Author's Note: For those interested, there are now eight advance chapters on P-atreon (remove the spaces and dash): p-atreon/ SkySage24.
Warp travel was fundamentally an act of violence. To use the Immaterium to move across the stars was to wield science and sorcery as a weapon to punch through the fabric of the universe, and then dive into the bleeding rift to submerge yourself in the madness that lay below reality.
This voyage was the first time Horus had experienced such a thing. When his father had retrieved him from Cthonia, the Lord of Terra had wrapped his vessel in golden light that had smoothed the voyage so that they practically glided through the warp, the frothing insanity of the Immaterium frightened away by the mere presence of the Emperor.
Not so this time.
Oh, they were safe enough, the gellar fields of the Aetos Dios were functioning perfectly well. But to compare a gellar field to the presence of the Emperor was like comparing ceramite to adamantium. Both were effective, but one was undeniably inferior.
So it was that for the first time in his life, Horus experienced the trials of voyaging through the Warp, the shroud of darkness pushed back by the gellar field but undeniably there. The tides of the Warp tossed and turned the ship, with a mere mortal Navigator guiding the vessel through the warp routes to the Mandeville Point as best as they were able.
Mortal men and women might have been intimidated.
Horus found it almost thrilling.
It was nothing compared to the intoxicating rush of battle, to the feeling of triumph when an enemy lay broken at his feet. But it was a taste of danger, a warning of what was to come with this campaign they had embarked upon.
A prelude to the day when Horus would lead the Imperium's armies out of Sol to reclaim the stars beyond, for mankind.
Moving through the Webway was…not like that.
Horus had been curious about the Webway, the network of warp tunnels and gates built by the Aeldari which had survived even the destruction of their empire. Practically everyone aboard the ship had been.
"Follow us," The Eldar had said. "Be careful and do not divert from our path, or you may be lost forever."
Though faintly annoyed, Horus was no fool, so he had instructed his crew to do exactly that and keep the gellar field activated for good measure.
The shimmering gate appearing out of nowhere in the void of space, sliding open with nary a whisper was nothing like Warp transit. The Eldar vessel had glided through, and after a moment's hesitation, the Imperials had followed.
Despite the Eldar's foreboding warnings, the trip had been perfectly smooth. The glimmering walls of the Webway had offered no opposition, no danger as the Eldar and humans moved through it. It had felt more like moving through the skies of Terra than through a mysterious tunnel in the Warp.
Horus had been incredibly tempted to divert the ship to explore, to go down the other paths that the Eldar ignored. But their warnings, and more importantly, the vision of his father's disappointment, kept him on track.
He was here for a reason, on a mission. It was his first time truly away from his father, without support only a call away.
Horus would not fail and disappoint.
But someday, he wanted to explore the corridors of the Webway, and the mysteries of this ancient, infinite labyrinth.
Finally, they had arrived at another shimmering silver gate, and after both ships had activated their cloaking devices, they had emerged right atop the planet they had been targeting.
The whole voyage must have taken perhaps an hour, nothing like the tumultuous days that Horus had endured to reach the Eldar in the first place.
And below them, the planet awaited.
"Bring up the planet on display," Horus commanded.
His crew obliged, one of the technicians manipulating the holo-monolith at the center of the strategium to create a projection of the world below.
The world…almost reminded Horus of Cthonia, if he was honest. It was grey shrouded in a haze of smoke by the factories. The oceans were rust-red, poisoned by the chemicals pumped into them below.
"Initial report?" Horus asked, reaching up to rub his jaw.
"There are billions of lifeforms below, Lord Primarch," The technician, a woman from the Terrawatt Clans, replied. "Humans and Orks both."
With a flick of her wrist, tiny dots flared to life on the projection of the planet, green for Orks and blue for humans.
Horus inhaled sharply at the number of Orks. There were so many. Far more than the forces he had aboard this vessel, far more than every Legion and the entire Imperial Army put together.
No wonder his father had said this was to be a decapacitating strike, not an extended campaign.
And yet…the thought of leaving the humans below at the mercy of the Orks didn't sit well with Horus. He knew there was no way to truly free them, the forces to purge the planet and restore it to its true owners simply did not exist in the Imperium. Not yet.
But still. It wasn't fair.
Horus was distracted from his thoughts by the beeping that indicated someone was trying to communicate with them.
"It's the Eldar, sire," His communications officer said.
"Answer the hail," Horus ordered, anticipating flowing through his veins.
The projection of Lord Cadaith appeared once more, clad in his armour and mask as always.
"Primarch," Cadaith offered a brief salute. "We are ready to begin and have located the Warboss. We will send the psychomatons down first, then follow shortly. We are transmitting the coordinates to you now."
It was the plan they had agreed on beforehand. Simple, but to the point.
Horus smiled.
"Then let's begin."
"Hahahaha, this is going to be the biggest Rok evah!"
Kulo grinned as he looked down at the massive, misshapen ship taking form in the factory below him. It was crude, looking as if it had been made from a bunch of different ships being stapled together (and it had been). Both Orks and human slaves toiled away below to build the ship, the hammering and screeching and shouts below creating an unbearable din that would have bothered most any race.
But to Kulo, it was like the sweetest music he'd ever heard.
Kulo was the biggest and 'ardest and strongest Ork in the Waagh. He hadn't started out that way, he'd just been a Mekboy at first, forced to bow his head and work for other Warbosses even though he didn't want to.
But he'd made himself strong, so 'ere. Now, he was a killing machine roughly eight feet tall, clad in grey armour, with a glowing red cybernetic eye and a massive, clawed prosthetic crackling with energy in place of his right hand.
He'd fought his way to the top, and killed the old Warboss, then taken control of the Waaagh! Then he'd brought the old Warboss back as his slave, with robotic implants to keep him in line.
He'd made all his lieutenants stronger too, turning them into towering cyborks easily twice as strong as any ordinary ork. Some of them had tried to beat him and take the Waagh, but Kulo had just krumped them and proved why he was the strongest.
After that, he had spent the last decade fighting his way through planet after planet, having a good old-fashioned brawl with everyone the Waagh came across. Well, really just the other Orks and Waaghs.
The humies were too small and weak. Kulo had heard stories they'd been really 'ard and tough once, but he didn't believe them. No humie he had ever met had ever managed to stop his Waagh for even a bit.
And so Kulo's Waagh had grown and grown as his Waagh absorbed every other Waagh they came across.
But Kulo wasn't satisfied. He was going to prove he was the 'ardest and toughest Ork in the whole galaxy. He wanted to fight other Orks that actually put a fight, not just cocky Warbosses who thought dey were tougher than they actually were and puny humies.
And this planet was where he was going to start.
Rust.
The humans who lived there had called it something else but, but Kulo didn't know what and didn't care. The planet's skies were red like rust, so dat was what he was going to call it. It also had lots and lots of iron and steel he could use to build his ships, but that hadn't been something Kulo had been thinking about when he'd decided what to call the planet.
The planet had a lot of humies, and while humies were puny, they could be useful. So Kulo had stopped his Waagh from killing them all and instead had put the humies to work, digging for ore and fuel, helping build weapons and warships so Kulo could go find a better fight.
It wasn't always easy. The humies would sometimes forget how puny they were and try to fight back before Kulo reminded dem who was boss. And then there Orks who whined that he was being too soft by letting the humies live before he smashed their heads together.
But it was worth it. The humies were puny, but there were a lot of them and this planet had some nice tech. Kulo had taken it and started building ships, especially bigger and bigger Roks.
He'd been able to find more Waaghs in nearby systems, bigger and tougher than ones he'd ever fought before.
Kulo couldn't wait to fight them.
Unfortunately for Warboss Kulo, all his plans were dashed when out of nowhere, attack pods began raining from the sky.
These attack pods were nothing like Kulo had ever seen before. Entirely unlike either Ork or humie tech, they were smooth and oblong, made up of a black, almost crystalline substance.
They smashed to the ground, and from them emerged soldiers. Ten feet tall, shaped like humans but entirely faceless, with crystalline bodies and decorated with glowing green runes.
The psychomatons had come to war.
Horus hadn't been quite sure what to think of this whole psychomaton business.
The Eldar and even his father had said the psychomatons were the main force here, more than able to handle the mission easily where the Space Marines and Eldar warriors wouldn't be able to.
Horus had been skeptical. He trusted his father, of course, but that was part of why. The Space Marines were the finest soldiers in the galaxy, the pinnacle of his father's work, capable of destroying and defeating any enemy.
How could some alien robots possibly be better?
But now he watched from one of the new Stormbird vessels built by the Imperium as it headed towards their target, and saw how effective the psychomatons really were.
The squadron of psychomatons, only a few dozen, tore their way through the Orks with systematic, brutal efficiency. Enough firepower to shred Space Marine armour and even tanks were completely ignored by the psychomatons, and any small wounds they sustained swiftly repaired themselves.
Hundreds of Orks hurled themselves at the psychomatons and were cut down by waves of emerald energy, scything through even the sturdiest Orks like they were made of foam.
The psychomatons went to work with crispy efficiency, half of them slaughtering Orks as the others began to tear apart the vessels and infrastructure of the makeshift shipyard.
Horus hesitated to apply such words to the work of Orks, especially given how ramshackle and unstable it looked, but there was nothing else he could think to call it.
But it was sturdy and enormous, at least.
Yet, that seemed to mean nothing to the psychomatons, cannons emerging from their shoulders and unleashing high-density blasts of energy that punched through miles of steel with ruthless efficiency, and vaporized dozens of Orks as if they were just chaff.
Horus would be lying if he said it wasn't a little frightening.
He didn't like to admit to being scared even to himself. He liked things which could make him afraid even less.
But only a fool would pretend the psychomatons weren't intimidating.
Horus was reasonably sure that Space Marines could take them out. The Orks here might be dying quickly, but they hardly had the discipline, strength or ornaments of the Legiones Astartes.
But it would take multiple chapters with heavy firepower and armour who had prepared for the battle, and even then there would be serious casualties.
For the first time, Horus saw a force capable of rivalling and even exceeding the Space Marines, and it chilled him to the core.