Lord-Admiral Marcos had retreated to his ready room. There was a lot to think about, a lot of developments of late. Baltimare was lost, and fallout was descending across Canterlot, the pony capital. He had warned the princess, and that was all he could have done. A cleanup team was down there right now, doing what they could to help out. They had protective suits and equipment that could wash away much of the radiation, but it seemed, from their reports, that the ponies possessed similar technologies. They had chemical protective suits, they had self contained oxygen gear, they had decontamination equipment.
For the most part, the ponies could take care of themselves, but any support was welcomed, according to the princess. Marcos felt it was only right to offer the help of Imperial technical skill and knowledge to these relatively primitive aliens whose home they had disturbed and invaded. He had to admit to himself, that was not normal. With any other alien species, he would have dismissed their cares and feelings outright, perhaps even wiped them out from orbit. It would not be the first time humanity had struck without warning, and it would most certainly not be the last. But something told him that was the wrong thing to do, ever since arriving in the system, and ever since meeting the princess in person, Marcos found that every sinew screamed at him to do what she said, to follow her lead.
After all, she knew this planet, she knew its inhabitants. That was his justification, and it was a reasonable one, wasn't it? That was what he had to keep telling himself. He could not bring himself to believe that Celestia was somehow manipulating him. He had never been fooled by a Xenos before, and he hoped he never would be in the future. But perhaps this was an exception? Something about her psychic powers...Marcos knew that there was a danger, whenever psykers were involved, of getting suckered in to their lies and deceit, whatever game they were playing and whatever their aims. But still, he felt that Celestia's intentions were pure, remarkably so. Even if she were playing them all for fools and getting them to fight the Archenemy, the Changelings, and whoever else might pop up and prove to be an old foe of the ponies, Marcos still felt that she was doing it not to cement her own position. That was where she differed from most, not just from most Xenos but from most humans, as well. Anyone in a position of power would use that power to make sure they kept it. Celestia, on the other hand, seemed to use her undoubted power to further the needs, desires and goals of her subjects, rather than herself. Maybe it was because she had achieved all she wanted; to be supreme ruler of Equestria might be the limit of her ambition. But perhaps it was from a true and pure sense of moral duty. She could easily have taken control of the whole planet, no ifs, no buts, no resistance to her formidable power, combined with that of her military. Yet she had permitted the Griffons, the Zebras, even the Changelings, to live and thrive. Very few, if any, Imperial governors would have allowed such things upon their planets.
But of course, Celestia was not part of the Imperium, and she did not live by their values. She lived very much by her own, and those of Equestria. Whether she had adopted those of her society or whether the society had adopted hers, Marcos did not know. Maybe with time he would discover her secrets, but for now, all he could do was to treat her as both a threat and an equal. He, and she, both wanted the best for those under their command. No leader could seek less or demand more. Their primary responsibility was to those who followed them, and thus it would always remain.
Marcos would never abdicate his responsibility to his men. It may not have seemed like it at all times to those under his command, but he really did care about them. He did not want to inflict undue casualties on them where it could be avoided. Sacrifice was necessary, of course, for humanity could not continue to stand without it. But to needlessly waste the lives of the Emperor's children would be anathema to Him. There was the pragmatic consideration, too; unnecessary losses weakened any fighting force, especially one so far from home and with no prospect of reinforcement. The fleet was already badly understrength as a result of the engagements with Chaos forces, and once they were done here at Kuda Prime they would be heading back to Hydraphur.
Their mission this far out was done, and a report on the nature of what they had found would make for interesting reading back at Segmentum Command. Or perhaps not. Marcos still had not decided exactly what he would say regarding the planet and its inhabitants. There were many factors to be considered in such a report; sometimes the truth was the least important of all of them.
The Lord-Admiral gathered his thoughts and strode out onto the bridge.
'My Lord, we are receiving the latest meteorological reports.' Marcos looked over to the officer who had spoken.
'Excellent. What do they tell us, Ensign?' he asked.
'Prevailing winds are expected to continue blowing to the north for the next thirty six hours, My Lord,' the Ensign replied, reading from the screen as the data scrolled up. 'Light rain is expected over Baltimare beginning in approximately four hours, with the rain spreading north later tonight, beginning at approximately twenty two hundred hours local.'
That was not good. It meant the fallout would continue to be carried towards Canterlot, and the rain would result in a much greater deposition of radioactive material, carried down by the precipitation more readily than if it was just left to fall of its own accord, which had been the case since the explosion occurred. It also meant that the ponies would have to remain below ground for the foreseeable future, at least for the next few days.
'My Lord, new Auspex contact!'
The shout from another console surprised and startled Marcos. 'What? Where? Identify!'
'Bearing zero-five-three,' came the reply. 'Range four million...standby...'
Marcos clenched his fists into balls of iron. What was this? From nowhere, suddenly, a new threat? Or an old one?
'Contact is a Desolator-Class battleship, My Lord!' came the cry.
'Battle stations!' Marcos roared. 'Alert the fleet! Prepare all weapons and all decks for combat!'
The crew jumped into action, as startled as their commander by the sudden reappearance of the single surviving Chaos battleship. It had fled the fighting as its fellow and the warfleet's flagship, the Soul Harvest, was finally destroyed under an intense combined pounding of capital ship weaponry and torpedoes from dozens of attack craft. A search had been conducted of likely hiding places; behind the moon, in the asteroid belt. There had been no sign of it, no trace of the few remaining Chaos ships, and yet, it seemed, here was one of them.
'Helm, bring us about, bearing zero-five-three,' Marcos ordered. Raise and reinforce all void shields. Auspex, can you get a positive identification?'
'Yes, My Lord,' the Lieutenant at the console replied. 'ID is Daemonfate.' That confirmed it. It was the same battleship which had fled, now returned, but for what purpose?
'Are there any other new contacts?' Marcos asked. Surely the battleship would not come alone. It had two surviving cruiser escorts, along with a small number of frigates and destroyers, when it had left the battle, so where were they now, where had they been hiding, and how had they returned undetected?
'Why did the pickets not report this craft?' Marcos queried angrily. 'Were they asleep at their posts? Hail the Polaris Maxima. I want to know why they did not raise the alarm!'
'My Lord, the Polaris Maxima is heading toward us,' the Auspex officer informed him in a curious tone.
'Did they not receive the fleet order?' Marcos growled. 'What are they playing at? Hail them again!'
'My Lord, the Polaris Maxima is signalling us with infrared lights,' another officer called. So their vox was down. The infrared lights replaced the spotlights and signal lamps of ancient times, intended as an emergency backup if vox communications were disrupted or in conditions where it was advisable not to transmit over the net, such as when attempting to hide or conduct a sneak attack or ambush.
'What a fine time to suffer a vox failure!' Marcos pounded the command lectern with his fist. 'Remind me to have their maintenance team all shot after this! And what of destroyer section Tertius?'
'No contact, My Lord. They are still out of vox range due to the planet,' came the reply.
'What is the Polaris Maxima signalling?' the Lord-Admiral questioned.
'Vox failure, My Lord, as you anticipated. Contact report on the enemy battleship...destroyer section Tertius was last heard from proceeding to investigate unknown anomalous readings in the outer system.'
'No doubt they had discovered our long lost friend here,' Marcos growled. 'Signal the fleet to move into attack formation. Have the Polaris Maxima fall in alongside the Indefatigable, on her port. Standby to launch all attack craft.'
'Contact range is now three million,' the Auspex officer informed the bridge crew. 'Their shields are not yet raised.'
'No shields?' Marcos frowned. 'They may be planning to try a boarding action. Alert all ships to be wary of teleportation attempts and watch for the launch of any assault pods!'
'Yes, My Lord!' The vox officer transmitted the message as the ships continued to draw closer to the huge Chaos battleship. It was alone out there, though closing rapidly on both the fleet and the planet, coming in almost on a parabolic trajectory that brought it around the planet which had hidden it from the sensors of the Imperial ships. The Polaris Maxima should have either detected the battleship or relayed a message from the destroyer section to the same effect, but the breakdown in communications meant that no early warning had been received. That was why the cruiser had been turning and heading for the fleet; to warn them, using its infrared signals to sound the alarm.
The warning may have come late, but the fleet was springing into action now. The half dozen surviving cruisers were forming up around the two true capital ships, the mighty bulwark that was the Emperor's Judgement and the powerhouse in the form of the Indefatigable, whose Nova Cannon had been repaired and was online. The Malleo Mortis would be sorely missed, not just for the men and women that had died with it, but for its formidable combat potential as well. Its great lance batteries would not add their tremendous firepower to the coming battle.
A Desolator-Class battleship was a formidable foe, but it was alone, without escorts. That swung the odds greatly in the favour of the Imperial fleet, depleted though its ranks undoubtedly were. Marcos sent a signal to the Indefatigable, and moments later its Nova Cannon flashed, a ranging shot cutting across the blackness and impacting firmly upon the prow of the battleship which faced them. Undeterred, its continued on its path, not slowing or wavering.
Marcos sent another order that set the fleet turning and braking, forming a firing line and presenting their broadsides to the enemy, ready to engage. The battleship drew closer, steadily but surely. Still, for some unknown reason, its shields were not up. Even more puzzling, its lances were silent.
Another Nova Cannon shot struck the thick prow armour of the Daemonfate, and even the projectile, traveling at near light speed, could do little more than gouge a hole in the ceramite. Marcos waited, waited as the ship drew closer to the fleet.
'Range one million miles,' came the call from the Auspex.
'Fire!' he roared.
A thousand guns blazed. At one million miles out, the battleship was invisible to the naked eye, but it appeared bright as day on the infrared scopes and microwave sensor banks. It was far enough away that many of the shots, especially from the less accurate weaponry such as the heavy macrocannons, would miss entirely, but the prow of the Daemonfate was peppered with las-blasts, plasma bolts and missiles. Still it came on, and still its guns were silent.
'Something's wrong here...' Marcos growled. 'Why does he not fire?'
'I do not know, My Lord,' Flag Captain Bormann replied. 'Perhaps its weapons were damaged during the last engagement?'
'All of them?' Marcos turned to Bormann. 'You show me a Chaos ship that isn't firing, and I'll show you a Chaos ship that is up to something.' But what?
What could they be planning? They had no escorts, surely this was not a serious attempt at breaking through the Imperial fleet, and certainly not at destroying it. One battleship alone, no matter how skillfully commanded and crewed, could scarcely be expected to stand against two dozen escorts, six cruisers, a battlecruiser and another ship of its own class. The enemy captain must be aware of such a thing, so what was he trying to do?
'He's going to crash...' Marcos growled. 'He wants to make planetfall!' During the initial attack by the Chaos fleet, the Grand Cruiser which had entered the atmosphere due to battle damage and broken up in mid-air had made a horrific mess of the southeastern fringe of the main continent. A battleship, a considerably bulkier craft, slamming into the planet at high speed, would end all life on the surface, an extinction level event almost without question. The blast would make the atomic that had destroyed Baltimare look like a pinprick, and even the mighty force of mother nature in the form of the volcanic eruption would be humbled into silence. Tens of thousands of guardsmen would die; hundreds of thousands of ponies, the entire species wiped from existence, with the possible exception of the princess, given the power she had displayed, though even that assumed she knew what was coming.
There was no time to focus on those below, only to focus on what could be done to save them all. 'Full broadside, all ships, fire at will! Launch all attack craft!' Marcos bellowed. Hundreds of fighters and bombers flooded the launch tubes and were shot out into space, ducking below the hail of fire that was being poured at the enemy battleship to try and get close enough for a torpedo launch.
Suddenly, randomly, the battleship's void shields went up, after a good ninety seconds of taking sustained fire on the hull. Perhaps the captain had decided his ship was not going to make it through to the planet without them, but then why not have them raised to begin with? The ship continued to draw closer, its hull, and now its shields, shrugging off everything that was being thrown at it.
'Range now one hundred thousand!' the Auspex officer shouted. Still there was no return fire from the battleship. 'They are diverting all power to their forward shields, My Lord.'
'Then get somebody round behind them!' Marcos ordered. The escorts and the attack craft were moving to comply, sweeping through space, staying out of the line of fire from the capital ships as they bombarded the flickering shields of the Daemonfate.
'My Lord...the enemy ship is slowing!' the Auspex officer called again. Sure enough, braking jets were being fired, the main drives thrown into reverse. But why would it be slowing down if it wanted to his the planet? Marcos watched on in confusion as the battleship passed over the top of the Imperial firing line, steadily slowing. Its shields were weakening, but still holding, as the dorsal lances of the Indefatigable raked its underbelly. It continued on, slowing all the while, now getting hit by the other broadsides of the Imperial ships.
'My Lord!' came the startled cry from the Auspex officer. 'I am detecting an enormous buildup of energy from within the enemy ship. It appears their reactor is being overloaded!'
Overloaded? The Imperial fire was not punching through the shields. They had not inflicted anywhere near enough hull damage to cause a reactor overload, which could mean only one thing; that it was being done deliberately.
'Signal all ships! Get clear of the enemy!' Marcos ordered. The ships of the fleet obeyed, powering up their drives and moving away. In the few seconds they had, the extra miles could make all the difference. The Daemonfate was moving too, though slowly, still towards the planet, but not for long.
As the Imperial ships moved to a safe distance, the Daemonfate's main reactors were overloaded. Unable to contain the raw energies being produced, their casings ruptured, and with a great, incandescent flash, the huge battleship vanished completely, consumed by the tremendous blast and the rapidly fading fireball, snuffed out by the vacuum as soon as it had appeared. Thousands of tons of fragmented debris, hurled free by the force of the explosion, were tossed out into the void. Some of it bounced harmlessly off of the shields of the Imperial fleet, and some fell into the gravity well of the planet to burn up in the atmosphere. Some simply drifted away into space, to sail for eternity through the cosmos.
The Emperor's Judgement was rocked by the blast, but unharmed. The rest of the fleet reported in; no damage reported. All ships were intact. There was only one question on the minds of every crewmember; what the hell had just happened?
The Polaris Maxima had fallen into the combat line with the rest of the fleet, with no indications of anything untoward having occurred on board other than the apparent failure of their vox system. That was a ruse, of course; the system was functioning just fine, but vox contact would have exposed Lieutenant Callantine's coup and the fact that Captain Danrich would not have been on the other end of the line. It kept the truth hidden from the Lord-Admiral and the rest of the fleet, while the Lieutenant furthered her plans, whatever they might prove to be.
The Polaris Maxima had fought and had fired at the oncoming Chaos craft, but that didn't mean much. Given that Danrich had been able to watch from his position on the bridge as the battle, such as it was, had unfolded before him on the viewscreens, he had seen that the Chaos ship had apparently blown itself up. He had no idea why, or what the Chaos forces hoped to gain by such a bizarre course of action, but he now knew that this was not just some run of the mill uprising perpetuated by a few disgruntled crewmembers. This was the act of the enemy, and their supporters on board his ship. Not just mutiny, but treason, heresy, the ultimate betrayal.
'You knew that ship was coming, I take it?' Danrich asked Lieutenant Callantine, who now occupied his captain's chair, while he sat, wrists manacled and under armed guard, over in the corner. The rest of the surviving bridge crew were still huddled together in the middle of the deck, with a ring of steel keeping them there.
'You believe I had something to do with that, hm?' Callantine turned to face the captain, swivelling her chair- his chair- around. 'Whatever makes you say that, captain?'
'It's no coincidence,' Danrich growled. 'First, the destroyers report anomalous readings. Next, you and your gang of pirates arrive here on my bridge. Almost immediately, the destroyers come under attack, and then minutes later that battleship appears. You're not mutineers, Lieutenant. You're traitors,' he spat.
'Oh, nonsense,' Callantine scoffed. 'To be a traitor, one must have once believed in that which they are betraying. I don't know about the rest of these fine people, but I for one have never believed in your Imperium, or your Emperor.'
'Then you are a heretic as well. The penalty for both things is death,' Danrich reminded her, drawing a laugh from the Lieutenant, who seemed to be enjoying her time in the captain's chair
'So come, captain. Carry out the sentence!' she taunted, producing her Hellpistol from her belt and flipping it, offering the butt of the weapon to him. 'Oh yes, I forgot. You can't. Do not worry, though. As soon as we get back to Hydraphur, I am sure the authorities there will administer the correct punishments for all of us. We have been so very, very naughty, haven't we?' She laughed and spun the weapon around her finger before slipping it back into its holster. 'Remind me Captain, what is the punishment for losing control of one's ship?'
Danrich remained silent. She would not goad him into a response on that point. Yes, death was the likely punishment, because a mutiny on board usually indicated poor morale, something which came down from the captain and his actions towards the crew. Treat them too well, and they became decadent, lazy, inefficient. Treat them too harshly, and they became morose, sullen, angry. A middle ground had to be sought, and Danrich, as far as he was concerned, had been treading that middle ground during the entire Crusade.
But perhaps that was the problem. This entire Crusade. There was plenty of time for mutinous ideas to fester below decks during the years away from home port and the pleasures of secure Imperial space. This wild frontier was a great place to send Explorator fleets or Rogue Traders, but less so for an Imperial battlefleet. There had been action, yes, perhaps too much. But with so long away from home, those elements within the crew- radicalists, Xenos lovers, witches, criminal gangs, all the denizens of the wretched hive of scum and villainy that was the lower deck bunkroom- who had treasonous or other seditious ideas to spread found they had plenty of time to do so during the long weeks of warp travel and day after day of perimeter patrol.
'So which is it? You want to return to Hydraphur, or you want to stay here and help your masters with whatever their plan is?' Danrich asked Callantine after a few moments.
'My masters?' The Lieutenant chuckled lightly. 'My only master is myself, Captain. Do you believe that I summoned that battleship somehow? No, no. That was the same ship that was in battle before, was it not? You saw it for yourself. The Auspex readouts confirmed it, didn't they? Most likely it has been here the entire time, under your very noses, watching, waiting for this opportunity.'
'Opportunity to do what? To blow itself up?' Danrich questioned. 'It could have done that weeks ago and saved us all the trouble.'
'It could have, but it didn't,' Callantine replied. 'I do not know why. I am not privy to the inner workings of the mind of the ship's captain, or of those to whom he owes his loyalty. All I know is that this was the best time for us to strike.'
'That's what they told you, is it? And what have you achieved? That ship was still destroyed. It didn't even try to fight. Why not?' Danrich asked, narrowing his eyes, seeking the ploy, the trick that the fleet must have missed. What possible purpose could it serve to simply have the ship explode? It had not seriously threatened the fleet, and had not damaged them. It had not even fired upon them. It had not been attempting to crash onto the planet's surface; it had braked beforehand. So what was it trying to do?
'As I told you, Captain,' Callantine replied, 'I am not privy to the thoughts of the ship's crew, but I am sure they know exactly what they are doing. As you say, they would not simply self-destruct their vessel for no reason, would they?'
Beyond the planet, there lay the moon, the single natural satellite of Kuda Prime. A barren wasteland of rock, devoid of atmosphere and pockmarked with craters from meteorite and asteroid impacts accrued over millennia, churning up the fine regolith and disturbing the silence for a brief moment before calm returned. There had never been any life on the moon, other than Princess Luna when she had been enduring her banishment from home.
With a sudden, dazzling flash of light, that began to change. There was a gash, a tear in space and time, a roiling rift of deep purples and reds, just above the surface of the moon. Something was happening. Something was coming.