Count Dooku, apprentice to the Dark Lord of the Sith and head of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, was enjoying the beautiful view that opened from the balcony of his residence.
In his hands, the Count held a half-empty glass of red wine.
During his time as a Jedi, such worldly pleasures were foreign to him, but the Dark Side has its undeniable advantages.
Of course he felt it when the Force began to scream in pain.
And that sparked genuine interest in Darth Tyranus.
Right up to the last moment, events had unfolded strictly according to the plan his master had laid out.
Everyone in this galaxy danced to his tune.
Dooku suspected where this dubious path was leading in his own case, and the former Jedi was not thrilled by his suspicions.
All those skirmishes with the brat Skywalker held nothing good in store for the old Sith.
In the end, there was none of the warmth the Jedi were accustomed to in the relationship between master and apprentice.
Mortal enemies to each other, they merely waited for a favorable opportunity to strike a treacherous blow at the other’s back.
The cruel truth of the Rule of Two.
Nevertheless, the scream of the Force was not part of Darth Sidious’s plans.
Of course, this phenomenon could be yet another meaningless coincidence, but perhaps it would become that small pebble that ultimately brings down an entire mountain…
The ageless void of space on the periphery of an unnamed system began to stir.
Space and time themselves first heaved, then were roughly torn in two.
From the gaping wound in the body of the Universe poured an unnatural light, composed of a mad riot of colors unknown to mortals.
If there had been an outside observer, mad enough to look into the center of the anomaly, they would have seen, before going insane from the jumble of unnatural images, smells, tastes, and voices, a fleet of colossal ships emerging from the realm of madness.
The plasma tails from their engines could have shamed any star in brightness and temperature.
All of them, in contrast to the gleaming gold vessels of the Imperial Fleet, were painted only in black and red, and the only identifying marks that could be made out on their colossal hulls indicated belonging to an organization older than the Imperium of Man itself.
The Adeptus Mechanicus.
It was the fleet of Magos-Dominus Metritex-VI, who hailed from Stygia VIII.
For the last centuries, the venerable magos had devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of knowledge, taking on the role of an explorator.
However, malicious tongues whispered in Lingua-Technis that he had been forced to temporarily remove himself from political squabbling due to some conflict with the Fabricator-General.
The conflict involved a suspicious guest who had visited their planet not so long ago.
The guest introduced himself as a magos, an ambassador from a little-known forge world.
This stranger, from whom emanated an unnatural green glow, went on at length about partnerships, trade unions…
He passed off strange, suspiciously xenos-like technologies (in which Metritex-VI’s trained eye immediately recognized Necron mechanisms), all to win the Fabricator-General’s favor.
At that moment, Metritex-VI was walking through the corridors of his ark, the Spiritum Cognitionis.
The enormous hull of the ancient vessel, built shortly before the Horus Heresy, stretched for nearly sixteen kilometers; beneath multi-meter armor plating lay production capabilities capable of supplying entire fleets.
The capacity of its bottomless hangars was sufficient for repairing escort ships and transporting landing modules for the god-machines of the Collegium Titanica.
The ark’s main guns could crack lithospheric plates, and tens of thousands of anti-aircraft guns could wipe armadas of fighters and bombers off the face of a planet.
“Truly, this ship is the embodiment of the Mechanicus Cult’s aspirations,” Metritex thought, before beginning the process of disconnecting from the command throne.
With the edge of his consciousness, blessed by extensive augmentics, he heard an approving surge of binary cant emanating from the ancient machine spirit of the Spiritum Cognitionis.
However, when the magos straightened up on his numerous adamantium articulated limbs, he instantly focused on the surrounding reality and the analysis of information received from the fleet ships’ machine spirit augurs.
Data processing took 0.546 seconds, after which Metritex, for the first time since the translocation to the new Galaxy, deemed the results satisfactory.
From the very beginning, his secret mission, entrusted by the Fabricator-General, had had too many uncontrolled variables, forcing the cautious magos to take increasingly risky steps.
Joining the crusade, numerous battles against the servants of the Ruinous Powers in an attempt to earn trust.
The culmination was an attack on the forces of the Deathwatch and the Eldar with the task of seizing the main objective of the entire crusade — an ancient Aeldari artifact.
Metritex was barely a millennium old, and his databanks contained information on 1,479 examples of what could happen to those who attracted the attention of the Inquisition, especially by such extreme methods.
He would hardly have taken such a risk had he not received a direct order from his master: not to return without the artifact.
Archmagos Cairn Prime Zeta was not thrilled by the Fabricator-General’s flirtations with the suspicious stranger, and therefore decided to start his own game.
As if that were not enough, while the Warp Storm had nearly engulfed the crusade fleet, a fragmentary message came from the ship carrying his objective, stating that the object had begun to exhibit unplanned psi-activity.
After that, the magos was thrown into a completely different Galaxy; he reached this conclusion thanks to reports from Navigators and Astropaths, as well as more reliable star charts, righteous in the eyes of the Omnissiah, in which not a single match was found.
His theory was confirmed by an astropathic message from the other Imperial ships, which were currently gathering their scattered forces.
Having carefully considered the situation, Metritex decided not to link up with the fleet for now.
He knew well that the cold, mind-like void of space held many nightmares and dangers for his warp-battered ships, but he knew even better that in the viper’s nest of intra-Imperial politics, negotiations could only be conducted from a position of strength.
Before appearing before the other factions, he must have something they vitally needed.
Based on the psychoprofiles obtained of the fleet commanders, Metritex proposed that, with a probability of 89.568%, the command would decide to continue the campaign in order to unite the crusade’s forces and prevent a split in their own ranks.
The magos intended to use this weakness inherent in meat-based life forms for his own purposes.
However powerful the fleet might be, their war would not last long without ammunition for their macrocannons, spare parts for ship repair and maintenance, and equipment and weapons for the army.
Without a doubt, his ark could handle at least part of the fleet’s requirements, but the role of a raw material appendage, even in the name of the “common good,” did not suit the enlightened servant of the Omnissiah.
The solution was found quite simply: to create his own forge world.
Of course, he did not intend to build one from scratch on some pathetic lump of rock; even under optimal conditions, that would take centuries.
There was another way — to capture an already existing one.
There were surely shipyards in this Galaxy, and ones similar to those built by the followers of the Machine God.
Except perhaps not blessed by the machine spirit, for it was unlikely the local meat-sacks knew the concept of serving the God-Machine.
His conviction was confirmed by facts.
The shifting currents of the Warp had deposited his fleet at the site of a recent battle.
Around the adamantine bulk of a wounded Strike Cruiser, belonging to the Flesh Tearers chapter, drifted the much smaller, mangled hulks of unknown vessels.
The Stygian had encountered and subsequently studied xenos-tech more than once or twice, but these samples did not belong to any xenos race known in existing databases.
When the magos managed to make contact with the cruiser, he was able to find out something about what had happened: it turned out the attackers were human, but the magos could not learn any further details.
Communication on the Flesh Tearers’ ship had finally ceased working.
At the last moment, they had managed to agree on negotiations aboard the damaged vessel.
When Metritex exited the command bridge, the monumental two-meter-thick armored door, made of pure adamantium, closed behind him.
In the spacious corridor, junior tech-priests, fortress workers, and dull-witted servitors scurried here and there, working three shifts at an accelerated pace, patching up damage — wounds inflicted on the ancient ship by the fury of the Immaterium.
None of the slaves looked up from their work as the master scuttled past.
Of course, the vast majority of them possessed no will of their own.
Metritex valued productivity above counter-effective banalities.
His path led to the hangar: he had decided to be present at the negotiations in person.
The magos was fully aware of the potential danger; he had enough connections to know about the unstable state of the sons of Sanguinius.
Especially these particular heirs of the IX Legion.
However, in this case, personal presence was the optimal solution.
Space Marines highly valued face-to-face negotiations, and the magos’s absence could wound their pride and arouse unnecessary suspicion.
Which, in the case of this particular chapter, could lead to undesirable consequences.
Three modified Thunderhawks — modified to the very edge of what other forge worlds might brand as the most heinous tech-heresy — painted in the classic red colors of Mars and adorned with the symbols of Stygia VIII, flew into one of the few functioning hangars.
From the first two side craft, Skitarii poured out, assessing the situation.
The light flickered in places; there were traces of fires here and there; the walls bore marks from claws and bolts; on the floor lay shreds of rotting flesh and puddles of dried blood.
But the void shield generator was working properly, and the atmosphere was breathable.
Most people would have been disgusted by such a sight, but the beings gathered in the hall were not in the least perturbed.
The doors of the central hatch hissed open; Skitarii also emerged from there, armed with shields incorporating a distortion field generator and power mauls.
Following them came the Magos-Dominus Metritex-VI himself.
The dim light revealed his enormous figure.
Thanks to advanced augmentics, his height exceeded two meters, approaching the dimensions of an Astartes, yet the figure itself seemed hunched, and therefore somewhat frail.
From beneath his black mantle with a red, tooth-shaped border, small patches of uncovered flesh were visible (the last strongholds of a decrepit body on the path to enlightenment).
His right, fully augmented arm held a massive power axe, shaped like the cult’s characteristic half-gear.
The lower part of the magos’s face was a solid mask with an installed vox-grille, while the upper part, hidden in the shadow of his hood, was crowned with a scattering of dimly glowing green lenses.
The servant of the Omnissiah was already awaited by two dozen Astartes in black-and-red power armor of Mk 7 and Mk 10 patterns.
The tech-priest’s gaze did not miss the fact that traces of blood still remained on them in places, and the damage had been hastily and rather roughly patched up.
Metritex-VI, accompanied by his Skitarii, approached the Space Marines, who stood frozen like statues of gods of war.
“I greet you, valiant sons of Sanguinius.
My name is Magos-Dominus Metritex-VI of Stygia VIII.” The words in the despicable language of flesh came to the magos quite easily, despite a long silence.
A Primaris stepped forward from the Astartes rank.
“It is pleasant to see a servant of the God-Machine instead of the accursed servants of xenos-bastards,” the Space Marine nodded briefly.
“I am Lieutenant Cleomenes Agonius of the 4th Company, Flesh Tearers.
I welcome you aboard the Malice of Cretacia.” The officer’s expression and voice were neutral and restrained.
“I suggest we get straight to business.” The magos approved of this approach.
He valued brevity.
“Affirmative.
But before we proceed to discuss the terms of the deal, I must inform you that we are no longer within the bounds of the Imperium.” The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow.
“What does that mean?
Where did the warp rift throw us?
The Halo Stars?” “According to the data from our Astropaths and Navigators, confirmed by my own observations of the stars, we can say with high confidence that we are in another Galaxy.” “Is that so…” Contrary to his calculations, the Flesh Tearer remained calm.
Metritex could not read the facial expressions of his brothers, as their faces were hidden by helmets, but the partially machine mind of the ancient tech-priest was able to detect the slightest change in their stances.
“I won’t say this news is entirely unexpected.
My brothers conducted several…
interrogations of the rabble that attacked us.” Metritex suspected what kind of interrogations those had been.
Suddenly, he was seized by a curiosity he thought had long been left in the past, along with the weakness of the flesh.
How many of those wretches were currently being digested in the Astartes’ digestive tracts?
Indeed…
Although the secrets of Astartes biology were jealously guarded, the pursuit of knowledge knows no barriers, and he knew perfectly well what the omophagea was responsible for.
“Magos Metritex, we require your assistance with repairing our vessel,” the Space Marine suddenly changed the subject to a more productive one.
“Almost all the tech-priests and most of the crew were slaughtered by the Unborn; the remaining ones are now busy fighting for the survivability of the Malice of Cretacia, but there are too few of them for such work.” “We will allocate you resources and specialists, Lieutenant.
But in return, you must assist us with navigation and support us in the war against the natives.” “Assist with navigation?” The Space Marine arched an eyebrow questioningly.
“But we don’t even have a Navigator — I personally shot him with my bolter when a demon possessed his body.” “We did not come to your ship by chance, Lieutenant.
The Navigators and Astropaths of my fleet registered a zone of relative calm in the Warp, surrounding a golden winged figure.
We believed you might be able to tell us more about this phenomenon.” For the first time during the entire conversation, surprise flickered across Cleomenes’ face and…
the magos had not communicated directly with people outside the Mechanicus Cult for a long time, but with 89.54% probability, it was hope.
“The Sanguinor…” The clone, nicknamed the Burned One, stood on the bridge of his ship, enjoying the darkness of space through the viewport glazing.
In his soul, born only for war, there was boredom.
Mixed with the boredom were despair and disappointment.
This was not what he had dreamed of after his first piloting lessons.
Not this at all…
Back then, on his first training flight in a fighter simulator, he had been struck by that endless blackness of space and the glitter of distant stars.
He wanted to visit every single one, standing proudly on the bridge of his own warship.
Dozens of space battles blossomed in the clone’s imagination, in which he led his faithful ship into combat.
It was no wonder he became the best in his batch.
The dream had partly come true, but the very first battle at Geonosis cut short the young pilot’s free flight.
His ship was shot down.
The last thing he remembered from that fight before the explosion was the scream of the ship’s captain, a former major of the Judicial Forces Corps: “Bastards!
Hit the afterburner!
For the Northern Fleet!
Forward and no looking back…” Few of the crew survived.
He was among them.
Unfortunately.
Clones were a thing back then, the property of the Order, and they were treated like “meat droids.” In hindsight, the Burned One thought it was quite deserved.
They knew too little about the Galaxy and the Republic.
They simply didn’t deserve any other treatment back then, so they were treated like droids, with all that entailed.
Yes, he had managed to avoid the fate of his brothers, and he wasn’t sent for disposal and subsequent disassembly for spare parts, but seventy percent burns put an end to his line service.
An excellent pilot and promising officer was simply written off to the Support Fleet, deemed that his disposal would be more expensive than his service.
From the outside, especially to the uninitiated, this might have seemed like a promotion, after all, he was given command of an entire frigate!
That would be fine, but it was a Pelta-class frigate!
“A clumsy mass grave, fit only as a mobile morgue!” was the opinion of clone pilots.
A justified one.
For all its advantages — modular construction with a large range of modules, decent armor, and good speed — the frigate had weak shields and armament, making it useless in line battles.
This circumstance forever defined the Pelta’s role as a medical transport.
That is why the clone, who had received the rank of Senior Lieutenant not for his pretty face, yearning to fly, languished in the role of eternal commander of a transport tub, flying exclusively from point A to point B.
Currently, the frigate lay adrift beyond the orbit of the backwater planet Molavar, located at the intersection of the Triellus and Mandian trade routes, waiting with the convoy for the arrival of a ship that was to deliver a package of encrypted data for the first jump to Rothana, whose coordinates were unknown even to pilots working for Kuat.
And such security measures were entirely justified.
The loss of this world, where most of the equipment for the GAR’s clone units was produced and where the latest research and development was conducted, would, if not bring the Republic to its knees, certainly shake the position at the front in favor of the CIS.
Even for the efficient and disciplined clones, the convoy had become a tedious routine.
The crews of the ships had relaxed over many voyages, but they did not lose their vigilance.
Routine was routine, but no one had called off the war.
Only here and there, the operators of the combat systems would occasionally turn away from their monitors to discuss a new weapon or the merits of a prostitute in some spaceport brothel.
Take, for example, the Burned One’s own crew, who, compared to other commanders of small ships, were distinguished by excessive severity, keeping their subordinates on their toes with surprise drills and inspections.
Behind his back, the clone operator of the 2nd Combat Section was now blatantly violating regulations.
Having taken off his headset and lounged in his chair, he was laughing across the entire bridge while watching a news block on his datapad.
The nickname “Laughing Boy” TU-2882 was well deserved.
None of his brothers could laugh so infectiously and sincerely.
Laughing Boy was very fond of one of the minor news channels, especially their morning news compilation.
The segment was hosted by a Twi’lek with an impressive bust, sharp-tongued and with a rather vulgar sense of humor.
And her skill with a video editor was undeniable.
The channel was mostly watched by anyone at all thanks to her segment.
And her bust.
“News from Hutt Space with an extra label!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, their seasonal rut has started again, and the sector gangs have begun another redistribution of power.
Our correspondents, who have access to Jabba the Hutt’s harem, report unrest in five star systems.
The cause was yet another slave uprising.
What adds spice to this story, typical of Hutt Space, is that this time the slaves managed to capture an ammunition depot that stored advanced heavy-class armor with an exoskeleton.
True, no weapons were delivered to this depot, so the rebels, clad in the armor, armed themselves with electric saws and quite successfully chopped up the Hutt’s militants.
The Hutts are lucky the slaves rebelled in the spice mines; otherwise, if some brothel had risen up, the militants would have been killed with a vibrating electric device, but by no means a two-handed electric saw,” the girl cheerfully narrated, leaning over the visual effects control console, causing her bust to “accidentally” jump into the camera, quickly and deftly typing a key combination.
What followed was a processed fragment of holovid, where a giant in dark armor chased militants with something two-handed, pink, and vibrating, wobbling with every movement.
One didn’t need a rich imagination to guess the object, even through the censorship cubes.
Laughing Boy had another fit of laughter, which, however, subsided at the first beep of the long-range communication system.
“Commander!” the clone operator responsible for the ship’s sensors spoke up, snapping the Senior Lieutenant out of his melancholic reflections.
“A ship has arrived in the system.
Its signature matches the provided reference.” “Communications!
Prepare to receive the encrypted package.
Pilot!
Begin jump preparation maneuver.
Jump on signal from the flagship!” “Yes, sir!
Jump on signal from the flagship!” The frigate shuddered from the tip of its nose to its exhaust nozzles as the engines reached operating power, tearing themselves from the stupor of sleep.
This resonated in the Burned One’s soul with a joyful response, lifting the burden of past hardships from him.
Let him no longer engage the enemy in tight turns, but the stars had not been taken from him.
None of the planetary rats could understand the feeling of an officer when his ship acted at the behest of his will.
They could not understand that feeling of unity between crew and ship.
You just want to shout: “Part of the crew!
Part of the ship!” At such moments, the captain feels his vessel as an extension of himself.
Just not today.
Neither the sensitive automatics nor the sixth sense of the crew members — one of the distinguishing features of all those who belonged to the brotherhood of the fleet — registered the slight jolt of the magnetized probe.
The ship’s commander did not yet know that only a few hours remained until the battle he so desired.
True, he would not live to see it.