The New Jedi Order: A Vision of Confluence

XVIII: Incursion

In a perverse mirror to the wounding of the flagship over Calth, in ways that those of Domain Shai could not know, the halls of Macragge's Honour were flooded. Yorik-trema and the larger yorik-troka, those many that survived brief and panicked interception fire, met hasty repairs with plasma spitters and monomolecular gnashing jaws and corrosive, brutal acids. Wormlike umbilicals snaked into these slashed wounds, sealing in place with quick-setting mucus. Klaxons howled, calling alerts, demanding responses, yet the defenders were caught flat-footed.

Chazrach, hordes of chazrach, entire brood-lines of chazrach, spilled forth first. They were the sacrificial play, the bulwark, the expendable meat-wall to test and prod what none of the Chosen could imagine. The dead-metal ships of the infidel 'Republic' were worthless to expend warriors to assault: a touch of the seductive caress of a dovin basal, a suitable application of plasma and magma-missile and the made-ships died in ignomy. At best, claiming an infidel warship would serve to provide slaves or sacrifices, should the priests declare the action suitable.

The Warleader, upon whose name praise was to be heaped, knew otherwise. From his hands were flung Domain Shai, given leave to reclaim their honour, to earn the favor and eyes of the gods again. Thus: the halls of Macragge's Honour were flooded. Blood ran thick and red. Menials and sailors died, cut down, butchered, drowned under a wave of chittering, shrieking reptiloid forms. Hatches were pulled shut tight and sealed. Corridors were blocked off. Magi scrambled to enact isolation protocols.

The Warleader, upon whose name praise was to be heaped, did not intend to spend idly the lives of his warriors, even those whose star had waned. Biots stalked among the boarders, gifted by the Shapers, biots whose purpose was otherwise but whose utility was incalculable. Ground-listeners shuffled along, guided by careful handlers, stomping columnar, wide-footed legs in sequence. Infrasound pulsed out, echoing and bouncing and the biots grumped and hooted, each pitch and tone of their calls describing what the creatures saw. Emptiness and hollows - dangerous terrain, hazardous foundations, unsuitable for construction.

Their handlers interpreted the calls, ignoring the distress of their fleshy charges. Intended for use in determining suitable rooting-sites for minshals and grashals and damuteks, ground-listeners were not combat biots but ones shaped for peaceful matters. Now they were retasked, their deep-penetrating calls revealing the spidery, labyrinthine, complex ways of the Imperial warship, rather than aquifers and sand pits and unsteady geology.

Qesud Qesh, Master of Shaping, knew well the Cortices and drew out patterns and designs to suit the demands of her sponsor. Thus were the sons of Shai given the tools they required.

When Harrar, Priest of Yun-Harla, exchanged quiet words with Malik Carr, he asked in clear terms if the Warleader intended to sacrifice all the warriors committed.

"I do," the Warleader confirmed. "But I do not expect them to fail."

The Warleader's last speech rang in the ears of the warriors as they whooped cries to Yun-Yammka, as they called the names of their greater ancestors, as they described loops of arterial spray and dismantled bodies.

"Go and show the fearlessness of Shai. Show the piety of Shai and the courage of Shai, and let none again question the honour of your ancient Domain. The eyes of the Gods are upon you, and the eyes of the Warmaster are drawn."

The fearlessness. Fearlessness. Piety. Courage.

Into the halls of Macragge's Honour thundered ten thousand tall warriors of Shai, whose armor was ink-dark and polished, chased with silver and white. The Slayer's hand was upon them and they knew no fear.

'We are mustering, but for the moment, the task falls to our armsmen.'

Marius Gage reported with dispassion, the fingers of his augmetic hand clicking as he flexed each individually. Still they itched with psychosomatic feedback, haunting him with a feeling that they responded just imperceptibly too slow to his thoughts, enough to leave him invalid. Weaker. If he could not trust his own hand, he could carry neither blade nor bolter. The apothecaries and Tech-marines assured him the augmetic took as well as could be expected. Careful diagnostics revealed no sensorial delay.

Still it ached. Still he flexed his fingers, feeling each respond a ghost of a moment too slowly.

His father's lips were pursed, his brow drawn taut, his every muscles taut. Even in his master-crafted plate - which the Primarch had not worn in some time - Gage could see the tension in his shoulders, in his stance. He could imagine tendons like hawsers tight and bulging beneath the skin.

'They learned from us,' Guilliman bit out around a grimace.

'That was my thought as well, my lord. According to Republican intelligence, the vong have not pursued combat boardings against warships. At most, they have assaulted undefended or lightly defended civilian vessels or stations, likely for the purpose of gathering sacrifices.'

When the jury-rigged asteroids appeared and the boarding action was launched, the Primarch beckoned and withdrew to his arming chamber. Chapter menials rushed to garb the Primarch and once his plate was in-place - in record time as well, in mere minutes - Guilliman did not return to the primary strategium. There, the shipmaster commanded still the interdiction of the lunar debris. That task remained nearly as paramount as repelling the boarding assault, and a mixing of two priority tasks was unwise.

Instead, the secondary strategium was claimed. Much smaller than the primary, which served as bridge and command center both, the secondary strategium was set aside for more focused, particular tasks. During the Crusade, it was where planetary assaults would be planned and guided, where theatre-level planning would occur. It was shaped as an amphitheatre, with ten climbing tiers of consoles and data-anchors and embedded servitors. Each could be tuned as needed, to be filled with Excertus planners and logisticians, with iterators and educators preparing for compliance, with void-analysts and Imperialis advisors to chart out the conquest of entire sectors.

A vast mnemo-table filled the 'stage' of the amphitheatre, lit now to reveal a complex, horrific and incomprehensible mass of lines and hatchings, slashes and sigils and curves. A cross-section plan of the flagship, incomprehensible in scale to all but the most augmented, trained and ancient of Hullwright Archmagos. Or, to the posthuman, elevated mind of a Primarch.

Blotches in red demarcated where the aliens had penetrated. Crawling emblems slithered, like an upended hive of ants skittering and scurrying without rhyme or reason. Each was a squad of naval armsmen, or ratings given stubbers, or mustered Astartes killteams, or skitarii platoons, or Cybernetica maniples.

Gage had not bothered to watch the mnemo-table. He understood his limits.

'They do not appear to have a goal,' his Primarch mused, superficially calm. Many decades of campaigning with Guilliman inured Gage to his father's attempts to mask his emotions. Roboute Guilliman sometimes pretended to be Dorn, but could master none of the Imperial Fist's true impregnable solemnity. Roboute Guilliman was furious. 'There are movements aft, toward the engineering spaces, but that, I believe, is simple logic. Look there: they are bypassing entirely a magazine. This is a fool's errand. They cannot hope to achieve any goals.'

'Perhaps their goal is merely to sow chaos.' Drakus Gorod, enormous in his Cataphractii plate, stood nearly as tall as Guilliman himself. His voice was sneering, behind his helm. 'They understand they cannot face our strengths directly. This is an act of cowardice, an attempt to distract us from the greater concern of the moon.'

'They cannot face our strengths? Mortarch Abandon is crippled. Their battleships fought Opolor's Vow to a standstill and now the vong have tried to pull down Eboracum's own moon. You forget, Captain, that I have felt the power in their bioshaped weapons.' Codicier Rubio gripped his force-sword, sheathed at his waist, in a tense grip. Helmetless beneath his psychic cowl, the warp-touched Astartes' eyes glowed with gentle white back-light. Crimson stains marked his philtrum and upper lip. He had not bothered to wipe away the evidence of what he felt.

'And yet, the moon is shattered.'

'And now rains ruin on a world that we swore to defend.'

Slabbed adamantium shoulders shifted in what might be construed as a shrug.

'The Ultramarian Excertus will survive beneath the void shields of the civitas. The rest of the world matters little.'

Rubio's eyes flashed, but whatever retort he would offer the Captain of the Invictarii was silenced by the Primarch's cleared throat.

'Peace, Drakus, Tylos. I will not underestimate these Yuuzhan Vong. Phratus - I see killteams converging. Do not feed them in piecemeal. If there must be a delay - then delay. Rally armsmen and send armed ratings in to slow the boarders. Lieutenant Optarch's reports continue to concern me.'

Phratus Auguston, First Company Captain, resplendent in his rich command cape, plumed and gilt helm under his arm, nodded.

'It will be so, sire.'

Gage returned his focus to the mnemo-table. He let the overwhelming snarl of information pass through him, looking not for particulars but instead absorbing the icons as a gestalt whole. Red swathes that demonstrated where the vong invaders breached through the wounds of the Seventeenth expanded oddly and in fits and starts. For now, they were but spots on the enormous frame of the flagship. Estimates placed the count of invaders between five and twenty thousand - shocking numbers to some, but, in truth, woefully inadequate to the task they presumably pursued.

A warship of the stars bore little resemblance to a warship of aeons past, those bound to the seas. Behind the lances and plasma turrets, macrobatteries and void arrays, a capital ship was a city unto itself. Generations were born, lived and died within the spaces of a battleship. In some Legions, in some elements of the Imperialis Armada, this was a grim tasking, one more akin to serfdom or worse. Ultamarian ideals shone through, even in the bowels and bilges of starships, and though many never set foot beyond the corridors and chambers and spaces of Macragge's Honour, their lives were not ones of suffering or undue hardship.

Macragge's Honour was a city, torn up from the flesh of a world and shaped, hammered and drawn out into a facsimile of a battleship. Beneath the veneer of flesh, beneath the pretensions of a ship of war, lived a living, breathing society. Hundreds of thousands - millions, even - of kilometers of spaces within the Gloriana contained more than just enginariums and reactor spaces, munitions depots and magazines, machine bays and barracks.

There were vast cafeteria, recreational theatres, libraries and even simple multi-purpose assembly halls. For those that lived within the Primarch's flagship, there was more than pride in serving a son of the Emperor within their breast. There was a fierce and ferocious love of home, of the construct that was city and warship and symbol alike.

Gage knew that every last sailor would fight to the death to protect their home.

The defenders were…brave. He could grudgingly grant them that much. There was a scale to them. The first that Yus Shai slew wore grease-stained overalls and brandished only some tool in both hands. Contemptuous, his amphistaff claimed the heathen's head and Yus Shai forgot him immediately thereafter. Chazrach mobbed the rest of the working gang until the tang of iron was sweet on his tongue. This was the first type. He assumed they were the slave-caste of the 'Impeerium', reflected by their lack of martial prowess and the fear-stink that sweat from them. They were cattle and Yus Shai bade his cadre of chazrach to cut them down like cattle, so as not to stain his blade.

The second type came in squads. In their arms they cradled stubby rifles that fired cracking, flechette bursts of projectiles. They were potent enough to kill chazrach, though this was unsurprising. Yus Shai weathered a blast to his torso, from near point-blank, fringed lips curling behind his full-face mask. The blow was staggering, kinetic force redirected somewhat by his vonduun skerr kyrric. It was still enough to force him to the backfoot, breath stolen for a moment. Then he recovered and severed the man's wrists, elbows and then head.

He probed his armor, feeling dents in the hardened, crystalline carapace. Not nearly potent enough.

The third kind shaped tactics. At junctions, thresholds of hatches and bulkhead frames, they assembled ambushes. Explosive projectiles were lobbed, rattling and bouncing and Yus Shai bade his chazrach to intercept them, bodily. Muted crumps lifted the diminutive creatures in bursts of whizzing shrapnel. Bright, hot beams of light snapped and crackled and to his surprise, these struck weaker against his skerr kyrric than the thumping slugs of shotguns.

The beams reflected and refracted, scorching lines but scattering brilliantly, almost dazzingly. He thanked the Gods, specifically Yun-Ne'shel, for the brilliance of the interwoven crystalline layers of his dutiful, noble armor. These groups struck and faded, keeping at distance before fleeing, locking tight behind them portals and barricades. They were the delaying actions, Yus Shai recognized, made to sting and harry and delay.

For he knew the fourth kind were coming. At just the thought, just the merest, slightest consideration, his blood sang. Yus Shai licked his lips with pointed, pierced tongue. Tales spread of them, tales that grew taller and grander with each telling. His heart thumped, his hands tingled, even his amphistaff shared his eagerness, writhing and hissing and snapping in his grip.

Aistarteez. Like the Jeedai, rumored to be the only beings in this wretched galaxy that might be a worthy foe. Auspices from the Gods declared each and every Aistarteez to be a worthy offering, equal to at least a hundred lesser infidels. The Priest Harrar spoke the words, and thus they must be true. Even one Aistarteez would redeem him. Just one fallen by his hand, cloven by his amphistaff, brought low by his bugs, would elevate Yus Shai to delirious new heights. The Slayer would notice.

They would be coming. He was sure of it.

Caedos Quintus readjusted his boarding shield, clamped tight to his left arm. Left behind by Lieutenant Optarch, he and the rest of his squad were restive, frustrated, left behind while the rest of Thiel's Redmarked earned glory on the Republican world of Fondor. The Primarch allowed only half of the Captain's growing company to be deployed, unwilling to spend the entirety of the experiment, should the worst come to pass. It was a sound theoretical, Quintus admitted, but it chafed nonetheless.

Guilt curled in his gut, shame at his eagerness to clash with the vong xenoform. He should not be eager. He should not feel a tickle of pleasure, of excitement. It was unbecoming. Macragge's Honour was violated. Eboracum, chosen by the Primarch, faced devastation. In very real terms, the 4711th faced the greatest threat since Calth.

Quintus struggled to keep a grin from crossing his face behind his helm. He struggled, failed, and with a mental shrug, accepted his impropriety. He would consider it later, and make amends. The Redmarked - the Captain - chose him because of who he was. When this moment had passed, he would admit his failings to Lieutenant Optarch, when he returned. He would be educated on perspective and he would be grateful, and then in the future he would be just as hungry for battle again, and the process would repeat.

It was who he was.

Alongside nine other Ultramarines, four of his own squad and five from the 76th company, Quintus braced behind his shield, dropping it's end to slam to the deck. They made a wall across the corridor, braced tight, shoulder to shoulder. Bolt pistols peeked through slots in each shield.

'Hostile contact estimated between thirty and forty-nine seconds. Multiple squad strength. Ratio of 'Warrior' to 'Serf' calculated 1:15.'

A genderless, emotionless voice blurted information into each of their ears. Magi tracked the invaders, relaying real-time information to approaching Ultramarine squads. Quintus never learned the designation of their controller - it did not matter. All that mattered was that the estimate of thirty to forty-nine seconds appeared to track, as the shuttered hatch at the end of the corridor began to glow cherry red, edging swiftly toward yellow, then white.

'Ready!' called Sergeant Terimus. Quintus caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth, a habit he'd never lost since even before his ascension, in his time as a youth on Prandium.

The hatch warped and then slammed inward, hinges soft like wax. It swung halfway open before shearing free, superheated metal screaming as it impacted the bulkhead and deck. The diminutive vong slave-caste poured through, heedless of lumps of glowing yellow-white metal strewn about. They hooted and shrieked and hissed through reptiloid teeth.

No command was necessary.

Ten boltpistols barked and more than ten chazrach toppled. So fragile that even the overpressure and shrapnel - both biological from victims and metallic from the shells - shredded into their neighbors and claimed them too. Methodically, as each new wave pushed through, Quintus matched his brothers' volleys. The hatch choked with corpses, so many that they rolled like a wave, cresting into the corridor, absorbing now bolts by the sheer mass of the dead.

Streaking darts blurred toward them, visible as blunt-nosed insects with flickering, whickering wings only to his elevated, Astartesian senses. His shield jolted and jerked under the barrage. This was far more force than had been reported. He'd read the after-action details from Lieutenant Optarch's raid on the vong cruiser as well as the late Sergeant Ascratus' mission to Obroa-Skai. These 'thudbugs' could topple a mortal, but it had been said that against Astartes, they did not even register.

These hit harder, faster, his shield ringing like a gong. Quintus actually had to shift his stance, bracing harder.

Bolts lashed out, pulping bodies already dead and crippling chazrach that surged over the rolling pile. A tide of death, of bodies, broken and shattered and steaming, offal blended into slurries, organs pulped, snouts shredded. By slaughter, they edged down the corridor, closer, closer until thirty meters, twenty meters separated the line of Ultramarines from the corpse-wall.

How many were there? How many more could there be -

Then the warriors, the Yuuzhan Vong themselves, showed themselves.

Quintus had read the reports, he'd studied the practicals. Bolt shells could pierce their living armor. It was not a sure thing, with greater likelihood at thinner sections. Limb shots could maim or kill. Shots to the head, usually, were enough. Center mass was less reliable. Dissections and investigations of recovered biots from the Lieutenant's boarding raid revealed a complex structure within the vong's living plate. It was enough to pre-detonate mass reactives, or even, if the angle was poor, deflect even a diamantite point.

Something was wrong with these warriors, revealed as they bulled through the waist-deep morass of bodies.

Bolts cracked out and explosions burst like brief flowers of flame and shrapnel. These warriors did not lope along, rangy and athletic as described. They plodded, footfalls heavy and Quintus scowled as none fell under the initial barrage. They pushed through the dead chazrach with slow determination, forming up shoulder to shoulder, until they spanned the width of the corridor. Their armor was black, edged in white and silver. It looked, in broad strokes, as the hololiths and dataslate recordings taken from Obroa-skai and elsewhere.

There were the scalloped edges, the overlapping plates, the full body coverage that exposed no flesh. Yet this armor was far more massive, bulkier and thicker. At the neck, a gorget rose so high that only thin slits for eyes appeared above it. Thick and rounded pauldrons fell halfway down biceps, leaving their arms with little motion. They marched close, a phalanx formation.

Bolts skipped off, ricocheting and exploding against the deck, the bulkheads, the ceiling. Craters were ripped into these dense-armored vong, but still none fell.

'Krak!' shouted the sergeant, and ten hands clamped ten boltpistols to belts, and ten tumbling grenades bracketed the trudging vong.

The overlapping detonations nearly whited out his helm's auto-senses, compensating hard to preserve his hearing. The flash was surprising, so close, so bright.

Several of the up-armored vong were supine. Others stumbled, hands waving mindlessly. Still half bulled forward, hunching down, tucking heads deeper behind tall gorgets.

'Blades! Blades!'

Quintus ripped his gladius from his belt, energy crackling down the blade. No chainswords here - the Primarch's orders had been explicit. Power blades for every Astartes. To use any other would be to invite catastrophe as the keen-edged alien amphistaves clove through chainblades with ease. The vong terminators - the thought came unbidden, but the comparison suited - trudged closer, inexorable. His keen eye judged them, their pace - they were not slow by choice, but by, Quintus judged, the clumsy thickening of their armor. Their legs had but minimal range of motion.

They carried no amphistaves, bore no bandoliers of bugs. No visible weapons of any kind.

In a flash, he understood.

'Behind! Behind them!'

The vong-terminators knelt, as one. Behind them, hidden by their bulk and their close-drawn phalanx, were not chazrach, but warriors. Dozens. Their alien tongue filled the air, howled by powerful lungs and they leapt over their kneeling vanguard.

There was no other practical but to meet the charge. They were all Ultramarines. There was no need to coordinate.

Ten shields came up, off the deck and ten Ultramarines surged forward, meeting the vong. Amphistaves lashed out. Chunks of shields tumbled aside, snipped away by living weapons sharp as invective. Quintus bashed a warrior flat with his shield, the alien thrown prone, met by his boot. Its head burst.

He caught a hissing amphistaff on his gladius, whirled it aside. Another warrior shrieked, howling nonsense, fingers hooked to grapple - Quintus shattered its skull with a pommel strike. Something tugged at his left pauldron. He ignored it. Bugs zipped and whipped, keratin-on-ceramite sharp and loud.

Another amphistaff jabbed for his groin - deflected. Clear liquid splashed over the lenses of his helm and Quintus started - no warning runes. He ignored it. More strikes to his shield. It's weight lessened. The leftward corner was gone. Boarding shields were thick ceramite, proof against bolts and plasma. He spared a glance to his brothers to either side. He saw blue armor on the deck, intermingled with the white-on-black of the vong. He saw boarding shields in shreds, shields cloven through as cleanly as by a power-blade.

There were more warriors.

His gladius took a vong diagonally. Blood sprayed, dark and thick. He claimed another's arm, leaving its living blade writhing at their feet, before the Ultramarine beside him put three feet of Ultramarian steel through the alien's chest. He did not see the warrior that clove his shield, only felt a brief, stinging pressure before the weight at his left arm vanished. His shield clattered to the deck, fouling his stance.

His vambrace was slashed, his forearm open to the bone. He felt no pain as he smoothly drew his boltpistol and placed a round directly through a warrior's eye slot at point-blank range. Contained by the thick vonduun shell, the bolt was like a shaped charge, exploding the rear of the warrior's head backwards, coating his compatriots in grey matter.

There were more warriors.

His throat tightened.

Another blue-clad form toppled.

'Fighting withdraw!' Quintus shouted. Sergeant Terimus' rune was dark. So were three other runes. Another winked out.

'Fighting withdraw! Magos! We are overwhelmed!'

'Acknowledgement. Retreat to frame Four-nine-nine-zero-five-n. Skitarii taghmata mustered.'

By the villip that barked at his shoulder, Yus Shai was elated. The vonduun tagh kyrric were proving effective. The explosive slugs the Aistarteez favored proved much less effective against the denser breed. True - other Impeerial weapons slew the martyrs that volunteered to bear the biots easily. Hot plasma eroded away the crabs in moments and sizzling, crackling beams of energy flayed others alive with writhing energy.

Yus Shai was sanguine. Domain Shai was proving its worth. Fearless. Pious.

His amphistaff was wetted and he could feel his bonded biot's ferocious pleasure. Dozens of infidels fell to his blade - an honor they did not deserve, but Yus Shai was feeling generous - but it was not their blood that keened the edge of his amphistaff.

At his belt hip dangled a metal helm, painted a rich oceanic blue, a mockery of true life, true color. It rattled against his armor and he relished the sound with each step, a reminder with each footfall of the stroke that played again and again, each time he blinked,

There was a head remaining within the helm.

Ground-listeners guided his cadre to open spaces. Sometimes they were spaces for rest, filled with crude spaces to slumber. These were invariable empty, evacuated, but once they came upon a frenzy of activity as infidels scrambled to prepare.

That had been a most delicious slaughter.

Fewer and fewer of the lesser infidels rallied against the warriors of Shai. By Yus Shai's reckoning, they had been aboard the Impeerial ship for half of an hour. He respected the speed and alacrity of the Aistarteez. For such a vast ship, they responded swiftly. He would not dishonor himself by denying infidels their due, in the rare times they approached worthiness. It made each kill all the sweeter, to know that those he sent screaming to the Gods would be worthy treats for the Slayer.

For all that: Yus Shai would die this day.

It would be a most beautiful death.

For the third time in as many minutes, Gage shot a meaningful look to his Primarch. Guilliman paced and paced and paced, keen ear listening to a cacophonous medley of vox-transmissions from across five entire kilometers of Macragge's Honour. They were overlapping and contradictory, a hissing chaos of binaric cant and Ultramarines shorthand, mortal panic and armsmen calling for support. Gage could pick out one in ten transmissions; the Primarch listened to all, while his eyes flickered over constantly scrolling screeds of information projected by hololith. A dozen dataslates lay on the mnemo-table, data-savants standing by to offer each in turn as demanded.

Marius shot his Primarch a particular look, because Guilliman, again, looked on the edge of storming down to the lower decks himself.

'Enough, Marius, you have made your point.'

'I am not sure I have, sire.'

Guilliman exhaled. It was not a sigh. He was merely breathing.

'The vong are clearly showcasing biots intended to counter Astartes.'

'I am aware, Marius.'

'-there are more than a hundred reported casualties-'

'I am aware, Marius.'

'-the capabilities of their 'Shapers' are clearly greater than the Republicans realize-'

'I am aware, Marius.'

'-and Lieutenant Optarch's reports of gravity mine weaponry sits ills-'

'Marius!'

He inclined his head to his Primarch.

'The First Company alone can handle this incursion. Your point has been made.'

Gage let the matter drop. Guilliman's frustration did not approach the incandescent rage that led to the nearly catastrophic teleportation assault on Zetsun Verid Yard, where the bastard Kor Phaeron left the white, thin scar about the Primarch's neck. No, though the insult of the vong was great, though Gage's hearts clenched at the losses being reported, this was far, far from the unmanageable fury that Guilliman had shown at Calth.

Yet he could not help but stress his opinion to the Primarch. Guilliman was…off-balance, even still. Even after months in this galaxy, with the relative calm of building Eboracum, the Primarch had not returned to his equilibrium. This was fair: none of them had. Gage need look no farther than the phantom aches of his lost hand.

Where Marius Gage, Chapter Master, could be replaced, in time, a son of the Emperor could not. Roboute Guilliman was the only Primarch in this Throne-abandoned galaxy. He was the only conduit to the Emperor, to the Imperium, to the absolute truth of the Crusade. Any Astartes, any Astartes was replaceable. Each and every one could die and the Legion would go on. By the font that was the Primarch, they could all be restored. In the end, they were expendable. They were made to be so.

Roboute Guilliman was not. Gage feared the Primarch had not internalized this. No Primarch was expendable (aside from the bastard Lorgar), not even the broken ones. Gage would never speak such thoughts aloud, but those like Angron and Curze were broken. They were, in a way, failures, but even they had their purpose. Their role. Others wondered why the Emperor allowed their behavior but the purpose to Gage was obvious. They did the ugly, yet necessary tasks.

Even a broken tool could find a purpose, now and then.

If Primarchs were indispensable before, then here, a Primarch was - though the term smarted - sacred. How painful that human tongue fell short, at times, to properly encapsulate the meaning necessary without unintended baggage. Sacred was a poor term, but the connotations, the implications, though draped in savage idolatry, fit. Roboute Guilliman represented the continuity of the Imperium, in all its forms, here in this galaxy.

Gage was aware of his Primarch's fixation. He was aware of the opinions of others like Gorod and Auguston, and even Erriod. He was not the Chapter Master at whim. He read the attitude of the Legion, he felt the winds of opinion and the tone of emotion.

He knew of the belief and desire to return home. In his own deeper thoughts, he returned to memories of Macragge. Who would not? It did not fixate him. It did not cloud his practicals.

There was no return. Gage was certain of this. Pity was incorrect, but he mourned the Primarch's focus. There could be no going back, not now, and likely not ever. Whatever confluence of events that conspired to deliver them to this strange new world were nigh to impossible to replicate. A ritualistic murder of a star? The focus of daemonic energies? The rivening of the veil between material and immaterium by psy-practitioners of horrible skill?

There would be no return.

And thus: the Primarch was sacred.

So Marius Gage watched Roboute as aliens insulted their home and killed his brothers; Guilliman's sons, and stood ready to interpose, bodily if necessary, between the righteous anger of his father and the unimaginable potential of his death.

Drakus Gorod remained, as ever, within forty strides of the Primarch. No force in two galaxies could budge the irascible Astartes.

As such, command of the First Company, First Chapter, fell to Lieutenant Maglios.

Terminator armor did not entirely suit the lower decks of Macragge's Honour. The Legion spaces were high up within the flagship, set aside from the spaces mortals frequented. Ceilings were low, corridors were cramped. Many spaces, even an Astartes in Mk IV plate would find trouble navigating, let alone one in Cataphractii or Tartaros plate.

Killteams from a dozen companies ranged out through the lower spaces, striking and fading against the Yuuzhan Vong boarders. The numbers of aliens was impressive: the magi adjusted their estimations upward, to likely ten thousand, perhaps fifteen thousand. Maglios found this to be an incredible waste of life. None would leave Macragge's Honour alive. This was not hubris, this was reality.

More than a hundred Astartes casualties were reported already, and thousands of sailors and armsmen. A bloody toll, but the points of entry were far from any truly critical systems. When the Seventeenth boarded, they came with the very plans of the Gloriana in mind, along with the full strength of several Astartes companies. Even a hundred Astartes, with schematics, munitions and training, could cripple a battleship, even a Legion battleship. That was their purpose.

The Yuuzhan Vong, for all their surprising prowess in close-quarters clashes, had none of the benefits of the Seventeenth. Macragge's Honour was a maze and a hostile one. Maglios respected how swiftly the invaders seemed to move, cutting through bulkheads and breaching into adjoining spaces with surprising speed, but what they stumbled into were places of little consequence. Lives lost were unfortunate, but bearable.

In some ways, Maglios wished they had boarded in the Legion spaces, or at the very least, nearer to the embarkation decks. Those were suited to the scale of Astartes and would not hamper the Ultramarine response near as much.

He exhaled, slowly, watching a wireframe display within his helm.

Killteams Xiphos and Cataphros pulled back gamely, headed by a brother named Caedos Quintus. One of Aeonid Thiel's, who rallied survivors after the vong unveiled their 'bioterminators'. An insulting term. Killteams Gladius, Scimitar and Forarii held their own positions, though all three reported mounting casualties to attrition. The vong sported infantry-portable plasma launchers now, and while they did not match Martian plasma in ferocity, they made up for the difference in rapidity of fire and amount brought to bear. Even Mark IV plate could not bear such temperatures forever. For now, Killteam Gladius reported injuries, not fatalities, but Forarii was facing a significant force of plasma-wielding xenos and were down four Ultramarines. Slain, not injured.

He sent a nonverbal command through a subvocalization. Immediately, Gladius began to slowly pull back. Forarii disengaged carefully, turning a last-stand into a running gunfight.

Once again, Maglios cursed the location. He itched to march to Forarii's aid.

Patience. Patience was a virtue. He put aside the unwanted sensation of helplessness, redoubling his focus on wielding and directing the killteams nearest his position. Push and pull, retreat and advance, feint and withdraw. The vong swirled, eddied, swirled closer. They danced to his tune.

Soon.

Yus Shai appraised the warrior before him. He was stripped to the waist, chest bared and revealing swirling green and yellow tattoos, acidic and bruise-like. Scars and incisions emphasized his musculature.

"Belek tiu," the warrior intoned, falling to one knee.

"Rise and be seen, warrior."

Yus Shai did not know the name of the warrior, nor did he care. What mattered was the cargo carried, the precious cargo. The warrior turned on the spot, revealing his back for Yus Shai's inspection. A great mass of knobbled honeycomb hooked into the warrior's back, digging into flesh and wrapping tendrils about the warrior's waist. It was fleshy and pale, soft like an amphibian's belly and sagged slightly. Little capped nodules, like pustules or lipomas, studded the fleshy mass. Yus Shai gently reached out a hand, brushing the barest fingertips across the implant.

Tiny, excitable minds gibbered and called.

"You will be honored, warrior," Yus Shai declared. "The Slayer smiles on you."

Speechless, the young warrior ducked his head, nearly genuflecting again before realizing he was still being inspected.

"The Aistarteez are corralling us. They believe us fools. Weak and mindless, dancing to their plans. You will be key to illuminating them, brave warrior. They spin a trap: we will pierce it through as the tsai hul pierces flesh."

Around him, warriors snarled and muttered agreement.

Once he commanded five hundred. Now he commanded less than a hundred.

It did not matter at all. He was Domain Shai. Fearless. Pious. Glorious.

"Do-ro'ik Vong pratte!" he bellowed, and a hundred throats echoed.

The chamber was the largest for several decks and close to a thousand meters. Maglios had discarded the name immediately after being told as unimportant. By the vast, Land Raider sized pipes that infested the high, vaulted ceiling and series of walkways, gantries and dangling chains, Maglios presumed the chamber was some maintenance nexus. Likely one of hundreds dotting the body of Macragge's Honour, the sort of place that was never thought of, never considered, just another space of work among many.

Today it would be something else.

He tugged on his Killteams, reeling them closer, keeping each engaged with the boarders. Each retreat had to appear legitimate, each glimpse of opportunity had to appear serendipitous.

Maglios sneered. Each time, the xenos danced to his tune. Small wonder, the mind of the alien was small and inconsequential.

'Gladius, increase pace. They are committed, you do not need tarry.'

The relevant cluster of icons accelerated.

Maglios checked his combibolter. All ammunition feeds clear.

Soon, now.

Yus Shai danced around the bodies of warriors and chazrach, darting close to a slumped Aistarteez who struggled for the hilt of a fallen sword. His hands lacked fingers and he pawed ineffectually, merely jostling the blade around. Pitiful. Death should be accepted.

He lashed out and relieved the Aistarteez of their head. The helm rolled and clacked to his feet and he judged it a moment, considering adding it to his collection. He bore now three helms, heavy though they might be.

This was not a worthy kill. He kicked the helm aside.

By gesture, he mustered his surviving cadre. The last Aistarteez and infidel soldiers were put to the mercy of death, consigned to the Gods and a sort of silence fell. Addressing his villip, Yus Shai qeustioned his fellow commanders, scattered through the warship. Some were dead. Others would be dead soon. Others remained, still with numbers to matter.

So much glorious death. Domain Shai contributed seven thousand and seven hundred warriors. Warleader Malik Carr demanded thrice that number of chazrach, willingly given. If Yus Shai's estimated were right, there were likely less than a thousand warriors remaining. Glorious, glorious death. The bearers of the vonduun tagh kyrric had shown their mettle. Master Shaper Qesh would be pleased. The yaret-sak cannon claimed many Aistarteez, unleashing techniques not used since the Dread Cremlevian War. The Master Shaper dove deep into the Cortices and Yus Shai would whisper her name to the Slayer when his time came, so that the Slayer might tell his sister, She-Who-Shapes. Then, perhaps, the Master Shaper might learn new means to make war and bring glorious death.

Other objectives had been achieved cleanly. Chazrach had scurried off into the deeper bilges and ways of the battleship, prying into tight spaces where warriors could not go. Many would be caught. Some would not. Seeding of biots proceeded apace.

Domain Shai had proven its worth.

He gestured to his warriors and they fell in with him. Their injured and dying they left behind. Each warrior knew their role. Pretend death, then kill again when the Impeerials came to sweep through. All lives claimed were worthy, even from an ignoble action of ambush. The Priests spoke it, and thus it was true.

They joined another cluster of warriors as corridors met and swelled. Yus Shai saluted his counterpart, clasping wrist to elbow. He could taste his death, so close. His martyrdom.

A great blastdoor promised a greater space beyond. Another living space? An armory? A critical function, perhaps? The Aistarteez had been drawn back, back and back towards it, giving ground, seeming to protect it. A trap was not impossible either. Yus Shai cared little. A trap still provided enemies to kill. Glory to claim.

He gestured to a cadre of warriors to approach, to prepare to breach.

As they closed on the broad blastdoor, it slid open on its own.

Maglios bared teeth behind his helm. Just as expected, the vong followed. Foolish or headstrong, or uncaring even - their reasons he did not care to presume. They came, and he drew them. The chamber was dark, ink-dark, all lumens quenched. His power draw was minimal, all lights extinguished. His helm was dark and enclosed, lenses chips of black glass.

The vong were silhouetted, backlit by the citrine lights of the corridor behind. He knew them well now, the rangy height, lithe strength, arrogant swagger of their pace. Undoubtedly, they had some ways to see in darkness, some thermal senses perhaps, or auspex-equivalent.

They loped into the chamber, spreading out, cautious, snake-swords writhing in their hands. Maglios, of course, could see them all perfectly, his helm rendering each in blue-to-red outlines of bodyheat. One vong paused, their snake-blade curling up their arm before they reached to their side, pulling something small loose and holding it aloft.

Light flared from the warrior's fist.

Maglios let that be his signal and subvocalized go.

The chamber lit again.

Twenty-six Tartaros terminators lined walkways, four meters above the deck. Ninety-four Ultramarines in Mark IV were scattered on higher paths.

There was a moment of total, complete stillness. Silence. No vong warrior twitched. No Ultramarine acted.

Venerable Tollucus was the first. It was only polite, in deference to seniority.

The Contemptor, the only Ultramarine at deck-level, spun up his Kheres Assault Cannon with a teeth-ringing whine.

Slaughter came.

White-hot splinters spat from Tollucus' cannon, ripping vong warriors to shreds. More poured in. Chazrach, too. Ultramarines opened fire with bolters, punching mass-reactives down into the mass. Maglios dropped his raised fist and twenty-two combibolters drummed out syncopated murder. Two assault cannons added their own reaping to the mix. Grenades thumped from harnesses, arcing down.

Dozens died per second. Tollucus stomped forward, sweeping his Kheres left, right, left again.

Magnifying, Maglios watched vong warriors blurt plasma from arm-mounted organic cannons, splattering superheated splashes against the Contemptor's redoubtable glacis. Others fired upward, angles poor, eating into and through the mesh-grate walkways. One groaned, slumping, forcing a handful of Ultramarines to cease fire and relocate. Bugs swarmed in clouds, swarms, hurtling themselves to and fro without coordination. Maglios felt thumps through his Tartaros plate, saw sticky ichor and slimy innards and cracked chitin slide off the unmarred plate of the Terminator beside him.

Razor bugs whirled, slashed, whirled again. A few found joints and bit deep, drawing blood, bellowed oaths.

It was the last gasp of the Yuuzhan Vong. Maglios could see it. This was their end, and they were spending themselves.

He saw a warrior of impressive stature darting through the chaos, interposing other warriors between him and the reaping death of Venerable Tollucus. He saw the warrior seeking the edge of the chamber, toward where ladders and switch-back stairs led upwards. Intelligent. Observant.

Maglios also saw three clattering Mark IV helms tied to the warrior's belt and his stomach clenched in disgust. He aimed his combibolter.

Yus Shai was laughing. He was laughing, he was covered in blood, in bits of his brother warriors, he was wading through ankle-deep gore and he was laughing. One arm hung limp and useless, truncated just below the elbow, the bones of his forearm poking from a shredded mass of flesh. Blood filled his mouth and he savoured it, the flavor, the essence. The truth of it. The pain was shocking. It was everything he believed in.

The warrior, the barechested warrior, still lived, somehow. Normally, no other warrior would dare set within a dozen meters of the cursed, blessed martyr, but now they packed close. Death was coming and they embraced it. In the crush, he caught another glimpse, saw the barechested warrior shove aside the wobbling corpse of another Yuuzhan Vong who stood with no head. Chazrach scrabbled at dangling chains, climbing rapidly and being blown off and back down just as quickly.

He had to reach one of the ladders. He had to. He could climb with one hand.

He wanted one more. One of the bulky Aistarteez, in armor none had seen. He wanted one more helm, one more head. One more skull.

He needed it.

The deck was awash. Tides of blood. Ebbs of gore. Loops of intestine, gizzards ruptured, offal reeking. A medley of death, a celebration of the Slayer. Kill to kill, live to die, die to live. Kill, kill, kill. Yus Shai laughed, he cackled, he brayed like a madman. He saw plasma reach out, a fine shot, a fine shot and immolate the helm of an Aistarteez high above. He saw them topple, limbs loosened, saw them tip over the rail and plunge, plunge, plunge down into the death.

Oh, the wonders she bred, the death that it fed. He praised again Master Qesh, who gave him these tools. He saw the barechasted warrior lose a leg, skidding on the stump of his knee. He saw him fall to hands and knees, saw his back arch, spine-crackling arched.

Saw the nodules pop, saw them burst, saw them rupture.

Saw the seeds.

He didn't feel his chest explode. He didn't notice he was dead until he was laying on his back, staring up, watching the tiny, barely visible black seeds fly. Yus Shai never noticed his heart was destroyed, his plastron blown open, that his laughter was no more than seizing of muscles, that no more sound came out. That no air left the ruin of his lungs.

Yus Shai died and tears streamed his cheeks in pleasure.

Maglios saw several dozen specks burst from the chest of a vong warrior. They were minute, each the size of a bolt shell, perhaps smaller. They arced up, propelled by whatever gestation process nurtured them in the ruin of the fallen warrior's back.

Each reached the apex of their arc and Maglios expected them to fall back down. He expected flame perhaps, or jellied fire. Plasma, or acid. Perhaps an aerosol weapon, which would be fruitless against the filters of his armor, even that of baseline Mark IV.

From the corner of his attention, he noted Tollucus catching a vong warrior about the middle in his power claw, hefting the alien into the air before squeezing. Limp and boneless, the xeno was cast aside with enough force to splatter against the far wall of the chamber.

The little black orbs did not fall. Their vertical momentum expended, they paused in defiance of physics.

Unerringly, they spread out in a starburst. Some plunged straight down, others soared toward the shadowed ceiling. Others darted straight toward -

'Gravity grenades! Threat extremis!'

Maglios backpedalled, clenching his right fist about the upper arm of the Terminator to his side and pulling them back also.

A black orb whisked past him, so close, so close it skimmed his helmet, close enough he could see the patterns on it, could see that it had a hardened carapace like some form of tree-nut.

Then it was past him. He turned his head, watching it fly and strike the wall of the chamber.

There was a sudden noise, one that doubled, tripled, compounded - the others colliding with surfaces, he realized - yet it was not harsh. Compared to the roar of bolters, it was soft. It was the sound of grinding glass, muffled as if through fabric or some veil. The auspex of his armor, the overlay filters ran wild for a moment.

There was a hole in the chamber wall.

Numbly, Maglios forced himself to look around.

There was a hole in the walkway his Terminators had claimed. A perfect hole. He was sure if he took a measurement, it would be mathematically exact. A combibolter rested beside that hole. A fist still gripped the combibolter. A fist attached to a forearm, which ended in a perfect cut. Further along the walkway was a pair of armored legs. Shins. They ended before the knee in a gentle, concave arc. He could visualize an overlapping sphere, centered where the head should be.

Other Ultramarines were still firing, short bursts. Killing bursts. Executions.

Maglios queried Ultramarine signals.

Five Terminators were missing. Fourteen Ultramarines on the higher walkways. Venerable Tollucus stomped through the morass of slain vong, chazrach. A bite was taken from his left arm, devouring most of the Contemptor's pauldron. He appeared not to notice.

A brutal tally. One that could have been far worse.

Practical: Do not underestimate the Yuuzhan Vong.

He filed the thought away, putting a bolt through the chest of a twitching warrior thirty meters away.

Roboute Guilliman watched the contacts for the Yuuzhan Vong fleet come to order, assemble themselves, and then flicker away. Off into the peculiar hyperspace so beloved by this galaxy. A force multiplier so potent, so powerful, so dangerous that it nearly crippled him with indecision. Him. There were few viable counters. This interloper, who he tentatively determined to be one Malik Carr, formerly in command of the captured world of Obroa-skai - behavioral patterns appeared to match, as did markings of the organic warships - proved quite decisively how dangerous the utility of rapid, precise faster-than-light could be.

The moon, of course. Even after scouring sensoria data from every ship in the 4711th, there had been no sign of the craft that embedded the dovin basal to begin the moon's descent. This was, unfortunately, frustratingly, infuriatingly understandable. Hyperspace allowed egress from nearly any point of the compass. The vong could have merely bounced the responsible ship to the outer system, reoriented, and then jumped into the sensor shadow of the moon.

Eboracum would need system wide sensor nets. Eyes peering everywhere. There could be no blindspots, no shadows, no spaces to hide.

Yet they did not need to hide. Again, Malik Carr proved this. He hid in plain sight, far enough away to evade any very-long range fire, far enough from the gravity well of Eboracum to flit away should Roboute order the engines of the 4711th lit.

And then the trick with the dovin basal, to manipulate gravitational shadows. To allow in ships in the very shadow of Macragge's Honour. To nip at his own flag's flanks.

He spent long considering what he might have accomplished with such disgustingly precise maneuvering during the Crusade.

It made him sick.

The flagship's guns still fired without cease, keeping pace with Fourth Honour and Mantallikes. The shattered moon Yadraig continued to rain itself down across the world he claimed. Piece after piece. Shard after shard. Impact after impact. Already, the world showed its wounds. Wildfires, growing storm systems from atmospheric disturbances. Plumes of smoke, ash.

Thus far, no world-killing rocks had slipped past. That could change. Thus far, no shipkilling rocks had slipped past. That too could change.

Worse still, with every fragment shattered, the world was protected, but the lower orbits filled with yet more whirling, speeding gravel.

Each one could destroy an unprotected vessel.

Oh, the inhabitants of this galaxy had shields on vessels from the smallest to the largest, shields that could resist a strike from a micrometeor. Could they resist strikes from multiple? From an incessant, unending barrage? A barrage that contained more than just grain-sized debris, but sported ones the size of a bolt round, the size of a tank round - the size of a gunship? A starship?

Malik Carr had not killed Eboracum and under Roboute's watch, he would not kill Eboracum. The world would live, battered and bruised and brutalized. The Imperium had long experience in maintaining life and civilization on worlds far, far more hostile.

But for that failure, the vong commander had achieved other things. The inner orbits of Eboracum would be a constant, deadly danger for the foreseeable future. Only the ships of the 4711th could likely weather the constant bombardments. Refugee ships would need to be sheltered and escorted. It would slow emigration. It would slow deployments. It would slow shipments, slow industry.

The moon did not destroy Eboracum, but Roboute understood that objective would have merely been a bonus.

If their positions had been switched, he would have been well pleased to achieve this outcome against a foe. Interdict their world, entangle their industry, force reallocation of resources to protection, to infrastructure to ward off the changing climate and environment.

And then, to cap it off: a raid on the very flagship.

The casualty reports were still being collated. Thousands of Macragge's Honours crew were dead. Entire companies of armsmen were butchered. Veterans all. Proud sons and daughters of Ultramar, all. His citizens. His responsibility.

Of the Ultramarines sent to repulse, the list was sickening.

Lieutenant Maglios reported eight dead of the First Company, First Chapter. Of line Astartes: one hundred and seventy-nine. Double that wounded.

His teeth ground together.

On any other day, it would be minor losses. One hundred and seventy-nine Astartes? Out of two hundred and fifty thousand? Those were expected casualties in a campaign.

Calth cut their numbers in half.

The 4711th had even less. One hundred and seventy-nine Astartes - one hundred and eighty-seven counting the champions of First Company - was over four percent of the entire complement.

Two hundred had been tasked, alone, to protect the apothecarion, just in case. There was an infinitesimal chance the vong would ever reach that far, but it was not even a choice. One hundred and eighty-seven of his sons, gone. Neophytes could - and would - be ascended, so long as the gene-stores and talent and knowledge remained. The apothecarion remained the greatest strategic asset of the entire 4711th. He would sacrifice the entire Legio Lacassex to safeguard it. He would sacrifice the entire rest of the fleet, if need be.

One hundred and eighty-seven.

He knew all their names.

Roboute returned to re-reading the written reports from his Lieutenants, from their Captains. From brothers and Sargeants, from deckhands and Magi and skitarii. They spoke of weapons the vong had not been seen to wield. Plasma cannons sufficient to pierce Martian plate. Gravity mines that could consume a Terminator in a moment. Their swarming bugs, moving faster, more cannily than before. The Yuuzhan Vong were escalating. They had held back against the Republicans. They had not needed the weapons of their deeper stores.

Arrogance? He did not think so. It would be like pursuing the compliance of a feudal world. Send in Excertus, perhaps a squad or two of Ultramarines. No need for armor, or air support. It was not arrogance, nor mocking of the feudal worlders. It was recognition that they did not need to expend the resources otherwise.

He understood the situation of the 'New Republic'. He understood they had little in the way of an army, or even a corps of marines aboard their ships. The means of warfare in this galaxy was predicated, almost entirely, around command of space. He could even understand why this came to be. Thus - the Yuuzhan Vong needed only to overmatch the Republican fleets. On the ground, even their simple, basic means were enough to crush what amounted to, at best, were planetary police forces. Not even what the Imperium might consider a PDF.

Now he challenged them. With the Ultramar Excertus, with the Ultramarines, with the Legio Lacassex and the local Auxilia. Roboute cast down the gauntlet, he challenged the Yuuzhan Vong, and he had estimated that they operated similarly to the paradigm of this galaxy. That they could not escalate, as they did not have the means. He had seen that they could not reveal new tricks or weapons in the void: Admiral Regil proved that in his dance over Fondor.

For this assumption: one hundred and eighty-seven of his sons were dead. His chosen world was in peril.

Roboute glanced one further time at ammunition expenditures of the three battleships, as well as projections from Samothrace and the cruiser squadron to assist. His mind was made up.

It was time to stop standing by.

Warleader Malik Carr informed him that the 4711th could not sit out this war.

Very well. Roboute Guilliman would not.

'Holocomm,' he spoke into his armor's vox. There was a moment, then a click as he was connected.

'Lord Primarch, I am at your command,' buzzed Magos Sunum Uthuallo. She oversaw the sequestered holocom suite, gifted by the Republic.

'I require a connection to Senator Viqi Shesh.'