Arrival 1.2

The Swarm versus the Orks

To say the reputation of the Fay 20th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Guard throughout the military forces of the Nyx Sector was poor when the Orks crashed into their home system would be a considerable understatement. In the Petersburg Campaign, this particular regiment, along with the Fay 8th and 6th Infantry, had been severely mauled in a matter of days, its heavy equipment and two-thirds of its deployment effectives lost. To add further humiliation, General Wu-Liu, in charge of the operation's theatre, chose to send the survivors back to Fay III rather than merge them into another Fay force, confirming their poor fighting skills without making an official statement. Wu-Liu's probable intention was to put the maximum number of light years between the crippled Fay units and any xenos threat, and then forget their sub-optimal performance as quickly as possible.

If that was the good general's plan, force was to assess it backfired spectacularly. The Ork threat came to the Fay System in the typical brutish manner of this loathsome race, and the Fay 20th Infantry found itself back on the frontlines despite being quite short on mechanised transports. If Lady Weaver had not started her illustrious career there, it is very likely the Fay 20th would have disappeared in one of the millions of archives as a record noting the destruction of another Imperial regiment. As it was, these soldiers did not fade into obscurity. Difficult to imagine that one hundred years later, no less than six generals of His Most Holy Majesty would demand that Fay regiments be transferred to their Sectors...

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


Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Moros Sub-Sector

Fay system

Planet Fay III

7.171.289M35

Thought for the Day: Do not ask "Why kill the alien?" rather ask, "Why not?"

Taylor Hebert

There are some who say speed is everything in the world.

The greatest heroes became famous because of their speed. To fight supervillains, you after all have to catch them while they're doing their evil deeds, no?

Eidolon was able to use a multitude of teleportation and other Mover powers. Alexandria's ability to fly at supersonic speed coupled with her great resilience had named an entire sub-category of parahumans. Legend was able to turn into a freaking laser and reach the speed of light. Hero had been renowned for his super-reactors and teleportation technology when he'd been alive.

And yet sometimes speed is not enough. Taylor knew it. As a warlord of Brockton Bay, she had killed Alexandria with nothing but insects, and speed hadn't saved the member of the Triumvirate. Nothing but instantaneous self-regeneration was useful when tens of thousands of bugs crawled inside your lungs. What happened if your enemy, despite being outclassed in terms of speed, could take the maximum amount of punishment you can deliver and continue to walk like nothing happened? What happened if this enemy chose targets independently of your actions, and proceeded to ravage everything in striking range while ignoring your own efforts? Thousands of heroes and villains had asked themselves these questions in the privacy of their own minds these last years. It was what everyone did when they went up against the Endbringer Behemoth. And now it was time for New Delhi's defenders to despair.

Fourteen meters tall. Impenetrable gray skin covered in magma. A single, red glowing eye, shining with sinister malevolence. A mouth lined with obsidian teeth which was nothing more than a weird gap, the light of molten magma gleaming in the maw at irregular intervals. A mountain of fury and destruction, having surged from the Earth's core to bring destruction and suffering.

But the most terrifying thing about the First Endbringer was not its appearance. It was its power. The one which had given it the title Herokiller.

Dynakinesis. Manipulation of all forms of energy. Lasers. Lightning. Fire. Shockwaves. Heat Generation or Redirection. Emitting more radiation than ten nuclear power plants combined. Behemoth wasn't only killing the best and brightest amongst the parahumans. The monster was destroying hope and irradiated the entire battleground to such levels it would be centuries before humans ceased to start glowing in the dark if they visited the site.

Somehow, the ability to control all insects in an eight hundred meter range looked kind of pathetic against this kind of threat. By comparison, in a radius of thirty meters, Behemoth had the power to incinerate every parahuman who didn't have quasi-invulnerability. A true killzone if there ever was one.

Taylor had been somewhat frustrated when she had been assigned to the search-and-rescue efforts and the civilians' evacuation with the Chicago Wards and her former super-villain team the Undersiders. No attack she had could damage something like an Endbringer, and the plan-making had been left to Accord and Tattletale. It was frustrating to search the rubble while your fellow heroes fought and died in increasingly desperate attempts.

Despite knowing one in four participants of the Endbringer fights died on a good day, Taylor had had hope for this fight. Hundreds of parahumans had mustered to bring down the Herokiller. A new Protectorate. Perhaps the start of a new Age.

These hopes had quickly gone down in flames. On a good day, a quarter of the parahumans would never leave the battlefield alive. This was not a good day. The search-and-rescue had been cut short, as nothing the defensive force did had been able to even slow Behemoth. Today, the support of the Chinese Yangban and the Indian parahumans had been so unnoticeable against Behemoth they could just as well have thrown confetti at the Endbringer.

And then, without a second of warning, everything had gone to hell.

The outer layers of Behemoth had been stripped from the monster. In two dozen engagements, no one had ever managed to hurt the Endbringer that much. Phir Se, the parahuman responsible for this monumental blast, had been killed when Behemoth burrowed to deal with him. In hindsight, the idea of hiding in an underground bunker was stupid when fighting a being spending most its time swimming in magma beneath the Earth's crust.

It had not slowed down the Herokiller. In fact, if anything, it seemed to have convinced the Endbringer to accelerate its agenda of pure, simple extermination. Radiation and blasts of lightning had brought the apocalypse to India. Behemoth had charged the core of the defences, shrugging off artillery, bombs, and other devastating attacks like they were toys, before unleashing its true fury. The lines of the Yangban had not resisted. The Chinese had been annihilated to the last parahuman.

Afterwards it had been the rest of the Protectorate heroes' turn. Blast after blast, Behemoth wiped the floor with them. New Delhi, capital of the Republic of India, was gone. Wiped out. The buildings had been torn apart, the highest skyscrapers smashed down to their foundations. The civilians murdered in their homes or trying to escape. One of the largest cities in the world, gone in a matter of minutes.

The army of heroes and villains gathered had faced Behemoth with courage, bravery and the certitude that they were the last rampart between a hurricane of death and the thousands, no, the hundreds of thousands of civilians in their homes that had not fled in time.

Their efforts had been for naught. There were less than thirty parahumans left alive, and the area's radiation was so high that, assuming they somehow managed to escape, all of them were going to need extensive decontamination treatments.

Taylor had stopped her search for insects. They died too quickly in this environment to be of much use. For all intents and purposes, the heroine named Weaver had become a normal human fighting to survive in this chaos. Only her new flying device made by Defiant and Dragon had allowed her to survive. Bruised and battered, but alive. Alive in a ruined temple that was suffering the relentless assaults of Behemoth.

Taylor was tired. Very tired. There were not many heroes left, and all were wounded to varying degrees. More than ever the absence of Panacea had left a huge black hole in their ranks. Parahumans that would have in mere seconds returned to their top form were lying on the ground screaming in pain, begging for medical assistance. But there was none. And Behemoth kept coming. The Herokiller didn't stop. The parahumans dropped like flies.

There wasn't any organised resistance to stop the Endbringer anymore. The survivors had gathered inside the temple. Taylor had not failed to notice that half of the Chicago Wards and none of the Undersiders were present. Except Regent, she had not seen any of them die, nor heard the usual automatic channels announce their death. Overloaded, most likely, by the magnitude of the losses. But grieving was for later. Tinkers were preparing their last devices and distributed the last rounds of ammunition. Powers were activated, plan Zs were discussed and implemented.

This was their last stand.

"I am in the valley of death..." Shouted a villain who had lost his legs and was bleeding profusely. The sentence was never finished.

Behemoth roared and charged with a new massive shockwave attack.

So this how it ends...

There was pain. And then there was only white and peace.

Is it all over?

Sorry Dad. I'll never be able to fully apologise...

Weaver opened her eyes. There was only light. A world of light.

"Where am I?"

Taylor felt better. It was like all her wounds, both those suffered in the fight against Behemoth and the ones she took in previous battles, had completely healed. No headache. The feelings of conflict and her control over the insects had entirely disappeared. Her clothes, both the outer layer of the first costume and the spider silk underneath, were completely repaired. The same could be said for the engine on her back. The only piece that had not been repaired was her mask. In tatters during the Endbringer battle, she had removed it inside the temple...it had to be lost.

But I am alive. I feel alive. I feel better than alive. How is this possible?

It could have been a few seconds. It could have been an eternity. The light was pleasant, bringing feelings Weaver had not had the chance to enjoy these last months.

The change came brutally. Something grabbed Taylor by the legs. The light began to fade. The former villain-turned hero was propelled at great speed like a living toboggan.

The spiralling was rapid, though Taylor had no notion of time in this weird place. When she stopped spinning, she realised the landscape had changed again. The costumed hero was now standing in front of an arch, similar to the triumph arcs once built by the Romans and numerous other Empires across the centuries. Behind this curious monument a mountainous scenery could be seen.

"Why bring me here?" Taylor asked, hoping the force that had brought her here was inclined to answer her questions. "What do you want?"

No voice came out of nowhere to explain. The reaction to her two sentences was much more dramatic. The light decreased, and for the first time shadows appeared. Weaver turned on her heels and gasped.

There was darkness coming behind her. Tendrils of smoke for now, but fifty or sixty meters away there was a night storm. Not the kind of hurricane or strong tempest that the Endbringer Leviathan had brought in his assault against Brockton Bay. No, this time it was a pure, malicious night. Faintly, Taylor could see things crawling inside the darkness. Things that felt like pure evil. Strangely, a sort of shield of light looked like it was holding back the phenomenon. No, not a shield. It looked like a statue of shining light, huge and armoured, with a sword and a shield. A giant figure, it had to be close to four meters in height. Except it couldn't be a statue, as it was fighting against the darkness with incredible fluidity and grace. Without even taking the time to think, Taylor took one step, then a second, towards the mysterious light entity.

But the figure, statue or human, seemed to have understood her indecision. Striking a deep blow with its weapon against the darkness, a massive fist was pointed towards the arch in guidance, then it went back to desperate combat against the incoming night. As it neared, voices of torment and sinister shrieks could be heard.

"Farewell." Taylor said to her unknown protector.

Weaver did not know who or what the entity fighting against the darkness was. But there was no doubt he, or she, or it, was a hero. Without insects to command, Taylor was just going to be a hindrance for her protector.

Taylor Hebert, aka Weaver aka Skitter, took a deep breath and stepped through the portal formed by the confines of the arch. A new flash of light blinded her. Was it her imagination? Just before the flash, the heroine thought she'd heard a whisper. "We will see each other again, Lady Hebert..."

Finally, her eyes adjusted and the former member of the Undersiders could see where she had ended up. Taylor's first impression was that indeed she had been transported to the mountains she'd seen in the arch. A large peak was in view and the air was fresh, far colder than at New Delhi. Grass and rocks, nothing indicating a city was in the vicinity.

But there was human presence. With a feeling of dread, Taylor realized where she had landed. The Brockton Bay teenager was in a middle of a camp. An army camp. And judging by the quantity of trenches, cannons and guns she could see, this was not a second-rate gang or a band of scavengers. These guys had a large arsenal in their possession. They meant business.

More troubling, all of these soldiers wore dark grey uniforms with skulls and other menacing emblems. If her knowledge about Empire 88 did not fail her, symbols like were generally used exclusively by Nazi supporters and the like.

The weird thing was that Taylor could remember no time the Nazis had used a double-headed eagle as an emblem...and she had also learnt enough in her history classes to know the Nazis never put female units on the frontlines. If the two or three athletic women Weaver could see were not here for a film, then there was little chance this group was Gesellshaft-affiliated or part of another paramilitary group. If you were not a parahuman, Nazis didn't think female soldiers had a place in the heart of the fighting. Most likely because they didn't want their girlfriends be witnesses of all the rapes and killing they did in the name of Hitler.

One thing was sure, these men reacted quickly. Taylor had not finished studying all of them when a grim-faced soldier with a strange and uncomfortable-looking peaked cap pointed a gun directly at her head. With a great coat, red lining on his collars and cuffs, this man did not look like a pleasant person.

Her power her power informed her that there were three insects in a meter's range. They 'tasted' like mosquitoes in her mind. Almost by reflex, Taylor sent one to bite the man's hand, and ordered the two others to take position next to his neck and his mouth. Surprised, the unknown soldier wearing the double-eagled cap let his huge pistol fall to the ground with a shoutthat sounded a lot like a curse.

"Who are you?" Asked the man perched atop of what looked like a huge tank. Their leader, probably. Forty-years old at a guess, the man was particularly tall and wore two military decorations on his uniform above his heart. One gesture, and the majority of the troops that had been brandishing their big guns were now lowering them.

"I am Weaver." Her super-hero designation would have to do. No way Taylor was going to reveal her identity in front of hundreds of soldiers she had no reason to trust. Even if her mask, which had been torn apart in the rumble provoked by Behemoth, had not followed her here, and her real name was known to most of the United States and the rest of the world.

Wherever 'here' was. Perhaps Africa. There were a lot of warlords on that continent, and it was far from uncommon for parahumans to go there and try to carve out their own kingdom. But it was surprising that these men and women spoke English. English with an accent Taylor had never heard before, by the way.

"Err...Colonel?" Intervened a younger man, pointing his hand towards the defensive lines of the army.

The face/features of the commanding officer, the Colonel, tensed, and all traces of hesitation vanished.

"TO ARMS! TO ARMS!" Was screamed by hundred of voices and scores of soldiers rushed with their big guns to take position.

And something on the other side of the pass answered.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The war cry was so powerful it felt like the earth under everyone's boots was shaking. It was a primitive cry, full of battle-lust and anger. It had the beauty of Lung transforming into a dragon and trying to sing, added to the performance of a certain Gaul bard from an imported Earth Aleph comic.

This was when Taylor saw the human soldiers' enemies for the first time.

It's green, was Weaver's first thought.

So much green. It was a green tide...but it was not grass. All this green was comprised of creatures, all gesticulating, vociferating, screaming, insulting, and making a racket sufficient to wake the dead while climbing to fight the troops next to Taylor. The blaring of horns made by the vehicles was awful. The roar of the motors was unbearable.

Their vehicles...there were a lot of them, and all looked like they had been remodelled by the deceased Squealer of the Merchants. Tanks, bikes, pickups, cars, and other military vehicles that looked like they had been found in a garbage dump and hastily repaired with the closest pieces of rubbish that were available.

Honestly, they were utter scrap.

How these things could work was beyond Taylor's comprehension. One of the closest tanks looked like its armament had been removed to be replaced with a mechanical digger. One of the bike engines looked like it had been found on a plane. Cars and pickups had an appearance that suggested their inventor had tried to work on three different ideas before settling for a combination of everything in a single vehicle. The laws of physic were unambiguous: these things could not work. But work they did.

And they came at the humans' positions and Weaver with blood in their eyes.

Either I am not on Earth anymore, or this is one of the worse tricks played by the Simurgh, thought the young heroine.

No. These things are not human. Never has an Endbringer been caught doing a manipulation of that scale. I am not on Earth Bet anymore.

Her thoughts were interrupted when someone behind her pushed a helmet on her head. Taylor cursed mentally at her lack of awareness of her surroundings

"You will need this if you want to survive more than an hour." The sweet tone of the woman could have been described as amicable, except that the hungry look in her eyes reminded Taylor uncomfortably of Sophia Hess aka Shadow Stalker. A Shadow Stalker on steroids with Alexandria genes and wielding a huge bazooka as a primary weapon instead of a crossbow. Another woman ran out of the tents with a big sword in her hands and handed it to Taylor's interlocutor. Who immediately gave it to Weaver with a big smile and a set of...ear-plugs?

"Welcome to the Imperial Guard!" The affirmation came as if having a murderous enemy charging your position was business as usual.

"OPEN FIRE! IN THE NAME OF THE GOD-EMPEROR!" Roared the man Taylor had just hit with the oversized mosquito to her right. "SEND THE FILTHY XENOS TO THE HELLTHAT SPAWNED THEM!"

The humans opened fire. To Weaver's stupefaction, no projectiles came out the guns carried by the infantrymen. Instead, it was a storm of lasers that shattered the first lines of the green monsters.

Where did they find these laser guns? Even the stormtroopers from Star Wars don't have those!

This was not armament produced by Tinkers. Except Dragon, most of the insane-genius parahuman-scientists had difficulties explaining exactly how their stuff worked, never mind putting it in mass production. And it was not the only weapon available to them. As the green monsters closed the distance, Weaver saw huge flamethrowers and the big tanks spread carnage, splattering hundreds of the creatures, blasting them into very tiny pieces.

But incredibly, the enemies kept coming. Their first lines had been all killed, but they kept coming!

Did these things lose their brain at birth? They are going to get slaughtered!

And yet impossibly, the greenies' 'tactic' seemed to be working. The first barrage of artillery and laser had left a sea of corpses, but a second attack began. More and more of the green brutes were climbing the slopes, and the men and women didn't manage to kill them quickly enough. After a few minutes, the first trench was going to be overrun by sheer numbers. Taylor sighed internally. Nazis or not, these people were humans, and that was more that could be said about the enemy they faced. Except, these men did not need the tactics of Weaver. This was war, butterflies were of about as much use here as they had been in New York: none whatsoever.

No, if she was to be any help in this fight, she had to be Skitter, not Weaver. Bring a mountain of insects and bury the enemies beneath it.

The former member of the Undersiders expanded the range of her power, taking control of thousands insects by second. Wherever she had landed, her power seemed to be working correctly. And apparently her allies and the enemy had done a good job to help her. The infantry camp had a lot of bugs...and the enemy units were literally covered in slime and parasites.

God. Haven't these monsters ever taken a bath in their lives? So many insects...

1 178 459...no, 1 497 654 insects...no, 2 104 631...

Given that she had no idea of these greenies' weaknesses, Taylor controlled all the bugs and unfamiliar insects as a massive cloud and gave them a straightforward task: attack the eyes of the two first enemy lines.

A dark cloud formed, and the monsters began to tear at their eyes, then proceeded to rush in the wrong direction and even...fight against each other?

Are they THAT stupid?

The human soldiers continued to fire and plaster the slopes with more explosives, but the enemy continued to somehow advance, mainly with the things that had not been bitten. Although there were some of the green beings that had been attacked, but rushed in the direction of the noise eyeless. Yes, they had ripped their eyes apart from the bites her insects had inflicted.

Gross.

"FIRST TRENCH! GO!"

The riflemen of the first trench withdrew, never ceasing to fire, replacing their gun's batteries before joining the ranks of the second lines.

More insects fell under Taylor's control...4 158 671...and they were biting, stinging, and eating every enemy they could, causing thousands of the monsters to scream, push their own comrades and change direction at the wrong moment.

Now Weaver was not limiting herself only to the eyes. The monsters were resilient, so more bites and attacks were needed. There were millions of bugs and without any constraint her power commanded to them to attack everything. Eyes were bitten until they burst. As long as there was a gap to enter one of the scrap vehicles, she attacked the drivers and the gunners. Many of the engines rammed into their own soldiers, unleashed their weapons in the wrong direction, or even descended the slope to further ravage their own ranks. Caught between the lasers of her allies, the insects, and their own screaming and hysterical allies, the ugly greenies were lacerated. Many tanks rolled over dozens of their species alive, and their cries of agony were powerful and horrifying.

But the enemy came for a third attack.

This is madness. How can they have the will to attack over and over?

"SECOND TRENCH! GO!"

With an incredulous look, Taylor realised the first trench dug by her allies had been entirely filled by the corpses of the enemies. The fighting did not yet reach the second trench, but that was not going to stay so much longer.

My God. How many of them did we just kill?

The next wave forced Taylor to redirect her attention to the millions of bugs under her command. Two hundred and sixty of the big mosquitoes entered the motors of the tank taking the lead and made the creatures driving and arming it scream in pain. Six hundred and fifty thousand hornets look-alike entered the mouths, ears, noses and eyes of the monsters to do the maximum amount of damage. Eight hundred thousand flies rushed into the middle of the formation and clouded the enemy army's vision entirely.

The first tank slammed into another and provoked the battlefield equivalent of a traffic jam. The super-bikes slammed into the tank so hard half of them became green paste. One of the pilots accelerated so hard he elevated himself vertically for twenty metres...before gravity reclaimed its rights.

"THIRD TRENCH! GO!"

This was it. In a scream of "WAAAGH!" and other sonorous growls, the green enemies launched everything they had into the battle, including all the ones Taylor had just blinded. It was...insane. Some literally had their heads and bodies full of insects, and still they ran, crawled, and tried to reach the positions occupied by the retreating riflemen.

"FIX BAYONETS AND PREPARE FOR CLOSE QUARTERS!"

"WAAAAAGH!" Screamed the aliens, trampling, fighting and murdering those before them that had the bad luck to die or to be too slow in their progression. Taylor sent all she had, covering them in a murderous swarm, and the laser rifles launched a devastating volley at close range.

And then it was a fierce hand-to-hand battle. Pushing a button on the hilt, the sword Taylor had just been given shone in a blue light. One move, and the greenie in front of her lost its left arm, but instead of feeling agony the creature understood it as an invitation to come closer. Second strike, Taylor removed the head and this time it was a kill.

Weaver didn't get time to rejoice. A large shadow fell upon her, and a huge monstrous green thing came over the last trench. The green thing looked like a cross between a walker used in the Hollywood blockbusters of Earth Aleph and a crazy serial killer. A large pincer had been fixed to replace one arm, and a ridiculously oversized gun was held in the other. The alien's expression showed only hate and a sort of...hunger?

In one order, Taylor forced two million six hundred and fifty-seven thousand and nine hundred three bugs of all kinds into its mouth, pulverising its dirty teeth, and then proceeded to tear apart everything that was in reach. The heart, the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, and a lot of things no lesson in natural science at Winslow High had ever covered. The body her insects were attacking was ill-conceived...and despite this, somehow, it worked.

The big greenie released a horrible scream and started to kick itself, as if it believed that was going to convince its body to stop. The other enemies suddenly seemed to lose their enthusiasm for the battle, and watched the monster trying in vain to vanquish her bugs.

It must be their leader. But how do I kill it? I put millions of bugs down its throat and it's still alive!

Taking her...lightsaber-sword...Taylor launched a circular strike that severed the left leg of the thing. Still screaming incomprehensible screams, groans and roars, the big green alien started to fall into the third gap.

A second swing of the sword removed the other leg, and twenty laser impacts of the surrounding human warriors disintegrated the head. In a loud crash, the huge corpse fell and did not move again.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!"

All over the battlefield, it was like someone had lifted a spell from the green monsters. And they began to flee or to fight amongst each others. A very bad idea, as the humans counterattacked with swords and bayonets, and killed the lot with a stunning ease.

Are they the same army we just fought?

Before her eyes, Weaver saw a hard-fought battle just turn into a monumental, one-sided rout, the humans pursuing the monsters, shooting them, murdering them with ferocity, glee and wild abandon.

It's over. We won.

Physically and mentally exhausted, Taylor dropped the super-sword and fell to her knees, commanding the swarm to disperse.

"VICTORY! VICTORY FOR THE GOD-EMPEROR!"

"VICTORY!"

"AVE IMPERATOR!"

"FOR FAY AND THE GOD-EMPEROR!"

Why? Why am I here? Where is here? And who is this 'God-Emperor'?

Taylor felt incredibly light-headed. It had been hours and she had not had any rest/It had been hours since she last had some rest. Behemoth. New Delhi. The figure of Light. The green monsters. The battle. Battles with big freaking guns and lasers. It was too much.

Weaver let the darkness claim her.


Second Lieutenant Gor Ordev

A silence of dread and fear reigned on the bridge of the warship. Whispers here and there were spoken amongst the officers to pass the orders and relay the information, but these were forced words, necessary activation of runic-activated buttons. For the most part, the men and women that had the dubious honour to be present were doing their best to do their work and ignore the obvious threat of the lasguns in the hands of the fifty-plus Exalted Guards.

It was not the kind of atmosphere one normally imagined for a place commanding the movements of a warship weighing roughly five million and seven hundred thousand tonnes, having a length of one kilometre and a crew of nineteen thousand and seventy-five souls. Especially not as the warship was about to participate in its first serious naval battle since its official commission forty years ago. Normally, hundreds of crewmen and officers should have contributed to the chatter, with the leadership aboard making some comment on the universe's beauty that the Emperor authorised them to contemplate through the large view bay. This bridge had the extreme opposite of an optimistic ambience. An impartial observer could have described it as a party about to go to their own funerals.

Studying the arrays he had been charged to work on, Second Lieutenant Gor Ordev tried to do his work. It was hard. Gor had never considered himself a scholar in the arrays of a warship, and twenty seconds ago his direct subordinate had been trying to attract his attention when one of the Exalted Guardsmen had decided carrying a data-report to his superior was a treasonous act. Lieutenant Ordev still had some of the blood and diverse fluids on what had been a pristine grey SDF uniform this morning. It was both disgusting and frightening.

I will skin the bastard. I will skin every man of the Exalted Bastard Guard if it's the last thing I ever do.

But until that long-awaited movement, Gor Ordev had to do his job. Even if he was under the command of a man he had little reason to respect.

It had not been like this prior to the Ork invasion. Admiral Lysyvev had been a good officer, willing to sign transfers to the Wuhan and Nyx naval facilities. Not only could junior officers, warrant officers and simple crewmen acquire experience serving aboard capital warships, but there was prestige to gain in the upper ranks of the Nyx Sector naval forces. Ordev's transfer had been approved three weeks ago, and a large party had taken place to celebrate the good news.

But then the Ork invasion had happened. Whatever a ground officer thought, it had not been the SDF's fault. There was a little thing called the gravipause. For those ignorant of the simplest technical terms in space, it was the minimal distance from a star where a starship could enter or exit the Warp safely. It was dependent on the star's mass, the Gellar Fields of the ship in question, and plenty of other factors like asteroid belts and the competence of the ship's crew. Ignoring the gravipause usually resulted in a starship being blown to very tiny fragments, and thus every sane captain tended to calculate it very precisely.

Orks had never been noted for their intelligence or sanity. Disdaining the unbreakable laws of the universe, their hulk had emerged right on top of Fay III before breaking into several large pieces. The smaller ones had been destroyed by the twenty-plus Marauder-class Bombers. The biggest one had crash-landed on the planet before anyone had the time to react.

Admiral Lysyvev had left his naval squadron in orbit and gone to speak with the Exalted Overlord after the initial announcement of the Ork invasion and the discovery of a pirate ship in the outer belt of asteroids. All the officers and those in the know aboard the Gracious Overlord had thought it was going to be a quick affair. In a matter of hours, the warships were going to bombard the Orks from orbit and exterminate the xenos for good. 'Let's see how the greenies like being at the end of a series of Lance strikes' had been the prevalent opinion in the corridors of the starship.

A quick affair... the meeting had been anything but. Hour after hour passed. The Admiral never came back. It was the former Rear-Admiral Mikasev, now Admiral Mikasev, who came in his place. And the new SDF's commanding officer had been followed by more than two hundred guardsmen of the Exalted Guard, Byukur's personal praetorians. A similar number of the Governor's personal soldiers had boarded the destroyers.

And then the purges among the squadron had started.

Anyone whose loyalty was suspect; which translated to not being utterly and totally devoted to the Byukur dynasty, was executed. And the Exalted Guardsmen often administrated the death sentence on the spot. Captain Marakev and Commissar Voker had tried to protest when the sound of the first lasguns had barked. Their loyalty to their men had seen the two men at the top of the Gracious Overlord's hierarchy die in the following seconds.

By the Emperor, what have we done to deserve this? And in the middle of a damned war, no less!

Twenty hours ago, Gor Ordev had been the Sixth Lieutenant aboard the Gracious Overlord, corvette of His Most Holy Majesty and flagship of the Fay System Defence Force. Now he was the Second Lieutenant, whose duty was to oversee the oh-so-different departments of engineering, Auger Arrays, and the torpedoes batteries. That was what happened when the positions of Second Lieutenant, Fifth Lieutenant and Sixth Lieutenant were reduced to a single naval officer. It did not help the staff-members under him had diminished in the same proportions, and that the senior Tech-Priests had had to lock themselves in the engineering rooms and several places only known to the cogboys to avoid being purged.

Ordev had not the slightest idea how he was supposed to be in three different places at the same time and do a job while ignorant of two-thirds of the fundamentals. He was the man in charge of the torpedoes' control and launch, not an engineer! Fortunately, Admiral Mikasev and the Exalted Guardsmen weren't aware of this. And Lieutenant Ordev was not going to reveal it to them.

It was after all a remark like that which had seen Second Lieutenant Tolev, well former Second Lieutenant Tolev now, take a shot of laspistol in the back of the head at point-blank range. Or was it for another reason? With so many people shot, it became kind of difficult to remember who had done what. Or not done. Whatever.

Still, there were reports that the Admiral had to be informed of. First Lieutenant Adryks had one such report to deliver.

"Identity confirmed, Admiral. The pirate destroyer is an old Marathon-class Destroyer built in the Adonis Sector one thousand and nine-hundred years ago. Turned to piracy in 930M34 for unknown reasons. Threat level: minimal."

So we spent the last hours hunting a wreck? Impressive, oh Exalted Admiral. Very impressive indeed.

The Fay System Defence Fleet was hundreds of light-years away from the famous systems of the Segmentum in terms of power and prestige. It was a far cry from a significant Imperium Naval Base like Nyx, and pitiful compared to an Astartes Homeworld like the magnificent planet of Macragge governed by the famed Ultramarines. But it still had one Corvette and five Destroyers, supported by four Interceptor and Bomber wings, plus one Destroyer serving in the Imperial Navy.

Only a moron would have considered sending all of the interplanetary-capable warships against a single escort ship that was outclassed by each of the Fay SDF Destroyers. Not only did that leave a gaping hole in the mobile defences of the planet, but the Orks were also rampaging on Fay's surface. Judging by the vox reports and other transmissions received by the com section, the land forces did not have an easy stroll ahead of them. Admiral Mikasev had given exactly that order. What that said about the new Admiral's intelligence...

"Weapons will be in extreme range in five minutes and forty-five seconds...Sir." Ordev informed his Admiral. This parvenu of Mikasev had gotten the information on his personal hololithic table, but hadn't bothered to acknowledge it. No doubt reading his pornographic data or something of similar importance.

Inwardly, Ordev cringed. Those were five minutes and forty-five seconds that the Gracious Overlord would move away from the planet at maximum military acceleration, which for a Gauntlet-class Corvette was 4.67 gravities. As many minutes and seconds would be lost, and more would be spent in deceleration and manoeuvres, until finally the squadron returned to Fay.

It was a task that the Gracious Overlord or a pair of destroyers could have done alone. Marathon-class destroyers had never been built in the Nyx Sector, but Ordev had seen their official characteristics. Sponsored by a Sector Governor that had had more money than sense, these hulls were considered dangerously lacking in every aspect save their low price. Very few units had been built, and the only reason a lot of people remembered them in the 35th millennium was their tendency to reappear in the hands of pirates.

"Field Braces activated at eighty-six percent, ninety-nine percent in ten seconds, Admiral." Called First Lieutenant Adryks.

"Void shields at ninety-seven percent, Sir." reported Third Lieutenant Solev.

"Torpedo one and two tubes charged, Admiral." Ordev limited himself to affirm.

These were not the type of torpedoes used by capital warships, but their warheads against a destroyer of this age were going to cause plenty of murder.

'Murder', what a good joke. One of these torpedoes can easily break that pirate ship in half with one hit. And all the destroyers have prepared their own volleys.

"What are you waiting for?" Was the terse reply from the Admiral. "Charge tube three and four too!"

Mikasev had abandoned the watch of whatever was on his hololithic table, and was now looking at him with something resembling fury, exasperation or anger. Maybe all three at once. The young face of the man in his mid-thirties agitated itself in a grotesque manner. In an orbital shipyard or in a street of Great Landing, this would have been described as a man full of tics.

Aboard a starship...by the Golden Throne of Terra, has that imbecile taken drugs while we weren't looking?

Ordev opened the mouth to answer...and closed it, knowing it would accomplish nothing but his death.

Torpedoes were far from cheap. Firing four of them, plus what the destroyers were arming at the same moment, was going to be extremely expensive for the Fay navy's budget, not to mention overkill in the extreme.

Plus only tube one and two have auto-loaders. We will take three or four times longer to load tube three than it will take to fire two salves of tube one. Oh, well. Far above my pay grade.

Rumour was that in the Great Crusade, every Nyx warship serving the God-Emperor had had autoloaders for the torpedo tubes. Times had changed. In the last hundred years, builders had started to conceive warships with only fifty or sixty percent of their main batteries automated. Ordev didn't know if it was the same policy in the other Sectors, but it was possible that was the case.

"Prepare tube three and four, aye Sir!" The Second Lieutenant replied formally, although his urge to strangle the miserable bastard grew more pressing after this exchange.

Opening a vox-link with the torpedo magazine, Ordev contact the warrant officer in charge in the lower decks.

"Prepare two torpedoes for tube three and four. Use special ammunition."

"By your command, Sir!" Replied the man with something approaching exultation in his voice.

As it should be. He has taken his revenge, after all.

"What is this special ammunition, Lieutenant?" Enquired the Admiral in an steely voice.

"Melta-heads, Sir." Replied Ordev calmly.

"I see." The approval was communicated in a disinterested and languid tone, and Mikasev returned to his occupations and his...drug-injector that he was hiding next to his command seat.

No, you don't. Thought Ordev. You have no idea what I'm doing. But then you also have no idea how to do your job, eh, Admiral? But don't worry, it won't matter much longer.

"Tube three and four loaded, Sir." Reported Ordev after three minutes. A true and professional commanding officer would have caught this huge lie in less time than it took to pronounce it. Manual torpedoes couldn't be loaded in less than five minutes, and the average time was closer to six or seven on average. Admiral Mikasev on his seat didn't bother turning his head.

"We are in range, Admiral." Informed First Lieutenant Adryks.

"Open fire!" Barked Mikasev, after a few seconds during which it was obvious his brain had tried to compute what exactly the two Lieutenants had told him.

"Tube one to four: Fire!"

And the Gracious Overlord trembled four times, as one by one the torpedoes were ejected from their tubes and started following the track indicated by the cogitators of the Corvette.

On the arrays, similar green blips appeared from the launching Destroyers.

"Torpedoes from tubes one to four launched. Control weapon auspex five on five. Nominal procedures completed. Tech-Priest Val-Hal in the engine section reports no problem has been detected." Whispered a young female Sub-Lieutenant in the torpedo control section.

The five Reliance-class Destroyers had shot two torpedoes each, and the Gracious Overlord four. Thus it was fourteen torpedoes that were directed on the completely overwhelmed enemy Destroyer.

Fourteen streaks of fire, closing the distance at hundreds of kilometres per second, at phenomenal levels of acceleration. Not facing the bay directly, Ordev wasn't able to fully appreciate the view, but it had to be spectacular. Even Mikasev had abandoned whatever he was doing and looking at it. Of course, the Admiral should have given commands to reload the torpedo tubes and do a few things that were the captain's prerogatives, but who cared?

The defensive batteries of the obsolete Marathon-class, laser-based turrets and anti-missile-defences in pirate hands, managed to stop two torpedoes. The void shields stopped one more before flickering out. The eleven others passed the desperate defensive barrage and struck the destroyer's hull with the fury of the Emperor. The enemy had been so overwhelmed they hadn't even tried to retaliate and fire their own torpedoes.

On the arrays, the central portion of the enemy vessel was the first to record a hit. Then came the command bridge. The upper decks. The reactors. And then the magazines. Explosion followed explosion, generating minor distortions that blinded the arrays.

Suddenly, there wasn't an enemy Destroyer visible on the sensors anymore.

There was a ball of plasma, and from the bridge bay, Second Lieutenant Ordev could contemplate an explosion of light that illuminated the Fay system as one of the most expensive fireworks ever.

"Excellent! Excellent!" The voice of Admiral Mikasev was slow and mushy, the drugs evidently having taken their toll. "Turn this ship around, Lieutenant! I want to report this glorious triumph to the Exalted Overlord myself! And...and..." An Exalted Guardsman walked next to Mikasev and started to whisper some words into his ears.

"And I will report this ship is in dire need to be purged of traitors!"

Because killing a tenth of the crew wasn't enough? Thought Ordev cynically. You loathsome...

Complete silence fell over the bridge, illuminated by the glow of the miniature star that had just been created by the Gracious Overlord and its sister ships. A dozen of the Exalted Guardsmen paled, realising the Admiral had gone too far.

Intelligent men, thought Ordev.

The other Guardsmen were doing their best either to imitate statues or to adopt a ridiculous parade attitude. Admiral Mikasev's behaviour was the worst, of course. Lost in his drugs, his stim-injector constantly activated, the highest ranking officer of the Fay navy was giggling with drool around his mouth.

"Do you want to know something funny Admiral?" Asked First Lieutenant Adryks in his usual calm and collected manner.

"By all means...ah...First Lieutenant...Ahmyrk...Azyr..." The drugs had not transformed Admiral Mikasev into a complete vegetable, but they had done plenty of damage to whatever intellect there had been in his brain once upon a time.

"The torpedoes that you ordered to be charged in the tubes? They contained the corpses of all the Exalted Guardsmen that are not on this bridge."

And what a pain it was to put them there. I am going to be in debt, with all the amasec tourneys owe to the guys in the torpedo sections.

"I think a change of leadership for this ship has become necessary." Stated First Lieutenant Adryks, as all the crew on the bridge drew the laspistols and the weapons they had hidden under their uniforms.

The Guardsmen finally tried to open fire, but it was too late. With a sinister hiss, the doors allowing access to the bridge opened and the familiar shape of an autocannon emerged. The Guardsmen pivoted...just in time to see their death. A hurricane of rounds was unleashed and the racket was so loud Ordev thought he was going to go deaf. The Exalted Guardsmen fell like leaves, all their shots being lost on the ceiling or far from any of their targets.

A small amount of dust settled, revealing the red robes of a Tech-Priest, carrying the autocannon over his shoulder like it was nothing. A feat Ordev knew was beyond him or any unaugmented man or woman.

"Happy to see you, Tech-Priest Val-Hal."

"The Omnissiah protects, Lieutenant Adryks." Replied the man everybody nicknamed 'cogboy-in-chief' on the warship in his metallic voice. The senior representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus marched over the corpses of the fifty Exalted Guardsmen, quickly followed by half a dozen warrant officers and junior Tech-Priests that had mysteriously 'disappeared' in the entrails of the Gracious Overlord these last hours.

"You will...not...get...away...with...this..." The words of Admiral Mikasev were barely a murmur. It was not due to the drugs anymore: from what the Second Lieutenant could see, the rapid fire of the autocannon had shredded the Admiral's legs, and the flow of blood from these wounds was considerable.

"On the contrary. I firmly intend to get away with this. Admiral." Adryks last word was literally dripping with enough irony to disrupt the Maelstrom itself.

"You tried to kill venerable servants of the Machine-God." Added Tech-Priest Val-Hal in what a non-metallic being would have called sarcasm. "That is heresy...and the punishment of the Omnissiah will be just and terrible."

"Our men...in the engine rooms and the armouries..."

"Have been killed and their corpses put in additional torpedoes we did not have the time to put into the tubes." Revealed Ordev pleasantly. "Which is frankly more than they deserved."

"The God-Emperor..."

"Please." Sniggered Third Lieutenant Solev. "What you do is because you enjoy lording your power and terrifying honest citizens. It has nothing to do with the Emperor."

"The Omnissiah demands of every man and woman a just but hard price...by the authority granted to me as Senior Tech-Priest of the Gracious Overlord in the name of the Fabricator-General of Mars, you, Admiral Mikasev, are relieved of your command."

The drug-addicted flag officer tried to protest, in vain. A series of darts from another gun hidden behind the large red robes punched an impressive hole into Mikasev's torso, spraying plenty of blood on the hololithic table.

"I apologise for the inconvenience." Gritted the Tech-Priest. "Loss of efficiency before cleaning-up: 32%. Utility of Admiral Mikasev organic remains: 1.2%."

"Let's turn this squadron around, ladies and gentlemen." Adryks voice returned everyone to the running of the Gracious Overlord. "We have a planet to save, xenos to kill, and an Exalted Idiot to get rid of."


Author's note: Better late than never, but I found finally some time to properly make the modifications suggested by Thanathos. In hindsight, a lot of the early chapters are in dire need of good beta-ing, but coming back to it requires a lot of modifications.

The links for the Weaver Option if you want to support or comment my writing:

P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444

Alternate History page: www .alternatehistory forum/ threads/ the-weaver-option-a-warhammer-40000-crossover.395904/

TV Tropes: tvtropes pmwiki/ / FanFic/ TheWeaverOption