The New Jedi Order: A Vision of Confluence

PART IV: UNLIMBERED

X: To Sleep No More

Anakin slung a canvas pack into the rear seats of the landspeeder, leaning into the vehicle to situate it snugly and strap it down. Ropes, carabiners, handheld lumes, pitons, ascenders. Emergency foil blankets, two liters of water. Ration bars. A pair of boots, sized for a teenaged girl. And socks. Tahiri would find about the last two later.

Artoo whistled and dootled, jacked into the landspeeder. The astromech insisted on running a diagnostic before they set out, saying that the speeder hadn't been used in months and could, quote, 'be restless'. Fiver couldn't done it too, but this was just Artoo's way of looking out for him. He pat the droid's domed head as he waved for Sannah and Tahiri.

"Well, I don't have a lightsaber. So I should have a blaster."

Anakin rolled his eyes.

"Sannah, even if it's some sithspawn, Tahiri said it was nesting. We can probably just scare it off."

"What if it doesn't want to be scared off, huh? Then what, I just get eaten?" The Melodie girl planted fists on her hips, glaring up at him. She looked so much like Tahiri in that moment that deja vu swept him.

"I'm sure it wouldn't like how you taste," he reached out and ruffled her hair. Sannah squawked, swatting at his hand and dancing away. Tahiri, shrugging on a vest over her jumpsuit, laughed.

"But why not," Sannah whined.

"Have you ever shot a blaster?" Tahiri, as ever, went barefoot. She had a blaster, naturally, as did Anakin, both taking two small holdouts just in case. The jungle was dangerous, even for Jedi, and lost temples doubly so.

Huffing a massive sigh, muttering under her breath about 'no fun' and 'disappointing', Sannah hauled herself up into the passenger side of the speeder, plopping down into the seat and folding her arms.

"That's my seat, you know," Tahiri observed.

"Oh no it's not. Dibs."

He left them to squabble over it, unplugging the charging cable for the speeder and spooling it up aside. Tahiri said the jungle was thick out toward that temple, so the landspeeder he'd chosen was sleek, slim and with a pointed nose, better to weave through the old growth trees. It had a rating of a hundred meters clearance, so if worse came to worst, they could always just juice the repulsorlifts and cruise over the canopy, though it would make it hard to spot the temple from the air.

Another presence entered his senses, coming out of the turbolift into the motor pool. Valin Horn, Master Horn's twelve year old son. Anakin waved idly, doing last checks around the outside of the speeder. Artoo twiddled a little tune, telling Anakin that everything was good to go.

"Thanks, Artoo." The astromech warbled then trundled away, past Valin. The kid was marching over, the most serious expression Anakin'd ever seen on his young face.

"I'm coming along too," he said.

"No."

It was certainly unfair. Sannah was only a year older than Valin and he and Tahiri had been about that age when they had gotten up to their own adventures, but age wasn't what mattered. Experience did. Valin Horn was a good kid - from what Anakin had seen and in the few times they'd been around each other, he was a studious learner and took Jedi training seriously. Probably looking up to his father, Master Horn. But Valin was sheltered. He'd been born on Corellia, lived on his grandfather's own Star Destroyer, then lived in the Praxeum.

Anakin had been kidnapped at least a half dozen times by the time he was Valin's age, and Tahiri had survived the wastes of Tatooine.

"Sorry, kid," he said, crouching down a little to look Valin in the eyes. "Your dad would kill me."

"He's not here!"

"No, but I am, and Master Skywalker only gave Sannah, Tahiri and me permission."

Valin screwed up his face, puting.

"I'm only a year younger than Sannah!"

"I know. But you can't come along, okay?"

Jacen could've handled this way better, he thought, watching as Valin flushed. He'd know the right thing to say, to make Valin feel better.

"Fine!" He stomped away, back toward the turbolift, emotion like a stormcloud around him in the Force. Exhaling, Anakin shook his head. He really, really wasn't good at this. Tahiri, from where she'd wrestled Sannah in to the backseat, caught his eye, then nodded toward Valin's retreating back.

"He wanted to come along?"

Sannah stuck out her tongue.

"Ew."

"No, not 'ew'. He just wanted to help."

Anakin vaulted into the landspeeder, shifting to get comfortable, slotting in the key. Engines hummed to life, repulsorlifts thrumming and they bobbled up, rocking as it stabilized. It was funny - he'd been in Valin's place a dozen times. Jacen and Jaina, off to do their thing with their friends and little Anakin watching them go. When he'd been allowed to go to the Praxeum himself, he imagined what he'd do, just like his big brother and sister. None of it ended up like he imagined, but it worked out in the end. And it all turned out that they'd been right: his siblings, his parents, his Uncle. Never be in a hurry to grow up. It was just the worst when you realized the adults were right all along.

Tahiri beamed, framing the slumped ruin of the temple with her arms, like a holo-ad presenter showing off the latest swoopbike. Anakin thought it might be hard to spot, until the fallen trees started. She hadn't been kidding - there was a trail of pulled down, young massassi trees that ran for about a hundred meters. Ten, maybe fifteen trees total, trunks as wide as Anakin, yanked down and smashed flat into the underbrush. The canopy itself was pulled open because of it, letting in bright sunlight down to dapple the jungle floor.

"See! Ta-da!" Tahiri sang out.

Sannah eyed the dark, gaping hole in the half-buried temple suspiciously. Where plantlife had once choked out the old stone, it was peeled back like a lid, vines ripped up and bushes shredded, tossed around like bundles along with a spray of chiseled stone blocks.

"It looks like the kinda place a purella would live," the Melodie announced, speaking of the enormous predatory spiders of her homeworld.

"Nah, just some sithspawn." Tahiri leapt up onto one of the fallen stones, as long as she was tall. "Look how huge these things are! That thing just threw them around, you should've seen it."

In his mind's eye, he could. A monster bursting out of the temple, tentacles waving - but Tahiri was fine. She was right there, and she was fine. The thing hadn't gotten her, even if she might have underplayed how huge it must have been. The size of the stone blocks meant they were a ton, maybe two at least. This wasn't 'monster' level, this was monster. Like, Krayt dragon on steroids, monster.

"Do you sense it at all?" Sannah asked.

"Not yet. Wanna help?" Tahiri smiled to him and Anakin couldn't help but grin back. They reached for each other - not with hands - and the jungle bloomed up around them. Anakin defined the range, Tahiri provided the focus. Anakin gave the strength, Tahiri the precision. His awareness flooded outward, a tidal wave, cresting through the jungle and he sensed every creature. Runyips wallowing in a muddy pool, stintarils slinking through trees, crystal snakes sunning in the heat. Nothing felt out of place.

Tahiri, he knew, felt the same thing he did, but he said it aloud for Sannah's sake.

"Nothing yet." Anakin pushed the envelope of their melded senses, while Tahiri yielded focus to give him strength. From a range of a hundred, two hundred meters, they probed out farther, animals now just blurry implications of life, nothing so clear as to species or number. Tahiri had felt the beast once, she'd know it's imprint again.

He hummed in surprise. "Still nothing."

Sannah scratched at her arm.

"Maybe it left?"

Jacen would say there's no way an animal would abandon its lair unless it was forced to. Given how defensive it was of its territory when Tahiri found it, he figured nothing less than a rival and a fight would make it give up its nest. The yawning hole in the side of the half-buried temple drew his attention. Well, he had packed for it.

"It might have just gone back to sleep."

Tahiri, who'd been irritably running a finger around the neck of her left boot, brightened.

"We're going spelunking?" Her smile split her face. "Let's go!'

The Jedi Praxeum held little familiarity for Aeonid, in experience or retelling. Tylos Rubio relayed his experiences in the Librarium when Aeonid requested pointers on accessing this 'Force'. The Codicier described grueling periods of exposure to the Warp, guided by Epistolaries who taught the iron-will and discipline to shape the etheric winds. Weeks of contemplation and study of mental cantrips serving as trigger-points and release valves for the boiling, hostile rawness of the channeled empyrean. Rubio spoke of the soul-binding too, in brief, that girt the soul against the predations of the hostile life-forms many now simply called 'daemon'.

This galaxy was soft and by all measures the Force and the Immaterium bore little in common, save their existence as ineffable powers, but Aeonid still expected, at least, training. Some manner of rigorous structure, some curricula to follow.

There were classes. Most were aimed toward the youthful initiates, who needed practical life-skills and knowledge beyond that of the Force. Aeonid did not attend those, but he had sat in on lessons of history with Master Solusar and demonstrations of saberform by the other Master Solusar. Skywalker seemed to serve as an itinerant professor, hosting irregular classes that modified and expounded upon simpler topics, and while there was some academic interest, each passing day found Aeonid more and more untethered.

He sat private lessons with Skywalker and both Solusars and even bore the unreal experience of Master Cilghal, but none of them could discern what stoppered the Ultramarine's ability to touch the Force. When guided by another, as if led by the hand, he had moments of clarity and profound sensation that faded all too swiftly. To access it on his own remained elusive, to date still only that original moment aboard Macragge's Honour that revealed the truth of Skywalker's declaration remained Aeonid's only success.

Stranger still, there was a shrugging, sanguine acceptance of his shortcomings. Rubio told him that an aspirant inducted into the Librarium without sufficient skill or control would be cast back out again, reduced to ranks or in more unpleasant circumstances, eliminated for the hazard they could pose.

None of the Masters at the Praxeum seemed perturbed by Aeonid's failure to progress. When voiced during a session with Skywalker, the Jedi had dismissed his concerns. There was, as Skywalker put it, no rush to becoming a Jedi. It was a process that was as long as life itself and that each step in that process was as important as the next. That, contrary to popular belief, being a Jedi was not just learning how to make rocks float or spin lightsabers. To be a Jedi was to be a student, forever, of the Force. In fact, Skywalker supposed, it was good that Aeonid was experiencing this now. It could bode well for his future understanding of the Force, like taking sips instead of drinking so deep as to become inebriated.

Aeonid Thiel had never been inebriated, but he understood the metaphor.

Most bothersome was the lack of material. The damage done by the Purge and the Galactic Empire meant that aside from oral tradition, so much was lost after the actions of the Skywalker patriarch. Recovered 'holocrons' filled in gaps, as did caches of knowledge from more distant times, but all knew that Skywalker's Order bore only familiar trappings to the Order of old, not an unbroken lineage. The Kushiban Jedi Master, Ikrit, held in trust experiences he had, it appeared, never elected to share. When confronted by Aeonid, the furred being, small enough to sit in Thiel's hand, had shaken his head in a peculiarly human expression of regret and informed the Ultramarine that he had nothing to offer.

In his questioning, none understood what Aeonid was truly after nor the source of his actual frustration. He was not looking for ancient tomes or decades to centuries old pedagogical practices.

No, he was looking for that which stood right before him, day-in and day-out.

Luke Skywalker, directly or indirectly, had trained over a hundred Jedi. Yet so few notes had been taken. So few records written or practices formally catalogued. If only he could peruse such things, things proven to work, and work well! There he might find some angle that suited his nature best. Something that befit a son of Ultramar, not some insect-eyed xeno from some lightless scrap of rock.

Watching such a being carefully stack brightly painted wooden cubes atop one another with nothing but rapt and unblinking attention, however, proved that these ill-fitting instructions did, in some cases, bear provable and weighty results.

'Describe what you sense,' Aeonid stated.

Multifaceted eyes flicked from block to stoic, posthuman face and back again.

'Its kinda warm,' the creature chirruped in its clicky, singsong tones. 'Gooey! I take the gooey from my belly and then it goes out and the block moves!'

Stylus tracked across Aeonid's dataslate, his eyes narrowed as he watched the blocks shift. His notes were ordered and categorized, shorthand unnecessary with how slowly mortals took to compose their thoughts. The being continued, nattering away as Aeonid maintained half-focus on what it spoke. At some point, its ephemeral grasp on the wooden block failed and it clattered to the floor. Distracted, it ceased caring to speak to Aeonid and instead reshuffled its multiple limbs before focusing again.

Aeonid retook his seat, a reinforced bench that suited his size. Each of the trainees in today's lesson expressed unique qualia when interrogated about their manipulation of the Force. Unfortunately, there was a confusing web of similarities and disparities that precluded easy codification. Master Solusar, who was overseeing this lesson, smiled at Aeonid and laughed her silvery laugh.

'Of course that's how it is, Aeonid. Every being has a personal relationship with the Force.'

Unhelpful - on the surface. Though, cross-referencing with Rubio's experience: there he found it. Commonalities were significant and weighted across psykers within the Librarium. There was little nuance to some qualia: a warp-predator expressed visually differently to each observer, but the emotional response prompted remained the same. That matched his own experience battling the halls. He remembered making some grim joke about a daemon they had just dispatched to Heutonicus, only for the Captain to appear confused. It was revealed that he had been seeing the daemons differently. Where in this instance, Aeonid had seen a tangle of razored wires, wrapped about innumerable eyes, Heutonicus had seen a fractured ball of sharp-edged glass razors, appearing crystalline and mirrored. The brutality of the daemon was the same: it had torn through two brothers in moments, leaving sectioned chunks of body and Mark IV plate scattered about. What differed was in the expression of that violence, and it was something to consider.

Deeply interesting. Aeonid thanked Solusar for allowing his attendance and rose to leave.

'Are you coming back tomorrow, Master Ultramarine?' asked a tiny voice, dragging his attention down past his knees.

'I am a Captain, not a Master,' Aeonid replied, nonplussed. 'And…perhaps.'

If it had been just the two of them, Anakin and Tahiri might have just jumped into the cavernous pit revealed inside the temple. From the broken open wall, they found an expansive central chamber, likely the main ritual location. It was the size of a shockball court, ringed with old Sith statues and not much else. Broad steps led up to a pile of broken masonry and mud - where the landslide had crunched into the temple. The opening of the pit itself sat in the center of the chamber and Anakin figured that before the landslide closed off the entrance, the beast probably entered and exited that way, only having to break its way out after finding its lair so radically altered.

That only further confirmed his suspicions that this had to be some kind of sithspawn creature. That landslide that buried half the temple was so long ago there were full-sized trees growing up on it. That meant the creature had been sleeping for decades, maybe even centuries. There were no animals on Yavin that did that.

The three of them peered down into the dark, down past where the sun ceased reaching damp and moss-slicked crumbling stone blocks. Roots punched through here and there, like grasping tendrils. With their falling trick, the two of them could reach the bottom in no time at all, but Anakin wasn't about to leave Sannah here or risk trying to buoy her along with them. Their falling trick worked because it was just the two of them.

He tossed a coil of rope in and they watched it unbind as it tumbled down, down into the dark.

"Does that look like a mouth to anyone else?" Sannah asked, as innocent as could be. Cocking his head, if he looked at the roots and hanging vines just right - why yes, yes it did look something like a sarlacc.

"Thanks, Sannah."

"Sure thing."

He handed out ascenders, clipping his onto the rope first.

"I'll go first. I can catch anyone who slips." He sat on the edge of the pit, peering down. It breathed, a slight waft of humidity and breeze up and out, only highlighting the similarity with some gullet. "Give me ten seconds, then Sannah can follow, Tahiri, you take up the rear." He took a breath, pulled the Force to himself like a cloak, and pushed off. Neither of the girls argued and he felt their focus.

The width of the pit was double his outstretched arms, plenty of space for easy descent. He kicked off, ascender burring as it worked down the sturdy line. Every now and then a shower of dirt and pebbles tumbled down from when he kicked against the side, but nothing felt loose. Sannah, above him, let out a whoop that echoed as she followed.

It wasn't as deep as he feared - by the time the lume hanging from his belt lit up uneven rock below him, the opening of the pit up above had shrunk to about the size of his fist.

"I'm down!" he called up, landing smooth and unhitching his ascender. Two silhouettes came down at him and unconsciously he reached up, smoothing both of their descents with a nudge of the Force. Sannah stumbled a little but didn't notice at all, nearly bouncing up and down. Tahiri's booted feet thumped down next and she linked her fingers and stretched.

Their handheld lumes reflected from wet stone and the gurgle and patter of water echoed from all around them.

"I'm not kidding, if there's a purella I'm going to scream."

"It's just some ancient Sith monster Sannah, you'll be fine. It didn't even have legs!"

The Melodie shuddered.

"I hate spiders," she muttered.

On the positive side, there was only one way to go. Straight. Judging by the scratches and gouges in the stone, Anakin was growing more and more positive that whatever this creature was, it had been entombed down here until it burrowed it's way up and then out into the temple chamber. They were down into the bedrock now, not even underground temple levels like the Great Temple had. Well, Sith did like to do their experiments in the spookiest possible places, so a dank cave deep under the plateau was pretty much in character for them.

Anakin led, lume held high, with Sannah again in the middle and Tahiri at the back. Though trickles of groundwater leaked here and there, slicking stone, the uneven floor of the passage was rough enough it couldn't become slick and treacherous. With the Force as his ally, he knew he wouldn't fall anyway. It fell at a wending angle, a sort of spiral down into the moon until glowing lichens and fuzzy mosses encrusted the walls along with strange, pale fungi that grew in corkscrews.

"Man," Anakin muttered, brushing his gloved finger through gentle tendrils that dangled below a patch of moss. "Jacen would love this."

"Take a holo," Tahiri laughed. "For a lifeday present."

He kept his sense out, still gently paired with Tahiri, both of them feeling for any signs of life, slumbering, hibernating or ragingly active. Nothing. Only little burrowing creatures and sightless fishes in aquifers below them that had never known the light of the sun.

Anakin was growing sure the creature really had fled and he felt Tahiri's disappointment as she arrived at the same conclusion when the tunnel ceased descending, flattening and then taking a sharp leftways turn.

His danger sense prickled hairs at the back of his neck.

"You felt that too?" Tahiri whispered.

"I did," he confirmed, whispering also. It seemed the thing to do.

"Like feeling a raith's stinking breath on your neck," Sannah added. His hand on the hilt of his 'saber, Anakin crept forward, taking gentle, measured steps, quiet as he could. Sannah moved like a shadow, quieter than a thought. The Melodie's youth on Yavin 8 near the bottom of the food chain made Anakin's best attempts at stealth sound like a blundering Gammorean. Tahiri was nearly as good as Sannah, stepping into her own leading footsteps, like the Sand People would.

Holding his breath, Anakin crept to the sharp, switchback turn and peered around it.

It didn't look like much more than an enormous leathery lump, but he felt Tahiri's surprise swiftly followed by buried fear. She didn't need to say anything - this was it.

It's sleeping, she murmured into his mind. Not words per se, but a feeling of drowsiness, flashes of a bed and comfortable blankets. Yes, he sent back, the warm feeling when someone agrees with you.

Sannah, left out, chewed her lip and he saw her eye his holdout blaster.

Wagging a finger, he gestured both of them close, until three heads were together, faces inches from each other.

"Alright," he started, barely audible. "It's asleep, so we can plan."

"Can't you just go up and stab it in the head?"

Tahiri reached up and knocked a knuckle off the crown of Sannah's head.

"Not very Jedi," she warned.

"Ow, fine. So then what, we just shout at it?"

Anakin hummed.

"Not exactly shout at it. Tahiri, if we work together, I think we might be able to convince it that this nest is a bad one."

"A mindtrick?"

"It could work."

Sannah's gaze flicked between the two of them.

"What if it decides it's a bad nest because we're here?"

Anakin dipped his shoulders in a shrug.

"Then like you said. Lightsaber, head. A Jedi tries to avoid violence, but a Jedi also knows to protect himself."

The three of them crept into the creature's sleeping chamber, almost as large as the Grand Audience Chamber in the Praxeum. Dimly lit by the same luminescent fungi and lichens, they could see the shape of the enormous beast and the way its lumped up form gently rose and fell as it breathed. Blasterbolts, but it was enormous! Anakin would bet it was the size of the Millenium Falcon once it uncurled itself! No wonder it had torn down those trees and managed to rip open the Temple. He bet it had to really shimmy to get up that shaft.

Once they were out of the way of the tunnel, in case the plan worked and the monster suddenly decided to relocate at high speeds, they wouldn't be run over, Anakin motioned Sannah to hide herself in a shallow alcove. He and Tahiri sunk down, crosslegged, against the wall.

His danger sense still tickled at him, but the beast's slow, rhythmic breathing clearly showed it was dead asleep. Next to him, Tahiri took in a deep breath, squaring her shoulders, then held out her hand.

It felt a lot smaller in his own than it used to.

Together, they reached for the creature. It felt like oil, slipping and sliding away from their attempts to touch its mind, like a zurl seed clenched between fingers. Other animals weren't nearly this hard - but if it was a Sith creation, he supposed it wouldn't be as easy as soothing an eopie. So they shifted strategies. Anakin acted like the net, casting wide, hemming in the beast so that it couldn't slide away. Tahiri, like a Mon Calamari spear-fisher, narrowed her own focus and pierced through Anakin's 'net'. The beast's mind tried to slip away but Anakin tightened his cordons and it quivered, perturbed, until Tahiri's mental needle slipped right in. He followed in her wake, pulled along by her and and her soul, until they were into the-

Sweat prickled on Anakin's forehead. His mouth went dry and just as quickly as they'd cornered the beast's mind, he was back in his own body, eyes wide. Tahiri gasped, impossibly loud in the silent chamber.

It was definitely not a Sithspawn, but it definitely was stranger than any creature Anakin had ever encountered and he'd encountered a lot.

It also was a lot smarter than either of them expected and as it unfurled it's massive wingspan, hissing like an overheated capacitor, it really didn't like being woken up.

On the sixth day, Zalthis finally had enough fragmented memories. Wiping his mouth, he stood from the last vong, grimacing around the bitter flavor. S'hmu grumbled nearby, krak missile launcher slung over one shoulder. The Herglic now sported piecemeal carapace armor, riveted plates from several human-sized sets bulking out his previous overalls. Of his conscript 'squad' of a dozen, some died, some were replaced, the numbers swelled, shrank, swelled again. Solidian scoffed at Zalthis taking the time to learn names, but these beings were trusting to Ultramarines for the defense of their world. Xeno or not, unreformed or not, that deserved at least some honor.

Solidian read the expression on Zalthis' face and the other Astartes doffed his helmet, grinning darkly.

'You have it?'

Zalthis spat to the side, acid clearing his mouth of lingering flavour.

'A structure called a minshal, twenty-six kilometers northwest.' He keyed his vox, speaking into its pickups in his gorget. 'I believe it is Grid 9F AV 92 02..'

S'hmu's squad milled about them, picking over chazrach bodies and pointedly keeping space from Zal's squad. Qario policed bolt-casings, as per Lieutenant Optarch's orders to minimize evidence of Astartesian actions. The bloody aftermath of mass-reactives was impossible to hide, but the theoretical was to maintain uncertainty among the vong as to the capabilities of Ultramarines in open warfare. One factor was ammunition expenditure. Petran exchanged words with a Fondorian local - Ranko, his memory supplied - the neophyte opening up more each day. Zalthis considered it to be his influence, and was proud. The last of the squad, Lyros, who was like to end up in the Apothcarion, wrapped tight bandages about the torso of a wide-eyed Duro.

'Confirmation, Brother Zalthis. Auspex indicates multiple vongform structures present in provided grid. Intel conveyed to Lieutenant Optarch. Addendum: vongform armor-sign within 9F AV 92. Rakamat-class. Fire Raptor support limited.'

The voice was harsh, modulated, genderless. Each word was clipped, bit out, as if through clenched teeth.

Gratitude, Mors Vigilia. Are there numbers?'

'Rakamat-class sighted commonly in trio formations. Sign indicates passage of two packs.'

Nodding, Zalthis turned to Sol. His brother shrugged broad, ocean-blue pauldrons.

'They're hardly subtle,' Sol declared. S'hmu's mouth twisted, a sign of what Zal learned meant discomfort in his kind. 'We can move more swiftly and with greater stealth than some xeno bio-titan.'

'That is true.' Zalthis gestured to the Herglic, the Fondorian conscripts. 'They cannot.'

'Then we leave them, of course,' Solidian's brows drew together, confusion clear.

'Like hell!' S'hmu snorted a broad gout of steam from his dorsal nostrils. 'We've been here every bleeding step.'

'You are not Astartes. You'll die and ruin the mission.'

'My boys've died everyday, you stomping marionette.'

Solidian raised a brow, sardonic.

'Yes, that's rather what I meant.'

'Enough,' Zalthis raised his voice, just slightly, but it echoed down the street. S'hmu harrumphed and crossed his thick arms, Solidian idly rotating his helm in both plate-armored hands.

'You know the practical, Zal.'

'I know many practicals, Sol. The Lieutenant stressed cooperation.'

The neophytes, drawn by Zalthis' raised tones, gathered in a loose semi-circle. Behind and close to S'hmu formed the other Fondorians, twelve in all. Another half-dozen B1 automata ambled about in a loose perimeter. The droids were unpleasant; Zalthis surmised that they had the capacity for higher thought, but at least those turned out of old warehouses bore 'restraining bolts' and simplified tasking wafers. They reminded of Martian cybernetica more than the unsettlingly conversational droids others in this galaxy favored. Fragile though, and better suited as fodder. A worthy fate for a machine-mind, he considered.

'It's decided.'

'You don't outrank me,' Solidian spoke lowly, in High Gothic.

'I do not,' Zalthis agreed. 'But the Lieutenant placed me in command of this squad.'

The other Ultramarine studied Zalthis for a long, quiet moment. The Fondorians, sensing something, shifted and glanced about. The neophytes were silent.

'Just so,' Solidian murmured and hid his face away behind his helm again.

Mors Vigilia continued to provide overwatch as Zalthis led his motley command on foot. They left the lines well behind, picking through expansive supply yards and depot-grounds laced with debris and cloaked in thick blankets of ash. S'hmu and his conscripts wore breather-masks to keep the choking fume out. The neophytes went barefaced, trusting in their nascent constitutions to bear the microparticulates, a sign of the doughty durability of Astartes, even at their state. Encased within their plate, Zalthis' only ongoing irritation was the accumulation at the edges of his lenses.

Auspex resolution was poor, as no orbital over-flights were allowed. The cautious orbital truce continued to hold, neither flotilla risking even sending observation craft out over the front. Mors Vigilia did its best to provide the most up-to-date estimates of rakamat bio-titan location, but it stressed that it could not be certain. It placed degree of uncertainty between twelve and twenty-seven percent.

Twice, the subsonic rumble of the massive biots' tread forced a halt as a pack ambled past, once within only two hundred meters. To their credit, the Fondorians, though pale and trembling, did not crack. S'hmu hugged his rotary cannon close, krak missile launcher webbed to his back.

This was a world at war. The thunder in his bones from distant artillery, the ash that dusted his wargear, the echoing barks of distant gunfire. Flashes on the horizon that joined the bruised-red glow of consuming conflagrations, devouring acres and acres of depots and manufactories. Contrails that cut overhead as vong coralskippers clashed with E-Wings and local aerospace gunships.

This was war. His first war, wrought and raged on an alien world that would never taste compliance. War fought alongside xenos and humans not of the Imperium. How strange that his first taste of it should be thus. It stood so far aside from his dreams as a neophyte, still so very recent. He would learn from a new sergeant, alongside brothers veteran and fresh. They would bring the light of empirical truths to human civilizations, who would laud them and chant the name of the Emperor. He would, in sorrow, make war on those who refused or those who turned to heathen religion and idolatry.

He would be Ultramarine and the Crusade would be carried on his shoulders.

Now he was Ultramarine and he gestured to cetacean aliens to use borrowed handheld auspex to scan for hostile activity ahead. He commanded neophytes of his very own cadre, who looked to him as the veteran. He gave orders to his closest brother, who took them with narrowed eyes.

S'hmu shook his head in negation, gesturing toward a sprawling loading complex. The Herglic wiped ash from his auspex, squinting and peering again at the green-lit screen.

'No contacts,' he rumbled.

'Petran, Lyros, lead.'

They made swift time. In this span of the front, the concept of a 'line' was nebulous. Unlike near the center, where ongoing armor clashes and bunker-lines held the enemy at bay, on the flanks there was a porosity to both sides that heightened danger, but held opportunity. Ascratus would speak of leading regiment upon regiment of Army, with rumbling columns of armor support, enough to tread over a continent, but no such luxury presented itself here.

At least the practical was that the vong could not claim such either. Republican, Imperial or Vong, the forces upon Fondor were what was able to be passed through the planetary shield before it was restored. The generators were temperamental, Lieutenant Optarch reported, such that though the model of defensive barrier Fondor sported was of a pattern that could deactivate sectors, there was uncertainty if such precision manipulation would be possible without the entire projection flickering out.

The presence of vong biots and soldiery in force held strong indications that there would be no employment of the life-eater as at the Republic world of Ithor. All the same, a shield deactivation was clearly the goal of the vong push toward Oridin City. Claim the generators, claim the orbital defense guns and the world would be ripe for endless invasion.

They were constrained beneath a dome, both armies, that protected them as much as it hamstrung them. Magos Dominus Mu worked with the savants of Fondor to calm the spirits of the shield generators, but it was unfamiliar and alien technology. Even a Magos of Mars might find trouble.

'No patrols,' Solidian observed over vox. 'We must be close, but this is lax, even for an alien.'

Zalthis gestured broadly, disturbing drifting flakes of ash. 'This 'Tshek Ulm' might be confident the Republicans would not brave this weather.'

'Then the rakamats?'

'To deny a concerted assault, perhaps.'

They left a trail of footprints in ash and dust, picking between looming, cyclopean assembly arrays and past thousands of kilometers of tangled conveyor belts. The state of Fondor was of a snapshot in time. Before evacuation sirens sounded, already the biological overseers and workers were fleeing, fleeing as far and as fast as they could. As generatoriums powered off and sprawling networks of power grids fell dark, the droids that made up most of the population stood around waiting for commands until each, in turn, powered off. It made for eerie environs, with droids large and small simply frozen, like some ancient Grekan tales of curse-bearing gorgons.

S'hmu, shuffling past a dark-eyed droid, brushed too closely with the butt of his rotary cannon. It tipped, toppled, falling with stiff limbs in an almighty crash that froze everyone. Zalthis glared at the Herglic, fruitless behind his helm, attention riveted to his auspex scan. Breathless seconds, minutes - nothing.

They continued.

Something chewed at Zalthis thoughts as they existed another factorum, pausing to regroup and consult the local grid. Mors Vigilia reported little indication of any hostile activity and, in fact, rakamat packs appearing to be shifting southward. Checking against a holographic map of the region, supplied helpfully by one of the Fondorians - Veret - it clicked into place.

Everything was, aside from incidental damages, untouched.

Republic intelligence of the vong spoke of incensed, homicidal rages incited by even the sight of a single droid. A world such as Fondor, encrusted in unliving construction and populated by abominable intelligences? Zalthis would have expected to see signs of ritualistic violence perpetuated everywhere. There should not be these frozen, depowered droids. They should be piles of scrap and wiring, at the very least.

Nodding to Veret, a human, who shut off the holocube and tucked it away, Zalthis squinted and peered about. No patrols, only a handful of wandering biotitans, droids and machinery left unscathed…

He was sure Tshek Ulm was the local commander. He was also sure that, as of the last time the vong he had harvested the memories from spoke with Ulm, that the Subaltern was commanding from an assemblage of minshals in this very area. It had been hours, minimum. Practical: the vong had not indulged in their mindless hatred of technology. Theoretical: this Ulm carried a strict control over his cadre and recognized the hazards of unchecked and unprofessional pillaging.

That indicated a thoughtful commander, but that did not pair well with a total absence of any outriding patrols, even chazrach. If this Ulm was thoughtful enough to keep his warriors leashed, it should also occur to him the danger of infiltration units.

Something was not right.

The feeling deepened further when they sighted the minshals. Shaped like low domes, they formed a cluster in a transit yard. Crates and containers lay smashed and shoved aside, clearing out bare duracrete for the vong to construct their command post. Each minshal, to Zalthis' eye, was large enough a hundred vong might fit comfortably inside. S'hmu observed through magnoculars, but Zalthis' helm handled magnification easily.

The minshal appeared lustrous, like a nail or a scute, and if they were grown in situ or delivered by some biot he did know. He saw no apertures, but it could be the angle or they had some way to shutter them. Each was dusted with ash, like cottages in snow, but like before he spotted no life. No activity. S'hmu lay beside him, propped on elbows, and to his right Solidian surveyed the transit yard similarly. This humpbacked scree of a slumped building gave elevation, cover, and the neophytes and Fondorians waited lower down, catching breath and checking weapons.

What drew this 'Tshek Ulm' to prepare his command center here, it was hard to say. Fondor was a patchwork quilt of cities ringed by endless sprawl of factories and distribution facilities nigh-identical to this one. If Zalthis was pressed to choose a locale, he would look for utility. A connection to the local power grid, perhaps, or a particularly defensible arrangement of existing buildings. Elevation would be a positive as well, as would access to cleared space for a motorpool and for aviation.

This place had none of that. It was the usual span of a dozen square kilometers, set aside as a place for hovertrucks to load and receive shipments. Toward the end opposite their arrival, there was a span of darkness, where a subsurface level appeared to open to the surface. Zalthis frowned.

'Conscript S'hmu, what is that?'

The Herglic looked to Zalthis, then his extended finger.

'Oh, that's the rail-line.'

Zalthis had seen rail-lines already, usually elevated monorail tracks for electromagnetic cars to pass along. He'd been told those were used for commute. The usual air traffic lanes were set aside for industrial traffic, rather than civil. Coruscant had its bands of traffic for speeders, but Fondor was of a more practical bent.

'Underground rail?' The two words settled in his stomach as he spoke them. Beside him, Solidian shifted.

'Sure. Runs all through the area. There's a big link-up over by Kadyin Memorial.'

'S'hmu,' Zalthis spoke slowly, stressing the Herglic's given name. 'Are you telling me there are significant subsurface rail tunnels all over this region?'

Though the cetaceoid being did not possess eyebrows, it had a remarkably mobile face and approximated raising a brow.

'Yeh?'

'Mors Vigilia, Mors Vigilia, be advised: vong have access to potential arcology entrances.'

Static hummed from his vox. Zalthis blink-commanded the link again.

'Mors Vigilia?' Nothing. He switched bands. 'Kadyin Control?' Nothing. Switched again. 'Lieutenant Optarch? Sir?' Nothing.

He grabbed the Herglic by the shoulder, squeezing tightly enough the being groaned.

'Is this common knowledge?'

'Th-the rail? It's how most of everything gets around! From the refineries to casting, to the fabrication plants!'

He released S'hmu, shoving away from the ridgeline of debris, sliding rapidly down toward where the three neophytes glanced up in surprise. Solidian followed in his wake.

'Sir?'

'Lyros, Petran, Qario. You are to take half the conscripts and return to the lines. Warn the Lieutenant and Mors Vigilia about subterranean rails. The vong are using them.'

S'hmu, stumbling down the scree after Zalthis, waved his hands in placation.

'Without power, they're just tunnels! Most of them collapsed anyway from the groundquakes, that's probably why-'

Solidian whirled, shoving the Herglic back with one broad palm to the being's chest.

'You do not make assumptions! Do you think the vong will look at an unpowered mag-train and think to themselves 'oh what a shame'? They have beasts and biots that can carry them!'

'Peace, Sol, it wasn't the conscript's duty. This should have been told to us by the Guild.' Zalthis pointed a ceramite-clad digit back the way they came. 'Go, Neophytes. Deliver the warning. We will investigate if this 'Tshek Ulm' remains, or if he has already descended into the tunnels. We may be able to give chase, at any rate.'

The three dipped their heads, made signs of the aquila, then rounded up half of the Fondorians. Zalthis did not miss that those departing did so with a look of some relief. S'hmu and the remainder waited uneasily as Solidian fixed his gleaming red lenses at them. His brother was choleric, excessively so. He opened vox.

'Sol, what is it?'

'What is what, Zal?'

'Your humours are unbalanced.'

'We are babysitting xenos and wayward humans. This isn't why Ascratus died, Zal. We shouldn't be wasting our time on this husk of a world.'

Behind his mask, Zalthis closed his eyes a moment, willing away irritation with his brother. This was not the first time this argument happened.

'The Primarch-'

'The Primarch sent us to protect the Centerpoint weapon. Not…fight and waste time on this dead world. This is Lieutenant Optarch's command.'

'And you believed Lord Guilliman would allow him to go astray? Do you think the Primarch blind, Sol?' Zal said, flatly. S'hmu and the others, clueless to their exchange, watched the retreating backs of the neophytes and the other conscripts. Zalthis snapped his fingers, getting S'hmu's attention, then pointed to the Fondorians and the peak of the rubble. The Herglic nodded, unlimbering his rotary cannon, barking out orders to take posts and keep an eye out.

'Of course not!' Sol sounded defensive, offended even, though the logical progression of his meaning was evident. 'This is just…Zal, you humor them. We should not even be with these natives, we should be with the First Auxilia or Iax Tertius. This is an insult, to have us nursemaid xenos and-'

'Sol!'

'Look at them, Zal! They are everything we were made to fight! Sons, proud sons of Ultramar bleed for this world. Are we to just bow and leave when we're done?'

'If that is the will of the Primarch, yes.'

'Like Obroa-skai?' Solidian accused.

Temper finally worn thin, Zalthis snapped back, whirling in a clatter of ceramite.

'Enough, Sol! We are here now, and the practical is to survive. What theoretical can there be for that? To make war alongside the Republicans.'

'Until they bleed us white for their cause,' Sol muttered, mulishly still over the vox.

Zalthis cut the private channel, stomping back up the scree toward where S'hmu and the others lay flat, lasrifles out and overwatching. Elbowing up beside the Herglic, avoiding silhouetting himself, Zalthis looked back down at the distribution yard and the quiet minshals. If Tshek Ulm had, indeed, descended into those tunnels, it may be a precursor to an assault, or a lightning raid of some sort. Or, the vong commander could be set up inside one of the sealed organic buildings, safely out of the smogged air and ashfall. There was but one way to know.

'S'hmu, you and yours remain here. Provide overwatch and warning should you sight any vong. Brother Solidian and I will clear the minshals. If any targets attempt to flee, kill them.'

S'hmu looked him up and down, then glared past Zalthis at Solidian.

'Alright, Blue Boy. We'll try not to zap your behinds.'

Zalthis gestured to Solidian and they eased over the ridge, half-sliding, half-clambering down the other side of the slumped rubble pile. They were just at the base, picking past lumps of duracrete and splintered furniture when the ground began to tremble.

Along a ravaged residential sector, at the other end of the front, a sweeping Yuuzhan Vong push saw fierce building-to-building, room-to-room fighting. Bloody attritional skirmishes left thousands of chazrach dead and bled the native forces in the area dry. A breach seemed imminent before a squadron of old Juggernauts hammered into the enemy lines, the armored vehicles rippling salvos of missile into hordes of the reptilians, crushing others beneath tires. The rallying Fondorian forces solidified their position, the counterstrike of armor punching into Yuuzhan Vong lines. Rakamats dueled with Juggernauts, the venerable vehicles handily able to keep up with the durable biots. Plasma and magma missile clashed with laser cannon and missile launcher.

Local guild lawkeepers stood shoulder to shoulder with conscripted workers and followed the barked orders of hard-faced humans in peaked caps and round-eyes rebreathers. Battalions of simple-minded B1 droids were poured into the area. They died in droves, programmed with only simplistic tactics and maneuvers, but the amount of blasterfire they brought pulled weight away from the locals. Old SPHA/m artillery shelled the invaders from range. The last gasp of the Clone Wars lashed out a shadow of its fury in ironic combination. Guildmasters smugly congratulated each other on squirreling away the material, pretending that it had been planned all along and not a matter of cheap convenience.

The line held. It held.

Juggernaut TTV-3 slewed around a corner, remarkably agile for a vehicle of its size, tires screaming and steaming on the duracrete. As long as an AT-AT stood tall, the tank was a relic, pulled out of mothballed storage and, literally, dusted off. Inside, the old vestiges of Tapani martial culture lived on. Tinny, a datapad blasted triumphant music as gunners peered out through targeting consoles. In the tiny dorsal cupola, the current spotter swore under his breath, clutching his coat tighter against the wind.

The crew of TTV-3, a hodge-podge of speedertruck drivers, cargo loaders and steersmen, racked up two kills today. A gunship analogue, like a flying wing that spat plasma, and a beetle-like troop transport that spilled out dying chazrach. Good kills, kills for their home, and their blood was up.

Barreling down a ravaged street, flanked on either side by heaped ruins; it never detected its killer.

The ground erupted, debris flung hundreds of meters as a vast shape tore free. TTV-3's pilot, alarms blaring about her, tried to gun the engine, to outpace whatever danger had shown itself. The spotter gaped in paralyzed awe.

Instead, the tank slammed to halt, sudden deceleration enough to kill one unlucky Duro as he was climbing a ladder between decks. Spine severed, he tumbled hard. Durasteel screamed as it was compressed and punctured.

Enormous, jagged teeth sunk home in armor, tires smoking as they spun ineffectually.

A monster rose.

One hundred meters of muscle, carapace and coral hauled itself out of the ground, erupting out of a railway tunnel. Rockets slashed up from the stricken Juggernaut, but the biot did not even bother aligning voids. Explosions rippled across its hide, leaving only cosmetic scarring. Stubby forearms gripped the fore and rear of the tank and the creature feasted, crunching through armor like paper, ignoring bursts of flame as it ripped asunder engines and magazines of ammunition.

TTV-3 was torn to shreds before the creature pulled away, coming to its full height, supported on two columnar, massive legs. Its body was hunched, counterbalanced by a long and meaty tail that gently waved in the air. Nodding, serrated plates marched from head to tail-tip, swelling into a tall ridge along its back, reminiscent of rakamats.

Still clenching the rear of the Juggernaut in one enormous paw it threw back its head, unleashing a ululating bellow.

Another bellow answered as a second shook itself free of its concealment.

Against two there was no chance. The rare and devastating biots had been seen only a handful of times before and each time had either been utterly unopposed or required capital ship fire from orbit to put them down. Republicans who'd faced them named them Worldeaters.

The remaining Juggernauts turned to flee, their breakout turned into a sudden rout. Plasma spewed from nodules along each worldeater's back. Urang-hul erupted from gestation sacs along its limbs with meaty bursts, each man-sized insect arcing high before acquiring a target and slamming back down with enough force to flip hovertanks. Relative to thudbugs, these were a breed designed not to stagger a man, but to kill vehicles.

Nas Choka had been granted these great beasts, these Yam'Qarthak, whose brethren were earmarked for the coming invasion of the infidel's capital. Each was an army in their own right, uncontested by any land-going craft of the Republic.

They rampaged through Republic lines and the front crumbled. Pierced through, anchored on the massive, plodding biots, the Yuuzhan Vong spearheaded an offensive that cut dozens of kilometers out toward the capital. War droids mustered en-masse: SB series, local permutations and more turned out in the hundreds. Coralskippers and tsik-vai sortied out, delivering precision strikes from the air even as the gargantua kept up an unrelenting hail of plasma and urang-hul.

Sannad Optarch harried the creatures with Thunderhawk strikes, but even those gunships were turned aside. The Iax Tertius 57th pulled Leman Russ back, giving ground, avoiding any armor engagement entirely.

Each a biological furnace, the leviathans only paused to occasionally gorge themselves, shoveling battered skeletons of war droids, organic defenders and vehicles into their maws. All would be rendered down in their guts, churning new plasmic ammunition into existence and growing new, overlapping slabs of armor. As they ate, they grew, and as they grew, each Worldeater diverged. No two were ever completely alike.

The march to Oridin City had begun.

At Kadyin Memorial, near the center of the front, Lieutenant Optarch received the news with calm acceptance. Live-feed holos showed the two rampaging Worldeaters to the south while another provided an aerial view of a third only a hundred kilometers north. The nerve-center of Fondorian defense was near the top of a sky-scraping Guild tower, one that used to provide plush comfort and living spaces to overseers and executives. Myriad conference rooms and amphitheatre-shaped lecture suites provided all the necessary uplink capacity and living space for the staff needed to coordinate eight hundred kilometers of active warzone.

Optarch brought only a few staff with him, a youthful faced duplicate of himself in stripped down armor and a handful of dour humans in greatcoats and frogging. None of the 'Magi' of the Exiles, that word had were in the capital city, assisting in repair and reinforcement of the planetary shields.

"Worldeaters," the Ultramarine repeated, leaning closer to the holos. Once a lecture hall and design theatre, where priceless starship schematics were argued over and finalized before submission to the plants, now in its stacked tiers were Guild officials and communications handlers maintaining a steady background hum of noise as they received and dispersed orders and operations updates.

"That's what stuck," Amerst Ullos confirmed. The human General, Republic Navy Marines, bore an expression as grim as the mood in the command post. At first he'd chafed at being forced to play second-fiddle to a 'Lieutenant', but in the six days of fighting on the ground, Ullos was surprised that Sannad Optarch only held the rank of Lieutenant. Clearly, the 'Legionnes Astartes' operated differently.

Optarch straightened, turning broad back to the holos to peer round at Fondorian natives and New Republic soldiery. He was usually even-keeled and not given to extremes of emotion, but even the Ultramarine had to understand that the battle was lost. There was no sign of it, as though word that three capital-ships-on-legs laying into their soldiers was as remarkable as the menu for the day's lunch.

Infuriatingly, in fact, a small smirk curled Optarch's lips.

"Amusing," the Ultramarine said, loud enough for all present to hear. "Worldeaters."

Ullos stabbed a finger at the holo.

"You think that's funny?"

"The title, general. Worldeater. You see, the Twelfth Legion goes under that cognomen, just as we in the Thirteenth are Ultramarines. They are 'World Eaters'."

It had to be some manner of strange Exile humor. Ullos saw he wasn't alone in looking to the Lieutenant in disbelief.

"We will need orderly withdrawal. Do not contest the pushes led by these 'Worldeaters', but redouble where they are not. Each can be isolated in due course and dealt with." No one moved. It was a sick joke - Optarch, standing tall and mild, with holos right behind him showing a stomping Worldeater spraying plasma from a dozen horned projectors along its huge body.

"Did I misspeak?"

"This fight is over, Lieutenant." Ullos declared.

"Because of these creatures? Surely not, General."

"The last time they were spotted during the fall of Taris, it took orbital fire to beat it back. You know we can't do that here." Ullos exhaled hard, already fearing the report he'd have to give. He thought they had it, he really did. The Fondorians reacted fast, faster than he would've expected. The Exiles, with their soldiers and their tanks and these Ultramarine supersoldiers; Ullos had truly thought they could beat the Yuuzhan Vong here.

"Guild Coordinator Dursem," Optarch said. The called-out Duro started, blinking rapidly. "If I remember from inventory reports, there are SPHA/t remaining in storage?"

The Duro, Dursem, nodded his trembling head. Not everyone was comfortable yet with the Ultramarine. Even Ullos still felt unsettled by just how big the man was and how smoothly he moved. It wasn't the size, he told himself, it was the grace. Unnatural.

"Then we isolate each Worldeater and bring turbolaser artillery to bear. Coupled with Thunderhawk strikes, they may be brought down." Optarch raised a brow. "We do not give up because a situation has become more dangerous. We only need adjust our practical and see it through."

Ullos stopped, considered. SPHA/t was rated for antiship use. It wasn't as common, as trying to train artillery on something as small as a corvette was an exercise in futility, but - he glanced to the holo - Worldeaters were slow. They looked fast, for their size, but they were big, waddling targets. He could imagine drawing a bead on them with a turbolaser. The only problem was that the 'waddling target' appellation also applied to SPHA chassis.

"We do not agree, Lieutenant." That voice came from what the Exiles called Vigilia, some kind of battlespace droid computer. That was Ullos' assumption, at least, as Mors Vigilia had never been properly introduced as anything but a tactical consultant. It spoke rarely, usually conveying calculations about likely vong movements. It was also, helpfully, usually accurate. It never seemed to have much of an opinion, more of a voracious and particularly focused interest in following the ebb and flow of battle.

"Speak then, Mors Vigilia."

"SPHA/t will be unable to counter Worldeater bio-titans. Armor-sign demonstrates Rakamat packs supporting. Additional: Yuuzhan Vong anti-armor munitions capable of non-line-of-sight suppression."

"Valid points," Optarch mused.

"We could assign anti-air coverage," Ullos offered. "If Vigilia-"

"Mors Vigilia," Optarch corrected.

"If Mors Vigilia is speaking about grutchins and smash bugs, they can be intercepted before they can reach the artillery."

"Rate of fire of SPHA/t cannonry additional concern. Yuuzhan Vong basal voids require weight of fire to suppress. SPHA/t capacitor charging rates are insufficient."

"Then it is over."

"No, General, Mors Vigilia would have a solution, else they would not have spoken."

"Correct, Lieutenant. Ascertain the total number of Worldeaters. Lure them together. Then, allow Me to end them."

"With what, pray tell? A bomb? Some kind of weapon you Exiles brought here?" Hope and despair warred together. This Mors Vigilia sounded utterly certain of itself and Lieutenant Optarch even appeared thoughtful. So far, the Exiles hadn't failed to deliver on promises, even ones they hadn't made. These were worldeaters, though. The largest single biots the Yuuzhan Vong had, outside of their starships. Real monsters.

"We prepare for both eventualities, then. General, I will have my aides consult with yours for transport of the SPHA/t to a staging position. Mors Vigilia, we will speak in private."

"Affirmative."

Orders went out, musters planned. The Iax Tertius and Eboracum Auxilia would harry the vong bio-titans with long ranged artillery fire, hopefully slowing their advance for Fondorian conscripts to adopt ordered retreats. Routs now could be devastating. The holomap updated, icons sprouting for each Worldeater, along with their rate of travel and the distance to the outskirts of Oridin City. Ullos eyed the estimates, lips pursed. If the SPHA/t or whatever 'Mors Vigilia' had planned couldn't stop them , they would be in range of the capital's outer defenses in a week.

Ullos rubbed at his chin. Was it all worth fighting for anyway? Artificial winter would hit soon, the world cooling over the next decade or more. Long dormant volcanoes had been rewoken by the impact of the carrier and now belched their own contributions to the ruin of this continent. Thermal imaging of the scar showed it as an ugly wound visible from orbit. Even if they won; with the shipyards gone and the surface stricken, what use did Fondor have left?

Profanity filled the air just the same as the stink of fycelene, Sula hauling hard on the controls. Elsali yelped, barking her head against the side of the turret. Obsie, white knuckled and wide-eyed, peered up from the ammunition well. To either side, both gunners sat with teeth clenched and fingers tight on triggers. Lascannons screamed over and over, capacitors running so hot the interior of the Russ was sweltering, sweat slicking each member of the crew. Sula was down to his undershirt, plastered to his broad chest, and Elsali had her jacket shrugged off around her waist. Sarge hadn't stopped shouting over the vox, eye glued to his scope.

Sula drove the sixty tonne tank like a premium speeder, slewing hard around corners as he spun tracks opposite, whirling ninety degrees at times with enough force that Elsali worried her slapdash breakfast would come back up. Anything, anything at all to keep duracrete and durasteel and as many meters of warehouse between them and the Worldeater as possible.

A fourth one, erupted right at Kadyin Memorial, burst right out of the throne-damned ground. Those monster bugs it launched knocked one of the Russ in their platoon around before a jet of superheated plasma slagged the tank's turret.

'AP!' Sarge shouted. Obsie rammed one home. Elsali elevated, saw the Worldeater, two kilometers distant, side-on, walk right through a residential block as if it was made of flimsy. She pressed the pin, the tank lurched, a void devoured her shell. The bio-titan didn't even notice, continuing to stomp flat the block of apartments as if they had offended it personally. Rakamats trudged in its wake, but while Elsali knew they could kill one - and there were two now, painted on the turret of their tank - the fuggin bitch Worldeater kept everyone on the move so they couldn't get a chance to focus fire.

Plasma seared at them, hot. Elsali cried out, lurching away from the eyepiece of her scopes, but Sula was already slamming down the accelerator. The Russ lurched hard, trembling and Elsali heard masonry clatter and spang off the armor.

Nothing they threw at that monster did anything. Two Thunderhawks tried to light it up with their dorsal lascannon, but it just hurled bugs and jets of plasma at them both. There seemed to be no end to their voids, not like the rakamats.

Pale, trembling, sweat beading on her forehead, Elsali hoped that the her new fellows were right and there really was an Emperor out there watching out for them.

The 'world-eater' bio-titans intrigued him. Superficially, they resembled some of the beasts that the more feral Eldar commanded. Those reptilian mounts of theirs harkened back to Terran prehistory, what little was preserved by the actions of his Father and Malcador. Roboute remembered ancient fossils, painstakingly preserved and recovered in some of the athenaeum halls of the Palace, in the brief visits he had. The Eldar creatures were as animals, however, akin to cybercanines or even grox. The biots of the Yuuzhan Vong were tailor made, crafted, it was believed, from the genetic level up to perfectly perform the tasks required of them.

From data inload provided by Optarch at Fondor, these 'Worldeater' bio-titans were formidable indeed. Republic intelligence spoke of armor plating as thick and as doughty as a cruiser-analogue warship, with dovin basals just as strong. They bore gestation blisters for insects of both the grutchin type, with their acid saliva, and of a much greater strain of 'thud bug'. The toll the three, then four Worldeaters reaped spoke to their efficacy and the Republic's inability to match superheavy assets on the ground. Their war-walkers were flimsy and underarmored, slow and lacking any defensive shields.

Anti-titan weaponry, such as that of a Shadowsword, Roboute judged, would be enough. Would that Optarch had, of course, taken any of such superheavy tanks.

He put aside Fondor, trusting to Optarch, Orichi-Mu and 'Mors Vigilia'. The latter surprised him to be active, but he did suppose it was their prerogative, given that Orichi-Mu was present. The divide between Terra and Mars remained still and he was loathe to too deeply interfere in affairs of the Red Planet, even so far from the bounds of the Imperium. It would not have been his choice, but Guilliman saw the potential there.

Still inscribing with his stylus onto mnemoplate, Roboute found his attention diverted by motion beyond the broad crystal viewport in his chambers. Macragge's Honour remained still in orbit of the hot giant of the Eboracum system, lurking in its dense radiation bands to remain hidden on sensors. Not only was the flagship the greatest strength the 4711th had, but with no way yet to return to Ultramar, the precious apothecarion and related gene-laboratories were the singular avenue to replenish, in theory, the ranks of Ultramarines.

What struck the wrong note was that no traffic was expected.

Guilliman was to his feet before the first magma missiles erupted from five miid-roic cruisers, all within visual range.

By the time he reached the strategium, the Yuuzhan Vong warships were gone.

'I'm sorry, sire. They exited hyperspace on top of us, fired a salvo, and then translated out again.'

Marius Gage dared to look abashed until Guilliman glared at his son. Clearing his throat, Marius offered a dataslate. 'There were simultaneous strikes at Eboracum and against Numinus on her patrol.' The Primarch's grip on the slate tightened until its casing creaked ominously.

'Damage, Marius?'

'Minimal. It was just as it was here: a squadron exited hyperspace, discharged a full salvo, accelerated and entered hyperspace again. Fourth Honor sustained slight cosmetic damage, but otherwise all voids held. Missiles launched at Eboracum Orbital were all intercepted.'

They knew where the Imperium was. That was bound to happen; there had been no real attempts after the summit with Senator Shesh to continue to hide. With the gates thrown open and millions upon millions flooding in-system, the invaders were sure to locate them. No public statement had yet been released by the Republican Senate, though Senator Shesh was already leaning heavily on doing so after the action at Fondor, but the 'Exiles' were all but public knowledge now. Cornelius' feats over the embattled shipyard-world flooded the holonet from Rim to Core.

Guilliman had even expected the use of hyperspatial faster-than-light in this manner. Hit and run attacks, using the greater flexibility to enter and exit transluminal travel from the very edges of gravity wells. It was a problem that vexed the locals of this galaxy since time immemorial and they had their various counters to it. Mass shadow generators, like those used ably at Fondor to allow Cornelius' squadron a most efficacious reversion, could cut off the avenue of hyperspace at will.

The Magi had theories as to their operation, but no answers yet.

Time was now up.

'Send word to all ships. They are to instruct their gunnery crews to be on-station around the clock and to fire at will, without requesting clearance. If even a single macrobattery has a shot on the bastards, I want them to take it.'

Marius dipped his head in agreement.

'And take us from orbit. Shipmaster, we are required at Eboracum.'

Ouon Hommed saluted, barking orders already to navigation and enginarium cadres. Macragge's Honour stirred to life, elevating her blunt prow toward the chip of light that was Eboracum. In her engines spaces, ratings brought reactors to bear, plasma-fusion annihilators pumping unimaginable energies into her blood until the Gloriana lofted out of her stately orbit. Guilliman remained in the strategium for the entire cruise, tense and restive. Waiting for the worst to call. Wishing Macragge's Honour bore the same miraculous engines that would deliver them to Eboracum's orbit in moments, rather than long hours.

Marius Gage stood vigil with him, listening as the vong prosecuted the same hit-and-fade strikes for the rest of the solar day. No losses, no damage - but Guilliman knew that was not the intent. They were not attacking and hoping for shipkills. No, they were gauging the 4711th's response, building a practical to an untested theoretical. Concerningly: it was exactly as Guilliman would have done in their situation.