begun, they had lost nine Battleships, and three more had deserted with Erebus. Out of twenty-eight Battleships, this was a total of sixteen surviving capital warships to escort the Trisagion, to which could only be added three Titan-Barges. And as discouraging as it was, it painted a false picture. More than ten thousand Legionnaires were dead or had betrayed them for the Vile One. A large contingent of Faithful had to be kept on the Titan-Barges at all times so that the Mechanicum loyalists and the Titans' Princeps understood the Bolter was waiting to be fired at the back of their heads.

And the Flesh Change Curse's ravages were not by any means slowing down. While some of it had been quite advantageous during the boarding actions and surprised the narrow-minded fools of Guilliman's line, it was impossible to pretend that the percentage of sons of Lorgar who mutated wasn't skyrocketing when they were in active combat.

They had lost. And given the heavy fighting, there was no hope at all to reach the Ultramarines' final redoubt, never mind tearing asunder their gates and illuminating their pompous palaces.

All hope was lost.

The Gods had forsaken them. Khorne only cared about the blood which would flow from this butchery. Tzeentch would delight upon Change coming, but the Curse was change too. And-

Was it that simple?

Was it simply a choice between the abandonment of all hope and Anarchy?

Maybe their faith had blinded them for too long. After spending an eternity listening to Kor Phaeron and Erebus' prattle, maybe they had been blinded to the truth when it was given to them.

"There is no hope. There is no improvement. There is no betterment through faith, technology, or courage. We have been in a spiral path of decay, and our Grand Armada is crumbling in disrepair before the gates of Macragge!"

Dark Apostle Mothac laughed without joy and summoned his staff. He contemplated it for a brief moment...and then broke it.

Their gene-sire had seen the truth, had he not? No victory, as small and insignificant as it might be, would be won without Sacrifice.

"I swear allegiance to Nurgle, Lord of All Decay!" the Lord of Torment shouted. "I place myself and my warriors under the aegis of the Plaguefather, the Great Corruptor and Master of Pestilence!"

Three artefacts 'borrowed' from the Death Guard were consecrated anew with the life-essence of seven slaves.

And for the first time, the enormous worm-like tendrils of the doom pressuring every mind and body of the Word Bearers appeared to withdraw.

"HAIL THE GRANDFATHER! WE WILL KNOW NO FEAR FOR IT IS ORDAINED DECAY WHICH RULES SUPREME!"

"REJOICE! FOR PLAGUE WILL BE OUR SALVATION!"

High Orbit over T'au

Ark Mechanicus Zar-Quaesitor

35 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Archmagos Belisarius Cawl

While ninety-nine percent of his attention had been on the great task his fellow scientists and himself were about to show the entire galaxy, Belisarius Cawl was not deaf. He knew several of his political enemies were spreading rumours he was over-ambitious, doings things bordering on heretekal activities, and that he deliberately underplayed the risks of teleporting a planet to the Lady General commanding the Battle Groups of Operation Stalingrad.

To which, if he was called to testify in front of the Martian Parliament, he would say they were completely and utterly wrong.

He had everything under control.

He was Archmagos Belisarius Cawl. He had reverse-engineered the Ork gravitic-tunnelling technology, something his enemies and critics were too scared to even theorise about.

"Module Alpha is operational."

"Module Beta is operational. Aethergold shielding is holding. Empyrean anomalies remain contained, by the grace of the Omnissiah."

"Module Gamma is operational, Archmagos."

Belisarius Cawl examined the data, and once more marvelled at the triumph of human ingenuity over the corrupted and hideous presence of the Ruinous Powers.

The millennia-old Archmagos didn't doubt for an instant the psychic abominations had done their utmost to prevent him from accomplishing the Great Work ordered by Lady Taylor Hebert. They had tried to impose a time limit on him by ramming this xenos-crowded world against Macragge, obviously, but that had merely been the direct and most obvious attack. They had tried to subvert some of his Tech-Priests, like he was some apprentice just leaving his first tech-seminary. They tried to change the anti-Warp 'shadow-in-the-Warp' field covertly so that the psychic interferences resonated with some of his synchronizers and the iridium-built modules. They even tried to reveal some of their longest-serving undercover agents among the Adeptus Mechanicus, despite knowing that many of them would not react positively to being told they served the Ruinous Powers and that revealing the chains and shackles was a death sentence given the irregular barrages of golden light the Great Moth was illuminating the squadrons with.

Belisarius was really, really disappointed by their lack of imagination. It was like they thought that moving a planet to an entirely different system was just an affair of pushing a button and making constipated noises of auto-congratulation.

Really, those heretics were not men of science. It was a favour to the Emperor and the galaxy to exterminate them.

"Diamond-pattern of the Aethergold blocks resonating perfectly, Archmagos."

"The modules are synchronized."

"The coordinates of the liquid zone in the Ouralia System have been calculated and are now incorporated into the tunnel matrix."

"All Starforts and ships are out of the Cawl Exclusion Zone."

"On my mark," the survivor of the Horus Heresy ordered, taking great care to hide his excitement. Truly there was nothing more stimulating than playing with the very concepts which defined this galaxy and all the systems composing it. "Three. Two. One. Execute!"

The gravitic shock was violent. It always was. Regrettably, that was something his efforts hadn't yet managed to solve, despite generous research into anti-gravitic dampeners and some extensive support given covertly to several schools of gravitic weapons on his homeworld.

This was an afterthought however, for the magnificence of materialising a large conduit which was denied to all foreign entities like daemons and the like was a reward in itself.

Some external 'currents' came into existence, but the Aethergold and his own customised wards blocked all interferences, be they from the Tyranid or another pernicious influence.

The planet T'au disappeared into the conduit – some lesser minds of the Mechanicus had even dared comparing it to a vulgar siphoning tube, and Cawl had recorded the names of each and every one of them.

"Probe Ouralia sending Code Eureka, Archmagos."

The bridge of the Zar-Quaesitor may be crewed by many, many people who had replaced their limbs and organs with mechanical parts several times, but without a single exception, cheers and other manifestations of joy saluted this announcement.

The gravitic anomaly closed, and a large disaster had been avoided by his formidable mastery of science.

"Module Beta reports major damage, Archmagos. It looks like the iridium machinery has broken under the stress."

"Regrettable, but not unexpected," Cawl commented, "That is why I asked my colleagues to build more replacements. Hopefully, they will get my exacting specifications right. Now, let's examine how the tactical situation unravelled while I was busy..."

It was far from good news, that much was certain. Fenris, to point out the most obvious example, wasn't just going to need to be moved to another system if the Space Wolves wanted to inhabit it again.

And there were plenty of other reasons for dissatisfaction given what were Belisarius' primary goals.

"Rho, please contact the Rogue Trader Wolfgang Bach and ask him...gently...to establish a direct hololithic communication with Lady Weaver. Now that the blue-skinned aliens, save the detachment they evacuated beforehand, will play no more part in this campaign, I need to speak directly with her."

Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Moros Sub-Sector

Ouralia System

TFNS Midgard

35 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Commodore Yang Wen-li

The journey to reach the Galactic Core and the Squats had been long and eventful.

Too eventful.

It seemed that any faction that could humanly be antagonised wherever they went had been. Sometimes it was the belligerence of the Squat Slayer leading to several 'regrettable' deeds. Most often it was Leet saying the wrong thing at the worst possible time, and then Borek went on to burn whatever bridges remained, metaphorically or literally.

This galaxy was crazy. If he had any doubts the Age of the Federation was long gone after being nearly burned on an old-fashioned pyre by neo-religious bureaucrats, the following weeks had put them to rest. There had been that improbable race against an Eldar 'corsair'. Yes, that narcissistic imbecile was ridiculous and his clothes were flamboyant, but was it really necessary to say it to his face before breaking his nose? Yang didn't think so. And the less said about the 'hide-and-seek' they played with 'Kaptain Flashygutz' in an asteroid belt, the better. Half of his current grey hair had materialised after that insane month.

Of course, that was before he knew the 'forwards' was the easy part of the 'adventure'.

The return was far, far worse.

Every being, be it a human or a xenos, they had antagonised before was now warming up for the second round, and they were 'reinforced' by new 'challengers' – the Slayer's words, not his. In no particular order, they included: a Rogue Trader Heiress playing bounty hunter for the Adeptus Administratum, various xenos with long teeth and a willingness to use them on their vulnerable necks, a few more 'Kaptains' of the Ork Freebooter variety, a Jokaero – yes, they had somehow angered a Jokaero and his family – and an enormous white rat which somehow was able to talk. And yes, the rodent wanted to sacrifice them to its evil deity.

Yang Wen-li's retirement couldn't come soon enough.

Anyway, despite being pursued by numerous bounty hunters – including the aforementioned Rogue Trader Heiress – they had still been able to fight, repel, or outright blast their way through everything their enemies had in store for them and reach the Nyx Sector.

They couldn't get there soon enough. His wine cellar aboard the Spirit of Eternity was long empty, and the one aboard their new 'transport' whose hull was hiding Admiral and the Spirit had not survived the daily assaults of the Squats they shared the decks with. It was coming back as glorious explorators, or facing a fate no spaceman in his right mind wanted to contemplate: Squats unable to satisfy their love for beer and other ultra-alcoholic drinks.

Fortunately, Yang had been able to convince the band of formidable warmongers and powerful disasters-in-the-making that formed his 'crew' that prudence was the best plan for now.

The Midgard was going to transit into an uninhabited system inside the borders of the Sector controlled by their 'ally', before sending a discreet astropathic communication message that negotiations were to begin in this fairly neutral location. That way they would avoid the predictable accusations of 'heresy', 'intimidation', 'blackmail', and more.

Ten minutes after their arrival, a goddamn planet materialised out of nowhere.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." Yang Wen-li grumbled.

Ultima Segmentum

Realm of Ultramar

Macragge System

Battleship Enterprise

36 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lady General Taylor Hebert

Resting in a tub of Bacta had done wonders for her.

Ah, if only the galaxy had stopped going to hell while she was resting...but no such luck.

Fenris was...Fenris was currently burning in some apocalyptic ice-fire struggle. The Ultramarines' fleet had lost against the Word Bearers. The Battleship of the Dark Mechanicum had evaded all attempts to locate it again, and the same was now true for the single Traitor Battleship which had fled the Fenris War Zone before the Tyranid revealed its Dynakinetic attack. The fighting on Laphis was getting uglier and uglier, even with the limited communications they possessed.

Under these circumstances, Cawl having teleported the planet of the Tau out of the battlefield was one of the rare pieces of very good news Taylor could name. After all, there was no way that it could generate more problems tens of thousands of light-years away, right?

Of course, this also meant Taylor had to accept his 'communication request', even if the parahuman woman knew she wasn't going to like the plans which had taken root in the head of the Radical Archmagos.

And unfortunately, her premonition – based on nothing but past experience – was sadly proven correct.

"No, absolutely not."

"Macragge should be our next priority."

"Macragge is my next priority," the Lady General of the Imperial Guard corrected frostily. "Yours is to take care of Fenris, Archmagos. I don't know if you have forgotten, but the planet is still on a collision course with the Ultramarines' homeworld."

The good news, and in this case it was really good news, was that between the Tyranid abandoning Fenris' orbit and the Space Wolves pulling their totally-not-heretekal move of using their fortress as some kind of giant space rocket, the Imperium had regained control of the Fenrisian approaches, meaning the teleportation devices could be emplaced.

"True," Cawl conceded for a brief second, "but there are other problems. First, I can't return Fenris to its original system. My gravitic tunnels do not suffer as many distance limitations as other technology I've developed, but I do not have the range to return Fenris to...the Fenris System."

"And I wasn't going to ask you to." The golden-winged commander affirmed sincerely. Seriously, while the information about Fenris was extremely incomplete, what the auspexes had seen so far was enough to give her shivers. The planet was tainted beyond redemption, both by the Ruinous Powers and the Tyranids. Even the moderate Inquisitors were begging her now to teleport the Astartes homeworld into a nearby sun where it would consume everything and save them a monumental headache. "The Inquisition is sometimes overzealous, but this time, their opinion Fenris deserves solar incineration is sadly completely justified."

"Err..." why did Cawl not agree with her? This wasn't like they could rebuild Fenris in the state it was in now. "This...there might be diplomatic...issues..."

This was very much unlike the Martian Tech-Priest. He certainly wasn't particularly concerned about diplomacy when he teleported one of the moons of Nyx Sextus at any rate!

"I don't-" Taylor stopped as Artemis and several Catachan ants alerted her about a new problem. "We will continue this communication later, Archmagos. Begin your redeployment to Fenris."

"This is not-"

"Someone is trying to steal my Necron prisoners of war, and this takes utmost priority, I'm afraid."

Captain Brutus Cestus

Captain Brutus Cestus of the 7th Company of the Ultramarines was in a very dark mood. Macragge was under direct assault by the monstrous bastard sons of Lorgar, and he was too far away to do anything but watch! Add to this the news which had come ten minutes ago that the 2nd Company had been entirely destroyed, and his thoughts were as dark as those of his battle-brothers waiting for him aboard the Integritas.

"Brother, I would suggest you don't glare so fiercely," Captain Hadrian Septimus Niger Severus of the Brazen Consuls advised calmly.

"Are you saying the hour is one for smiles and jokes?" Brutus asked tersely.

"Of course not," the Astartes born on Aventinium – and yes, all Space Marines of this Chapter had hyper-inflated names, courtesy of being born nobles – answered. "It is a dark hour for all sons of Guilliman. But... how to best phrase this...the Ultramarines' relationship with the woman we're about to have an audience with could benefit from some improvements, shall we say?"

"The Spear of Macragge told us their request for a Bacta delivery was accepted."

And it would likely allow the Chapter Master to return to the frontlines, Guilliman be praised.

"Brother, there's a difference between delivering something anyone would give in a moment of crisis and truly mending the existing differences between Nyx and Macragge," Hadrian politely corrected before advancing towards the red-armoured son of Sanguinius at the head of the reception committee, and yes, he was flanked by two giant spiders, "we are-"

"CODE TRAZYN!" One of the spiders shouted, interrupting them. "WE HAVE A CODE TRAZYN! STOP HIM! HE WON'T GET AWAY THIS TIME!"

Cestus didn't get the time to ponder on what a 'Trazyn' was, as guardsmen ran in every direction, and the son of Sanguinius began to rush towards the other end of the hangar bay.

Before he touched one of the control panels, though, there was a flash of green, and the Space Marine of the Ninth gene-line seemed to be...frozen. It was like a variant of a stasis field, except naturally-

The Captain of the 7th Company charged by reflex as a silvery creature which couldn't be anything but a xenos emerged and ran towards the different aircraft next to their Thunderhawk.

But like the son of Sanguinius, suddenly Brutus Cestus' mind was enraged as his body slowed down and then stopped. What sort of xenos sorcery was this?

BANG!

And then suddenly he was free to move again, and the xenos was on its knees, with an astonished expression on its metallic-looking mask.

Cestus raised his chainsword...and then lowered it, as a swarm of beetles slammed into the xenos before dispersing when a foamy substance was used to neutralise the menace.

The Ultramarines' officer turned his head, and almost froze as a golden-winged woman landed five metres away. The presence...suddenly it was like the old records of being near a Primarch. His dark mood felt like a bad memory, the day wasn't so dark, and-

"I apologise for the mess," the angelic apparition which had to be Lady Weaver began whimsically. "I wish I could have spared you from this...sad spectacle, Captains."

Then she turned her head towards the xenos, all the while drawing a sword which was certainly incredibly advanced, given how many fields seemed to be shimmering around its edge.

"You were supposed to behave, Trazyn. Especially when Neferten isn't around to oversee your thievery operations. I wonder if I must test Skyfall and its most...redoubtable capacities right now."

By this point, three more 'doses' of foam were added, and the xenos of course wasn't going to reply-

"I protest, my dear friend. I was just going to present my respects to the Stormlord and those poor Crypteks!"

How by Guilliman's Codex was it still able to speak?

"You were going to use Mindshackle Scarabs on them, and then steal them away," the woman who shone like a miniature golden star corrected. "My thanks for intercepting him, Captains."

"Lady Weaver," Hadrian Septimus Niger Severus contradicted her hesitantly, "we thought you had intercepted the xenos."

The golden-armoured...brilliant woman turned her eyes upon them, and it wasn't difficult to interpret her emotions as partly based on surprise.

"No, I was a few seconds too late. But if you weren't-"

A little aquila-decorated item was thrown at their feet. It was one of those small decorations which were commonly used by pilots as a good-luck charm and...it didn't matter.

Brutus' eyes went up, and there was an Eldar, a true Eldar, lounging on his personal Thunderhawk!

His hand went to his Bolter and-

"Her Supreme Excellency the Queen of Blades," Weaver announced. "I would suggest you sheathe your weapons, Astartes, unless you want to die pointlessly without achieving anything."

"My dear friend, can you free me? Surely I will be a major help in-"

"Be quiet, Trazyn."

"Be silent, thief."

Laphis

Ravenna – West of the Polenta River

37 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Maia Numerius

It was not a true shelter.

Maybe it had been a hostel or something prestigious once, but several marble columns had toppled onto it and devastated half of the building.

It was certainly not safe to be here. Maia knew that.

But nowhere was safe anymore.

The heretics attacked again not far from where they hid.

The shrieks came again. Screams like the ones the bishops and the other Priests always warned about were screamed, and the battlecries of the Ultramar Auxilia answered, but there were fewer of them compared to the last time.

Celestine was crying, and Maia didn't know what to do. They had so little water and food left, and looking for more would mean going outside where the battle raged and the monsters were everywhere-

"THOSE SOULS WILL MAKE EXCELLENT SACRIFICES!"

Something heavy slammed into the already pulverised roof, and the Laphiser woman was paralysed with terror, as the monster that appeared from the dust was like something born from her darkest nightmares.

"The God-Emperor protects!" one of the pilgrims who had taken refuge with them managed to stand up and make the sign of the Aquila. "Be...begone foul creature! Go back to the abyss where Horus' corpse is putrefying!"

The malefic red eyes turned towards the grey-haired man, and a maw filled with monstrous teeth opened.

"It is going to be a pleasure torturing your soul for a few years, pathetic mortal. And before you are extinguished, I will-"

Several shots rang out, and the heretic-monster screamed in pain. The red armour which made her eyes burn every time she tried to glance at it had black smoke rising out of the newly added black holes.

"Is that all, long-ear? Let me show you the true power of a Chosen of the Gods!"

The right hand of the gigantic red heretic began to burn in some sort of proscribed fire. Maia somehow knew it was going to be their death, for them, the civilians who hid here, and for whoever had tried to intervene.

And then the abomination screamed. Its arrogance and confidence were gone; what replaced them was fear.

"NO! TZEENTCH SAVE ME! GREAT ARCHITECT, I AM YOUR SERVANT! DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!"

Faster than she could see, the monster grew a new head. And then another arm. Pincers and blades appeared, and the heretical armour exploded.

And what came out, oh, sweet God-Emperor protect them...

"RUN!" Maia held Celestine as tightly as she could and obeyed her own words. "RUN AWAY!"

Retribution-class Battleship Star Ocean

High Orbit over Laphis

Ancient Rylanor

There could be no coincidences in this battle.

Truly, there couldn't have been any coincidences during this campaign, but the fact that the augurs first zeroed in a very familiar Stormbird was a message in itself.

It was the personal transport of his Primarch before the Betrayal.

It was the Firebird.

Clearly, it had changed in the last four millennia, and not for the better.

Gone were the proud colours of the Emperor's Children; what had replaced them was an absolute ghastly pink to which had been added some excrement-looking things.

There were fleshy growths everywhere, as if the Warp had tried to transform it into the hybrid of a vulture and a hedonistic daemon.

But the weapons of the Starfighters and Bombers which had killed it had scoured most of the corruption away, and thus Rylanor could recognise the Stormbird and study it again.

"What is our duty? To serve the Emperor's Will." And the Third Legion had not served Him for four long millennia.

"Chapter Master, Admiral von Reuenthal reports one enemy Battleship destroyed and one crippled. The Hand of Destiny is trying to hide behind Laphis and widen the distance of engagement with the Imperial Fleet."

"Give my congratulations to the Admiral. He has done his part well. Now it's time to do ours."

Rylanor watched the high orbit of Laphis for a few more seconds. It must have been a spectacle of peace and well-organised civilian society days ago...now it was a graveyard of debris from Traitor warships and loyalist aircraft and defences. And it was likely worse in the capital city below, where their auspexes had confirmed the presence of the majority of the Chaos Marines.

"Since the Hand of Destiny is trying to stall for time against Admiral von Reuenthal, we must assume every Traitor of importance is involved in the planetary campaign." The old Dreadnought was already mildly surprised the Vile One and his lieutenants hadn't abandoned their campaign and fled for their lives when they realised Lady Weaver wasn't bluffing by detaching several Battleships and escort squadrons from the main fleet. The leadership of the Traitor Legion had not shown it possessed much courage when they didn't outnumber their opposition ten-to-one. "Which is good, for I don't want to merely cripple them; I want them exterminated."

"It will be our pleasure to accomplish that," the Captain of the Angels Encarmine he had chosen to act as his second assured. "Are we going for an immediate drop assault to disrupt the enemy's holding on the western bank of Laphis' capital?"

"No," when he was a young hot-blooded fool convinced of the perfection of his Legion, he might have attempted it. Today, he knew better. The stakes were too high, and if it turned into a disaster, there would be no second wave of Space Marines waiting to reinforce them. "We descend on the eastern bank first. I want at least one division of infantry to follow on our heels by macro-lander. The enemy is pushing hard, but they've yet to cross the river in significant numbers. Commit our fighter wings. We must contest the Traitors' aerial superiority quickly."

"The artillery?"

"It will descend via the Spaceport with priority. Once it reaches the frontlines, the assault of the Traitors and their horrors will have stopped one way or another."

"Shouldn't the Knights of House Terryn go first, if that is your intention?"

"No," Rylanor rumbled. "I have plans for those Knights. Now inform the Catachan General of my plan," he told the spider which had been waiting in silence, "and unless he has major objections, we will launch in three minutes."

"By the Webmistress and the Emperor, it will be done, Great and Venerable Ancient!"

Laphis Ravenna – West of the Polenta River

Captain

Aeonid Thiel

Ravenna was burning.

Aeonid had always understood that a lot of things were flammable in a city, especially if they weren't built in a Hive pattern and millions of tons of ferrocrete didn't provide protection against shells and energy weapons.

But it was one thing theorising about it, a completely different thing to see it put into practise.

And where there was fire, there was smoke. So much smoke that the Ultramarines Captain had quickly understood it was absolutely futile to try to exert any kind of organised hierarchy in the middle of this chaotic disaster.

Ironically, whoever was in command of the Word Bearers didn't understand that.

The majority of the sons of the Lorgar kept trying to advance through the avenues, singing things which should never be spoken, and ritually butchering the civilian population along the way.

This was Calth all over again, except the Ultramar Auxilia's communication still worked, and the Seventeenth Legion had taken a neat decrease in assault skills and efficiency.

Five seconds later, he and his squad were forced to take cover as the enemy artillery began to bombard Ravenna again.

And it was a really heavy one. More than a thousand guns, as far as he could estimate, and several super-cannons had been used by the Traitors.

"Squad Lion is seeing them through the smoke now," Marcus announced. "Those are Leviathans armed with Doomsday Cannons. He could count eight of them."

"Eight of them," Aeonid repeated, wincing internally at the magnitude of firepower eight super-heavy machines like those represented, "let's thank everything that is good that the enemy forces are commanded by an imbecile."

"Yes, Captain," his Champion replied with a dark chuckle, "who do you think is going to be executed when someone will finally wisen up and tell the moron they have created so much rubble there's no way anything heavy can reach the river?"

The Ultramarines present shared a humourless laugh.

"The problem," Aeonid explained as the bombardment thundered over and over again, never relenting, pulverising statues of Guilliman, former artist halls, marble columns, and priceless mosaics which had stood for centuries, "is that while they're clearly lacking a competent strategist, their sheer numbers and the tens of thousands of cultists they're using as sentinels and cannon-fodder are sufficient to beat us. Unless something drastically changes, we will be cornered with our backs against the river in no more than five hours."

And they had already lost fifteen Ultramarines. Yes, the Word Bearers had lost at least ten times that number in the various ambushes their incredible tactical rigidity had cost them, and to this number could be added a lot of dead Alpha Legionnaires, Night Lords, and Iron Warriors. They had even killed half a dozen debased Emperor's Children, the depraved monsters never even realising they were there, busy as they were torturing and flaying civilians, before they opened fire and slaughtered them all.

"The Codex in this instance suggests we must launch a powerful flanking attack, preferably one to decapitate the enemy theatre commander."

"Yes," Aeonid conceded the point made by Sergeant Purpureo. "The Codex indeed suggests that. And I don't think it's a bad idea. But in that theoretical, there are a lot of facts arguing against it. We don't have any forces to counterattack with. The men of the Auxilia and every force allied with us are already doing their best to survive. And given that we don't speak the damned dialect of Colchisian and there is no sign of most of the enemy commanders wherever we attack, the direction of this counteroffensive would be equally problematic to decide."

At last, the Traitor artillery ceased firing.

It left smoke, dust, and a spectacle which was depressing in the extreme; the same landscape of desolation the Traitor Legions had created from Ultramar to Terra four thousand years ago.

"Let's see if they try the same thing again. Courage and Honour, Marcus."

"Courage and Honour, Captain."

The 8th Company's Champion stopped hiding behind the ruined statue and advanced like it was the most natural thing to do in the middle of the piles of rubble which had been richly decorated houses.

It didn't take long for the enemy to swallow the bait.

"HERE IS AN UNBELIEVER! DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!"

"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!"

Aeonid didn't know where the Word Bearers had found those 'Volscani'. By the ashes of Calth, he hadn't even been able to determine if they were guardsmen which had been turned against the Imperium or some cultists which had been granted better equipment. By now, they were so corrupted by the Warp and the Traitors that finding out was impossible. Most of their weapons were now marked with the damned eightfold star of Chaos, and from their heads to their feet, it was incredibly rare to not see sickly skin and major mutations.

But as the slavers they called masters threw them into the grinder, it was obvious that if they had once known tactics beyond charging while screaming obscenities and treacherous battle-cants years ago, they didn't remember any of them.

Marcus took several step backs and found a new cover – something that unavoidably made the cultist onslaught roar in triumph – and Aeonid and all the Ultramarines present prepared their Bolters.

They let the Traitors slow down – rubble was a neutral terrain in that it hindered everyone who tried to cross it – and only after thirty seconds did they fire. The Captain of the 8th Company triggered a landmine to add more teeth to their defence, and the Volscani assault turned into a meat-grinder.

The Ultramarines stopped firing, as ammunition had to be saved for more difficult opponents, and went on to finish off the survivors.

Everything had been turned into a scene of butchery.

"Traitors Astartes incoming from the east. It looks like-"

There was a lot of smoke and dust. They were on a battlefield on which it was incredibly difficult to see anything more than one hundred metres away, for all the transhuman advantages and the advanced systems of their power armours.

But there was no way they could have missed the blue ray which struck some fifty kilometres west from their position.

"Orbital strike," one of his battle-brothers announced with jubilation, "that was a decisive orbital strike! By Guilliman and his Codex, it must have caught the Traitor's super-artillery out in the open!"

It certainly did, though Aeonid was going to remain prudent. One thing was sure, it wasn't the Word Bearers who had fired this kinetic strike. They were bad gunners in orbit, but they were not that bad...and with the redoubts on the eastern bank and the spaceport heavily shielded, they had not used many of them anyway.

"It is now more vital than ever we hold onto the western bank," the veteran of Calth ordered, "the larger the foothold we secure for our reinforcements, the easier it will be to launch our counterattacks. Send someone on the Polenta immediately to check what amphibious craft we have left."

"Captain, last time we checked, the yachts were all joyously sinking. They weren't exactly built to endure Astartes Thunderhawks and Stormbirds' twin-linked lascannons or heavy bolters."

"I know...but we will have to come up with something." Aeonid just for the life of him had no idea what...

Battleship Enterprise

38 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lady General Taylor Hebert

Assuming you could capture Trazyn, the Necron thief was really useful.

Of course, Taylor knew the reason they had captured him in the first place was due to a lot of luck and the intervention of the Queen of Blades. It was unlikely they could replicate the feat anytime soon.

Still, so far it had allowed her to gain a device from the Dark Age of Human Technology known as a 'communication hyper-magnifier' which allowed the lithocast system to more or less function on a system similar to the Ansible relics of Terra.

They had now real-time intra-system communication, and it was only lightly disrupted by the Tyranid's presence.

The only drawback was that it was going to work for only two hours before requiring a reloading period of more than twenty-four hours. Well, no, it was not the only major drawback. The energy requirement was absolutely massive; the Enterprise could only power its shields and no weapons while the device was active.

But it was absolutely better than the 'no reliable communications'-effect they had to work around for the last several hours, and thus this DAOT relic was priceless.

Her first communication was to Laphis, where Oskar von Reuenthal appeared to have things well in hand in high orbit. The situation was far less pleasant on the ground, but the Krieg regiments were landing. There had been no opportunity to speak with Aeonid Thiel, and there wouldn't be before the communications were scrambled again. At least the veteran of the Ultramarines was alive and fighting the good fight against the Word Bearers' onslaught.

With hope and luck, it would be enough. As important as Laphis was, it was a minor distraction given the threats converging upon Macragge, and she couldn't afford to send more warships and regiments when everything she had may be needed elsewhere.

Ten seconds later, the communication links were opened for the other theatre commanders. The first to answer was the Ultramarine Captain defending Macragge, since the Apothecaries of the Spear of Macragge were busy healing the Chapter Master with Blue Bacta.

"How bad it is?" Taylor inquired of the now-identified Captain Gaius Pompeius after giving him a short briefing to inform him the long-range communications' resumption was only temporary.

Fortunately, the blue-armoured Astartes knew better than to start posturing.

"They are making significant breaches in the orbital grid and our main defences." The Space Marine replied. "They aren't trying to board our Starforts anymore, not with the losses the first void engagement cost them, but we are crippling their Battleships too slowly with what we have left around Macragge. I expect them to land within the hour, and though there are three other Successor companies and four of mine under my command, only the Scouts of the 10th are at full strength. We can't defend everywhere. And the Illyrium military district is almost lost."

"Illyrium?"

"It was always one of the most troubled districts, where the ideas of our Primarch found the least appeal," Gaius Pompeius explained. "We don't know how exactly the Traitors infiltrated their cultists and other operatives, but the Ultramar Auxilia has been fighting a losing battle against them."

"I see." Taylor nodded as more and more senior commanders of her Battle Groups arrived, and they were not alone. Prominent among the crowds were other Captains of the Ultramarines, Admirals of the Ultramar System Defence Forces, and people she surely would have to memorise the name of before the day was over. For now though it was better to focus on the military issues. "But the cultists haven't been able to capture a spaceport?"

The Ultramarine commander shook his head.

"There are no spaceports in the Illyrium military district. After what happened during the Shadow Crusade there, no Regent of Macragge was willing to expend the resources to open up the region."

By his tone, the insect-mistress was ready to bet the son of Guilliman recognised how massively it had bitten them in the backside for this campaign.

"But without a spaceport, they can't immediately threaten Sirocco further up north. And they won't land their Titans there. As such, I am forced to disperse the companies on three fronts and stall for time."

"You won't have to do it for too long," Taylor promised, "my forces have regrouped and the Admirals and the other forces of Operation Stalingrad are ready to massacre the Traitors. My staff is confident we will be able to begin the Guard orbital-planetary transfers less than ten hours after dealing with the Traitor fleet. The Astartes drop-pods will deploy the moment we gain orbital superiority."

They would have to beat off the enormous Tyranid coming this way, but it would be the business of the Navy to fend it off, not the Guard.

"That's very good news," and the smile of the blonde-haired blue-eyed Space Marine showed he truly meant it. "In the meantime, I am going to-"

Some part of her mind was incredibly amused by the fact a son of Guilliman had been rendered speechless.

The other part was in shock like Gaius Pompeius', for several hololithic representations had materialised, and none of them had been expected by the Enterprise's crew or anyone else.

A Primarch.

No, not a Primarch.

Primarchs.

And it looked like the legends had been true on at least one point: they really, really looked nothing like each other...save the near-divine charisma they were radiating from every part of their bodies.

It had to be Leman Russ and Corvus Corax. This was...this was...very unexpected.

"Lord Russ! Lord Corax!" Chapter Master Ta'Phor Hezonn of the Salamanders was the first to shake off his surprise. "This is-"

"Who," the voice resonated like a wolf somehow incarnated in a winter storm, "is in command here?"

Oh great. This Primarch, unlike Rogal Dorn, was going to be a permanent headache, she could already tell.

"I am," Taylor Hebert answered neutrally. "While I can't speak for Ultramar, the nine Battle Groups of Operation Stalingrad fall under my authority."

"Good, I am taking overall command, effective immediately."

"Oh," Taylor glanced at the strategic situation, and yes, the abomination of a space fortress the Wolves had somehow torn from their planet was still millions of kilometres away. "Absolutely not."

A heartbeat later, the Primarch released his full aura, showing he had been in 'let's-not-awe-them-too-much'-mode before. It was...not pleasant. Rogal Dorn was the rampart, the builder, the hero who would make the citadels stand when no one else could. This Primarch was the fury of winter, the savage hunter of the desolations, the killer howling in the night, and the fury of the wild made flesh. "That was not a request."

"And I stand by my decision. I have met Rogal Dorn and spoken to Hanzo Hattori before he took his last breath. You aren't in my chain of command, Lord Leman Russ."

The Primarch of the Sixth Legion looked at her like she had somehow grown from a nonentity to a somewhat interesting appetiser. Once more, this was...a bit unnerving. This transhuman being wasn't a savage to be sure, and there was a lot of cunning behind this 'wild' facade.

After several seconds, a guttural sound escaped the son of the Emperor's lips.

"Ha! You at least have courage, woman, beyond the golden touch of my father. But you have too many beasts to defeat, and I'm the only one who can do the deed."

"Can I challenge him, my Empress?"

Taylor sighed, noting the two members of her Dawnbreaker Guard who had tried to prevent the Queen of Blades from entering, alongside ten of her most dangerous insects, had been rendered unconscious in the equivalent of a thought.

"Your Celestial Highness," High Marshal Gerlach Barbarossa began, "this threat is-"

"She came aboard and helped neutralise a certain Necron thief." Taylor sighed, and it was a heartfelt answer. "Since it is thanks to her we can communicate without too many problems now, I decided to...humour her. It's not exactly like we can fight her on a ship without dooming it, after all."

And it wasn't like they really had a chance of victory either, but she wasn't going to say that in public right now.

"You make it sound so dull," Aenaria Eldanesh feigned to complain with a smile, before turning in the direction of the Primarchs. "The Raven is wounded, you would have to heal him before we could spar. I am a principled arena-queen. I don't fight cripples. The Wolf, however, might do for a stimulating duel."

Leman Russ, predictably, didn't like that at all.

"I killed hundreds of thousands of your brethren, long-eared vermin," the Primarch's wolfish predatory expression was frankly...scary.

"Please," the Queen of Blades purred, "don't mistake me for the decadent degenerates of the post-Fall era. I am an Aeldari, brute. And I vanquished your brother, cutting off his hand. He certainly couldn't defeat me...but you may prove a tougher challenge, I will give you that much."

If the sons of Dorn had been murderous before, many were willing to storm the Enterprise now in order to fight the red-haired lethal alien.

"Lord Dorn indeed lost against the Queen of Blades," Taylor confirmed, "but he was alone and exhausted." Though it may not have changed anything. The Primarchs had no swarm to control, Space Marines weren't good enough to fight her, and once she fought seriously, Aenaria Eldanesh could permanently slay Daemon Princes of Slaanesh. "Anyway, returning to the question of overall command, Lord Russ, I'm afraid communications are going to return to their hazy state in...one hour and forty-four minutes. You certainly won't be able to coordinate anything from where you are, and to be blunt, your pseudo-space fortress is of very limited utility."

"The Fang is the only thing which will give you victory against the beast!"

"While I am not as confident as my brother," Corvus Corax spoke for the first time, and his voice was...incredibly different from Leman Russ, more like a well-cultured man, but with a rich undertone of Hive under-levels, "he has a point. This beast you called 'Tyranid' has proven capable of generating psychic attacks that only the wards of the Fang...bolstered by some interesting advice...have proven able to withstand."

"We have the new Aegis-class Battlecruisers," Princeps Maximus Cyrus of Legio Ignatum disagreed. "Their psychic shields have proven their worth at Volga, Mandragora, and the Ymga Monolith. This overgrown beast may be psychic, but it will have to go through our defences, and in the meantime the Battleships will use macro-shells to wound it. And what is this 'interesting advice' you speak of?"

Corvus Corax smiled, while Leman Russ glowered. An instant later, a third Primarch materialised, one Taylor had honestly not expected to ever meet outside of a battlefield.

It was Magnus the Red, she had seen enough Blood Angels' representations of the different sons of the Emperor. Except he clearly was human, not a servant of the Ruinous Powers...given that he was chained, manacled, and covered in a lot of things whose only purpose could be to bind him.

Before she could say anything, one of her trio of Custodes had somehow found his way to her side.

"The orders of His Majesty stand," the member of the Ten Thousand declared in a voice as noble as it was implacable. "By His will, Magnus the Red is to be brought before Him."

"He never rescinded the order during the Siege, did he?" the one-eyed Primarch inquired sarcastically.

"Silence," Leman Russ growled, and smacked his brother. By the sound it made, it was certainly no gentle tap...though given how huge the Primarchs were, who could say for sure?

Taylor used the moment of internal debate occurring in the Fang to observe the other figures which had arrived. One was clearly the Chapter Master of the Dark Angels, there was another Chapter Master...the Exorcists, the newly created Chapter the Inquisition was concerned about...and even the current Warmaster ordered to protect Cadia? Truly, this was a day full of surprises.

The Lady General watched the high officer of the Imperial Guard, silently asking him the question if he wanted to take command. Unlike Russ and Corax – whose status in the current Imperial hierarchy was vague and imprecise – Warmaster Ender Trevayne actually outranked her.

But the man inclined his head, and didn't make his move. Maybe he had already bowed to Russ' authority once, and didn't enjoy the experience?

More commanding figures continued to appear, including several Space Wolves and-

No. No, this face...she couldn't be here, she couldn't-

Taylor saw the shadows dance around the red-haired woman. And suddenly she knew why Contessa had been so vague about the identities of every parahuman not present on Nyx.

"You..."

High Orbit of Fenris

Newly created 'Mountain Star Fortress' the Fang

Callidus Assassin Elena Kerrigan

"You..."

The part of Elena Kerrigan which was fully committed to the ideals of the Officio Assassinorum had realized this moment would come.

The old thoughts of Sophia Hess might have dreamed that the woman who had destroyed Commorragh wouldn't recognise her when they met again, but the Callidus had known better.

One couldn't forget what the cruel girl she had been had done. It wasn't like stealing a sum of money you desperately needed, or something worse like Adept impersonation – all crimes the Lex Imperialis would punish you most severely for if the Arbites caught you.

The trigger of a parahuman was far, far worse than that. In this galaxy, this was the kind of turning point which could convince someone to turn to the Ruinous Powers.

There was never a question that Weaver would not recognise her, even if she hadn't taken an 'official identity' very similar in looks to the 'ex-best friend Emma Barnes'.

"Listen, I-"

She was several millions of kilometres away, in the very command headquarters of an Astartes Legion, and yet suddenly something luminous and buzzing seized her by the throat.

What by the Golden Throne?

A second later, thankfully, Lord Corax intervened and somehow disabled the attack.

"This is unnecessary," the Primarch of the Raven Guard chided the Living Saint on the other end of the communication, as Elena melted into the shadows for a few seconds to instinctively regain her strength. "Elena Kerrigan is loyal to my father."

"This is-" golden wings burned in a radiance which couldn't be anything but the God-Emperor's power at work, "you gave her part of your essence."

"I did." Lord Corax answered.

"No wonder the Queen of Blades said you were crippled," the high commander of the forces arrayed in the Macragge System retorted coldly, "I feel the Sacrifice and what it cost you."

"It was necessary, if I wanted to surprise the rising Ruinous Power."

"But you could have asked for the power to be given back."

"And devalue the sacrifice I just made? One does not give something away because it is convenient. This is one of the strengths we have over the Enemy. We must believe we are better than the 'might makes right' which defines their deluded slaves."

"Hmm...strong words, Lord Primarch," Taylor Hebert conceded, "but it doesn't change the fact you have given your power to someone who was obsessed by the division of the world between-"

Elena knelt. It was hard; most of her had been remade by the God-Emperor and the Officio Assassinorum; but a stubborn core remained from Sophia Hess. At this moment of the war, it was important to have trust...and it was evident that the Angel of Sacrifice had nearly none in Leman Russ, and even less in her.

But for some reason, Taylor Hebert had some trust in the Primarch of Raven Guard. And she had to build on that trust.

"I beg you...forgive me."

Battleship Enterprise

Lady General Taylor Hebert

"I beg you...forgive me."

If they hadn't been in front of several dozen Imperial commanders, Taylor would have asked Shadow Stalker if she was joking.

Words were cheap, especially after making her life a living hell.

And yet.

The same presence meant it was a considerable risk for the assassin-clothed parahuman to kneel.

And Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard, must have found something good in her, no matter how ridiculous the idea might seem at first glance.

Hanzo Hattori's words came back to her. She had to forgive.

Forgive her.

Forgive Sophia Hess, Shadow Stalker, or whatever name she went by those days.

In hindsight, Taylor should have known something like this was going to happen.

A Primarch or someone from the Heresy coming from back the dead at an extremely inopportune moment? There was really nothing to forgive. They had abandoned the Imperium in the past, but it was hardly personal.

Even now, looking at Magnus, the most powerful emotion the insect-mistress felt was pity. Here was a gene-forged transhuman who had everything: psychic power, incredible intellect, and the processing power to do ten things at the same time and excel in all of them. He was a Prince of the Imperium. To see him humbled like this – though he was in a sarcastic mood, certainly as some kind of defensive behaviour – was weirdly amusing in a twisted way.

Forgive. Ah, hell. Why couldn't it be anyone else?

An exception had to be made for the Word Bearers, she wasn't going to forgive the sons of Lorgar for the bright future they had ruined in their towering hypocrisy and fanaticism.

Why couldn't it be Lisa or some other parahuman she was on decent terms with?

Yeah, she'd just answered her own question. There would be nothing to forgive.

An animal walked to sit before the kneeling parahuman. To her surprise, it was strangely similar to the Mainz Cats...except it was way, way bigger.

And then it proceeded to lick her copiously wherever it could.

A chuckle escaped her throat, and some commanders of Operation Stalingrad weren't as controlled as she in their outburst of giggles or laughter.

Maybe...just maybe...Sophia Hess had changed. Maybe...ah, hell. The old 'Mrs. Predator' would never have knelt voluntarily to her, ultimate predator philosophy and all of that.

"I forgive you," Weaver announced, the words coming from the depths of her heart. Anyone who could befriend an animal like that couldn't be entirely bad, right? Naturally, Trazyn chose this moment to reveal he had escaped his very secure prison, and went on to clap enthusiastically behind her.

Worse, the Queen of Blades went on to imitate him.

The Lady General sighed. With allies like these, her life was soon to be a comedy in its own right...and the Emperor was likely her most faithful spectator.

Falchion-class Hornet

Lady Magos Dogma Dragon

Dragon wasn't surprised Taylor asked her to stay after most of the Imperial Admirals and other important figures were dismissed.

"We have a lot of problems on our plate."

"Is one of them Shadow Stalker? Congratulations on forgiving her, by the way," the Tinker smiled. Dragon was perfectly sincere; she may have reacted as badly as the other parahuman did if it was suddenly revealed one of the Dragonslayers was aboard the Fang.

"No," the Basileia of Nyx was prompt to answer. "While emotionally I am...less than pleased she is here, we received a burst of legitimate codes which confirm 'Elena Kerrigan' is a genuine Officio Assassinorum operative. Taking into consideration her powers and appearance, she is most likely an agent of one the Callidus Temples. I'm more concerned about the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels."

"The Space Wolves I understand," the Lady Magos Dogma nodded. From the vid-casts of Rogal Dorn Taylor had shown her, Dragon had been very optimistic about the Primarchs. The Lord of the Imperial Fists was someone who could truly do a lot of good, even if her experience mending the differences of the Nyxian Mechanicus inclined her to believe his return would likely cause a civil war. Leman Russ, however...the Sixth Primarch was brutal and...a primordial force of nature. While he could certainly behave like the noblest of Kings, his was a conscious and logical choice to discard everything but the barest pretence of civilisation. This wasn't a civilisation-builder. This was a destroyer of Empires. "But the Dark Angels?"

"It seems the sons of the Lion have kept a lot of secrets beyond their attempts to locate and capture their fellow Legionnaires who escaped the destruction of Caliban."

"Such as?" Dragon verified by reflex they were using the most secure communication frequency available.

"Archmagos Hediatrix was able to confirm the identity of the Night Lord who killed Chapter Master Malakbel. This Traitor is named Jago Sevatarion, the First Captain of the Night Lords Legion four thousand years ago during the Heresy...and if he is still alive today, it is because the Dark Angels kept him in stasis aboard the Rock between sessions of torture. Obviously, other Traitors helped him escape during the Battle for the Fenris System."

Dragon waited for two seconds, hoping desperately the next words would be 'no, that was a joke'. But the moment never came.

"What...what a disaster," the draconic Tinker replied at last, "I suppose the Blood Angels have a few colourful things to say to the Dark Angels?"

"That's putting it mildly," the woman protected by the Dawnbreaker Guard grimaced. "Chapter Malakbel was one of, if not the most respected figure among the Chapters of the Blood. Losing him under any circumstance would have been a shock, but it could and would have simply been mourned for months, and then Baal would have tried to avenge his death. But learning his killer wouldn't have been alive in the first place if the First Legion's descendants weren't playing stupid games...I am not going to claim it is something as bad as some of the stupidities played by the Space Wolves, but it's definitely something the High Lords are going to censure them for once it becomes known."

"If it becomes known," Dragon neutrally amended, and Taylor snorted. The Minister of Industry winced. "It has already spread beyond your and mine capability to censor, hasn't it?"

"Too many Tech-Priests and Techmarines worked on the systems of the Ark Mechanicus with protections of Aethergold," the Guard Lady General confirmed. "When I gave the order, I thought the worst problem when we left the captured capital warship behind would be to purify it. I had no reason to believe they would find something like that."

That was perfectly understandable; Dragon had not thought this kind of thing would happen either.

"I have a feeling that no matter how complicated the battle to come will be, disarming the political tensions after it will be even more difficult."

"Wise words," Taylor acknowledged grimly. "I have to end this conversation. I have another fascinating meeting to participate in."

"Oh?"

"Yes, it seems the Queen of Blades isn't the only Eldar which came to visit today."

Dragon sighed.

"It's one of those days, isn't it? You're living a very exciting life, your Celestial Highness..."

"Don't I know it." the 'Living Saint groaned.

Battleship Enterprise

Lady General Taylor Hebert

There were four Tau representatives, two Necrons, and over a dozen Eldar in the same room.

It felt like the beginning of a splendid joke, but even with her life at stake, Taylor would be unable to say what the punchline was.

"I think it's an excellent idea," Trazyn reacted once the first female Eldar stopped speaking, "we should call it the Grand Alliance of Solemnace."

"With all due respect for your rank," Imotekh the Stormlord acidly replied, "be quiet, unbearable thief. And since we are supposed to be open and honest, I suppose I'm going to say this is a horrible idea. I've yet to fight a single specimen of the 'Tyranids', but we've just listened to what the Tau had to say based on real-life battle-experience."

"The prophecies-"

A simple gesture of the formidable Sautekh warlord forced the Eldar to stop speaking.

"Prophecies may be your tools, but they aren't mine," the Necron noble declared. "They aren't the tools of anyone competent in the thick of the fighting. Besides, you forget something incredibly important: the humans and the Queen of Blades are the only ones that have the military power to defeat the current threats. Therefore it is their opinions which matter, not the Eldars'."

Predictably, the long-eared xenos didn't like that at all. Except the Queen of Blades, who looked more and more amused at how the meeting unfolded.

"Thank you, Overlord Imotekh," Taylor replied politely. "My plan is not complex. I am going to use the overwhelming firepower I have to exterminate the Chaos Marines and the Tyranids. If both try to land on Macragge, we will establish a quarantine-blockade around it, and we will not cease to pour in more troops until every enemy is dead."

It had the advantage of being the truth, while keeping most of the important details out of reach of aliens she was unsure she could trust. Imotekh, Shadowsun, and Aun'shi were relatively 'safe' in that they were her 'honoured guests', but the Eldar...it was better they didn't have the full picture.

"Without the Croneswords to help you, your victory is uncertain against the Maw That Hungers," a male Eldar grandiloquently revealed a spear-like weapon...one Taylor could feel literally burning with psychic power.

"Nice," the female parahuman commented blandly, "now I am only a poor human with limited tactical abilities, but are you going to explain to me how you intend to stab to death a bioengineered killing machine which surpasses our biggest Super-Battleships in length and width?"

"That sounds like a challenge," the Queen of Blades purred, before changing her tune when Taylor gave her an unimpressed look, "but it's not exactly going to be easy. This Tyranid has consumed Aeldari essence and assimilated its infinite potential into its flesh. Its insides are more akin to a psychic matrix now; and whoever would try to kill it from the inside would face both incredible mental and physical challenges. And it would certainly be a one-way mission."

And to resist all of those 'challenges', they would need to sacrifice an uncountable number of powerful psykers, and with most of them in a coma or in stasis, that meant Librarians of the Adeptus Astartes.

Taylor wasn't going to pay that kind of exorbitant price, not when there were alternatives.

"We will kill it at long-range. If it tries to flee, my fleet will pursue it and obliterate it. Any questions?"

"The Croneswords are your only way not to fail!"

"Translation of the Aeldari language," Trazyn interjected sarcastically, "they have a master plan which involves the Croneswords. The endgame will greatly benefit the Aeldari in the short and long-term, and may possibly provide minor benefits to the other races which survive the battle."

By the way several Eldar expressed their outrage after the Infinite Collector finished speaking, Taylor had to admit that this time, Trazyn had certainly come incredibly close to the truth.

"That's certainly a very illuminating interpretation, thank you Trazyn."

"My pleasure, my friend."

"You had a bargain with the Herald of Atharti! You need to-"

All amusement she had felt a second ago deserted her head.

"Don't try to manipulate the terms of previous agreements, Eldar," the insect-mistress interrupted frostily. "I know what I've promised to Aurelia Malys, and it does not involve letting you do as you please on a battlefield where the Imperium provides the overwhelming majority of the military assets. Your assistance in the Battle for Laphis is appreciated, and will be rewarded in the spirit it deserves. But do not try to put words in my mouth that I have not sworn to, because I assure you, you won't like the result of the negotiations if I have to alter the terms."

Interestingly, it led her to another question.

"And since we're speaking of her plans and prophecies she was the first to present, where is this self-proclaimed 'Herald of Atharti' and her Farseer minder?"

Laphis

Outer Perimeter of the Webway Gate

39 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Aurelia Malys

Knowing many Asuryani had preceded them, Aurelia had known ambush was a not a nonsensical possibility when stepping outside the Webway Gate.

That was because much like the Webway, it was impossible to predict how a Webway Gate would be perceived from the perspective of the planet's inhabitants. Sometimes, it was as quiet as a whisper and the various Rangers or raiding parties' arrival point would never be noticed for a thousand years unless the Asuryani showed them the way to the Webway Gate themselves.

And sometimes, it caused a loud explosion which, as one might imagine, was not discreet at all.

The moment she stepped through, the Herald of Atharti knew immediately which possibility was the likeliest, as an enormous spider the likes of which were impossible to forget since the Arena of Blades half-jumped in surprise.

"By the Great Web and the Emperor! This is not a new wave of our Helspider cousins! Alert! Trespassers!"

It was not pleasant to see massive human turrets armed with graceless but deadly guns turn in their direction. Aurelia swallowed heavily. The approaches of the Webway Gate had been turned into a series of ugly and terribly efficient-looking defences.

"We are not trespassers! I am Aurelia Malys, and I met your...your Webmistress."

"We come in peace and as allies," Eldrad added in a hurry by her side.

"Long-ears? As allies?" If the tone of the giant arachnid was more sceptical, it was entirely possible Cegorach himself would begin to abandon his irritating jokes. "Eldar are sources of irritation, not allies. Did you know ten minutes ago, a group of our cousin Helspiders arrived, fleeing the terrible clowns? Do you have any idea how much trauma they went through?"

"No, err...and that is...very regrettable," her lover affirmed. "I'm sure they will-"

"True, their expertise is going to be sorely needed to build new pontoons across the river there," Aurelia belatedly realized the fact that it wasn't bad weather ahead, it was an apocalyptic spectacle of smoke, lasers, and a second later, the roar of the human artillery and the screams of tens of thousands of beings arriving to her ears. "But that is no excuse! Mistreating our cousins is a serious crime!"

"Your cousins," a Ranger of their Ulthwé escort sneered with distaste before Aurelia or Eldrad could stop him, "have developed a disturbing taste for the flesh of Asuryani and Drukhari alike. They are breeding in every realm we have been forced to abandon since the Second Fall!"

"That is ridiculous," the spider tried to inflate her already formidable size, puffing up her large belly, "Eldar of all kinds taste horrible. It's like one added the most foul-tasting poisons to your venison. No, if my cousins try to eat you, it's either they're really desperate for sustenance...or it's for revenge. A great motto of the Webmistress and her great Space Marines when we destroyed Commorragh was after all: a dead Eldar is a good Eldar. Or something like that, anyway...we should make a book of all the Webmistress' mottos...what?"

"I'm sorry?" Aurelia asked.

"I'm not talking to you, long-ear! What...yes, they are here...what do you mean, I have to let them go? Directly coming from the Webmistress? At once, Ilmarina! Yes, I'm letting them pass."

Eight luminous eyes turned their full attention back to them.

"It seems the Webmistress is in an unusually good mood where your untrustworthy race is concerned," the golden arachnid commented peevishly. "Welcome to the Macragge System. If for some reason you wish to meet the Webmistress and prostrate yourself before her magnificence, you will need to go to Macragge itself. If for some reason you want to die for a good cause, the battlefield of Laphis is that way."

This was the moment the visions began to strike her. Aurelia Malys was not far from collapsing, as she felt a horrible hungering presence wishing nothing more than to consume everything...and there were other beings, those ones corrupted by the Primordial Annihilator, which were far too close for her to take confidence in a human victory.

"The Great Enemy wants to use the Webway Gate."

"Indeed!" The spider agreed sarcastically. "What, were you thinking they had come to share a cup of tea?"

Laphis

Ravenna – East of the Polenta River

General Jack 'Death' Schwarz

You didn't get a Star of Terra by surviving on pleasant battlefields, but even by his standards, what the capital city of Ravenna had been transformed into was especially bad.

There was the fire, which was generating so much smoke the warships in orbit had stopped firing due the unacceptable levels of inaccuracy. But the heretical artillery had entered the boundaries of the city, and was bombarding everything it could reach. Hundreds of buildings were collapsing or already razed by its fury. The monumental bridges were broken wrecks, and tons of flaming debris were carried away by the river.

And more worryingly, there were columns of men and women in Ultramar Auxilia uniforms fleeing for their lives on the other side of the river. They were so routed they discarded their weapons and jumped into the water.

Jack Schwarz snarled in disgust at such a display of cowardice.

Yes, the enemy had caught them by surprise, and yes, those were Traitor Astartes.

But the Ultramar Auxilia had sworn solemn vows on the very memory of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman that they would protect the lives of the civilians dying behind them in this battle with their last breath.

This wasn't an oath on the God-Emperor's divine authority, but it was just one step short of it. And breaking it was completely inexcusable.

Besides, if those soldiers didn't fight when it was their families and homes at stake, when would they begin to show some courage?

The Catachan veteran turned towards the enormous metallic spider he had been assigned as liaison and swarm-commander.

"Ilmarina. I trust you have a plan to transport guardsmen across the river immediately?"

"Of course, General Death!" Several of his men chuckled behind him. Bastards. So that was what they'd been busy doing while he had his back turned; filling Lady Weaver's arachnid's head with all sorts of nonsense. "The Nocturnan Scorpiads were born to cross lakes of acid on their homeworld, and the Webmistress refined their training on Brockton and Polar. It isn't that small crossing which is going to make them afraid. And the Webmistress' centipedes are also good swimmers, though a bit slower."

"Good. Send plenty of Commissars in the first wave. It's important we restore order. Not counting the political officers, I want a minimum of ten thousand men across the river within twenty minutes."

"We are going to need every good swimming member of the Swarm," the spider remarked, before adding in a disappointed tone, "and we won't be able to play a big role in the battle. Maybe I could give you the Baal Scorpions as shock troops? They aren't used to swimming through water at all, and they can't be used as transports as their favourite method to cross a river is to race at the bottom of it, but I can promise they will reach the other shore without issue."

"If the price is keeping you out of the battle for the first hours, I'm willing to pay it." The holder of the Star of Terra answered. "Most of the Ultramar Auxilia we see is routed, but there still have a lot of men, and we have large intact regiments to throw into the melee. Whereas without Lady Weaver's presence, your numbers can't increase exponentially like they did at Commorragh."

"You're right, General Death!" at least the spider was sorrowful at the idea of missing the fight, "there are going to be issues, though. Someone will need to bring plenty of supplies for the valorous Scorpiads, Ants, and Centipedes who will devote their energy to the transportation of troops. Swimming is something they can do all day, but swimming with platoons on their backs is going to be exhausting."

"The Departmento Munitorum officers will take care of it," and Jack glared in their direction, satisfied when one second later they shivered and ran to bark new orders. Seriously, they should have anticipated this hours ago, it wasn't like the spiders hadn't requested supplies being sent their way. "Anything else?"

"Yes...we're going to need aerial cover. Until the Ambulls have finished working on the tunnels, and our cousin Helspiders on the pontoons, most of the traffic will be done by river crossing...and by the Webmistress and the Emperor, we're really exposed here!"

The pitch in the 'voice' of Ilmarina was clearly justified, as several heretical aircraft went to fire more missiles at the eastern bank...which generated more devastation and deaths further north.

"The aerial support is on the way." At least Jack Schwarz hoped so. "Begin the mass crossing. The heretics have devastated Ravenna, now it's our turn to counterattack!"

"Yes! By the Webmistress, we will fear no darkness! Claire, give me the maps, the General needs to know where we're digging the tunnels and the shelters!"

Ten seconds later, the familiar and much sought-after roars of the Aeronautica Imperialis' turbo-reactors filled the air. In this cataclysm, it was only one source of noise unable to drown all others, but for a veteran guardsman, it was unmistakeable.

"WE MARCH FOR RAVENNA!"

"KNOW NO FEAR!"

The Skies of Laphis

Commander Freya Brasidas

Supposedly their Brunhilda fighters had launched into the skies of a Paradise World.

It didn't look that way from above.

It was as if the normal colour of the sky had been banished the closer you got to the fighting, and as they raced to meet the enemy, the tortured screams and the shouts of panic resonated from every frequency the Ultramar Aeronautica was supposed to use for military communications...and plenty of others they weren't supposed to use as well.

"Our liaisons on the ground already report being bombarded by quantities of Heldrakes, Traitor Thunderhawks, and Stormbirds, White Leader."

There was zero amusement this time, and for good reason. The presence of the Traitor Engines was already bad enough, but the last two were the grim confirmation the Archenemy had Traitor Astartes in the skies.

"Acknowledged. Form on me. We're going in for the most dangerous dogfight of our careers."

"This is going to be hell."

Freya rolled her eyes.

"No, Black Leader. It is going to be death...for the heretics."

Ravenna – West of the Polenta River

Lord Commander Lucius the Eternal

Lucius was playing with several heads of the weak mortals he had just decapitated when the explosion enveloped the ruined columns mere metres on his right.

It didn't hurt him of course; but it projected a lot of ashes and dust on his magnificent armour.

"Vikerakis!" The Lord Commander hissed while kicking a head down the alley "Remind those imbeciles of artillerists it is the eastern bank they must fire at!

"My Lord!" one of his last true Emperor's Children stayed silent for a few seconds, and when he replied, his tone was curiously hesitant. "The Word Bearer's Coryphaus says...he pretends it wasn't his artillery guns which dared bombard the warzone you're honouring with your presence."

"What?" Lucius at first didn't understand, then a very familiar rumble in the distance reawakened instincts he had ignored for a long time. "TAKE COVER!"

"YOU HEARD THE LORD COMMANDER!"

He had given the order just in time. No more than four seconds later, a rain of shells and a multitude of other ordnance fell upon the city they had fought in for hours.

"They weren't supposed to have artillery to spare!" one of his Night Lords spat. "The air engines were keeping them distracted until we pushed across the river! We crushed them!"

But the bombardment continued, relentlessly, and Lucius and his new warband had no choice but to wait for its end. After the treacherous Beast of Anarchy had revealed its perfidy, the Legionnaire of the Third Legion wasn't willing to verify if enduring this artillery onslaught was something he would survive or not.

And then, after more than one minute, the guns of the False Emperor's slaves fell silent at last.

"GET OUT!" Lucius roared as explosions engulfed the sky and Thunderhawks not belonging to the Seventeenth appeared, surrounded by models which were certainly not fielded by the Legions. "GET OUT OF COVER! PUSH TO THE RIVER! THE BASTARDS ARE BRINGING REINFORCEMENTS ACROSS THE RIVER!"

"BUT THE BRIDGES ARE DESTROYED, LORD COMMANDER!"

"THEY MUST HAVE FOUND SOMETHING TO REPLACE THEM WITH!"

It was the only thing which made sense. They had momentarily pinned them down with their heavy artillery – it didn't matter where they had found it – as a prelude for the counterattack.

His Legionnaires knew better than to disagree with him, and within the next minute, they got through destroyed positions and finally arrived in sight of the river, which was almost half-hidden in smoke and fire.

And Lucius was so surprised he stopped advancing.

The mortals had indeed found a way to cross the river without using any bridge.

They were mounted on enormous scorpions and other gigantic insects.

"FOR THE GOD-EMPEROR!"

Hundreds of men began to fire their lasguns after seeing his own warband and the Word Bearers advance to eliminate the last footholds on the western bank.

"THEY ARE ONLY CORPSES UNABLE TO REALISE THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD! DEATH TO THE FOES OF EXCESS!"

"WHAT HAPPENED TO 'CHILDREN OF THE EMPEROR, DEATH TO HIS FOES'?"

The lasguns stopped firing. The artillery seemed to stop rumbling in the distance. A thin patch of blue sky appeared, somehow, in all this smoke and the ruins they had plunged into perfect slaughter.

And from a scorpion which had just emerged from under the river, a large Contemptor Dreadnought stepped on the western bank of the Polenta river.

The paint was white with only specks of gold here and there.

But there was something terribly familiar about him, but it was impossible, it was-

"LUCIUS."

"NO. NO! YOU ARE DEAD!" He couldn't be here. "YOU ARE A GHOST! YOU ARE DEAD! YOU ARE DEAD LIKE THE OTHER STUPID FOOLS OF ISSTVAN!"

"I AM NOT DEAD. AND THE EMPEROR AND LADY WEAVER HAVE BROUGHT ME HERE TODAY TO BRING UPON YOU THE VENGEANCE OF THE LOYALIST SOULS OF ISSTVAN! SOLOMON DEMETER WILL BE AVENGED, ETERNAL TRAITOR!"

Lucius screamed. He didn't know how it was possible, but being called out by the Dreadnought after so long...it was simply too much to bear. The Lord Commander charged.

A second later, an enormous plasma gun was suddenly revealed behind the massive machine as the Ancient who couldn't be him made a step to the left.

And Lucius didn't manage to evade it.

The favourite lieutenant of the Naga fell to the ground shrieking as the plasma shot had literally left a massive hole in his upper chest.

Death followed quickly after that.

Three seconds later, Lucius was reborn.

"I AM IMMORTAL, FOOL!" And to his pleasure, several soon-to-be-corpses of Ultramar's slaves tried to flee. But a few shots rang out from their grim-faced figures waiting behind them. "AND IF YOU ARE REALLY HIM, I AM GOING TO TAKE YOUR SOUL AND SACRIFICE IT ON THE ALTAR OF EXCESS!"

"NO, YOU WON'T. I AM RYLANOR, AND MY LIFE BELONGS TO THE EMPEROR. THUNDERBOLTS WITH ME!"

"FOR THE GOD-EMPEROR!"

The carnage opened in an orgy of blood and death. Not being completely blind however, the last Lord Commander of the Emperor's Children didn't miss how dozens of Space Marines arrived, and behind them came new regiments of mortals on the giant insects' backs.

Lucius knew they were not going to win this round.

And for the first time...the damn Dreadnought was coming his way!

No! He refused to die any more than he already had!

He would survive! He was the Chosen of Excess!

Lucius felt fear burn in his two hearts.

"FIGHTING RETREAT! RETREAT IMMEDIATELY PERFECT LEGION!"

Ravenna – on the Polenta River

Colonel Lothar Jurten

It was like hell had been summoned to be their battleground.

There were flames and explosions ahead, on their right, left, and behind them.

They were not on a barge, but on a colossal scorpion with a very threatening stinger and pincers which, despite being half-submerged, had certainly not stopped being intimidating.

"We are ordered to reinforce the positions south of the Cathedral of the Saviour Emperor as soon as we land!" his vox-operator shouted as several shells created enormous water geysers in the river. The huge beasts that were transporting the 83rd Line Infantry were all fine when he could see clearly again. The same couldn't be said about all his men. "Presence of Traitor Astartes with massive cultist vanguard elements confirmed."

"Cultists we can deal with," Lothar replied, "tell High Command we understand the orders. We're going to decimate the cultists and stalemate the Traitor Astartes for as long as we can."

"There are multiple alerts about heretical gas attacks."

"Put the rebreather masks back on." The Colonel ordered, ignoring the groans of consternation. "Yes, I mean it. It's better to endure those things than suffocate under the heretics' sorcery."

"The men will obey," his second grimaced. "They won't like it."

"They'd better," Lothar Jurten muttered before clearing his throat. "We're not in the Catachan Party Ground anymore."

"But what are we, Colonel? If we tell the heretics we're the Trade Korps, they're going to laugh themselves into their graves without us having to lift a finger!"

More smoke came their way, and his next words were near-entirely muffled by his old-fashioned rebreather mask.

"We will be Death. That's the name of our General, according to the spiders, no?"

Mark of Oblivion: 39 hours after Mark Zero

Mark of Calth: 37,725,139 hours, 1 minute and 1 second after Mark Zero

Number of Tyranid life-forms: approximately 30,000 – 3 of star-faring capability

Surviving Word Bearers Traitor Marines: 26,573

Surviving Ultramarines and Successors in the War Zone: 1098

Author's note: The Extinction Arc and the Cataclysm of Macragge will continue in the next chapter, which may or may not be titled: Extinction 11-2 Death Korps.

The other links for the Weaver Option if you want to support or comment on my writing:

Alternate History page: www . /forum /threads /weaver-option-thread-3-the-5th-black-crusade-story-only.506948/

TV Tropes: tvtropes pmwiki/ / FanFic/ TheWeaverOption