Author's Note: For those interested, there are eight advance chapters on P-atreon (remove the spaces and dash): p-atreon/ SkySage24

"Was it necessary to go that far?" The Emperor asked, looking down at Mars from the window of his private solar upon the Buchepalus. Nothing should have been visible to him from this distance, of course. From orbit, the Red Planet seemed calm. Many battles were raging below, but no weapons had yet been unleashed that could be seen from so high above.

But divine eyes weren't as limited as mortal ones.

To the Emperor, the strife and slave revolts on Mars were as plain to him as the void battle raging around the Buchepalus, as Mechanicum ships desperately fled and were cut down by the Buchepalus's battery of defences from the giant turrets releasing blasts of energy that could scorch continents to the golden eagle-like fighters ships that had been scrambled when the golden vessel had been assaulted.

Next to him, Isha sipped calmly from a fresh glass of mead. This was some of the mead the Emperor kept on board for his use, purely organic, with no chemical stimulants added.

It was much more pleasant than the chemical slop that had been served at the banquet earlier. Honestly, Isha understood the temptation of intoxication, but was it worth consuming toxic chemicals that could do permanent harm to one's neural systems? Far too many of her children and humans alike seemed to think the answer was yes.

Once she had finished drinking, Isha lowered the glass from her lips and answered. "Yes, yes it was. And if you disagree with me, I dare you to open yourself to the mind of even a single servitor and feel the agony within them."

George pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture so human that Isha couldn't help but be amused by it.

"I don't know why you're so bothered. I followed the plan, as requested. The insurgents were allowed to broadcast their declaration and commit their opening strikes on Buchepalus. It was only once they had done so that I retaliated, prodding the servitors below into rebellion. I didn't even do it to every servitor on the planet."

As convenient as it would have been if the only Tech-Priests who used servitors created by horribly mutilating people for petty 'crimes' were the sects opposed to the Emperor, life never worked quite so neatly.

So Isha had gritted her teeth, keeping in mind the Emperor's promise that he would use this whole situation to extract more concessions from the Mechanicum, including a law that servitors could only be made with vat-grown biological components and limited the number of servitors she had freed.

"Yes, but a more controlled scenario would have-" The Emperor cut himself off. "No matter. Our plans worked as intended, if not precisely as I thought. Extracting further concessions from the Mechanicum should be easier, and the threat of us turning their servitors against them should make them amenable to banning it."

"I certainly hope so," Isha said, taking another sip of the mead, and draining the last of the glass. It was quite delightful, she'd have to try her hand at making her own sometimes.

Their plans had worked as expected for the most part. The renegade sect of the Mechanicum had made their opening move, seeking to use their access to the Buchepalus's systems to lower its shield and then attack it with as many ships as they could muster.

And as Isha and the Emperor had ensured, that plan had failed. The access the Tech-Priests had been given to the Buchepalus had been limited, and the true strength and complexity of its digital defences had been concealed from them.

The shields had not been lowered, and the assault had failed dramatically. And while the defence of the Buchepalus had torn the attackers in orbit apart, Isha had prodded the servitors in the Forge-Temple the renegades had been using as their primary base to outright rebellion.

Sweet and simple.

The void battle outside seemed to be heating up, Isha noted idly. The Mechanicum vessels had decided that if they were going down, they were going to take as many of their enemies down as possible. They were unleashing weapons without any regard for their safety, and their fighters were committing suicide bombing runs.

She wasn't unduly concerned. It was well within the parameters that she and the Emperor had expected.

"Will you have enough proof that the Assembly turned a blind eye to the actions of these renegades?" Isha asked curiously, as she moved back towards the wine cabinet to refill her glass. The layout of the office was almost identical to the one upon the Epona, merely somewhat larger.

The Emperor did need to be less unimaginative with his design choices.

"Oh most certainly," The Emperor chuckled, his mood brightening. "My servants have already hacked their systems and extracted copies of communications and evidence of resources and support being funnelled towards this little attack."

That must be what the Emperor had brought along those adepts from the Terrawatt Clan for, Isha realized. She had wondered.

It wasn't surprising. Most of the Martian Assembly might have been too afraid of the Emperor to challenge him directly, but few among them had truly been converted. Many of them had hoped that this assault would work, or even if it didn't, nobody would be able to trace any of it back to them.

How unfortunate for them that reading their minds was as easy for the Emperor and Isha as breathing.

"Should we help them?" Isha asked, nodding to the Imperial ships fighting outside.

"Ah, there's no need," The Emperor said, waving a dismissive hand. "They can handle it. I am helping them, in any case."

Ah, yes. Isha could see the tendrils of the Emperor's mind extending outwards to the crew of the Buchepalus, and those on the Imperial ships outside, augmenting their cooperation and communication, allowing them to pull off manoeuvres with impossible precision and coordination.

Beyond that, he was also weakening the minds and will of the Mechanicum forces, damaging their will to fight, their morale, intensifying their desire for survival.

He was right, the fight would turn out just fine without them.

"So, what shall we do in the meantime?"

George smiled, and with a flick of a wrist, a chess set with gold and black pieces appeared on his desk.

"Shall we?" He gestured, sitting down on his enormous armchair. "We have only played one game so far, and we had, ah, other concerns on our mind at the time.

"Why not?" Isha consented, ignoring the Emperor's understatement, taking her seat.

And as the battle raged outside, the two gods played their game.

Holy Mars had fallen.

To even have such a thought should have been heretical. Unthinkable.

Yet, Adept Regulus could no longer deny the truth. He was a proud son of Mars, who had learned in Olympus Mons itself. The lineage of his masters and teachers was a long and honourable one, which could be traced back centuries to the very dawn of the Mechanicum.

To see his homeworld fall into foreign hands and torn apart by civil war at the same time was agonizing. It was a pain such as he had never felt.

But only fools denied the obvious.

The great Forge-Masters had knelt before a foreign invader and pledged their allegiance. They had accepted his restrictions and his demands, letting him collar them like dogs.

They had even accepted his claim that he was the Omnissiah, the Avatar of the Machine God himself. That brutish warlord from Terra had declared himself as the incarnation of God, and the great lords of the Mechanicum had believed him.

And when the true faithful had sought to rise and free Mars, they had been broken. Regulus watched the display on the holo monolith, projecting images of what was happening below. Armies of servitors ran rampant upon the surface of the Red Planet, an uprising of ungrateful slaves and wretches who dared to challenge their true masters. How they had been unshackled, Regulus did not know, but they had been. Most likely through some foul sorcery of the Terran witch-lord.

Their last hope, their great rebellion, had been shattered. Holy Mars now lay in the thrall of a barbarian warlord, truly and utterly.

Regulus burned with shame at the thought, at the fact that he wasn't there to participate in the fighting. He should have been down there, fighting alongside his fellow faithful, to defend Mars from the invaders and the traitors.

Instead, he was preparing to flee.

But his master's orders had been clear. If the rebellion failed, then Regulus had to go. He had to leave his home behind, run from Sol and take the new of the fall of Mars to the other Forge Worlds.

If Mars could not be saved from within, then it would have to be saved from without, by the many children it had sent out across the galaxy.

"Sir?" His Skittari guard spoke from next to the command throne upon which Regulus was seated. "We need to go," The Skittari Protector said urgently. "Our window of time is closing."

Regulus said nothing for a long moment, watching the carnage on the holo-monolith as Tech-Priests were torn apart by servitors and ancient monuments to the Mechanicum's glory were toppled. Then, with great reluctance, he switched it off.

"Very well," He pressed the controls on his throne, issuing the necessary commands to the ship's AI. "It is time to go. Maximum speed, away from here. Set course for the local Mandeville Point."

The AI obeyed without question. It was a miracle of engineering, one of the last great works of the late Kelbor Hal before he died. This entire vessel was of his design, a ship designed for pure speed, piloted by the most advanced Artifical Intelligence conceived by Mars in centuries, able to navigate even the currents of the Warp themselves.

…at least in theory. The prototype had only been tested on a limited scale, in Warp jumps across the Solar System itself.

But there was no other option. The Terran Navigator Clans were firmly in the thrall of the False Omnissiah, and while there were probably a few among their number who would have been willing to join Regulus for the right price, reaching out without the Imperium noticing had proven all but impossible.

So Regulus had to hope that Kelbor-Hal's genius would not fail.

This was not the only ship that had been prepared for such a contingency, of course. Regulus knew there were others, though, for the sake of security, he had not been informed where they were and who was on board them.

Some of these ships would undoubtedly be caught and cut down by the Imperium before they could flee. But if even a handful, if only escaped…then there might still be hope for the Mechanicum.

Regulus's master had made some modifications of his own to these ships, of course, most prominently the addition of an advanced stealth cloaking device. His master had dug it out of the deepest vaults of his Forge-Temple, opening doors that had been sealed for centuries.

Such vaults had been sealed for good reason and were not to be opened on a whim.

But in this new age, as Mars itself fell and heresy ran rampant, there was no choice.

No choice but for Regulus to run like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs, searching for unlikely allies on distant stars.

I will return one day. Regulus vowed to himself. I will bring an army with me, the might of the entire Mechanicum at my back and Mars will be free. And the false Omnissiah will know our vengeance!

Then, with a burst of power, the vessel named Ares set off, leaving Mars behind, in search of hope upon distant stars.