Thousand Sons' Raid

Amid the thunderous roar of engines, the smallest and lightest vessel in the T'au commercial fleet, a Messenger-class Destroyer, slowly descended into the atmosphere and entered the skies above the city through a gap in the side force-field shields.

In the eyes of the Imperium of Man, this sort of space junk—lacking proper defenses and armed with nothing but a small orbital cannon array—was not even comparable to one of their frigates.

But it possessed one enormous advantage: it was equipped with a "Gravity Drive," allowing it to skip across the gap between the Warp and realspace to achieve faster-than-light travel.

Moreover, the Messenger-class Destroyer had rendered tremendous service during the T'au's early colonial expansion and trade efforts. Although T'au high command had completely phased it out militarily after the Damocles Crusade, it had all been handed over to commercial fleets under the principle of making use of what remained.

No matter how light it was, it was still a warship capable of orbital bombardment, and it held an overwhelming advantage against primitive civilizations that had yet to reach the threshold of space travel.

Besides the Messenger-class Destroyers, Shas'kael's commercial fleet included Orca-class Destroyers, Merchant-class Light Cruisers, Hero-class Heavy Cruisers, and Explorer-class Battleships.

For an armed T'au commercial fleet, it could already be considered exceptionally lavish.

Forget trade operations—even compared to the Imperium's Rogue Traders, it was hardly inferior. It was the sort of massive fleet capable of conducting armed colonization directly.

Of course, the most important thing was that the T'au fleet's exterior design and artistic style looked far better than the Imperium's crude, black, hulking ships.

Never mind their weaponry and defensive capabilities; at the very least, they looked quite good.

But if he were actually using one, Raymond clearly still preferred the Imperium's Macro Cannons, which could