Chapter 5

Fall of a God

"Amazing" the Fabricator General exclaimed joyously as he went through the data cores, going over structural schematics, weapons systems, engine systems, sensors, communication. One by one the main systems sprang to life as his Tech-priests reactivated the power systems which had lain dormant for nearly ten millennia. It had been hard, gruelling and more than once the former high lord considered that getting this starship fully operational in the allotted time was impossible.

But they had succeeded, the ships systems were fully operational, the machine spirit stirred to life in the controls, whose runes lit up in a menagerie of colours. The bridge came to life as main power was restored, heaters blurred, lights flickered to life, cooling systems sputtered like an infant trying to take its first breath in the outside world.

At the moment the Fabricator sat on a raised chair in the middle of the main control console, a large storey high curved system which showed him everything. His augmented eyes flashed as an impossible amount of information streamed across his vision.

Main weapons: online

Secondary weapons: online

Void shields: online

Hull armour: sealed and polarised

Life support: online

Communications: online

Sublight engines: cold starting

Warp drives: offline

Status…………green

Launch sequence initiated

"Open your eyes child" the Fabricator mumbled, his beard-like cables ejecting from the sockets which decorated the main control console, his hands moving so fast across the keyboards that they were blurs of colour to a normal humans vision "Open your eyes and take your first look at a new world"

--

For most of the battle the fleet had remained dark, its ships were operating at minimum power in the hope that the enemy would not notice them until the engines of their senior capital-ships were ready. Thankfully the Necron were to preoccupied with the vast defence fleets of Terra, they did not see them.

Suddenly the running lights of the heavy warships came to life in what seemed like an explosion, docking clamps released the main warships, allowing them to drift for a few moments before the mammoth engines came to life in an explosion of unnatural fire. The fleet of Admiral Xavier Winters was free, and not a moment too soon.

In unison the two Armageddon's, six Firestorms and twelve Cobras opened up with every weapon, striking and destroying three unsuspecting Necron raiders and a harvester. The fleet moved through the flaming debris like ghosts in the darkness, remaining silent until all their main batteries were reloaded before firing again. Destroying another four raiders and causing mild damage to an accursed tombship.

From the vantage point of his command throne admiral Winters watched as the surprised Necron taskforce attempted to turn around to face the new threat. Losing a quarter of their number as the monumental space defences of Terra locked onto them and cut lose with enough firepower to reduce a planet to a dead orb.

Something seemed wrong. The Necron weren't moving like they were at the beginning of the battle. They seemed sluggish to their guns, no longer moving in unison, in fact several of their smaller ships were beginning to vanish in their version of faster than light travel. It reminded the admiral of what would happen to a conventional army if it lost its command, it reminded him of a route, a panic.

Something that the Necron never seemed to have a problem with

The defence fleets seemed more determined than he had ever seen, they acted with perfect accuracy, near fanatical determination. They charged the undead ships, seemingly uncaring for their own survival. He understood why. They were not fighting on a far flung colony. They weren't fighting for a sector or provincial capital. They were fighting in the Sol system, the cradle of humanity, the throne of the Imperium, where the holy world of Terra resided.

Not since the Horus Heresy when the traitor Warmaster and his vast legions launched a full assault on the homeworld had he ever heard of such a battle as this. Reports flooded across the communication channels, spoke of the Emperor, alive and healthy battling against an unknown entity on Mars, of a massive battle taking place on the holy planets soil, of Primarch Lion El'Jonson leading the united forces of Terra against the monstrosities.

Then another surprise flooded through the long range vox-channels, a fleet of Battlebarges and strike cruisers had appeared in the thick of the fighting. The colours and emblems which decorated the hulls only meant one thing. The Ultramarines and their Primarch had arrived.

--

The dragon howled in agony as his very own weapon was plunged into his chest, the very noise was deafening to the ears of anyone on the planet. Within fifty kilometres the liquid sea of Necron war machines exploded under the psychic onslaught while the legions of humans who were fighting them all fell to their knees, blood pouring from ears, eyes and noses.

Then the star-god fell to his knees, at that moment the Emperor thought it was all over. He couldn't have been more wrong, for a clawed hand grabbed the blade of the sword. The dragon forced himself to his feet, his rage almost palpable in the surrounding air.

No, I will not be beaten by you!!

The star-gods free hand began to change shape from a metal wrapped claw to a long curved blade, he swung the newly forged weapon, cutting into the emperor's side and forcing him to jump away. Not losing his grip on the ancient Necron sword the child of humanity pulled it from the demons chest with a teeth grinding scrape. This creature's whole body seemed to be a weapon.

With a roar the dragon forced his hand to return to its clawed form. Then he set to work, gathering a mass of energy from across the planet, sucking the energies of every Necron warrior dry. Across the red landscape, through the cities and streets every Necron warrior suddenly came to a halt and vanished like an army of wraths that had served their purpose. The star-god didn't care anymore. He just wanted to kill him, to rend his body limb from limb.

A ball of green energy appeared above him, tendrils of emerald swirling around it like a miniature galaxy. The Emperor felt the power. There was enough to crack the crust of the planet, to break it in half like an egg. Quickly he dropped the dragon's sword and summoned the monumental power that the warp had, gathering it from every corner he could find, he slammed his hands together and a small light appeared within, shining through his fingers and palms. Slowly he opened his hands, drawing on more power, making the single light become a ball of condensed warp energy.

"I will stop you" the Emperor said through gritted teeth, a fresh sheen of sweat covering his face from the amount of power he was taking in. The dragon did not answer, he simply roared in anger, by now the swirling corrupt energy could be seen from space. The millions of soldiers aboard the Imperium's mighty warships and defences stopped what they were doing to look upon it with fear.

Both roared as they released their powers upon each other, and green tendrils slammed against a barrier of brilliant golden light.

--

No one expected it when the Tombships appeared over the ancient world of Terra itself, even when several dozen defence platforms turned into incandescent flares of light, even when one of the central space stations suffered several explosions and immediately started to fall from orbit towards the city world's surface.

But the defences of the homeworld recovered quickly, and thousands of deadly lances of energy struck the Necron vessels. A full half of the Tombships took the brunt of the attack and were systematically destroyed but the last five took what little time they had and fired upon the city covering world, blasting areas of land fifty kilometres in diameter, christened by large mushroom shaped clouds.

Skyscrapers fell, millions of lives were lost and every psyker in the galaxy could hear the psychic ripples, from the Farseers of the nomadic Craftworlds, the traitors of Chaos, even the forcelings of the Corusca galaxy felt the psychic death screams.

Back above orbit the imperial defenders went from desperate defence to a near insane rage, men and women screamed in anger until they went hoarse. The defence platforms came around and fired with more ferocity than ever before, they continued firing upon the Necron until gun barrels went red from overheating. One Tombship remained and it was even now entering the atmosphere of the world, weapon banks spewing torrents of green lightning upon Terra.

Anti-air defences came alive in the form of flak cannons, AA guns and surface-to-air missile positions spewing up clouds of missiles and lines of tracer fire. Aerofighters launched in the hundreds from airfields and sped towards the Necron capital-ship, passing by the aftermath of the orbital bombardment in the form of mushroom shaped clouds which reached up to three thousand feet and a landscape which looked more like one of a hundred worlds on the fringes of the empire.

Then the Tombship loomed before them, an unwelcome sight on the polluted skyline of Terra, its main weapons were releasing torrents of energy upon the surface, silencing aerial positions and bringing down buildings. In fury and hatred they dived towards the enemy, forgetting about the deadly defence fire of the capital-ship and the defensive fighters which were launching from the Necron vessels scarred and charred hull.

When the pilots entered the fight they knew they could get no help from the orbital forces without the throne-world suffering catastrophic and possibly irreparable damage. The orbital defences however helped by sending every fighter and bomber they possibly could, as well as a few frigates and corvettes, every heavy capital-ship in the Terran fleet had been rerouted to meet the main Necron fleets in the outer system.

Far below on the surface something was stirring, a massive hidden pair of doors covering nearly fifty kilometres of wrecked land was sliding open, the ruins of buildings finally giving in and falling. When the massive doors finished their opening the darkness within came alive with running lights as the behemoth within started to rise to the surface.

And within the structure of this monster the Fabricator General looked upon the ruins and felt his blood boil, unbeknownst to himself he screamed out into the bridge, his voice like a metallic thunder. They would not get away with this. He would hunt them down to the ends of the galaxy. He saw the Tombship on the horizon and ordered this ancient warship to advance.

To those men who were watching the surface they thought their eyes were deceiving them, a massive ship similar in design to a Battlebarge yet almost twice the size at forty kilometres long with bank after bank of lance batteries, plasma cannons, rail guns, and missile and torpedo launchers. Its hull was gold with black and red engravings. The double headed black eagle of the Imperium was etched into its sides prominently with the name of the ship engraved proudly into its hull.

The Imperious

The Terran people watched from the surface of their world as the Imperious flew over their heads and cheered when she fired upon the Necron Tombship, hundreds of lance batteries opened up in unison. Within moments the Necron tombship turned into a flare of incandescent light.

"Begin to rise and exit the holy world" the General ordered sharply "The Necron will be destroyed!"

--

When the two monumental powers met the entire planet creaked and moaned from the power released. The land within a hundred kilometres of point zero was completely obliterated by a shockwave of fused energies which levelled the ruins. But within a moment the victor of this was clear.

The spear of golden light pierced through the dragon's green writhing mass of energy and struck the star-god in the shoulder, a long lance which refused to extinguish itself. The power behind it threw the C'tan back through a still standing skyscraper, causing the ruins to collapse around him, burying him in several tons of debris.

This didn't keep him for long, an explosion of incandescent green flame and debris sent the rubble flying in every direction. The emperor didn't care, he just advanced, ignoring the rubble and debris which slammed against him, anything bigger than himself he slapped away with blurring speed. Then he was in front of the opposing creature and sent him flying with a bone crushing uppercut.

He felt it, the emperor of humanity felt the death screams of millions of lives from Terra, the cradle of humanity, his own home. He felt it all through the warp. Saw the droves of daemons attracted to it like moths to a flame. But one exertion of his growing power sent them scattering like scarred rabbits. He would completely destroy the star-god Void Dragon and lay waist to all that he stood for. He swore this on the souls of all those slaughtered this day.

The Void Dragon would die.

His legacy and armies would disappear.

And be forgotten.

The mighty Necron would be hunted and utterly destroyed, their liquid silver armour turned to ash, every last Tomb-world would be virus bombed into the dust.

He continued, his stride never faltering until he came across the form of the Void Dragon, on a knee, trying desperately to regain his feet. With one mammoth hand he lifted the star-god up by his armoured collar and called all of the destructive power of the warp which he possibly could.

The star-gods powers held for but a few seconds, then they were both consumed by a great fire of warp energy. So powerful that the Chaos gods themselves sensed this and shied away, for it also came with a message for them. They weren't the masters of the warp anymore, he was.

The raw fire burned away the dragon's indestructible liquid armour, fluid burst forth and was just as quickly turned from liquid to gas, his wings just disappeared and the dragon turned from a creature of metal to one of metallic bones. Then with one last metallic scream that could be heard across the universe he vanished in a whiff of black mist.

The emperor saw the creature's soul, a humanoid being in rotting black robes, a pair of black leather wings stretching out in a width of twenty meters, through the darkness of its covered face it looked upon him with feral, hate filled eyes. Then the fires of the emperor's power fell upon him and his spirit was burned from the universe, his last great metallic scream a final testament to his existence as one of the great destroyers of civilisation.

The fires which the emperor released could be seen from space as a great lance of power which swept forth from the planet's surface and disappeared into the distance. And once it began to cease every surviving Necron vessel, from the small packs across the inner system to the vast armadas which assaulted the outer defences, all of them vanished into nothing. The last armies battling on the habitable worlds of the Sol system also vanished from sight. Entire valleys once full of the monstrous cyborgs became eerie and silent as they vanished like wraiths.

On the bridges of their command ships Lion El'Jonson and Roboute Guilliman could only look upon the empty space which was once the terrifying Necron invasion. The Fabricator General, the High Lords, every admiral and general could only look upon the empty arenas which just moments ago were the sites of monolithic battles.

On Mars the Emperor took a deep breath and sat upon a large chunk of debris, closed his eyes and looked up to the heavens.

It was over, it was all over.