“All ships prepare for counter-boarding. Explorator Fleet, fall back.”
Kaul’s voice echoed once more through the comms channel.
His current command throne was shrouded in datastreams, and on the hololithic star map, hundreds of crimson markers were pouring out from the enemy ship’s underbelly.
Those were boarding torpedoes loaded with Chaos Space Marines and all sorts of blasphemous constructs, each warhead embedded with screaming, living rams.
The Imperial fleet imdiately shifted formation, and the warships still firing turned to flee at full speed in the opposite direction.
The Dawn naturally followed the retreat.
But unexpectedly, a significant portion of the torpedoes locked onto this unremarkable-looking ship.
Those boarding torpedoes erging from the belly of the Chaos Battleship suddenly turned en masse toward the Dawn, as if summoned, ignoring the nearby Inquisitorial vessels and charging straight at her.
“Strike Group One, silence. Activate Strike Group Two for interception.”
Escort fighters launched from the hangars dove into the torpedo swarm in suicide runs, close-in plasma fire bursting into burning sparks in the void.
Ignited Chaos vehicles exploded, revealing their twisted internal structures.
One torpedo that wasn’t intercepted slamd into the ship’s port side, spewing eerie smoke where corrosive fluid t adamantium armor, burning through it with a spray of holes.
As the red alert lights from the hololithic map splashed across Kaul’s tallic face, the Tech-Priest Dominus’s datatendrils injected new encrypted commands into the fleet network, then integrated the data from the destroyed torpedoes.
He reviewed the results and breathed a sigh of relief.
Kaul had always been wary of Chaos’s insidious ambitions, but the idea that a few dozen Chaos Space Marines and so cultists could pose a threat to the Dawn seed a bit far-fetched.
Maintaining fire on the boarding torpedoes, Kaul sent a warning to Romulus.
“Chaos Space Marines have launched a concentrated boarding attempt via torpedoes. I’ll forward you the impact coordinates.”
Romulus turned slightly.
Everyone understood imdiately. Garna headed toward the ship’s mid-deck, where the crowd was densest.
Arthur quietly left, and Ramses followed shortly after, silently observing the outside world from within the safe house.
Aglaea looked around, but ultimately suppressed her curiosity and stayed put.
Thanks to the Emperor’s blessing, ever since eting the ancient warriors, she felt like her once-miserable, high-pressure life had finally started to ease a bit.
They didn’t talk in riddles, and if sothing was off-limits, they just said so directly. Her strongest impression of dealing with these four ancient warriors was this: for once, soone treated her like a person.
She hadn’t seen in them the kind of extre, oppressive mindset that had already been deeply etched into the bones of the modern Imperium.
That’s why Aglaea, who had always been deeply curious about the identities and history of these ancient warriors, often stuck close to them to gather historical records for her research.
Among them, Arthur was the most laconic—he rarely repeated himself. As long as it didn’t involve the Loyalist Legions, he was willing to talk. He seed cold, but was surprisingly easygoing.
Next was Ramses. As long as you were willing to trade knowledge, he didn’t mind sharing stories from that era, albeit dressed in a bit of artistic flair.
The other two were much harder to pin down—one liked to chat about humanities and art, the other felt like talking to a parliant analyzing you rather than a person.
But the ons told Aglaea that following them this ti would bring her no good.
She thought it over for a while and decided to stay put on the bridge.
She was starting to really trust that kind of intuition now.
Seeing this, Romulus turned his gaze back to the battlefield, continuing to witness this iron-and-energy-laced frenzy. Data wove across his vision, constructing model after model.
Boom—
Two escort boats crashed into the torpedo swarm in a crisscrossing path, colliding with two torpedoes. The burning tal twisted together in the vacuum of space.
Despite layers of defensive firepower, several torpedoes still slipped through and struck the Dawn’s port side.
When lta rounds breached the thick, multi-layered armor plates, the pressure differential instantly sucked three servitors working on hazardous operations into the void, turning them into vacuum-sealed blood packs.
“Lower port-side node hit. Enemy core marked. Proceed to target zone imdiately. Cognition units will handle psychic suppression. Limit the destruction radius. Fire teams will clear other sectors first.”
Romulus’s command ca through.
“Received.”
The black knight and psyker’s power armor cast shadows in the trembling corridor, lenses flashing with the incoming datastream.
The pipeline network struck by the torpedoes overlapped perfectly with the Dawn’s hololithic model.
Hoo—
As the Word Bearer sorcerer’s staff lit up, azure sli seeped from the bulkheads.
Eighteen guards, their armor crawling with writhing runes, burned away obstructing servitors with plasma fire, and blasted a Thousand-Eyed Nest ritual pattern into the adamantium deck.
“Shatter the False Emperor’s ship.”
Bubbles rose within the crystalline fluid, and as they burst, the contents of the incomplete boarding torpedoes appeared in the wide chamber.
Chaos cultists surged forth.
“Bring the False Emperor’s fate to a halt!”
The sorcerer slamd his staff to the ground, and the chamber was suddenly covered in mirrors.
They recorded every detail of the warship, projecting imagery directly into the sorcerer’s mind.
He scanned the mirrored data quickly—but noticed sothing was missing in all of them.
Who were the bridge crew taking orders from? Who was that Inquisitor speaking with? Why did the hollow corridors draw such reverent stares?
Why did the people on the lower decks still hold hope despite their ship being boarded?
Why was this happening?
The sorcerer felt confused—this was the spell he was most confident in.
It was thanks to this spell that the Word Bearers had located the Avengers Company’s doomsday arsenal, destroying the last resistance of the Sons of Guilliman.
He quickly activated the comms.
“Reaper Squad, respond if you hear .”
No sound from the other end...
The sorcerer grabbed a random cultist and threw him into a broken mirror.
The mirror showed the Reaper Squad’s fate—three corpses torn apart by countless rounds.
“......”
Refusing to believe it, the sorcerer drove neural probes deep into his skull, stimulating nerves and sending psychic communications to squad after squad.
For so reason, ever since boarding this ship, his connection to the High Heavens had weakened.
Only after reaching the ninth boarding squad did a voice finally reply.
“This is a trap, sorcerer!”
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