Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Flagship of the Warmaster
Deep Space
Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster of the Imperium, stood at the heart of the strategium aboard the Vengeful Spirit. The chamber was vast, an awe-inspiring colossus of Imperial might, its walls adorned with trophies of conquest—war banners from sundered civilizations, shattered helms of alien warlords, and gilded reliefs of the Warmaster's countless victories. Towering adamantium pillars reached skyward, wreathed in burning braziers that cast long, dancing shadows across the chamber. The scent of sacred oils and incense filled the air, mingling with the hum of cogitators and the whisper of tactical projections.
Before him, suspended in the void of the strategium, a vast hololithic projection of Kharak's Belt dominated the chamber, the cold glow of a thousand tactical overlays tracing the labyrinthine asteroid field. It was no mere scattering of cosmic debris; it was a vast and tangled expanse, an ironclad citadel woven from rock and steel, riddled with concealed weapons batteries, orbital fortifications, and sprawling shipyards hidden in the void.
It was a fortress born of arrogance and hubris, a bastion from which the Batarians projected their raiding strength into the Terminus Systems—a testament to their belief that they held dominion over the stars.
That belief would be their undoing.
It would not stand.
Horus' golden eyes flickered as they scanned the data streams cascading across the projection. A hundred possibilities. A thousand pathways to destruction. His mind moved faster than any strategium cogitator, weaving battle into an inevitability before the first shots were fired.
His commanders stood in disciplined silence, waiting.
Legion Master Abaddon loomed at his right, his blackened Terminator plate absorbing the dim glow of the hololithic map. At his left, Captain Dhekarst, a veteran of uncounted wars, stood with arms crossed, his pale features unreadable. A delegation of Mechanicus Logis Strategos transmitted data, their voices speaking in metallic binary as they detailed energy signatures, movement patterns, and structural weaknesses.
Horus raised a gauntleted hand, and all fell silent.
Horus: "Kharak's Belt is not a fortress; it is a trap waiting to be sprung. The Batarians think themselves clever, burrowing into the asteroids like vermin, relying on fortifications and secrecy to mask their inferiority. That will be their undoing."
He turned, gazing at his assembled warriors.
Horus: "The Batarians hold this place as a shield. We shall make it their grave. We will not shatter the belt in crude bombardment—that would waste the resources within. No, we will carve through it, strip it apart, and leave it a ruin that will remind the galaxy of what defying the Imperium means."
He gestured toward the projection, and with a thought, the battle plan unfolded.
Horus: "We begin with precision. We will map their movements, bait their patrols, and pull their forces from their nests. Once they are exposed, we strike. The Luna Wolves shall lead the assault, slipping into the outer ring under the cover of the Belt's own debris. We will board their stations, seize their control centers, and sever their command structure. When their coordination is broken, we move to phase two."
A section of the projection flared red, indicating the densest cluster of defenses.
Horus: "The First Company will be deployed in surgical strikes, their teleportariums delivering them into the heart of enemy bastions. They will rip the spine from the enemy's command, leaving their defenses leaderless and adrift. The Mechanicus will follow, disabling and repurposing automated defenses to turn the Belt's own guns upon itself."
The gathered commanders exchanged glances. It was First Captain Abaddon who stepped forward.
Abaddon: "We shall execute this as you decree, Warmaster. The slavers will not have a moment to react before they are sundered."
From the other side of the table, a voice rang sharp and knowing. The Librarian Khalid Amun folded his arms, his sapphire eyes alight with something unreadable.
Librarian Khalid Amun: "The Emperor's will is clear—these vermin are to be purged. But what of intelligence? These slavers did not forge this Belt alone. If they are part of a greater Council, would it not serve us to leave some to speak of the coming storm? To let them spread terror before the annihilation?"
Horus regarded Amun for a long moment, considering. A slow smile, one that carried the weight of inevitable death, curled at the edge of his lips.
Horus: "A worthy thought. Let the galaxy tremble before the whispers of what we have done here. Send a single ship, broken and bleeding, back into the void. Let them carry the tale of what happens when the Imperium is crossed."
Another voice, this one heavily modulated with the cold tones of the Mechanicus, clicked into the conversation. Magos Dominus Rhelak, a towering construct of flesh and steel, addressed the Warmaster.
Magos Dominus Rhelak: "+++ Analysis of enemy energy signatures suggests key production centers within central belt clusters. Tactical advantage dictates systematic capture before destruction. These xenos lack comprehension of true strategic redundancy. Suggest assimilation of viable assets before total annihilation. +++"
Horus nodded.
Horus: "Then let it be so. We take their knowledge, their resources, and their fear. Then we erase them."
He let the weight of his words settle before speaking again, his tone colder, final.
Horus: "And when the enemy is broken, when their fleet scatters and their strongholds are in ruin, then we unleash the annihilation protocols. The Warhounds will run them down, scouring every asteroid, every crevice. Not one slaver will escape. Not one shall be left to rebuild."ld."
A heavy silence settled over the strategium, the weight of the Warmaster's decree undeniable.
Abaddon: "They will not see it coming."
Horus nodded, satisfaction evident in the gleam of his golden eyes.
Horus: "No, they will not."
He turned, sweeping his gaze over his commanders, his voice rising, an invocation of war.
Horus: "The Emperor has given us His will. We will execute it. The Batarians dared to steal from the Imperium. We will make them regret the day they first drew breath. Ready the fleet. Prepare the strike teams. By the time the Batarians realize what is happening, they will already be dead."
And with that, the Warmaster's plan was set in motion. The fate of Kharak's Belt was sealed.
There would be no survivors.
Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Flagship of the Warmaster
Kharak's Belt; Asteroid Belt, Batarian Forward Base
Horus raised a hand.
A simple gesture. A decree. A sentence. And the battle began.
No warning had been given. No declaration of war was sent. The Imperium did not bargain with slavers. It did not offer mercy to those who preyed upon its children. The Batarians did not even know their executioners had come until the first lance strike split the void, until their ships buckled under fire from weapons beyond their understanding. To grant them words would have been a kindness, and the Imperium had no kindness left to spare.
Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, orders were not merely issued; they were unleashed like the will of an unstoppable god. Tactical cogitators thrummed, their machine spirits calculating vectors of annihilation with merciless precision. Augurs lit up with the energy signatures of the enemy, plotting trajectories before the Batarians even realized they were being marked for death. Servitors chanted in droning unison, their cybernetic minds locked in communion with the war engines of the Imperium, executing preordained destruction.
There was no warning. No ultimatum. No mercy.
The Imperium did not speak with slavers. There would be no envoy, no parley, no declaration of war. The Batarians' fate had been decided the moment they took what belonged to the Emperor. The Imperium did not come as conquerors, nor even as reapers—
They came as judgment itself.
Then the void erupted.
Macrocannons roared, their titanic shells the size of hab-blocks, hammering into the Batarian defenses with the force of dying suns, their impacts birthing shockwaves so violent they fractured the asteroid belt itself. Lance batteries ignited the blackness, each searing beam a spear of incandescent wrath, a pillar of light so absolute it cut through void shields and hulls as if they were parchment. Torpedoes streaked through the void, their warheads engines of righteous extinction, detonating in celestial conflagrations that tore entire squadrons asunder, the eruptions bright enough to drown out the stars themselves.
The void itself seemed to tremble as the full might of the Imperium was unleashed, a relentless cascade of annihilation with no equal.
From the flanks, Strike Cruisers of the Luna Wolves surged forward, their adamantium-clad prows the fangs of an ancient predator. They did not weave through the battlefield; they drove through it, ramming into enemy formations with contemptuous ease, shearing Batarian warships in half as if breaking the spine of a lesser beast. Like the wolves of Old Night, they descended, their weapons howling, their assault a storm of unrelenting precision, methodical and cruel.
The enemy ships twisted in blind panic, their primitive thrusters flaring at maximum burn, trying—futilely—to escape the inescapable. Orders were barked through choking static, captains screaming in desperation, their voices ragged with disbelief, with terror. The sight before them was not war as they had known it; it was annihilation given form, a tidal wave of obliteration that did not acknowledge their resistance, only erased it.
Batarian Fleet Commander: in"This… this isn't possible! Their weapons—our shields are failing! We're losing ships! All commands, retreat! RETREAT!"
Batarian Lieutenant: "Sir, we have nowhere to retreat to! They're everywhere! They're—!"
A deafening explosion swallowed the transmission as another Batarian cruiser was impaled by lancing fire, its frame splitting apart in a chain reaction of detonations, spilling its screaming crew into the void.
The fleet was disintegrating, their formations crumbling like sand before a storm. The Batarians had thought themselves raiders, wolves prowling the edge of civilization. Now they understood. They had never been wolves.
They had always been prey.
Their primitive minds shattered beneath the realization that they had never truly known war—until now.
Batarian Officer: "The fleet is breaking apart! We can't—there's no escape! No—!"
Their cries of desperation were swallowed by the cacophony of destruction.
There was nowhere to run.
The void had become their tomb, and the Imperium, their executioner.
The Void Claws, an elite detachment of Luna Wolves Terminators, launched from the Vengeful Spirit, their boarding torpedoes streaking through the void like spears of the gods, slamming into Batarian warships with seismic force. Bulkheads screeched and crumpled under the impact, entire sections of decks collapsing as Imperial steel breached xenos hulls.
Sirens blared across the doomed vessels, their klaxons a discordant wail of panic. Red emergency lumens flickered erratically, casting the corridors in a hellish glow as panicked orders flooded the vox.
Batarian Captain: "All hands to battle stations! We are being boarded! Seal the bulkheads—NOW! Do not let them reach the bridge!"
Across the ships, Batarian officers scrambled to rally their men, their fingers shaking as they input override codes, slamming armored doors shut. But it was pointless. Astartes boarding torpedoes did not merely punch through hull plating. They conquered it. Explosive bolts fired in sequence, tearing breaches wider, allowing the Angels of Death to emerge.
The Luna Wolves did not come in silence. They came with the roar of bolters, the screech of chainblades, and the thunderous footfalls of warriors who knew no equal. The first Batarian defenders barely had time to register their doom before mass-reactive rounds punched through them, detonating inside their armored torsos and spraying the walls with their insides.
The corridors became a charnel house.
Batarian Officer: "They're in the command decks! They're moving too fast! We can't—AAARGH!"
The transmission cut off in a burst of static as a combat knife the size of a mortal's forearm was driven through the officer's throat, severing vox relays along with his spine.
The Luna Wolves did not fight—they executed. Their every step was methodical, their movements perfected over centuries of warfare. Chainblades bit into alien flesh, reducing enemies to mangled ruins. Plasma rounds seared through corridors, turning cover into molten slag. One by one, Batarian warships fell, their wreckage scattering into the darkness like shattered bone, their final screams never reaching the void beyond, their final moments unnoticed by the gods of war who had already moved on to the next kill.
The outer defense stations were next.
The Mechanicus siege-craft under Magos Varankh-Kel did not simply unleash disruption—they rewrote the very laws of technological dominance in the void. Electro-disruptor fields washed over Batarian battle networks, burning through security encryptions with contemptuous ease. Their primitive logic cores flickered, their command protocols were overridden before they even recognized the incursion. Entire fire control grids were enslaved to the Omnissiah's will in the span of heartbeats.
Batarian Defense Officer: "Impossible! We've lost control of the missile arrays! They're… they're targeting us!"
Batarian Engineer: "I can't stop it! It's like the machines have… turned against us!"
Servitor warcodes pulsed through the network like a creeping tide, reconfiguring entire defense stations in moments, missile silos swiveling to bombard their own docks, turrets grinding to life and cutting down the very crews that had operated them. The crimson-robed emissaries of Mars observed this from the decks of their warships with solemn, methodical satisfaction.
Magos Varankh-Kel's augmented voice crackled across the vox, cold and absolute.
Magos Varankh-Kel: "+++ The weakness of flesh-born logic has been purged. The Omnissiah's dominion is absolute. +++"
And in the moment of their technological enslavement, Imperial fire rained down.
The Imperium did not come to fight an even war.
The Imperium came to crush them.
The Counterattack – The Batarians Despair
Panic spread through the Batarian command ranks like a disease, a contagion of fear that no leader could suppress. Their admirals barked orders through snarling tongues, voices cracking under the weight of impending doom. Officers scrambled across command decks, desperately attempting to bring order to a fleet already unraveling.
Beyond their burning warships, the asteroid fields of Kharak's Belt—once their greatest stronghold—now lay in ruins. Hollowed-out asteroids that once housed concealed war factories, weapons depots, and clandestine slave pens were being ripped apart by cascading explosions. Sprawling rock fortresses, once considered impenetrable, crumbled into nothing more than drifting debris, their defenses overwhelmed by Mechanicus superweapons that had shattered their integrity like fragile glass.
Their warships were being torn apart, one by one, methodically, mercilessly.
But they were not yet defeated.
From the few remaining hidden void-docks nestled deep within the asteroid belt, their last surviving commanders ordered a final, desperate counterattack. Hundreds of strike craft burst from the tunnels and deep-space docks that honeycombed the larger asteroids, swarming toward the Imperial fleet in a futile bid for survival.
Sleek, wedge-shaped Batarian interceptors twisted through the ruins of their own defenses, their pilots grimly determined, seeking any opening in the unbreakable wall of the Imperial onslaught. Their weapons, crude by comparison to the might of the Imperium, opened fire in uncoordinated barrages, scattering pulse fire and missile salvos against shields that did not even register their existence.
Batarian Fleet Commander: "All wings, full assault formation! We break through or we die! We cannot fall here! We cannot—"
The void swallowed his final words as a lance beam reduced his command ship to vapor.
The swarm of strike craft surged forward, but the Imperium had already anticipated this feeble effort. The trap had been set. There was no escape.
The Astartes were already moving.
Horus turned to his fleet-master, his voice an anchor of absolute command.
Horus: "Deploy the Astartes. I will lead them myself."
The Boarding of Kharak's Bastion
The Luna Wolves deployed like thunder from the heavens, an avalanche of ceramite and wrath, falling upon the battlefield with the weight of an empire's fury.
Thunderhawks screamed from their launch bays, streaking through the void in disciplined formations, each one a spear of the Imperium hurled into the heart of the enemy. The air around them ignited with debris and tracer fire, but their course never wavered. Assault ramps dropped before landing gear touched metal, and Astartes poured forth, weapons raised, killing before their boots even met the station's surface.
The largest of the Batarian defense stations—Kharak's Bastion—loomed ahead, its jagged structure bristling with defensive turrets, autocannons swiveling to lock onto the incoming assault. The defenders, blind to their fate, filled the air with desperate fire. Red-lit targeting sensors flared as Batarian artillery emplacements unloaded, the station's entire power grid surging as kinetic rounds spat outward in frantic retaliation.
It did not matter.
Storm Shields absorbed the blasts. Power armor shrugged off rounds that should have shattered battle tanks. The Luna Wolves advanced without slowing, unflinching, unbroken, a tide of death marching into the storm.
The Batarians fought back. From fortified bunkers, turrets and barricades, they dug in, pouring fire into the approaching Astartes. Their war cries became screams as the first lines met their fate. The moment the Luna Wolves reached them, all pretense of battle ended.
It was not a war. It was a massacre.
Chainblades shrieked, biting into alien flesh with the sound of bone and sinew being torn apart. Bolters roared, each mass-reactive round reducing crude armor to shredded tissue. The air became thick with the stench of burning xenos blood, charred flesh, and the ozone tang of discharge fields crackling off power weapons.
Batarian Officer: "Hold the lines! Hold—GRAAAAGH!"
A chainblade silenced his final order, ripping through his torso and sending pieces of him scattering across his dying men.
The Luna Wolves did not fight. They executed. Their movements were not driven by desperation or survival but by purpose, an iron-clad certainty that this was the will of the Emperor made manifest.
And then Horus landed.
His descent was not the arrival of a mere warrior—it was the manifestation of divine judgment. He struck the battlefield like a falling star, his massive form wreathed in the radiance of the Emperor's will, his armor reflecting the inferno of war that raged around him. The ground beneath his landing cracked from the sheer force of his presence, a herald to the doom of all who dared oppose him.
A Batarian commander, his face twisted with desperate defiance, raised a trembling weapon. It was a foolish, meaningless act. Horus did not spare him even a glance as his power claw ignited, shimmering in crackling energy, before tearing through the xeno's torso like parchment, splitting him in half in a shower of gore. Another rushed at him with a shriek of desperation. The Warmaster's mace descended, not as a weapon, but as an executioner's blade. The xeno's skull shattered, its body folding in upon itself as if the very concept of resistance had been obliterated.
The Batarian ranks disintegrated. What little cohesion they had possessed vanished in an instant. They had been fighting an army—now, they faced a god.
Horus moved through them like a storm given form, lightning crackling along his gauntlets, his blade carving a path of devastation. Bolter rounds from his guard chewed through the ranks of fleeing Batarians, the last pitiful vestiges of their so-called "warriors" dying on their knees, choking on their own blood. The Astartes pressed forward with relentless precision, each step leaving behind only corpses.
There was no resistance. There was no battle.
There was only the inevitability of Imperial might.
Within the hour, Kharak's Bastion was silent.
The few Batarians who remained dropped their weapons, their trembling hands raised in futile surrender. The Imperium did not take prisoners.
The Final Order – A Statement of Power
With Kharak's Belt shattered, Horus stood upon the station's command bridge, his towering form wreathed in the dim glow of dying embers, the air thick with the scent of ionized metal and vaporized flesh. The walls dripped with the blood of the vanquished, pooling in dark rivulets across shattered consoles and the corpses of those who had once called this place their fortress. The distant void beyond the viewport was choked with wreckage—ships torn apart, their burning hulks adrift in the abyss, their crews reduced to frozen corpses tumbling through the cold darkness.
The hololithic display before him flickered with the final, desperate transmissions of the Batarian defenders—pleas for reinforcements, for surrender, for anything. But no answer had come. There would be no salvation, no hope, no tomorrow. Their sins had been weighed, their crimes measured, and now only fire would answer them.
Horus stood unmoving, his expression carved from stone, his golden eyes reflecting the inferno that consumed the last remnants of Batarian resistance. Around him, his officers and warriors stood in solemn silence, waiting. They already knew what must be done, but still, they waited for the final decree.
He turned to them, his voice a quiet thunder, cold and absolute, a pronouncement of doom given flesh.
Horus: "We do not leave monuments to slavers."
He looked once more to the ruin before him, to the dying embers of an empire that had thought itself strong. Then, with a final, unshakable certainty, he spoke the words that would seal Kharak's fate.
"Burn it all."
And so, the sky burned with the judgment of the Imperium, and the sun set forever on the last hope of the Batarian warlords.
The Sole Survivor – A Shadow in the Void
Through the swirling wreckage of a once-proud Batarian warfleet, a single vessel drifted into the darkness, barely clinging to life. Its hull was scarred, its engines sputtering, a lone ember slipping through the maelstrom of annihilation.
The Jilkan's Last Gambit was not a warship, nor a command vessel—it was a courier, an insignificant frigate that had escaped notice in the chaos, fleeing not through strategy, but through blind, animalistic instinct.
Inside, its crew huddled in terrified silence. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and fear, the flickering emergency lumens casting long shadows over officers who had abandoned their posts, warriors who no longer had a war to fight. Their leader, Captain Varko Dan'Shir, sat slumped in his command throne, his eyes hollow, unblinking.
Captain Varko Dan'Shir: "We were gods among the stars… We were supposed to be the predators…"
His hands clenched the armrests of his chair, his claws digging into the metal as his breathing grew ragged. He had seen war before, had watched Batarian warfleets tear through weak alien civilizations, had overseen the enslavement of thousands. This was different. This was not war. This was not an enemy fighting for survival. This had been eradication.
A vox-officer shuddered, his hands trembling as he adjusted the controls, his voice thick with disbelief.
Vox-Officer: "The Imperium… they let us go. They could have destroyed us, but they didn't…"
A terrible realization settled over the bridge like a shroud. The Imperium had not failed to see them. It had chosen not to erase them.
Captain Dan'Shir's eyes flicked to the void beyond the viewport, to the firestorm of ruin behind them. He understood.
The Imperium had allowed them to escape for one reason alone: so that they would carry the message of their destruction.
He turned toward his bridge crew, his voice a hollow echo.
Captain Varko Dan'Shir: "Set course for Khar'shan."
Their homeworld had to know.
The storm was coming.