“So — can we confirm the enemy’s general intelligence by now?” Lorgar asked, looking toward Slox.
“This is what we gathered during the battle.
That is all we know.” Lorgar studied Slox’s earnest expression and found nothing more to say.
Still, several hundred Space Marines were dead.
Guilliman was probably going to be furious, and the moment that news arrived, a punitive crusade would follow.
Lorgar let out a sigh.
It was only now that he truly understood those words.
Across the vast sweep of stars, all is the enemy of mankind.
The thought settled something in him.
Those loathsome xenos — whether benevolent or malevolent — would be reduced to ash beneath the Imperium’s sacred Expeditionary Fleets.
Whether they wished it or not.
In the name of the Imperium, let mankind be great again.
“So.
Next step: capture a prisoner.
Torture the location of their homeworld out of it.
Then hammer it with Vortex Torpedoes.” Lorgar called Chapter Master Rockefeller over.
The need was urgent, take a xenos prisoner, extract the homeworld coordinates through interrogation, then answer this horde with an Exterminatus.
“Out in this vast universe,” Lorgar muttered, “where am I even supposed to find them?” Lorgar was still sighing when a Legion Praetor walked in.
The rank of Praetor was the designation used for Space Marine officers of the Astartes Legions during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.
Within their respective Legions, Praetors were commanders second only to the Primarch in skill, combat prowess, and wisdom, a rank that encompassed First Captains, Chapter Masters, Lord Commanders, Great Khans, Warsmiths, and more.
They most commonly commanded a Legion’s Chapters.
The one who had come to find Lorgar was Korsler Evans, Lord Commander of the Word Bearers Legion.
“My lord Primarch.” Evans saluted.
“We have detected a warship lingering over the eastern hemisphere of Otheros.
It appears to be lying in wait, holding position until we depart,” Evans reported.
“Report the warship’s position.
Prepare for battle.” “Have the boarding parties ready.
Leave one alive for interrogation.” Lorgar’s orders came fast.
The Sacred Word and Hundred Battles Return broke from the fleet at speed, sweeping toward the enemy’s last known position.
The remaining warships fanned out immediately, Macro-cannons and lance weapons locking down the entire star system.
“Enemy located!” Leading the vanguard was Catlans, commanding officer of the 5th Company under the 3rd Chapter.
“Close to engagement range!
Prepare for close-quarters combat!” The two Battle Barges accelerated hard.
Their heavy Macro-cannons trained on a sleek silver-white vessel ahead, streamlined, smooth, shaped like a droplet drifting among the stars and glowing with faint blue light.
The enemy had noticed them.
Catlans could see the commotion ripple through the vessel even from here.
“For our battle-brothers!
Deliver the Imperium’s judgement!” The first engagement began.
Macro-cannons the size of mountains leveled at the enemy warship.
At the Magos’s command, the first full broadside slammed home.
Seconds later came the crack of detonation.
The warship had not been destroyed outright.
The rounds had been caught by the Deflection Field on the enemy’s hull and dragged off-course, but the salvo had done its work: the enemy’s defense shields were overloaded and gone.
Now came the boarding action.
Legion veterans in Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour stood ready, weapons in hand, waiting for the order.
The Cataphractii was the forerunner of the Indomitus Pattern Terminator Armour, and saw widespread use across both the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.
In many respects it shared the same broad architecture as the Indomitus Pattern in use during the 41st Millennium, but the two differed considerably in their particulars.
The Cataphractii carried large, multi-layered pauldrons, pteruges protecting the thighs and elbow joints, and a helmet that bore a closer resemblance to the pattern used on Mk III Power Armour.
Terminator Armour, also known as the Exo-armour System, had its origins in the Dark Age of Technology.
These sealed work suits were built to keep spacecraft maintenance crews alive in the worst conditions imaginable: hard vacuum, corrosive atmospheres, environments that would kill an unprotected man in seconds.
From the late 30th Millennium into the early 31st, the technology was steadily rediscovered and brought back into the Imperium as world after world submitted to compliance.
The Cataphractii Pattern was the first mark of Terminator Armour ever produced.
Clunk.
The red alert lamps flipped to green.
The Word Bearers Legion’s 13th Heavy Assault Squad, assigned to breach and board, loaded into their Caestus Assault Rams.
The Caestus Assault Ram had served Astartes brethren and Imperial Navy crews alike as a void ship-to-ship boarding vehicle since the age of the Great Crusade.
It was one of the wonders discovered by the celebrated Magos Arkhan Land in a long-lost vault beneath the ruins of Mars, and it showed.
The hull carried several Anti-grav Field Generators, allowing the craft to operate within the gravitational fields of planets and bodies of similar mass.
That adaptability had transformed the Caestus from a purely void-warfare tool into a multi-role assault craft capable of hitting both void targets and enemy strongholds on the surface, earning it a permanent place in the arsenals of the Adeptus Astartes.
Its most distinctive feature was the Twin-linked Breaching Pods.
These passenger compartments could carry Astartes battle-brothers in Power Armour or Terminator Armour alike.
The pod door mechanisms housed a complex interlocking restraint system, the Misericordia, which combined heavy mechanical cradles with a highly focused Inertial Dampening Field discharged from the primary anti-grav array.
Together, the Misericordia system and the Breaching Pods’ own reinforced construction allowed passengers to survive the impact of the craft slamming into the hull of a derelict vessel or an enemy fortress wall.
And the Caestus didn’t rely on brute force alone.
Mounted between its two Breaching Pods was a Magna-melta, a weapon that had no business being on anything short of a large war engine.
As the craft closed on its target, it could unleash a blinding melta shockwave that very few known forms of armour could withstand.
Even hull plating that wasn’t outright vaporized would be reduced to something resembling melted butter within seconds, leaving the Caestus to punch through with almost no resistance at all.
Once the Logic Engine of the Breaching Pod determined that maximum penetration depth had been reached, the Misericordia system disengaged and the Assault Ramp dropped.
The Astartes assault squad inside disembarked in pairs, fast, tight, pushing straight toward the target.
➤ Next: I Am Purification!
I Am Destruction!