The Weaver Option

by Antony444

It is the 45th Millennium and the galaxy is dying. On the verge of victory over the Imperium, the Chaos forces have proven unable to stem the tide against the Great Devourer and its trillions of Tyranids. Only one option: cross the dimensions, find a hero able to triumph where billions have utterly failed and change the course of the past...

50. Black Crusade 10-3

Black Crusade 10.3

The Dragons of Mandragora

The Imperium is doomed, Corax.

This is not the prelude to a long deluge of gloating; it is merely a fact. Since the Siege, the successors of Malcador and the War Council rule an Empire where ignorance is seen as a noble quality and knowledge is viewed with horror. What was common knowledge four thousand years ago has been distorted and crippled, until the truth is nothing more than the shadow of a legend.

I am not Lorgar. I will not pretend either my oath-breaking brothers or I myself didn't play a part in this tragedy. The actions of Horus ensured half of the innovative minds of the Mechanicum went utterly insane faced with the reality of the Immaterium, and the other half was massacred during the next several decades of war. Libraries were torched. Philosopher-kings were mutilated and tortured to insanity by Curze. Whole populations dedicated to the pursuit of medicine and healing the flesh of mortals were poisoned or gassed by the Death Guard. I created the breach in the fledging Webway's defences, beginning the unending cycle which saw trillions of souls sacrificed to power the Astronomican.

All of this has happened, I won't deny it.

The Imperium is still doomed.

Lorgar's idea to reunite the broken Aspects of Slaanesh is ridiculous in the extreme, for the Three won't tolerate such a pathetic rival. But to ensure his efforts truly came to naught, our father's only solution was to let a new Fourth God rise. In the end, Anarchy has to be your weapon, because Mankind has little else to defend itself with.

This is the first critical problem, honestly. Mankind has no defence against the Warp, and the best solution, to evolve a psychic race from the decaying corpse of Order, is crippled by the diseased imperative to keep everything under wraps. The so-called 'Living Saints' aren't the promised salvation the priests believe them to be. They provide an ephemeral moment of hope and protection, but there aren't enough of them.

The second terrible issue is one of governance. While I admit we Primarchs have failed in the great task of convincing our father we were worthy to rule the Imperium by his side, it will be difficult to deny Malcador's replacements are doing a poor job. They are such a pack of ambitious and megalomaniacal jackals I am really surprised the number of Change cultists in their ranks is so limited. And when from time to time a principled and competent High Lord emerges, he or she is stymied by his colleagues or dies before having achieved anything of note. And for this problem, what is your answer? Even a return of my loyal brothers would only be a temporary reprieve. They too can't be everywhere, after all.

Living Saints? While father's current project is more clever and knowledgeable than the previous Champions who preceded her, she remains the exception, not the rule. And her actions have already created plenty of unease and opposition in the monolithic thing the Administratum has become. Change does not work in your favour when entire generations have lived believing nothing must stray a virgule from the sacred texts of bureaucracy.

You can win on a thousand battlefields, bring new reforms, and stabilise the Imperium for a short time. But as soon as the architects of the project die, this weak beacon of hope will disappear. The Imperium may cause additional damage to the Gods while you lash out, there's no point denying it.

But the Immaterium adapts, Corax. In fact, it is already on its way to find solutions to the new schemes of our genitor.

It is perfectly possible this Black Crusade will be defeated. Lorgar too often underestimates what the will of mortal men and women can accomplish when faced with insurmountable challenges.

There is a slim possibility you might be able to kill a second God, though I don't see how. But be it in a century or ten millennia, it will be replaced. And let me tell you, oh Raven Lord: I have explored the depths of the Sea of Souls. There are things there that the Battle of Commorragh has reawakened, and you do not want them in position to claim a Throne.

Unless the Imperium has a vision, it is doomed. And if he had one, our father never shared it with us. No, the Webway and the Imperial Truth were not a vision. They were mere preliminaries, powerful and temporary walls designed to buy time to rebuild Mankind from the ashes of the Age of Strife.

Tzeentch often believes I still have too much faith in him, by the way.

Maybe now that he regains his strength, he will share it with you, or with his new favourite. You might wonder why I care; call it intellectual curiosity. I think even a Daemon Primarch is allowed to have it, after all.

Now let us return to the Black Crusade. Sabotage all the Word Bearers' warships you can. Trick the Dark Apostles you feel like unleashing your vengeance upon.

But do not forget. I am watching you, brother.

I am Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons, Lord of Sortiarius, Slave and Champion of Tzeentch.

And my vision for this galaxy won't be stopped by your actions.

---

The Battle of Mandragora, to give it its official name, was something the Imperium had never had to deal with before. To be sure, the forces of His Most Holy Majesty were hardly novices in the art of attacking xenos homeworlds, as the damned ghosts of several fallen civilisations can testify. And in thousands of campaigns, the siege and offensive equipment of His armies and fleets had proved more than sufficient to break macro-scale fortifications and 'invincible' redoubts.

But none of the forces of the Imperial war machine had any experience fighting a prolonged engagement against the Necron foe. There were rumours of several sabotage operations made as far back as the Great Crusade to prevent Tomb Worlds from fully awakening, but that was all they were: rumours. The data recovered from several top-secret databases weren't about fortified worlds but the Ymga Monolith, which, while arguably a space fortress in its own right, was not the average Necron world.

And if a xenos species had once attacked Mandragora while the Necrons waited for the end of the millions of years of their 'Great Sleep', it had been exterminated and reduced to something no auspex could detect.

Caution being the mother of wisdom, Her Celestial Highness had not mustered small forces for what was to be a critical battle of Operation Stalingrad. Battle Groups Berezina and Dnieper were placed in attack position weeks before the Volga Encounter, and should the Ymga Monolith react as the operational plan called for, Battle Groups Volga and Muskha were mere days away.

For the first time, the Imperium was going to assault a Necron Crownworld in open war, and the frightening performance of the Nerushlatset Dynasty at Commorragh had kept the Navy and Militarum strategists determined to not underestimate their foes. From Arks Mechanicus to super-heavy Baneblades, from brand-new Einherjar-class Dragon Armours to Volkite Blasters, from Thunderbolts to Siege Infantry regiments, the senior officers of four different Battle Groups had asked for excellent weapons, equipment, and soldiers. They had received them.

And on 8.499.310M35, the well-trained units of His Most Holy Majesty faced the elite of the Sautekh Dynasty.

It was a battle all Imperial forces participating in the battle would not forget for as long as they lived.

---

Extract from Operation Stalingrad Volume Two: The Inferno of Mandragora, by General Bastian, 210M41.

Transmitted: Site Alpha, Conclave of Cypra Mundi

Received: [REDACTED]

Mission time: 5.499.310M35

Telepathic Duct: [CLASSIFIED]

Reference: Ordo Hereticus/AVE93111C

Author: Lady Inquisitor Atlas

Priority: Vermillion

Unfortunately, it seems your hypothesis was right. While the heretics associated with the Fallen Power of Depravation and Debauchery were annihilated by the Divine Wrath of His Most Holy Majesty during the Emperor's Hour, the rest of the heretics were able to recoup their previous losses and spread again. Worse, the resources they have revealed to possess, be it in currency or heretical knowledge, are several levels of magnitude greater than the cogitator estimates predicted.

The good news is that the Janus Protocol works. As unhappy as I was to reveal the true might of our Ordo on Cypra Mundi, it was better that than to allow two Naval Dynasties to continue spreading their corruption in the midst of the Segmentum Fortress. The power of the Aethergold Crystal you gave me was a massive boon too; without it, I would not have been able to locate, quarantine, and execute the pernicious Cult of the Nine Enigmas in two standard days.

Now for the bad news. While the heretical armada has come nowhere near the Sector of Cypra Mundi, their fell influence can nonetheless all too easily be felt. The capital world has experienced five Gamma-level uprisings in the last one hundred standard hours, despite the numerous public sermons of the Cardinal and his Pontifexes, several exceptional deliveries of grain, and the presence of five veteran regiments. Across the Sector, two Alpha-level rebellions are raging. The Ho-Tyr one is the most problematic, for it immobilises the Battlegroup using the facilities there until the traitors and heretics are put down and made into impressive examples of the consequences of treason.

Secondly, the alliance of the rogue psykers' covens having sold their souls to [REDACTED] and the [REDACTED] cults worshipping the Word Bearers has, contrary to our hopes, only grown stronger. The infiltrated agents I was able to recover before termination of the cults were unable to explain the motives behind this decision to me, but I fear that for now, it will behove us to purge the two heads of this heretical snake with equal fervour and determination.

I, as always, remain a humble servant of His Will.

P.S: I know the influence of the Ordo is still limited, but another Aethergold crystal would be much appreciated.

---

"After Mandragora, I have to admit that the prospect of invading the Eye of Terror doesn't seem as frightening as it did before." Quote attributed to General Dundee, 310M35.

"Guns. Bigger and better guns." Response of General Groener when a Tech-Priest asked him what the Imperial Guard would have benefitted from at Mandragora, 310M35.

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

The Golden Crown

8.499.310M35

Thought for the day: Faith grows from the barrel of a gun.

Ancient Elohim

There was something exalting about flying Elohim had always loved, and this had not stopped because he was encased in an Einherjar-B Dragon Armour. If anything, that had magnified it: the machine-spirit growled with ease when it was propelled by electromagnetic catapult like they just had been, and the idea of putting all this long training to use was not a bad prospect either.

But for all this excitement, there was still an important duty to do.

After a quick evasion to avoid the threatening green shot of a lone turret, the Red Wings Space Marine arrived in position over what was one of the critical energy nodes of the Necron shields protecting the seemingly-limitless rows of enemy warships waiting in their lifeless docks.

Elohim had been successful in ninety-seven percent of the simulations in the last year, and the scenarios imagined by the Tech-Priests and the Captains of the Blood had all included severe opposition. With only a couple of turrets, the real operation was almost underwhelming.

The energy weapon shot from the 'maw' of his Einherjar-B, a laser specifically put into production for this operation using blueprints from some Martian vault, tore apart the silvery metal and slammed into the crystalline wall protecting the energy sources and struck the vulnerable devices behind it. One second, there was an intact node. The next, a monumental explosion engulfed the Necron facilities.

This explosion was just the first of hundreds, as the other Dragon Armours, Quetzalcoatl, Saphira, Ancalagon, to name a few of the different classes, completed their runs, and delivered their first greetings to the xenos who thought it was funny to genocide humanity because someone had whined to his slave-masters.

"Shields are down on the entire Golden Crown," the Captain of the Brothers of the Red announced in a satisfied voice. "Dragon Wings withdraw, the Battlefleet is about to disperse the Kane Particles. Excellent work, all of you."

The machine-spirit growled like a big predator, satisfied and – dare he say it? – almost disappointed that the whole affair had lasted so little time.

The minutes passed, and the entire xenos structure was shaken by explosions which seemed to only grow in strength as the Mechanicus and Astartes warships delivered torpedoes, lance salvos, and all sorts of conventional and unconventional firepower onto facilities barely having begun to awaken.

"Kane Particles about to detonate in 3...2...1...MARK!"

The inferno which was familiar to everyone having watched the Battle of Pavia burst into existence. Immediately, an automated orbital facility nearly the size of an orbital plate in its own right disappeared in the holy flames the judgement of the Emperor had chosen to manifest itself into for today.

"A fitting end for those xenos," his wingman, a Space Marine of the Golden Sons, approved.

The machine-spirit suddenly roared in anger, and Elohim was too good to not take the warning seriously. In a millisecond, the shield of his flying protection was active again and he pivoted to face the structure they had been told to call 'Golden Crown'.

Right in time to see a miniature black hole swallow the inferno created by the Kane Particles.

"By the feathers of the Primarch! What was that?"

Elohim almost wanted to believe it was a hallucination, but everywhere his sensors reached, the fire spread by Battle Groups Dnieper and Berezina was swallowed by black holes or struck by storms of green energy.

It was impossible, completely impossible. This was technology even the most arrogant Tech-Priests had never pretended to master...and yet it was here.

He was a Red Wing Space Marine. In one second, all his training reasserted itself. As did his priorities.

"Control! Status of the xenos shipyards!"

"Shipyards...by the breath of Baal! The shipyards are only slightly damaged! I repeat the shipyards are only slightly damaged! Battleship activations! Battleship activations! Ten...twenty...forty...over sixty Cairn-class Battleships are in preliminary-activation mode!"

The count rose second after second. But Elohim had already made his decision.

"Dragon Wings! Form on me. It seems..." the count finally stabilised at one hundred and seventy-five Battleships. "It seems the xenos had more surprises than our information suggested. All weapon limitations are off. We must destroy these monsters before they're able to bring their defensive countermeasures online."

He didn't need to tell them what would happen if they weren't successful. Even with the reinforcements of Lady Weaver soon to come, the Imperium couldn't fight that many Necron capital warships. It wouldn't be a battle, it would be a one-sided massacre.

"We are with you, cousin," the Imperial Fist squadron commander answered.

"For the Omnissiah and His Chosen," the Mechanicus Skitarii commander prayed.

"CHARGE!" the sole Black Templar of the formation bellowed.

And they did.

One thousand Dragon Armours, the veterans of countless campaigns, taken from multiple war zones to receive these swift and deadly draconic mounts. One thousand beings, supported by one thousand fiery machine-spirits, and with two massive Battlefleets providing a storm of annihilation in support. A storm which partially disappeared in the same black holes which had neutralised the first inferno wave.

But it was not ammunition wasted. No guns targeted them as they accelerated to place themselves in firing positions.

The sight was one worthy of several nightmares. Fifteen kilometres-long xenos hulls were bringing their systems up to full power, the metallic ties linking them to the shipyards breaking or disappearing one by one.

"For all the oaths we have sworn!" Elohim barked. "FIRE!"

---

Ark Mechanicus El Dorado

Archmagos Prime Gastaph Hediatrix

"Praise the Omnissiah! The Dragon attack force has destroyed more than fifty percent of the Battleship force and the defensive system which prevented us from inflicting wide-scale destruction!"

Gastaph Hediatrix allowed himself a very discreet sigh of relief before acknowledging the report of the tactical officer.

"So they did," the Archmagos Primus nodded, "and it cost them dearly."

Of a wave of one thousand-plus Dragon Armours – it should have been twelve hundred, but other commitments had decreased the available number – two hundred and sixty had died to inflict this terrible blow to the Necrons.

"Finish them."

Seconds later, his own Ark Mechanicus and dozens of capital ships transformed the xenos shipyard into something which wouldn't be of any military use for centuries. The remaining Necron Battleships joined those Lady Weaver had destroyed at Volga in death's embrace.

"How did they find something to neutralise the Kane-generated flames so quickly?"

"I suspect it wasn't a case of 'find'." The Martian-born Tech-Priest affirmed as he analysed the space battle raging around him and arrived at unpleasant conclusions. "The xenos are jamming the entire zone."

"Yes, Archmagos. We don't-"

"We are up against someone competent." He interrupted, not caring about the apologies. "The Necron commander has understood that, since they haven't yet figured out how to crush us via their own teleportation, the priority is to deny us the same ability. That way, we can't send more Space Marines onto the Golden Crown. And while we have destroyed the main shipyard sections, we have barely crippled between thirteen and sixteen percent of the Golden Crown's industrial capacity."

The pre-battle simulations had estimated the devastating assault would be enough to wipe out over sixty percent, if his data-memories were correct.

"The Astartes can still deploy via Drop Pods." One of his promising subordinates suggested.

"No, they can't." Gastaph Hediatrix was tempted to curse as he saw the identification codes of only half of the Deathwatch extraction vehicles arrive on his tri-dimensional command screens. "They have suffered enough casualties that if we use them now, we won't have a reserve of them left in thirty minutes. Prepare the Third Skitarii Legion for an orbital assault."

Two Frigates which had advanced to provide cover fire for the retreating Dragon Armours were wiped from existence. Judging by how fast the slaughter was, there would be no survivors.

"Archmagos, with all due respect, while a Skitarii Legion is used to heavy opposition in the noble goals of the Quest for Knowledge, the Necrons are going to reinforce their 'Golden Crown'. We are likely speaking of hundreds of thousands of casualties-"

"Millions of casualties are likely," the Voice of Mars among the Nyx Council emotionlessly corrected. "It is a price I am willing to pay, and so is Battle Group Dnieper. These structures are not only shipyards; they are weapon production centres, research facilities for new terrible technologies, and troop mustering plates. The more are left intact today, the more trillions of Tech-Priests and servants of the Omnissiah are going to die in the decades to come because we didn't destroy them in time."

It wasn't an easy choice, but it was the only strategic decision that would allow this campaign not to end in a complete disaster.

Deep inside his partially mechanical body, the Archmagos felt a brief moment of amusement as certain Magi suddenly realised why he and his fellow Archmagos had been chosen to lead the brutal assault against the Necron Crownworld.

Their competence undoubtedly helped, but above all, it was because they already knew how bad the military situation could become if things went wrong and they hadn't flinched. They were the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and they had calculated how dangerous the Sautekh Dynasty would prove to be for the Imperium of Mankind if it was allowed to conquer the stars again. The Golden Crown was their primary instrument of galactic conquest: it had to be destroyed – capture was impossible given the current conditions – if they wanted the grand design of the Omnissiah to survive in the Eastern Fringe.

"The Third Legion is prepared. Beta-Kappa assault pattern." The Magos of Nyx shook his head. "It is going to be a new Commorragh, isn't it?"

"No," Gastaph Hediatrix was prompt to...make sure his subordinate did not misunderstand. "It is going to be worse. The Necrons have a military reaction rate beyond anything the Eldar ever showed, and we have already seen six unknown weapons within one hour. They have neutralised the Kane particles and our teleportation assets."

A lot of green flashes characteristic of Necron teleportation arrived on the inner xenos plates which had been left untouched by the bombardment. The auspexes of the El Dorado weren't able to conduct at a precise tally, but the Archmagos knew this meant hundreds of thousands of metallic xenos materialising to protect the Golden Crown's remaining facilities.

"The Battleline will advance. We must support the transports and the assault of the Third Skitarii Legion as best as we can."

No, this wasn't Commorragh. But as Doom Scythes teleported just outside maximal effective torpedo range, the Voice of Mars promised himself this enemy was going to know defeat too.

Four days. He had to destroy the Golden Crown and hold for four days...it sounded far simpler twelve hours ago.

---

The Golden Crown

Overlord Imotekh the Stormlord

Imotekh wasn't angry when he teleported onto the Golden Crown.

He was murderously enraged.

Where were the killer-sentinels and the Battle-Reapers? Where were the Annihilation Batteries? Where were the Tomb-Towers?

He knew the answers before anyone responded, of course. They were respectively: missing, deactivated, unavailable for another year or two, and missing several key components.

The few Sautekh Overlords and Nemesors regularly awakened to maintain the defences of Mandragora had grown criminally lax while the majority of the Dynasty was sleeping. No wonder enemy races believed they had a chance to successfully launch an assault upon the Golden Crown. If he hadn't activated the emergency measures, there would be nothing but cinders left.

"Mighty Stormlord, I am honoured by the-"

"You are the senior Nemesor in charge, I assume?" the veteran of the War in Heaven didn't waste the energy turning his head would require. There had been an Overlord, but he had been torn apart in the first wave of attacks and it would be many Mandragoran years before he was allowed to regain a body.

"I am! It is my greatest pleasure to-"

Imotekh clicked his fingers.

The closest Lychguard decapitated the incompetent before he could pollute the Golden Crown with his idiocy any further.

"This humiliating series of defeats has lasted long enough," the Overlord declared in a voice so cold the surviving Nemesors snapped to attention, believing – correctly – they were next on the chopping block if they didn't correct their mistakes. "Phaeron Djosakhat is aware of your failures, and let me tell you, he is very unhappy you have allowed the enemy to destroy our mothballed fleets. So am I. You are going to earn your redemption by charging at the enemy formations trying to gain important footholds on the Golden Crown. If you fail, you'd better self-destruct your Necrodermis bodies and your engram back-ups, because I assure you it will be far less unpleasant than what I have in mind for you."

The Stormlord turned towards the Oppressor and all his subordinates who had arrived a moment ago.

"The same is true for all of you. For all the incompetence shown by the Szarekhan Dynasty and the unpredictability of the vermin born from the Krorks' spores, your battles were fought and lost in a manner which makes me ashamed to be a Sautekh."

"We will...try to earn our redemption by slaughtering these parodies of our glorious Necrodermis bodies!"

"The very fact you have only scorn for an enemy which has repeatedly kicked in your skulls does not give me great confidence in your endeavour," Imotekh retorted acidly. "But since you volunteered, who am I to deny you the chance?"

And to say he had believed Thakmatar a capable tactician. No, losing against these...these 'Orks' was not a humiliation by itself, but if the Szarekhan Crypteks had not initiated a mass recall of his entire fleet, he would have perished along with millions of Necrons, because he had forgotten to watch his flanks.

"Take five Destroyer and three infantry phalanxes. Advance and retake the Hyper-Alchemical Weapon Centre. I will send the Scarabs and Tomb Stalkers as soon as they arrive from Mandragora. And this time...Do. Not. Fail."

He would have dearly loved picking apart the flaws and the monumental tactical and strategic errors, but there wasn't any time.

"The Royal Phalanxes will advance under my command, supported by five Monoliths. I want the Night and Doom Scythes preceding my offensive in a twin-headed snake formation. What are you doing standing immobile? Go to the reserve hangar bays and rouse the machines! You! The Arks are not going to come here by merely staring at a command node! Where are the reserve Crypteks? They have to activate the chrono-reversal before time-dilatations become impossible in this battle! I want the status updates of all the Orbs transmitted to my command! I want-"

Slowly, too slowly, the war machine of the Sautekh Dynasty finally started to move again.

But it was still unacceptably slow. Even for those having spent several years fighting and calculating, it was an appalling pace of operations.

Imotekh banished his anger and barked new orders. It was now a race between him and the enemy, and he didn't intend to lose it.

---

The Warp

Warp Trail HJ-b512I

Super-Battleship Tizca's Revenge

Approximately 9.501.310M35

Magnus the Red

"The Battle of Mandragora has begun."

No surprise showed on his brother's face. Magnus had not expected any.

"Really," the Primarch of the Words Bearers drawled. "And Weaver?"

"She has almost reached the system," the Lord of the Planet of Sorcerers replied. "You could locate her yourself if you tried, you know. The light of the Aethergold artefact is impossible to miss where it shines in the Sea of Souls."

"Unlike some," the Seventeenth Primarch rose from his throne to approach the communication mirror allowing them to speak with each other like they were in the same room despite being in the Warp, "I do not have a greater blessing from the Architect of Fate to hide my presence from him. And I have other sorcerous rituals I must keep active."

Magnus's sole response was allowing a smirk to form on his face. Allies they may be, but he didn't work for free, and neither did his sons.

"How certain are you of this battle's outcome?" Lorgar asked at last.

"Not very," he admitted more freely than he would in front of someone not of his dysfunctional family. "The Necrons have activated their world's null-fields, and though they don't have enormous power or anti-scrying capability, they're...a major nuisance. I have also felt something else. Something significant is going to happen at Mandragora. Something which is going to sever many threads. And no," Magnus waved theatrically, "I am confident it won't be one of Weaver's actions this time."

"This could prove quite problematic for our Great Plan," it was his 'Great Plan', the plural wasn't necessary. But why bother informing him of this boring detail? "We are still many days away from our target."

"One of the squadrons about to leave the Maelstrom could reach Mandragora long before the opening of the Tear of Nightmares."

"Assuming they manage to escape the vigilance of the Maelstrom's sentinels," Lorgar didn't dismiss the strategic advice, but he didn't exactly endorse it either. "I will only give them their orders once I am assured they haven't disappointed me...again. The fiasco with Samech has proved several of my Ghalmek Dark Apostles can only be trusted to remain in their cathedrals while the fate of the galaxy is about to be decided."

Well, it was him who had said it. He wasn't going to go against a Primarch's opinion of his own Legion...especially when the Urizen's viewpoint was largely accurate in this case.

"The forces of the Imperium at Mandragora are going to fight for their very lives," the Fifteenth Primarch began. It wasn't a reassurance, but it was revealing minor information he had picked up on via subtle scrying and second-tier slaves. "Whoever wins that exercise of mutual slaughter, it is not going to be quick, and this time, it won't be a one-sided massacre like Commorragh. Most of the threads I have done my best to influence give us enough time to secure all necessary conditions for the Tear ritual. Either the Battle of Mandragora will still rage while we are victorious, or the Necron pyramid will escape once more. No matter the outcome, we win."

He would win.

"And Corax?"

Ah, so that was the real reason his brother wanted to speak with him so urgently.

"I don't know where Corax is," the Daemon Prince lied blatantly. Who could blame him? After so many 'truths', lying was somewhat a mark of favour and a proof of his skill. "I feel his presence among the Grand Armada, but locating him precisely has proven to be...frustrating."

"And you mock my capacity to not locate someone or something half a galaxy away?"

Magnus showed a sign of irritation, not making one would be tantamount to telling Lorgar he should start developing some heavy suspicions.

"Weaver does not exactly try to hide from my sight," in fact, with her luminous Pylon, the new favourite of their father was doing the total opposite. Between the song of her sugar-addicted insect, several Aethergold items, and her own presence of Sacrifice, the 'Living Saint' was broadcasting her presence so powerfully that Magnus was sure Tzeentch had assigned nine Lords of Change watching her for the rest of her life as punishment. "On this point, she and our estranged brother can't be more different."

It was a statement of authority and a challenge.

Magnus applauded the sheer brazen guts it took for someone to do that...and had no intention to answer it. If Ka'Bandha and several others wanted to fight her in personal combat, good for them. The Primarch of the Thousand Sons wasn't going to try his luck against her, thank you very much. The Pale Naga was a clear example that while something of his power had an advantage, it wasn't as big as the servant of Slaanesh had believed, and there were mutilations no one, not even something possessing the power of a Primarch and a God, could heal easily from.

Besides, why would he go challenge the successor of Sanguinius when it would result in a decrease of opportunities, not an increase?

"And of course, the Ravenlord has allied himself with the last members of your little rat problem."

This one had been quite fun to observe, honestly. Yes, he had invented a ritual to rid one planet of its rodent population, power of Anarchy or not...but Magnus had decided to wait until Lorgar begged him to intervene. It had been a minor surprise to realise Aurelian hadn't at any moment intended to ask for it...perhaps because it was giant, furry, treacherous, backstabbing rats.

Bah. Lorgar didn't know it, but he and his forces had provided plenty of amusement to the Gods and everyone with the eyes to watch.

"He will pay for that."

"Perhaps, brother," Magnus feigned to agree for a few seconds, "but in the meantime, he's wreaking havoc in your Cruisers. How many did he destroy since we left Cadia behind us? Five?"

The communication was cut shortly after, and once Magnus was assured no one save Tzeentch could hear him, he exploded in laughter. Truly, if he had known participating in a Black Crusade was so amusing, he would have left his Tower a couple of millennia ago...

---

Grand Cruiser Holy Persuasion

Dark Apostle Oriax the Persuader

"He was killed WHERE?"

"Your Illuminated Presence..." the mortal was shaking like a being in the throes of possession now, "we found him dead in the toilets, the bomb was hidden...err..."

Oriax couldn't control his rage anymore and drew his holy chainsword, an all-encompassing hatred seizing him and pushing him to vent his loathing.

When he returned to a calmer mood, the dozens of mortals who had been prostrated before him were scattered in so many pieces he couldn't discern which appendage had belonged to whom.

Oriax didn't care. Scum of the lower decks like those, there always were more waiting in the depths of the Holy Persuasion ready to step in to fill the shoes of their dead predecessors. This wasn't the case with the Legionnaires under his command, no matter how young they were, which was why he had not killed them for their not-so-insignificant number of failures.

"By the holy temples of Sicarus," the Persuader began when he was certain his rage wasn't going to explode like it just had, "I should kill you here and now."

"But Lord Dark Apostle, how could we imagine the Coryphaus was going to be ambushed in the toilet? It was-"

"I do not want to hear the word 'toilet' in my presence anymore," Oriax hissed, "and I notice that for all your protestations, the heretical rat managed to escape...again."

"It plunged into the sewer-conduit before we even entered the...ambush site! We couldn't follow it, Lord Apostle!"

Why, o' Blessed Lorgar, why was he given so many morons to serve as his armoured fist? Surely a Dark Apostle of his towering experience deserved a far more prestigious and experienced command!

"Idiot!" he snarled. "I know very well Astartes can't manoeuvre inside the conduits of the Holy Persuasion. But if you had studied the design of my ship like you were supposed to, you would know this conduit leads to Section H-5, and from there, the water-recycling facilities and hydroponic culture's section. It was there you should have rushed to catch the heretical creature, or failing this, contacting the closest force to that compartment to ensure a squad was ready to ambush it as soon as it emerged. But you did nothing, and it is your fault the assassin-rat has escaped again!"

The more he thought about it, the more Oriax believed the only utility of these unworthy souls masquerading as Word Bearers was to be Possessed and then thrown into the thickest fighting he could find. That way they would inflict plenty of damage to the dogs of the False Emperor, and it would allow him to gain some influence in the eyes of Kor Phaeron.

"You are the definition of failure. As long as you are unable to catch and kill the rat, get out of my sight."

The bridge of the Grand Cruiser emptied quickly in the next few seconds; save for the slaves taken from Volscani and plenty of other raided worlds, and the Mechanicum machine-overseers, the hundred-plus Space Marines and other 'rat-catching' groups departed.

Good riddance.

Oriax didn't remove his helmet, he wasn't able to anymore, but his disappointment was such he deeply wanted to tear it off, if only to place his real skin against an altar and beseech the Pantheon for new solutions.

He knew Anarchy was a test of the Three because the Word Bearers had failed to read the signs and intervene at Commorragh, but the huge expansion of the Legion made to resolve the problem was creating major problems of its own. It didn't matter that there were tens of thousands of new Word Bearer Legionnaires if their minds weren't dedicated to the Book of Lorgar and they failed at the simplest military tasks.

The sound of someone – or something – striking a metallic door forced him to interrupt his meditation.

"When I say to get out of my sight, I mean it, I do not want to be disturbed-"

And then his gaze met the black eyes of Corvus Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard.

"Ah." Not exactly the most eloquent answer he could give, but surprise could and did impact even the mind of a transhuman Chosen of Lorgar. "I suppose you've come to kill me, then."

"I have come," the voice was barely above a whisper, just as numerous slaves and Mechanicum automatons fell, decapitated, "to inform you the thousands of Legionnaires you keep in the lower decks have somehow learned there is a vacancy for the position of Coryphaus, and now they intend to choose the winner by a death tournament in the cages."

"That is-" Yes, this was ridiculous. The Seventeenth Legion wasn't the World Eaters, they didn't choose their Coryphaus like that. "Your work, I take it?"

"It didn't take much," the shadowy son of the False Emperor shrugged. "A whisper here, a whisper there. And while they fight, your slaves are rising in rebellion around the Enginarium. Module-capacitors for your Lances are going missing as we speak. Plasma conduits are going to have some unfortunate leaks."

"This is going to be your last victory, Ravenlord!" Oriax shouted. "Blessed Lorgar will know what has happened there in a few minutes, and this ship will be isolated, quarantined, and then destroyed! Your death and those of the rodents you have allied yourself with are inevitable!"

"He won't. As we speak, your Urizen believes he is hunting me in the bowels of the excrement pit you are calling the Trisagion. Magnus could disabuse him of that notion, but I have a feeling the Cyclops won't bother to intervene unless I target his precious last sons." A Lightning Claw hit something behind the hololith, too quick for his eyes to follow. "Now I have a gift to give you."

"More bombs with too many red wires?"

"No," and for the first time, the Primarch smiled...Oriax preferred he wouldn't have done that, it was more frightening than his conversational face. "And for your information, there is no way to conventionally deactivate a Skaven bomb. They simply don't see the point of not blowing something up once it is set to explode."

"You consort with heretics of the foulest sort!"

"In this galaxy," Corax replied, "we are all guaranteed to be heretics for someone. Catch."

A little cube was thrown, and Oriax caught it without effort...one second later, a hololithic image of one of the Corpse-Emperor's blind priests materialised and began to speak.

"Greetings, my children. I welcome you into the peaceful and loving embrace of our Lord and Saviour, the God-Emperor..."

"When he stops speaking, you will have to recite his entire sermon without a single mistake...but I'm sure that with your eidetic memory, that won't be a problem, right?"

It would, and the Primarch knew it. Certain acts and words would enrage the entities he had bargained with, no matter how insincere he was uttering the sentences.

"Praise the Emperor, for his Sacrifice is the salvation of Mankind..."

"I WILL KILL YOU CORAX!"

But the Primarch had already disappeared, leaving only a cascade of black feathers...and a green-lit bomb which might activate at any moment.

---

22nd MOST WANTED BEING OF THE IMPERIUM

DEAD ONLY

KRIEG ACERBUS

'THE AXEMASTER'

'THE PRINCE OF NIGHT'

TRAITOR SPACE MARINE

PIRATE ADMIRAL

PIRATE SLAVER

TERROR-BRINGER SWORN TO THE ARCHENEMY

EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS

EXTREMIS-ALPHA THREAT

ENDANGERMENT OF ALPHA-CLASS NAVY ASSETS AND BELOW ACCEPTABLE TO ELIMINATE THE THREAT

WARNING: NOTHING SHORT OF AN ALPHA-SIZED BATTLEFLEET CAN COUNTER THIS TRAITOR'S FLEET

REWARD: 800 TRILLION THRONE GELTS, 1 SECTOR OVERLORDSHIP, TITLE OF AVENGER OF ANSELADON, OVATION PROCLAIMED IN FIVE DIFFERENT SECTORS WITH THE ACCOMPANYING PRIVILEGES, 1 STARFORT, PERMANENT ASSISTANCE OF A NAVY BATTLEGROUP, 1 MEDIUM-SIZED CRUISER SHIPYARD, ETC...

---

Battleship In Terror's Name

Terror Lord Krieg Acerbus

Every Astartes needed a place to rest as long as he didn't reach the apotheosis the Gods bestowed upon their greatest Champions, and the Night Lords were no exception to this rule. In fact, given how murderous and prone to murder (and violence) the orphaned sons of Konrad Curze could be on an average day, they required a resting place and a back-up one...just in case someone managed to trash the first and the owner happened to survive it.

The private quarters of any warband commander were thus extremely difficult to access for anyone not keyed into the security systems. Mechanicum psy-tech, animals picked up on the most lethal of Death Worlds, millennia-old sorcerous wards, old-fashioned laser-filled corridors, and acid dispersers to name just a few; there was no shortage of things a clever veteran could use to protect his most precious treasure: his life.

At the moment, Krieg Acerbus, Axemaster of the Night Lords, Prince of Night, senior commander of all Night Lords involved in the 5th Black Crusade, was secure in the knowledge he had clearly not protected his rooms enough. What good was it to have Nostramo blood-bats guarding the entrance if there was an Alpha Legionnaire smiling smugly at you in the middle of your innermost sanctum?

"No one save my personal servitors and slaves is authorised to enter my quarters without my permission," Krieg growled. "You are neither. But since you have arrived here unarmed and without raising a single alarm, I will give you the courtesy of delivering the oh-so-fascinating words you clearly have prepared. Speak carefully, son of Alpharius, for they will be your last."

"I have come," the smaller and scaly-armoured Chaos Marine claimed, "as an emissary of my God."

The blue-green theme the Hydra was so infamous for disappeared, replaced by a strange combination of black and white with a horned bestial head coming into existence where the multi-headed snake should be.

"It appears the rumours about Arkos and your detached commands were true. You have gone utterly mad."

"Mad?" the Astartes eyes were suddenly far less innocent than they were a second ago. "Tell me, Heir of Curze, was it not madness to follow the orders of the Night Haunter when it was obvious his grasp on reality had long since ceased to be?"

Krieg threw his fist without thinking. But his opponent evaded the blow, contorting his body as if his power armour could be twisted like one of those unique clothing materials the Assassinorum used for its killer-slaves.

The white-black Alpha Legionnaire could have exploited the gap in his defence. He didn't.

There was no choice but to answer the infuriating question.

"You know about the sire-bond. You know we had no choice but to obey, as long as we considered him our Lord."

"No, you didn't," the other mocked him. "Spare me the false pretences. You always were a legion of carrion animals, Axemaster. The only reason you stayed by the Night Haunter's side was to claim his throne when he would name his Heir. Except he didn't, and when the Lion came for your heads, the Eighth Legion broke."

"Spare me the mockery," he imitated the tone of the infiltrator. "You are in no position to insult me, given how dispersed and broken your own Legion is. We fell far as our sire went mad and let that assassin kill him, but at least he went to his death knowing what he fought for, and he left us with a mission! Can you say the same, false serpent?"

The grin and the arrogant attitude were no more. The white-black not-snake was baring his fangs after his judgment.

"Maybe," it was obvious the word was uttered as a substitute for 'go to the Eye of Terror and die in it', "but it is not question of comparing our two Legions today. It is a question of reuniting them. And while we have taken the first steps on its path, it is clear yours could benefit from...some divine help. Fortunately for you, Lord Malal is a kind and generous Master."

"The Beast of Anarchy," the Prince of the Night scoffed, noticing there had been a twinge of power behind the name. Arkos' betrayal and the change of allegiance of his warband had undone some of the power behind Sicarus' ritual, then. "If he promises a Legion, it will be one where the title of commander will mean nothing, since outside of my sight, lieutenants will try to usurp me no matter their oaths and the pacts tying them to me." The warband he commanded wasn't exactly stable, but it would be a model of order compared to if he allowed the rat deity to sink its claws into the souls of his murder-packs. "And besides, your proposal conveniently forgets that in the Great Game, the Pantheon of Chaos only tolerates one Legion per God."

This had been one of the earliest discoveries for those who assiduously studied the Great Game. The Gods were jealous, and didn't tolerate anyone breaking up the equilibrium between their factions, this Black Crusade was evidence of that made manifest in flesh and metal. But even after Commorragh, this rule had been maintained and enforced, and Krieg wasn't stupid: if that 'accord' survived where other things didn't, it was better to not push in this direction.

"The Emperor's Children were bound to Slaanesh. The Death Guard is sworn to the Grandfather. The World Eaters are the collared hounds of the Blood God. The Thousand Sons were duped by the Architect of Fate. Check, little snake. The allegiances are clear. If you try to convert the Alpha Legion to the worship of rats and utter disorder, you may be able to succeed...but not if you spread your infection to two."

"Who says our Most Anarchic Lord intends to limit Himself to two Legions? We are the rising power, the army which will submerge the galaxy as you have exhausted your strength! We are the bloodied knife on the abandoned battlefields! We are the shadows in the Underhives! We are-"

"You are raving mad." Krieg Acerbus finished while drawing a Plasma Gun he had once taken from the corpse of a Word Bearer in the Legion Wars. "And my warband won't follow that abomination of a deity, thank you."

This time, the Alpha Legionnaire didn't evade in time...in fact, he didn't evade at all.

"Our victory is unavoidable..." the dying Astartes, at that moment, had his weakening voice filled with such fanaticism he could have been a Word Bearer. "Praise Malal!"

It took a second shot in the head to silence him forever.

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

Ark Mechanicus Terminus Technicus

8.503.310M35

Archmagos Dominus Executor Samartian Eta-Eta

"Archmagos, we have lost all contact with the third War Cohort of the Second Macroclade." The closest Magos Dominus announced. "Vid-cast recordings suggest they were caught in a trap consisting of several millions of these 'Canoptek Scarabs'."

"Then they are with the Omnissiah now," Samartian answered. "The first Macroclade is now at risk of being outflanked. Order them to take defensive positions two hundred metres back from-"

The hololith flashed to report the destruction of another Light Cruiser.

"What hit our fleet this time?" the Archmagos commanding Battle Group Dnieper inquired.

"It looks like a God Engine-sized Accelerator Cannon, Archmagos," one of his subordinates faithfully reported. "How were they able to open the whole structure to fire it, I haven't-"

"They are bringing twenty thousand of their infantry warriors against the second Macroclade! Hover-vehicles detected in great numbers!"

"Magos Theta! How long until the Dragon Armours have finished with the Doom Scythes?"

"I...I'm afraid it will take a few more hours, Archmagos."

That wasn't what Samartian Eta-Eta wanted to hear. But before he could remark upon it, new threats arose. Two more Destroyers were destroyed, at least it was 'only' Cobras this time.

"Archmagos, the number of dead Skitarii has reached half a million. You wanted to be warned when-"

"Yes, yes I did." Using his mechadendrites to tap on his three-dimensional command table was not soothing at all. "How is Archmagos Hediatrix's Battle Group faring?"

"They have not lost a Battleship so far, Archmagos," the 'unlike us' weighed heavily despite not being vocalized, "but their progression towards the heart of the Golden Crown has also been stopped for more than three hours. And their proportional damage in Fighter and Dragon Wings has been above fifty percent."

The report wasn't over, obviously. The bad patterns and disasters were relayed at an unprecedented pace.

"Between their losses and our own, we must have lost an entire Legion in this hellish war zone."

"Yes, Archmagos. And our space losses haven't exactly been insignificant either. Still, the Necron fleet mustered outside maximal range of the Nova Cannons appears unwilling to face our fire. And the Ymga Monolith hasn't moved a kilometre beyond what is necessary to keep its orbit around the star of Mandragora."

"We can only thank the Omnissiah the xenos are waiting," Samartian noted coldly. "Though I don't suppose they're going to wait much longer, as the attrition saps our naval strength."

"The Necron...surviving fleet...remains inferior in numbers and tonnage to ours."

"That would be more reassuring if their ground commander wasn't anticipating every new battle-protocol we implement on the Golden Crown."

More bad news flowed into his Noosphere command levels. More Skitarii and Electro-Priests killed. The Necron weapons were not giving light wounds, not with the kind of molecular-disintegrating effect everything from the smallest infantry gun to the towering anti-air pylons were equipped with. If it touched something vital, it didn't matter if you were organic or metallic, you were dead or so close there was no difference.

Samartian had not reached his current rank by being a defeatist. Maybe some lesser servants of the Omnissiah arrived to high-level ranks in lesser Forges, but Atar-Median had always struggled, endured, and fought on since its creation. Their very existence had been an insult to Mars, and they had paid dearly for it more than four thousand years ago on the black sands of Isstvan V.

Atar-Median still lived. And if the Forges of their homeworld had survived, it was because like many long-lived organisations, they could and they had turned defeat into victory millions of times. Sometimes it had even been him in command.

But today...today Samartian wasn't seeing a path to victory.

Worse, he had the disagreeable impression the enemy commander was playing with him, countering his favourite tactics and protocols before he gave the first command which would lead to their execution.

A part of his still organic brain insisted nobody could be that good.

The other part of his brain and the visions of his Skitarii getting slaughtered by the tens of thousands told him that 'that good' or not, he was outmanoeuvred no less than twenty-seven times in the last hour.

He had failed the Chosen of the Omnissiah. Samartian knew Gastaph Hediatrix was failing in a similar manner, but that was no consolation.

Lady Weaver had trusted him with command of this Battle Group, and he wasn't validating the confidence she had placed in him.

One Battleship, one Battlecruiser, one War Barque, four Cruisers, seven Light Cruisers, twenty-one Corvettes, thirty-four Destroyers, and forty-five Frigates destroyed with all hands, that was the sum of his losses in less than two days of battle, if one didn't count the hundreds of Fighters and Bombers, and he was unable to secure the plate-sized sections of the Golden Crown he had landed troops onto...or finish the sabotage and destructions which had begun with the first attack wave.

The Golden Crown of the Sautekh Dynasty was heavily damaged, there was no question about it. But there was 'heavily damaged' and there was 'crippled for centuries'. With twenty percent of its sections destroyed beyond even the Necron's capability to repair and twenty-five percent heavily damaged, this superstructure of xenos industry was far from doomed...as the tens of millions of abominable constructs released every hour or so proved.

All of this led him to a single, inescapable conclusion. The orders of the Chosen of the Omnissiah had left him a wide range of options, both to interpret his command relationship with the 'Voice of Mars' and the attack protocols implemented. They however left no doubt as what he was supposed to do when facing an unwinnable situation like this one.

"Magos. Cogitator-calculations on achieving the Alpha-level victory goals?"

"Zero point nine percent, Archmagos."

It was point nine percent more than his own estimations, he reflected. It might be because the blessed machine-spirits had not had the time to properly assess the performance of the senior xenos commander.

And it was a single commander facing Hediatrix and him, the Archmagos of Atar-Median was utterly convinced of it. The tactics weren't similar, but on each front, their Skitarii commanders were assassinated by these all-too-real 'Deathmarks', the ranks of silent metal xenos deployed in seemingly-omniscient and flawless tactical breakthroughs.

No, Samartian Eta-Eta respected, nay worshipped the Chosen of the Omnissiah too much, to fail to heed her orders.

He had lost; the Necron commander was beating him like a novice fresh out of his first series of simulations.

"Magi Dominus, new Alpha-level orders. Plan Delta-Zeta. Activation of the Omega Protocols for all units unable to execute."

"Archmagos...we are speaking of..."

"We must retreat, yes." This hurt. In the last century, never had the Archmagos Dominus Executor transmitted this shameful command. "Transmit my new strategy to Battle Group Berezina."

"Archmagos...we can still-"

"Continue this attrition warfare for a day or two," he finished the sentence. "And when Lady Weaver arrives with Battle Group Volga, our forces will be either too crippled to assist her, or this Battle Group will be a graveyard of metal and defeated Tech-Priests. Either way, these scenarios will not honour any of the Forge Worlds we were given the honour of representing."

Gastaph Hediatrix would likely shift some of the blame upon him, unfortunately. The first commander to retreat was never going to receive any congratulations.

But Samartian Eta-Eta could defend himself against accusations; he wouldn't be able to argue if he was dead.

"Retreat," the senior Archmagos repeated himself, and slowly, space and ground forces began to implement the complicated order – the Necrons clearly didn't intend to let them evacuate without inflicting as many fatal casualties as they could. "The enemy has won this round."

---

The Golden Crown

Vargard Obyron

Obyron had long since realised that every renowned General of the Sautekh Dynasty had some quirks, and yes, some had existed long before anyone had a clue something like the biotransference was even possible.

Being a loyal and faithful servant of his Overlord, the Vargard wasn't going to point out the ones Zahndrekh showed in public from time to time.

The...eccentric behaviour of Imotekh the Stormlord, whose legendary reputation had made a million stellar systems of Necrons and non-Necrons cower in terror during the War in Heaven, were not secret however.

To put it bluntly, the Phaeron's right hand was deeply infamous for severing limbs or other parts of his enemies' bodies before allowing them to escape. That way, they would remember his greatness, and, unofficially, return for a revenge battle where the Overlord would take great pleasure in humiliating them again.

Obyron was well-aware this was a very high form of arrogance, but truthfully the Stormlord was so skilled – his tactical genius often was described as close to psychic by some foes millions of years ago – that, save a few exceptions like a certain Eldanesh sword-mistress, Imotekh had rarely had reasons to regret his gesture of 'magnanimity'.

There was something many Nemesors had forgotten though. The 'severing a limb' wasn't something limited to Imotekh's enemies. It also applied to nobles who had disappointed him.

And needless to say, when the Stormlord decided you had failed him, the only thing which could save you from his wrath was an order from Phaeron Djosakhat.

Alas for several useless Nemesors, the supreme leader of the Sautekh Dynasty wasn't here.

"Mighty Stormlord, we have defended the Golden Crown to the last phalanx!"

"And yet you stand before me, surrounded by your sycophants!" the renowned Overlord thundered before taking out a leg this time. "You hid in your fortress while the red robed enemies were destroying the priceless Battleships of the Sautekh Dynasty! You didn't take command and charge the enemy! You behaved like a coward!"

"Invincible Stormlord," another Nemesor tried, flattery fighting with fear in his words. "While certain tactical errors were made, surely the great victory you won-"

"Victory? VICTORY? VICTORY?! Look around you, imbecile! This isn't a victory! More than three hundred Cairn flagships crippled or destroyed! One more victory like this, and we will be on the verge of extinction! Another such victory and we will have only Mandragora to return to! Do not speak to me of victory! You aren't intelligent enough to understand the meaning of the word!"

The worst part was the Stormlord definitely had a point. Wherever he looked, Obyron saw only wide-scale devastation, and the presence of Crypteks working to restore the Living Metal were few and far between. Ruins of Pylons and Monoliths were everywhere, with the mountain of corpses of organic and metallic enemies surrounding them.

Before the Great Sleep, Obyron wouldn't have believed such a thing was possible. But as every certainty of the Old Age faded, the Vargard found himself less and less astonished. After the 'surprises' of the last battle, finding the Golden Crown unable to repel a small-sized offensive was nowhere near as shocking as it would have been before the Szarekhans summoned them.

"You are too harsh, young Imotekh," Zahndrekh stepped forwards once the irritated Overlord had finished taking his tithe of limbs. "The systems which should have given them advance warning were dysfunctional or succumbed to entropy. I remember the secessionists seized an opportunity like this one at the Battle of-"

"Zahndrekh." The Stormlord interrupted. "Our capital fleet has just been ruined and will need centuries to regain its strength, so you will excuse me if I fail to be amused by the sheer incompetence of the Overlords and Nemesors ordered to guard the Golden Crown with their very lives."

"They have saved-"

"They have saved nothing. By my very conservative estimates, the enemy lost over a million metal-organic hybrid warriors, which was approximately one twelfth of their initial effectives. The number twelve being for some reason significant to these strange enemies, this was a sufficient blow to force their two commanders to order the retreat. The problem is they are painfully aware of the fact I am going to reinforce the Golden Crown while they are regrouping their damaged ships and ground assault forces. There aren't many logical reasons, and these enemies behave according to very logical orders and formations, for them to behave like that."

"They await massive reinforcements," Zahndrekh noted just Obyron thought it in his engrams. "It is highly likely the sizeable secessionist fleet that proved so formidable against the Throne of Oblivion is on its way."

"Yes," if the Stormlord was peeved about his suzerain's secessionist categorisation, he didn't show a sign of it. "I am going to recall all the ships I can, of course, but with our domains under attack everywhere, there won't be many Battleships intact ready to answer. That's why I refused to engage your fleet so far...we simply can't afford to lose it anymore. The Golden Crown is going to be a shadow of its former glory for countless aeons, and many ship-building marvels of the War in Heaven are out of our grasp now that the C'Tan are shattered. It is imperative that in the great naval engagement to come, we emerge victorious. And we can't do that if we begin to waste our strength against lesser opponents."

"I still think the prospect of Unity would convince the secessionists-"

"Lord Imotekh! Empyreal breach in orbit of Mandragora! Distance sixty thousand kilometres!"

"Sixty...the Immaterium-piercing drives can activate so close to a planet?! And that is far too close to counter the gravitic pull! Check the numbers again, the only race which would try that before the Great Sleep was-"

An enormous rumble filled their communications, as impossible as that was. And when a new voice roared, Obyron knew for sure it wasn't a Necron speaking.

"Alright you'ze gitz. Tingitz, 'umies, you'ze lot need ta 'ave explained 'ow we make a good scrap. Dakka is best, but you'ze need boyz to show you'ze proppa stuff! WARBOSS ARRGARD IZ 'ERE! COME FIGHT US! WAAAGGGGHH!"

And thousands, no millions of barbaric voices roared and repeated the same war cry.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!"

Imotekh rarely showed his fury, but this time, the veteran of the War in Heaven was obviously making an exception to the rule.

"Whose idea was it to begin the Great Sleep without exterminating the Krork remnants first?"

---

Mandragora's High Orbit

Space Hulk Mega-Defila'

Warboss Arrgard the Metal-Defiler

"BOSS! BOSS! We're too clos' to da Tin'eads planet!"

"Nonsense!" the enormous Chosen of Gork an' Mork shouted. "We'ze good! We'ze can shoot at dem!"

An enormous green ray narrowly missed the Mega-Defila', his big new flashy ship he had...convinced the other Warbosses to offer him. It struck a Kroozer and the explosion was just...pretty.

"Gork'z fist! Da Tin'eads 'ave some nice Dakka 'ere!" Arrgard scratched his head to wonder how the gun had managed to blast the Kroozer's shields...before deciding to pursue a more interesting idea. "I'ze want it for da Mega-Defila', boyz!"

"Boss, da Supa-Kroozers an' your Battlekroozers are comin' in too speedy!"

"Dat's da red paint," a Mekboy nodded. "Very good stuff, Boss!"

"Warboss...ships are coming fasta and fasta! We're goin' after da planet!"

"Dat's good boyz! All da Tingitz are 'ere, and we'ze 'ave arrived fasta dan Da Swarm Bringa! Attack formationz!"

There were three red buttons close to Arrgard, and he smashed all three in one hammer strike.

"GITZ AND BOYZ! DO YOU'ZE WANT TO WAAGGHH FOREVA?"

"WE'ZE WANNA, WARBOSS!"

"WAAAAAGGHHHH!"

"WAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHH!"

And his new fleet went on to land on Mandragora in a speedy manner.

Arrgard didn't care, but a majority of the intelligent races having reached the state of spaceflight would have considered his actions utterly insane, for fleets of such sizes weren't made for crash-landing on a world bristling with a Necron Orbital Grid.

But they were Orks, and that race had never been sane.

The green roars shook vox, Noosphere, and Necron communications.

The Orks had returned with reinforcements, and the galaxy would shake as they charged.

"Da last onez to kill somefing will lose all his teef! WAAAAAGGGGHH!"

"WAAAAGGHHHHH!"

---

Segmentum Solar

Sol Sector

Sol System

Holy Terra

Inner Palace

8.505.310M35

Lord Commander Militant Paul von Oberstein

There were tens of thousands of salons reserved for high-level meetings between the High Lords of Terra, and most of them were filled with so much wealth a single one could likely cover the equipment for an entire Army Group.

The salon chosen for this conversation was no exception to the rule. Between two reunions, Paul had checked the history of the location and discovered it had been renovated on the order of High Admiral Julius Nelson in the early years of M33 – the man had just been elevated to the High Lordship after a victorious Crusade, and wanted to make his mark at the heart of the Imperium. Paul von Oberstein didn't know if the long-dead Navy officer had achieved his political goals, but given that several of his successors continued to use the places he had profusely spent his wealth on, an artistic mark had surely been made.

A great oil painting of a major space battle showing Imperial ships triumphing over Eldar raiders dominated the left wall, while several bronze-shaded sculptures – likely not inspired by real-life models – were providing decoration on the right. The couches, the seats, the hololithic table, and most of the rest of the surroundings included a profusion of gold, blue sapphires, and other precious metals with a heavy Navy theme.

It was rather extravagant...and completely appropriate for the Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy.

"I am not satisfied by the performance of your Warmaster."

And that, was the reminder why he so many times sent devoted officers to the obligatory meetings between Guard and Navy instead of going himself.

"My Warmaster?" He had voted for Trevayne when the time came, but he had been hardly the only one...a majority of the High Twelve was required for someone to gain the ultimate Imperial rank. "I seem to recall the rank belonged to His Most Holy Majesty's Imperium. Surely I do not have ownership of it."

It didn't matter the majority of the men and women who had ever held the rank had come from the ranks of the Imperial Guard; what mattered politically was that theoretically, Warmaster wasn't a pure Militarum rank. Any military Adept could rise to these impossible heights...and most often, pay the price, because this was one of the rare jobs as challenging as being a High Lord of Holy Terra.

"As for his performance, well, he bled the heretics at Cadia. Given the tactical situation he faced, the enormous disparity between his and the heretics' order of battle, and it being impossible to summon the rest of the Agripinaa and Belis Corona reinforcements before the battle was over, I think he followed his orders and avoided a regrettable disaster. Could he have done better? Perhaps, but ours is an easier duty to judge after the guns have cooled down."

Rabadash y Byng el Calormen – whose flamboyant uniform had received several jewels and medals which hadn't been there at their last meeting – muttered something but didn't reply.

"Unless you have information I do not, I can't in good conscience advocate for a change of leadership at this point of the war."

It would be completely catastrophic for the troops' morale: news of the way Cadia had resisted an assault of incredible ferocity, the whispers of miraculous intervention at a decisive moment, and the carnage wrecked upon a good ten to fifteen percent of the Chaos supply fleet were spreading everywhere, courtesy of the Munitorum's propaganda, and the way the heretics were charging into Segmentum Obscurus was easily explained as the Traitors fleeing the holy wrath of His Most Holy Majesty's counterattack...which wasn't that exaggerated. There were dozens of Battlefleets and Army Groups trying to ambush the slaves of the Archenemy.

"I do not." The admission, for all its emotionless tone, must have cost the blue-clad commander of the Imperial Navy a lot. "I remain concerned however how Ender Trevayne is flouting certain Articles of War and using resources to increase his order of battle."

"You're referring to his...unconventional use of the Rogue Traders?"

"Amongst other things."

To be fair – not that he wanted to be, Rabadash y Byng was not a friend – Paul von Oberstein understood the concern of his Navy counterpart. The rank and privileges of a Warmaster gave Trevayne a great deal of latitude to conduct his operations and recruit whoever he wanted, but there were unwritten rules. Those very much recommended you'd better inform a High Lord or two of your most secret moves, especially if your actions trampled on someone's prerogatives or privileges.

And while the move of Trevayne had given him an extremely deadly weapon to use against the heretics, the fact remained he had invited what for all intents and purposes was a small fleet of Rogue Traders to Cadia, one the Imperial Navy had never been informed of before the chainsword struck.

"As long as the heretics are a problem," the High Admiral continued, serving himself a glass of wine without asking Oberstein or any of the Guard officers waiting behind him if they wanted something to drink as well, "I agree with you a change of leadership would create more problems than it would solve. But I think, in the interest of studying more acceptable options of course, that the decision to end his tenure as Warmaster the moment the present threat is over must be considered seriously."

The officers of the Lucifer Black regiments behind him didn't like that, he knew. Ender Trevayne was not one of their own – the man was born and trained on Armageddon – but what the arrogant Navy head had said was very close to a betrayal of a man who had just stood against the daemonic hordes.

"It will be considered. However, a lot will depend upon the final outcome of the campaign he is busy organising."

It was a polite way of telling him that if the current Warmaster managed to corner the heretics he was pursuing and score a decisive victory, there wouldn't be any possible way to fire him...save giving him Oberstein's job, but that would require a super-majority vote of the High Twelve.

"Indeed." The blue-blooded scion of one of the wealthiest Solar Navy Dynasties didn't like that. "I am sending new blocking forces to reinforce the nodal musters at Elysia and the other north-eastern Fortress Worlds. If the heretics try to cross into Ultima Segmentum, we will have a significant rapier to flank them with."

The next several minutes were far more conversational, as Rabadash and Oberstein informed each other of their respective moves to ensure the enormous armada having sallied out of the Eye of Terror was going to die of a thousand cuts before it could do more damage.

"And I am sending one hundred additional regiments to Cadia, supported by fifty Munitorum support battalions. The damaged and destroyed fortifications need to be rebuilt so that no second wave can succeed where the first failed."

"The Arch-Cardinal Terran will likely want to send more Frateris Templars, by the way."

"I know. Anything else would have been surprising." The Cadian and Armageddon officers in charge of redacting the first reports had not exactly been tight-lipped about proclaiming what had happened, and Paul had been one of the rare souls on Terra to see the full high-level message the Chapter Master of the Silver Skulls had sent to Holy Terra. There had been enormous Crusades of Faith launched for far less this last millennium. "I would prefer that only veteran troops be authorised to enter the warzone, anything else is asking for trouble, but I fear this is likely a pious wish."

The pompous Navy officer gave no sign of agreement, but he didn't argue either.

"This concludes the current deployments ordered by the Astra Militarum for Segmentum Obscurus. What is the next point to discuss?" Naturally, the Lord Commander Militant knew what it was, but he preferred the member of the High Twelve to say it himself.

"The next point is an Admiral named Ormuz Vandire and what must be done about him."

---

Solar Guardian of Records Nicephorus Vandire

Maybe his brother was going to see reason this time.

"It is the fault of that ungrateful Warmaster and his perfidious Space Marine lackeys."

Or maybe not.

This was one of the moments he was supposed to let his silence speak louder than his words, wasn't it?

"Err...father," Zenobia, the prodigal daughter, began with some embarrassment. "The accusations against Ormuz weren't made by the Warmaster or any member of the Adeptus Astartes. They were filed by the officers of Battlefleet Cadia and the Guard High Command of Kasr Tyrok. They certainly were...vocal in their accusations."

"What kind of 'vocal' are we talking about here?" the Master of the Administratum puffed up his chest threateningly.

"Err...Admiral von Bismarck declared...ahem...Ormuz was the best Imperial Admiral the Archenemy could have wished for..."

It was fascinating from a purely academic perspective to see how his brother could have his face redden so fast. From the perspective of someone about to endure the explosion of anger, it was...not good.

"Continue."

For all the sympathy he felt for his niece, right now the Solar Guardian of Records wished she threw the vellum document into the next dustbin-shredder. Xerxes was beginning to get angry beyond restraint, and redecorating his quarters had cost a countless billions after the Victory of Commorragh...

"Yes...yes, Vice-Admiral Creed of Battlefleet Cadia Secundus declared 'I am surprised his ship managed to reach the Cadian Gate given how burdensome his incompetence was for his crew."

"I will have his head!" his brother hissed, going from light anger to utter fury in the blink of an eye.

"Lord Governor von Waldersee...err...professed his surprise my brother managed to breathe the standard oxygen aboard Navy warships unaided given his manifest stupidity."

"He is a dead man and will rue the day the heretics failed to kill him!" the Head of the Vandire clan shouted.

"Inquisitor Gregorio wants his Academy grades checked."

"His Academy grades...checked?" Nicephorus was at a loss, and he wasn't the only one.

"Yes," Zenobia affirmed darkly, "because it's evident in his opinion no one can have marks so good at the Academy and prove so incompetent on the battlefield..."

Miraculously, and the son of Cagliostro Vandire weighed his words carefully here, there was no outburst of violence or outraged scream.

"The Inquisitors are unable to recognise the competences of my son," was the dismissive reply.

"Archmagos Kappa-3 insists condemning him to servitor-transformation would result in a fifty percent performance increase of whichever Navy force he is part of."

"The cogboys can go fuck themselves with toasters and eat their damned cogitators with boiling promethium!"

"Rogue Trader Guts insists my brother is to be checked for abhuman traits, because he showed all the cowardice of a lesser Ratling during the battle."

"Continue," his brother said in a voice trembling with rage before adding, "this Rogue Trader will be gutted by a thousand angry apex predators, and his name will be a warning for those who oppose Clan Vandire!"

"And Bishop Militant Grasse supports burning Ormuz alive, because in his own words 'he may not be a Traitor, but his conduct is an insult to the God-Emperor, and that's enough to throw him into the pyre in my opinion."

"RAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The first object to be seized was a data-slate...which was thrown against the wall with predictable results.

Nicephorus sighed and prepared himself for the worst. He wasn't going to be disappointed, as Xerxes went on a new rampage. At least he soon rushed out towards another reception room, one filled with far less valuable furniture and artistic decorations.

"Was that really necessary, niece?"

"Von Oberstein is busy spreading the word via his officers," the Questor Senioris answered, not a trace of apology in her voice. "It's better for him to hear it here where he can...express his full displeasure."

"You may be right. No," Nicephorus grimaced, "you're completely right."

Even if it had just cost them five Porcelain vases and...a lot of other artworks.

Still, it wasn't to fix messes like these he had risen in the ranks of the bureaucratic institutions of Holy Terra.

"As much as your...handling of your father was justified, it does not solve the situation Ormuz finds himself in. I suppose the Navy Headquarters are going to convene a court-martial?"

"Officially, nothing has been decided," the member of the Ordo Fidicius replied, "but our friends say it is more or less inevitable."

Nicephorus Vandire sighed...again. He was afraid that was the case.

"A guilty sentence would have...harmful consequences for our power base."

"I know." Zenobia pinched her lips. "In recognition of this, I would prefer to avoid a court-martial altogether, even if it results in Ormuz being placed on the list of inactive officers and unable to hold a command for the rest of his career. Especially as so many Commissars aren't shy to profess that if he wasn't my father's son, they would have already executed him to make an example."

Yes, they would...setting aside Clan Vandire, this would also send a strong message to the multitude of Battlefleet Solar's Admirals who pinched their noses every time 'lesser' Admirals arrived at the Throneworld requesting reinforcements and more warships while they paraded with thousand-ship-strong Battlefleets.

"The good news," Zenobia continued, "is that the dismissal was made by a Space Marine, which obviously is an illegal move, and that my brother didn't flee or disobey his superiors' orders. The accusations therefore are likely to focus on 'not doing his utmost to stop the Archenemy' or something similar."

"Which is still a death sentence if the panel of Judges finds you guilty, if I'm not mistaken," Nicephorus remarked.

"It is," his niece agreed, "but it is far easier to find good military lawyers to defend your case against such accusations."

Ah, here they arrived at the foundational stone of the problem. Lawyers, solicitors, noble defenders of the Imperium's citizenry...you could name them every way you wanted, the result was the same: they never worked for free. Not on the Throneworld or anywhere in the Sol Sector, at least.

"It is going to cost us more billions." It wasn't a question.

"For all his faults...he is my brother." Zenobia had the good sense to be humble. "I know father is going to order it whatever you say, but...the opposition in the 'Adept Clans' is disorganised with the recent death of High Procurator Cienfuegos and the succession war his heirs are waging for the throne."

Nicephorus tried to estimate the different scenarios and arrived at the conclusion his niece had a point. Unfortunately...

"You are right that the circumstances allow us to push our influence and resources around far more blatantly than would usually be the case." He conceded. "And the Solar Admirals can be urged to defend their privileges and power from outsiders if the situation is presented in a certain way. But," he raised his hand, "I want you to understand clearly that we are going to pay for this. The opposition to your father has been momentarily disunited, but it will come back, and this intervention not being opposed doesn't mean it will be forgotten."

"If we can save him from a court-martial, the effects-"

"I doubt we can prevent a court-martial. Too many officers of different Adeptuses that we have no way of exerting any influence on want Ormuz dead, and we have absolutely nothing to give them." The Adeptus Mechanicus and the Guard, to name the most obvious examples, would delight in executing a Vandire just to prove that they could do it. "I would be very surprised if the Lord High Admiral isn't selling Ormuz's hide in exchange for several favours even as we speak. And if the High Admiralty agrees to a court-martial, the only defence is proving his innocence in front of the Judges."

"Fortunately, courts like those are...surprisingly amenable, given the right incentives, no?"

"Yes," the Solar Guardian of Records said bitterly, "as long as you have the right incentives."

He didn't try to hide his grimace.

"If Ormuz had charged the enemy with his flagship, all of this could have been avoided."

"My brother did his best...it was his first time fighting the hordes of the Archenemy!"

"It was his first real battle, you mean," Nicephorus corrected morosely. "And if that was his best, I would hate to see what he does on a bad day..."

---

Segmentum Obscurus

H-A6BBW5A System

Emperor-class Battleship Majestic Mandate

8.506.310M35

Warmaster Ender Trevayne

Ender didn't say a word as the Chapter Master of the Exorcists left his quarters, but it was because he had long experience dealing with stubborn men and transhumans – he had to, given how often he met them.

"That was an unhelpful meeting if there ever was one," his chief of staff commented.

Ender clasped his hands behind his back and looked at the H-A6BBW5A System visible through his armaglass window. Seeing the red giant in the distance was somewhat relaxing, viewed like this. Of course, from this side of the Majestic Mandate, you couldn't see the wrecks of the Traitor flotilla which had tried to escape the pursuit of his forces and been annihilated mere tens of thousands of kilometres away from where he stood.

"True." The loyal Warmaster replied after several more seconds where he tried to analyse the situation and came up short of solutions. Space Marines were very wary of everything that threatened their autonomy, secrets, and skills, when the three didn't merge into the same issue. "But I had to ask politely...just in case they were in the mood to reveal how their resistance to the sorcery of the heretics works."

There were coincidences and there were things which couldn't be. That not a single Traitor had been found and thrown through the nearest airlock among space and ground forces as large as the Exorcist Chapter had fielded at Cadia beggared the imagination. Assuredly, by the fault of unlucky circumstances, they had not been in the thickest part of the fighting, but the same could be said about the Silver Skulls before the red Greater Daemon decided to focus on them, and they had taken losses in their serf ranks before that...

"I wonder," Rogue Trader Griffith, the only person to not be a guardsman or an officer of the Imperial Navy near his quarters mused, "what would have happened if the Living Saint the God-Emperor sent made contact with this Chapter."

That was a good question, Ender had to admit. But he was afraid it was one not destined to be answered.

"The point raised is intellectually stimulating," he smiled, "but the Living Saint, I'm afraid, is not here."

An arduous work of investigation had allowed the Silver Skulls to find and retrieve the sacred sword Galatine...several hundred metres below ground, in a hill created by the terrain upheavals and countless corpses, where half of the Cadian 1st had fought and died to a man against an endless daemonic horde to protect it. The Champion of Cadia was still holding the holy blade when he died, which made it a complete mystery how their winged saviour had wielded it several hundred kilometres away.

"There is another one active."

Ender shrugged.

"And last time I checked, this Celestial Highness was campaigning next to the Eastern Fringe. So I think she has more pressing things to do than answer your question, Colonel Jan. Now, back to work."

"Yes, Warmaster." The hololith flashed to show a star map of the Imperium, though it was one which limited itself to Segmentum Obscurus. "As you can see, the heretic fleet has bypassed Cypra Mundi and every vital system of the second and third echelon of Fortress Worlds. Our victory here on H-A6BBW5A," a point of golden light burned just south of Cypra Mundi's coordinates, "was against a flotilla which had abandoned whichever goal the Archenemy leadership has in mind."

"The course chosen by the hereteks and heretics suggests they intend to invade the Gothic Sector or one of the domains of the Omnissiah they will reach before that point."

"I agree this is what their course suggests they are up to," the General of the Praetorian Guard began, "but why would they do something so stupid? The Gothic Sector is an important Sector, untouched by enemies save the occasional Ork raiders and fringe cultists, but it isn't exactly critical for the safety of the Imperium. And no offence to the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I don't see why they would need one hundred-plus Battleships to assault one of those..."

"Overkill?" proposed someone.

"This is way above overkill, they have three Super-Battleships!"

"What if they don't stop and continue into Ultima Segmentum?" the commander of the Orar Grenadiers proposed. "We all know these heretics most likely have friends in the other Warp Storm of note, the Maelstrom."

"They do," Ender confirmed. "But they have also suffered massive losses in the last decades, courtesy of the Ryza Mechanicus and other armies and fleets. A massive blockade remains at the periphery of the sterilised planets where the Tech-Priests exterminated the heretics. And frankly," he added before anyone could make an objection, "we have already destroyed four transports and six auxiliaries which were unable to keep pace with the furious rhythm the Archenemy imposes on its corrupted starships. If they continue at this infernal pace bolstered by their unholy masters...well, they certainly will reach Ultima Segmentum ahead of us. But they will also destroy their transports and plenty of other warships before we shoot at them. We can't be certain of it, but this 'deserter flotilla' likely veered off-course because its drives and other parts couldn't keep up. Since the heretics proved they weren't completely stupid at Cadia, we have to assume they are aware of these factors, and have decided they are acceptable to achieve their Black Crusade's heretical purposes."

"You are right, Warmaster," the silver-haired Rogue Trader answered carefully, "they are running towards the galactic east as if nothing else matters, but the agitation they create in the Warp will break the hulls of anything not a Battleship well before they reach the Maelstrom. And while we don't know the industrial capacity they had available in the Eye of Terror, I sincerely doubt they have an escort fleet ready for more than one hundred Battleships ready to launch, or that it can pass without being intercepted."

The blue eyes had the sort of determination one didn't find often anywhere.

"If they aren't stupid, if this is truly part of a complicated strategy to lure us into a state of complacency...then the only logical explanation is this move is a feint. They are going to change course soon and strike their true target."

"I agree it makes sense," the Elysian General smirked, "the problem is that it leaves...oh, I don't know, thirty or forty thousand possibilities on our list of 'planets vulnerable to attack'?"

"The Tarot suggests the Traitors want a 'Crucible', a heavily-defended world."

"Fine, that makes just...ahem...five or six hundred first-tier worlds in Eastern Obscurus...and I don't count the Shrine and Cardinal Worlds of these Sectors!"

The night was going to be long...

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

Mandragora

Indomitable Tomb-Palace

8.507.310M35

Phaeron Djosakhat

The battle wasn't going well.

Seen from the Canoptek's sensors prepared by his Crypteks, the enemy had managed to conquer three small bastions near the locations where their scrap-transports had crashed at a speed which should have killed them to the last.

But they weren't dead.

The Old Ones had built the Krorks to be incredibly resistant to all sorts of damage, and their brutish descendants shared this strength, if not to the same degree.

"A large section of our Orbital Grid is slowly being overwhelmed. We need to use the Empyreal-breakers to stop the flow of greenskin reinforcements."

The main defensive system of Mandragora was shooting down nine out of every ten of the scrap-hulls trying to assault his Crownworld, but this left one in ten to try insane ramming manoeuvres against his citadels. And at such short distances, there weren't a lot of things the Necron artillerists could do to stop the barbaric creatures, despite the arsenal they had at their disposal.

"We're preparing them, my Phaeron." The Cryptek assured him. "Of course, the Szarekhan Dynasty is not going to be too pleased-"

"Do you see any Szarekhan Nemesor or Overlord supporting our phalanxes, Cryptek?" The Supreme Lord of the Sautekh Dynasty asked rhetorically. "Sobekhotep is hiding inside the Throne of Oblivion, offended we aren't prostrating ourselves in thanks for the devastation he has summoned upon our Dynasty!"

Djosakhat wished he could say the Dust-Maker was an anomaly, but the Szarekhan Dynasty, the pretentious cousins and relatives of that 'genius' Szarekh, were on average more arrogant than the commander of the star-shattering weapon built by the broken Gods.

"We need more troops, my Phaeron," one of his Overlords called out. "The greenskins are deploying millions of infantry troops on the plains, and for all the Monoliths slaughtering capabilities, we are slowly being pushed back. Their scrap-walkers are also causing enormous indiscriminate damage when they are coupled with their erratic rocket-flights."

"I am reactivating the Tomb World as fast as it is possible," the Phaeron silenced his subordinate, "there is a limit to how much we can reawaken in mere Mandragoran days, unfortunately."

And it wasn't like they could accelerate the resurrection protocols for the elites and the nobility. Accelerating the process for the peasant-infantry was fine, since it wasn't like they had much intelligence to lose anymore, but for the valuable servants, it was out of the question.

Unfortunately, the resources, while increasing massively after each node was awakened and millions of Canoptek machines went to work, was still limited. It was going to take Mandragoran decades to fully awaken the Crownworld, and the enemy wasn't going to give them that much time.

"There is one army we can use to reinforce us."

Djosakhat didn't need to question which army his General was referring to.

"If Imotekh abandons the Golden Crown, the metal-organic fleet is going to resume its assault, and without him to coordinate the defence, it will fall."

He had already been forced to execute over fifteen Nemesors for sheer incompetence in addition to the punishments handed out by his most redoubtable Overlord.

"Great Phaeron, the Golden Crown will have to teleport out of the system."

"You are aware of the consequences of what you propose?"

In a better era, this feat would have been accomplished without losing a piece of Necrodermis. But that had been before the Great Sleep. Now, after tens of millions of years of neglect and a devastating bombardment, the pride of the Sautekh Dynasty's industrial works was in a decrepit state...and no one had tested the teleportation engines for aeons.

"I do, my Phaeron. But we need the skill of the Stormlord, and I think we can discard the too-damaged sections to consolidate the ones we can save."

"Assuming we adopt your strategy," the Cryptek replacing Orikan began, "where we would send it? Our entire domain is being torn apart by war."

"Gidrim," they didn't have to wait long for an answer. "It is the only one of our Coreworlds not currently under assault."

"Which is...peculiar, when one thinks about it, Mighty Phaeron," a Nemesor advanced to spit his political poison, "that Overlord Zahndrekh's world is the only one to be spared the wrath of the younger species wishing to usurp from us the galaxy's throne."

"Zahndrekh is a loyal commander, one who fights at this very moment for the glory of the Sautekh Dynasty!" Djosakhat reminded the backstabbing aristocrat. "His efforts combined with those of Imotekh have already saved the Sautekh Dynasty from total defeat, and I have no doubt they will save us once more. You could learn a lot from their example, Bhatekh!"

"Mighty Phaeron..." another of his Royal Wardens, realising this approach had failed, was rushing to the support of his ally, "no one denies the...great contributions Overlord Zahndrekh has made to this Dynasty, but the old warrior is not who he once was. His mind has not emerged sane and coherent from the Great Sleep, one has only to hear his ramblings about secessionists-"

"And yet he wins, unlike some Nemesors and Overlord I won't name," the master of the Sautekh Dynasty replied, "I wonder if I should use my protocols to modify your engrams and make you all believe you are fighting secessionists, in the hope it will improve your military tactics?"

His point made, the Phaeron returned to the important subject at hand.

"The strategy, while unpleasant to order, has merits. Imotekh is to teleport the intact assets of the Golden Crown to Gidrim, then recall his army and Zahndrekh's fleet to Mandragora in order to crush the greenskin threat."

"The enemy in the outer system-"

"-won't try to attack Mandragora directly as long as their reinforcements haven't arrived," he interrupted the Nemesor. "The Stormlord has taught them a lesson, they will be slow to pursue, and this gives us a short opportunity to defeat the debased barbaric descendants of the Krorks before one enemy can support the other."

This wasn't his preferred strategy, but with the fleets of the Golden Crown destroyed or in dire need of years of repairs, the preferred strategies lacked the military strength to be implemented.

"Phaeron! Mighty Phaeron!" An Overlord teleporting into the middle of his throne room was completely against the protocol, and should have warranted death for the offender. But since he prostrated himself immediately, Djosakhat ordered his bodyguards by thought-order not to disintegrate him.

"What caused this dramatic entrance, Vayasakhatek?"

"Treason, my Great Phaeron! Foul treason! Per your orders, we breached the complex belonging to Orikan the Diviner, and discovered plans where he outright admitted preparing several hyper-advanced mental and physical sabotage operations so that you would never rise again!"

"That is ridiculous!" the senior Cryptek blustered. "Orikan wouldn't-"

Djosakhat teleported the hyper-scroll held by the Overlord into his hands and yes, this was Orikan's writing...and Orikan's arrogance in each and every word. The 'Diviner' had never been a model of humility and modesty, and it seemed that while the Sautekh Dynasty slept, his arrogance had reached new heights.

"My Phaeron..."

"It is his writing, and his countermeasures to prevent anyone from copying his style. No doubt the traitor thought that no one would breach his quarters while he walked upon my Crownworld."

Rage threatened to explode in his metallic chest and engrams, but the Phaeron contained it. The hour was too grave to waste time with promises of retribution.

"He must have accomplices. Arrest them, Overlord." Djosakhat addressed his court. "In light of this revelation, alliance or submission to the Szarekhan Dynasty is even more unacceptable than it was at the beginning of this campaign. Activate all measures at our disposal to protect ourselves from decerebrating protocols. As for the traitor calling himself Orikan the Diviner..."

He crushed the hyper-scroll in his grasp.

"We will offer a sizeable reward for his capture..."

"Apologies, oh noble Phaeron Djosakhat, but how large of a reward are we talking about?"

Silence suddenly reigned in the throne room of the Indomitable Tomb-Palace.

Uncloaked from a position in the upper galleries where no one had noticed his presence, was a Necron Overlord who had never been part of the Sautekh Dynasty...

"Trazyn."

"In all his collecting glory, Mighty-"

"Crypteks, secure our vaults! Trazyn Protocols are to be activated!"

"Surely there is no need for-"

"LYCHGUARDS! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? SEIZE HIM!"

---

Ark Mechanicus El Dorado

Archmagos Prime Gastaph Hediatrix

For some unfathomable reason, the massive Necron spatial complex teleporting away reminded him strongly of Cawl's damnable experiments.

"I think," Archmagos Felicia 24-Toledo noted, "this decisively answers the question of whether we must organise a new assault before Lady Weaver's arrival."

"Yes, it does," the Archmagos Prime retorted darkly, pushing back the urge to unleash his frustration at someone. It wasn't her fault the Necrons had reacted to their attack so impossibly fast...and she hadn't been in command, he was. "Since I don't see any sign of teleportation translation anywhere near Mandragora, it is clear the xenos have decided to place what they managed to save somewhere our warships can't fire at."

And whoever was in command had not used half-measures: everything which wouldn't resist the infamous molecular instability associated with most teleportation technology had been discarded and then self-destructed.

Gastaph had been given a rude tactical lesson several hours ago, but there was only one sound tactical reason to do that as the might of Battle Group Berezina and Dnieper wasn't in a state to start a new offensive in the next several minutes.

"The situation at Mandragora must be sufficiently dire for them to recall the army which destroyed the Third Legion."

"There are hundreds of millions of Orks there," Gastaph commented. "I don't know how they were able to regather in such strength in mere days, the fighting at Volga had bled them, even after they received reinforcements."

How they had found several Space Hulks, not to mention converting them into mobile fortresses, and enough scrap-ships to represent a new credible threat to an entire Sector, was something beyond Hediatrix's ability to explain.

But the greenskins were indeed here, and despite the methodical and monstrous defences of Mandragora, the suicidal attack wasn't stopping. In fact, the Orks looked like they were making gains on Mandragora's surface!

The Omnissiah only knew how many millions of their warmongering idiots the beasts had lost in orbit and before crashing – because given their methods, one couldn't use the word 'landing' – but it had to be catastrophic, even by the standards of the butchery the Skitarii had endured on the Golden Crown.

"I think it has bled them. Unfortunately, they seem to have found reinforcements...somehow." Felicia 24-Toledo muttered a prayer to the poor machine-spirits mistreated by the brutish xenos before resuming her analysis. "There is worse news. Many of the transports crashing on Mandragora are scrap-cruisers, but my best auspex-masters have detected strange hulks which we have encountered in the past."

"And this means?"

"Gargants," the envoy of the Fabricator-General announced grimly. "The probability the greenskins have brought a force of Gargants to the battlefield is seventy-six percent."

Of course. Of course the damn xenos would bring their odious insult to the noble form of the Titans.

"Our pilots are going to have to review their anti-Gargant protocols and simulations, then." Gastaph Hediatrix declared coldly. "They will need them when Lady Weaver will move against Mandragora."

"If she leads us against the Orks," Gastaph transmitted a cant demanding clarification, and Felicia developed. "We let the Orks and the Necrons weaken each other once. Why not do it a second time?"

"Because if our information is correct, Mandragora is beginning to awaken billions of Necron warriors. The Orks can cause some damage, but once the world is fully awakened, it will defeat the greenskins with ease, and our chances of breaking through will be infinitesimal. We must attack as soon as possible...and if we need to fight the Orks as they provide a useful distraction at the same time, we will do so in the name of the Machine-God."

"I understand." The other Archmagos nodded. "I will prepare the troops so that when the Chosen of the Omnissiah arrives, she finds us ready to begin the assault against Mandragora."

"Do so," Gastaph approved, "and contact the Princeps Maximus...what are you doing on my bridge, xenos?"

Violet cape. A series of decorations and trinkets worth a fortune that were completely ruined by the smug metallic grin of the one wearing them.

And in his thieving hands, a chest carved with the symbol of the Sautekh Dynasty.

"My friends!" Trazyn the Infinite exclaimed. "What a coincidence to find you here! Do you know where I can find my good friend Weaver? I have important arte...I have important information to give her about the leadership of Mandragora!"

The Martian Archmagos didn't believe a single word of it. More likely the Necron thief had been caught trying to rob the Sautekh vaults...

---

Mandragora

Super-Mekboy Brukk X-Brukk

"DEFFKANNON?"

"READYIEZ!"

"MEGA-CHOPPA?"

"READYIEZ, MEKBOSS!"

"FURST MATE?"

"WAAGGH!"

"SUPA-ROKKITS?"

"ARRGH! CLANG! CLANG! ARGGH! SUPA-ARRRGHH!"

Brukk X-Grukk grinned. Everything was ready!

"STOMPA!" The Mekboy screamed loudly so that all the boyz knew who was the Boss here. "WALK OUT! WAAAAAGGHHH!"

Brukk had been too unimportant and not big enough in the last war to command something big, but this time he was, and it was as good as firing more dakka on the Tin'eads!

"FASTA! FASTA! I'ZE WANT TA STOMP DA TIN'HEADS!"

"WE'ZE PUSHING MORE RED BUTTONZ BOSS!"

"FIRE AT DIS TOWA-THINGIE!"

"WAAAGH!"

Green rays exploded against the shields of the Big Stompa, and Brukk like every boy inside screamed in joy.

"WELCOME TO MANDRAGORKA BOYZ!"

"WAAAGHHH!"

"BOSS! BOSS! DA TIN'EADS FLYERS COMINGDIS WAY!"

"DEFFKOPTERS! DEFFKOPTERS! I WANT DEFFKOPTERS ON DEM!"

The Mega-Choppa struck plenty of enemies, and that was good, very orky.

Everything exploded around them, and the Deffkannon claimed five more kills of these Arkmorkas-thingies.

Then Brukk felt it. The Ork couldn't explain how he knew it of course, but he knew what had happened.

"DA SWARM BRINGA 'AS ARRIVED BOYZ! TOTAL WAAAAAGH IS COMIN'! STOMPA ATTACK!"

"WAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!"

---

Edge of the Maelstrom

The Badab Gate

Battle-Barge Plainsmaster

9.509.310M35

Chapter Master Hibou Khan

In case anyone asked him the question, the Great Khan of Chogoris would be the first to admit that staying too close to the Maelstrom Warp Zone was a very bad idea in nearly all circumstances.

In the case your Navigator didn't try to bribe your officers to mutiny for what was an obviously insanely dangerous idea, the very real dangers which always came with the Warp were especially present here and regularly claimed uncountable lives.

Some said the Maelstrom was less dangerous than the Eye of Terror. This was absolutely true, but what many souls forgot at their own peril was that the greatest Warp Storm of the galaxy was so dangerous that going past the Cadian Gate was typically a one-way journey. In the unlikely case the Traitor Astartes, pirates, daemons, and everything else that could kill you didn't, corruption of the body and soul generally ensured the patrols waiting at good distance away destroyed you the moment you emerged from it. Thus the Maelstrom being 'less dangerous' left a lot of heretical things ready to attack the naive and those who believed they knew better than the Astartes and the military forces fighting to keep the Archenemy contained.

The Maelstrom was a Warp Storm. That was the only thing which could be taken for granted.

"Well?" Hibou asked as the Voice of the Storm approached.

"Three, this time," the Lord of the Chaplaincy answered. "All were in the crews bound for the Enginarium."

"The abominations of the Empyrean must be afraid, usually they are far more subtle," the Great Khan commented lightly.

"It is still the second time today I must purge the crew of the Plainsmaster. And we were slightly understrength when we began this journey."

"I know. And I am not trying to minimize the losses we suffer waiting here for an enemy which might never come. But tell me, brother: if we had not received these Aethergold medallions, in your opinion how much of the crew would we have lost so far?"

"Too many," the Voice of the Storm reluctantly admitted. "And that's assuming we would have been able to maintain a watch without a corrupting fever striking the hydroponic gardens or some affliction unleashing a mutiny at the worst possible moment."

"Precisely," Hibou nodded, silently thanking the Chaplain for his honesty. "I am not denying I am taking a risk, but thanks to the material and psychic support provided by the Basileia of Nyx, this risk is calculated and not based on hysterical beliefs."

The formidable tides of the Warp Storm were intimidating as they dominated most of what one could see from the bay of the Plainsmaster. Hibou regretted it was an Astartes-only spectacle. The non-Space Marines would certainly be able to find courage in the fact that for all this frightening breach into the reality of the galaxy, humanity was still there, defiant.

"But you are not here to inform me of another necessary purge."

"The Astropaths have received two other messages. Two cultists uprising have gotten out of control not far from Ryza. These aren't worlds we are sworn to protect, but it is getting dangerously close to the zone we have withdrawn our fleet from."

"Not subtle at all," the Great Khan murmured again.

To be absolutely honest, Hibou Khan was here not because Lady Weaver had asked him to, not because of the favours the Tech-Priests of Ryza would owe him if this idea worked, or some other material or political factor. He was here, leading three Battle-Barges and a sizeable strength of his Chapter, because it was the best strategy available to him.

The Word Bearers were going to leave the Maelstrom. Now that the shadow was somewhat dissipating over Cadia, it was obvious their daemon-lovers of chief cultists had summoned the entire Legion having survived in the Eye of Terror. At one point or another, the Word Bearers of the Maelstrom were going to leave their lairs and assault the Imperium.

"We will have to rotate several ships out of here soon and-"

A long melody began to be sung across the corridors and the compartments of the Plainsmaster.

Unlike many of their cousins, his Chapter used some of the best poems previously recorded around the bonfires of their home to serve as alert signals.

This was something which was born in the dark days of the Betrayal, and like many things, it had become a tradition somewhere in the last millennia.

It gave purpose. It gave strength. It let them remember the dreams murdered and why they were going to kill those motherless bastards until none dirtied the galaxy with their disgusting presence.

"Show me," the Great Khan spoke to the Chogoris-born spaceman in charge of the devices of the room.

Five heartbeats later, the Chapter Master saw.

There were hundreds of red dots leaving the Maelstrom through the Badab Gate, and one-third of them were confirmed to be Traitor warships either having escaped the Scouring or turned Traitor since M31.

"Voice of the Storm!"

"Yes, my Khan!"

"I think it is a splendid day to hunt."

And if he bared his teeth while speaking, well who could blame him?

"I agree. For the Khan and the Emperor!"

---

Battle-Barge Glory Eternal

Chaos Lord Amatnim Ur-Nabas Lash

"You see? The diversions have worked! All is proceeding according to Hand of Destiny Erebus' plan!"

Uttering the name, of course, did Dark Apostle Lakmhu no favour, not aboard the Glory Eternal.

"You forget your place, Lakmhu. And it was Lord Phaeron's brilliant plan, not your Master's."

One might have believed that after repeating it a thousand times the lackey of the Vile One would stop sprouting his incorrect version, but this would be a poor understanding of Lakmhu and his foolish stubbornness.

"As for whether it proceeds exactly according to the plan, I will agree once we have accomplished the orders we've been given, not before," the fleet commander continued. "This campaign has barely begun. A little prudence is exactly what this fleet needs."

"Typical," the Dark Apostle brainwashed by Erebus sneered. "Your lack of faith is giving you a flawed armour to hide behind, Lord."

Amatnim Ur-Nabas Lash chose to not respond to this provocation. Instead he watched the vast expanse of space a long-dead cartographer had named 'Badab Gate'.

To be honest, it wasn't exactly impressive. It was a potential entrance and exit in the Maelstrom Warp Storm, but unlike at Cadia, it was extremely unstable. If the Gods willed it, it could be three or four millions kilometres-wide. But this year the Gods didn't will this path to be particularly expansive, and it was no more than seven hundred thousand kilometres in width. The compensation for this drawback was that the Maelstrom was very unlike the Eye of Terror and the other 'young' Warp Storms; 'Gates' like those were in the hundreds all over the Maelstrom, and the False Emperor's agents couldn't watch them all.

"You have eighty-eight capital warships with you. If you are not able to plunder the Samarkand Quadrant like you were ordered to, the Dark Council will not hesitate to feed your soul to the Neverborn."

Did the imbecile have a death wish? The way he proved himself a nuisance, it wouldn't take more than a few hours for his forces to shoot him in the neck and call it an accident.

"Sorcery scrying of the system before us?" He asked instead to one of his Legionnaires.

"The mortals appear to be engaged in a fortification effort on one planet," the red-armoured Astartes growled. "Per the pattern employed, it's certainly the first stages of a fortified watch station with enough orbital capacity to supply and repair a light flotilla. Nothing that can give us trouble, but it could be the prelude to the construction of a true Fortress World on the doorstep of the Maelstrom."

"Ambitious," the Chaos Lord commented. "Someone is definitely being bold after Sarum's destruction."

Amatnim Ur-Nabas had been in the minority who thought they had to fight tooth and nail in support of the Mechanicum several years ago, but his voice had been drowned out by dozens of others – including the one of Lakmhu.

Ghalmek had certainly made a disastrous decision that day. The Tech-Priests of Ryza and their allies had razed Samech until nothing more than ruins and the soulless carcasses of the Hell-Lords remained. Worse than losing one potential exit out of the Maelstrom however, it was the loss in industry and defensive depth which was the most damaging. Their Imperial enemies for the first time could see them come before the Seventeenth Legion and its allied warbands hit anything worthwhile. Like here at Badab.

"Give the signal to attack." Lakmhu hissed. "We will consecrate their incomplete temples to the Pantheon and-"

"Silence!" There was something wrong, something-

"No, I won't be silent! You have been disrespectful even when you were given eighty-eight capital warships and Blessed Lorgar's favour, against Hand of Destiny Erebus' arguments and-"

Dark Apostles were masters in the art of summoning Neverborn to accomplish their will. Their armours were decorated by words of the Book of Lorgar and Colchisian scripts giving them untold blessings of the Pantheon. The power of the Immaterium flowed through them and gave them a charisma few Warlords could hope to equal.

None of this mattered when his power sword plunged into his neck, quickly followed by five other weapons of his force.

"Thank you," Amatnim smiled to his warriors. "If someone happens to be heading in the direction of the incinerators, we appear to have an unexpected package whose disposal will require their use."

"You don't want to harvest his gene-seed, Lord?"

The master of the Glory Eternal shook his head.

"As tempting as it would be...his master knew the risk he was taking by sending him to me. The progenoids were extracted and taken back to Sicarus centuries before today. But take his armour and weapons. We must be thrifty, given how many years of war await us. "

Now what was the thought which had disturbed him so greatly?

Ah yes, why would the mortals begging the False Emperor for their salvation begin building something like this on the eve of a Black Crusade? Obviously they couldn't know the Badab Gate would be used, but they had to know the systems close to the Maelstrom would see a resurgence of piracy and raids, at the very least. And they couldn't defend it with a pack of Frigates and Destroyers-

"This is a trap," the realisation was brutal. "They are waiting for us."

"But my Lord..." one of his lieutenants coughed, "we have maintained a veil of sorcery...and we do have-"

"Eighty-eight capital ships, yes, I know," Amatnim grimaced. "In case you haven't noticed, half of this glorious fleet's capital ships consist of Light Cruisers, and converted hulls we took from Pirate Admirals at that." The best classes had not been given to him, alas. "And our strength doesn't matter, because I don't think it is going to be a conventional battle..."

"But Lord, our sorcerers are scrying the Badab System! There is no enemy fleet that can hide from the eyes blessed by the Gods here!"

The Legionnaire had a point. If the enemy was to strike, where was it coming from? A Warp translation would be tantamount to giving away all element of surprise and most other tactical advantages.

Two seconds later, the Cruiser Bloodbath of Armatura exploded without warning.

And dozens of energy signatures appeared...behind the Word Bearer's fleet.

"Enemy fleet behind us!" That had to be one of the most useless comments in the Seventeenth Legion's history, his mind whispered to him. "Enemy...two, no, three Battle-Barges, twelve Strike Cruisers...signatures of catapult launching...Dragon Armours! Acceleration...surely the numbers aren't right?"

"The numbers are right," he affirmed after giving the daemonic screens a glance. "We have just been ambushed by the White Scars."

Three Light Cruisers were massacred in the next few seconds. One more Cruiser was added to the tally and the light Fighter Wings of the sons of Jaghatai Khan weren't even in range yet.

"They hid at the edge of the Warp Storm to catch us unaware. Impressive. Very impressive."

"Lord, we must turn around!"

"Don't be stupid. Do you think I am as incompetent as Lakmhu?" Amatnim was tempted to shoot the idiot who had proposed this suicidal course of action, but decided against it after a moment. "This is exactly what the White Scars want. Slow down so that when they encircle us, they will cripple more and more ships as they corner us against the Maelstrom. Push the engines and every mechanical and daemonic part to its maximal capacity. Except the shields, all must be diverted to the acceleration of the Glory Eternal and its escorts!"

"But Lord...the rest of our fleet!"

"This fleet is doomed!" the Chaos Lord exclaimed. "My priority is to save our skins and souls now!"

And if the majority of the Vile One's supporters were in the fleet's rearguard, well...it was one of those unfortunate coincidences the Long War had quantities of examples of, no?

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

Battleship Enterprise

8.510.310M35

Lady General Taylor Hebert

"Chosen of the Omnissiah, we will perfectly understand if you desire to replace us-"

"Archmagos, do not be ridiculous." It was best to crush this idea while there was still time. "You went against a Necron commander, who, given the tactical talent shown on the Golden Crown, was certainly Imotekh the Stormlord. That old monster is the Sautekh Phaeron's favourite wherever there is a problem that seems impossible to resolve. In simple Low Gothic, for your first battle of this campaign, you were up against the enemy's very best."

And Imotekh was as formidable tactically and strategically as his reputation claimed. Wherever a Warrior-class Destroyer had been in range, it had been immediately made a priority target. The Third Skitarii Legion of Mars and the Fifth of Atar-Median had been absolutely mauled. It wasn't just that they had taken between thirty and forty percent of fatalities; it was the implacable way the Necrons had gone after the Skitarii Alpha commanders and the best or the most adaptable Tech-Priests.

The Stormlord had crippled the command structure of two Skitarii Legions, and eliminated its best elements. For all intents and purposes, these forces would need years to recover from the beating, unless she wanted to use them as a blunt instrument.

The same was true for the Battleship Atar and the Cog, one of the flagships of Battle Group Dnieper. The Magos Dominus commanding it had been considered for the Nyx Council a few years ago, and in the last year his future promotion after Stalingrad was considered a virtual certainty. He had a brilliant mind...and now he was gone, as were hundreds of thousands of other Tech-Priests.

Imotekh had really cost her a lot of good commanders for what should have been a one-sided massacre.

"This may be," Archmagos Gastaph Hediatrix canted in a low tone, "but he has gained our measure, and I fear that if we fight him a second time, he will be able to gain the upper hand more easily than he did the first time."

This was that bad...

"At the risk of sounding overconfident, you didn't have me in the battle for the Golden Crown. And I have a few surprises to give to Overlord Imotekh. Then there is the fact that, given the extraordinary circumstances, the time lost in four days isn't a major drawback, as the Sautekh nobles are forced to expend the majority of their awakened armies against the Ork hordes. Speaking of which?"

"Judging by the brutish symbols and some of the repurposed...'Kroozers' they have, a lot of the greenskins seem to have been 'recruited' from the Charadon Sector, my Lady," Wolfgang Bach informed her. "There are also splinters from the Octarius Sector, though those seem of lesser importance. We don't know how the Warboss was able to recruit them in so little time."

"Of course you do," Taylor replied absently, not turning her eyes away from the image of Mandragora surrounded by a corona of explosions, as the Necron Orbital Grid fired relentlessly to disintegrate as many Orks as possible before they crashed upon the Crownworld. "The Orks follow strength. Arrgard the Metal-Defiler is currently the strongest and most dangerous Warboss of Ork-kind. So they followed him here."

"They shouldn't be able to do that."

"No, but it summarizes the greenskins' rampages in an accurate fashion." Technically, no race that stupid should be able to spread to the stars. But they weren't a race as the common definition went. "Arrgard mustn't survive this battle. I won't deny his attack has benefitted us enormously here, but his survival now presents a clear danger to the Imperium's security."

"The kill-teams are going to be prepared, Lady General. Though it is going to be difficult locating it in...in the middle of that. The Deathwatch teams have evacuated after their aborted attack on the Orbital Grid nodes, so we have no presence on the ground, and this is a big problem."

"Yes." The golden-winged parahuman agreed. "Though not one as big as the fact the fleet of Overlord Zahndrekh bars the way to Mandragora."

The moment Battle Groups Berezina and Dnieper had advanced to threaten the Necron planet, the remaining twenty Battleships which had survived both the fighting at Volga and the insane assault of the Orks were deployed to make sure no human would ever set foot on the Sautekh Crownworld again.

It wasn't a fresh force anymore, but it wouldn't be distracted by the greenskins, since the majority of the hordes were fighting the Necrons in the skies and the craters of Mandragora.

There was no element of surprise they could rely upon. There was no great trick that could be used to neutralise them with a snap of her fingers.

The only great advantage was the so-far complete passivity of the Ymga Monolith, which remained more than five million kilometres away from...well, anything. It was certainly out of range to hit them, unless they activated their FTL drive to move to Mandragora's orbit.

"We have the advantage in numbers," Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller grimaced, "and we're going to need them. This...Overlord Zahndrekh...has fought wars longer than any of us, and has the battle-experience to match. Simulations affirm we will pay at least two of our Battleships to kill one of his."

And that was likely because his Cairn-class Battleships were damaged by the Ork onslaught and ramming collisions. Otherwise, the odds would be even worse for the Imperial fleet.

"We can't afford such losses, obviously." She watched the commanders of the three other Battle Groups and her own, both those present physically on the Enterprise and the digital representations of those who weren't. "There is still Mandragora and the Ymga Monolith waiting in the wings. This is why I'm inclined to go with Operation Trafalgar."

It was risky, but for all the Necron tactical deviousness, he wouldn't be able to do much. Trafalgar called for a micro Warp-jump – made possible by the Imperial Pylon and the absence of a null-zone in the space battle – before rushing the Necron Battlefleet at close-quarters and unleashing the full muster of the Adeptus Astartes present among her forces.

It wasn't going to be pretty, but the war games and all attempts to estimate how successful it would be gave it far better percentages of victory than a long and bloody battle of attrition.

"My Lady," Admiral Oskar von Reuenthal bowed as the rest of the commanders all turned towards him. "While I agree we're most likely going to win with Trafalgar, I think we're underestimating how costly it will prove. Overlord Zahndrekh, as you said, is one of the oldest and most capable commanders of the first wars this galaxy has ever known. He will realise immediately what we have planned. He may not be able to fight as he wants, given the imperative of protecting the planet, but he will have countermeasures in place for us. I humbly propose an alternative, for against an opponent so prestigious, we servants of His Most Holy Majesty must give him the entire consideration he deserves."

Well, let it not be said her Admirals didn't master the art of flowery language and respecting xenos commanders for their achievements...at least in their sentences. Taylor looked at Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller, who shrugged with a neutral expression.

"You have my attention, Admiral Reuenthal. What do you have in mind?"

---

The Throne of Oblivion

Overlord Sobekhotep

"Where did the vermin find the industrial capacity to build all these ships?" Sobekhotep barked.

Their appearance a few days ago had been an unpleasant surprise, but after thousands of years to mourn their losses, even pathetic vermin could build a fleet able to cross the void between the stars.

"I don't know my Glorious Overlord," Sihathor admitted. "But surely Zahndrekh has the firepower to deal with them?"

"He has a powerful fleet." The Szarekhan Overlord conceded. "But the enemy has not fought for the last hours...and the fleet we fought recently has been reinforced."

By the lethal aura of the Nightbringer, how was the vermin summoning fleet after fleet like this?

One was possible, but a second had clearly been waiting for them at Mandragora! And now they had somehow found another to reinforce them in a few days!

"Ask the Artificial Intelligences how many organic worlds were necessary to build these ships."

"Yes, my Glorious Overlord!" The Impaler obeyed. "The estimation is of approximately fifty thousand systems, given the obvious lack of efficiency any organic industry suffers in shipbuilding construction."

"We are going to have a lot of work ahead of us to eradicate them from this galaxy." Sobekhotep declared.

"My Glorious Overlord? Given the...Sautekh half-victories and reverses, I do not think they have the strength to support us in exterminating the lesser species which have crawled into existence during the Great Sleep."

"No," the Master of the Throne of Oblivion conceded. "But that just means that once the Sautekh are dealt with, one way or another, we will have to wake other Dynasties and ensure contact is opened anew with our Eternal and Beloved Leader the Silent King. This galaxy is in dire need of being put back into order. How are the preparations I ordered progressing?"

"One Cryptek was killed, but your orders have been obeyed. The...thing...has been thrown into another Hyper-Vault, while the other asset is on its way to an activation node."

"Good. Given Djosakhat's insolence, my patience is growing thin..."

"The enemy vermin fleet is advancing, Mighty Overlord!"

"At last," someone grumbled.

"I wonder why they required so much time? It isn't like the situation is complicated to understand..."

"Most likely their organic commanders are deathly afraid of the Stormlord," Sobekhotep muttered.

Not that fear of the Stormlord was something truly alien to the Necron Dynasties. Before adulthood, the terrible blade of the Sautekh was already massacring enemies in the name of his Phaeron.

"Apparently the name of Imotekh wasn't enough for the commander we faced around the giant blue star," he would have to find a suitable name for this battlefield, even if it had ended in defeat.

Thousands of warships were now accelerating towards Zahndrekh and his ships. Many were too small to play a significant role, but they were over seventy hulls which could be classified as Battleships by Necron standards, and under his eyes, even more dots representing an enemy unit appeared.

"The enemy is launching Fighters and Bombers." Sihathor commented.

"It is far too soon, they won't be able to hunt anything at this range...and they are overpowering their emissions. We shouldn't see them so clearly at this distance, even with our powerful sensors!"

Zahndrekh answered this move by taking a classical cone-shaped formation, its tip taken by his flagship, the honourable and obviously most dangerous place to be.

The enemy...brutally changed his formation.

"What...what are they doing?"

The enemy wasn't in a succession of lines, triangles, or anything resembling a logical formation.

Instead, it was forming a ring. Yes, the vermin fleet was assuming a ring-shaped formation. Which meant the centre of it was just a big hole.

"This is...this is completely ridiculous! Do they think by doing such a stupidity they will be able to beat Zahndrekh? He can easily locate the area protected by the golden shield-ships, and exploit the weaknesses we have found since the end of the first battle!"

"My Glorious Overlord...I hate to point it out, but we can't distinguish the shield-ships from the rest...not until they activate their shields."

Sobekhotep suddenly understood why the energy signatures were so powerful. The Necron fleet was supposed to detect each and every signature facing them. But it would be immensely difficult judging which signature was that of a Battleship and which was a lighter escort.

And the ring formation ensured that every mistake would be paid for in numerous Sautekh ships.

"They are going to lose quantities of escorts in this game," Sihathor declared in an outraged tone.

"But their heaviest hulls are going to have several free shots before Zahndrekh can locate them." Sobekhotep tried to assess a logic in the deployment, but it was just a ring from where he stood. "This is going to hurt."

"Still, Zahndrekh has the experience-"

"My Mighty Overlord! The enemy fleet is changing formation again!"

"What are they trying now?"

It took a long time to understand what he was seeing. It was like several of those organic reptiles...Wyrms...twisting and distorting everything, moving and changing at every instant...and then they fired.

"My Overlord! They-

"They have already half-encircled Zahndrekh!"

"What?"

But the more the Artificial Intelligences compiled the data, the clearer the Dust-Maker realised what was happening.

"The enemy commander is adopting seemingly illogical formations, but they aren't chaotic. They're constantly evolving to encircle the Sautekh fleet...their most powerful ships were able to placethemselves in a flanking position without Zahndrekh noticing them."

This was an audacious and unconventional strategy...but as the alien starships poured a devastating holocaust onto the surprised Sautekh ships and at last the shield-ships revealed themselves – none of them where anyone conventional would have placed them – it proved all its worth.

Three Cairns blew up.

Zahndrekh began to inflict some damage in return, but his ships were withdrawing in a hurry, and it wasn't difficult to understand why; if he stayed where he was, he may be able to inflict more damage, but his fleet would perish without a single ship to be saved for another battle.

Maybe Imotekh would have been able to find a countermeasure...but Imotekh wasn't in command.

"My Mighty Overlord...I don't understand how such a...an unconventional idea could be thought of by organic vermin?"

"Those lesser species either have geniuses to lead them, or more tortured souls than the average Phaeron," Sobekhotep declared in a defeated tone. "It seems there is going to be a three-way battle on Mandragora."

"Do we intervene?"

"No. Djosakhat doesn't want to recognise the Szarekhan Dynasty as his legitimate masters? Then he can fight the green and pink vermin by himself!"

---

Battleship Son of Victory

Admiral Oskar von Reuenthal

"Congratulations, Admiral. It seems your plan worked exactly as you promised." The Living Saint rarely gave genuine smiles in the middle of military operations, and Oskar von Reuenthal was honoured to receive one. "For the sake of my personal curiosity, how good did you think the chances of your plan were?"

Oh, he wasn't going to answer that one honestly.

"Reasonably sure, your Celestial Highness."

The Chosen of the God-Emperor chuckled before shaking her head.

"Anyways, the Necron fleet shouldn't be a problem anymore. Zahndrekh's superior has evidently decided he has lost enough warships and teleported the survivors out of System. We are going to remain on guard for any surprise return, but these enormous Dolmen Gates aren't exactly subtle."

"It would be prudent, my Lady," the Bakka Admiral agreed. "The Necron fleet was quite visibly caught by surprise, but even severely outnumbered they managed to inflict a lot of damage...most notably the Superb Triumph."

No one aboard the Son of Victory had been watching the Vanquisher-class Battleship, and the auspexes were quite puzzled by what sort of weapon it had been hit...but the results were all too clear. Millions of tons of plasteel, ceramite, advanced technology, and adamantium...gone.

It wasn't the only loss. Three of the Lunar-class Cruisers of Battle Group Volga were so crippled their hulks would not move under their own power regardless of what happened in the next several hours.

The Living Saint didn't take umbrage at it.

"I know. But if that's the price for three Necron Battleships destroyed and two more crippled, it's a good rate of exchange...and nothing save the Orbital Grid of Mandragora remains to oppose us."

Which was hardly nothing, but their commander knew that.

"I have decided you won't participate in the operation against Mandragora," the Lady General continued bluntly. "I need a reliable naval commander to keep both eyes on the Ymga Monolith, and since you have just proven you can be trusted to understand and counter the xenos' tactical skills, you have been chosen for this duty."

"I am honoured, your Celestial Highness," and he was, truly, "but I don't think my division alone can intervene decisively against this immense pyramid if they have...offensive ideas."

"That's why I am detaching the Navy squadrons of Battle Group Muskha to form part of your new task force. You will also receive the understrength 8th Battleship Division of Volga and its screening elements."

Oskar von Reuenthal bowed, and didn't ask the question which burned on his lips.

It was a great promotion for him...and a demotion-in-all-but-name for Lord Admiral von Scheer of Kar Duniash, senior Navy officer of Battle Group Muskha. There were several circumstances under which a junior Admiral could take priority in the chain of command over a far older Lord Admiral; none of them applicable here to his best knowledge. This meant the rumours of the man's slowness to prepare his squadrons and reach the standards demanded for Operation Stalingrad had finally caught up with him while the battle was fought.

"Well done," Neidhart Müller complimented him after the lithocast communication with the Enterprise ended. "I think your plan and the victory we won here has gone a long way in restoring Her Celestial Highness' faith in the Imperial Navy."

"Let's hope so." Reuenthal gave a nod to the grey-haired Lord Admiral before returning to a sterner expression. "Mandragora remains."

"Mandragora remains," the older officer repeated with a grimace. "And I don't envy the Guard and the other forces which are going to jump into that hell."

---

Ultima Segmentum

Tanakreg System

High Orbit over Tanakreg

Battlecruiser Altar of Salvation

7.511.310M35

Dark Apostle Kar-Gatharr

"The slave-dogs of the False Emperor in this system are pathetic," Kor Megron rumbled. "Even Amatnim wouldn't have been able to lose against them."

"Now, now, Kor," Kar-Gatharr smiled, something which would have likely caused concern to a Drukhari, given his dentition resembled that of a piranha. "According to the last report he was able to send before his flagship blew up, his fleet was fighting valiantly against the White Scars' fleet."

"They were running like hell, you mean," the Chaos Lord retorted. "I always knew he was incompetent. Did he give a believable reason why they were able to ambush him so devastatingly before they sent him to the Gods?"

"No, I'm afraid not, he was short on time...and Lakmhu, who was the primary contact, was already dead, apparently." The Dark Apostle made a gesture of dismissal. "Perhaps Blessed Lorgar will be interested in dragging him back from the Sea of Souls to hear his explanations before torturing him for this egregious failure. Or perhaps not. The faith of Amatnim was weak...something I think the Gods are going to rectify for all eternity."

It was everything the vanquished Chaos Lord deserved. Failures like that were never forgiven, not during a campaign for a warband, and not for the Black Crusade planned and unleashed by the Seventeenth Legion.

"What angers me the most," the disciple of Kor Phaeron added, "is the fact that with Amatnim's fleet not invading the Samarkand Quadrant, we won't be able to find a replacement fleet to take up his duties. I would volunteer to achieve what his destroyed fleet was commanded to do, but alas, once we will have seized the Nexus Arrangement we will have to bring it to Blessed Lorgar...and it is in the opposite direction."

"It is a minor failure, in the end," Kor Megron affirmed. "Once the Nexus Arrangement is ours and Blessed Lorgar unleashes the Tear of Nightmares, the False Emperor's planets will be defenceless before us. And once their main Battlefleets are destroyed along with their False Saint, the heretics and unbelievers will be crushed. We will be able to strike when and where we wish at our leisure...a holy path which will pave the way for our return to the Throneworld. And this time the corpse of the False Emperor will be broken and given to the Pantheon."

"As you say...and it begins today on Tanakreg."

Though frankly, if this planet didn't have the Nexus Arrangement hidden under its crust, Kar-Gatharr wouldn't have bothered coming here. The planet's main export was salt of all things, and it didn't have much to offer beyond that. The military opposition was a joke, the temples of the unbelievers, while always a pleasure to sanctify to the Pantheon, were small and unimportant.

Tanakreg was a 'Frontier World', away from the main trade lanes and practically everything of importance. And given how deep the Nexus Arrangement was buried, the Dark Apostle couldn't blame the usual blindness of the mortals: if he hadn't received the information from Blessed Lorgar, he would have bypassed this unimportant world.

"Judging by how successful your cultists are at spreading the will of the Gods, I think we can both agree there is nothing opposing our landing...and control of the planet will be contested by the last mortal regiment defending the capital."

"I wouldn't use the word 'contested'," Kor Megron scoffed. "Still, at least the new warriors I have will be given the opportunity to paint their armours with some unbelievers' blood."

"That's a faithful answer," he praised before turning to-

The Cruiser Fangs of Shadow exploded.

So close to the Altar of Salvation, this could have catastrophic consequences...and it did. Thank the Gods the Spear of Faith was providing an unwitting shield on their left for-

Two, three more ships were in ruin.

"What...we're under attack! Activate the void shields! Activate the void shields and all countermeasures!"

"My Lord Apostle! The Heldrakes are fighting each other under the keel of-"

And suddenly Kar-Gatharr realised the truth.

"Half of them aren't Heldrakes! They are those damned Dragon Armours, and while we weren't looking, they placed plasma mines between the gravitic plates of our starships!"

"KILL THEM!" Kor Megron roared. "And begin bombardment of the planet before-"

An immense blast of red light tore apart the bridge, and Kar-Gatharr had just enough time to realise he too had failed his Primarch before his soul was sent into the Immaterium where immense shoals of Neverborn awaited the feast he had promised them.

---

Battle-Barge Mantis Blade

Chapter Master Castro Salem

"The Codex may be old, but the wisdom of a Primarch is not something to take lightly."

"Indeed, Chapter Master. 'The Traitors are never so prompt to lower their guard as when they believe victory can't escape their grasp', I believe?"

"That and 'the ten seconds before the enemy is launching his planetary assault are the moment where he is the most vulnerable'."

"Ah yes, of course, Chapter Master."

Castro clapped his hands.

"You had almost forgotten this page, young one..."

"To be fair, Chapter Master, I don't think that when he wrote the Codex Astartes, Lord Guilliman thought about how painting Dragon Armours in a different colour would lead the Traitors to mistake them for Heldrakes...because while I admit I'm not sure if they had Heldrakes in M31, I know for certain we didn't have Dragon Armours."

"You make a convincing point." The Lord of the Mantis Warriors approved. "But he insisted on how misdirection, while not very honourable, was one of the best weapons we could use against the Traitors...their diseased egos want to believe they are the masters of this galaxy, and handing them the knife to slit their own throats with is extremely satisfying."

"Still...when I proposed the idea, Chapter Master, I didn't think we would manage to catch and destroy two-thirds of their fleet in a single trap."

"They were even more arrogant than you expected. Obviously, the success of the trap also means we are confronted with two little problems now. As you can see the orbit of Tanakreg is really crowded with Traitor debris."

The younger Mantis Warrior passed a hand through his beard and coughed in embarrassment.

"Ah, yes...it seems in my...enthusiasm, I failed to take this factor into account in my calculations."

"I'm glad you are willing to take responsibility for it," the other Space Marine japed before regaining his self-control. "Because the rest of the Chapter can't be involved in the clean-up of these wrecks. The Governor of Tanakreg is dead and their PDF has lost several cities to the Word Bearers' cultists. I would prefer tracking down the other fleets which have escaped the Maelstrom blockade, but we have little choice but to launch a ground campaign on Tanakreg."

"That shouldn't take too long," the Captain of the 3rd Company stated with a carnivorous grin.

"Don't forget that, six hours ago, the Traitors likely thought the same thing."

And the graveyard of dead ships above Tanakreg was proof enough their aspirations had not exactly ended the way they had planned. The four Traitor Battlecruisers had been the recipients of the main effort of the Mantis Warriors' pilots, the Heldrakes being roused too late to stop the mines from being fixed onto the hulls, and three of the four had been destroyed before his fleet arrived and finished the job. Unfortunately the fourth heretical hull had not been sufficiently damaged, and seeing its fleet torn apart around it with all Cruisers shattered or opened to the void, had decided salvation would only be found by fleeing.

"It's too bad one of their ships escaped. We won't be able to trick them that way a second time..."

"The tactic is extremely risky once the enemy has seen it the first time anyway, Chapter Master...before you depart, can I ask how you were so confident the enemies of our Chapter would choose to strike at Tanakreg? Apart from cultists and salt, this planet doesn't seem to produce a lot of valuable things..."

"I'm afraid the answer to that question is beyond your clearance level, young one." And not just because he was ready to bet a Battle-Barge that xenos sources stood at the beginning of the information chain. "Let's just say the Adeptus Mechanicus vouched for it...until more peaceful times arrive in this galaxy, the secrets of Tanakreg will stay secret."

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

High Orbit over Mandragora

8.517.310M35

Battleship Enterprise

Lady General Taylor Hebert

Millennia ago on Earth, the fleets of wooden ships had been massively disadvantaged when facing coastal fortifications. The material they were built from was simply too flammable and prone to blowing up for them to have a chance if the opposition had not funnelled the defence funds into the officers' pockets or succumbed to another type of corruption.

In the 35th millennium, this advantage theoretically remained with the orbital fortifications, Starforts, and other non-powered platforms emplaced to protect a world. When it came right down to it, these objects had no size limits and didn't require Warp Drives or anything to move under their own power; military tugs towed them when relocation was necessary. As a result, something like a Ramilies-class Starfort was capable of punching far above what its tonnage implied.

That was the theory.

In practise, the mobility of starships and their ability to send torpedoes in ballistic mode gave a flexibility to a Battlefleet which allowed it to choose the pace and conditions it would attack under, and that had been the doom of more human systems than could be realistically estimated.

As a result, the insect-mistress could say that yes, the Imperial orbital grids were powerful. But they were far from a guarantee a world would never fall. In general, to properly limit the risks of that, it was best to have an extensive set of fixed defences and a mobile fleet, preferably of the Imperial Navy so it could perform manoeuvres requiring Warp-capability.

The Sautekh Dynasty clearly felt otherwise, judging by the way they had sent their surviving ships out of the system.

On the other hand, the Necrons had the Orbital Grid of Mandragora.

It was, at the risk of underselling it, a nightmare of xenos firepower reality.

Three concentrated rings of things which might very well deserve the name of orbital plates, tough in a way which shouldn't be materially possible, able to teleport, receive millions of Necron reinforcements, and phase green-lit cannons the size of the batteries of the Eternal Crusader in and out at will. There were super-sized void-purposed Monoliths defended by flayer-fields – the Orks had discovered the existence of those the hard way, and yes, the name explained extremely well what they did. The entire upper atmosphere was filled with killer-bots the size of Light Cruisers and operated either by Necrons or by vicious Artificial Intelligences. Additionally, there was a multitude of Necrodermis-covered weapons, things pouring green lightning and intense radiation the likes of which no one truly living could survive.

And this was after the Orks had blown some of it to Kingdom Come and the Sautekh forces had been forced to pour in replacements to fill the gaps.

If the Aegis Battlecruisers weren't available in large numbers, a conventional assault would have been out of the question. These defences were far too murderous to risk sending conventional Battleships against them. Even then, it had been judged best to sabotage it before the Crownworld awakened in full; unfortunately the Necrons here had far too many contingencies for anything more than isolated successes.

And now, three hours after the massive bombardment had begun, the Eternal Crusader and the Flamewrought, supported by twelve rotating Battleships, had only just managed to create a breach in the first circle of the Necron grid.

This didn't bring her much joy. Because now that most of the outer jammers were out of the way, Taylor had a clearer view of what was awaiting below the artificial thunderstorms of Mandragora.

And it was hellishly bad.

"Gamaliel."

"My Lady?"

"Tell the Archmagi to begin analysing the disposition of these immense starscraper-citadels the Necrons made emerge from the planetary crust. I want them to locate a minor node whose local destruction can knock out enough of their systems to permit access a Hive-sized landing zone."

"By your order," the Herald of Sanguinius nodded. "But with all due respect, though the Blood and the Fists are ready to wage war in your service, this promises to be...difficult to accomplish. If it's anything like the things the Salamanders are currently firing at, the ground tomb-fortresses will have three layers of shields and maybe more."

"That's why the Space Marines will be in the third wave," best to deliver the bad news now, they weren't likely to protest less as the time passed. And sure enough, Kratos protested before the next five seconds were over.

"My Lady, our cousins and the sons of Sanguinius are ready to give our lives for you!"

"I don't doubt it, my Champion. And that's exactly the problem."

Gavreel by her side was the first to understand.

"You fear the Necron commanders have prepared a trap for us."

"I don't fear it, I know it," the parahuman corrected. "Look at what is happening with the Orks on the other side of the planet. It has become a slugging match, with absolutely no tactical skill whatsoever."

Granted fighting the greenskins was always a brutal affair, but still...

"They had hours to digest the defeat of their fleet and acknowledge the threat we present. And since they have seen the Deathwatch operate on Mandragora and the assault against the Golden Crown, they have gained too much insight into the capabilities of Space Marines. Add the records of the ambushes and clashes at Volga, and the Sautekh Necrons have learned too much about the might of the Adeptus Astartes."

"That's...it is logical, my Lady, but the two waves which will land before us are going to suffer an...unpleasant amount of casualties."

When an Imperial Fist began to speak about 'unpleasant amounts of casualties', you knew it was going to be very bad.

"The first wave will be the muster of all the Penal Legions we have left, with a few companies of Stormtroopers and other elite troops hidden in their midst to accomplish several objectives."

A mental command was given, and Artemis acknowledged it loudly before rushing to prepare her sisters and cousins along with the other insects necessary for her plan.

"The second wave will be the 22nd Army of the Paruthan Immortals."

"And who will command the third wave?" The Forgefather asked, in a tone hinting he already knew the answer.

---

Mandragora

8.520.310M35

Penal Trooper Jonathan XXII Franklin-Sol-Wilberforce de Bourbon

"I'm just saying, I could offer you three palaces if you help me get out of here..."

"Shut up imbecile, the Commissar is coming this way!"

Jonathan shut up. He was a nobleman, in his veins flowed the bluest blood of the secular nobility coexisting with that incompetent Cardinal of Atlantis, but no one wanted to anger the Commissar.

"In a few seconds," the dread figure of red and black began in a voice that demanded absolute silence and obtained it immediately, "this Penal Legion will land on Mandragora. This is your first and only chance at redemption, scum. Your duty, as the God-Emperor wills it, is to storm the xenos fortress better men and women than you have designated 'Point Starfall'. If you are still alive when this citadel falls, and if you haven't forced me to use my bolt-pistol, I will consider signing the papers integrating you into the loyal regiments of the Imperial Guard."

Jonathan wanted to scream in fury. He didn't want to join the Imperial Guard and the ugly brutes populating its ranks! He wanted to go back to his Atlantean palaces, his concubines, and the golden life he lived before the calamity known as Weaver had ordered her treacherous troops to arrest his priceless body!

But the assault troop carrier crashed into something and the Commissar drew his very threatening chainsword.

"GO! COVER YOURSELF IN GLORY, FALLEN SONS OF MANKIND!"

They ran. They ran as what seemed to be a hundred green rays of death struck to their right, and despite the rebreather mask, the air felt like poison.

"ONWARDS! ONWARDS!"

A metallic...thing opened to swallow the first lines.

"FIRE! FIRE!"

The autoguns and the ugly weapons they were given fired, or in the case of the blades, tried to stab something.

Then the world exploded, and Jonathan was thrown...somewhere...

"What by the golden chalice-"

"CLIMB BACK UP THAT HILL AND CLAIM IT FOR THE GLORY OF THE IMPERIUM!"

"Are you crazy?" he heard one of the plebeians scream. "We don't have the weapons to kill this-"

BLAM!

"Does anyone else want to argue about their orders again?"

Dead silence answered the Commissar's inquiry.

"CHARGE! CHARGE FOR THE IMPERIUM!"

They charged as lightning formed myriads of impossible phenomena and somehow became green tornadoes. They charged that damned hill while shells and lasers rained everywhere, even as something which looked like a column of light impacted a kilometre away.

Holy...their own side was using Exterminatus near them?

"CHARGE!"

They charged, but every time one of the abominable things fell against a million autoguns, they lost ten or twenty of the plebeians and as many true nobles...one could recognise the ones who died with dignity and the ones who hadn't. Yes, the last scion of the line of the Grand-Dukes of the Crimson Lion could recognise those who were true to the cause of superior breeding and looks.

He had almost reached the top of the hill when a pillar of green light shot out and the resulting shockwave slammed what felt like ten kilograms of steel into his face.

Jonathan XXII Franklin-Sol-Wilberforce de Bourbon rolled back downwards, in direction of where their transport should be...except it wasn't there anymore.

Strange, very strange. He wasn't hearing the Commissar anymore...why was the ground so shiny...

"Oh, by the precious diamonds of my House!"

The ground wasn't shiny; the millions of metallic insects coming at him were so numerous they formed a carpet he could not see the end of.

They were finishing to eat what remained of the Commissar. Some did. There were so many...

No, not thinking about this. There was no Commissar, he could run away. And so he did.

Jonathan threw off everything save the autogun and ran. Who cared about a shovel when he had no intention to dig anyone's grave?

"HELP! Someone help me in getting away from this nightmare...please...there must be someone..."

He didn't know how long he ran, but after a short while, he saw a lone silhouette appear as the smoke and the dust somehow abated.

"Please! I am searching for-"

His words died in his throat as the figure turned around, and it was revealed to not be a human, but one of the enemy xenos, in a garb of gold, green, and violet.

"I must have done a lot of good deeds today, for specimens destined to enrich my new galleries are throwing themselves at me!"

"Specimen?" Jonathan's outrage overwhelmed. "I will have you know, miserable creature, I am the Grand Duke of the Crimson Lion, Master of the moon of Nova Samara, and...what are you doing?"

"I'm taking notes, of course!" The xenos seemed genuinely offended. "My galleries include the pedigree of each and every specimen composing an exhibit! But for some reason my Crypteks often try to skip this essential administrative part of collecting, and so when the occasion presents itself, I am forced to do it myself, which I've found it gives better results. Where were we?"

"I am Jonathan XXII Franklin-Sol-Wilberforce de Bourbon! I am not a specimen!"

"They all say that," the monster stopped writing. "Next you're going to tell me you aren't a Penal Legionnaire of my dear friend Weaver..."

"I am an aristocratic peer of the highest Atlantean lineage! I am-"

"Let the record show that the subject is obviously delusional and mentally unbalanced," the xenos commented as it continued to write at an impossible speed. "I don't want to be subjected to accusations I took your claims too seriously, after all."

In a matter of seconds, Jonathan's whole world suddenly focused on killing this xenos. Surely there had to be a massive bounty on its head, right?

"Choose your last words wisely, xenos!"

"This isn't the end, Jonathan XXII Franklin-Sol-Wilberforce de Bourbon. I am Trazyn the Infinite Collector, and eternity awaits."

There was a flash, something hard tore into his neck, and the former Grand Duke knew no more.

---

Mandragora

'Point Starfall'

8.526.310M35

Lady Inquisitor Rafaela Harper

Mandragora was going to be her death.

This was not an omen, a prophecy, or anything conjured from the feverish words of a psyker. No, Rafaela was describing the situation as it was. Her right arm was missing, and if she hadn't worn power armour or did not have a Healer-Savant in her retinue, she wouldn't even be breathing right now, not since one of hundreds of these miniature sharp things the xenos were so fond of had tried its best to eat her.

The old Lady Inquisitor coughed and looked behind her.

A graveyard of Chimeras and other Imperial vehicles offered itself to her gaze as the smoke and dust were temporarily blown away by a storm which was certainly not natural. Tens of thousands of vehicles and hundreds of thousands of human corpses lay there on the 'Starfall Drop Zone', so many even the follow-up wave of Skitarii had not yet managed to begin the recovery operations...but the Tech-Priests had other urgent priorities above that.

Mandragora was hell.

"Lady Inquisitor, you shouldn't move, otherwise-"

"I am going to die?" she asked one of her last Acolytes sarcastically. "I have a feeling it's far too late to prevent that."

"We can still-"

"Hold the line, youngsters," just saying the words left her tired and depressed. Even she, veteran of a about three hundred xenos wars, had never seen a battle like this one.

The Paruthan Immortals, superb in their grey carapace armours, had descended onto Mandragora to die. What had seemed a heavily-defended zone had risen to the challenge of transforming into hell, as billions of Necron constructs rose from the ground, artificial earthquakes announced the arrival of monstrous metallic things, and the Necrons still kept coming, wave after wave, no matter how many shells the Imperial artillery poured onto them.

The strategists of Battle Group Volga had been right. The Necrons had gained a sufficient amount of time to prepare some ugly traps, and given how violent the situation had turned out to be, Knights and Titans would likely have been blown out of the sky before managing to reach the irradiated warzone.

And so the 22nd Army of the Paruthan Immortals had paid the price, with all the Inquisition task forces, the Commissars, and even a few Knight Errants formerly of several disreputable Knight Houses.

Over and over they had charged to secure ground, more ground so that when the time came, the follow-up waves would be able to set a foot on the ground without first taking a Gauss ray to the chest.

But the cost...

Rafaela Harper was all too familiar with appalling casualty rates, but this...this was not the idiotic fury of the Orks, which often ravaged armies only to spare immense reserves because they couldn't get a proper fight. It wasn't the Eldar, who slaughtered the head of an expeditionary force and left millions leaderless. The Necron war machine was driven by a malevolent will which tolerated nothing but the extermination of their enemies to the last single life present on Mandragora.

Two hundred and one regiments. Seven hundred and fifty thousand men. That was the number of Paruthan Immortals which had been thrown against the Necron Monoliths and phalanxes. Trained troops, which had watched vids of Necrons, been told about their real capacities.

Two days of total war had slaughtered their numbers down to under one hundred thousand, and the only reason it wasn't more was the heavy support of the 1st Ophelian Army and the first waves of the 6th Vostroyan Army.

And this...the thunder of Imperial Artillery and the endless infantry volleys of lasguns, Plasma, Heavy Bolters, and countless weapons proved that these millions of men, along with their Skitarii support, was barely enough to hold their opposition at bay with crippling casualties.

"My Lady...the enemy wave..."

"How many?" She coughed.

"You...you have to see it..."

Her vision was declining, but the magna-goggles were enough to see the new face of the Necron murder-weapons.

Clouds.

"Golden Throne..."

The Necron commanders weren't playing around...not that they had it since the very beginning.

"God-Emperor, how many are there of them?"

These were clouds of millions, maybe billions of those 'Canoptek Scarabs', unless this was another murderous variation of them.

"The lines...won't be able to hold, Lady Inquisitor."

Not when there were also millions more infantry xenos teleporting in several kilometres away to join the massacre.

This was not a quick offensive, it was evident in the way it was shaped. It was a sledgehammer, a blunt weapon which would erase hundreds of regiments, tanks or no tanks, desperate resistance or not.

"Find a Navy liaison and tell him I request heavy orbital strikes on my position under my own authority."

An Acolyte rushed away to relay her words which, despite how they were phrased, were anything but a suggestion.

The clouds grew more massive...and approached closer to the Imperial lines. So was the lightning. In the last hours, the massive apocalyptic weather phenomena had not been numerous, but clearly this was no longer the case.

"We must have really annoyed them..." a guardsman of the Paruthan Immortals chuckled.

And then the ground opened several hundred metres on their right, disgorging hundreds of thousands more of the damnable xenos constructs.

Rafaela froze. There weren't any reserves ready to repel them...and now there was nothing she could say that could prevent the surviving Paruthan Immortals from being crushed from two directions, it was a classical hammer and anvil formation...

The onslaught was going to be an affair of mere seconds and-

Lightning flashed and then disappeared.

And then, for the first time, a miracle happened. The clouds of murderous machines stopped, right as they were metres away from the defenders.

"Why did they-"

A brilliant golden light erupted over their heads, and suddenly, for the first time during the Battle of Mandragora, the sun rose to support the Imperium of Mankind.

A familiar figure in golden armour and on golden wings flew over the battlefield, and the Necron metal-insects bowed to her will, changing their axis of attack to turn their mandibles and weapons against their former Necron masters.

In mere seconds, what had born all the signs of a last stand...was transformed into a devastating counterattack. Star-reaching xenos spires crashed down, and from the skies tens of thousands of transports rained, preceded by hundreds of Astartes drop pods.

But more transhumans came, teleporting directly onto the battlefield, slaughtering Necrons, and whatever other things had not submitted to the Saint.

"How?" she found the strength to ask as the golden light became her whole world. "I thought you couldn't teleport..."

A small chuckle arrived to her ears.

"Lady Inquisitor, that was years ago...contacts with Lucius weren't just to negotiate for the participation of Legio Astorum. They also had several interesting artefacts. One was called the Solar Flare, and this teleportation device has a powerful symbiotic effect with Aethergold."

Ah yes, that would explain it.

"Will it be enough...your Celestial Highness?"

"Yes, yes it will. Now rest, Lady Inquisitor. You have done more than enough to stand proudly before Him."

"Thank you. It was an honour...meeting you."

Rafaela Harper smiled and closed her eyes for the last time.

---

Ground Orbital Grid Primary Node

Overlord Imotekh

"What by the dead bones of the Flayer do you think you're doing, Nemesor?"

Thank the laws of probability Imotekh had returned from the front in time.

"According to the protocols, sending a second wave of Canoptek Scarabs is the honourable doctrine to employ!"

For the briefest of moments, the Stormlord wondered how such an imbecile could survive the War in Heaven...truly there was something wrong with the reawakening protocols if empty-eyed cretins like this were dragged out of the Great Sleep before competent commanders.

Anyway there wasn't any time to waste. So he personally disintegrated the sorry excuse of a military leader before ordering the destruction of any personality backups.

"We just lost over one hundred million Canoptek attack-units in this offensive! If someone thinks doubling our losses is the logical thing to do, you are of as much value as the waste of Necrodermis I just purged from our glorious Dynasty."

Imotekh would have to acknowledge to his Phaeron the error of his chosen strategy, of course. While the trap had not been perfect, it had been efficient in destroying millions of the young species, the 'humans', assaulting them alongside the debased descendant of the Krorks.

Except...except the enemy commander had correctly anticipated that he would use an attrition strategy to cripple whatever managed to break through the orbital and mid-atmospheric defences.

The enemy had seen it...and estimated it was the price it had to pay so that it could bait him into sending the only true asset the Sautekh Dynasty had in inexhaustible numbers: the Canoptek Scarabs and the other weapons of the same class.

And then it had taken control of them.

Some part of Imotekh still wondered how that was possible, when all logic insisted it couldn't be.

The simplest Canoptek unit had somewhere around fifteen million program engrams imbedded in its metal-essence. Taking control of one, even partially, was something that was supposed to take the lesser species decades at best – from their enemies' point of view – and as long as they didn't destroy the trackers inside, Imotekh or any other Necron lord would have the means to track and hunt down the thieves.

But here one wasn't speaking about one or two units misplaced or badly programmed by fifteenth-rate Crypteks with delusions of competence.

One hundred million units had been lost in less time than it took to think about it, and the bad news didn't stop there: the subterranean Judicial Chambers weren't far from the humans' landing zone, and instants after the latest landing, breaches had been reported before everything in them went silent.

Worst case scenario: in two moves, the enemy commander had somehow gained two hundred million Canoptek Scarabs and other battle-assets, and with them the means to take control, overwrite, and shatter hundreds of the most defended Sautekh citadels.

Theoretically, it was completely impossible.

Practically, it had just happened, and Imotekh had to deal with the consequences.

"This front is now to be called 'Human theatre'," the veteran of the War in Heaven ordered. "No Canoptek unit is to approach the enemy vanguard lines by fifteen times a Monolith's range."

"But my Overlord, that means...that means we're essentially going to fight the battle against this vermin without our Canoptek protocol and battle-units!"

"It does," Imotekh replied. "You prefer to have them fight on the enemy's side?"

The Nemesor had the good sense to shut down his metallic communication apparatus.

"I know this is going to create unprecedented problems for our forces," the Overlord acknowledged after a few seconds. "But until we know how the enemy has done the impossible and turned our own weapons against us, we can't risk Canoptek weapons on the battlefield. Better to fight without them than using them and having them attack us while we are at a critical point of the battle."

Bigger disasters had happened during the War in Heaven due to far less devastating surprises.

"I want to know how this could possibly happen," the Stormlord turned towards the Crypteks. "Since the Battle of the Ten Black Holes, you assured me this sort of ploy was impossible for our enemies."

"This," the first Technomancy expert proclaimed with a grandiloquent help, "is obviously Trazyn's fault."

"Damn Trazyn!" the other Crypteks trying hard to hide behind their superior voiced in impressive unity.

Imotekh, however, was far from convinced.

"We have modified all authorisations previously granted to Nihilakh nobles and the privileges Acting-Triarchs possess by virtue of their exalted rank. The thief isn't capable of infiltrating and taking control of one of our armies without vanquishing an Overlord first and using him to overwrite one of our primary nodes. He hasn't shown this capacity in millions of years, why would he gain it now?"

"The enemy is obviously in league with Iash'uddra and their attack was nothing but a diversion to free its main shard from a Tesseract Vault!"

"That would be a more plausible explanation..." the Cryptek beamed, "except, unless you have hidden something from me, WE HAVE NO SHARD OF IASH'UDDRA ON MANDRAGORA!"

"The...the humans could have found one elsewhere!"

"Where?" the Stormlord questioned sceptically. "Lesser Dynasties weren't granted the prisons of this infernal False God."

"Trazyn," the Crypteks chorused.

Imotekh felt a headache coming.

To be clear, yes, he was aware the thief of the Nihilakh Dynasty, distant cousin to the Silent King, was an inveterate scoundrel at best, a traitor at worst. But the moment every wrong was piled upon his shoulders, the Sautekh commanders were making a terrible mistake. That was his opinion, he was aware it was far from a universal one.

"Remove your Canoptek forces from this battlefield before I decide to appoint more competent successors to take your positions," he growled. "And prepare the Scythes and our aerial assets. Since the fighting on the ground is lost, we must regain aerial supremacy at all costs."

---

Brunhilda-class White Lance II

Commander Freya Brasidas

"Commander, there is something I don't understand."

"What do you fail to understand, White Seven?" It was of course one of the plebeians she had been forced to accept into the reborn White Squadron, and she didn't like him at all...no respect for the pre-battle briefings, and a sense of humour coming straight from the gutters.

"Why do the Wing Commanders always pair White Squadron with the Blacks...Commander? It isn't because there is something between you and Commander Nils, is it?"

Freya gritted her teeth...she prayed the sound of it wasn't heard through the vox channel.

"Commander Nils was, for some reason, able to claim the second highest hunting score in the skies of Commorragh. The Air Wing commanders, having a lamentable sense of humour, decided this competition must continue here today."

Which was fine for her. The commander of Black Squadron and she, like all the veterans of Commorragh and entire squadrons of it, had received the brand-new Brunhilda supremacy fighter. As a result, they had machines of equal performance. This time, the plebeian ace would have no excuse when his score would be completely outmatched by hers.

"In other words," White Three interjected, "there is a lot of sexual frustration between our beloved commander and Kurt Nils. But since the Air Marshal himself has forbidden placing one under the command of the other since he doesn't want to lose his bet, they are placed in two squadrons guaranteed to fight near each other. That way their star-crossed love story is going to continue and will soon be famous enough to become a space opera-vid series in its own right."

Freya had a violent and nearly irrepressible urge to murder White Three immediately, and damn the consequences.

"If the Necrons shoot you, I won't shed a tear."

"I'm not hearing a 'you're wrong'..."

"Would uttering those words change the rumours you have no doubt been spreading across all fleet carriers of Battle Group Volga?"

"Oh, not just Battle Group Volga, Commander," White Six corrected joyously. "That Tech-Priest assigned to our fighters was really chatty, if you know what I mean."

"Traitor," the rumour-master muttered.

"Good, if you have finished doing nothing but informing me of the insulting rumours you've spread, it's time to get to work. Form behind me, Aquila-four formation."

What they descended into was best described as a candle of light surrounded by a hurricane of despair and death. Even from orbit, the lights of the sacred animals of the Living Saint and Her Celestial Highness burned bright; wherever the Imperial flags were rising in triumph, the day was chasing back the darkness.

But the grounds conquered by the Imperial Guard, while ever increasing since a few hours ago, were a just a small beachhead against the malevolence of the xenos. Everywhere the auspexes weren't jammed, Freya could see immense structures, some classified as Monoliths, with others definitely bigger and more dangerous defences, rising from the planetary crust.

There seemed to be no end to the Necron threat. It was like the Guard was fighting the weather and a force of raw destruction with nothing but lasguns and tanks.

"White Leader, Black Leader relaying orders from our superiors."

"I hear you, Black Leader." Four pilots of her own squadron chuckled. She was going to demote them if it was the last thing she ever did in her life.

"The enemy seems to be gathering significant air assets in Quadrant Alpha for a counter-strike." Kurt Nils explained. "We are ordered to intercept them before they can stop the Astartes' primary offensive."

"Understood, Black Leader," Freya replied with ill-grace, "do you have...oh, God-Emperor..."

Green lightning lit the sky in the distance as they arrived over a zone where hundreds of shuttles and Landers began to prepare what had to be one of the most gigantic musters of Titans and tanks she'd ever seen.

The Battleships in orbit had sufficiently penetrated the orbital defences to hurl several orbital strikes, and for a few seconds, the jamming of the Necrons was destroyed on this part of the front.

It was sufficient to let their auspexes register the gigantic aerial fleet coming at them.

Doom Scythes, Night Shrouds, Night Scythes; these were the names their commanders had given them. These were gloomy and dark names.

At that moment, seeing the first dozens of these monsters emerge from the abyss-coloured sky, the names were apt and not exaggerated.

"Was it like this at Commorragh, Commander?"

"No," Freya replied grimly. "At Commorragh we shot down Eldar amateurs at first. These guys are the real deal. Remember your training, and help each other. We try to take them on in pairs once the dogfight begins. Priority is to stop them from hurting the ground forces. Good luck."

"For the God-Emperor," someone whispered.

Dozens of squadrons followed hers and Black in all haste. The weapons went loose. And soon there was only kill or be killed in the skies of Mandragora.

White Seven was the first pilot of her squadron to die.

---

High Marshal Gerlach Barbarossa

There were several pages in the Codex Astartes asking for the Adeptus Astartes to never gather in strength unless the threat justified gathering thousands of battle-brothers in a single theatre.

Today hundreds of Blood Angels, Black Templars, Salamanders, Angels Sanguine, Blood Exemplars, and countless other loyal Space Marines were on Mandragora.

Since victory was still far from assured, one could say the orders of Guilliman had been obeyed...though the High Marshal knew a fair number of Inquisitors had been far from pleased with Her Celestial Highness by the interpretation of certain organisational charts.

"Their Doom Scythes are falling back," he informed the Chosen of the God-Emperor.

"And we lost more than twenty percent of our first-rate Brunhilda pilots to achieve it," the Living Saint sighed. "It's a good thing we recovered this STC over twelve years ago, because I don't think we would be able to contest the skies with Thunderbolts alone."

Gerlach didn't argue with that. Wherever the xenos had managed to break through, the average pilots had not fared well, and the number of Astartes fallen in the skies was...concerning.

"The Black Templars are ready to go on the offensive."

Lady Weaver chuckled.

"You and every Space Marine we have."

"We are made for battlefields like that, your Celestial Highness."

The Living Saint nodded, before petting one of her massive golden spiders.

"Two of my Tank Armies are being deployed as we speak, the 20th of the Vostroyan Firstborn and the 2nd Army of Nyx. If you feel like it is the best use of your tank assets and battle-brothers, I would suggest you manoeuvre as a northwards flanking force for the Vostroyans while we advance on these plains."

Insects formed in the air describing a series of complex manoeuvres that Gerlach Barbarossa had no problem understanding.

"You want to convince the enemy Necron commander to face you in a conventional battle between the landing grounds and the next Necron citadel."

"Yes. The conditions for a victory are unlikely to rise any further in our favour. I don't think the Necrons understand what I am doing with their scarabs, but they have moved them more than forty kilometres away. Our fleet is still able to hold firm without taking crippling casualties, but more and more escorts are destroyed and our main capital ships need weeks of repair. The xenos air assets can be dealt with for a few more offensives, and the Orks are still rampaging on the other side of the planet." The black-haired insect-mistress turned to stare unflinchingly at the xenos-polluted horizon. "It's time to force the xenos to commit their reserves to stop us. If we don't dictate the pace of the offensive, they are going to compensate for their losses sooner or later."

"Moreover," the Herald called Gamaliel addressed him respectfully, "there is also the danger the Necrons represent to our Lady. So far, all Mechanicus tests done in the Nyx Sector have found no way to counter the insect-controlling power save by attacking her. The moment the Necrons realise it is not some xenos devilry dropped into our laps by the thief, I think their reactions are going to be predictable...and their cursed 'Deathmarks' have reaped crippling numbers of Skitarii and Paruthan officers since the beginning of this battle."

"I see. It is going to be a hard but rewarding fight."

"Indeed. And you are going to have a key part to play in it."

"With due respect, Chapter Malakbel is far more gifted in the area of ground-based strategy."

"Yes, but he is not what I need." Her Celestial Highness coughed. "Admiral Reuenthal proved that by seemingly abandoning a logical plan of battle, we could inflict great losses to the Necrons without bleeding ourselves to death."

"So you want to once again adopt a logical plan while hiding it within a series of apparently nonsensical orders?"

"Oh no," the Victor of Commorragh bared her teeth. "This time, we are going to be illogical from the beginning to the end of the battle."

---

Gerio Sector

Archus System

Archus Underground Necron Galleries

5.530.310M35

Destruction-Overlord Sitkah

"And all these Pylons bear the mark of the Void Dragon?"

"Yes, Destruction-Overlord. At least all the Pylons which are still able to passively repel the Warp. Most of the hyper-conduits and protocol systems are gone of course, since the entire underground network was built before the Shattering and obviously didn't anticipate us turning against Mag'ladroth, but the principal parts use Sepulcrand refined to an impressive degree, and this undoubtedly helped them to endure the millions of years of the Great Sleep."

"That and the fact they are underground protected them from the curiosity of the younger races." The Destruction-Overlord added.

Thanks to the passive effects of the Pylons, the 'Archus System', as the humans called it, was extremely stable and the abominations of the Empyrean couldn't launch any assault without expending more psychic energy than they had at their disposal. Thus the star and the planets within it had become an important node for the humans as plenty of their 'Warp trails' began and ended there. Mortal and short-lived like the Necrontyrs of old they may be, but the humans had relentlessly tried to discover what made 'Archus' such a valuable system that nothing, not even the actions of demented psychic beings out of control, seemed able to alter in any meaningful way.

"And the activation of the Pylons in case of emergency?"

"Ninety-two out of the original one hundred and fifty Pylons can be activated at the first sign of a Warp incursion," the Nerushlatset Cryptek promised. "Though for the moment, I firmly advise against it."

"Oh?"

"Destruction-Overlord, setting aside that the passive effects of the Pylons are largely enough to stabilise the region in the Materium and that there are no Warp Storms to fire them at, the more I examine the protocols, the more I am...concerned about what the Dragon intended to use them for. The Pylons are akin to an old-fashioned dam against the river of the Warp in passive state, and more of a super anti-Empyrean gun when used in active mode. The problems...one, during the War in Heaven there were no Ruinous Powers as there are today to oppose their power. And two, there are far too many C'Tan and Szarekhan protocols in the Pylons. They will repel the Warp assuredly. But I am ready to stake my reputation as a Cryptek on the notion that the Silent King and his former masters intended to do far, far more with them."

"Plans within plans." Sitkah commented. "I suppose the Artificial Intelligence and main archives didn't survive the Great Sleep?"

"As a matter of fact, while evidence is scarce I believe the Szarekhans were here right after the Shattering...that's the time the last protocol modifications happened."

The Nerushlatset Overlord was livid at the implications. If this was true, if the Silent King and his court indeed did have the skill to continue the work of Mag'ladroth, then the Necrons' main problem as the walls of reality fell, the Enslaver Tide, could have been vanquished in a conventional conflict.

The Great Sleep was not necessary. The millions of years which had nearly destroyed the Necron Dynasties and deprived them of the crown they had won in the most bitter and exhausting conflict of all times were completely avoidable.

"The Phaerakh needs to be informed of this."

Then an alarm shrieked.

"Destruction-Overlord, a fleet is coming out of the Sea of Horrors. According to the information the humans have given us, it belongs to the corrupted Traitor Legion known as the 'Word Bearers'."

"I see." The Overlord-Cryptek specialising in the destruction of her enemies turned towards her Pylon specialist. "Continue your work. I am going to deal with these intruders."

"Should I prepare an emergency activation of the Pylons...just in case?"

"I do not know if I should be flattered you want to prove your talents, or ashamed you think my fleet and I need such an advantage to win a void battle against the slaves of the abominations..."

---

Infernus-class Battleship Maledictum Book

Dark Apostle Leyak the Devourer

"So the dogs of the False Emperor are consorting with xenos. And here I thought the mortals could not fall further down the pit of ignorance and blindness to the Truth."

"The mortals and the unbelievers of the Astartes who labour under the delusion their False Emperor is something to be devoted to," the Coryphaus of his Host amended.

"These are the grandchildren of Sanguinius, worshipping the shoes of Weaver now that she can give them half the shadow of their Primarch's corpse," the Dark Apostle replied dismissively. "I don't know which Chapter they are from, but their purpose is quite clear."

"They knew we were coming here."

"I doubt it." A minor conjuration brought the map of the system as seen by the Neverborn. "They knew someone might come to seize the heart of the Gerio Sector and rip out the Pylons hidden beneath the main cities of Archus. But I doubt they knew the moment of our arrival or the strength we would bring to this lynchpin. If they did, it's the most disastrous ambush these incompetent mortals have achieved in their life."

There were three fleets to oppose Leyak's own, but none of them were able to support each other. And by 'not supporting each other', he meant none of them had less than four million kilometres between each other.

He could take on Battlefleet Gerio. This was after all the only opposition whose presence had been expected by the multiple scrying rituals he had ordered. They had three Battleships against his eight, and all were smaller and less heavily armoured than his Infernus-class Battleships.

He could take on the Astartes. Sons of Sanguinius or not, they only had one Battle-Barge and two Strike Cruisers. He didn't know if they followed the Codex Astartes like Guilliman's whelps, but they couldn't have more than five hundred Space Marines inside these three hulls. He had a bit less than four times this number of loyal sons of Lorgar with him. A clash between this fleet and the remnant of the Ninth Legion could only have one outcome.

And then there was the 'Necron' fleet, the xenos armada no ritual, Lorgar's secrets, or whisper from the Neverborn had told him to expect. It was like something had deliberately hidden them from his sight until they came to raid and plunder Archus of its most precious resources.

Since the metallic xenos themselves had no psychic defences, that the Pylons were still inactive, and that the False Emperor did not have this kind of subtle power, the name of the guilty party was obvious.

However, Leyak would not utter the word 'Anarchy' in private, much less in front of his Coryphaus and his captains.

"My Lord Apostle...I can't see any way of defeating them."

His Coryphaus had been by his side since the end of the Great Crusade, which was why Leyak let him speak his mind instead of treating his judgement as defeatist talk.

"The xenos have fifteen Battleships, we have eight. Worse, they are in the exact situation we wanted to have: all their Battleships are bigger and, we have to presume with the energy readings they are showing, their batteries are more powerful than ours as well. The readings we have on their armour and their advanced countermeasures are several magnitudes higher than anything save a Gloriana...and we have none in our order of battle to oppose them."

"This is defeatist talk," of course his Dark Acolyte was going to spit his bile at the opportune moment. Why had he accepted this exchange of favours with Erebus again?

"Phlegethon, do us a favour and shut up...before I decide your principal utility will be as one of my lab rats for my most dangerous rituals."

Proud disciple of Erebus, the ungrateful Acolyte disregarded his order.

"The Coryphaus utterly fails to mention we have the blessings of the Gods with us! The moment we breach the veil separating this false reality from the glorious reality of the Warp-"

"The xenos will shift their Pylons into offensive mode, and while it will undoubtedly inconvenience the mortals and Astartes kneeling at the feet of Weaver, this fleet will be annihilated in return."

No one had a real idea of how powerful the Pylons were at the peak of their anti-Immaterium capacities. Everything the Word Bearer Legion's Hosts of the Maelstrom knew had been obtained through gaining access to Eldar lore depositories or by interrogating captured long-ears directly. And even for this long-lived arrogant species, the legendary creators of the Pylons were now more myths than past enemies.

But the most optimistic simulations still predicted a one hundred percent failure of all rituals, possessions, and that most Neverborn would either go berserk or be removed from reality once the first anti-Warp shockwave hit.

No Word Bearer fleet would survive that.

"It is the will of Blessed Lorgar that this system must fall."

"No, that is the will of Dark Apostle Erebus. The orders of our Father are far more flexible than what you imply."

Finally, the Dark Acolyte didn't answer. Maybe the number of chainswords and other powerful weapons which were beginning to be drawn gave him a clue or two that his speeches were not meeting approval anywhere on the Maledictum Book.

"Turn us around, Coryphaus. If the slaves of the False Emperor are so strong here, they must have left our other potential Noctilith acquisition sites undefended. And we are going to exploit them in the name of Blessed Lorgar."

---

Mandragora System

Mandragora

Plains of Eternal Glory

5.533.310M35

Vargard Obyron

"Obyron, I do not understand the plan of the secessionists."

"My suzerain, saying this while there are several Overlords able to hear your words isn't exactly going to give you another chance to regain some prestige after the defeat of our fleet days ago."

"Obyron, there's more than prestige and glory at stake! What about honour? What about honesty and cleverness?"

For what felt like the hundred thousandth time, the Vargard watched as the Sautekh nobility murmured and no doubt conspired to hire more assassins and other lethal resources to dispose of his master.

They would fail, of course, but Obyron wished there was a way to inform his superior that insisting upon qualities few of the Sautekh Overlords had cared about before the Great Sleep was one of the few ways to anger them even more than having an insane military general giving them orders already did.

So far, all his attempts to explain the issue had been misunderstood or countered by arguments which made little sense, Secessionist Wars or not.

"The enemy certainly appears to have a strong fighting spirit, I will acknowledge that much...for honesty's sake," the Vargard voiced the words as he tightened his grip on his Warscythe. "But certainly there is some logic to this succession of curious moves. Their plan in space at first was mistaken for the young species having gone utterly crazy, when it was nothing of the sort."

"It is certainly true the cunning trick was camouflaged behind a disguise of false tactical moves that I should have seen coming, since the Secessionists tried a false trident offensive during the Battle of the Fifteen Phaerons," Zahndrekh admitted. "But this time, the secessionists truly appear to not have anything behind these illogical attacks."

"Surely there is logic of a sort, a pattern which can explain everything. They are inflicting more and more grievous losses as each phase of their attacks is revealed."

"Obyron. When the secessionists collapsed their own tunnels three times while we were in danger of being defeated, the move was illogical in the extreme. There was no reason for our honourable enemies to act as they did...and there was no reason either to dig tunnels for the fourth time or to descend their greatest machines under the Tertiary Palace of our Glorious Phaeron. Yes, it worked, but they could have wasted many, many days for nothing since there was no guarantee that we would send a significant army underground while the orders to not use the Canoptek assets stand firm."

"Just because you are old and senile," a Nemesor mocked his suzerain. "It doesn't mean everyone is fooled by the enemy's tactics!"

"Then why did the race between the red-painted strange mounts of the two secessionists factions end up inadvertently outflanking your army while they tried a curious form of honourable speed duel?"

The Sautekh noble, trying his best to hide his vexation and annoyance at being called out on his inglorious military 'exploits', refused to answer.

"One thing is certain, my suzerain. For all the lack of logic, the two invading armies have gained a frightening amount of ground in the last Mandragoran day."

"This can't be helped, Obyron. Withdrawing the Canoptek Scarabs was the correct move, even if tactically, it removes about a third of our arsenal against the secessionists. We could fare better if we had not unwittingly given the secessionists millions of them, but without any prior warning of this major tactical surprise, there wasn't anything we could do to prevent it."

"With all due respect, my suzerain, I don't think that is what the Glorious Phaeron wants to hear." Even Imotekh, so far the most successful Overlord of the entire Dynasty, had been on the receiving end of their Ultimate Master's wrath. For seconds the Vargard thought about the stalemate and found a single solution to turn the tide in a monumental battle which was the antithesis of what the Stormlord wanted it to be. "Don't you think it is the time to unleash a C'Tan shard?"

"The largest ground-based weapons of the secessionists have been recalled from their ambush site, and their fleet is dominating the Orbital Grid right now, though their rate of destruction is slowing down and not likely going to find a second breath. A C'Tan shard may break the secessionist armies, but in retaliation, they have the means to destroy Mandragora."

"And the Dust-Maker is refusing to intervene. Pardon me my suzerain, but I don't think that is a shining example for the cause of Unity."

"You are completely right, Obyron, but it's hardly young Sobekhotep's fault if he has been infected by the dishonourable twin disease of petulance and unbridled pride."

The way Zahndrekh phrased it, it was the Szarekhan's fault. Sometimes Obyron wondered...no, it was probably nothing.

Then a monumental explosion arrived, and it hadn't missed the hill where the Sautekh court was parading. Thankfully, the powerful shields always protecting the Phaeron also protected every noble, Lychguard, and a certain Vargard Obyron from being sent right back to the Necrodermis hyper-assemblers specifically reserved to the commanders of the Sautekh Dynasty

"Ah Obyron. It looks like the secessionists are committing their elites in a headlong charge against our most defended position."

"This is...madness. This time their illogical moves have truly caused their doom!"

"Have they?" Zahndrekh asked. "Imotekh just sent five Megaliths to counterattack before the Victorious Tomb-Palace, which means there is only one left to protect us. The Canoptek assets are not present, and save for a powerful reserve of one million Immortals, we are extremely short on available firepower."

The green lights of Zahndrekh's eyes shone with firm determination.

"The lack of logic has served the enemies' true purpose, Obyron. Now they are unleashing their true plan, and it is a decapitation strike against the Dynasty."

---

Imperator-class Titan Exemplis

Princeps Maximus Cyrus

"Tell our Warhounds to get out of here!" Cyrus roared as a third Engine of Legio Crucius fell in less than fifteen minutes. "They aren't able to do anything to these Megaliths and we will need them later."

Not to mention Archmagos Hediatrix wasn't going to congratulate him if dozens of allied Titans were killed doing something that reeked of terminal stupidity.

"Legio Atarus, Crucius, and Solaria Maniples are withdrawing, Princeps Maximus!"

"Good. The rest of the Maniple's losses?"

"Two more Reavers and one Warhound. Twenty-five percent of our Skitarii escort is...gone."

Cyrus grimaced before coughing up some blood. Being the Princeps of a priceless and venerable Titan like the Exemplis was exactly like being a God trampling over ants.

The irony on Mandragora was that both sides had things which looked like ants, and yet could do terrible damage to a Titan.

"Legio Astorum is running towards Point Bagration. Given the celerity with which the Necron hover-vehicles are pursuing, they appear to be taking the bait."

"Let's hope so," Cyrus told his Moderati. "We won't be able to launch many attacks like these." Given the sheer damage received, two dozen God-Engines of his own Legio were going to need over a month of repairs before they could be considered battle-ready again, and that was only for the visible scars.

Much like the Warp Runners and every Princeps they had fought for today, the Titans of the Collegia Titanica were paying a dreadful price in blood and metal, and if they accumulated enough daring attacks like the one they had just finished, the Exemplis had a good chance of being the only God-Engine which would return to Mars.

"These Megaliths are terrifying things." His Second Moderati grimaced all the while he rerouted power to the void shields. It was sorely needed as the last Megalith on the field's commander had decided that if it couldn't catch the Legios, the head of Cyrus would be adequate stress-relief for the defeat they had just handed it. "Thank the Omnissiah they are sluggish when they can't teleport, this limits their tactical effectiveness."

"Which is weird, when you think about it," his other Moderati commented. "Seriously, these guys are supposed to have won the first galactic war, ever, how did they do it while being so slow?"

"I asked Lady Weaver the same thing during one of our briefings," Cyrus revealed after ordering two Warlords to provide a diversion as Exemplis ran out of the murder-range of the xenos' monumental weapon. "And the Chosen explained that if Necron's claims can be believed, when a C'Tan was on the battlefield during their ancient war, it infused them with its unnatural vitality and more special capabilities than they could count. Of course, this was only the case for the major Dynasties, but the Sautekh are one of them. Practically, they are trying to find their marks in a galaxy where they don't have the C'Tan to solve every impossible military and non-military problem they have."

"That sounds logical...for xenos killer automatons, Machine-God be praised."

"Logic is the only thing they have." Pushing several Necron armies against the Orks shouldn't have worked again, not after how the Imperium had fed the inferno of war for twelve years before unleashing Operation Stalingrad. "Status of the Shock Armies and the other reinforcements?"

"If the latest projections are accurate, we will meet them in thirty minutes, Princeps Maximus."

"Good. Judging by the Necrons' reactions, we have managed to convince them we are a costly diversion while the Black Templars go for the enemy's throat. It will be soon time to disabuse them of this notion."

"Princeps...I was wondering...was it truly the best way to achieve this very partial victory? We have only killed three Monoliths and one Megalith at the cost of too many unrecoverable God-Engines..."

"Ask me in a few hours when the battle will be over," Cyrus grimaced once more as long-range xenos weapons now tried to bring down his void shield. "First, let's make sure we will be able to celebrate and be in position to walk again..."

---

Sautekh Archive-Tomb

8.535.310M35

Legate Galatea Dumas

The decoration of the xenos, be it the frescoes or the energy-filled carvings, couldn't be described by any adjective less powerful than morbid.

Maybe it was the lack of light, the oppressing penumbra which surrounded them despite all the efforts of the Fay 20th companies and the Tech-Priest to gather the main sources of light in this immense avenue. Maybe it was the military pressure they were all feeling.

But Galatea didn't think so. The xenos structures truly inspired revulsion on a grand scale, and she had seen the pits of Commorragh. She was ready to acknowledge that the rusted murder-machines weren't obsessed with torturing, eating, or carving out organs and limbs of their prisoners because they felt it was the best way to amuse themselves.

Then again, the armies of Mandragora weren't taking prisoners at all, if the first days of bloodbath were any indication. They slaughtered and killed everything which was in front of them, be it Mankind or Orks. The latter, if their vox-outbursts were any indication, loved that.

"That is the great problem of the Necrons, you know."

"Their lack of artistic sense, your Celestial Highness?"

The Living Saint laughed.

"No, that is their second-greatest problem." Golden armoured fingers touched a xenos fresco where it looked like slaves prostrated themselves before an Overlord far bigger than anything they had fought so far. "Though it has ties to the first. Most of them are slaves to their own doctrine of war as it was made millions of years ago, and they are unable to look through it without the prism of their own culture."

"That they still believe in the concept of a decisive battle after their 'War in Heaven' is also an inexcusable error, Lady General," General Nikolai Rokossovsky added, his grandiloquent Vostroyan-themed power armour making him an oddity between the ranks of Nyxian and Fay-coloured equipment.

"It is an error, yes," Her Celestial Highness agreed. "But seriously, General, it isn't so hard to understand why they still think so even while waging campaigns on a galactic stage. The Eldar opponents they fought for tens of thousands of years had their Champions and their irreplaceable leaders. The ancestors of the Orks suffered the same weaknesses as the greenskins humanity has been fighting for most of its existence: kill the Warboss, and the entire horde will collapse."

"I, respectfully, have to disagree on the inevitability of the Necron tactical and strategic laziness. When your entire command caste is essentially recruited from an inbred conservative nobility, you get exactly what you deserve. By all rights, we shouldn't have been able to land on Mandragora so easily given the massive defences they erected to prevent exactly that."

"The Dynasty had mere hours to reawaken."

"And the moment the Skitarii landed on the Golden Crown, they suffered a major defeat." The long-bearded Vostroyan countered. "If we are to judge them by this standard, we must go all the way. The truth is that the main threat of the Necrons comes when their most capable Generals take command and breathe insightful tactics into their armies. When they are gone or are unable to come up with a counter, we are able to disable their attacks with ease."

"Our casualties are over thirty million dead guardsmen across the four Battle Groups," the Basileia wasn't smiling when she spoke the words. "The last assault of the Black Templars we used to bait this trap alone cost us over one hundred Space Marines and six thousand men and women of the 2nd Tank Army of Nyx."

"Yes, Lady General. We got off really easy compared to what any Imperial commander with a sound gift for strategy would have done with the Necron assets."

The golden-armoured Saint all Sororitas had pledged their lives to huffed and didn't answer.

"Chosen of the Omnissiah, the last jammers are being destroyed by Necron fire. Prediction of the last machine's death in ten seconds."

This time, the prediction of the Adeptus Mechanicus was more than confirmed.

Galatea had barely the time to count to ten before the prepared battleground flashed in blinding green light and hundreds of thousands of Necrons teleported into the hall which had been theirs until several days ago.

"WE ARE THE SAUTEKH DYNASTY. IN THE NAME OF PHAERON DJOSAKHAT, YOU ARE SENTENCED TO DEATH."

"Tech-Priests, activate the true jammers. FIRE AT WILL!"

Galatea, like everyone chosen to participate in this false-ambush, obeyed the order immediately, and the weapon in her hand detonated many skulls of the xenos. It was...strange, in a way, since while she did her best to evade and stay mobile, the enemy was doing the exact opposite: not using anything for cover, the heavily-armoured xenos elites were static and unmoving, only the colossal amount of firepower making sense in their strategy.

The Legate watched as the enemy commanders rushed onto the battlefield, the guardsmen ceding ground before them.

And then ground and walls exploded, and the swarm of Lady Weaver engulfed everything.

Several millions of the xenos metal-insects had been hidden here, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of insects of chitin and flesh, and in a single second, they were unleashed.

The Necron ranks didn't falter; they ceased to exist faster than you could say it.

Space Marines, Nyx 1st Heavy Armour, Fay 20th Mechanised Infantry, and Templar Sororitas continued to pour as many shells, laser-bolts, and other explosive ordnances into their enemies as they could, but it was the endless number of small helpers from Her Celestial Highness which destroyed everything in its path.

Soon there were only the most dangerous killers of the enemy left standing, surrounding their leader...unfortunately this was also the moment the jammers failed again.

The Necron commander, surrounded by xenos nearly as tall as himself, raised his weapon in defiance.

Lady Weaver began to burn in a terrible and magnificent golden halo, and unleashed a powerful ray of golden light, which struck the enemy deep in the chest, shattering part of its armour.

The xenos and all the survivors next to him teleported away two seconds after that.

One could likely count the xenos survivors which escaped on two hands, and it didn't take long for the cheers of victory to resonate and provide some joy in the centre of the ruined Necron fortress.

---

Indomitable Tomb-Palace

8.537.310M35

Overlord Imotekh the Stormlord

"CRYPTEKS, REMOVE THIS PAIN IMMEDIATELY!"

"But my Glorious and Incredible Phaeron, we have replaced the artefacts and components of your glorious body several times, there is-AGH!"

"I SAID REMOVE THIS PAIN!"

Imotekh had rarely felt so powerless...or furious.

He was a loyal servant of his Phaeron – with the obedience protocols of the Sautekh Dynasty overwriting all the other commands and loyalties, nothing else was possible – but attending their supreme suzerain right now was a monumental mistake.

There was nothing the assembled Overlords and Nemesors could do to heal Phaeron Djosakhat. But on the military side, there was everything they could do, for the enemy had finally stopped playing them for fools and unleashed its real offensive.

The Canoptek Scarabs, the vast horde of insect machines which had been stolen from their rightful control, countless assets which should have guaranteed victory, were now proving their devastating power by crippling the Sautekh Dynasty they were programmed to protect.

As much as he wasn't going to admit it, the humans had inflicted on him a severe humiliation. For days they had been content to adopt illogical strategy after illogical strategy, until a 'mistake' of the white-black shock elites apparently made the fatal error of revealing the location of their real command headquarters.

Imotekh had advised Phaeron Djosakhat against leading the charge himself, that much was true. But the real reason he had advised his Phaeron not to go had been to gain the glory of slaying this tenacious foe himself, not because he had sensed the trap before it closed its death jaws around them.

For this suggestion, he had not participated in what was certainly one of the fastest and most humiliating defeats ever suffered by the Sautekh court. Over ten thousand Lychguards, the pride of the Sautekh Dynasty, were slain while inflicting no damage at all, decimated and then annihilated. It was like they had fought Iash'uddra a second time, without the antimatter meteors and in a lesser theatre, but still.

Worse, their enemy controlled enough the Canoptek Scarabs – or had received enough help from Trazyn – to activate the Karnak stasis-protocol, which imposed a Necrodermis body to not teleport back or self-destruct once it was terminally wounded.

As a result, the fifty thousand Necrons lost, including valuable Immortals and irreplaceable Lychguards, gifted Crypteks, and other elite units which couldn't be replaced, had not returned to the Indomitable Tomb-Citadel, prime node of all other prime-nodes. The losses in Nemesors and Royal Wardens were also...significant.

It had placed them in a difficult strategic situation, which was worsening by the hour.

But they were immobilised and silent here. For the psychic creature responsible for the monumental defeat had inflicted a grievous injury upon the Phaeron, and though the physical wound had disappeared once the Crypteks rebuilt the body of highly-pure Necrodermis and hyper-evolved alloys, Djosakhat still felt the pain which had temporarily overwhelmed him.

"My Phaeron," a Nemesor too impatient for his own good began. "We understand your pain, we really do, but-"

"DO YOU?" their lord and Master roared. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF PAIN?"

No, no they didn't...not anymore.

An invisible shiver went through the ranks of the Overlords and Nemesors. Pain and infirmity had been their lot before the biotransference. For all the cruelties and slavery the C'Tan had imposed upon them for an eternity of war and violence, the Sautekh nobility didn't regret shedding the frailty of their flesh bodies. Half of the Necrontyrs on average had died before they reached their first birthday, to the point it was tradition to not give them a name until that date. Then half of the survivors never reached the age of adulthood, which before the Deceiver arrived was set at ten of the old Necrontyr years.

Pain, diseases, infirmities...all of this and more was supposed to belong to the past.

Just like defeat.

But as Imotekh studied the data sent by his subordinates, a new set of bad news considerably complicated the already worsening situation.

The greenskins had realised the Sautekh phalanxes were less aggressive than usual, and launched an enormous push with about three times the armour the containment armies could muster.

The fighting...wasn't going well.

But pointing this out wouldn't be wise, not when the Nemesor who had just spoken was a shapeless thing of broken Necrodermis. The outburst of Phaeron Djosakhat had been followed by a terrible blow against the ambitious noble.

"My glorious Phaeron, we are-"

"STOP THE PAIN!"

Imotekh found it hard not to panic as, impossibly, the exact location where his suzerain had been wounded burst into golden flames again, with the Necrodermis' silver colour losing its radiance at an alarming rate and returning to showing the kind of damage which looked like a C'Tan shard had been too close to him.

"My Phaeron!" One of the Nemesors he had been forbidden from purging because he was a second cousin of the Szarekhans and it was useful not to burn every tie with these backstabbing leeches. "I have a solution to heal you!"

The Crypteks immediately took a step back from their first and only master.

"And what is this solution which has evaded the attention of my Crypteks!"

"We kill the vermin which had the audacity to wound you, my Glorious Phaeron!"

Imotekh groaned internally, and only a lifetime of self-control allowed him not to scream at the new idiot which had decided to think about military matters when obviously his sub-par talents had relegated him to the rearlines.

How were they going to achieve that when their phalanxes were already in a bad situation and their own arsenal rebelled against them?

---

Segmentum Obscurus

DL-X97 System

Ark Mechanicus Technologiae Potestas Est

9.538.310M35

Hell Forge-Mistress Sota-Nul

"The assumption the speed granted by the sorcerous rituals would allow the Armada to avoid all interception attempts was clearly...overly optimistic, Warmaster."

"How bad is it?"

The Hell Forge-Mistress did her best to not look directly at the...thing...allowing her to communicate with the Vengeful Spirit, the massive Gloriana of the Black Legion being of course normally impossible to reach by normal astropathic communications as long as it remained in the Eye of Terror.

"I lost a Forge-Ship, the Volscani lost eight transports, and the Seventeenth Legion lost five Cruisers." As bad it sounded, it wasn't the real issue. "But the number of damaged ships outnumbers the destroyed ones by a factor of three. And with about fifteen percent of our supply fleet gone, assigning hard priorities became necessary. And the fanatics didn't like that at all."

The reply had no anger behind it, but it wasn't complimentary either.

"You were to show your best and most cooperative behaviour."

"I am! But I can't conjure stocks of metal and spare parts from nothing! And while I desire nothing less than that the maximum number of the Seventeenth Legion's hulls reach our final destination, this goal would be far more achievable if some Battleships were detached on convoy duty! The reason Arkos and his band of traitors were able to cause so much damage was that, aside from myself, there were no other volunteers to guard the converted transports...and of course the Word Bearers who were commanded by their Primarch defended the transports of the Volscani Cataphracts and not much else."

"They really want to use these troops as meat-shields to protect their Legion."

"They are selling the souls of their enemies to the Gods before the battle has even begun," Sota-Nul retorted. "Before being concerned about ground battles, Lorgar and his sons should be very worried about what is going to happen if they have to face a fleet half their size. The Raiders are almost all gone now, and it is only a matter of days before everything below Light Cruiser-tonnage suffers the same fate."

"Lorgar sent powerful messages to every Legion commander proclaiming he gained what he wanted from Cadia."

"And if you trust him, Warmaster, I have some large Forges on Mars to sell you. Cadia was a beautiful disaster. They got some Noctilith, yes, but I don't think it was as much as their plans called for. The main Fortress World didn't fall anyway, and when you summon the things they did, it was either the most costly distraction a Black Crusade ever made, or a significant defeat. Now that the Imperial Navy is trying to slow us down so that our pursuers can catch up, the Armada is risking death by a thousand cuts."

There was a long silence following her declaration.

"Do you think you will be able to accomplish my will before Lorgar's ego leads his Armada to its doom?"

Having asked herself the same question six times in as many days, Sota-Nul was ready to give an answer.

"Yes. Assuming the logistical simulations hold true, the 'Grand Armada' will be able to smash its next target before the Imperial forces overrun them and utterly destroy the capacity of the Seventeenth Legion to wage war as a coherent and united force. They are going to receive reinforcements from the Maelstrom, even if in far less quantities than they wanted. And our pursuers have no idea about the true plan of the Primarchs. It isn't going to be an elegant system of gears unlocking each plan in turn, but it is going to work."

"Good. Contact me again when you reach the targeted system. I will have new information for you by then."

---

Carrion-class Heavy Battleship Vox Dominus

Dark Apostle Paristur

"Lord Apostle, we have found the ship where the ritual to summon the second Exalted is prepared. It is the Blessed Flame."

"Did you learn the reason why? Aside from being one of the warships which suffered most heavily from the actions of the heretic Alpha Legionnaires, this particular Battleship hasn't exactly distinguished itself lately."

"There are several reasons, my Lord Apostle. First, there were saboteurs, some of the Twentieth operatives along with the rodent kind, but thanks to the Thousands Sons' help, those...those heretics were found, tortured, and sacrificed to the Gods. The ship has therefore been purified and is no longer a security risk. The second motive of importance is there are plenty of rumours the Vile One has made an ignominious pact with one of the covens of the Thousand Sons. Now these are only rumours..."

"But it is Erebus we are talking about. He wouldn't be able to resist involving himself in a treacherous conspiracy against the other members of the Dark Council even if his life depended on it."

"Ahem. Yes, as you say, my Lord. The third reason is symbolic, I think. The Exalted Lord of Change is the Eye of the Architect among the Pyroclastic Conclave."

Shim'dre'lex'kazar...should Paristur be happy it wasn't the two-headed Kairos Fateweaver or furious about the magnitude of the threat which was going to be unleashed far too close for comfort to his Great Host?

"That is a powerful Feathered Lord," it was a particularly vicious one too. "Yes, I think the symbolism's strength was a large part of why Erebus and all his accomplices chose it."

"Forgive me, Lord...but I thought you would be more...unhappy."

"I am far from pleased," Paristur made a silent gesture for his subordinate to stand before returning to the observation of the worthless and sterile system the Grand Armada had chosen to repair and resupply in before translating out on the last step of their Crusade. "Fighting on the same world with an Exalted servant of the Gods when said servant is famous for his unmatched fire sorcery is not something that I would consider without great apprehension."

Fighting next to an Exalted member of a God's favourites and surviving was always a great way to improve your name in the eyes of the Pantheon, true.

Unfortunately, the 'surviving' part always proved more dangerous than the 'fighting' part of the equation. It was too bad they didn't have the opportunity to bring back the crippled souls of Drecarth and his main lieutenants, because Paristur knew they could have informed them of how many Legionnaires of the Sixteenth had been slaughtered by the Guardian of the Throne of Skulls.

"Your efforts in discovering the Vile One's plans are appreciated." The member of the Dark Council complimented the spy. "I am going to prepare more focused contingencies. I am not going to take any chances, not after Cadia. And the Exalted servant of the Grandfather?"

"I have to admit failure on that matter for the time being, Lord. We have not found any ritual preparations which could summon such a formidable servant of Decay..."

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

The Throne of Oblivion

8.541.310M35

Overlord Sobekhotep

"The Sautekh Dynasty has utterly failed."

"Hem, hem, hem."

At which moment did this damned Cryptek return?

"Speak your piece, Sneferka, and then remove yourself from my presence."

"Hem, hem, hem. Mighty Overlord, less than five percent of Mandragora has fallen and it is merging the ground losses of both invading species together. Given the sheer violence the pink 'humans' appear to unleash against the greenskins wherever the Krorks' debased descendants come to close to them, they are anything but allied. The Sautekh forces have suffered some minor reverses, this is undeniable. But the enemy fleets are forced to commit every warship they have to keep the Orbital Grid from repairing itself, and their armies must be already severely depleted: the pink invaders left millions of corpses on every battlefield, and billions of greenskins were incinerated by the Sautekh Destroyers."

"And yet in the last phases of this planetary campaign, the Sautekh phalanxes appear to be utterly paralysed and ineffectual. Not to mention their obstreperous and immature rebellion against the authority of the Eternal Silent King continues."

"But isn't it going to end soon, my Glorious Overlord?" Sihathor intervened. "Surely this...indecisiveness is a sign of Phaeron Djosakhat acknowledging the point he has been misled by ill-informed and treacherous advisors. If that is the case, the situation is about to be resolved in the Szarekhan Dynasty's favour."

"If that is the case," the Dust-Maker repeated venomously, "I don't think we should assume ourselves to be that lucky, and you forget that while the paralysis may work in the Sautekh favour on Mandragora as their Crypteks reawaken millions of warriors with every day, the rest of their Coreworlds have been brutalised like they never were before. The damage to the Golden Crown and its removal from the system are also major hindrances which will delay the repairs of the Throne for far longer than I am willing to allow. In every aspect which matters, the Sautekh Dynasty is providing zero help to us, and every day proclaims their unwillingness to return to the natural order of things."

"Hem, hem, hem."

"I said remove yourself from my presence, Cryptek. Unless you are willing to taste the destruction of your current body in a violent fashion once more?"

The Master of Despair – the despair of the Szarekhan Dynasty, it went without saying – teleported away, proving he could at least recognise a threat when he heard one.

"And to think the Sautekh were once one of the prime Dynasties of the Necrons. In loyalty and competence, they have fallen incredibly far from their former might. Warden, it is time to end this shame."

"Yes, my Glorious Overlord! What are your orders?"

"Make the preparations to fire the Nova Reaper on Mandragora."

"My Glorious Overlord? We are out of range to fire at anything of importance...besides the energy surplus is currently being diverted to the essential repairs...unless we use-"

"Yes." What a glorious sight and destruction it was going to cause. "We are going to use the Nightbringer's shard to kill the enemies of the Szarekhan Dynasty fighting on Mandragora."

"But...my Glorious Overlord...it will kill everything with a spark of life in their body, including the Sautekh Dynasty!"

"Only the Overlords and other nobles who have been awakened from the Great Sleep," Sobekhotep corrected. "And the vermin invaders, of course, will be annihilated to the last."

"But-"

"Royal Warden, execute my orders. You will give a warning shot at low power and reiterate my ultimatum to the Sautekh Dynasty, but if they persist in their passive insurrection against the authority of the Eternal Silent King, the Szarekhan can't and won't tolerate their behaviour! Are my commands sufficiently clear?"

"Yes! Yes, my Glorious Overlord! Your orders are clear! I was just...worried about the repercussions the destruction of Mandragora would create with the other Dynasties."

"The repercussions are obvious. The lesser Dynasties will prostrate themselves once more before the might of the Throne of Oblivion and the unmatched Szarekhan genius."

---

Mandragora

Drop Site Kappa

8.542.310M35

Lady General Taylor Hebert

"This had to be a warning shot against the Sautekh Dynasty." Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller's voice was flat, almost emotionless. "This ray of darkness destroyed one of their most heavily armoured plates that our Battleships have been unable to scratch and fell upon a war zone where we had no soldiers present. They only killed their own species with that shot."

"They did," Archmagos Gastaph Hediatrix's representation turned to face her, "given the size of the gun which has just been brought to the surface of the Monolith, this was just a warning shot. And the energy unleashed by this single shot was nothing like the previous attacks of the 'Reaper Batteries'...our auspexes and augurs detected countless physical anomalies and law-breaking disturbances...but by our understanding, this attack shouldn't have caused the damage it did. And given how the energy dissipated, it shouldn't have killed any Necrons on Mandragora."

"The Nightbringer," Neferten had warned her that the Szarekhan Dynasty possessed multiple shards of this C'Tan. "They used a C'Tan shard to power this weapon, and since it is the thing which proclaims itself to be Death in physical form, it can kill anything, even if it shouldn't work on the Necrons."

Chapter Master Ta'Phor Hezonn swore loudly. It was so out of character for him it only confirmed how bad the situation was.

"If this was truly a warning shot," General Voronov of Battle Group Muskha said quietly, "the real thing will wipe out everything living on Mandragora when it will hit the planet."

"We have twenty-four Aegis Battlecruisers here," Archmagos Phi-Galen disagreed. The Chief of Staff of Archmagos Samartian had a lot of mechadendrites in perpetual movement as his hololithic representation was next to the Chapter Master of the Angels Encarmine. "Surely their combined Heimdall psy-shields can block this cursed weapon, even if the price to pay is severe casualties inflicted by the Sautekh Grid while they're away."

"They probably can," Neidhart Müller said hesitantly. "But they won't be able to take more than one shot, and we are likely to lose a lot of them. This is nothing like the former guns they've shown us, and we haven't seen it in action before against the Orks. And if it doesn't work...we will lose every force on Mandragora and the Aegis Battlecruisers."

"Xenos Bastards," someone murmured.

"Your Celestial Highness," High Marshal Barbarossa began, "I am not prone to affirm we can't do something, but in this case I have to say it. We can't break the Necrons on this world before they arm this abominable weapon. We don't control a third of this world yet for all the...strange behaviour of the enemy since you crippled their elite forces and reserve. Unless it takes them days to load this weapon-"

"Not happening," Archmagos Thayer Sagami interrupted. "Judging by the preliminary analyses of the auspexes, we have a little over eight hours."

Eight hours.

On a battlefield, it was an eternity.

To conduct a mass evacuation when you had millions of guardsmen vulnerable to a weapon they couldn't even fight against, it was far too little.

There was only one thing to order.

"General Rokossovsky, Chapter Master Malakbel."

"My Lady?"

"Lady General?"

"On my own authority, execute Case Scorched Earth. Contact the Inquisitorial teams closest to you. Tell them I heavily suggest they prepare to execute Armageddon."

"By your orders," the Astartes and her chief of staff answered. Then she turned towards Archmagos Hediatrix.

"Archmagos, all the Titan Legios must leave the planet before the deadline of eight hours is met. I suppose it won't be any issue for Legio Astorum, but the other Legios we have are an entirely different matter altogether."

"Yes, Chosen of the Omnissiah." The Martian commander replied between two cants of binary to his subordinates. "If you are willing to waive the regulations on the security and proper creation of drop zones, I think we will be able to save our most powerful assets. I don't know if we have enough dedicated transports for the Knights-"

"We do," King Leary O'Hara said, "if we had our full complement, it would be a different matter, but many of our Lances are already in orbit."

Dead or heavily damaged, the Lord of House O'Hara didn't add.

"The retreat of the Imperial Guard will be in three echelons," the black-haired Lady General continued. "The Tank Armies can reach the drop zones and evacuation grounds first, and they will move immediately to do so on my command. The infantry will conduct Plan Thermopylae..."

Order after order was spoken, a lot of them Taylor hadn't thought she would ever have the occasion to say. It tasted like the ashes of defeat...and it was. But there was no use crying over it. The Necrons had made them pay for the choice to attack Mandragora before the Ymga Monolith.

Was it a mistake? Maybe...but given how terrifyingly fast the Necrons had reacted when the Mechanicus went after the Golden Crown, would they have been able to do anything in the opposite case before the Sautekh Dynasty destroyed them from behind?

"Lady Weaver," an unfamiliar voice demanded and received the speaking rights. "Forgive me, but why aren't we moving against the Monolith directly?"

Taylor stared directly in the eyes of the Astartes who had spoken. A second later, her insects gave the information she needed. Chapter Master Moritz Schneider, Invaders Chapter. Seconded to Admiral Oskar von Reuenthal as part of the containment force ordered to intervene if the Monolith made its move...a force which had just been unable to do anything useful when the pyramid opened fire.

"Because, Chapter Master Schneider, the fleet around Mandragora possesses the only means to fight the Ymga Monolith without being destroyed in return. You can ask Chapter Masters Barbarossa and Hezonn for their data-copies of the previous engagement, I think. They will confirm that without a Heimdall psychic shield, any capital ship is doomed. Even a Gloriana Super-Battleship won't survive long."

The insect-mistress didn't even know why she bothered repeating facts most of her high-ranked subordinates had no doubt understood by a glance at the system map.

"If Battle Group Volga could reach the Monolith in time, even if it would mean leaving the Guard to fight alone and unopposed, I would take the risk. But all our Battleships are more or less immobile facing Mandragora. Moreover, the Orbital Grid still causes problems as it regenerates. We will need half a day to disengage without risking disaster and the distance between the Ymga Monolith and the Battlefleets is approximately of twelve to fourteen hours."

"But Battle Group Muskha can." The green armoured Space Marine said with a delay indicating the distance existing between him and her Mandragoran headquarters.

"Well, yes," the parahuman said slowly, "you are 'merely' four hours away. But I took every ground and planetary assault force save the Invaders Chapter. And the Battleships have also sent away most of their Cruisers. There is no Gloriana in this Battlefleet. If you enter the effective range of the Ymga Monolith, sooner or later its macro-batteries are going to massacre you. And as Legio Astorum has proved, the carapace of this Necron space fortress is resistant to every weapon we possess. You would need hours to damage this super-gun...and it would solve nothing. The Necrons can and will repair it in hours or a couple of days, at worst. The weakness is the Nightbringer's Tesseract Vault, and it will be protected hundreds of metres, maybe kilometres below the outer shell."

"Yes." Moritz Schneider answered as fast as the lag in communications permitted him to. "It is the kind of mission the Adeptus Astartes has done for millennia."

"Don't be stupid!" Oskar von Reuenthal barked. "Even if Battle Group Muskha supports you at extreme range to distract the Necrons, the shields over this Monolith section are intact. One would need to ram a Battleship into them to break through, before in the next seconds launching a drop assault at low altitude because their anti-air guns will be ready to slaughter you wholesale. Too high, the enemy starfighters and the heavy batteries kill you before one Space Marine lands; too low, the warship crashes."

"Admiral von Reuenthal is right," Taylor cleared her throat. "I appreciate the proposal, Chapter Master, but this plan is nothing but suicide. If the reports you gave my staff are accurate, you have a splendid Battle-Barge and five hundred Space Marines aboard. Whether you lose them against the guns of the Monolith or the millions of Necrons waiting for you in this maze of xenos architecture, the fact is you are going to die. And the Invaders Chapter will need a generation to recover."

"But the armies of Mandragora, cousins and Skitarii, guardsmen and support forces, will be saved."

Damn him. Damn...no, this was unfair.

But he had a point. This Battle-Barge was Ryza-made, and another could likely be built in time. The Space Marines Chapter could recover too, though it would need decades to recover the lost battle-experience.

And inside her heart, around her neck, in her head, the insect-mistress felt the power of Sacrifice waking up. Worthy sacrifice, because the sons of Dorn were truly laying down their lives for a cause they believed in.

"Admiral von Reuenthal is going to give you the simulations made under the operation name Bastion. If you are still willing to offer your lives after that...my prayers will accompany you."

"Thank you, Lady Weaver."

This was one of the moments a Lady General should say something, but for the life of her, Taylor didn't know what she should say...

---

Battle-Barge First Crusade

Chapter Master Moritz Schneider

"This whole idea seemed far more reasonable in a meditation bay while the enemy wasn't shooting at us."

"Nonsense," Moritz smiled. "Are you telling me you are beginning to feel fear?"

Several Space Marines chuckled. The sound, as unconvincing as it was, had the merit of creating some levity in one of the darkest moments of the Chapter's history.

"Brothers," the Chapter Master of the sons of Dorn who had centuries ago taken residence on Ogrys spoke when half a minute had passed. "I will freely admit this mission is a task our Chapter has rarely seen the likes of which, maybe never. We are up against an enemy which can annihilate all life wherever it strikes. Think of the threat it represents! If it achieves its goal today, not only will several Army Groups be shattered and millions of loyal servants of the Emperor killed, but these Necrons will move to another system and repeat the same genocide again and again. They won't stop until someone stops them. They won't stop unless their Ymga Monolith is destroyed. And we are the Invaders. Planetary assault is our life and our art."

"And there is no one else."

"And there is no one else, brother," the Chapter master approved the words of his Captain of the 2nd Company.

"Isn't it against the Codex Astartes to say something like that?" the Captain of the 4th Company joked.

"Do you have one of the Ultramarines hidden in your quarters?" Moritz retorted, generating a few more chuckles.

"If there had been sons of Sanguinius or other Space Marines able to arrive in time, I would have asked for their help," he admitted seriously. "But they are too far away and we can't wait. According to the most refined simulations of the Mechanicus, once we break through the shields of the Ymga Monolith, we will have barely four hours to sabotage the C'Tan Tesseract Vault and every part the Necrons will find impossible to repair. This is little time given the size of this pyramid."

In fact, the required time schedule for a normal operation of this magnitude should be measured in days at best, but his battle-brothers knew that as well as he did.

And with only five hundred Space Marines, there wasn't any guarantee the Invaders could last four hours. The Second Legion had survived longer...but as the name implied, it had been an entire Legion.

"FOR DORN AND FOR THE EMPEROR!"

The First Crusade accelerated again, he felt it under his armoured feet.

Ahead of the venerable Battle-Barge he had condemned through his decision, the Chapter Master of the Adeptus Astartes saw the Ymga Monolith grow in size and malevolence. It was firing its terrifying weapons of green death, but the simple fact it continued to do so after half an hour while ignoring the First Crusade told Moritz the hastily improvised plan worked. The Battlefleet was harrying the Necrons at extreme range, and faced with such a threat, the xenos were too preoccupied to try saturating the space around their battle-station to see if something was trying to approach undetected.

This was good, for if they had tried to search for the Invaders' flagship, they would have found it. Necron technology, everyone including the most supremacist Tech-Priests of Mars had to acknowledge, was far better than anything Mankind had.

But as the current situation proved, for all this near-divine technology, the Necrons were too arrogant, too sure of their superiority. On the eve of victory, they had convinced themselves nothing would try to disrupt their grandiose plans, and so they had not bothered to check for subterfuge or properly use their assets once.

Unity and humility; the xenos really didn't seem to have these qualities in abundance regardless of which Dynasty they hailed from. And thank the Emperor for that, since it gave the Invaders Chapter a tiny chance of victory.

"Your orders, Chapter Master?" The Shipmaster asked. Serf he may be, but Moritz couldn't help but appreciate the self-control of the senior officer of the First Crusade as his entire world was going to end in half an hour.

"The Battle-Barge must get as close as possible to this immense space gun." The next order sounded more like something out of a madman's playbook, but every little helped. "If you have the opportunity, ram the Battle-Barge into the super-gun. The time the xenos take to repair it will give us more time to destroy the core underneath."

"By your command, Chapter Master. Err...Astropathic communications are still available, the large null-zone hasn't been re-established. We can still send a last message, if you so desire."

A last message...yes, there was Sergeant Daegon Belligeris he had sent to the Dawnbreaker Guard. Their poor brother, assuming he was still alive, had to curse him for doing something one could only watch from afar.

"I am going to take your offer, Shipmaster."

It would be a final farewell, but the brotherhood of the Invaders would not end today.

---

The Throne of Oblivion

Cryptek Ah-hotep

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WASTE OF NECRODERMIS? STOP THEM!"

Ah-hotep had believed the last outburst of rage of the Dust-Maker was his worst, but this one looked like it was going to beat the previous angry fit without even trying.

He had already destroyed three Nemesors bearing bad news, after all, and the battle was far from over.

"My Glorious Overlord..." a new annihilation beam, and the count rose to four destroyed Nemesors.

"CRYPTEK! I WANT GOOD NEWS!"

"The repair teams are already at work on the Nova Reaper, oh my Sublime and Peerless Overlord!" If this Szarekhan Overlord and the defunct Simut had one thing in common, it was how they loved that everyone kissed their feet and metallic genitals...Ah-hotep grimaced as it conjured old images she wanted to forget.

"NEMESOR! WHAT ARE YOUR PHALANXES DOING?"

The female Cryptek relaxed in the privacy of her own mind, as the rage of the Szarekhan tyrant turned towards someone else.

Thank Yggra'nya the World Shaper he had not asked how long the process would take, because she doubted the answer would have satisfied such an arrogant noble.

Honestly, the humans had crashed their capital ship straight against the Nova Reaper's outer tube at about one percent of light-speed. Did he really think even the Szarekhan weapons could resist a disastrous ramming like the one it had suffered?

With the benefit of hindsight, the Plasmancer shouldn't even bother asking herself the question. The Szarekhan Overlords took technology as their divine right and the Crypteks were nothing but slaves under their 'benevolent' governance.

"THIS IS INCOMPETENCE OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE!"

Yes, yes it was. But then half of the Crypteks of the Throne of Oblivion were from other Dynasties by now, and were outright dragging their feet from fear that their homes were the next targets of Sobekhotep.

And she wasn't even mentioning the Sautekh contingent left aboard. Proof the Dust-Maker was as cruel as he was arrogant, it had taken the first sabotage – a large-scale antimatter explosion inside one of the armouries – to realise that maybe, just maybe, it was actually necessary to wipe the minds of the members of his forces belonging to the Dynasty he wanted to crush before reprogramming them to ensure absolute loyalty.

Naturally, it had left massive holes in the defence perimeter.

The intruders had no great difficulty finding them...helped by the fact Ah-hotep may or may not be giving them directions from time to time. Discreetly, as she had seen what had happened to the other Crypteks who were caught 'showing disloyalty'. Ah-hotep was a slave of the Szarekhan Dynasty, but she had discovered there were far too many ranks below her current position lately.

Alas, all good things were coming to an end. For all their fortitude and seriously impressive willpower, the green-armoured 'humans' were beginning to slow down. Of the four hundred and eighty-three who achieved the impressive feat of landing alive on the Throne of Oblivion, there were one hundred and two-remaining. And they were very, very far from the Tesseract Vault which conventional wisdom dictated to be their chief military objective.

Very far and there were several armies blocking the passage, not to mention several passages were heavily favouring the phalanxes deployment and...oh dear, did they really try to use the passages reserved to the largest war-units? That was...inspired.

Sobekhotep didn't share this opinion, unfortunately.

"YOU ASSURED ME THEY WERE GOING TO BE SURROUNDED AND CUT OFF NOW!" By the Void Dragon's maw, at this rate the Dust-Maker was going to run out of Nemesors in a few Mandragoran days.

Quickly, she used her authorisation to unlock a few key compartments and sent out troops the Plasmancer was reasonably sure she had purged from several of the most horrific Szarekhan mind-control protocols.

"My Glorious Overlord, the enemy is approaching the energy grid keeping the C'Tan shard safely contained."

"Excellent! The vermin has committed their last mistake! Their pitiful plasma technology won't even be able to scratch the Necrodermis of our best armoured protections!"

"My Sublime and Most Exalted Overlord, the enemy has-"

"I don't care what sort of pathetic tricks they have!" The Overlord shouted, though a bit lower than what he roared moments before. "Nemesors, teleport, and this time destroy them to the last before they escape!"

Sobekhotep should really have listened to her. When an entire phalanx teleported next to the energy grid, it was to discover two unpleasant things. First, the humans had somehow managed to develop a crude vortex technology, and they had three 'grenades' of it. Second, these objects were a second away from exploding right in their faces.

BOOM!

This throne room was quite a distance away from the Nova Reaper, but there was no need to be particularly perceptive to hear the explosion or feel the walls and ground shaking.

"Divert all emergency power into the Tesseract Vault's containment matrix," Ah-hotep commanded the other Crypteks. Aza'gorod was the Reaper of the Necron Pantheon, and letting him escape was not an option; death was the only thing he would give the Szarekhans of the Throne of Oblivion, and the Nightbringer wouldn't waste his time ascertaining the culpability of a Cryptek.

"Acknowledged, diverting power..." Ah-hotep turned her head away as on a sensor screen, about forty of the green invaders ran away from the devastation, pursued by the odd Immortal or two, but frankly in far larger numbers than her calculations had predicted.

The female Cryptek hesitated. She could wipe them out. Capturing the survivors of the force which had caused so much damage to the Throne would place her in a position to spread more anti-obedience protocols as this disastrous expedition continued.

But these curious allies of circumstance had enraged Sobekhotep and were spreading devastation and more problems to the Szarekhan wherever they went. Seen logically, letting them continue their work was a good thing.

"SO THIS IS HOW THE VERMIN WANTS TO PLAY AT BEING THE RULERS OF THE GALAXY? I AM GOING TO ANNIHILATE THEM FOR THEIR IMPUDENCE! CRYPTEKS! BRING THE NEW HYPER-VAULT CONTAINING THE SHARD OF MAG'LADROTH TO THE CONTROL RELEASE-CHAMBERS!"

Ah-hotep was beyond horrified, and she didn't need to compare data with the other Crypteks to know they shared her engram-emotion.

Such a thing had never been done. Oh, there had been monstrous collateral damage during the War in Heaven, but it was because the C'Tan's powers were so great and the battles so terrible even a Crownworld could be very fragile when an apocalyptic battle raged.

But this...this was destruction for destruction's sake.

Gods...they had been so concerned about the Flayer Curse they had missed the signs.

Sobekhotep was not angry without reason. He was prone to fits of rage because the first roots of the nihilistic behaviour had found quite fertile ground in his mind.

The Dust-Maker was beginning to lose his mind and transform into a Destroyer Lord. And if that was the case...

"UNLEASH THE VOID DRAGON AGAINST MANDRAGORA!"

---

Segmentum Obscurus

Kanak System

Kanak

6.545.310M35

Governor Valamir VIII Maximus Cerebrum

"A third of our PDF has betrayed us, General! This is inexcusable!"

The red-clad officer didn't even have the good sense to be sorry!

"My Lord...the desertions and treacheries are of course a terrible blow, but from a purely strategic perspective, they don't really matter. The Archenemy has an entire fleet in orbit, and they destroyed our SDF without really trying. They have a Battleship. If the reports of the rare few survivors who lived through the first hours of this war can be trusted, the tribes and the PDF were forced to confront Traitor Astartes without warning!" The senior General left in the entire Kanak PDF shook his head. "We have a core of retired guardsmen to train our troops, but it isn't veterans we need right now...it's the full strength of the Adeptus Astartes and the Imperial Navy to retake our world."

"The Astropaths are dying horribly every time they try to send a warning to the Sector capital," Valamir repeated for the third time. "You will have to win with what you have."

"And I'm telling you going on the offensive is just going to cause more disasters," the blue-tattooed man had the gall to bark back. "The monsters...spread their heresy to five of the vehicle-cities in as many hours, and over two hundred tribes have been slaughtered! We have already lost two-thirds of our stocks of heavy weapons, and this equipment hasn't accomplished anything more than annoying the heretics!"

"And what is your strategy, then?"

"We order every vehicle-city left, including this one, to move towards the highest and most unstable volcanoes."

"You want to die by lava bombardment instead of the enemy?" The Planetary Governor asked aghast.

"The enemy isn't impervious to the lava, and judging by the way they lost two or three of their sickening engines and transports to the calderas and lava lakes, they aren't used to fighting in this type of terrain. We must adopt a new defensive strategy, one where our knowledge of the planetary eruptions will give us a decisive advantage."

"And what will we do once our proud cities burn and the Administratum demands we pay our tithes? What then?"

"Governor," the General gave him a look that told him he was going to need other Generals unless he wanted to be overthrown, "right now, the main priority is to survive this invasion. The Administratum is far away, the Archenemy is right here. Paying the tithe can wait until we know we will survive-"

There was a terrible sound, an odour Valamir VIII couldn't place, and suddenly an immense vortex opened in his throne room.

Giants in heretical red armour stormed through and opened fire alongside...things...which were born of darkness and the foulest heresy.

"SOLDIERS! DEFEND YOUR GOVERNOR!"

"FOR BLESSED LORGAR AND THE PANTHEON!"

Something fell into his lap, and the Governor of Kanak whimpered as it revealed itself to be the severed arm of the General he had just been speaking with.

"This is a nightmare..."

"And it has just begun, foolish mortal..."

---

Dark Apostle Vorrjuk Kraal

"The Governor and the entire leadership were sacrificed to the Gods, Lord Apostle. We have captured their capital and enslaved about half of the population. I wish I could say it was an arduous task, but we took the crawler in one hour without any Legionnaire wounded."

"Excellent work, Coryphaus...and don't complain when things go according to the plan."

There were several factors which explained why the victory of the Seventeenth Legion had been so quick and so total, of course. First above all, they had the blessings of the Gods, and save its Astropathic choir, the opposition had no psykers save the occasional weakling. The disturbances created by multiple volcanic eruptions had made sure the vox communications were erratic before he intervened in person to give the operators a taste of the Primordial Truth – those who survived may become useful slaves in time.

Things could still have been complicated if there was competent opposition on the ground or in space. But the last Imperial tithe of guardsmen for Kanak had been sent away two years ago, and the Governor, a foolish aristocrat with a tight purse if there ever was one, had decided he could wait for a few more years before resuming the effort again. The four monitors – relics several millennia old – were so poorly maintained a museum would have refused them on principle.

And the second most important thing: however the False Emperor and his slaves had anticipated the deployment of the Word Bearers' fleets emerging from the Maelstrom, it was obvious that Kanak had not been on their list of probable targets.

The same thought must have crossed the mind of the Coryphaus next to him, because his next words echoed Kraal's inner musings.

"No sign of coherent opposition anymore, just a few uppity tattooed tribes. Unless they have reinforcements on the way..."

"They don't," Vorrjuk smiled. "I am not the equal of Blessed Lorgar, of course, but with the number of rituals we used to give us an advance warning should a threat approach Kanak, any fleet sailing the tides of the Sea of Souls in our direction would be noticed...and meet several unpleasant surprises on its way."

After the multiple failures of the Sarum campaign, the Dark Apostle had no intention to add another disaster to the numerous reasons his gene-sire would have to remove him from his position of command and then throw him onto an altar to the nonexistent mercy of his peers of the Council.

This was why despite the apparent low danger, the 'Kanak Campaign' had been prepared meticulously and his Legionnaires trained like never before. It was better to appear as too cautious for the first stage of the plan and realise that your fears were blown out of proportion upon the moment of triumph than risk the opposite happening.

Evidently, the other Dark Apostles did not share his views.

Incidentally, long divinations and desperate sorcery communications had informed him that out of the eight fleets prepared at Ghalmek, four were confirmed destroyed beyond any hope of salvation, and one had gone dark.

Somehow, the insistence of Abaddon the Despoiler to spread multiple Sector-wide rebellions and misdirect the False Emperor's slaves as to his real goals for each Black Crusade before he actually deployed his forces sounded far wiser than it had several decades ago.

"But enough about enemies which aren't here. The Host of Black Tears is on its way?"

"It is, Lord Apostle. They were finishing the deliveries of the slaves when I last spoke to them. Within ten minutes, they will be ready to return to action...and eager to do so. These tattooed wretches were funny at first, but their name of 'Skull-takers' is an offence to the God of Skulls and Blood."

"Indeed," Vorrjuk said drily as they advanced up the slope of a volcano where thousands of recently and not-so-recently enslaved beings were digging for the greater glory of the Pantheon. "To be honest, I don't know if their bloodlust will be sated...the enemy sleeping below Kanak has no blood to shed."

Red light shone from his Crozius as the primary dig site had finally reached the xenos door he had seen in his visions.

"As long as they have skulls and their death is pleasing to the Gods..."

"We will kill them, Coryphaus," Vorrjuk Kraal promised absently as the carvings and the cold glyphs of the Atun Dynasty were revealed for the first time in millions of years. "But we are here for a far greater purpose. In this tomb which has survived the fall of countless galactic civilisations, the artefacts which will cause the end of the False Emperor await."

One slave didn't prostrate himself, and the Dark Apostle used the opportunity to step on him, all the while pouring a sliver of power into his body which instantly gave him a second mouth...on his back. The other half-rebellious slaves took note and prostrated themselves...before returning to work with more diligence.

"Obviously, these xenos likely won't agree with the arguments of Blessed Lorgar. It will be our role to teach them the goals of the Black Crusade outweigh their need to keep them in this dusty tomb."

---

Sautekh Space

Mandragora System

Mandragora

Indomitable Plains

8.545.310M35

Sergeant Gavreel Forcas

His Lady had not screamed, but at the moment when her helmet was removed, the fire in her eyes gave a significant clue that she had not at all appreciated the Necrons' perfidy. Nor had she enjoyed giving permission to the Invaders Chapter Master to sacrifice half a thousand Space Marines to prevent a greater disaster from occurring.

It had worked. But the Invaders were likely all dead by this point, and the Ymga Monolith was not in range to receive its punishment.

The Sautekh Necrons would have to do. Gavreel would have almost pitied the xenos if they weren't such a bunch of genocidal bastards.

As far as the view provided by his transhuman eyes reached, the cannons of the four Artillery Armies of Army Group Volga were firing at the Necrons. It was a Commorragh-style bombardment, with the minimum of space between the Basilisk and Sphinx batteries, and it was devastating.

For days this tactic was completely unconscionable, but now that the enemy's formations combined apathetic strategy and slow speed, the Imperial Guard was going on the offensive again.

And there was a lot of revenge in the hearts of the guardsmen and every Imperial commander on Mandragora.

It was day, but the guns of the Astra Militarum were firing relentlessly, and the colossal explosions and endless smoke columns were darkening the diurnal hours.

Then the rate of artillery fire began to slow down...not due to lack of targets, no; despite the plains before them being transformed into a vision of craters and nightmares, the enemy was teleporting in countless troops to replace the ones it lost – some of them unfortunately being formerly crippled xenos which had been repaired beyond what reality dictated should be possible – and continuing this slow and relentless advance.

It was just insane, when you considered that north of these plains, a Tank Army supported by two Mechanised Armies and several hundreds of thousands of Skitarii were preparing to hammer them in the flank.

This time the Imperial Guard did not retreat anymore, and the lesser nobles were marked by luminous flies, which were an incredible boon for the snipers Ancient Rylanor had trained for the last few years. When the Necrons manifested a tiny spark of their former military brilliance, their counterattacks were shattered by the Fists of Roma, supported by covering fire from the Titans. As the skies were clear of Doom Scythes, the Marauder Bombers and jump pack-equipped Astartes dominated the skies and unleashed hell upon the metallic heads of the Necrons.

It was, as far as he could see, the perfect picture for the concept of 'battle in depth' General Rokossovsky had championed since the moment he arrived on Nyx. The goal wasn't to destroy the Necron army in a single battle; it was to disorganise their system before shattering it. There were elegant tactical manoeuvres of course, but the important goals were to destroy the Necron citadels one after another. Either by having the Heracles Wardens and the Deathwatch sabotage them, or through a head-on brutal military assault which left nothing but ruins in its wake.

And it worked. After the cancelled retreat, the Imperial Guard and the other forces which had landed on Mandragora were blasting through the Monoliths' shields, and preceded by Baalite Scorpions, devastated the resurrection chambers of the Sautekh Dynasty.

A spider ran away from the insect-mistress. Any other time, this would have been an innocent gesture, but since this one was an Adjutant-Spider, there was no reason to send her out of eyesight right now...the Catachan ants and plenty of other parts of the Swarm were on the battlefield to receive her orders.

And a second later, the bad feelings didn't lessen.

"Gamaliel. Contact Dragon. Tell her she needs to stop babysitting the Tech-Priests in charge of the Necron loot and treasure...I don't care if Trazyn is nearby or not. I need her command and everything she can deploy right now."

"A problem?"

"A colossal one which has taken Battle Group Muskha by complete surprise and destroyed two Cruisers," the ruler of Nyx explained. "It seems the destruction of their super-gun hasn't calmed the Szarekhan commander who wanted to kill us all."

The smoke was heavy, the skies having been polluted by the Necron artifices and the demolition efforts of the Imperium...but no one having eyes could miss the falling star in the sky of Mandragora.

"Is that was I think it is?" the former Dark Angel Legionnaire heard himself asking.

"It is a C'Tan shard, yes." He could almost hear the silent grimace of the Lady General after that. "We have a small chance. It appears the Monolith's order-giver ordered it to destroy the biggest Sautekh biggest citadel first."

"This is going to disorganise our offensive planning...again."

"The offensive begins here and now, and in a different direction."

"Yes, my Lady." One of the Marines of the Blood said. "But...the Orks are attacking in this direction as well. This...isn't this the 'cataclysmic fight' you wanted to avoid?"

"Yes," the golden-winged woman reluctantly confirmed. "But the choice has been made for us. Everyone goes on the attack. We need to cut off some heads before they grow beyond our capability to handle."

"For the Sanguinius and the Emperor!"

"For the sacrifice of the Invaders and for Mankind!" The Dawnbreaker Guard received in response.

---

Indomitable Palace

Phaeron Djosakhat

The Maynarkh Dynasty was without doubt among the cruellest enforcers of the Silent King during the War in Heaven, but they also had some strange proverbs too.

One of them was that no matter how much pain you inflicted upon the organic races, a death sentence always allowed them to focus their minds on the real threat.

Djosakhat had never thought it would apply to him personally. His...yes, his agony, had cost the Sautekh nobility a lot of time and lost ground, but this was of little importance: he still had billions of warriors awakening day after day, so what if he lost a few millions while he was in pain? The damage to the citadels of the Sautekh Dynasty was more concerning, but the Crypteks could restore and repair them.

But repairing after a C'Tan shard was allowed to ravage Mandragora by the Szarekhan Dynasty?

That he and his Dynasty couldn't recover from.

"Neketek! Release the shard of Zarhulash!"

"My Phaeron, the shard will be too weak to-"

"I know the Potentate is far too weak to vanquish the Void Dragon, Cryptek!" The Sautekh Phaeron shouted. "But it is going to buy us some time..."

Time they sorely needed, as the minuscule fragment of Mag'ladroth's power pierced the first outer shields like they were made of sand.

"Time to do what?" One Cryptek, forgetting his rank and place, screamed like a vulgar plebeian. "It won't give us more than a few hundred of our former heartbeats!"

"Then that will already be a few hundred heartbeats granted to this Dynasty." Djosakhat gritted his teeth as the pain came back, more agonizing, limiting the number of things he could think of at the same time while creating painful emotions when there had been none for millions of years. "Imotekh!"

"My Phaeron?"

"Take your remaining armies and teleport yourself onto the Throne of Oblivion. Whatever our fate today, that dishonourable jackal of Sobekhotep must not survive his extraordinary violations of the honour code and the crimes he committed against the Sautekh Dynasty."

"The Dust-Maker will perish by my hand, I swear it on the ancient stars." The Stormlord swore.

The walls of the throne room of the Invincible Citadel, a fortress so heavily defended it could resist the most punishing bombardments with ease, were beginning to vacillate.

"May your scythes strike true," Djosakhat replied before the access to his engrams was once more disrupted by this damnable pain. "If you achieve the feat and I don't survive the battle against the C'Tan, you shall lead the Sautekh Dynasty in my stead. Now go."

The teleportation engines activated, and the Stormlord was gone.

"My Phaeron, was it wise to promise him this title he doesn't deserve? I think-"

"Be silent, useless courtier!" Djosakhat spat. "Unlike you, Imotekh has won battles so far. He has been defeated several times, but he remains an extraordinary General! What have you done to deserve your rank, apart from wedding my sister's third cousin?"

Alarms which had never been used shrieked at full power as the shields of the Indomitable Citadel fell.

"Prepare yourselves, Necrons of the Sautekh Dynasty. For the greatest of all C'Tan has been sent to destroy our Crownworld."

---

Indomitable Citadel's Outer Defences

Brigadier-General Tanya Sevrev

They arrived too late. The good news was if they had Leman Russ Tanks, they would have arrived even later.

The bad news...well, the gigantic Necron citadel and its last armies were besieged, both in the air and on the ground. Neither of the enemy forces were humans.

The Mandragoran plain was infested with Orks. Somehow, for reasons which were known only to themselves, the greenskins had brought everything they had and from the east, their unstable war machines and everything that had survived the dark days of fighting was thrown into a last roll of the dice which was as insane as it was fast. Proper tanks shouldn't reach speeds above eighty kilometres per hour, even in short bursts. Proper tanks shouldn't try to fly either, but the Hydras of the 2nd Tank Army of Nyx had destroyed several of those ugly contraptions.

"Orders, my-"

Tanya couldn't finish her sentence.

Not because she didn't want to or someone place a hand over her mouth, but because for what felt like an eternity, time froze.

It was like someone had pushed a button and apart from thinking, they were unable to move their bodies or do anything...including breathing.

Above the Necron defences, a new C'Tan shard rose and slammed into the creature which had neutralised immense armies in a single move.

"-Lady?"

Time resumed its normal course.

But in the next seconds, Tanya shivered, because for the first time...she realised how monumentally outmatched they were.

When Lady Taylor Hebert spoke again, however, the words weren't addressed to her.

"How far behind us is the artillery?"

"About twenty kilometres, my Lady," one of the Blood Angels who had played the role of spearhead so far answered. "We still have a group of Whirlwinds that could make a preliminary bombardment."

"And face the Stompas and Gargants alone and unaided?"

The ground shook under the feet of the guardsmen of the 20th as the designations of the Orks' insult to the Titans were mentioned.

Seconds later, massive shapes emerged from the dust and whatever abominations the Necrons had unleashed to slow down the Orks.

Tanya was extremely relieved that the Orks' eastern force was visibly charging towards the xenos walls and batteries, ignoring them for the time being. It was an ocean of green violence. Lady Weaver had brought her swarm, but a lot of the insects were still kilometres behind with the Adjutant-Spiders and the Queen-ants. Most of what was present were the units 'requisitioned' from the Necrons, with the rare insects which had volunteered to exchange chitin for metal as support. The 'normal' swarm – God-Emperor, did that feel weird to say aloud – needed rest and did not have a bottomless reserve of endurance.

"Do we attack?" This one was the Flesh Tearer, no doubt about it.

Lady Weaver's sigh was heard by everyone nearby.

"Kratos, I know your favourite tactic is to rush straight into melee range, but this time the enemy outnumbers us by a frankly horrible margin. If the Tank Army was here, at full strength, and integrally deployed, we would have half a million men...and we don't have them. We have something closer to two hundred thousand guardsmen and guardswomen right now."

"Give it a couple of hours, my Lady, and we will have a few million men here to properly support the last assault."

"By that time, the C'Tan battle will likely be over-"

Suddenly a part of the Necron citadel was ripped apart, and one of the C'Tan transformed it into a meteor which was used as a weapon against its opponent. One second later, there was an explosion of energy and the meteor became a million fragments which-

"Shields! Tech-Priests, activate the shields or the army is going to burn!"

The cogboys were prompt to obey and the blue energy fields blocked the onslaught. The Orks...well they took the explosions, impacts, and shockwaves in their full fury.

Unsurprisingly for those who knew the barbaric xenos, this incited them to accelerate and commit everything to their attack.

"Orders, Lady General?"

"The 2nd Army and all Guard units are to use every means of long-range bombardment to thin the Orks' ranks." Lady Taylor Hebert commanded. Her voice was icy and determined...with maybe a touch of anger.

"If we do that my Lady, we're not going to influence the course of this battle."

"Dragon is still more than fifteen minutes away, Captain." The Basileia retorted as two Gargants fell when one of the monstrous attacks of the C'Tan missed and hit them in what had to be a coincidence, since neither flying monster really seemed to care about what was happening below.

"But-"

"General, if you tell me seriously a single Guard army can survive in the middle of that, I will demote you immediately."

The single word, somehow, managed to give an adequate description of everything that was happening in front of their eyes. The rigid Necron lines were crumbling in the face of the Orks before reforming in their backs and causing eruptions of greenskin blood and the debris of scrap-machines. There were countless explosions as the remaining Gargants unleashed everything they had, with the legendary Ork inaccuracy earning its galaxy-wide infamous reputation. There were refurbished super-heavy tanks bigger than Baneblades being levitated and thrown over the Necron walls like toys. There were Warbosses and their Brigade-sized hordes flayed by the Necron Gauss guns.

The Necrons used proper tactics at last, but they were bombarded from above by the collateral damage of the C'Tan duel, and they were surrounded. The Orks were just a mob where the plan seemed to be 'attack everywhere at once, and who cares if it fails'?

It was...chaos.

Sure, Commorragh and the Death Star had been chaotic too, but somehow...it felt like the Fay 20th and every Guard regiment here was out of their league...and out of their role.

This was the Orks against the Necrons. The xenos had fought each other for years, and...

"You feel it too, don't you Tanya?" The Living Saint had stopped giving orders to the Dawnbreaker Guard and the other Space Marines, and advanced to meet the officers of the regiment she continued to keep next to her in all circumstances.

"Yes...I think I do...it's..."

"Someone is manipulating the strings of fate from the shadows," the sentence was uttered with an annoyed expression. "The parasites are trying to turn my use of the Orks against the Necrons against me. They want to see us bleed on this battlefield. If it is neither my story nor the Imperium's, it can't be our victory."

"The Imperial victory, I understand, your Celestial Highness," the blonde Fay officer began carefully. Since it was Necrons against Orks for this apocalyptic butchery, it wasn't by definition Mankind fighting. "But yours? Surely-"

"There is no Endbringer on this battlefield, my dear Brigadier-General." The golden-winged Lady General gave her an ironic smile. "I have no rivalry with any of the great Sautekh commanders. I am merely the senior commander of this Operation. I fight because the survival of the Nyx Sector is at stake, but that's not enough. The Necron do not have any presence in the Warp, and it is a neat drawback both for ideology and symbols."

"I am going to take your word for it...but how do we remove this drawback?"

"Oh, that's very simple." A golden finger was pointed at the C'Tan battle...where one of the creatures had bitten into the other and appeared to...what in the name of the Golden Throne was it doing? "I am not the only parahuman in this Battle Group, and if Iash'uddra can be my C'Tan opposite, why can't another play this role too?"

The C'Tan was devouring the one the Sautekh had summoned, Tanya realised with horror. And as the process entered its final stage, it began to lose its humanoid appearance.

Immense metal wings unfurled. Metallic silver and sickly green scales took over the flawless Necrodermis shell. It began to increase in length and height. It was no longer a parody of God, it was reptilian, it was...

"This is..."

"Yes, this is a draconic C'Tan. The Void Dragon, the Necrons call it."

The monster roared...and then fell upon the Ork WAAGH shrouded in a cloak of green energy promising nothing but death.

---

Indomitable Tomb-Citadel

Throne Room

Phaeron Djosakhat

"Sobekhotep must have lost whatever control he had over Mag'ladroth's shard, my Glorious Phaeron."

"Something I am completely aware of!" The Sautekh Phaeron snarled, since the alternative was to moan in pain as his new body – the fourth one in a single Mandragoran day – was once more beginning to fail him. "At least the descendants of the Krorks will die with us."

Once the Potentate's shard had been devoured by the Void Dragon, the outcome of the battle raging outside had been decided in mere heartbeats. As tall as the scrap-walkers were, they were nothing against the power of a Star-Devourer.

False Gods they may be, but the C'Tan had the power to fight the Old Ones directly during the War in Heaven. A mid-sized horde of delusional invaders was just an appetiser for the greatest of all C'Tan – though the Nightbringer had tried to challenge him for that title.

No one sane – or insane – among the Necron Dynasties would be stupid enough to allow Mag'ladroth enough power to return to its draconic shape.

No one.

At least Djosakhat tried to convince himself of that...because if he was wrong, the Sautekh Dynasty would be the first and not the last of the Great Necron Powers to be annihilated.

"He comes, my Phaeron. Three of the inner gates have been...we think it simply walked through them. The inner protocols are melting when we try to detonate them!"

"Activate all the Heaven protocols now. Summon the last Lychguards and teleport our last Megalith according to the Crypt Protocol."

"It isn't going to work!"

"I didn't hear anything intelligent from you..."

The alarms shrieked again. Something enormous roared. Necrons had supposedly left fear with their frail bodies of flesh...much like pain. So many things had turned out to be incorrect...

The gates of his superb throne room failed in that instant, and the entrance gate, magnificent and more than adequate for his grand entrances, burned and was reshaped as flames of pure reality burned the Necrodermis and other hyper-alloys before reshaping the materials into a far larger opening.

Mag'ladroth stepped through.

"Djosakhat...you betrayed me." The eyes – all six of them – of the massive draconic Star-Devourer fell upon his wound. "And you were wounded by a race of lesser primates. Disappointment follows disloyalty in the Sautekh Dynasty."

Green flames burned in this infernal maw, and a myriad of alarms informed him of the intention of this near-divine enemy: taking control of the Indomitable Citadel and turning it into its new lair.

"And yet we beat you."

"Barely," the Void Dragon growled. "I didn't anticipate your treachery, oath-breaker. But with or without the help of the Aeldari, your best efforts were nearly insufficient. I lost fifteen shards from the greater whole, and these scars were mended. I have healed from your betrayal as I slept below red sands."

Fangs and claws larger than any Necron shifted to become ever more threatening than his engrams remembered.

"We defeated you once, we can do it again!"

"And who is going to do it? The Aeldari? They are on the brink of extinction. The Krorks? They are-"

"WWWAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!"

The unique ceiling of his throne room sundered as something massive fell from it.

From the dust and debris, an immense green shape jumped and crashed upon the priceless mosaics depicting the Battle of Dual Flames.

It wasn't a Krork. It wasn't big enough – though it came near in size – but there was a primal intelligence in these red eyes, which was the confirmation he needed. There was cunning and viciousness, but the beast wasn't intelligent enough-

"Yngir!" the green brute roared. "WAAAAAGH!"

"WAAAAAGHHH!" The thousands of lesser vermin behind it roared.

"So you are the Ork who thinks he can defile metal. Your challenge is accepted, pathetic shadow of the Old Ones!"

"WAAAAAAAGHHH!"

His throne room disintegrated in fire and explosions a moment before his life.

---

Super-Mekboy Brukk X-Brukk

Da scaly fing was bigga dan dem gunz, but you'ze know what dey say, da bigga dey are, da bigga the killz!

"BOYZ! I'ZE WANT DAT 'EAD FOR MY GARGANT!"

"YAY WARBOSS!"

The WAAAGH attacked. Warboss Arrgard attacked.

They fired and they attacked.

Brukk fired his new super-shoota with the appz aint-bugz.

Thousands of Shootas and funny stuff fired at dat big metal scaly.

"I have wasted enough energy here. I am Mag'ladroth. And by my will, YOU DIE!"

"Dat thing is doin' funny-"

The boys of the first ranks were fighting with Gork an' Mork before three teef were knocked out!

"DATZ DA FIGHT! CHARGE! CHARGE! WAAAGH FOREVA!"

Warboss Arrgard arrived with his big pincha and his new killa-stuff.

The Warboss Arrgard...and the scaly's tail was piercing da Warboss 'ead.

"Mork an' Gork! Not fair!"

"Szarekh only delayed your extermination, animated fungi!" The enemies roared. "DIE!"

Green flaming stuffz pulverized dem. Da WAAGH had lost da Warboss and dat was baddie-bad.

"Timez to-"

CRASH!

A new flashia scaly crash-arrived on da battlefield.

A new funnia 'dragon', but bigga and redda, as waz proppa.

And above...dat was Da Swarm Bringa.

"WAAAGGHH! FOR DA WARBOSS!"

Another explosion and half da boyz died.

"RUNZ!" Dat waszend fair! Dey werez just starting! "RUNZ OUTSIDE!"

---

Lady Magos Dogma Dragon Richter

When Dragon had first presented the project to build a Titan-sized Dragon Armour so that the Tinker would have something able to face the monsters of Operation Stalingrad and emerge victorious, Taylor's answer had been a firm and resounding no.

In her own words, 'we don't need something which is more or less the two hundred metres-long flying cousin of an Ordinatus, Dragon'.

This first refusal had not deterred the Minister of Industry, of course. Yes, she could have used an modified Ancalagon-unit in space or a Saphira class when coming close to the battlefield, but given how fast everything went to hell at the Death Star, Dragon's calculations were that this elegant form of firepower in the shape of a magnificent dragon would be absolutely needed. And sooner rather than later.

Still, removing the obstacles for the construction of the Armour that the former member of the Guild would personally drive during Operation Stalingrad had required herculean efforts of diplomacy, countless favours bartered inside and outside the Nyxian Mechanicus, and repeated attempts until the insect-mistress relented and the adamantium and other exotic resources were diverted her way.

The final result was the Nobilis Draconis Pendragon-class Nyx-Pattern Dragon Armour Falkor. It was two hundred and twelve meters of incredible technology elevating the draconic theme to new heights. It had received a psy-shield constantly powered by several Astropaths. The front paws each had a small integrated crystal of Aethergold.

Plasma Guns, Adamantium claws, newly-rediscovered alloys and high-technology issued from the STC discoveries had been merged into this transport which had, if she wanted to be honest, emptied a few of her private accounts.

But the horrified expression the green-dark draconic C'Tan made when she made her entrance? Priceless.

"NO! NO! NO! YOU ARE A USURPER! I AM THE DRAGON!"

"I utterly disagree," the Tinker replied sweetly. "You are an insult to the noble draconic form...slug."

"I AM MAG'LADROTH! I AM THE DRAGON OF CREATION!"

The C'Tan had gone berserk, as the plan for such nightmarish scenarios called for.

Because while having a unit of the Pendragon class coated in Aethergold would have ensured her victory, the supply had still been far too limited when they left Nyx.

Only her front arms had it, and she only had a psychic shield to protect herself with against these cold green flames which destroyed reality before reshaping it from the ashes.

"Imposter."

The female parahuman struck fast, parrying the mindless charge and throwing the enemy into a pack of Orks which was trying to flee. Maybe they had finally realised challenging a C'Tan was something out of their league?

The first antimatter ricocheted harmlessly against her golden defence, and her counterattack pierced the scales and dug deeply into its side.

"I AM GOING TO TORTURE YOU UNTIL THIS GALAXY DIES, USURPER!"

"Don't invert the roles, please. I am Dragon, and I claimed the name first...copycat."

The furious roar answered for certain if the C'Tan could understand human insults.

A roar which turned from loathing to pain, as her claws pierced into the regenerating metal, and this time Dragon smiled, because from her energetic auspexes and the light which appeared, she knew she had struck true.

"YOU...YOU..."

"I. Am. Dragon. Mistress of Dragon Armours, sponsor of the Dragon Culture, and lore-keeper of the draconic knowledge." The grenade-launcher fired the vortex grenade right into the large wound, and hatred and something vaguely resembling fear fought in the eyes of the C'Tan. "And I do not share this title with anyone."

Falkor flew high and fast to escape the blast zone. Fortunately, as the 'Star-God' regenerated, the Warp explosion had been triggered internally...and Dragon couldn't help but gape as a worm-like thing emerged from the smoking crater and the fortress crumbled under its paws of green flames and darkness.

"THAT HURT, USURPER. FOR THIS ALONE, I WILL WIPE OUT ALL YOUR CREATIONS AFTER I HAVE DESTROYED THE SAUTEKH DYNASTY."

This was the moment Taylor chose to drop from the sky, the Nebula's Shard in her right hand, Cawl's sword in the other.

Both found the gigantic head of Mag'ladroth and stabbed it as golden flames danced upon metal and crystal.

"AAAAARRRGGHHHHHH!"

The way the monstrous ex-master of the Necrons writhed forced Taylor to jump and return to the sky once more, lest she be crushed.

"THIS RADIANCE..." The enemy hissed in utter loathing. "I REMEMBER THIS BRIGHT LIGHT! YOU SHINE THE SAME WAY HE DID! DESTRUCTION! THE KNIGHT DESERVES NOTHING BUT DESTRUCTION!"

Dragon was forced to rise higher, as the C'Tan unleashed more of its apparently technologically impossible powers. Around it phalanxes of Necrons were reformed, returned from the dead, but all wrong.

"SZAREKH DEPRIVED ME OF MY ARMIES, BUT I WILL BUILD A NEW ONE! AN ENDLESS ARMY FOR A REALM OF METAL AND SILENT OBEDIENCE!"

Dragon raced to weaken him again with Aethergold, but the element of surprise had been lost, and somehow metallic wings were recreated and used to evade her attack again.

"I AM MAG'LADROTH! AND I CLAIM THIS GALAXY FOR MYSELF!"

"Not today."

A tornado of green energy materialised and interrupted the C'Tan's oncoming attack.

Her enemy tried to struggle, to strike with enough power to free itself from its bonds...but in vain.

Spitting green flames which destroyed everything in its path, launching miniature antimatter comets, and distorting reality on the plains below, the self-proclaimed 'Void Dragon' was nonetheless dragged for hundreds of metres towards the Tesseract Vault hovering hundreds of metres above the ground.

"Honourable secessionists!" The Overlord Necron who seemed in charge of the artefact and the forces surrounding it on high-tech hover-platforms. "The deplorable military situation demands we parley at once!"

Dragon honestly didn't know if she needed to blame Taylor or Trazyn for this one...

---

Lady General Taylor Hebert

Somehow, Taylor was sure a lot of people were going to proclaim this was her fault...especially when the time came to explain why this region of the world of Mandragora had been reduced to a series of burning craters.

Why the hell did the Necron call her a secessionist, though? By their standards, she was the commander of a foreign species, not a Sautekh Necron...and besides, the notion of secessionist for the Necrons was obsolete. The moment they were transformed into metal automatons, the opportunities to rebel were more or less nonexistent due to the combination of the command protocols and the overwhelming firepower and influence wielded by the C'Tan.

"Parley accepted...Overlord?"

"You stand before Overlord Zahndrekh!" A Necron Herald proclaimed as she hovered in place. "Grand Overlord of Gidrim, Master of a Million Stratagems, Banner-Holder of the Southern Court..." For the next minute, a list of titles long and impressive were recited by heart, which would have been impressive for any race without the eidetic databases of the Necrons.

"I am Lady Taylor Hebert, Lady Weaver, Lady General of the Imperial Guard, and ruler of the world of Nyx. I invaded the Webway and survived the Queen of Blades while destroying the Dark City of Commorragh. Why do you seek parley, Overlord Zahndrekh?"

"Phaeron Djosakhat is dead and hostilities have begun against the Szarekhan Dynasty," one of the massive Necrons acting like a bodyguard and a herald declared. "There is no reason for your forces and ours to continue this war."

"You will forgive me, I hope, if I am not ready to accept this without any guarantees." Taylor replied politely. "The interrogation of Orikan the Diviner revealed he and the Overlord of the Throne of Oblivion were extremely eager to go to war against the Nerushlatset Dynasty and any forces allied to them, which included and still includes the space zone I am duty-bound to defend. Many forces unleashed considerable forces against mine."

"You doubt Overlord Zahndrekh's honour?" The bodyguard-herald agitated a long and dangerous spear-rifle. This had to be Zahndrekh's guardian shadow, the Vargard Obyron, then.

"I have the greatest respect for Overlord Zahndrekh's honour and military skills," the female parahuman assured truthfully as Dragon's Pendragon Armour circled behind her, a firm reminder that the parley could end very badly for the Necrons too. "But he is not the Sautekh Phaeron. I know how the Dynasty protocols work. Should a new Phaeron order that the hostilities between our two nations are to resume, your Master will have no choice but to obey."

The Necrons stayed silent for a moment, before the Vargard Obyron talked for his master.

"Assuming the Stormlord successfully defeats the Szarekhan phalanxes, he will be the next Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty."

Fantastic. Bloody, awfully fantastic. Yes, Taylor was sarcastic. The defunct Phaeron had just potentially handed the crown to one of the most terrifying military commanders ever produced by the Necrons, and the Golden Crown's actions had proved that his reputation was in no way exaggerated.

"That is regrettable."

"The Great Stormlord is an honourable foe."

"His military record is peerless," the insect-mistress acknowledged. "But his tendency to wage war wherever there's a moment of weakness in his neighbours is unacceptable for my alliance."

Neferten had spoken about this hypothetical scenario, and advised her that in that case, it would be better to destroy the Sautekh Dynasty down to their last bastion. Given a few years of peace to rebuild the endless Sautekh legions, Imotekh would likely grow to be a threat surpassing Ork super-WAAGHS and Chaos Black Crusades.

Given how bad it had been to fight a recently awakened Dynasty with the Orks invading at the same time, these concerns had been fully justified.

"My proposal is simple: if the Sautekh Dynasty is to survive, Lord Zahndrekh is to become its Phaeron and swear an Oath of Allegiance to Phaeron Neferten of the Nerushlatset Dynasty. As the Imperium of Mankind and the Nerushlatset Dynasty are allied, this will ensure war between our armies is against the foundations of the treaties signed several years ago."

"Ridiculous!" one Necron noble protested. "The Nerushlatset Dynasty is the lowest Dynasty of the second-tier while we are the third of the first tier! It should be them who bow to us, not the reverse!"

"Before the Great Sleep, the imbalance would have made such a thing unacceptable," the golden-winged Lady General admitted. "But your worlds have been militarily defeated, and I stand with a massive fleet over your Crownworld. Gidrim, your greatest world, was deliberately spared by mutual agreement with the Nerushlatset."

"We will not bow to-" the aristocratic Necron was forced to shut up, courtesy of a sceptre smashed in his face.

"These conditions are in accord with the honourable code of our Dynasties, young secessionist. It also restores a measure of unity, one that the Szarekhan oath-breakers have failed to adhere to. However."

Yes, that would be too simple...

"If Imotekh takes the title of Phaeron, I will not be able to oppose him," the Necron Overlord was shrouded in an aura which screamed 'old age'. "He is more popular than I, and the protocols will be delivered to him if he triumphs against the Throne of Oblivion."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then I will claim the title of Phaeron for myself," Zahndrekh promised. "And once again meet young Neferten as supplicant to save my Dynasty from a war which benefits no one."

The sceptre slammed once more on the head of a Necron who looked like he was going to protest, while two teleporting golden-armoured Necrons were dispatched with disconcerting facility by Vargard Obyron.

"In good will, the phalanxes and loyal forces remaining on Mandragora will vacate the Crownworld and stay on Gidrim until the fate of the war has been decided. So honour demands, so it shall be. Farewell, young secessionist."

"Farewell, Overlord Zahndrekh."

It could have been a more decisive victory, but it did fulfil the basic requirements for Operation Stalingrad's goals...and that was all which mattered.

---

Mandragora System

The Throne of Oblivion

8.553.310M35

Overlord Imotekh the Stormlord

Before the Great Sleep, Imotekh had disliked the Szarekhan Dynasty. Their Overlords and Nemesors frequently reserved the greatest superweapons and the best warships for themselves, regardless of whether or not they had built them, and they really didn't care if it was the best tactical or strategic decision.

Now that the Great Sleep was over and the mask of beloved authority was broken forever, the Stormlord knew these signs had been the first warnings of the monumental hypocrisy dirtying the Szarekhan nobility.

"My Overlord! The dishonourable Szarekhan bastards have unleashed a Vyggh on our left flank!"

An avian screech broke the thoughts of every Necron for a fraction of second.

This was the problem with this redoubtable alien foe; the psychic scream was psychic and paralysed everyone who heard it...with the fatal consequences one would imagine.

"Focus our last Arks on the beast," Imotekh ordered.

"My Overlord, if we do that-"

"Manoeuvre of the Rolling Vulture. Now!"

It worked...in so far as the immense red-green avian with feathers of poison was finally cornered between two Monoliths and unable to return to the heights where it was such a dangerous enemy. After that, it was only a question of concentrating enough firepower to kill it.

"Vyggh killed."

"Let's pray to the nonexistent Gods of this reality we won't have to face another."

"The species was nearly extinct after the Campaign of the Shattered Moons."

"And the Silent King's heralds proclaimed its extinction fifteen years later. Since we have just discovered how much the Szarekhan promises are worth, let's not make any unwarranted assumptions."

"The tactical situation is in our favour. We have reopened the Dolmen Gates, and they are now reinforcing us with quantities of undamaged forces coming from the abandoned worlds. And many phalanxes have seized the Star-Eater Drive of the Throne of Oblivion."

"Tactically we win. Strategically we lose. I wasn't jesting when I proclaimed that a few more 'victories' like those on the Golden Crown would render our Dynasty extinct."

This reply had just been uttered when his forces began to fire at each other.

"What...cease fire! Cease fire! The enemy has been chased from this Sector! Cease fire!"

But while his voice alone should have been enough, it took five commands, all embedded with medium-sized protocols, to fulfil it...an unacceptable waste of energy and time.

Alas, Imotekh knew which entity was capable of such malevolent tricks, and it meant...

"Sobekhotep was a fool to unleash you," he told one of the Nemesors he couldn't remember the name of, which was a sure sign he had been played for a fool.

"Foolish is not the word one should use for the poor Dust-Maker," the false-Necron smirked before its shell tripled in size and the Necrodermis took a golden hue before increasing in size again and taking a very familiar shape every Phaeron and grand commander had excellent reasons to fear. "Did you miss me?"

"No."

"Awwww," the C'Tan known to the galaxy as the Deceiver purred, "I'm disappointed in you, my poor Stormlord. So slow and careful, trying to take over the Throne of Oblivion section by section while your doom approaches."

"You are not my Doom."

"Who said I was?"

"Save shards of your fellow C'Tan, there is nothing I can't anticipate and-"

"It isn't them."

"Then I don't see the point of listening to your lies any longer."

Ten thousand Necrons had taken position and on his order-

"Sobekhotep is going to escape the system and thus deprive you of the Dolmen Gates as they will overload and shatter."

"Impossible," his calculations weren't perfect, but they couldn't be that wrong. "I hold the Star-Eater Drive hostage, and even if I didn't, the Szarekhan Dynasty has lost so much power in the successive battles and devastation that-"

"What happens," Mephet'ran the Deceiver asked maliciously and rhetorically, "when someone activates a Hyper-Dimensional Bridge and a Super-Fractal Time-Displacer at the exact same place and time?"

"You didn't, you-"

"Oblivion awaits, my dear Stormlord."

The surroundings of Imotekh and the armies of the Sautekh Dynasty fighting on the Throne of Oblivion exploded in a greenish-white light.

---

Mandragora System

Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra

8.554.310M35

Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller

"How long?"

Neidhart was sure his chief of staff was exasperated, but the reliable Captain gave him the answer nonetheless.

"Eighteen minutes and fifteen seconds...approximately...before we enter effective torpedo range, Lord Admiral."

"The Tarot-readers and the psykers still confirm their previous readings?"

"They do, Lord Admiral," the Senior Astropath affirmed with his usual stony expression. "The FTL drive of the enemy is partially damaged and controlled by their Necron enemies."

"Auspexes?"

"The fighting between the different xenos factions is extremely noticeable," a Commander of Kar Duniash smiled. "We estimate that the last hours have been enough to destroy every rebuilding effort they attempted at Volga and additionally increased the mechanical and energy failures by fifty percent. We unfortunately aren't able to assess how much damage the Space Marines inflicted before they were overwhelmed, but their super-gun is nonoperational and the Mechanicus instruments detect severe damage in all the nearby outer sections."

"They can't flee, and they have no more fleets to hide behind. The Ymga Monolith is the battleground for a new xenos civil war." Neidhart summarized the situation. "And the number of C'Tan shards they can unleash has significantly decreased."

"Not to mention that for all their limited capabilities, we still have all our Aegis-class Battlecruisers to disperse the fire of their murderous 'Reaper Batteries'." Oskar von Reuenthal added from the bridge of the Son of Victory. "And the Inquisition has lifted the last restrictions for several special weapons."

"In that case, I think it is time for us to teach the xenos angering the Imperium was the first and last mistake they made since they crawled out of their gloomy tombs." He had seen what sort of architecture the Necrons considered beautiful, and by the God-Emperor, the metal creatures had artistic tastes on par with several Traitor Legions, minus the corruption.

"The Black Templars demand the honour of leading the charge." His chief of staff reported as he raised an eyebrow. "The Invaders were sons of Dorn like them."

"At least it explains why my console is suddenly flooded by multiple Chapter Masters' requests..."

This was the moment where all instincts screamed something terrible was going to happen. And Neidhart trusted them too much not to react as a sickening glow began to engulf the zone where the Ymga Monolith was waiting.

"Evasive actions! Evasive fleet actions immediately! Void shields are to be powered at one hundred percent of military power on the prow!"

The intact elements of the four Battle Groups which had left the high orbit of Mandragora were superbly trained.

"Emergency astropathic communication to Her Celestial Highness! Tell her I request a purifying attack from the Titan-Moth Lisa!"

Once again, the Imperial Fleet and the naval forces of the Imperium watched as a new disastrous and seemingly-impossible phenomenon exploded into existence before their eyes. Once again, they prepared to withstand the storm.

But as the favourite animal of the Living Saint threw a gigantic orb of light against the raging hurricane of xenos origin, it receded without much resistance.

In mere seconds, the danger was over. The thing went from cosmic disaster to noteworthy addition to the spatial cartographers' collections, and soon even less than that.

But as the sense of imminent destruction everyone had felt vanished and everyone breathed in relief, the evidence couldn't be denied.

"The Ymga Monolith has escaped. Again."

"Yes, Lord Admiral. But this time it seems their escape was not exactly flawless." One of the young Lieutenants he had received as a 'gift' from the High Admirals of Kar Duniash a few months ago told him. "I could be wrong, Lord Admiral, but the auspexes detect a lot of debris where the xenos battlestation was..."

"Confirmed, Lord Admiral." His Master of Auspexes spoke a couple of seconds later. "The Ymga Monolith has lost and impressive quantity of mass while translating out of the Mandragora System. We have three Alpha-class masses bigger than this very Battleship, correction, five Alpha-class masses."

"There's a good chance this wasn't their common FTL they used, clearly." The grey-haired officer whispered.

"Lord Admiral?"

"I was musing that the translation at Volga and the one here are too different in efficiency, speed, and consequences to be a coincidence. They got away without losing a cog-sized object during the last battle, and now their retreat tears apart the very thing they're trying to protect?"

The Lord Admiral shook his head.

"The common FTL must indeed be unavailable, or so damaged it generates anomalies like these."

The Necrons had left behind an impressive field of debris. Not enough to create an asteroid field in its own right, but the Mechanicus was going to jump in joy at the idea of new days of work quarantining, exploring, and analysing the sum of those wrecks.

"And they must be completely panicking at their imminent defeat to consider options like the one they just used." His chief of staff commented. "For all the fact they're xenos, Lord Admiral, many of these silver killer-automatons are not creative. If they tried something that dangerous, it's because they felt their annihilation was a very real possibility if they stayed in this system."

"You're likely right," the highest-ranking officer of Battle-Group Volga agreed. "Unfortunately, for all the risks they took, it appears luck was on their side this time. The Ymga Monolith escaped."

"Assuming their point of emergence was similarly illuminated the way Mandragora was, it won't be very difficult to locate it and engage the pursuit once more."

"Yes. Let's just pray the God-Emperor they don't emerge in an Imperial-controlled system. We have a Living Saint on our side, who knows what would have happened if we didn't have Her Celestial Highness and Her Moth to protect us?"

"Nothing good, I wager, Lord Admiral."

"Nothing good," Neidhart repeated before glaring at the debris-filled area of space.

The 'prey' had fled, bloodied but still alive.

Operation Stalingrad was far from over.

---

Somewhere in another dimension

A few thousand years after 310M35

The Throne of Oblivion

Overlord Sobekhotep

"I ORDERED YOU TO KILL THE STORMLORD!"

Laughter that showed no inclination to hide its mockery and disobedience echoed lengthily in response.

"You can try to puppet a few of my fellow C'Tan, little Sobekhotep," the Deceiver spoke as if he was a child. "But I am beyond such crude methods. I obeyed your first order...because I desired to do so. The army of the Sautekh Dynasty who came here has been halved in strength and divided into smaller assault phalanxes."

"Yes, and they are now waging a never-ending series of ambushes and skirmishes in the depths of the Throne of Oblivion!"

"I fail to see how that is my problem." Mephet'ran taunted him. "If you-"

"Enjoy your prison, for you will never be released again." The Szarekhan Overlord spat as the familiar machinery sucked the fallen False God into something it had no hope of escaping from.

The next order to give to the Crypteks was simplicity itself.

"Use this Tesseract Vault as a battery for the repairs and the other emergency needs."

"But my Glorious Overlord there were rumours that-"

"Do not utter those vulgar superstitions in my presence!" Sobekhotep barked. "The Deceiver will be starved in its prison for its insolence. Energy is energy; even the C'Tan don't have the power to alter it once we tear the power from their control. Proceed, or I will find myself a new Chief Cryptek!"

"I obey, Great Overlord."

Fuming at the fact that one of his most brilliant plans had been ruined by lesser minds yet again, the Szarekhan noble teleported back to the control room which was for the moment his interim seat of power. The former one was...in need of renovations after several walls were revealed to have been shoddily built by incompetent architects.

"Imotekh has escaped and is at large somewhere on the Throne," Sobekhotep announced without delay as his court bowed and made the necessary gestures of respect required for their survival. "The C'Tan have proved themselves completely unreliable once more."

First the Void Dragon was defeated, fortunately after killing that secessionist of Djosakhat, and was imprisoned beyond his reach...for now. Then the Deceiver...the urge to destroy, to lay waste to everything...

"Double the hunting phalanxes. I want the Stormlord dragged before me in chains."

"Yes, my Glorious Overlord," Sihathor replied fervently. "Your will be done."

"And quickly," he hissed, glaring at the hundred-plus servants who were certainly conspiring behind his back to usurp him. "The vermin which damaged the Nova Reaper survived an incomprehensible amount of time before being cornered and annihilated."

"Yes, Glorious Overlord!" The court repeated.

"Time Crypteks, report."

"We are in the wrong dimension and location, Most Glorious Overlord. The entry translation was too violent to be controlled in even a limited manner, and we have missed the domains of the Charnovokh Dynasty by a catastrophic extent."

"We also are in the wrong time period, Most Glorious Overlord," the second Cryptek added. "By our most optimistic estimate, we are several thousands of our original years after the battle."

"Your suggestions?"

"We must resynchronize immediately," the two dabblers of arcane-technology replied in a single voice.

"The Silent King's own orders insist dimensional travel must be limited to short bursts. Otherwise the risk to the supremacy of the Szarekhan Dynasty in all universes is far too great."

"If we stay in this time period, we will have to deal with the consequences of the Battle of Mandragora as they have evolved for thousands of years."

Sobekhotep nearly crushed his armrests in his grasp. On the one hand, Djosakhat and the majority of his court were dead. With Imotekh unable to rally the survivors to his banner, the Sautekh Dynasty was finished as a major Dynasty. On the other, the number of survivors was far too great when the Void Dragon failed in its secondary objectives...far too many survivors which were not going to spread a version of events favourable to the Szarekhan Dynasty.

"Very well," the Dust-Maker commanded. "Prepare our return in our dimension of origin at the correct time-period. Keep the same spatial coordinates."

"Err...my Glorious Overlord? This system is inhabited and-"

"This is why we have our Reaper arsenal, isn't it? Kill those who try to enter the range of our offensive weaponry."

"But my Glorious Overlord-"

"I have made my decision, Cryptek. Do not force me to repeat my order a second time."

"Yes, my Glorious Overlord! Your will be done. Everything will proceed as you have decreed."

"Excellent. We will soon be out of reach of traitors and incompetents, and we will have dozens of years to rebuild the Throne of Oblivion once we reach the Charnovokh Throneworld."

---

Mandragora System

Battleship Enterprise

8.558.310M35

Rogue Trader Wolfgang Bach

Wolfgang had rarely seen Lady Weaver look so exhausted. He knew Julia and Adrianna shared his opinion, though they hid it well...and they hadn't known the Lady General for as long as he did.

"I'm going to get ten hours of sleep once this meeting is over," the Basileia announced bluntly as if she could hear their thoughts. "How bad?"

"Four Battleships crippled, two which will need over a decade to be functional again...assuming you give them to Ryza."

"I will."

"And of course the Battle-Barge First Crusade has been lost. The Invaders only took the indispensable crew with them for their desperate assault, so over two-thirds of the crew remains."

"It was also a Ryza-built Astartes capital ship, wasn't it? Contact Ryza and tell them I am considering the purchase of a warship of the same class." The insect-mistress played with several butterflies with a tired smile.

Wolfgang raised an eyebrow.

"The price of a standard Battle-Barge, much less one of this particular Forge World, isn't exactly cheap."

He knew the Lady of Nyx was fully aware of the economic realities but-

"They died for us, and their Chapter is going to have to rebuild its core of veterans for several decades. I am not going to explain to Rogal Dorn why his sons have not been properly honoured for their sacrifice."

"Yes, My Lady." Wolfgang exhaled. "Leaving aside the ships which can't be relied upon, we have at least eight Battleships which need urgent repairs that can't be delayed for any reason. The preliminary analysis is between one and two weeks of full-time repairs once the Supply Fleet joins up in five hours. The proportion of damaged hulls is similar across the four Battle-Groups, my Lady."

"The officers of the Supply Fleet are confident they can handle everything at once?"

One more proof the Living Saint was utterly exhausted, not that her yawns and the other signs were subtle.

"Yes, my Lady," the blonde Rogue Trader confirmed gently. "We have mustered twelve Arsenal Star Galleons for situations like these, and between the mobile yards and every support vessel, I assure you that everything that can be repaired without the support of a full-fledged Forge World will be."

"Good, because for all the tactical and strategic advantages we had, our forces were hammered."

"But we accomplished the goals of this campaign, at least where Mandragora is concerned."

"Partially," Lady Taylor Hebert grabbed a snack brought by a member of her Dawnbreaker Guard. "The Stormlord is alive, and though his reputation of victory will unavoidably suffer a hit or two from the fact the Ymga Monolith escaped, he is still the next potential Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty."

The Saint grimaced between two bites from the 'mega-sandwich' which was her meal.

"Logically, we knew this was a possibility since Neferten warned us of the Overlord's reputation, but I would have preferred the previous incumbent chose Zahndrekh from the start."

"My Lady," Julia coughed before intervening. "Forgive me, but according to the Navy analysts, using the vids and the communications we now have available, this 'Overlord Zahndrekh' is likely insane or suffering from serious mental problems."

The silent question wasn't asked, but everyone nearby heard it nonetheless: was it really wise to let such a xenos take control of the Sautekh Dynasty?

"First, I will say one name: Trazyn."

Wolfgang couldn't help but sigh.

"That was a...below-the-belt strike, my Lady."

"Perhaps so, but it doesn't invalidate my argument." Lady Weaver finished eating before emptying half of a juice bottle without ceremony. "The best Necron commanders are all insane, I fear. It must have been their way of coping with reality between the biotransference and the War in Heaven. The important issue for us is how their madness manifests and if it is an obstacle for the goals we set at the beginning of this campaign. Based on the declarations of Zahndrekh and his heralds, he will bow to Neferten and his mental instability will make sure his executioners will remove plenty of Necron Lords who would have never become our allies in the first place."

"There is a measure of risk," the Brother of the Red who held the standard explained, "but it is far better than to have the Stormlord as Phaeron. We wouldn't have a decade before that warmongering xenos found a pretext for a casus belli and launched a Sector-wide campaign across the Eastern Fringe."

"Overlord Imotekh must be neutralised, and the same is true for the Throne of Oblivion." The commander of Operation Stalingrad glanced at the bridge's hololithic screens. "I understand there's a problem in that regard?"

"Yes, my Lady." Adrianna immediately projected a map. "As you can see, some of the best Analysts and auspex-masters studied the exotic particles released by the time-space distortion the Necrons made to leave this system. It is always possible they changed course afterwards, but we have a vague bearing...and it leads us directly south-east, deep into the Unknown Regions of the Eastern Fringe."

"And not far from the limit of the Astronomican's illumination zone," the Basileia had never set a foot into the Kar Duniash Academy, but she had taken mere seconds to acknowledge the big problem. "This is problematic, all right."

That was something of an understatement. Without the Astronomican, there was no way any Imperial warship could continue the hunt for the Throne of Oblivion. Not only were the Navigators not going to accept suicide missions, the officers of the Imperial Navy wouldn't agree to it either.

"We have a slight margin before this problem presents itself, as first we must wait for the Throne of Oblivion to re-emerge from its...explosive translation."

"But there is no denying the conditions to find the next battlefield are going to be difficult, your Celestial Highness" Julia added after a second of hesitation. "The region is an extremely diverse and expansive amount of void space, but it will be beyond the frontiers of the Imperium, and the outposts of the Navy won't be able to support multiple Battle-Groups. And fighting in unexplored space is always more dangerous than challenging an enemy in a stellar system which has been properly mapped for years."

"Far be it for me to disagree with my Navy advisors," the black-haired Lady General nodded. "Alert all patrols and the allies we can count upon to locate the Ymga Monolith. It is vital we find it before it tries to use its armament to wipe out the systems of His Most Holy Majesty. Once it is located-"

"I would advise to spend two weeks here no matter the outcome of the hunt, my Lady. If you forgive me the remark, you need the rest...and so do the soldiers of each and every Battle-Group which fought on Mandragora."

"Two weeks?" the words were asked innocently, but Wolfgang wasn't going to negotiate, he had seen the casualties' list and the scars of the capital ships and escorts alike.

"Fourteen standard days, and not one less, my Lady."

"I thought it was supposed to be 'and not one more'..." the woman worshipped by billions of humans huffed.

"Not when I am against you...the senior Admirals agree with me, by the way."

"Fine, fine, I'm really outmatched on every front..."

---

Mandragora

The Ork Crash-Zones

8.559.310M35

Brigadier-General Tom Cameron

Was this what the heroes of old had looked at when the legendary Battle of Tallarn was over?

Tom Cameron couldn't know for sure if this was the case, but looking at it from his elevated position, there wasn't much doubt in his mind, God-Emperor be praised.

From west to east, as far as the instruments of his command Cataphract could see, a graveyard of scrap-tanks and tens of thousands of other vehicles was offering itself to the defenders of the Imperium.

And as impressive as the spectacle of what had to be the equivalent of several Tank and Mechanised armies laying broken was, these multitudes of destroyed xenos armour and weapons of war were overshadowed by the half-dismantled warships which had been deliberately crashed on the planet to make the greenskins' planetary invasion easier and faster.

"Thank the God-Emperor the Navy could launch all the orbital strikes and aerial support they wanted, General," The tank officer of Patton noted. "That would have been a lot of Orks to fight again if they had escaped."

And for those who doubted a third round was possible, Tom was going to point out how quickly the xenos had reacted after the Volga Encounter. They had arrived before Her Celestial Highness and Battle-Group Volga at Mandragora – granted no one in the Imperial Navy or the Adeptus Mechanicus was insane enough to translate out of the Warp so close to a planet, only the Orks were.

"That is exactly what I said to General Flabanico," General Paul Dundee smiled before grimacing. "Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, a few of those 'super-rockets' the Orks had managed to shoot a few scrap-destroyers back out of orbit. So the annihilation of the forces of Arrgard the Metal-Defiler's forces isn't one hundred percent complete, as our Mechanicus support loves to remind me."

"I am not going to underestimate the threat the Orks can cause," Tom replied cautiously, "but aren't all the potential Warbosses of this horde dead and incinerated? Rumour is the Lady General killed the biggest brute herself."

It was something that excited a lot of guardsmen and allied forces, because while the greenskin leader wasn't a Top 100 bounty, it was big enough to be considered a Segmentum-level enemy by the Imperium. And since Her Celestial Highness was always generous with the bounties she claimed in the course of her battles where their subordinates were concerned...

"I wasn't able to confirm the rumours, Brigadier." The officer of Indiga played with his hat for several seconds before donning it on his head instead of the regulation helmet. With the Orks dead to the last and the extermination teams beginning the spore-purge protocols – setting the Ork corpses on fire for the Whiteshields – the level of danger represented by a walk on this xenos planet had went from 'dead in a matter of minutes' to 'devoid of most dangers'.

Well, relatively few dangers, Tom corrected as the ground shook under his armoured boots. For several seconds, the vibrations got worse, and it wasn't because the Ambulls of the Basileia were busy digging new tunnels.

"The earthquakes are getting worse, General."

"The Tech-Priests think it was the last parting gift of the xenos creature Lady Dragon and Lady Weaver fought in the ruins of the Necron capital. That way even in victory we would be unable to claim the planet."

"Did we intend to conquer this world?" Of course the Imperium was always happy to colonise new planets, but though the air was somewhat breathable on several of the immense plains of Mandragora, the sheer abundance of xenos structures and other obvious dangers were more the kind of environment that the Holy Inquisition was rumoured to quarantine at every opportunity.

"No, I don't think so. But that is above my pay grade." Paul Dundee shook his head. "Anyway, this isn't our problem anymore. Lady Weaver told us to pursue the Orks and make sure there wasn't any redoubt left: there isn't. We will finish searching through them here, and then we return to Landing Zone Gamma. The Mechanicus can recycle or try to return the former Imperial tanks into service, Operation Stalingrad continues for us."

"I am going to relay the new instructions...which are going to be very popular, General. The boys and girls didn't like Mandragora."

"No one, I think, liked Mandragora much, Brigadier...not even the local species of xenos. The only army which was happy to fight here was the Orks...that is until their Warboss died."

And the long trail of broken and cannibalised vehicles across hundreds of kilometres was evidence enough what had happened after that: inter-horde conflicts, total rout, and utter defeat.

The Orks must have lost billions of troops between two warzones...what a horrifyingly dangerous species, the souvenir of the threat represented by the Death Star was assuredly rekindled in many minds.

"Ave Imperator," Paul Dundee said with a tired smile. "Mandragora has fallen."

---

The Eastern Fringe

Beyond the Imperial Frontier

The Throne of Oblivion

9.593.310M35

Cryptek Ah-hotep

The return to their proper dimension was relatively calm compared to their emergency departure from Mandragora. That much the Plasmancer acknowledged after muttering a few grateful prayers in the privacy of her mind.

"The resynchronization is complete," the third Senior Cryptek to hold the title in as many Mandragoran days informed the aristocratic nihilist in charge, "we are back in the dimension where we were born and awaited the end of the Great Sleep."

"I hope the damage is minimal this time," did Sobekhotep realise how bad his behaviour had gotten and how prone to destroying his surroundings he had become? Most likely not, Ah-hotep thought after a moment of introspection. There was a lot about the Destroyer Curse which was yet to be understood, but a tendency for the Necrons cursed with it to suffer from delusions was not among the known symptoms. Long ago many Crypteks and the brightest minds of the Dynasties had tried to reverse it, in vain. The Destroyers, whether they were fully committed to their brand of madness or not, had a limitless imagination with which to convince themselves their reactions were natural and absolutely justified.

"Damage minimal, Glorious and Mighty Overlord of the Eternal Banner, First under the Silent King," these proclamations, aside from wasting a lot of time, were getting more and more ridiculous as the mental stability of the Dust-Maker collapsed. "I must warn you though, your instructions forced us to-"

"The tech-details are of no concern to me at the moment," not only was the Destroyer-in-the-making mad, his arrogance was so large it was surprising his body could still contain it. "Where are we?"

"Before the Great Sleep, the stars of this region were called the Opal Stars by the Aeldari. We took it from them in the twenty-second phase of the War...maybe. The data-engrams of this period have been deleted a lot after the twenty-sixth phase."

"And there are no worlds belonging to the great Dynasties nearby."

"No, Glorious and Mighty Overlord of the Eternal Banner, First under the Silent King. This region was part of the Trakelzatakek Accords between the Sautekh and Charnovokh Dynasties. The two Phaerons pledged not to build a great fortress or any other form of significant military outpost so that a clear demilitarised zone existed between Mandragora and Anibia. It is possible a few minor Dynasties chose neighbouring worlds to spend their Great Sleep on, but our Artificial Intelligences do not have their coordinates."

And even if they did, Ah-hotep and all the other Crypteks certainly wouldn't release them by their own will. Fortunately, as his descent into madness continued Sobekhotep didn't seem to realise that without command-protocols active at all times, the Crypteks were able to shamelessly lie to him. Still, it was preferable to saying the truth, especially when lying wasn't going to free them from slavery.

"Yes, yes. How long until we can activate the Star-Eater Drive and move to the Charnovokh Crownworld?"

"One year, Glorious and Mighty Overlord of the Eternal Banner, First under the Silent King."

"Too long!" Sobekhotep barked.

Idly, Ah-hotep wondered how the Szarekhan Overlord would have reacted if they had told the truth. The real answer was 'never' or 'we will need to build a new Star-Eater Drive'. The troops of Imotekh had been very thorough in their destruction the moment they realised they were about to be cut off from their reinforcements and unable to wage a conventional war. The Star-Eater Drive was one of the first things which had been crippled by mass application of Immortal infantry barrages.

The Plasmancer had seen the damage. The Necron Crypteks had skills which were marvels for the uninitiated, but they weren't the C'Tan. And it would take one to repair the molten Necrodermis and wrecked machinery the Drive's core had been turned into.

"You have one hundred Szarekhan days to repair the Star-Eater Drive!"

Ah-hotep was almost tempted to wait...just to see what the aspirant-Destroyer would do now that half of the Crypteks were in near-rebellion against him. Who knew the threats of razing one's homeworld could generate so much anger?

Besides, the ranks of the Necrons versed in the mysteries of the universe's fabric had thinned considerably. And the Throne of Oblivion was severely damaged. What Hsiagn'la had done had been considered cataclysmic damage, and for good reason. But in the last days, the consequences of Sobekhotep's fury had resulted in more and more devastation, until the C'Tan's wrath was significant, but not of prime importance anymore.

The enemy included the Sautekh Dynasty and its most famous Overlord now. The Deceiver had disabled countless things, how could anyone think using it as a weapon could end well?

"Why. Is. There. A. Fleet. Of. Vermin. Organics. Around. The. Largest. Planet?"

"Glorious and Mighty Overlord of the Eternal-" The Senior Cryptek received a blast of black energy through the head, preventing him from answering properly. Silently, Ah-hotep prepared to teleport away.

"We lacked sufficient energy levels to breach the dimensional veil again, Overlord," she replied coldly, seeing no reason to be polite since her 'superior' had not been saved by conforming to the demented whims of the Szarekhan. "The only solution we found to compensate was to exchange the system of our dimension with the one of the other dimension. This is the reason we wanted to use an uninhabited system, as it would prevent spatial and time anomalies, in accordance with the decrees of the Silent King-"

"USE THE PROPER HONORIFICS OF YOUR ULTIMATE MASTER, CRYPTEK!"

Ah-hotep wondered for a few Necrontyr heartbeats if it was worth begging this Destroyer-in-the-making to let them relegate the flowery speeches to the end of his list of preoccupations.

It didn't take a lot of time to arrive at the conclusion it was useless. Sobekhotep was mad, perhaps he always had been, after all he was Szarekhan.

"No."

One protocol used 'by mistake' and she teleported away.

Let's hope the Dust-Maker was a bit too slow to react, ruining one of his bodies would give her a lot of time to escape into the secret passages she had discovered since reawakening...

---

Mandragora System

Mandragora

Ruins of the Indomitable Citadel

8.594.310M35

Archaeovist Trazyn the Infinite

"This is why I hate Mag'ladroth," Trazyn complained loudly. "No respect for artwork and relics of our glorious history."

The Master of Solemnace didn't know if the Void Dragon had foreseen his defeat against his good friend Weaver and her draconic acolyte before being imprisoned anew by Zahndrekh, but the damages caused to the foundations of the Indomitable Citadel supported this hypothesis.

"Accelerate the pace of the recovery operations, please," the owner of what was undoubtedly the greatest Necron museum of all times commanded, "that barbaric C'Tan has done something to the planet's core, and given how quickly Vargard Obyron was obeyed by the Sautekh Nemesors, we won't be able to...explore the other citadels."

Most of them had either been emptied of everything valuable or outright teleported to Gidrim, which was a real shame. There were a few prizes – mainly rare weapons, the Sautekh were not big on anything that couldn't kill someone – the Archaeovist of Solemnace would have loved to present in the Prismatic Galleries.

Still, the vaults he was currently saving from a dreadful fate held Phaeron Djosakhat's personal trophies and possessions...and he knew his dear friend had also emptied many of the vaults and decorations of other Overlords' domains for Neferten. With the right words and a few judicious exchanges – the humans rarely refused trinkets of their own past – his collections should benefit...everyone should benefit!

It was a pity everyone was only thinking about war, really. Given the awakening of more Dynasties and the interest of many people in Solemnace, Trazyn had nurtured hopes of opening some of his lesser galleries to a few select visitors...but the time was not yet right, alas.

The better times of public acclamation for his incredible work would have to wait another era. No matter. As he prepared new planets to receive his galleries, Trazyn knew that the collection business continued to be in expansion, and with his good friend Weaver around, the benefits showed no signs of abating or returning to the levels before her first exploits.

Hmm...he had really outdone himself in the catacombs of the world the humans had renamed Wuhan...

The familiar noise of a protocol he was intimately familiar with soured his mood considerably.

"I know you are there."

"Really?" The purr was nearly enough to activate one of the many teleportation devices he kept on his person while on collection duties.

"Aenaria Eldanesh." Trazyn considered it a triumph of self-control that he didn't panic as he uttered the name that most living species had learned to dread one day. "It isn't like you to sit out the battle."

"The humans seem to have things well in hand," the Queen of Blades shrugged. "And I already defeated all the Sautekh Generals at least once when they were empowered by the C'Tan. Fighting them when they are barmy from their Great Sleep would not be very challenging."

Only the Eldanesh line would consider fighting the Sautekh Dynasty, weakened or not, head-on 'challenging' and 'fun'.

"What do you want, oh Queen of Blades?"

"The Harlequins keep pestering me to reclaim the Cronesword you stole."

"I didn't steal it! I saved it from the rampage of the Space Marines sent by Weaver to destroy Biel-Tan."

"Before any Harlequin Masque had the time to save it?" the crimson-haired Aeldari asked dubitatively. "It must have been a quick rescue..."

"It was!"

"And I don't care."

A Harlequin appeared by her side and tried to add his own twisting words.

Trazyn interrupted it angrily before the end, for the speech given was far too similar to the ones the mouthpieces of the Triarch had spoken long ago to convince them to not die as Necrontyrs.

"Do not speak those four words, servant of Cegorach. I know the price and the folly they have created for millions of years."

"I agree with the thief," Aenaria surprisingly supported him. "I think most of the Excess betrayers used the same justifications when they began to covet the Phoenix Throne...and we all know what that led to. Give the clown the Cronesword and we depart."

"I don't have it with me..."

"Arch-Thief..." the Aeldari female purred "...Do you take me for an imbecile?"

---

Mandragora System

Battleship Enterprise

8.595.310M35

Emperor's Champion Sigenandus

The Saint's personal chapel aboard the Enterprise had been a place where the artistic choices of the sons of Sanguinius held great sway from the very start. The altar and statues were plated in gold, and the honorific shields and banners along the walls held so many rubies the impression was the ceiling itself was crying red tears for the grandchildren of the God-Emperor.

Sigenandus was nonetheless proud that the sons of Dorn had been able to add their own touches, be it in the form of their own honorific shields with the different Chapter's heraldries, or the commissioned paintings of the Seventh Legion's glorious past.

Today though, the discussion of how to make the chapel more beautiful would have to wait.

"My Lady. We have received an urgent communication from beyond the frontiers of His Most Holy Majesty's Imperium. A powerful dimensional rift was recorded by one of the Mechanicus Exploratory Fleets the Council of Nyx signed accords with."

"And the Tech-Priests reported the incident so quickly? I will have to give a salary increase to Dragon...in addition to all the others she already deserves, of course."

The hundreds of razorbeetles in front of Her Celestial Highness began to move in hypnotic patterns at constantly increasing speeds.

"The Emperor has smiled upon us. Explorator Fleet Land's Vision had a...problematic encounter with some upstart pirates a couple of months ago, but their defeat was prevented by the timely intervention of one of the Frigate patrols of Battle Group Maskirovka."

"Ah. So the Adepts of...which world are they hailing from?"

"I am afraid that wasn't included in the Astropathic transmission, my Lady."

"I will be sure to ask next time. Well, it seems fairly certain the Tech-Priests were eager to repay the favour they owed to Admiral Fritz von Bittenfeld as soon possible."

"Yes...and err...the Admiral has communicated us the star coordinates and is ready to jump into the Damocles Gulf the moment you give the order."

"The Damocles Gulf?" Her Celestial Highness frowned, and her razorbeetles paused for a single second before resuming their informal ballet of wings and blades. "Isn't that that turbulent frontier where High Queen Esmeralda Terryn fought during her first Quest...and the Knights of House Terryn fight constantly to protect their homeworld from xenos threats?"

"Yes, my Lady." The Knights of said House had not been shy to regale anyone who would listen with their tales of triumph and protection of Mankind. "Archmagos Sagami provided some additional information; it was a zone wracked by Warp Storms until recently, difficult to access...but the destruction of Commorragh has changed the strategic situation."

"It remains far from calm," Lady Weaver commented as she read the data-slates Sigenandus had brought with him. "Three Warp Storms in the last decade? I can mention a dozen Sectors which don't have that many Warp-related disasters in millennia."

The Living Saint huffed.

"At least we know when and where the Traitors and the Ruinous Powers are waiting to jump us."

"My Lady, we haven't-"

Her right hand was raised gently.

"Twice we have fought the Necrons now, and the Archenemy has failed to intervene both times. Twice the Ymga Monolith has received damage which would have destroyed anything less massive and resistant. First-rate analysis shows a World Engine would be crippled after enduring so many disasters. The Null-Zones are gone or crippled. The FTL drive is incredibly damaged. Necrons are fighting each other in the entrails of the Necron battlestation itself. We have not given them the opportunity to seize resources or to join forces with another Necron Dynasty. If the liars of the Warp don't act in this third battle, they will have done absolutely nothing when Operation Stalingrad's goals will be decided on the battlefield. They are coming, Sigenandus."

"When you phrase it like that, my Lady, the argument is unassailable."

"I wish it were not so," the Living Saint admitted. "How good...no, how bad is the Navigator's connection with the Astronomican?"

"Far better than it would have been before the Hour of the Emperor's Wrath, but compared to Mandragora and Volga, Chancellor Achelieux described it as sub-optimal. The Damocles Gulf is a 'half-veiled region', in his own words."

"That's going to be a problem. I can't risk four Battle Groups in a translation which, for all we know, will lead us right in front of a star about to go supernova."

"Admiral Bittenfeld is volunteering to lead Battlefleet Maskirovka into the gulf as our vanguard."

"Of course he is."

Sigenandus wisely chose to not comment. Personally, he thought their Lady was a bit unfair...the Admiral was sometimes a bit too aggressive in his tactics, something that had allowed von Reuenthal and numerous naval tacticians to beat him in simulations, but the High Marshal had fought by the man's side when Fritz Bittenfeld was still a young Captain, and one couldn't ask for a more courageous and determined Navy officer.

"Speak, Sigenandus. I am not going to bite...nor will my razorbeetles."

"I think, my Lady, we need a determined commander to seize a bridgehead in the system wherever the Ymga Monolith fled to, and the incomprehensible strategic choices of the xenos have placed a determined Admiral in the correct position to act. I know the psykers are affirming the internal FTL drives of the Ymga Monolith are crippled, but they were saying the same thing sixteen days ago, and it managed to escape. Moreover there's the issue you insisted upon: we tear out the throat of the enemy, and we don't give it the time to recover."

"You have a point," the Holy Basileia summoned several small spiders to fall in her hands, undoubtedly as a prelude to calling the bigger ones. "But if he is to attempt the crossing of the Damocles Gulf on incomplete cartography, he will have to leave the Guard Army Group and all the other ground-based assets of his transports at Voltoris. Then survive...four or five days on his own?"

There was no grimace on the Living Saint's noble face, but Sigenandus could understand her displeasure. Four days was exactly how long Battle Groups Berezina and Dnieper had had to fight in the Mandragora System on their own...and the result had not been what one might call an overwhelming victory...save for the destruction of the Necron Battlefleet.

"I fear it is a risk the Operation is going to demand of the Imperium." Sigenandus replied. "The plans I've heard from other Navy officers sounded far worse...though you are going to hear them yourself in the next hours, I'm sure."

"I hate that," the Living Saint declared bluntly, "and it is not a risk, it is far more than that. But the Imperium can't allow the Throne of Oblivion to continue threatening its worlds in the Eastern Fringe and beyond it..."

---

The Eastern Fringe

Damocles Gulf

T'au System

High Orbit over T'au

Or'es El'leath Battleship Firestar III

8.597.310M35

Commander Shadowsun

The Mont'ka, her old master often loved to teach them, could come in many forms, but at its heart was the art of landing a decisive blow against the enemy where it was going to win the fight. It also could be repeated many times; the overwhelming application of Hunter Cadres or whichever forces of the Tau'va were best suited for the strike were left at the Commander's discretion; but it was always about attacking the right foe at the right time.

For the first time in her life, the memories of the time when she had only been O'Shaserra and the more recent ones of her last campaign against the bellicose 'Imperium' didn't find anything to land a killing blow.

"The energy shields of this planet-sized Necron structure have been reactivated," Admiral Kor'o Y'eldi informed her. "The Kor'vattra we have here won't be able to pierce it."

"If more Battleships were present, would the Mont'ka tactics be considered?"

"No," the senior member of the Air Caste commanding the Tau Home Fleet answered after a long period of deep thought, "all our Battleships have endured this...disaster relatively intact. And the Kor'vattra here is the most powerful reserve of brand-new Or'es El'leath Battleships of the Empire. It isn't a problem of numbers, Commander, and you know it."

"Yes, Admiral." The Tau'va guided her and gave her heart the fire to be the mind and sword which would lead the Tau Empire to its manifest destiny. "But I had to ask...the Kauyon will not serve us here."

The Kauyon was the hunter and the lure. It could slay a great opponent who outmassed you in every way, and Shadowsun had used it to great effect in many of her most impressive victories or to achieve strategic draws where no Mont'ka opportunity presented itself.

But no Commander, not her old master or one of her fellow students, had ever recorded a privileged tactic when the defensive depth of the Empire was non-existent.

T'au was below her feet. The sacred world where the Tau'va had been brought to them by the Ethereals, the source of uncountable stratagems and doctrines of the Fire Caste...and from a materialistic viewpoint, the largest shipyards of the Empire in existence, the support infrastructure to build and maintain the Kor'vattra, the Tau Trade Fleet. It had thousands of Battlesuit cadres trained and waiting for deployment on the multiple fronts where the Fire Caste fought to expand ever further the Empire. It was the centre of the Water Caste bureaucracy and culture, it rivalled Bork'an in Earth Caste numbers and Vior'la in Fire Caste academies.

No Sept could rival T'au in prestige. It was the heart of the vibrant Tau Empire, the jewel of the Tau'va, the proof that united, the Castes of the T'au could accomplish the impossible.

"This...distortion-rift must be reversed as quickly as possible."

However it had been done, it had ripped T'au from the Empire and thrown it into a galaxy where it stood alone.

"I fully support this idea," Kor'o Y'eldi said quietly. "But the communications sent to the gigantic Necron pyramid have not been answered, and past conflicts with this arrogant race do not fill me with confidence that the Water Caste will be able to solve our current problem diplomatically."

And this would be a nightmare, Shadowsun knew it without the need to ask the opinion of an Ethereal. Past campaigns had told her how dangerous the galaxy outside their frontiers was, and it was with the strength of two full Spheres of Expansion to rely upon. If they only had T'au to draw Cadres and resources from, the problems were going be several orders of magnitude more difficult than any Caste command would find tolerable.

A sizeable number of Air Caste Kor'el arrived and spoke quickly to Kor'o Y'eldi, before leaving on more urgent duties.

"The Cadres mapping the stars are confident T'au and Lu'val are exactly where we are supposed to be. The stars of Vior'la, Sa'cea, and many others are younger than they should be...and the spatial localisation we are beginning to analyse is similar to what our Artificial Intelligences predicted the Empire's Septs would look like several thousand years ago."

"No..." this had to be a nightmare. There had been dark rumours from several demented prisoners some space-time anomalies were maybe, just maybe, possible, but nothing like this phenomenon!

"WE ARE THE NECRONS. SURRENDER AND DIE."

The Admiral muttered something which was not polite or particularly respectful.

"The Water Caste can't help us."

Shadowsun refrained from asking how the Fire and Air Castes were going to do better...until the first detailed long-range observations of this insult to the Tau'va arrived. And she felt hope again.

"The Necron pyramid is showing clear signs of heavy damage."

"Yes, Commander. But it won't change anything if the Kor'vattra can't break through these planetary-sized shields."

"You can't change anything," the disciple of Commander Puretide smiled, "but we misidentified this Necron threat as a predator. It is not. The reason it is here and has inflicted such an incomprehensible disaster upon us is because it is prey."

Kor'o Y'eldi smiled at first as he understood...before his expression returned to one harbouring dark thoughts once more.

"As you say, Commander, but first, these predators are not here yet...and if they arrive in time to engage the Necrons, will they be friends of the T'au...or will they consider us another sort of prey to be devoured when they have finished devouring the enemy they're preying upon?"

The words rang with the weight of unpleasant truths...but it wasn't like they were going to be many tactics allowing them to emerge victorious against an opponent fielding better technology than the T'au Fire Cadres.

"We have no choice but to try to delay them." The victor of the First Battle of Mu'gulath Bay admitted sadly. "For the Tau'va. For the Greater Good of our race!"

---

Grand Armada of Chaos Undivided

Abyss-class Super-Battleship Word Bearer

4.598.310M35

Primarch Lorgar the Urizen

"You are smiling, brother."

The Daemon-Primarch of the Seventeenth Legion didn't bother looking in Magnus' direction. Not when he knew he would see exactly what the Lord of Sortiarius would want him to perceive. The Greater Servants of the Pantheon often loved to repeat where he could hear them that only two beings had been granted the privilege of seeing Magnus' true form: his genitor and Tzeentch. Unlike several things which couldn't be trusted, this one was actually very plausible.

"I am not exactly hearing mournful songs, cries of despair, or questions like 'can we stop this Black Crusade and find alternatives?'...brother."

"I am not smiling." Magnus protested...far too quickly.

"Liar," Lorgar retorted, but without any strength in his voice. "Your sorcerers are ready?"

"They await only my command to begin."

The words could be used as nine covert insults, but Lorgar wasn't going to summon a small trickle of power in retaliation. Let Magnus play his games...the moment was near when he wouldn't be able to.

"In that case...cast the Ritual of the Sacred Path."

Nine pulses later, the Sea of Souls roared in triumph, and Lorgar didn't need to wait for Magnus' confirmation to know it was a success.

"TRANSLATE OUT OF THE WARP...NOW!"

It was not a smooth process. Nothing could be when you cast something powerful enough to require the skills and sorcery of nine Covens of Thousand Sons.

But it worked. The radiance of the Astronomican had reacted too late, and now it was unable to intervene. The pursuers of the Grand Armada – some of which were recent, others had been racing after them since the Cadian Gate – were left behind in the distance.

And the Super-Battleships and Battleships of the Grand Armada returned to the dimensions where quadrillions of unbelievers still failed to heed the will of the Pantheon...for now.

"Nostalgic, Magnus?" Lorgar asked as the first planets were sighted for the first time.

"No."

"Liar," the Word Bearer's gene-sire replied for the second time of the conversation. "You're burning to avenge yourself as much as I am."

"This isn't revenge," the son of Lost Prospero sniffed haughtily. "I have grown beyond that."

Lorgar gave him a disappointed expression.

"What I do, I do for the Greater Good of Mankind."

"Tzeentch's Oracle had a very different tale to sing to anyone who would listen."

"Kairos lied."

As much as Lorgar wanted to continue testing how many times Magnus would spend defending his ridiculous stance before flaws in his reasoning became visible, there was a military campaign ahead of him and his sons.

"Good. The invasion of the Fenris System can begin!"

---

Approximately 299 Hours before the Mark of Oblivion

---

Author's note: The Black Crusade Arc will continue next chapter.

The title will be Black Crusade 10-4 The Greater Good.

The other links for the Weaver Option if you want to support or comment on my writing:

Alternate History page: www . /forum /threads /weaver-option-thread-3-the-5th-black-crusade-story-only.506948/

TV Tropes: tvtropes pmwiki/ / FanFic/ TheWeaverOption