a"d.a.m.n all that mess in orbit. Like we dona't have enough problems today.a"

The personal journal of Lieutenant Taan Darrick of the Cadian 88th Mechanised Infantry offered a much briefer summation: a"I hate this planet.a"

As the early afternoon sun beat down on the capital of Solthane, three hundred men of the Cadian 88th were footslogging slowly through the expansive garden grounds of a reliquary spire that supposedly contained the fingerbones of Saint Kathur himself. Theya'd been in the field for over nine hours, having set out into the city at dawn.

Inquisitor Bastian Caius was with them, his shoulder-mounted psycannon panning in mirror to the movements of his head.

Colonel Lockwood and Major Crayce were just rolling out of the main encampment, kilometres away, thundering to their own objectives with a force of seven hundred men in rumbling Chimeras.

Lord General Maggrig was within the main encampment itself, inside his command tent rather than the more formal prefab structure he used for briefings, poring over maps of Solthane and directing junior officers to move icons on the table charts to represent the positions of his forces.

Brother-Captain Corvane Valar was deep in his daily meditations, kneeling in a simple robe of black marked with his white Chapter symbol on the breast. He was in his private quarters within the belly of the Astartes strike cruiser, The Second Shadow.

Brother-Codicier Zauren was on the Shadowa's bridge, in full war plate. As s.p.a.ce exploded before him and disgorged the Archenemy host, he shook his head with a rueful smile and whispered two words, too quiet for his helmet vox to amplify.

a"Wea're dead.a"

The exemplar of the orbital defence was not (as might be expected from an Astartes strike cruiser) The Second Shadow. That honour fell to the Imperial Navy vessel Depth of Fury, commanded by Captain Lantyre Straden.

Straden had been one of the captains to take heed of Inquisitor Caiusa' warning and to firmly believe the threat would come from the warp, not from Kathura's surface. So when the sirens started wailing and several of the limbless servitors connected to the navigation consoles began to babble and moan in alarm, Straden was not in the least bit surprised.

a"Well, well, well,a" he said at the blossoming warp vortex, bearing witness to the Archenemy ships spilling from the wound in s.p.a.ce. Steepling his fingers, he lounged in his command throne, watching the view-portal for several beats of his calm heart.

a"Sir?a" asked a naval rating. Straden smoothed his greying moustache with his fingertips and nodded to the bridge officer. A grim grin creased his thin lips.

a"All power to the nova cannon.a"

Terminus Est tore a hole in the stillness of s.p.a.ce, ripping back into reality with hull-shaking force. The ship screamed forward through reals.p.a.ce, trailing warp-tendrils of psychic fog the colour of madness.

It was beyond big. The Heralda's flagship was bloated and vast, built to be a battleship beyond reckoning and swollen by Chaos in the ten millennia since it first drifted from the orbital docks of the forge world that birthed it. Its ridged surface bristled with a thousand disease-caked cannons, each ready to fire. Its gangrene and grey hull was cooking as the last vestiges of the warpa's psychic touch fizzled away, burning the organic filth coating the shipa's metal skin. It took several seconds for the coldness of s.p.a.ce to rea.s.sert material physics over the ship once again. The flames of corruption slowly flickered out, extinguished by reality.

Like flies around a corpse, lesser ships...o...b..ted Terminus Est, still clinging close to the flagship but already beginning to form into attack groups. In the wake of the great vessel and its interceptor parasites, bulky cruisers emerged from the agonisingly bright slit in the universe.

Three. Ten. Nineteen. And still they came, vomited forth from the empyrean and streaming trails of psychic fog as reality gripped them once more.

On the reeking bridge of Terminus Est, the creatures bonded to their stations hissed and shrieked. Typhus rose from his throne and leaned on the guard rail surrounding his podium. a"Surround them. Allow none to enter the warp.a" It was an unnecessary order. The Chaos fleet had broken from the immaterium a considerable distance away, but the severity of their emergence warp-wound would play h.e.l.l with the Imperialsa' navigation systems. Interceptor fighters were already being scrambled. No Imperial vessel was going to be able to flee what was coming.

a"Report,a" Typhus burbled. The answer came from a mutated thing half-fused to its scanner console. Its voice was utterly human, though punctuated by hacking coughs.

a"A cl.u.s.ter of twelve troop barges Six Sword-cla.s.s frigates in orbital spread Two Dauntless-cla.s.s light cruisers in a defensive ring Five Cobra-cla.s.s destroyers One Dominator-cla.s.s cruiser in high orbit a"

a"They are nothing to us. But that,a" pointed Typhus, aiming his Manreaper scythe at the cavernous viewscreen. a"What is that?a"

a"Astartes strike cruiser, great Herald a" the once-human creature choked out. a"Identified as The Second Shadow, Raven Guard allegiancea-a"

The rest of the creaturea's report was drowned out by the Heralda's laughter.

The Imperial fleet above Kathur was modest in size, to say the least. What orbited the planet was a battle group balanced for exactly what it was: the forward element of the Reclamation forces. The sluggish troop transports were next to unarmed and had nothing like the manoeuvrability necessary to survive a dedicated engagement. The destroyers and light cruisers flanking the wallowing troopships were jagged, bladelike and deadly, crewed by veterans of Battlefleet Scarus and each bearing its fair share of scars and memories from clashes with the Archenemy over centuries of war and refit.

Of the smaller ships, the Raven Guard strike cruiser was the unsubtle jewel in the fleeta's crown. As the daggerish light frigates and their destroyer escorts banked to face the new threat, The Second Shadow powered up its ancient engines and primed a vicious weapon array designed to break any blockade and still have the firepower left to fall into a low orbit to hammer a city into dust.

Yet it remained in orbit, while the Imperial fleet tore away to meet the attack.

The Depth of Fury was the single Imperial Navy ship of true cruiser size present. The Dominator-cla.s.s was rarely seen in Battlefleet Scarus, and was considered by many captains to be something of the Navya's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son. The more reliable Lunar-, Gothic- and Dictator-cla.s.s cruisers held pride of place among Naval ranks and populated the majority of battle groups.

The Dominatora's undesirability was centred on its main weapon mounting. Thrusting from the armoured prow like a bared lance and reaching almost half a kilometre in length, a nova cannon took a horrendous amount of preparation in order to fire even once. It was also inefficient in orbit-to-surface warfare, rendering it less versatile than standard lance batteries, which in turn rendered it even less desirable.

Lastly, it was not viable to mount a nova cannon on any ship smaller than a cruiser-cla.s.s vessel, purely because the recoil of firing the weapon would, at best, throw navigation all to h.e.l.l and take precious minutes to recover. At worst a- and much more likely a- firing the weapon would collapse a smaller vessela's superstructure and destroy the ship.

So this difficult, awkward weapon found its home on the prow of the often disregarded Dominator-cla.s.s cruisers.

Captain Straden was all too used to being ordered into lesser duties a- duties that he considered far below the honour worthy of an Imperial cruiser. He sat in his command throne now, feeling the heavy thrum in his bones as his beloved, underestimated ship came about to a new heading. The engines shook the entire ship, and well they might, for five thousand slaves and servitors laboured in the endless layers of the Furya's aft decks. The enginarium was a hothouse of banging machinery, burning furnaces, sweating slaves and bellowing petty officers armed with pistols and whips.

a"I count twenty-six hostiles, captain,a" called out a junior officer from his place in front of a bank of crackling scanner monitors. a"Sacred Throne!a"

a"Report,a" Straden ordered, his voice still calm.

a"The flagship reads as the the Terminus Est.a"

Lantyre Straden had captained Depth of Fury for eleven years. Hea'd captained a Cobra-cla.s.s destroyer for six years before that, and served as a lieutenant aboard a Lunar-cla.s.s cruiser before even that. A long career in the Holy Fleet. Honourable if not exquisitely distinguished, and with a record of victories that ent.i.tled him to sit where he was now: in the s.p.a.cious, antique throne of one of the Emperora's own blessed battle cruisers. At his command was the power to obliterate incredible amounts of life, of entire cities, of whole worlds. He had done so many times before a- simply by speaking a single word, he had annihilated thousands of lives. It was his duty, and his duty was his pa.s.sion. Such was the power of Depth of Fury, ill-favoured main armament or not.

This was the first time Straden could ever remember thinking that the metres-thick adamantium armour of an Imperial ship, coupled with the invisible, crackling protection of void shields, would simply not be enough. Upon hearing those words, the name of that accursed ship that had been Segmentum Obscurus legend for thousands of years, he knew with cold certainty that he would die here.

He steepled his fingers as his elbows rested on the arms of the command throne. Death The thought was oddly liberating.

a"Bring us about until Terminus Est is in our forward fire arc. Status on the nova cannon?a"

A weapons rating looked up from his console, one hand raised to his earpiece. a"Prow fire control reports all systems ready,a" he said.

a"Warn the enginarium to make final preparations.a"

There was the chatter of dozens of voices around the bridge speaking into vox mics, alerting fellow officers across the ship that the main armament was readying to fire.

Straden requested ship-wide vox, and a rating patched it through to the systems within his enclosing command throne.

a"This is the captain,a" he began, and his mouth grew dry even as his calm took greater hold on his heart. a"All crew to battle stations. Brace to fire the nova cannon in thirty seconds. Station commanders to sound off when ready.a"

The vox blared into life as returning signals crackled through.

a"Navigation, ready,a" boomed a voice across the bridge, emanating from the speakers.

a"Port laser batteries locked down and ready,a" came a second voice.

And on it went. As the districts of the colossal ship chimed back their readiness, Straden watched the rotted hulks of the Archenemy ships tearing closer. The ship began to shake anew, taking the first impacts from the light cruisers thrusting ahead of the behemoth, Terminus Est.

Fighters spilled from the larger Chaos ships, but while the smaller vessels of the Imperial fleet took a hammering from their interceptor weapons, Depth of Fury ignored them utterly. It speared away from the planet, launching towards its target like a shrike diving at its prey.

a"Signal the captains of the Precious Loyalty and The Lord Castellan to power up and flank us for the first five thousand kilometres of our run. Then they are to break away when we fire the nova cannon, lest they catch the first wave from our broadsides.a"

a"Compliance,a" murmured a vox-servitor, and relayed the orders to the commanders of the smaller frigates. Depth of Fury shuddered harder, taking serious impacts on its void shields and shaking through the stress of the plasma drives propelling the ship far in advance of standard thrust.

a"Come on,a" Straden whispered. a"Come on. Please, come on.a"

a"Enginarium a" the voice began, and the captain was already out of his seat before it finished, a" ready.a"

Straden stared at the viewscreen, at the bloated shape of Terminus Est powering closer through the void. He drew his formal sabre, and aimed it at the image before him.

a"Kill. That. Ship.a"

The principles of nova cannon technology are relatively simple.

Generators mounted in Depth of Furya's prow and the cannon itself charged up, creating a series of powerful magnetic fields. Teams of slaves in the prow work with great loading machinery to feed a specially prepared projectile a- an implosive charge the size of a small building a- into a great hallway known as the release chamber.

Bulkheads slam down as the nova cannon readies to fire. The firing mechanisms must be isolated from the rest of the ship, and it is rare that all slaves escape in time. As Depth of Fury thundered towards, Terminus Est, battered by the anger of a dozen lesser vessels, Straden demanded haste above all else. Hundreds of slaves and servitors were killed in the preparation even before the shipa's destruction several minutes later.

Upon the order to fire, the magnetic fields accelerate the payload and hurl it from the fixed cannon at something close to the speed of light. Then the time-consuming and dangerous reloading process takes place, and the cycle repeats.

The payload hurtles through s.p.a.ce faster than the human eye (and indeed, most instruments of human design) can track. It is programmed not to implode within safe distance of the firing vessel; a nova cannona's destructive force is immense.

This failsafe can, of course, be overridden. In only a handful of minutes, it would be.

The projectile lanced across the distance between the two converging ships faster than the blink of an eye. Once it struck, it was programmed to implode, collapsing in on itself and achieving a density so intense all nearby matter would be sucked inside it and compressed to practically nothingness.

This is how stars die.

And this is what hit the oncoming prow of Terminus Est.

A sizeable chunk of the diseased ship simply ceased to exist, wrenched out of physicality and into nothingness. Consoles chattered and servitors grunted as Depth of Furya's bridge instruments registered the damage.

a"Direct hit,a" said the lieutenant by the main weapons console.

Now the gangrenous ship was wounded. Detritus, mutated crew and shards of armoured hull span away into s.p.a.ce, drifting from the gaping hole ripped into the prow of the advancing Chaos warship. The blood Straden could see was a flood of dark droplets a- some hideous fluid leaking from the wounded sections of hull, turning into glittering crimson crystals as they froze in s.p.a.ce.

It began to rotate a- a fat whale rolling to avert its face.

a"Shea's hiding her bridge,a" Straden cursed. a"Sixteen per cent hull damage, captain. Theya're venting air pressure and and thousands of kilolitres of some kind of dark, organic fluid. Terminus Est is still coming, captain.a"

Straden looked at the man as though he were the lowest form of idiot.

a"Then by the G.o.d-Emperor,a" he said, a"you will fire again!a"

The unfolding drama above Kathur became a smooth orbital ballet as the ships slid past each other in graceful slowness. Formations broke and reformed. Lesser ships danced around the greater ones, and the heavier cruisers unleashed silent beams that lanced across s.p.a.ce to burn out as fountains of high energy sparks spraying away from crackling void shields.

When a shipa's shields finally buckled, the lances of light cut directly into the hulls, scarring them deeply, cutting ships into pieces one shard at a time.

The Second Shadow did not follow Depth of Fury. The rest of the Imperial fleet did.

These lighter cruisers and destroyer frigates powered at the Archenemy flagship, plasma drives leaving streams of energy-charged mist in their wake. While the slaves and servitors in the bowels of these vessels laboured on, unknowing of their fates, no bridge officer in the fleet was under any illusions. There was no hope to survive this. All that remained was to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

Had The Second Shadow joined this a.s.sault, Imperial forces would have inflicted a great deal more damage on their foes. But the strike cruiser remained in orbit a- the very embodiment of Astartes autonomy. Frantic calls for aid clashed in the vox as the Navy vessels demanded (and in several cases, pleaded) for aid. Yet the black cruiser sat in seeming silence, its outward calm concealing the activity within.

The frigate Precious Loyalty was captained by Lieutenant Terris Vyn, born to a wealthy family on the planet Gudrun. In the final moments of its life, two thoughts span around his mind, casting all others aside. Firstly, that these were the worst circ.u.mstances one could make the rank of captain, and secondly, that he had no idea where his right arm was. The torpedo had struck, and after a momenta's blackness, he found himself crawling to his feet a great deal less whole than he had been a moment ago. Choking smoke flooded the bridge as blood poured from the stump of his severed bicep.

Every other officer of higher rank was dead, buried under the wreckage of what had been a fully-functioning bridge only scant minutes before. Half the servitors and ratings were similarly incapacitated: dead, dying, or doomed to spend their last seconds of life trapped under twisted metal rubble.

Terris Vyn ordered the enginarium to give him maximum thrust, little realising only a quarter of the one thousand slaves were still alive down there. The same torpedo barrage that devastated the bridge had inflicted equally horrendous damage across the rest of the vessel. By all design logic, it was a miracle the ship was still holding together.

He then ordered the helm to stabilise course and make straight for the Terminus Est. In this, his orders were more successful. The Dauntless-cla.s.s vessel veered sharply, and plunged back on course.

Another Chaos cruiser, the dark-hulled Daughter of Agony, drifted between Terris Vyn and his target. The cruiser was busy opening up with its broadsides, unleashing h.e.l.l on the flaming form of Depth of Fury.

a"Forward batteries!a" he cried through the smoke. a"Forward batteries fire!a"

Half of the batteries fired. Due to the excessive damage already sustained, the other half no longer existed. They were reduced to deep, ruined scars in the Loyaltya's prow.

The diminished cutting beams sliced out, making harmless lightning patterns as the Daughter of Agonya's void shields repelled the incoming fire.

a"Go around!a" Terris Vyn screamed. a"Ram the Terminus Est!a"

A n.o.ble plan. Had it succeeded, it would have been delicious vindication for the slain Imperial crews.

Instead, Daughter of Agony began to twist. Lance fire licked from the turrets across the vessela's back, turrets so numerous they were like scales on a reptilea's skin.

a"Lieutenant a" a helm officer began a sentence he would never finish.

Precious Loyalty exploded in a bright star of plasmic energy, sending debris slashing through s.p.a.ce in a thousand directions.

It was a scene being repeated across the Imperial fleet.

Depth of Fury powered on, shieldless and streaming jagged metal from its wounds. Like a plague of locusts, Chaos fighters flitted around the cruiser, a cloud of annoyance hara.s.sing all four kilometres of the great vessel. Depth of Fury shuddered under the withering hail of fire, geysers of pressurised air and quickly-killed flames gushing from the holes blasted in its ridged hull. The cathedral-like structures adorning its long back were in ruins, resembling the bones of some long-dead civilisation. The shipa's destruction was inevitable. The damage was already nearly total.

The reports reaching Furya's captain flashed through his mind and were discarded by all but the core parts of his consciousness. The hull was literally collapsing on too many decks to keep track of. The void shield generators had been ejected into s.p.a.ce to prevent a critical internal detonation. Half the plasma drives had ceased functioning. Navigation was fighting to keep the ship under control, and what control the officers had was unreliable in the extreme.

The cruiser pa.s.sed between two Chaos vessels, and a final chorus of broadsides fired. The banks of cannons roared into the silence of s.p.a.ce, tearing great scars along the edges of the grey-green ships as Fury sliced between them like a crumbling dagger.

Still, somehow, the prow was aimed at Terminus Est, following the larger ship as it rolled.

Wea'll only get one more shot, Straden knew. By the throne, I pray we make this count.

a"Main weapon primed!a" yelled a rating.

a"Fire! In His glorious name! Fire!a"

No preparations this time. The nova cannon charged its magnetic fields and spat its implosive gift at the Archenemy flagship.