Arrival 1.5

Stand and Kill

"To each of us falls a task. And all the God-Emperor requires of us guardsmen is we stand the line and die fighting. And that's we do best. We die standing." General Sturnn, 963M41. Commanding the Cadian 412th Shock Troopers and the Fay 6th Regiment, Sturnn and his men recovered successfully the Imperator Battle Titan Dominatus against an opposition including Necrons, Chaos Astartes and Orks. For his exceptional leadership and the recovery of a priceless God-machine, General Sturnn would be awarded the Star of Mars in 967M41.

The Second Battle of Ramev Pass saw twenty-three Order of Fay 1st class being awarded to the Guard and PDF regiments which stood against the orks. For twenty-one of the recipients, these decorations were awarded posthumously.

By Retired General Tereyev, The Ocean of War, 510M35.

"By the standards of the last decade, the casualties the regiment suffered in the Battle of Fay were three-tenths percent above average." Tech-Priest Morkys to Taylor Hebert, 300M35.

Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Moros Sub-Sector

Fay System

Planet Fay III

7.178.289M35

Thought for the day: Victory needs no explanation. Defeat allows none.

Ovael the Maleficent

Fifty-two years ago on the insignificant world of Kerner Quartus, Ovael had believed his honour had been trampled beyond redemption. On this day, a massive army of greenskins had gone on a rampage and he had been literally crushed by the green menace. Left for dead by the warlike xenos, his salvation had only come from a last-minute rescue effort by his Brother-Apothecary of the 5th Company.

This had been in the past. Ovael was still serving the Corpse-Emperor during this campaign. He had not yet understood how little the Imperium and its Inquisitorial pet monsters cared about the noble duty of the Adeptus Astartes. He had not broken the shackles tying him and his brothers to a miserable existence.

Oh by the dirty carcass of the Imperium how he had been wrong. The Traitor Astartes knew now there was a fate more humiliating than being beaten to death by metal clubs at the hands of the ork vermin. Being buried alive under hundreds of stinking orks was not something which would have come to his mind...proof that the denizens of the Great Ocean had definitely a sense of humour if nothing else.

If the former Blood Raven had been a normal man, he would have long suffocated due to the pressure...assuming of course the sheer weight of the pile of orks on top of him wouldn't have reduced him to paste. For the best and for the worse however, Ovael was an Astartes. Where pathetic mortals would have long been pulverised and ripped apart, he was still fighting with all his capabilities. Such as they were when he was blocked under a growling mountain of his loathsome and honourless enemies.

His demonic chainsword was still in his right hand, but he was unable to pierce anything. Or to be more precise he was unable to pierce more. The blade had shredded the head of a first greenskin, torn apart the guts of two others and reached several organs of at least a dozen of orks. Everything had limits unfortunately, and Empyrean-contaminated weapons were no exception despite their refusal to conform to the laws of reality. The chainsword had risen through three ork corpses and was unable to continue the slaughter. The bolter in his left armoured fist was even less useful. Not only the weapon had badly resisted the impact of a very large ork specimen, the rounds in the loader were long gone and whatever ammunition he had carried with him was impossible to reach. In one word, he was disarmed. And the orks were biting and kicking his power armour. It was only a matter of time before the critical alarms ringing in his helmet signalled the end of the line for him.

"TZEENTCH! GREAT ARCHITECT OF FATE! HELP YOUR SERVANT!"

This was what the Astartes intended to scream in his rage. What came out of his mouth with an ork drooling over his helmet was more something like 'HMMMFFF!' followed by an 'ARGGGHHH!'. Trying to gain a few seconds, the Astartes kicked the bodies of the nearest greenskins with a full blow of his helmet. Numerous yellow teeth broke, but it didn't repulse the loathsome xenos for more than an instant. Where a human would have understood to widen the distance, the orks were excited by this violence and rushed into the pile to kill him.

Once more time, Ovael gave a command to the Rubric Marine. One more time, the Chaos-cursed Astartes of the Thousands Sons Legion failed to blast the orks into oblivion. Given that the antic blue power armour was sealed and far more hermetic than his own, the conclusion was evident that his last ally and servant had lost his main weapons in the furious melee. And if the silent Rubric Marine was in the same situation as him, immobilised by the crushing weight of hundreds of xenos, there was not a chance in the Warp to recover them. Not that he could see either the Rubric Marine or the weapons in questions. There were far too many orks upon him to see anything.

Ovael felt his teeth grinding in pure hatred. His last warship destroyed. His warband of cultists and mutants annihilated and devoured by the orks. His Astartes brothers were long gone, having fallen or deserted when their quest for more power and repair parts took an ill turn.

You have a last weapon. Use it.

The thought which had come in his head was definitely not his own. The former Blood Raven took a moment to think about the meaning of this sentence. When he understood, he was so shocked he tried to nod negatively...but since the orks were severely restricting his movements his helmet did not move very far. Mentally he replied to the entity which had contacted him.

No. Absolutely not.

Why not? Do you think someone is going to rescue you?

Put it that way, the sarcastic voice had a point. He had been too slow to reach the relative safety of the Imperium lines and by the way the orks were trying to murder him it was clear the servants of the Corpse had other problems than freeing him.

Do it.

Ovael hesitated during five seconds, a feat which was rare for him. Finally he gave the psychic answer to his mysterious invisible interlocutor.

No.

So be it.

The voice should have trembled with rage, but instead was filled with malice and amusement.

You had the opportunity to become a God, now you will be only a toy in the tide of the Great Ocean.

What?

To the Traitor Blood Raven's astonishment, his mouth started to sing a guttural threnody. Ovael tried to close his mouth and stop the incantation, but the muscles of his body, his tongue, his mouth and the rest of his genetic-enhanced mass were not answering. It was like he was prisoner in his own body...and this was a feeling that was absolutely unbearable. The Traitor Astartes had never once seriously considered possession as a valuable method to gain power...but it appeared the demon was not going to give him the choice.

Indeed not.

"Ta'akar mer'dreek va'ssir ti'lnaness fal'yr!"

Each word hurt. None of them had been supposed to be pronounced in this dimension by a human mouth. A wave of psychic pressure washed away from him, burning the multitude of orks over him in an inferno of blue flames.

Stop! Screamed internally Ovael, feeling his organs tend and distort under the incredible pressure. Stop that!

Why?

The single word left him for a moment bewildered before the anger rose back and new vigour flowed in his augmented veins. The hate might have to do something with it. But as he still tried to stand, his left leg exploded in a column of blue flames.

Because I want to live!

The inferno raced to the pile of orks engulfing the Rubric Marine of the Thousands Sons, carbonising everything in its path.

And live you will...in a fashion.

The world was now burning. His arms were burning. His faithful bolter was now a charred mass of metal, his chainsword was broken in two and the pain was horrible...only a heavy release of stimulants in his bloodstream prevented him from screaming everything he had in his heart. Well this and the fact his body wasn't answering to him anymore.

The screams of agony of the orks grew louder. Ovael's vision grew troubled. Everything in front of him was convulsing in the demented energies of the Warp. The Rubric Marine had seemingly regained its standing but was now disintegrating in blue sparks and demonic dust. The pain was so intense it was like an old friend. A terrible sensation was growing inside his ceramite-protected chest.

The cataclysm of blue flames he had unwittingly started was his last vision.

Brukk Brukk the Mekboy

The combination of blue lightning and flames which exploded at the centre of the battlefield was sonorous and impressive. Hundreds of orks were reduced to bloody fragments and thrown over the entire valley, creating a rain of green blood. Multiple missiles and ammunition exploded in succession when touched by the blue sparks. The weirdboyz screamed endlessly, holding their heads in their hands before blasting apart under their own powers.

"Dat iz nub gud." Said Brukk Brukk. "Dis iz nub gud at awl!"

The five mekboyz around him who were trying to repair a former Imperial tank nodded gravely. This battle was nothing like the big and easy victory like the Warboss had promised. The boyz of the first lines were all dead. The human big machines they used were breaking apart faster than they could repair them, making the big nobz very angry with them. The chief mekboy wanted more teeth but scavenging the corpses of the dead was too dangerous with weirdboyz hurling green lightning everywhere and the bikes rushing towards the frontlines.

"If weeb stay 'ere weez goin' ter die!" Barked Vuk Mukk, the smallest mekboyz in their group, agitating widely his short arms with a tool looking like the hybrid of a cog and a flamer.

"If weeb donz repair 'is tank da boss iz goin' ter kills us!" Interrupted Durk Voborz, injecting litres of a black fluid in the severely leaking vehicle's reservoir with his makeshift pump.

It was at this moment of the battle that a malfunctioning shell of their own artillery chose to land near their vehicle. Given that there were containers of promethium and its derivatives leaking everywhere, the tank and everything near it were soon in flames.

"Time ter go!" Shouted Brukk Brukk, running like Gork and Mork were on his heels. They had to avoid the debris of their thoroughly destroyed tank falling on their heads and it was becoming a bit too hot here. Durk Vobroz regarded them running like if they were idiots, before being immolated alive by the flames.

"It iz goin' ter be 'hard ter repair da tank." Affirmed Vuk Mukk sadly.

"S'urrup an scurry." Replied his larger mekboy counterpart.

"WWWWAAAAAGGGHHHH!"

The roar was so powerful everyone in the army went silent. Warboss Ta'aagh the Mad Brute had climbed to the top of his red-painted Battlewagon and was heaving a colossal Big Shoota over his head.

"Da furst who triss ter leggit will be mi grubbup!"

The four little mekboyz hid immediately behind a half-finished attack bike. They had been walking in the opposite direction of the battlefield...and for orks this was the very definition of 'leggit'. The species which had a brain able to count to a hundred without pausing – and that list did not include the orks – called it 'tactical withdrawal' or 'retreat'.

"Everyone dakka! Kills da uumies! Fasta! 'Arder! Dis iz da baddle o' our livz!"

"WWWAAAAAAGGGHHHH!" Screamed the horde. Like a single ork, hundreds of tanks, bikes and other vehicles put their motors to the maximum setting and slammed on the battlefield. At the other edge of the battlefield, the young mekboy noticed that the humans were doing the same thing.

"Time ter go." Concluded Brukk Brukk.

Second Lieutenant Ordev

"Where is the bloody Navy when you need them?" Grumbled someone on the bridge of the Gracious Overlord.

Gor Ordev did not turn his head from the three screens he was studying. For one thing, he was far too busy to tape the combination of algorithms, digital codes and commands necessary for the bridge to function normally, especially as a lot of his section was covered in dried blood. Far more importantly however, the last days had told him that unnecessary comments and critics on the command centre of the Gracious Overlord could have terrible and permanent consequences. Granted Tech-Priest Val-Hal and First Lieutenant Adryks had not manifested until now the psychopathic behaviour of the recently deceased Admiral Mikasev, but it was better not to take the risk in Ordev's opinion.

Not that he fundamentally disagreed with the remark of the crewman having just uttered these words. Of all the reinforcements they could receive, why it had to be the Mechanicus to answer? Given the recent behaviour of the Exalted Guards towards the cogboys and anything owned by the representatives of the Mechanicus, it was very unlikely the Priest of Mars in charge would be calm and collected when the reports of the last days came.

"Do we have any information on this ship?" Asked Adryks, since it was him who was now the acting-captain.

An affirmative answer soon came back from the crewman searching the data-bases of the corvette.

"Yes, Sir. This is a Seeker of Knowledge-class, an ancient class of Mechanicus cruiser built for the Explorer fleets. According to its identification codes, it's the Magos Laurentis of Magos Explorator Desmerius Lankovar."

Which meant the new warship having appeared like by miracle at the closest Lagrange point could literally crush them and the entire system if his owner felt like it. The Gauntlet-class corvette serving as the flagship of the Fay System Defence Fleet was weighting over five million tons; this cruiser displaced at least five times this mass. A fight between them could only have one outcome.

"The identification codes are correct; the Magos Laurentis is in our data-bases too. Built in the shipyards of Stygies VIII and commissioned in 802M32." Rasped Tech-Priest Val-Hal in his usual emotionless tone, continuing his work to restore the wrecked hololith while half a dozen servitors did their best to remove all traces of the past violence. "His ship visited several worlds of the Sub-Sector eight standard years ago."

"Any idea what the Magos Explorator is up to?"

This was the most important question, indeed. A normal warp translation was done at the very edge of a stable system, using the Mandeville points which were the closest distance a ship could safely exit the Empyrean without disintegrating or unleashing a cosmic catastrophe. The Magos Explorator had evidently disdained this approach, which would have put his arrival days before the outcome of the battle was decided. Usually, the navy officers reckless to order such a manoeuvre faced at the very minimum an inquiry court. One wrong calculation and millions of tons of starship could be vaporised in an infinitesimal fraction of second. That the Mechanicus commander had precisely used this risky method was either proof of his arrogance or a complete faith in his own navigational capabilities. One did not exclude the other, naturally.

"Our brethren engaged on the Quest of Knowledge are by their very nature more difficult to predict than the norm." If this had been a person of flesh declaring this, everyone aboard the Gracious Overlord would have treated it as a joke. Yet there was no humour in the words coming out of the cogboy re-breathers. "Analysis based on past cycles suggests he is going to intervene in the battle below."

"If this is really the case, he will have to launch an assault from orbit." Affirmed the Warrant Officer left in charge of the auspexes. Several looks from the officers and their subordinates were directed at the green-blue planet growing in view as each second passed. "Our troops and the orks are too close from each other to use orbital bombardment."

"Then let's pray the Emperor they arrive in time."

Colonel Klux Zubrov

The signal in his comm-bead was almost totally muffled when one considered the ruckus of the motors, the artillery, the lasguns and the greenskins' roars. Nevertheless, Klux had good ears and it was not the first time he had to communicate with a distant superior or subordinate when a cacophony played out in the background.

"The 8th can launch its attack, Colonel." Judging by the way he was screaming, Colonel Larkine had the same problems of audition he faced when it came to deliver his orders. "Concentrate your Chimeras on the left, the enemy has detonated all our mines there."

"Acknowledged. We're charging in their teeth. Zubrov, out."

The current comm-sequence was switched out and a new one was initiated. Given the noise, this was not the time to be subtle.

"This is Zubrov. ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!"

The motors of his command Chimera roared in fury behind his seat. The multi-laser of the turret began to fire in powerful bursts, wiping out on his auspexes quantities of greenskins. Moments later the heavy bolter serving as secondary weapon followed suit.

"Be careful with the rounds!" The man nicknamed the Demolisher barked. "Target their tanks and the heavy weapons first!"

Not that it was going to make a lot of difference. They were all going to die. Larkine and his new protégée may have formulated their strategy with a nice choice of words but Zubrov was not completely stupid. Twenty Chimeras and a thousand men of the Guard were a force powerful to take back a lightly-defended rebel city, bash the skulls of a few dissenters and put the fear of the Emperor in the hearts of the pre-spatial civilisations. Against the ork horde charging into the valley, they could not win. They simply had not enough ammunition to kill the green vermin plaguing this valley and Chimeras were not Leman Russ Tanks.

No, Zubrov and the 8th were the bait. The 11th and the 20th were the anvil which would finish whatever remained of the xenos.

But before this, we are going to take a few greenskins with us. The Emperor will smile on us for ridding the galaxy of this green epidemic.

The ten Chimeras surged forwards, crushing the greenskins corpses by the hundreds. The gurgles of agony and the war screams were everywhere. The Colonel was trying to direct the fire of his gunners by vox as best as he could but most weren't listening to him anymore.

It was the heart of the battle. It was why he had volunteered for this charge.

Well that and my cousins' stupid coup at Great Landing. With the black marks on my record after Petersburg, I'd be lucky to receive a penal legion's assignment.

Zubrov did not let any sign of this show on his visage. The men he had been assigned were in their great majority young scions of well-connected nobles, freshly recruited and with no combat experience worth mentioning. They didn't realise how precarious their position was and their commanding officer had no desire to explain to them. They needed to keep this

Two ork tanks or what passed for it exploded. The debris sprayed everywhere, throwing promethium fumes, scraps and metal all over this part of the battlefield. A mass of infantry tried to counter the Chimeras but the heavy bolters made short work of it.

"FORWARD!" Screamed Zubrov, seeing one vehicle of his command slow down behind the others. "FORWARD!"

Something heavy crashed on the front armour-shielding of his command, forcing everyone from the pilot to the gunner to brace themselves.

"Ork Psyker!" The exclamation of the pilot was a mix of hate and fear. As it should be, the sorcery and the xenos combined in one were a huge affront to the Emperor.

"Kill it!" Was the reply. "Kill it now!"

The multi-laser fired and vaporised the lightning-sparkling greenskin...plus the dozens of orks which were around him.

But while they were killing the infantry, new ork tanks came and those weren't the wrecks of Chimeras and Salamanders anymore. The enemy had had enough of seeing its lightly armoured vehicles be torn apart, and was sending its recycled and defaced Leman Russ Tanks by entire companies. On the auspexes and every monitoring device fitted inside the command Chimera, the Colonel of the Fay 8th was seeing a wave of green and grey. The infantry he had thrown into the melee had disappeared from his sight. Two-thirds of his armoured force was gone. And a monstrous tank-fortress was coming closer, killing their own allies to close the distance and finish them. The orks had sent everything this time...which meant their sacrifice had meaning.

"It begins."

A rain of rockets fell on Zubrov's Chimera. Dozens of the shells and strange missiles had missed, truly the orks' aim was atrocious compared to the worst human gunner ever born, but there was too much ordnance hurled at them. The armour plate protecting them was solid, but it was not invulnerable.

I should have given it a name to the Chimera. This fierce machine has saved countless lives today.

An error he wouldn't have the time to rectify.

"Target the small tanks." Coughed Klux Zubrov. "We haven't the piercing-shells to hurt the big one, we need to enrage it and bring it in range of our artillery."

"Targeting the-"

His gunner did not finish the acknowledging the command. An impact far more terrible than everything which had stricken them until this instant hammered their protection. Looking on the left and upwards, the Fay Colonel saw the entire cupola had been perforated. Rivers of blood and a mangled corpse perforated with steel told him the primary weapon of the Chimera would never fire again.

"Colonel Zubrov?" The voice of the pilot was trembling and his superior could not blame him. The impressive speed of the Chimera had crawled to a halt; in spite of pressing the acceleration commands to their maximum, there were enough orks alive and dead to block completely the path.

"Fight your tank, soldier." The hands of the young man were so white and crisped he felt obliged to ask. "By all the things which are holy please tell me you haven't forgotten your lasgun!" The fact the recipient of this comment felt obliged to tremble uncontrollably after he had said those words gave Zubrov a terrible feeling of dread.

Cursing himself for having not used his reputation to be granted more veterans in his regiment, the disgraced survivor of the Petersburg Campaign opened fire on two orks. The green vermin was trying to enter by the hole where the cupola had stood but Zubrov swore himself they wouldn't. Not while he had a breath of life in his body.

Abandoning his seat and the incomparable position it offered him to see the tide of greenskins, the Colonel took his chainsword and rammed it in the head of the ork trying to follow the two xenos he had just killed. The immediate consequence was an immediate bath of green blood, but it did not stop him from claiming a fourth personal victim seconds later.

This didn't make those climbing all over the Chimera more prudent or less determined to reach him. They weren't stopping firing with their tank guns either, the murderous beasts. Klux shot two enemies at point-blank range with his side arm, but just as he was about to finish the third ork the entire world shattered. Half of the vehicle exploded, the pilot and the other man in the forward section screaming a last time before the storm of shrapnel killed them. Something heavy hit his right leg, letting him stumble against the orks, chainsword first.

"For the Emperor!"

There was only hacking and slashing after that. His laspistol was quickly out of shots, leaving him with only his loyal chainsword to slaughter the xenos. His leg was hurting like hell and more than once he had to lie on the wall before charging again. His vision was troubled. Was it because of his wound or all the green blood he had sprayed everywhere?

No, it was not the moment to ask questions which didn't matter. The orks were coming from another hole on the front now. He had to keep killing the orks. His duty to the Emperor was absolute and he would not falter. Every enemy he killed was one which would not threaten the loyal population of Fay.

A new ork fell in the growing pile of orks inside the Chimera. Soon there would be no place to move, never mind keep fighting. A light ting interrupted his musing.

An ork had just thrown from the cupola's hole an object three times the size of a grenade. Red, with a lot of beeps and so many wires a Tech-Priest would have screamed at the sacrilege of technology it represented. A powerful explosive and one best returned to its maker before it killed everyone.

Zubrov's arm went in motion to do just that when another pain in his side erupted. Turning his head to the right, he saw an ork had taken advantage of a dead angle to plant him their barbaric version of a bayonet in his ribs.

If the Colonel had been able to laugh, he would have burst in laughter. Between saving its green skin and giving him the death strike, the ork had chosen the latter. The red explosive was beeping. As more orks barged in the crippled Chimera, Klux laughed and closed his eyes.

"This was a good ride."

The light when it came was astonishingly bright.

Taylor Hebert

After the carnage Behemoth had wrought on New Delhi, the recently recruited heroine known as Weaver had believed she was ready for everything this new world could throw at her.

In less than a week, a lot of incredible information to digest and a lot of hindsight, maybe her confidence had been misplaced.

A lot.

The orks, since this was the name of the aliens they fought, had not made any progress in intelligence or subtlety. They had come in extraordinary numbers however, and while they appeared to lack parahumans to counter her, their 'psykers' or whatever name they used to shatter the laws of physics were extraordinarily dangerous.

Plus they had absolutely no sense of self-preservation. The infamous kamikazes of World War II were models of sanity compared to these green monsters. The vision of her bugs was far from adequate, but since the battle had begun there had been hundreds of cases were the orks launched grenades and various explosives without taking cover.

In most cases, they had killed ten times more of their own species than the humans fighting them. Truly if these idiots gained a few IQ points, they would be an extreme danger for all creation. Well, more danger than the 'xenos' already were if the comments of the soldiers were any indication.

Because yes, the 'tactics' of the green monsters were something like a three-ear old would be able to understand. Yes, their weapons and their accuracy massively sucked. But when a man or a woman was cut in half or had one of her swarms tear him apart, logic in general assumed the victim was not long for this world. Not so with this green aliens. At first Taylor had wondered why many soldiers were firing to the point of exhaustion into the agonising orks after the first battle. Back to the present she knew why and the answer was really disgusting. Unless touched in their vital points, the abominations continued to fight. The vital points were not necessarily the heart or the head by the way.

"They are coming this time." She informed the Lieutenant next to her. "All of them."

"Good." The smile on the visage of the young man told her he was eager for some pay-back. "How close is their big battlewagon from Point Alpha?"

"Fifty meters?"

Taylor was able to see by the eyes of the hundreds of flies and other insects under her control the gigantic pile of metal crush thousands of orks corpses and hundreds of human bodies. It was a nauseating spectacle, and one she felt was her fault. It had been her idea to attract the entire army of monsters to crush it in one single blow. That Colonel Larkine had told her the men were all volunteers was a very cold comfort when one could see them slaughtered and trampled in real time.

The only thing in her power was ensuring their deaths had not been given in vain.

"Close enough, then." Lieutenant Tovar said before adding seconds later. "And far from our lines."

Weaver did not open her mouth to contest this affirmation but in her opinion, hundreds of meters from these monsters was not exactly a sufficient distance of security. Her parahuman power gave her a complete panoply of senses to observe the orks, with horrible views on the teeth, the claws and the weapons these green beings had with them. The further away she was from these aliens, the better.

New orders came from the radio or whatever system of communication the Guard used in a similar way.

"The Colonel tells you can activate the device when you're ready."

Taylor nodded absently before concentrating on the thousands of insects which had stayed buried under the ground. In the last hours before the battle she had with her minuscule allies buried a considerable quantity of mines and the 'device' in question under the battlefield. The grand majority had been completely untouched and now it was just a question of creating the last tunnels. The explosion had to be directed upwards for the maximum amount of devastation.

"It's ready." Her voice was hard under the concentration it took to create the very maze of explosives under the steel boots of the orks. It also did not help the 'device' bomb was killing her bugs, ants and whatever native insect species she mastered in droves.

"Fire!" Was the command heard in the radio moments later.

For several of her heartbeats nothing happened in the pass. The green mass of the ork army continued to rush towards the lethal traps. More and more tanks came in the vicinity of Point Alpha, symbolised on the ground by a ruined vehicle sprouting the tattered red flag.

And then the entire field erupted like a volcano. The mines exploded in an impressively synchronised wave, tearing apart the tanks, overthrowing them like child toys, rupturing their fuel containers and generating more explosions. It was like the fall of thousands dominoes; the initial explosion was giving birth to dozens of others and so on.

Just as the former supervillain was wondering if it was over, the 'device' exploded. The huge tank with the big alien screaming on top of it had somehow managed to avoid the conflagration, but they were almost at ground zero for the second blast. A column of green and yellow flames roared to the sky, incinerating the tanks and everything in the close vicinity. A storm of metal and debris ravaged the enemy ranks. Inside their trenches, her allies were cowering as best as they could and prayed. Still, the digging they had done protected them from most of the blast. Her insects had not this chance. Despite her precaution in recalling her bugs, thousands were carbonised instantly, darkening the vision she had of the battlefield.

Not that it looked like it was going to be a problem. The orks' mob had completely massacred by the thousands of explosions. With the soldiers' laser weapons and the artillery shooting everything at them now that their trump card had fired, the battle was as good as over. The majority of the monsters' machines were so ruined there were only wrecked metal carcasses remaining. The huge tank where the big ork had screamed his hate was unrecognisable as half of it was spread across the entire valley.

"What the hell was this device?" It took her a moment to realise she had shouted it out loud like a bewildered Winslow student.

"Err...a melta bomb with mixed promethium and Rad material?"

Taylor didn't understand many of the words in this sentence, but had the idea she wouldn't like it if she was able to interpret them. Who had said ignorance was bliss?

Fine, no matter the things which had been used to make this bomb, it had been incredibly effective. There was now a sizeable crater to accompany the multitude of small ones. The horde which had wanted to kill them was now decimated and reeling under the fire of thousands guns. The loss of their leader and their biggest machines had also disheartened them, as more and more were faltering, abandoning their charge for a prudent retreat. Not that it was an easy task under the Guard's bombardment. More and more this land was taking a lunar appearance...was it something like that which had happened during World War I? The orks and the humans here had only been fighting for a few hours...wait a minute why was the sky suddenly full of shooting stars?

From the radio of the armoured transport came a powerful metallic voice, repeated on all transmitters she had insects close from.

"THE QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE NEVER ENDS! HAIL THE OMNISSIAH!"

Seer Maea Teallysis

Maea Teallysis watched with a certain satisfaction the disgraceful flyers of the Mon-keigh ravage the battlefield with their loud and cumbersome weapons. The Orkead threat was leaderless and reeling from its losses, its strength spent against the crude fortifications.

The warriors who had accompanied her for this journey were smiling too under their helmets. Three dangers to their beloved Craftworld had just been rendered utterly powerless. With a precise interception and a minuscule strike of six, three problems to Malan'tai had just been erased. Already the threads of fate were corrected, avoiding the destructive future which would have meant the end of their home.

The Orkead leader which would have conquered and ravaged three Maiden Worlds had met its end in a gigantic funeral pyre. All the big and powerful subordinates of the beast were dead, its armies would be eradicated to the last. The arrogant Mon-keigh commander who in thirty-one cycles would have unleashed a terrible conflict between the Craftworld and the Mon-keigh Imperium was no more. The agent of the Primordial Annihilator who would have led a host of demons at their gates, crippling their fleet, had lost his damned soul and his eternal-cursed life. Thousands of fierce warriors' deaths had just been avoided, their service continuing for aeons to come.

For her first key step on the Path of the Seer, it was a grand victory and she had no doubt the Council of Farseers at home was going to congratulate her.

Why then was she feeling a sliver of doubt watching columns of red-robed Mon-keigh land in their skull-decorated machines? Her visions had showed her the weaknesses of her three targets and the methods to cause their demises without showing attention on her scout force. Was it really that important that none of them had died in the exact manner she had prophesized?

No, it shows I have more to learn on this Path. My skill with the Seer Runes needs hundreds more cycles to be perfected; this is why I have not seen the precise outcome of the battle.

This was the simplest explanation and yet something was missing. Like an echo in the spirit stones acknowledging the time of peril had passed or a Rune showing a constellation of light. The Mon-keigh had won too easily. The Orkead horde had fallen in every trap their enemies had created.

You imagine tangled threads where they aren't.

Infusing three spirit stones with the powers of the Ocean, she channelled it thorough the wraithbone-crafted Seer Runes. The results were kind of disappointing...for the Mon-keigh. In less than a dozen of cycles, they would all be dead. Whether by their own stupidity, arrogance, the stubbornness of their species to fight when there was no victory possible...the warriors who had fought against the Orkead warboss were all going to die.

There are truly as short-sighted as Farseer Vanis said. How this band of primitive apes managed to conquer so many words was mind-shattering.

"Our task here is done. Let the Mon-keigh rejoice before their unavoidable destruction. We are going home."

Seconds later they were all sprinting towards the hidden Nightshade starship which had brought them here, never to return on the place the conflagration of fates had been decided.