There is Only War

by An Old Nemesor

In the closing days of 399 M42, a sinister figure enacts an age old plan, and the horrors of the 42nd millennia are thrust into a galaxy far far away. Now, the Republic and Separatist alliance must quickly adapt to their new situations and adversaries, or face utter destruction by those so entrenched in war that peace is utterly incomprehensible to them.

2. Arc One: Ryloth-Arrival

Starting AN: Well, hello again. My apologies for the (kind of) short chapter, but it felt like it was taking to long to generate the full thing so I cut it up into three pieces to give you something sooner rather than later. Part one is "Arrival and assessment" Part two will be the imperial ground battle, and part three is the republic counter attack. To address the comments that don't have PM's doing so all ready, warp storms are one of the types, another is the huge anomalies like the EoT and cicatrix. The rest though I will reveal if you guess them correctly, but they are all 40k cannon things that aren't as noticeable as communication in the imperium is spotty at best. Anyways, I'll be updating chapter one when I upload this, and will do so as I revise chapters for mainly spelling in the future, but I won't mention it those times. So if you remember something differently from how it is, that's why. Oh, and I'll be cross posting this on spacebattles now as I thought that might be a good idea to get more people to notice any mistakes I am making. Anyways, onto the story.

Roboute Guilliman was not a cruel man by nature. A rarity, for those in his position and in these times. He was one of the few that had stayed true to his father's dreams even after all these years, even in this cesspit of an empire where their so called "god emperor's" life's works and edicts were cast down and decried as heresy. He believed himself to be quite forgiving, even of xenos, provided they accepted their place in assuring humanities ascension to rulers of the stars. Which was exactly why this situation was so troubling.

In many ways, the fate of humanity had always been tied to that of the xenos. They were the ones who had taught mankind the value of the promises and oaths of the non-human during the dark age of technology, and that in the end they could only rely on one another. It had been the green skinned xenos who had caused his father to rush to prepare his crusade, and the rangdan xenos who had cost him brothers. It had been the Aeldari xenos who had created the eye of terror, forever tying the fate of humanity to chaos and the Kinebrach xenos who had crafted the blade that lead to the corruption of his brother Horus and the Ruinous civil war that followed. All these things pointed to a single conclusion, one could not allow for the xenos to run about unattended or their actions would have terrible consequences for the entirety of mankind.

This…republic, was another example of this. Within the republic mankind dwelled with, worked with, allied with, and lived with the xenos, as equals. Though he had nothing against these species himself this was a direct subversion of his father's dreams of human supremacy amongst the stars. Worse, these xenos had designed a system in which it seemed humans were drawn into mediocracy. In what reports he had read of the T'au xenos to the east, they at least seemed able to draw out humanity's innate ferocity and spirit, creating heroes and champions for their own causes. None of his forces had encountered such champions amongst the worlds they had of yet encountered. Even what little they had uncovered about the hive world that was supposedly the capitol of this heretic nation seemed to be a dull world of plain glass and rockrete, having none of the splendor or spirit of an imperial world.

Even more alarming, this complacency seemed to extend to war as well, with almost no members of the general public volunteering to fight a war against a xenos aggressor using what appeared to be rudimentary battle-servitors, instead seeming to rely on an army of clones, though it was possible that this was only the case in the areas so far encountered by his forces. There had been debate amongst the priests of mars over the recovered war-constructs from the other xenos faction they had recently discovered, the opponent of this republic, but it had been decided that the routines and tactics of the skeletal constructs were far to simple to be those of a true abominable intelligence, though to be sure they were still trying to crack the language and code of these xenos. There had also been inquiries into the origins of the clones found so far, but that particular investigation had gotten nowhere yet. Nevertheless, the fact these humans would not act even with their homes invaded and nation under siege meant that these xenos must be having a truly deleterious effect on their very humanity, their souls he was sure the cardinals would insist on adding. This was further evidence that humanity must rule over xenos, not besides them. This republic had to go.

There were further threats to humanity from this republic, this time perhaps to the Imperium's populace as well as the fallen humans that inhabited the republic's worlds. The quality of life, as loathe as he was to admit, seemed to be higher on the worlds he had so far encountered than the average in the imperium. There did not seem to be any hive worlds yet, aside from maybe the capitol of these heretics if the data the adepts had dredged from this "holo net" was accurate. The tech priests had been unable to regain access to the "extended unsecure noosphere" as they had called it, so perhaps the xenos had some form of truly exceptional data defense?

Regardless of the condition of the republic throneworld, the improvements found even on the outskirts of this nation to the ease of life and reduction in required hardships and physical labor may have been the cause of humanity's degraded spirit, as such spirit is forged when there are hurdles to overcome. This ease of life he feared may come to tempt those in the imperium who hear of it, like the technology of other xenos was known to do, which on its own would have been reason enough to destroy the nation. For it truly was a nation of heretics, of humans who had defied his father's will, not whatever the ecclesiarch would take that word to mean.

With such a threat to the Imperium being generated by the Republic's mere existence, the course of action was obvious. If these humans were to be saved from themselves, and the Imperium to be preserved, the Republic had to be purified of its corruptive elements. The most obvious path was also the best path in this case, simply remove them as one would diseased flesh from a wound. The Xenos had to be separated from these humans if they were to be brought into compliance. Once he had annihilated the Xenos homeworlds, the morale of these xenos would plummet, and it would be easier to pick off their colonies one by one with what little forces were not yet tied up in the various wars across the galaxy.

From there, the worlds under republic control would be those with high human populations, and thus the focus of ministorum and ordo hereticus efforts to properly integrate them into the great bulwark of the only true human nation. Those organizations of course would need to be reined in somewhat, or they could cause far more damage than good. He may want to send some personally chosen Astartes overseers, if not to assure these worlds remained prosperous and not subject to harsh subjugation and repressive actions by those fanatics for associating with xenos, then to at least try to prevent that accursed cult from gaining a foothold. It was nothing but a plague upon his father's empire.

Of course, the Inquisition and the other nuisances saw it another way, as utterly intrenched and obsessed as they were with that irritating religion Lorgar had propped up before turning his back on humanity. There had been some times where Guilliman suspected the Lectino Devinitatus was in fact Lorgar's last laugh before he went into open revolt, a last way to sabotage the Imperium before he tried to drag it into the clutches of the dark gods, but he knew better, and took some small comfort in knowing that the religion it had spawned must frustrate his treasonous brother even more than it did him.

In all likelihood, the zealots would try to execute, indoctrinate, or subjugate as many of these humans as they could get away with behind his back due to entirely religious reasons. To them these were xenos loving heathens, and likely didn't even count as humans in their minds. This was an entirely different type of heresy to the cardinals and inquisitors, and as such would be exterminated with extreme prejudice. Any beliefs that these humans had would be stamped out and replaced if they got their way, which while somewhat tragic, as a loss of even more culture would just further show how far humanity had fallen, was also likely necessary, given how much the culture of the republic seemed to have poisoned this branch of humanities minds.

Speaking of his supposed subordinates, the overly religious and unquestionably fanatical organizations had passed several dozen decrees before he had even discovered what was going on, or that there even was a going on. They went on and on about the desecration of the holy human spirit and soul, before offloading a few thousand documents, dossiers, and declarations for him to look over. The first of which lay on his desk before him. His quarters in the Maccrage's Honor seemed much smaller these days, and he struggled somewhat to handle the dataslates without tearing them apart, his gauntlet covered hands very much not meant for such tasks. Were he able to remove his armor, it would be so much easier, but that was just another thing that had been stolen from him by the heresy. The image upon the file was similar to that of humanity, but different enough that it would be considered outside the acceptable bounds of deviation if found among the populous of an imperial world. Across it stamped with the seal of the inquisition was the classification the conclave had decided on, Xenos Horrificus.

While his supposed subordinates had decided (demanded) that this was a threat of the utmost importance that must be dealt with immediately, he simply did not have the available manpower do divert from his campaigns at the moment, nor the time to go himself. Thus, it would be up to local forces to handle this supposed crisis. In truth this particular species was just incredibly unlucky, and it was only sheer coincidence that they would be the first to lose their origin. Listening post O9-Delta732 was one of the first to receive a translator, as convincing local humans to join the Imperium was still in its earliest stages, and thus there were few natives to go around. It had been chosen due to its extreme importance, its location in the galactic southeast letting it monitor three major necron dynasties and the direction of many major hive fleets had arrived from. It was not meant to monitor all regional communications, rather, to monitor when communications stopped, as that was often the only warning something was amiss when it came to the worst xenos opponents the imperium had yet faced.

To do this, it did have to keep track of all the areas comm traffic, and its extremely high quality comm trackers had as of late started picking up a kind of comm traffic it did not recognize. It began to actually listen to those in an attempt to decipher who or what they originated from, and were lucky to have the translator on hand, who explained in broken low gothic that these were republic messages they had intercepted. The Translator could not properly translate most of the message, as his training in gothic was as of yet unfinished, but he did manage to identify the planet being discussed as a Xenos homeworld and was greatly rewarded. From there all that was identified was tracing the signals to the source, and the target was found.

With the location identified, that just left what guard and navy elements to deploy to this particular warzone. There were a few lightly mauled regiments in the area, having managed to escape destruction at the hands of a small tyrranid splinter fleet due to Necron intervention, but most had already been assigned to reinforce Vigilus due to the ever-worsening condition of that warzone. He could redirect all of them, but the world was important, so it was thusly a question of how many he could afford not to send. The armored regiment would be less useful in the claustrophobic street fighting of the void shielded cities, so he could redirect that one without to much risk, and he would need at least an infantry regiment to accompany it...

Roboute Guilliman was not a cruel man, nor one predisposed to acts of violence or mass destruction. But this species, like all in the republic, posed a threat to not just his father's imperium, but all of mankind. And for that, their homeworld of Ryloth would burn.

Ryloth, 5 days post convergence

There were many things to be considered when planning a planetary assault. How valuable was this planet to the God Emperor's imperium, and in that vein how much was he allowed to break? How many and how powerful were the anti-orbital batteries you had to worry about, and what were the surviving members of the opposing fleet up to. Could you rely on reinforcements and a steady flow of supplies, or would you have to make do with intermittent munitorum aid and what you could "borrow" from the locals.

Of course, none of this mattered unless you could get through the systems defense fleet. General Al'rahem II of the Tallarn 3rd infantry regiment had been on many warships in his long career, but this was likely the one in the worst shape. The fleet escorting his desert tigers to this god emperor forsaken world had been with him on Nihilas, as they attempted to save the Astartes homeworld from a splinter fleet of leviathan. Despite the assistance of the Death Strike chapter fleet and reinforcements from Kar Duniash, the fleet had been massacred, and none of the vessels left were undamaged. If not for the appearance of the blue and gold crescent ships from what he was told was a local necron dyasnty, that would have been the end of him. Luckily, they left after finishing the splinter fleet off, so it was likely just some xenos being territorial rather than any real intention from the Necrons to take Nihilas, but he had been sent to his next battle to soon to find out.

His regiment had fared no better than the fleet had, though better than most of the other poor fools he had been serving with. Of the thirteen regiments that were deployed to Nihilas, only seven survived, and none intact. Of the 300,000 members the desert tigers had arrived on the planet with, only 75,000 had managed to limp back up the devourer dropship's ramps. Luckily, most of their chimaeras had lasted due to a lack of use, with no need to be driven across open terrain during a defensive siege battle, and a few Tauros had been recovered from an unfortunate regiment fed into the grinder in front of them. Their sentinels had been bolstered in a similar way, but still numbered a measly 5000.

The minervan 63rd tank legion, which he was glad had remained with him, had lost just over half their armor according to colonel Patton, and almost all of their support vehicles, but entrenching hadn't been a goal of this mission, so he could still make do. That left just over 500 hellhounds, which had been quite useful but as such targeted intensely during the siege, 4,250 leman russ's of varying configurations, 1,300 salamanders, 40 macharius heavy tanks, and a lucky 15 working Ragnaroks they had managed to "recover" from one of the fallen kreig regiments. The superheavy complement had been the most effected, having run afoul of a biotitan brood, and was reduced to a squadron of three working and two heavily damaged tanks.

The three superheavy tanks in best condition were the stormlord variant of the baneblade, while the damaged tanks were a stormblade and a standard mars-pattern baneblade. The regiment had originally had several shadowsword variants, to support their heavier tanks in the role of hunting enemy super heavy monstrosities like the hierodule that were expected to be deployed but had been singled out and destroyed early on. At last count he had been informed that they retained only 1,000 of their hydra tanks, so hopefully the xenos didn't have much air power.

The Valhallan 97th artillery regiment, which was also still with him, had suffered almost total loss of their command staff, via having been introduced to a very enthusiastic mawloc that had managed to locate their command bunker. The then lieutenant and now colonel Anastasia had been lucky enough to be knocked out of the area by an errant swipe of the beast's tail, and thus had been the command staff's only survivor. The rest of the regiment had suffered similarly and were down to about 2100 Basilisks and 500 Hydra AAA guns, and attendant staff. All of its lighter artillery had been lost to said mawloc's brethren during one particularly effective tunneling attack at the end of the siege. Had the battle not ended soon after, that may have doomed them in the long run.

Al'rahem himself was in similar condition to the regiments under his command. His plasma pistol was scarred and pitted from close calls with biovore fire, and his powersword had a new scar where it had clashed with a warrior's bonesword. His hand had needed to replaced with a bionic, again, and his old scars were aching worse than ever before. In his personal opinion, the one crossing his newly regrown eye was rather fetching. Most of his organs had likewise been replaced, but the biggest casualty had been his uniform.

What remained of the traditional Tallarn general's robe was in tatters, though what little in the field repairs he had given it made it stay mostly together, with only a few dozen holes. He had needed an entirely new set of carapace armor, which was ill-fitted due to the rushed nature of getting a uniform in time for a consecutive battle and sudden need for everyone else to get replacement gear as well. This was made glaringly obvious when he entered the Righteous Judgement's bridge. Maybe one in four of the crewmen had a full uniform, and the room still bore the scars of what he had been told was an uncomfortably close boarding action. The admiral's prized chair, once covered in furs from the man's homeworld, had been shorn neatly in two, and the aforementioned animal parts seemed to have burned by something. Did the Tyranids have flamers now? Now that was a wonderful mental image. Al'rahem shuddered and strode over to where the chair's owner sat amongst a tangle of assorted wires and pipes, shaped into a rough approximation of the man's former throne.

The admiral was old, and it showed. His neck length hair and neatly trimmed beard were snow white but had yet to begin to recede. His face had more lines than he probably cared to count, and he could almost hear the man's bones creak as he shifted to get a better look at the holographic display table in front of him. His uniform mimicked his flesh, and while impeccably kept and without a single wrinkle despite having been in combat not so long ago, was a pale faded blue, showing its age. In the fifty years he had known the man, he had not changed a bit. Al'rahem supposed that being naval brass gave the man access to the kind of rejuvenat treatments that would let such a thing be possible, but they hadn't managed to save his attitude from matching his appearance. Al'rahem had called admiral Kathis Steten many things, always trying to keep his repertoire of insults fresh so as to retain their effectiveness, but cranky old man had always been just too easy not to use.

The general approached the holographic display and bent forwards slightly to examine it once the dimly glowing object was within arm's reach. On it, the ragged remains of the fleet were displayed, arrayed against seven xenos vessels. They were mostly tiny things, relatively speaking of course, the largest being the size of a light cruiser and the smallest being out massed by the smallest of destroyers. The smaller craft had a rounded slabs of what seemed to be sheets of additional side armor to shield the ship's thinner midsection. The slabs were only on the top of the ship, leaving the bottom exposed, the vessels had several wings jutting out near the end, two stretching vertically to the left and right, one below the vessel and one more slanted and smaller wing splitting the vessels additional rear armor. The vessels also had a piece of superstructure extending forwards, forcing apart the slabs of armor in front of it. The general could not think what it might be. It almost resembled a bridge, but making one so suicidally exposed would be folly beyond any sane ship designer's ability to contemplate.

The larger vessel was a hollow flat circle, with an additional piece of spherical superstructure in the middle. It had the same blue and grey coloration as the smaller vessels, and on its side an emblem was emblazoned. The emblem seemed to be a hexagon within a hexagon, with lines connecting the inner hexagon's points to the outer hexagon's inner corners.

The end on the ship facing the imperial fleet had a substantial gap that allowed the spherical piece of the superstructure to be seen, and as he leaned in Al'rahem could make out rectangular holes on each of the ship's arms. Launch bays maybe? They weren't very big though, so he couldn't imagine it carried many fighters, though if he was seeing the shapes on the smaller craft correctly they may have strike craft hanging off them parasitically like heldrakes are often do.

Not that their own fleet was that big either, but at the very least at least it had a cruiser. Al'rahem frowned and examined the softly glowing green projection again. The Righteous Judgement made up the core of the fleet with its flanking pairs of defiant and dauntless-class light cruisers, bringing the number of semi respectable capitol ships up to five. Kathis had repeatedly told him that light cruisers were not "true" capitol ships, but escorts. Al'rahem thought this to be typical naval frivolity, if something looked like a cruiser, acted like a cruiser, and was called a cruiser, he was going to call it a cruiser as well. In a dispersed formation around the higher tonnage core of the fleet were their "true" escorts, two full squadrons of cobra-class destroyers, twelve vessels in total, and two squadrons of frigates, each containing three vessels. One of the squadrons consisted of sword-class vessels, and one of firestorm class vessels. In all honesty, it was more than he had expected to see given the condition the vessels had been in when they entered the warp, but less than there should be.

"Ancient Kathis, something seems to be amiss with your fleet" he drawled, hoping to hide his concern. "It's Admiral Steten to you, brat" the older man huffed, freshly offended as if they had not had this exchange every single time they arrived in a new warzone "and I can see that".

There was a disquieting silence that stretched between the two, with the general gazing pointedly at the admiral, and the admiral pointedly ignoring him. The silence stretched on for several minutes, before at last Al'rahem decided it might be best to get his questions answered before they entered the firing range of the enemy fleet.

It had been a longer than normal stay with the medicae, which may have been due to the difficulties of chasing a piece of crippled tyranid ammunition around his small intestine, but it had meant he had missed the transition back to realspace. The general had no idea how close the two fleets were and had made all haste to the bridge upon release. If asked, he would say that it was so he had the best idea of the enemies capabilities, but in truth he just wasn't sure of the integrity of the vessels walls and had decided to enter what he had figured to be the most airtight region of the ship. None of the vessels were in good condition, and even the smallest escorts bore signs of pyro-acid scaring, but the Righteous Judgement had been pierced through by the claw of a battlecruiser grade tyranid void-form, and he was thus slightly concerned at its ability to hold up in the face of renewed attack. The Dominator-class cruiser hadn't been the xenos vessels only victim though, and of the ships the survived, the fleets sole remaining Turbulent-class heavy frigate had possessed a similar hole. Coincidentally, it had also been the only ship not visible on the display.

"Well?" Al'rahem prompted. "Well what?" The admiral spat back. "Where is the Lance of Orpheus?" Al'rahem was scowling now. The older man wasn't usually this obtuse. Something must have happened to it.

"Gone". Well didn't that just explain everything. "Gone where?" Al'rahem had always been fond of the Navy-guard banter, but this was getting ridiculous. How difficult was it to get an answer out of the other branches of the imperium? The inquisitorial staff from the ordo xenos he had worked with had been even more evasive when questioned about things He Really Ought To Know if he was going to throw his regiments at the Tyranids back on Nihilas, and the Astartes hadn't even acknowledged his presence. No sister he had ever met had given him a reply to any particular question without somehow mentioning heresy, and he still had not managed to find a tech priest that spoke gothic instead of that strange language of theirs, though maybe they did and were messing with him. His experience with the other branches would lead him to not discount that option.

The Admiral finally looked back to the display and gestured to the systems star. "That's where they are at the moment" Al'rahem hoped he had misinterpreted that one. "….In orbit?" he asked hesitantly. "No" Came the flat reply.

The general winced, the admiral's mood making sense now. That was not one of the ships the fleet could afford to lose. If it had been a cobra, that would have been one thing, they were replaceable, but a heavy frigate was almost as good as a light cruiser. Worse still, the damaged super heavy tanks had been stored on it. Colonel Patton would be furious.

"Well, at least we seem to have a substantially bigger and better fleet than the xenos for once. This should be easy enough, assuming you don't manage to fail as disastrously as usual" Al'rahem stated, with a much more jovial tone. Hopefully that jab would get the old man back to normal. Morale was low enough as it was, if the command staff was seen to be in low spirits that would just make it worse.

The admiral responded with a derisive snort and sent him a half amused, half scathing look. "That's what you said at Testris V", which was a decent enough comeback, for an admiral who looked like he might turn to dust the second he turned his back on the man that was. "Well, to be fair, those were necrons. Necrons don't really play fair" which was a totally valid response, as the skeletal xenos did in fact cheat outrageously.

The admiral shifted in his makeshift seat, no longer sulking. "At least I didn't lose us an entire titan legion" the older man replied, a hint malicious grin on his lips. Al'rahem scowled back, but was unable to respond. How exactly was he supposed to explain to high command that an entire legion of god machines had been eaten by fist sized bugs? Bugs! Now, to be fair, they were necron bugs, but the scions of mars hadn't seen it that way. It had been over a decade and he still wasn't able to get the forgeworld to lend him another legio when he needed one. Or a reasonable amount of lasgun powerpacks and other such essentials for that matter.

"We are still about ten minutes out if we remain at our current speed, but if I order the fleet to go at full burn we could cut that down to three."

Al'rahem shifted and looked quizzically at Staten before perking up. "You haven't decided whether to use the nova cannon yet, have you?" He asked, having realized the admiral's reason for the slow approach. "Aye" Staten replied "We only have three rounds left, and I would prefer to save those for a truly dangerous opponent. The only reason I am considering it is because I just noticed this" he points to small dots exiting the largest ship and entering the planets atmosphere. "We were told this was a republic world, so why would they be landing troops? Also, over here" he points to some smaller specs floating around the enemy light cruiser "we have what looks like the wreckage of some republic ships"

Al'rahem frowned at that. He had assumed that the ships in front of his were the xenos empires defense fleet, small for a homeworld but that was to be expected, as what faction could ever match the might of the imperium? The ships weren't quite as had been described to him in the extremely short briefing he had received en route but given that they had only recently discovered these new enemies that wasn't unexpected, even on races they had known since the emperor walked amongst them like the Orks and Aeldari there was still misinformation and mistakes. But if there was wreckage of the presumed defense fleet lying around and dissimilar ships in orbit landing troops, that meant…

Al'rahem groaned loudly, then again for emphasis. "We just blundered onto a planetary invasion of our target, didn't we?" Admiral Kathis nodded, his face tense. "You see my dilemma then" he started. "Every second that ship remains in orbit means that more troops will be on the ground, and worse still there is the response incoming. We don't know much about this fleet either, or its troops, so our fleet might be comprised of vessels that are at a disadvantage, and it may be the same on the ground."

The response fleet was what concerned Al'rahem the most. If this world had been invaded, there were few factions that would let that stand. Generally, a response fleet had to be at least twice the size of the invasion fleet to be safe, but on occasion whatever was in the area would be thrown at the invaders if the world, or something on it, was particularly vital and they needed to be stalled. If it were the more likely former case though, they were looking at a republic response fleet of fourteen vessels at best, to their twenty-three.

This would be a decent fight, if not for the fact the fleet's vessels were all in terrible shape and would have to go through the invasion fleet first. That was of course assuming that there were no republic forces left in system to report their presence, leading to the use of an even bigger fleet. "So, we are on a time limit then" the general murmured. They would have to get the fleet into orbit, eliminate the twileks, eliminate the new xenos faction as they got in the way in all likelihood, pack up, and leave before the response fleet got here if they were to get the regiments out safely. Worse, with an invasion in progress, the twileks were likely to have gone to ground to save themselves. This would make finding them much harder. If they were still in their cities, a scan could check this, and orbital bombardment could be safely used to burn them to ash from orbit without worrying that they might miss a few. With an invasion in progress, they were likely to have hidden in bunkers, tunnel systems, and other such sheltered areas, and some might survive.

If this were some minor species, that might be acceptable, as It would take millennia to recreate the infrastructure needed for starship production even assuming they kept the knowledge, and the planet would be rendered dead, meaning in all likelihood they would starve to extinction. But this species had allies, which if they could not terraform the world, could just evacuate the survivors. Failure was normally unacceptable, but this was a mission approved by both the ecclesiarchy and the inquisition, and had also passed the desk of a primarch. This was one of the holiest missions either man had ever even considered attempting, and they could not afford to fail. They would have to land troops and examine the planet for such hideouts in order to ensure it was done in the emperor's name.

Admiral Steten sighed, and then abruptly stood. "Damn it all, we don't have time for a protracted battle. We'll use the plasma shell and save the graviton ones incase something big is in the response fleet."

The admiral then moved to his ruined chair and braced himself against it. All the other crew members were in similarly ramshackle battle stations, and Al'rahem himself had nothing but the display table to brace himself against. The admiral turned to his chief vox officer and started barking orders "Contact the prow gunnery chief and tell him to fire his last plasma round dead ahead once its loaded. After you do, contact my vice admiral and tell him to move his frigate and destroyer squadrons forwards and launch a volley of torpedoes at the enemy escorts when I fire my nova cannon. And you, yes you newblood" he said, pointing at a fresh face in the vox section of the bridge, who Al'rahem assumed was a replacement for some poor crew member lost to the tyranids "Send out a message to all ships, all light cruisers are to form up on me in a spearhead formation. All other escorts are to form a vanguard under the vice admiral".

The officers transmitted their messages to the intended recipients while the admiral turned to Al'rahem. "I do believe you have some lads to attend to. Get them ready, I have no intention of letting the xenos get a foothold. They are dropping as soon as we can achieve low orbit safely." Already expecting this, the orders came as Al'rahem was crossing the bridges sole intact doorway. He had his job to do, and Kathis Steten had his as well.

Kathis Steten was not a particularly friendly man. He was not prone to acts of frivolity, merriment, or general good will. As such, he supposed the wide grin he was wearing might be the source of the bridge crew's increasing concern.

It had been a long decade. Ever since the fall of Cadia, warp travel had become less and less reliable. Indeed, that was the reason his ship had entered the warp in 999.M41 and exited it in 234.M42. Since then, he and his fleet had been on a streak of pyrrhic victories and losses. If it wasn't a chaos fleet the size of battlefleet ultima, it was the Tyranids. If it wasn't the Tyranids, it was an ork Waaaagh that had somehow managed to steal an honest to emperor battleship. If it wasn't the orks, it was those infuriating nigh invincible openly cheating NECRONS. The Lance of Orpheus had been the last surviving member of his original battlefleet, save his own ship of course, most of the replacing having taken place after battles with those accursed metal abominations, but having been consistent in even battles without them. Constant casualties, impossible odds, and pyrrhic victories had seemed to be the new way of life for those in the post Cadian era, so he thanked the god emperor for letting him avoid continuing that trend just this once. He had no personal grudge against these xenos, but he would be taking out a decade of frustrations on them regardless. Who knew when a battle this easy might happen again?

He gripped his command-throne tighter as the signature dimming of all light sources began, a sign the immense gravatic impellers of the nova cannon had begun devouring the generators output. A split second later, there was a lurch as the gun fired, causing Kathis to frown. The inertial compensators seemed to be out. Good to know if they needed to fire it again. On the holographic display in front of him, Kathis saw the circular light cruiser disappear in a flash of light, as well as some of the dots leaving it. Hopefully, the enemy hadn't got to far into its deployment.

As the ship vanished, a swarm of dots exited the front of the imperial battleline, the torpedoes now locked on course towards the surviving presumed escort vessels. The narrower xenos ships quickly turned to the side and tried to move away from the ordinance spread headed towards them, likely also hoping to move out of range of his nova cannon. Good, Kathis though, this had been what he had been hoping for. As the xenos vessels broke into two groups of three, his vice admiral's escorts chased down the group on his port side and immediately began bombarding them. The firestorm squadron's lances quickly dropped the xenos vessel's shields as they closed in and the weapons batteries of the rest began quickly taking the ships apart.

The vessel that had been closest to the light cruiser fell first, it's superstructure quickly shattering under the deluge of macrocannon shells his vanguard was throwing out. The still turning vessel snapped in half, its forward section slowly tumbling towards its sister ships as a blazing wreck while its stern began its descent into the atmosphere, venting all the while. The second and third vessels managed to complete their turns as they came under fire and began retaliating. A rain of crimson bolts crossed the hundreds of thousands of kilometers separating the vessels, only to uselessly vent their spite on the forwards void shields of the firestorms, too few to have a real effect. The torpedo crews appeared to have finished reloading a full minute faster than usual, as a spread of tiny cylinders appeared on Steten's holosphere, and the two vessels were forced to split again. This time however, the spread struck true, crippling the second vessel with multiple successive hits. First the forward section disintegrated, erased from existence by half a dozen building sized warheads. Next, as the vessel began to flip, its forward sections being forced downwards by the power behind the successive blows, the remaining torpedoes struck true against the vessel's central superstructure, almost in the dead center of the area where the escorts horizontal wings met. The stricken vessel simply could not take the successive hits, and on the eighth impact the escorts back was broken as the vessels came fully apart, leaving its burning hulk in several dozen grey-blue pieces. The third vessel avoided the worst of the spread, but received a pair of crippling blows to the stern, heavily damaging its engines. Kathis' grin widened. It couldn't run now.

As the other three vessels had realized what happened, they had quickly began turning in what seemed to be an attempt to save their last comrade. A swarm of fighters streamed across the battlefield to aid the third vessel, but his pair of defiants had sent their fighter wings to intercept them. Isolated, cut off and without support, the third xenos vessel quickly succumbed to his vanguard force, its shattered hulk spinning out of the planet's gravity well and into the depths of space.

Yet, even outnumbered as they were, the other escorts had yet to flee. Did they lack FTL, like the tyranids, and relied instead upon a support vessel to provide it? Was that what the larger ship had been? They were not heading to the systems edge either though, as vessels in that situation might in order to survive until reinforcements came, so either they decided to try and take some vessels down with them, or something was important enough on the planet that they couldn't leave. But this was an invasion fleet, so it wasn't something they needed to defend, and they couldn't stop them from destroying it anyways. There was no way they could extract any heavy equipment in time, and the invasion had just begun so whatever they sought on this world was likely unobtained, so that just left a VIP of some sort.

That made orbital bombardment an even more limited proposition. He was already hesitant to order it due to the possibility it could disguise any cloaked or otherwise hidden bunkers, but this made it even more unfavorable. The ships were unfamiliar to the admiral, but the briefing had mentioned that the republic was at war with some other xenos faction of indeterminate size. Neither the republic or the other faction had much information gathered on them yet, and their size, strength, composition, territory, and fleets were all unknown to high command. That made gathering as much information as possible vital in the upcoming months. How convenient such a source had been placed in front of him, Truly, the emperor provided for the faithful. Of course, he didn't know what the VIP looked like, or for sure it existed, but those were Al'rahem's problems.

As the fleet swept in closer to the planet Steten left his command throne and approached the vox officer's section of the bridge. Keeping an eye on the holosphere, he turned to the officer and spoke. "Tell the vanguard to try to keep the enemy ships as intact as possible. As soon as they are disable, I want boarding parties to clear them. Once that is finished, contact the magos and tell him to see what he can discern from a tour of the vessel's, and if found their cogitators."

The officer nodded and began transmitting the revised orders, but it was far to late for the fourth vessel to be saved, as a torpedo barrage had already turned it into a thousand glowing pieces. The Fifth vessel was in bad shape, but salvageable. Its superstructure was smashed and burning, but the vessel was still capable of firing several of its weapons emplacements. Pinpoint lance fire quickly silenced the few guns it had left though, and immediately after he saw the unmistakable outline of shark assault boats leaving the flight decks of his twin defiant-class light cruisers. A flash quickly dragged his eyes away from the light cruisers, only to discover the sixth and final vessel was missing. There was a new expanding cloud of debris where it had last been though. Kathis cursed. It had been in good shape last he had seen it. One of his escorts must have landed a lucky hit on the warp core or some equivalent. Well, one was better than none, no matter how bad the vessel's condition was. As he headed back to his command throne, he gave the order to begin preparations for landing. The rest, it seemed, was up to the general.

As he gazed on the holographic display his devourer dropship provided, General Al'rahem could not help but feel distinctly underwhelmed. "This is it, you are certain" he asked, gazing pointedly at the enginseer across the display table from him. "Indeed general" the half mechanical creature replied, its voice and odd echoing hiss "scans have shown no anti-orbital or anti air guns. Furthermore, no aircraft remain of xenos origin. The magos believes that the xenos use their strikcraft for both void and terrestrial operations, and thus lost all airpower in the void battle. Additionally, a massive cave system has been discovered by our auger arrays, lending credence to the admiral's fears of populations that may survive bombardment. Furthermore, most life signs our augurs have detected are in this cave system" The general sighed. They had not found any signs of bunkers yet, but that was what his sentinels would be doing for the next few days. Whether they found them or not, it seemed they would be doing at least part of this the hard way.

"Do you have any news that would make my job easier then, martian?" he asked, not expecting a helpful answer. "Indeed" the enginseer affirmed "All xenos war constructs have been observed withdrawing to a single location. In addition, this location houses a single xenos lifesign in the center of all the warforms, while all other xenos life signs are segregated away from the constructs. This is likely your secondary target."

Well, that was something. It had surprised him to learn that the xenos relied so heavily on war constructs. They seemed to be skeletal in appearence, with compact rifles and very little else. The augur scans could not pick up much detail on the constructs, but they reminded him uncomfortably of the necrons, though they were smaller and less armored by far. The enemy had deployed some tanks as well it seemed, though the mechanicus detachment did not as of yet have an accurate count. The xenos tanks were bigger than the infantry constructs, and thus somewhat clearer on the augur arrays.

The tanks had a large, central elevated turret and two sponsons just below said turret. The vehicle seemed rather under armed for one its size, but additionally lacked the tracks of an imperial tank, making it a hover vehicle. Perhaps, like other races with that technology in widespread use, they had fewer, more powerful guns rather than more, less powerful weapons as a part of their armor design? Either way, even without a count he could tell from a quick scan of the holographic display in front of him there were far more of them than there should be.

They had either been on world longer than either he or the admiral had anticipated, or those dropships could contain many more constructs than they appeared to as the number of skeletal war forms upon the surface was estimated to number at least 400,000. "How many of them have reached the city?" the general asked. The enginseer paused, seeming to consult some invisible figure, and then refocused on Al'rahem's face. "An estimated 250,000 xenos warforms have entered the city as of the last augur scan general, as well as many of their vehicles. There is an additional issue in sieging the city that must be considered. The xenos settlement is located on an isolated piece of land, surrounded on all sides by ravines. We cannot reach it without building a bridge."

Oh, of course. It was never that easy. "How are the xenos crossing?" Al'rahem asked. "They seem to have a narrow form of energy bridge. It has been activated and deactivated several times as we began preparing for landing" the enginseer replied. Al'rahem cursed. Who knows what xenos techno sorcery kept that bridge active. They were likely to damage it or destrory it completely in the siege and relying on xenos tech was something he wasn't comfortable with anyways, which left only a single option.

"Build your bridge martian. Vox officer! Tell the other regiments to deploy across the ravine from the city, on the side the xenos energy bridge is on. We may be able to cut off any escape or reinforcement attempts that way. They are to begin shelling as soon as they can and to guard the tech priests in their efforts to create a crossing. Impress upon them it is vital to avoid shelling the area with the isolated xenos lifesign in it! When you have finished, radio our air support and tell them to bomb al the settlements aside from this one. After that, find our sky talon pilots and get them ready to drop their Valkyries into the areas our bombers are targeting"

Al'rahem looked at the holosphere, and then looked at the enginseer "I want our companies evenly divided between these major entrances" Al'rahem said, jabbing at them for emphasis. "Get the coordinates and then send them to our company commanders in order. Tell the pilot to bring us to the closest one when you are finished."

The enginseer affirmed, and then departed, heading in the direction of the cockpit. Al'rahem sighed again. This was already shaping up to be a wonderfully complicated campaign. Hopefully they could get this over with in a short amount of time. Relatively speaking of course. He looked back at the holographic display mournfully one last time before heading down to the troop staging area in the lower decks to seek out his command chimaera. Was it too much to ask for the enemy to just helpfully line themselves up on open ground this once?

Ending AN: So that's the start of it. As you may have noticed, Al'rahem and pals make some mistakes and assumptions. They take actions based on experience and don't realize that they made a mistake yet due to the lack of information they have on the opponents. Let's see if you can guess what all of them are. Some of them are pretty obvious, some are not. Likewise, we don't get a CIS perspective in this chapter, but they and their plans are suffering from the same thing. See if you can figure out what those mistakes are.