Imperium Ascendant

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Death in Calixis

Location: The Vindication, Night Lord Strike Cruiser

Date: 893.M30 (Shortly after first strike against the War-Moon)

"If it bleeds we can kill it." An age old adage adopted by warriors across a thousand cultures and eras. Morbid comfort for those confronted by a foe beyond their understanding. Considerably less comforting when something that should not bleed, does. The frantic attack against the War-Moon had torn holes in its surface. Holes that welled up with oily ichor. False-blood that flowed like rotten milk, pouring out of the War-Moons wounds. Scabbing over into plates of mottled grey. Their unnatural smoothness contrasting with the surrounding landscape's biomechanical patterns. The Night Lords could indeed make the enemy bleed, but for once that was no guarantee it could be killed.

The Vindication along with its fellows had entered into a strange and deadly dance with the War-Moon. Imperial ships slingshotting around the megastructure's gravity well, all guns blazing but never staying still. Always changing trajectory, velocity and rotation. All in a desperate attempt to keep the Rangda weapons from locking on. The War-Moons shifting gravity ironically made this easier for the Imperials. Its slithering, wriggling movements across space/time jostled the Night Lords, like the wake of a great sea-beast.

Across the Dyatlov-Rho system, the Rangda fleet was rapidly turning its attention back towards the War-Moon. Abandoning attacks on the last straggling elements of the resupply fleet, to deal with the more immediate threat. Reacting just as Fenj had hoped. The original Rangda screen they had jumped past had turned quickly and would catch up with them in moments. With the War-Moon in the way, the Rangda fleet could not open fire until they got closer. Giving the Night Lords a small opportunity to rain destruction down on the War-Moon relatively unmolested. An opportunity they were exploiting to sadly little effect.

The accursed biomechanical Xeno-tech of the War-Moon shrugged off virtually everything the Night Lords threw at it. Layered shields formed a strange eldritch atmosphere across the Moon, muting the Imperial bombardment to almost nothing. Another strange hazard presented by Rangda design was Moon's active defenses. Defensive turrets, weapon batteries, and launch bays covered the War-Moon. The number and nature of the defenses shifted constantly. The Moon's surface rippled with movement as its pale flesh wriggled with movement. Orbital defense spires could shoot up from empty wastes that could just as easily open up to disgorge swarms of attack craft. Casualties among the fleet were mounting, the Night Lords needed to strike an effective blow quickly.

Lances of monochromatic energy sterilized Imperial ships in great volleys. Whitehart and Nemo Thrax both crashed into the War-Moon. Their burning wrecks ironically doing more damage than their guns had managed. Tyrannos Umbra, Iron Wraith, and Napoca were all suffering badly from enemy boarding parties. It would not be long before the perfidious Rangda stalker drones turned their ships into cold husks. The Vindication had even taken a few hits, hard radiation punching into some unlucky decks. Grim reports had filtered up through the ship's Medicae. The Emperor's Peace was being administered on a virtually industrial scale. Hundreds of burned, melting Ratings awaited last rites and the quick kiss of the reductor.

"The Emperor's Peace" a curious phrase adopted across the Imperium referring to euthanasia. Konrad Curze supposedly coined the term semi-sarcastically after executing the warlord of an unsanctioned abhuman tribe. While literal meaning and etymology were accepted, interpretations of the phrase's nuances varied. Cynics claimed it referred to how only in death could a human find peace in the Emperor's galaxy. Others believed it referred to the Imperium of Man's unofficial motto. "Only in Death does duty end" Superstitious folk claimed it was connected to the Astronomican's effects on human souls. Which protected human souls from the Warps predation. Some even go so far to claim it provided an afterlife of sorts, created by the Emperor's own hand. A nearly heretical and frowned upon belief.

Fenj knew only one thing in the Night Lords arsenal might truly wound, or even kill the War-Moon. The small payload of exterminatus-class weaponry the Expedition Fleet held securely, locked away in the deepest bowels of the ships. Use of such dreadful weapons required the explicit permission from multiple commanding officers. Fenj and his fellow officers had agreed to unleash the tools of planet-death but now needed an opportunity. The Night Lords are murderers and enforcers, not tools of genocide. They did not carry arsenals of apocalyptic weapons like the dreaded Seventh Wing of the Black Knights or the Reaper Fleets of the XIV Legion. A pair of Cyclonic Torpedoes, two Virus Bombs and most dreadful of all a single Modalis Atmospheric Missile.

All five weapons would see use if Chapter Master Fenj got his way, but the Atmospheric Missile was his ultimate weapon. Rangda are not the only ones who give unassuming names to nightmarish weapons. The Imperium of Mankind used the Modalis pattern sparingly, because its innards carried arguably the worst weapon constructed by Martian hands. Phosphex, the crawling death. The ignorant and willfully ignorant might assume Phospex is as its name implies a phosphorus weapon. Which is true to an extent. The engineered microorganisms that make up Phosphex excrete White Phosphorus in huge quantities. Engineered microorganisms combining the darkest bio-sorcery and replicator arts available to humanity. Phosphex is as the few living witnesses of the weapon describe it, alive.

It is a designed creature akin to the amoeba, that eats through virtually any material, particularly carbon-based elements. Producing a horrific miasma of Phosphorus, oxygen, heavy metals, and a few more exotic elements as a digestive bi-product. Phospex devours its prey, shitting out white-hot contaminated fire, and leaves nothing but death in its wake. The most ancient texts on the art of Replicating creations speak of "Newman's Alkahest" or the "Grey Death" Describing dreadful visions of ravenous machines eating entire worlds. A vision come to terrible life in the biological horror of Phosphex.

Master Fenj was certain if the Atmospheric Missile struck true, even the War-Moon might die. Now the problem was ensuring it was not intercepted by the Megastructures defenses. Fools and cowards suggest Exterminatus as the answer to every threat. As if habitable worlds were so common they are worthless. Even if that were true, nothing special protects a Torpedo carrying a weapon of Planet Killing over a Torpedo carrying mundane munitions. Weapons of Exterminatus could be intercepted or nullified, sometimes resulting in the destruction of their original wielder. An opportunity must present itself or be made. Something the Night Lords are very good at doing.

Another Cruiser was pulled from the void. Its shields sputtering like a guttering candle, turned off by stalker drones most likely. The War-Moon did not waste time, its weapon batteries ripping open the Cruiser with ease. The directed radiation cooked the ship's innards and burst it like burnt maize. Imperial ships were dying faster and faster. The returning Rangda Fleet joined the melee above the moon. That is not to say the battle was one-sided. The Night Lords fought with the ferocity of a cornered beast. Ripping apart War-barques and leaving trails of scabs across the War-Moon. Fenj and his brothers only needed to hold on for a little longer, until the final elements of the Resupply Fleet were safe. Then the secondary Battlegroup could join them and relieve some pressure.

As if some cruel god had heard the hopeful thoughts of the Expedition Fleets command staff. (and perhaps some did) The next disaster struck. Since the War-Moon's arrival, the level of ambient radiation in the Dyatlov-Rho system had been steadily increasing. Imperial analysts had assumed this was a side effect of wide-scale rad-weapon usage. Which was true to an extent, but not entirely the cause. The War-Moon's main weapon systems were warming up. Ironically the great Worm-Ships of the Rangda-Kindred cannot handle the War-Moons radioactive exhaust while in transit. Requiring its primary tool of death to be totally shut down during transport. A critical weakness, one the massive fleet of War-barques existed to counter.

A sudden and drastic spike in radiation erupted across the system. The War-Moon suddenly oozed with planet-sterilizing levels of radiation. It was like the guts of a million atomic reactors had been smeared over the megastructure in some parody of Haruspex. Such levels of radiation should have been crippling for whatever mechanisms making up the War-Moon, let alone its crew. Another impossible and terrible secret of the Rangda Kindred. The Imperium and humanity had long since stopped questioning the impossibility of things, only acknowledging their potential danger.

The radiation surge suddenly disapated as quickly as it came, the levels of Radiation across the system actually decreased dramatically for a moment. Like some great Wyrm preparing its fiery breath, the War-Moon held itself after its deep inhale before unleashing hell upon Dyatlov-Rho and the Night Lords. There was no time to respond, no time to react. One moment the void of Dyatlov-Rho was its usual ugly crimson and black. The next it was white with the afterglow of a god's wrath. A singular point on the War-Moon's surface had opened up, exposing eldritch machinery to the Void and unleashing its might. The Rangda had created an artificial relativistic jet. It was an energy weapon comparable to a natural Gamma Ray burst. For two seconds the War-Moon barred its exposed heart and vomited death. This weapon, this nightmare, what Imperial scholars would document as a "Corpse-Star Ignition '' had been aimed at the final elements of the resupply fleet and second battle group. Nothing remained of the Imperial ships, nor of the icy rock of a planet near them in the void. In fact the Gamma Ray Burst would continue on into the darkness between the stars. Eventually triggering a Supernova three hundred and twenty six years in the future.

Nearly a quarter of the Resupply Fleet and half of the Night Lords force was gone. Deleted from existence by a destructive force native to dying stars and black hole collisions. Even ships not hit by the Burst were damaged. The radioactive backscatter frying shields and machinery with contemptuous ease. A dozen Night Lord ships were reduced to dying hulks, crew burning and soon swarmed by Rangda attack craft. The small wasp-like xeno ships made sure to tag every slain Imperial vessel. Injecting them with Rangda attackers who would scavenge anything useful from it.

Screams filled the Vindication's bridge as crew unlucky enough to have witnessed the Gamma Ray Burst went blind. Fenj and his fellow Astartes were saved by their augments and helmet systems. But even they winced in pain as a needle of light rammed into their optic nerve. As the final streams of radiation and plasma faded, the situation across Dyatlov-Rho became clear. The great crimson clouds of cosmic detritus had been blown away. Half the system, the half the weapon had been fired at was pitch black. Heavily irradiated hunks of metal and stone spinning through the Void. Virtually every probe and scanning system the Imperials had was destroyed or overloaded. The blinding flash of a dying star had mortally wounded the Expedition Fleets Battlegroup.

Staring out into the Void, Chapter Master Fenj felt pieces of atemporal memory slide into place. Split-second tableau of destruction coming true before his eyes. His visions had shown him this, a glimpse of the madness the Rangda would unleash. This War-Moon was more than a mobile fortress world. It was a system killer. It was the type of weapon the Imperium dared not make, and destroyed when they could. This was not the first of such a weapon mankind and the Imperium had encountered. Aeldari Star Catchers had been dumped into a Black Hole after the raid on the Webway port of Tor'Divilia. The ruined hulks of horrific tools of the Iron War such as Sun Snuffers had faced similar fates, and anything capable of opening up a system sized Warp-rift was destroyed out of hand. The War-Moon was insane, utterly insane. Something no human could design or make, a tool of destruction beyond even the ken of Human malice.

Such a weapon was the very definition of overkill, nothing could withstand it and live. This was the type of tool meant to kill a god. Which is exactly what the Rangda intended. The pieces clicked into place for Fenj, the visions and Solomonari's actions. The Night Lords had sprung a trap meant for a Primarch. This War-Moon was an anomalous nightmare engine created solely to kill things that defy reality. It was a topic of morbid curiosity among the Legions, what could harm let alone kill a Primarch? Staring out at the marred void of Dyatlov-Rho, Fenj felt he could say with confidence that this unique and specialized War-Moon could do the job.

Grinding his teeth together, the Chapter Master made his decision. They could not win this fight. At least part of the Resupply Fleet had escaped and the Rangda trap had been sprung. Now the question was not if they would survive, but how useful their deaths would be. Tactical and sensor data was packed into an Arca-Tenebrae, a virtually indestructible and invisible cube of Adamantium. It was designed to survive virtually anything and be recovered by Imperial hands. After all the horrible luck the Night Lords had been dealt, maybe fortune would keep the Arca-Tenebrae from Rangda hands.

With those measures in place Fenj opened a fleet wide Vox hail. Even a Lord of the Night found it unbecoming to initiate a suicide mission without some fanfare. "Citizens and Soldiers of the Imperium. We face a foe we cannot defeat, our mortal lives are coming to an end. I will not mince words or speak in half-truths. Death is coming and we must all face it together. Pull your minds from the future and the weakness of fear. Know what we do here today will not be without purpose. It is our duty to fight and die so others might live. Every moment we hold the Xeno curs off, every drop of their blood we spill, buys mankind time and resources to survive. We will prevail against this threat, that is certain. But a cost must be paid, one I am loath to ask but must. Children of Sol, only in death does duty end, and our duty reaches its terminus."

Silence, cut only by the sounds of battle, filled the fleet. This was not a speech to be celebrated or applauded. It told the truth and offered morbid hope that life would not be wasted, only spent. There was no mutiny, mass-hysteria or other weaknesses. Desperation and the certainty of death hardens any soul. The battle continued, with blade, bolt and blood the Imperium struggled against the Xeno horrors. Ships died in droves, the Tyrannos Umbra finally succumbing to its invaders, overloading its plasma drive as a final act of defiance. The orbit of the War-Moon was thick with wrecks. Both Imperial and Rangda filled the void as the battle raged.

Fenj had hoped the War-Moon might sleep after its deadly attack. Thankfully it did not fire its Corpse-Star Ignition, but all of its systems were fully online. Storms of munitions poured off the War-Moon. Bolts of Necrotic power, Radiation waves, Gravitic pulses, Attack Crafts, and streams of liquid flesh-plastic killed ship after ship. The moment of truth was at hand, the Night Lords were quickly running out of bodies to delay the Rangda megastructure and fleet. A decision was made, they could not wait for an opening, one must be made. Normally such a requirement would be met by Astartes drop pods and Stormbirds, delivering Angels of Death to key targets, letting them strike as Space Marines ought. The Rangda orbital defenses made such an attack virtually impossible. Numbers, overwhelming firepower or trickery would be needed to punch through the radiation beams and flesh-plastic gobbits spat into the void. Naturally the Night Lords would use all three options.

Officially what Master Fenj ordered, the crew of the Vindication to prepare for was called "Ultra-Massive Rapid Planetary Insertion" But nicknamed by the few fleet officers familiar with the maneuver "Falling Skies." And further colloquially known among those about to use the maneuver as "What the Fracking Shit?" Under Fenj's order the Vindication would crash land into the War-Moon.

Power diverted to gravity compensators and shields, the Vindication pulled away from its fellows in the Imperial fleet. Giving only an order to cover their rear as they moved. To an observer it at first would look like the Strike Cruiser was running, attempting to use the War-Moon's gravity well to slingshot to safety. A skilled Voidsmen would quickly recognize the angle was too low and the momentum slower than needed. Easy errors that could occur in the heat of battle, but costly ones to make. The Vindication screamed through low-orbit, riding the pull of gravity and its own momentum. Its shields and speed protecting the ship from rapidly refocusing enemy defenses. Moving with speed unnatural to such a low-orbit the Strike Cruiser fell as it flew forwards. It's belly parallel to the rapidly approaching War-Moon's surface.

All across the Vindication crew braced with anything they could. Shock-couches, impact drugs and prayers to half forgotten gods of Old Earth being common methods. It did little good when the Night Lord flagship started to clip into the tallest spires on the War-Moon. Smashing apart biomechanical towers like trees in a forest. Metal screamed and flesh-plastic cracked as the Vindication bottomed out, smashing its belly onto the surface of the War-Moon. Momentum carried it forward as the Strike Cruiser left a trail of devastation and its own innards. Scraping across the War-Moon like a skipping stone. Tearing a shallow canyon into the pasty meat of the Megastructure. For a hundred kilometers the Vindication cut its path before finally stopping. Its hull ripped open and armor cracked. Nestled in a furrow of biomechanical tissue the size of a large hill.

Much of the mortal crew was injured, many dead. Still those that could stay at their posts did. It was expected and they would not be found wanting, even as death came calling. The Vindication was not the only Imperial ship to engage in this act of wrathful self-harm. Battle Cruiser Wrathful Black had smashed itself into the War-Moon's far side. It carried nearly half of the Night Lords complement of Exterminatus weapons, holding a Virus Bomb and Cyclonic Torpedo. Both ships, Vindication and Wrathful Black would detonate their weapons. Doubling the chances of killing the War-Moon. All while the remaining Night Lord ships bought the crashed vessels time to work.

After everything the Rangda had done, every impossible act, every unimaginable Xeno horror, Chapter Master Fenj was not going to leave things to chance. Surface level detonation of multiple Exterminatus class weapons should be able to kill anything, this was not a situation for "shoulds" The Night Lords were going to jam the planet-killing weapons into the War-Moons innards and then twist the proverbial knife. Time was not on their side, Rangda forces were already approaching the canyon carved by the Vindication. Swarms of Slave Soldiers accompanied by Rangda Warriors and larger yet unidentified threats.

Every working weapon system on the Vindication was armed and prepared. Forces of Astartes and Voidsmen assembled, preparing to turn the ship into a fortress. Shields were taking time, the impact had overloaded many of them and power was being diverted for another task. Like most Astartes ships the Vindication came equipped with bombardment weaponry. Special care had been given to ensure the primary Bombardment Cannon of the Night Lord ship survived the impact. A Cannon now prepared to fire a Magma Torpedo at point blank range into the War-Moon's crust.

Like muffled thunder the Bombardment Cannon roared, launching the magnetically accelerated super-heated projectile straight down. Instantly destroying the Cannon and rocking the beached Voidship. Toxic fumes poured out of the impact site as the Magma Torpedo burned its way through the fleshy plastic of Rangda construction. Clouds of acrid smoke billowed up from below the Vindication and formed a miasma around the wrecked ship. The Torpedo was designed to burrow through enemy fortifications and burn away defenses. So far it was working reasonably well, it just fell to the Night Lords to defend until the Torpedo had finished its digging.

The War-Moon's atmosphere was surprisingly thick for such a small planetoid. Energy shields and the constant discharge from the War-Moon's own internal workings formed a heavy layer of gas that glowed with the telltale flickers of electricity and ionizing radiation. By no means breathable, existing most likely by accident or to aid heat exchange, the pseudo-atmosphere could carry sound. Screams, shouts, roars and more hideous warbles carried through the air. Audible even over the roar of the Torpedo melting its way into the War-Moon was the cries of the Rangda defenders.

Wasp fighter craft flitted about on turbines and ion thrusters, observing the Vindication through beady eyes, dotting the insectoid hull. Transmitting data to far off Alien masters who orchestrated battle like a game. The first wave to crest the canyon lip was the slave soldiers. A living tide of possessed flesh driven forward by Neural Collars bolted into their nervous system. From three directions, port, starboard and bow they came. Charging down the still smoking slope of the impact canyon, firing shadow blasters wildly and screaming constantly. The strange series of tubes snaking out of the slave soldiers mouth and throat protected them from the toxic atmosphere but still let the piloted meat wail in pain.

Anti-air turrets and jury-rigged las-cannon mounts poured fire off the Vindication. Ripping open scarlet crater in the Rangda lines, holes quickly filled by the constant press of bodies. Servitors and Cargo haulers worked quickly, turning hangers and storage bays close to the War-moon's surface into makeshift forts. Rapidly roused war-machines and stacked cargo-crates made strange bedfellows as Imperial defenders worked to prepare the Vindication for a type of warfare it was never meant to see.

The damage across the Vindication was severe, much of its stored terrestrial weaponry had suffered in the Void battle or impact. A single flight of Land Speeders had been salvaged to aid the Anti-Air guns and scout the surrounding area. Tanks and some artillery had fared better. Enterprising Tech-Priests had turned ripped open sections of hull into murder-holes large enough for Imperial artillary to fire through. Across the ruined starship a thousand acts of ingenuity and heroism went unrecorded. No monuments would be built in their honor, no sagas sung beyond a mourner's dirge. Cowardice, panic and shock did not grip the mortal crew as one might expect. They stood strong and did what mankind required of them.

Death itself does not drive men and women into blind panic. Death is an old friend we must all eventually acquaint ourselves with. Uncertainty, pain and fear are what break mortal minds. A weakness every horror in the cosmos seeks to use against humanity. One that the Master of Mankind had long hoped to excise from his species. The Corpse on the Golden Throne had used Faith to free mankind, by shackling them with even greater chains. Originally the Emperor had hoped to use the zeitgeist of his Crusade to unify humanity under an aegis of perceived invincibility. Invincibility that might become real if none dared pause long enough to test it. Neither method proved perfect, but both held an element of something greater. Citizens of the Imperium were commanded to have faith, not in a god, or even the Emperor, but in humanity itself. The seed planted onto a half-mad Psyker Saint on Luna decades ago was growing.

The brave mortal crew of the Vindication did not fight and struggle for the attention of some distant god, or for their own survival. They fought so others would not suffer. They fought because those beside them fought. They fought for a future they would not see but a future worth fighting for. Fighting and dying for a dream older than civilizations, and more powerful than any weapon. The dream of a better universe, one where mankind might not just survive, but thrive in. When the Astronomicon lit upon the Hollow Mountain it shared this dream to all in its light. The Imperator's will spread out across the galaxy and subjugate all before it in the name of a dream.

Noble hearts and sturdy souls prepared themselves for the coming tide. The Rangda slave soldiers pushed forward, scuttling insectoids the size of Equines accompanying them. Organic gun-carriages mounted with heavier Shadow Blasters and Shield Generators. Protecting the densest packed throngs of slave soldiers from Imperial fire. The sound of thundering guns and screaming meat formed a steady cacophony only broken by the warbling cry of great battle beasts cresting the canyon top. A War-Moon like any mobile battlestation is meant to spearhead any military task force. It was capable of hosting the soldiers and weapons needed to wage interstellar warfare. Assets the Rangda could now unleash with impunity seeing as the Vindication having delivered itself right onto the War-Moon's surface.

Hulking quadruped war beasts/machines settled on the canyon's heights. Easily the size of a Baneblade, the Rangda warforms took position. Physically similar to a beast of burden or great simian, walking on armored knuckles and covered in milky-white armor. The trademark heptapod limb structure of the Rangda manifesting in four over-muscled legs, two long manipulator tentacles bursting from its side and a colossal tubular structure sticking out its back. It lacked a head of any noticeable form, slits in the armor between its forelimbs, holding sensory organs and feeding tendrils. The massive Rangda-things were covered in incredibly thick exoskeletons, forming bulbous plates of bone that had been carved with eye-watering patterns of unknown significance. In the coming years the trademark warble of this beast/machine and its kin would strike fear in Imperial soldiers. Signifying the arrival of Rangda Osseivores.

Some of the Vindication's weapons turned on the Osseivores, but the oncoming horde of slave soldiers fulfilled its purpose and kept Imperial guns turned away from the true threat. The tentacular manipulator limbs of the Osseivores were capped by boney claws that could rip open metal or crush unfortunate enemy infantry. Something other breeds of Osseivore specialized in, with blending whips of serrated flesh-plastic, or huge dual-limb claws armored enough to withstand point blank Lascannon fire and strong enough to rip apart Knight-Walkers. These Osseivores were woven together for a different role. As one the line of biomechanical Tank-things plunged their manipulators into the waxy surface of the War-Moon. Acting as traction spikes, giving leverage and stability for the Osseivore as it rested on its carapace-covered haunches. The stance required for an biomechanical artillery platform.

The great tubular structure growing from the Osseivore's back combined elements of spinal column, rail gun, digestive tract and a traditional kinetic weapon barrel. Capable of mounting different weapon systems as needed. These particular Osseivore's were equipped with tools of destruction unlike most anything else the Xeno used. Batteries of great boney spikes. Each at least five meters long and a meter across at its widest point. Mega javelins launched through acrid combustion and squeezed muscles. The Bone Balsistas fired practically silently, a slight crack and the sound of displacing atmosphere they only noise made. Another unique property of the War-Moon's gaseous covering was a drastic increase in the sound barrier. No rumble of guns or boom of displaced air accompanied the Osseivore's bombardment. Just quiet death in the shape of carved bone.

Still overtaxed by the firing of the Magma Torpedo, the Vindication's shields were in no position to deflect the oncoming barrage, a few lucky gouts of flak knocked some from the sky, but the vast majority struck their target. Tearing metal and puncturing the Strike Cruisers hull. Before the first wave of Bone Bolts struck, the second was in flight. In minutes the warship's hull was covered in thousands of jagged spines. Giving the vessel the impression of a great seabeast who'd earned an urchin's ire. Ion and void shields were quickly restored, muting the bombardment and initial damage checks started. The blindly fired spines had not struck anything crucial, barely piercing the ship's armor. Still, the Rangda had proved that paranoia is a virtue. Bulkheads were sealed shut and regions of the ship close to the impact were evacuated.

Back on the surface of the War-Moon the Imperial defenders from their crude fortresses faced the oncoming swarm of slave-soldiers and other Rangda chaff. Boltguns, las weapons and every other available form of missile weapon fired into the tide. Blasting apart slave-soldiers and wounding others. Those knocked down were quickly trampled by the sheer momentum of the charge. Rangda Warriors and Constructs slinked through the slave-soldier army, using it as shield and sword. The newly restored shields of the Vindication kept the worst of the Shadow Blasters, Necrotic Beamers, and Rad Bolts from the Imperials. But the charging Rangda force would soon cross the shields, this battle would become a close quarter brawl in moments.

Meanwhile the Magma torpedo continued its steady descent into the War-Moon's crust. Burning slowly, like through layers of bedrock, occasionally opening up strange alien chambers and tunnels which were quickly sealed shut by the semi-living material of the War-Moon. Time was running out, other more proactive Osseivores and unknown Cerabvore warforms were entering the battle. More traditional artillery pounded on the Strike Cruisers shields, and Wasp-craft flitted closer and closer every passing moment, pushing back Imperial Land Speeders and flak defenses. The Night Lords had decided on a plan for Exterminatus, and were reaching the critical moments.

When the battle for the Hangers and exterior of the ship was lost the Virus Bomb would be activated. The Tech-Priests did not know how effective the Life-Eater would be against the strange biomechanical creations of the Rangda, but they had to try. Once the Virus Bomb was detonated, the Astartes would need to act quickly. Deploying the Cyclonic torpedo into the shaft created by the Magma Torpedo and cracking open the accursed Alien Megastructure. Ideally both Vindication and Wrathful Black, the two crashed Night Lord ships would detonate their payloads at the same time but that was unlikely. Still the two attacks would keep the Rangda busy and ensure the final knife went unnoticed. The Final Knife, a stratagem named after an infamous quote of Konrad Curze.

"I use three blades when I kill. One the Enemy knows about. One the Enemy does not know about. And one my allies don't know about. Nobody expects the final knife until it's already sheathed in someone"

The earlier sortee by the Landspeeders had done little, only mildly helping the flak screen and not gathering any particularly useful data. But it had provided a distraction for another craft to escape the battle. A midnight clad Stormbird, midnight clad in both coloration and ability. The miniaturization of inverted void shields had proved possible but not particularly cost-effective. Normal stealth tech usually proved sufficient for craft smaller than a few kilometers. That being said, a few experimental air transports had been built. With the full range of Night Lord stealth equipment, and inverted Void Shields installed. One of that rare and eclectic craft had been part of the Vindication's compliment and now embarked on a suicide mission of grim importance. It carried a handpicked force of Astartes and the warhead to the Expedition Fleet's Phospex Torpedo.

Location: Star Cloak, Experimental Night Lord Stormbird

Date: 893.M30 (Four Hours since departure from the Vindication)

Four squads of Astartes, almost a demi-Company, had been tasked with delivering the Crawling Death to the Xeno nest. Their orders were simple: get the Phosphex as close to the War-Moon's "mouth" as possible. While Xeno engineering, particularly Rangda defied reason, a few basic tenets must apply. When the Megastrucutre had obliterated the Resupply Fleet's stragglers, it had opened up and spat death, unleashing energies even the greatest minds of Mars would fail to shackle. Such a mechanism would require delicate and unique mechanisms that would tolerate the presence of Phospex poorly. Of course it would not be unguarded, the Rangda Kindred had proved themselves no fools. This was a suicide mission within a suicide mission, a fact the Night Lords took grim humor with. Naming the adhoc formation "Martyr Company"

Martyr Company, composed of some of the most viciously pragmatic killers the Imperium kept. Flying across the animated corpse of a World carrying one of the foulest weapons of human construction. Yes, that suited the Night Lords perfectly, and who was to judge, that was their job after all? So Martyr Company aboard the Star Cloak Stormbird shot across the skies of the War-Moon. Avoiding circling packs of Wasp Fighters, and attempting to navigate the surreal megastructure's surface.

No human mind could rightfully understand the shifting fleshy landscape that wheeled past the Stormbird. Boney towers dotted with polyp growths and rubbery tubing stretched skyward. Moving across the wrinkled and twisted "ground" like Icebergs drifting in some eldritch ocean. Something was always moving, constructed organisms skittering over plastic field, migrating tumor hills, the opening and shutting of gas-spewing orifices, and rarely the surfacing of Rangda war-forms. Literally pulling themselves out of the Planetoids surface like the Chthonic afterbirth of some dead god. The shifting surface, high radiation levels and the requirements of running quite limited the Star Cloak's eyes. Thankfully they had not been noticed and there was no indication they would be unless a Xeno literally ran into them. Not an impossible thing across the wriggling skies of the War-Moon.

They were making good time, only having to change course twice to avoid Wasp Construct swarms and a rubbery worm creature the size of a land-train drifting slowly through static-charged clouds of gas. Cogitator predictions would have them reaching the ideal landing site in short order. From there things would get considerably more difficult. Powerful energy fields encircled the Corpse-Star Ignition's "barrel" A circular scab near the War-Moons equator as wide as an Imperial Cruiser is long. The few scans they could get backed up a hypothesis of the Mechanicum, such a deadly weapon could not be used without a price. Having burned and rad-blasted the surface into a sheet of polished mineral. Turning even the extraordinarily radiation resistant Rangda flesh-plastic into a barely congealed mass of cooling pseudo-graphite. The Stormbird could not pass the shield easily, and would likely trip alarms. The Astartes moving on the surface with the aid of a Librarian would have a better chance.

Librarian Zlatko was no Solomonari, the Precognitive gifts of his Legion had never dominated him like so many of his Brothers in the Librarius. Part of the reason Fenj selected him as Astartes Psyker on this mission. The Solomonari had lost much respect in the Chapter Master's eyes. The other reason was Zlatko's unnerving talent for truly creative battle-psyking. Another thing about the Night Lords the wider Imperium did not know and was honestly better off not knowing. The VIII Legion boasted creative and artistic talents kin to the Phoenix Blades and Dawn Angels. Skills that were put to use in morbid and terrible ways. Witnesses to the Night Lords "art" found it stomach-churning and awe-inspiring. Images dredged up from the mythological Old Hells and unleashed on the worst type of monsters. Justice after all required punishment, something the Night Lords excel at.

Captain Rusya of the Second Company of Chapter 189 would be leading the Martyr Company, the relatively young officer had earned his marks leading daring counter-raids against the Slaugth, if anyone could adapt and respond to new Rangda horrors it would be him. The Star Cloak would soon reach its destination and Captain Rusya went through final checks. They had Thirty Four Battle Brothers, Five Terminators, a Librarian and a truly terrible bomb. A grav-sled would be used to transport the Phosphex Warhead, surrounded by the Terminators, who would escort the cargo.

Soon the Stormbird dropped low, towards the edge of the pseudo-graphite expanse, a lip of sorts stuck up above the scablands, a cliff topped with jagged spines that arced with unknown energy currents. This would be the first barrier they would need to breach. Rusya and Zlatko had conspired during the trip, forming a crude but hopefully effective plan. They needed to locate a Rangda and quickly and quietly capture them. An opportunity presented itself thanks to Zlatko's psychic senses. The curious half-blank, half-psyker aura of a true-born Rangda was not easy to find, but the Librarian was an Astartes, what was adversity but their raison d'être

A target soon came into psionic focus, a pair of Rangda Warriors half-merged with a nearby spire. The strange frequencies flowing to and from the small spire gave insight into what the Xeno's were doing. They were at a command post, transmitting and receiving orders and data. If they were not subdued quickly they might rouse the whole Xeno nest, least of which the entombed slave-soldiers buried in gelatinous coffins just below the War-Moon's surface near the spire. The Garrison to go with the two Rangda Warriors. They would be dealt with, nothing would spare them what was about to happen.

The thirty five Astartes of Martyr Company lept from the Stormbird, the Five Terminators and Phosphex Bomb staying aboard until they could be safely unloaded. Maneuvering jets and jump-packs let the descending Night Lords strike as they had hoped. Encircling the hab-suite sized spire and the two Rangda wired into its ossic surface by cables and hoses. Cloaked in the mechanical shadows of Mars, decades of training and instinct, along with Librarian Zlatko's warpcraft. They were undetectable until it was too late.

The first Rangda barely had time to surface from the fugue of connecting to the spire when its head was scooped from its shoulders. It had been a marvelous show of precision, speed, and teamwork. Two lightning claw-wielding Battle Brothers had gently but swiftly carved the Rangda free, severing dozens of strange connectors, hoping to at least slow any alarms. A Third Astartes drove a Power halberd down from above at an angle. Punching through the thick double shoulders of the heptapodic Xeno and into where its torso and head met. Leveraging the downward momentum to drive the spear through where a human might have a spinal column and major artery. The blow separated the lamprey-like tube of armored flesh the Rangda used as a head from its body.

The Catastrophic internal damage and decapitation would not "kill" the Rangda, merely break its war-form badly. With nutrients, replacement parts and time the Rangda Warrior could repair itself. Or more worryingly, disperse the viral clusters that made up its true being. Animated gobbets of puppetered flesh squirming away, ready to infect another victim. That chance could not be taken. Damaged badly enough to prevent an immediate response, the Rangda was pulled free of its nest and thrown bodily into the air. It was lighter than the Astartes expected, and they put more force in than necessary. It mattered little when Brother Orddot of the Destroyer Wing hit the soaring Rangda with a charged gout of Plasma while it was mid-air. Leaving only a cloud of ash where the Xeno had been.

The second Rangda did not require such a coordinated effort, just Astartes to guard Zlatko as he worked. The Librarian dropped down from the black void like the legendary Strigoi. Thrusting spindly claws of silvered metal into the Rangda's body and tendrils of psychic power into its mind. Working Warp-Craft of any kind on the Rangda would be difficult, their half-blank nature granting them protection. Zlatko could not peer into the Xeno's soul like he would virtually any other being, he had to find an alternative method. One he had helped design about a decade back while working aside Black Knight veterans of the Ceres Campaign. Bodies are but containers for souls, for the electrical impulses that effect existence in such a peculiar way. Normally a Psyker gripped the soul of a foe and manipulated it to effect their body. Theoretically the reverse was true, requiring creativity and an element of madness to work.

Giggling wildly to himself Zlatko started his messy work. Extending his senses through his psychic power and the imaging capabilities of his gloves. Finding the patterns of impulses that made up the Rangda. It was as Zlatko had expected, no singular neural mass like a brain, instead, a dispersal of Virions with super-cell properties throughout the nervous system. It would take Zlatko a bit to pull apart this curious mixture of meat and metal, ah well time dilation was an extremely practical psychic skill to master. Poking and prodding individual neural clusters, like an over-eager youth with a vivisected amphibian. Zlatko managed to form a rudimentary sense of how the Rangda Warrior worked. Enough for him to crudely puppet the flesh of the thing.

This effort was taxing, both mentally and spiritually, made worse by the naturally Blank state of Rangda neural tissue, forcing Zlatko to use more power than normal to effect the tissue. It took a few attempts but the Librarian eventually succeeded. Warping the messages and signals his Xeno puppet was sending back into the great biomechanical brain of the War-Moon. Turning the sudden Astartes assault into a piece of debris from the battle striking the "song-spire" as the Rangda called it. Debris that would need to be cleared and repairs were needed. As such, things would be passing through the barrier the spire helped maintain, and it was not an issue to be investigated.

Zlatko didn't know how convincing the message was, he had tried to stress the damage as being disorienting but fixable. Hopefully, that would cover any mistakes or missed cues. Perhaps the battles raging in the void and across the War-Moon would keep the labyrinthian intelligence of the Rangda busy. With those preparations, the Stormbird let off its cargo and took to the skies. It would be far too overt in the scab crater and would attract unwanted attention if it skulked around nearby. Anyway a return trip was not exactly needed, the Star Cloak would head towards the Wrathful Black and provide any aid for the other beached ship. Leaving Martyr Company to the task ahead.

Fully assembled the Night Lords made it down the steep cliff and into the rad-blackened flesh-plastic covering the Rangda's most insidious weapon. It took a little effort to get the Terminators and grav-sled down the sharp incline. The built-in descent thrusters of the Armor-Skeletons were nearly entirely used up, preventing the bulky armor from crashing into the ground. And one of the two Tech Marines assigned to the mission had made some crude modifications for the sled, it didn't have to be pretty, just get the job done.

It had been close to a Terran day since the Corpse Star Ignition had ripped through the Void, still the radiation levels in the scablands were obscene. Extra protection had been hurriedly added to Martyr Company's armor. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep them functioning longer, but even after only a few moments at the edge of Ground Zero the taste of metal filled the mouths of every Astartes. The Emperor's Space Marines can survive the worst the galaxy has to offer, but not even they could face the power of a ruptured star and live. All that was left for Martyr Company was to get the Phosphex Warhead as deep into the scablands as possible and if they could maybe pop off a few Melta bombs to punch through the pseudo-graphite crust and help the Phospex along.

Gazing out at the polished black expanse Librarian Zlatko broke the grim silence that had settled over the Night Lord. "Alright then, let's hurry this up then. Never thought I would die to an exterminatus weapon, figured a Neverborn would eat its way out of my guts eventually. Ah well, let's best get this over with Brothers."

With that the Librarian set off, stalking across the pseudo-graphite steppe keeping his senses peeled for anything coming. After a few steps he stopped, considered a moment, and spoke again. "Frak it, we're all going to die anyway. Brother Luka I was the one who swapped out the Air Filters before the Drop on Vishi-2, you had annoyed me and figured it would be funny. Brother Vitomir, you are perhaps the dumbest Astartes I have had the misfortune of meeting, I hope I don't die before you. Sergeant Arseni, I helped Brother Milomir beat you in that duel three years back."

For a moment a pregnant silence filled the vox channel before the near entirety of Martyr Company burst out laughing. The mad cackles of dead men finding some humor in their end. The laughing continued for a solid five minutes before Captain Rusya brought it to an end. Even he found it funny, but they had a job to do. The laughter continued for a few moments more after Rusya's call to cease and the Captain sighed and spoke: "I suppose if anyone else feels the need to unburden themselves in such a crude manner they might as well. Anything else you care to enlighten us with Zlatko?"

Underneath his helm the Librarian gave a sad little smile and responded: "Yeah, once you are dead, head for the blinding light and don't listen to what the shadows say. It'll burn like a Sumpfire for a bit but beats the alternative, Death isn't always the end of Duty."

With that cryptic remark Martyr Company continued their trek. Exchanging spiteful confessions, finding humor and comfort in each other as they went to their deaths. They were exposed out on the Black flats and any enemy patrol or scan would pick them up. The radiation that cooked the Night Lords alive seemed to prevent any meaningful surveillance by the Rangda. Or perhaps even these twisted Xenos considered what Martyr Company was attempting far too mad to even attempt. Either way they continued unmolested, a constant string of Stim injections and the occasional Revitaliser kicking in keeping the Night Lords moving.

They made good time and simply followed the Giger Counter, going deeper and deeper into the scablands. When the first Astartes fell, his blood vessels popping open like torn tubing, Captain Rusya decided they had traveled far enough. After giving the crippeled Brother the Emperor's Mercy, the Astartes got to work. A melta-drill would be used to punch through the outer layer of the Pseudo-Graphite and then the Phosphex would be detonated. Rusya would pull the trigger and he left it up to his men how they wanted to die. A few engaged in honor duels, some gave their favored weapons a final use. Some like Zlatko were content to wait until the Crawling Death devoured them.

Shortly after the melta-drill burned itself out the ground shook, a cataclysmic shockwave cracked the rad-blackened ground. Even in the strange atmosphere of the War-Moon the noise was deafening, a wall of force powerful enough to deafen or even kill the unprotected. It seemed either the Vindication or Wrathful Black had gotten to use their own weapons. With new urgency the Phopsex torpedo was prepared. Soon a wave of dust and debris was visible on the Horizon, the more physical effect of whatever detonation had just occurred. It would soon crest the Canyon and be on them quickly. A Great swirling Haboob of grey dust and splintered flesh-constructs.

Zlatko simply watched it come, hearing a telltale click and hiss behind him. A geyser of green fog spat out of the Phospex Warhead. For a few precious seconds the Crawling Death was simply spat into the atmosphere, injected into the atmosphere and carried by the winds like some hellish volcanic eruption. Then it started its grizzly work, everything it touched burned. The surface of the War-Moon started to be devoured by a technorganic horror of mankind's own creation. As the first flames started to creep through his armor's seals. Zlatko whispered a quite defiant curse to the Rangda. "Eat shit and die Xeno"

Location: The Vindication, Night Lord Strike Cruiser crashed into the Rangda War-Moon

Date: 893.M30 (Moments after the Detonation)

The Wrathful Black was dead. Consumed in a massive blast. A devastating explosion, but the wrong kind. Sensors all across the Vindication's bridge all told the same story. That was not a Cyclonic Torpedo or misfired Virus Bomb. Something had burst open the Wrathful Black's Plasma Core and destroyed the ship before it could trigger its weapons.

The Vindication was holding on, its defenses keeping back the Rangda, even as the Bone Bolts fired into its hull revealed their true nature. A form of bizarre Rangda boarding craft that had disgorged Stalker-Drones and a slew of microscopic invaders into the ship's hull. Astartes' kill-teams and liberal use of jellied Promethium had so far kept the invaders at bay. The Flagship of the Expedition Fleet would not be destroyed like the Tyrannos Umbra. Crippeled and gutted, waiting for the Rangda to feast on its innards. Instead, it faced death by a thousand cuts. The number of bodies the Rangda could throw at the beached void ship was staggering.

Waves of enslaved flesh that soaked up bullets meant for more important targets. Lingering contamination of both Radioactive and Biological nature mounted everywhere the Rangda fought. Every weapon used, even the stolen bodies of the slave soldiers left a stain. Combined with the near constant attempts at infiltration and the heavier War-Forms assault, it was only a matter of time before the make-shift Imperial fortress fell. Chapter Master Fenj and his subordinates understood this, it mattered little. They just had to delay a bit longer, the Cyclonic Torpedo would be ready soon.

Fenj itched to join the melee that had started in the outer edges of his ship. Sink his lighting claws into the enemy and die properly. A privilege the chains of command would deny him. He would orchestrate the battle from within his ship's bridge. Currently, the Night Lord Master found his attention absorbed in every sensory array he had access to. Barking orders for an explanation to what had killed the Wrathful Black. Had its defenders fallen before its Exterminatus weapons could be activated? Grimly Fenj ordered the ship's Virus Bomb to be put on a timer and Dead Man's Switch. At least one of their tools of Planet-Death would go off.

An answer to the mystery of the Wrathful Black's fate came as the three Librarians aboard the Bridge, all Solomonari, cried out a warning to brace for impact. More mundane sensors followed up, howling warning about something massive coming in fast. Flak guns turned skywards and shields screamed attempting to halt the oncoming attack. They did not have to, the hab-block-sized projectile came crashing down at the edge of the Vindication's shields. Reducing scores of unlucky slave soldiers to red paste. Red-hot and twisted, the hunk of metal took a moment to be identified. It was the Wrathful Black's bridge. The Void Ship's command center ripped out of its hull and tossed like the severed head of a defeated giant. Equal parts challenge and threat. The source of which soon came into view.

Even from his command throne, Master Fenj felt the coming storm. Heavy footfalls that shook the ground, monumental roars created by something more than flesh, and the presence. By the gods of Old Earth, the presence. An alien intellect of such magnitude its cursory attention could be felt. Something of psychic power so mighty it bled soul-crushing weight. Fenj had seen his Primarch furious once. He had also touched the truth of time itself through his geneseed's gift. This was worse, so, so, so much worse. Not necessarily more powerful than his Genefather, or as all-encompassing as fourth-dimensional awareness. Instead, it was sickening and crushing, the spiritual equivalent of the radiation that ate through flesh and metal. A soul so vast and twisted it leaked alien madness like a burst fusion reactor leaked death. The true might of the Rangda had finished with the Wrathful Black, and come for the Vindication

A parade of giants crested the canyon's top, coming into view, eldritch mountains of biomechanical horror added to the overloading presence. Each stood as tall as a Capital-class Titan, but were more massive, with quadrupedal stances and wriggling movement. Rangda Macrobeests, the pinnacle of the Xenobreed's skill of biomechanical engineering. Horrors that combined the worst of nature and innovation. Sewn together by the Basemekanic crafters, each a unique work of terrible alien genius. Nearly a dozen of them marched towards the Vindication, great ursine-insectoid bodies fused with pyramidal structures that glowed with eldritch power. Each of the Macrobeest a match for all but the greatest Imperial war-machine, and they were the escorts for the true horror.

The psychic presence belonged to something else, something that defied proper description. Like the nerves and blood vessels of a dead god stitched to the ruins of a monument. A bipedal form of flesh-plastic so dense it appeared stone-like, crackling with uncontained psychic power. Tendrils of blood/nerve/psychic power swirled around it, the evolution of the Warp-Glamor weapons favored by the Khrave and other psychic Rangda breeds. Fenj and his subordinates lacked the context to describe this…."thing" it was everything horrible and twisted that made up the Rangda and taken to the highest degree. This was a House-Lord, the demigod ruler and nexus of an entire segment of the Rangda kindred. One of the ancient horrors that nothing less than a Primarch with the backing of his legion and the Legio Titanicus might beat. In the coming years the Imperium of Mankind would learn a name for the thing that faced the battered scraps of Expedition Fleet-89. Opus Jorith, House-Lord of House Jorith and Architect of War-Moons.

To the Imperials it needed no name, they knew what it was. It was death, their death, come to snuff out their lives like it had billions before. The decision was not hard, Fenj gave the order, forcing it out through constricted lungs, tight from psychic pressure. "Activate the Virus Bomb and the Cyclonic Torpedo. Only in Death does Duty end."

Through some small miracle of will, the order passed down the tattered lines of command and a silent Tech-Priest enacted the cipher of death, freeing the Life Eater from its cage. The pathogen spread through the Vindication, devouring everything, falling upon Imperial defenders and Rangda attackers with equal hunger. Deep below the crashed Strike Cruiser the Cyclonic Torpedo detonated. Its activation rites rushed, but thankfully not botched. Two tools of planet-death ignited near simultaneously. Anti-Life reducing all it touched to gaseous sludge, crust-cracking explosives rushing up with the power to rip open a world's guts. Chapter Master Tiberiu Fenj did not know which one killed him.

Death poured towards the Rangda House-Lord devouring its armies and threatening to crack open its prized creation. Thousands of lesser Rangda screamed in panic as they died. Consumed by Life-Eater, Phospex, or the Cyclonic Torpedo's wrath. Soon the War-Moon would be burst open and riddled with Imperial planet-killers. The final desperate sacrifice of the Night Lords slaying an Alien megastructure.

No, This would not do, thought Opus Jorith. These arrogant Host-Beasts had ruined a trap meant for a godling. And now attempted to destroy the Star-Stealing-War-Moon, a unique creation created specifically to slay gods. Intimately connected to the Song of the War-Moon, the gestalt nightmare called Opus Jorith felt the touch of Phospex unleashed by Martyr Company alongside the Vindication's petty defiance. How annoying, amputation would be required, repairs would take cycles. How utterly annoying.

In the time between the Cyclonic Torpedo's ignition and before it could hit the alien demigod, it stepped through unreality and stood in the heart of its power. Watching the expanding shockwave and death through a million eyes, the House-Lord started minimizing the damage. Leaving its army to die without a second thought, there was always more meat to use. Reaching into itself Opus Jorith pulled up its stolen reserves of sorceric power and started to cut. This would cost maybe a planet's worth of stolen warp-conduits, costly but better than letting the Host-Beasts poison spread.

Moonquakes shook the alien Megastructure as cables, arteries and cavern systems burst open. An entire continent of the War-Moon separated from the rest of it. Like a reptile shedding diseased skin, or a crustacean leaving an insufficient shell, the War-Moon let part of its body fall off. Pushed off into the void by mundane propulsion and the telekinetic push of Opus Jorith. The War-Moon had survived, wounded but not badly. With part of its crust gone the inflamed twitching innards of the artificial planetoid were exposed to the void. Already milky fluids dribbled over the nation-sized wound. Sealing shut important systems and preparing for triage. The War-Moon would return to House Jorith holdings and be repaired. Its colossal bulk entered the Worm-Ship, trailed by hundreds of War-barques, dragging the ruined husks of Imperial ships, ready to be put to use by the Rangda Kindred.

Location: Jörmungandr: Flagship of the Wild Hunt Legion. Dyatlov-Rho system.

Date: 896.M30

The excised hunk of planet-flesh still burned. Three years later and the Phospex still gnawed away at the forgotten piece of the War-Moon. Left behind by the Rangda, some of the only evidence of a battle had even been fought in the Dyaltov-Rho system. Some particularly brave Tech-Priests wanted to investigate, braving the Crawling Death for possible insight into the enemy. Tyric Baldurson was impressed with their mettle, but would not risk it. Besides, the Wild Hunt did not have time to tarry. The trail was already cold, and grew as bitter as Fenrisian winds with every passing day.

It had taken three years but the Imperium had done it, waging a galactic-class campaign on two fronts. Five more Legions had been called to face the Rangda and aid the VIII and IX. Already Rangda incursions were being pushed back and the Eternal Guard, the XIV Legion had implemented a basic quarantine around suspected Kindred territory. The fighting had raged for months already and the Wild Hunt had earned a great tally of new honors and shames. So many worlds had fallen, any even touched by the Rangda needed to be purged. Entire systems of compliant humans put to the sword because of a strand of errant DNA. The markers of an alien threat the likes of mortal minds could barely comprehend.

Baldurson and his legion had gained some respite from the frontlines, dispatched on a mission of utmost importance by the Emperor himself. A mission that had taken them deep into Rangda territory. Dyatlov-Rho, and the surrounding Calaxis region had been swallowed up by the Rangda, its stars haunted by horrid alien nightmares. In this journey into the dying sector, the Wild Hunt had picked up a trail. Following the ruined remnants of lost Expedition Fleets. Resupply groups that had become stranded in Rangda space. Some had even survived to be rescued by the VI Legion, and a few of those had even been spared. Having tested free of Rangda taint.

The still-burning carnage of the Dyaltov-Rho system and the records recovered from Expedition Fleet-89's few surviving members painted a grim picture. One that Tyric Baldurson had been silently hoping would not be true. But now he was faced with the ugly truth. The trail was cold, there had not been any contact for nearly four years. The IX Legion, the Dawn Angels, and their Primarch Dante Uriael were missing in action.

(Edited by Klickator)

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