Recaps

Mendeleev’s fleet entered the Star Sea Galaxy and prepared to announce its arrival to the two worlds there. On Star Sea I, nobles used a psionic slave to drive commoners into suicidal attacks against Governor Dol’s defenses, while Duke-backed Viscount Kadir agreed to send in more people.

• Mendeleev led thirty warships through two space jumps into the Star Sea Galaxy and asked Milos to broadcast their arrival across both worlds.
• Milos ordered his staff to connect to every communications device in the Star Sea Galaxy and announce the fleet’s presence.
• A short rebel rallied commoners to charge Governor Dol’s defensive line, where the governor’s firepower killed many of them.
• Kadir and another noble watched the attacks and discussed how Kadir’s psionic slave had made the commoners willing to charge.
• A messenger told Viscount Kadir that the Duke wanted more lowborn sent against the defenses and promised to raise Kadir’s title by two ranks.
• Kadir agreed to make his psionic slave recruit more commoners.

A broadcast from the Lord of the Stars demanded that the Star Sea Galaxy surrender within three days, claiming overwhelming forces and promising relief from Imperial tithes. Governor Dol, the Ecclesiarchy, and the people of both worlds faced the ultimatum as the bishop discovered that a powerful fleet had arrived.

• Governor Dol raged over the nobles’ rebellion, while Rodick reassured him that he would protect him and defeat the rebels.
• An announcer broadcast the Lord of the Stars’ demand for surrender, threatening to kill anyone bearing arms after three days and boasting of a fleet and more than fifteen hundred Astartes Space Marines.
• The broadcast halted the fighting on World One and threw the populations of both habitable planets into panic.
• The bishop condemned the newcomers as heretics and used psychic powers to search for them.
• The bishop found two massive cruisers and more than a dozen smaller warships near Mandeville Point, while a larger force remained beyond his psychic perception.

Bishop Zakli coordinated with Bishop Yifu to prepare their worlds for the heretics' invasion and requested reinforcements from the Imperium and Ecclesiarchy. He summoned Governor Dol and Grand Duke Willy's noble coalition to discuss the defense of World One, but left the decision to them.

• Zakli contacted Yifu psychically, explained the heretics' strength, and persuaded him to defend World Two while awaiting reinforcements.
• Zakli sent requests for aid to the Imperium and Ecclesiarchy, then ordered the Skitarii to summon Governor Dol and the noble coalition.
• Governor Dol and Grand Duke Willy's nobles met outside the church, where Dol insulted them and Willy stopped Viscount Kadir from retaliating.
• The governor and nobles joined Zakli in the prayer hall and knelt before the Emperor's statue.
• Zakli asked Governor Dol, Grand Duke Willy, and the noble house heads what they thought should be done about the heretics' invasion.

Governor Dol and Grand Duke Willy pledged to follow Bishop Zakli’s orders against the invading forces, while Gray and his allies prepared to take the two worlds of the Star Sea Galaxy. The chapter ended as Zakli discovered four frigates in orbit that his psychic power had not detected.

• Governor Dol pledged allegiance to Bishop Zakli and agreed to help destroy the heretics.
• Grand Duke Willy also accepted Zakli’s arrangements, and Zakli began outlining his plan.
• Gray, Anrida, and Mendeleev agreed on a plan for the Space Marines to attack the two worlds while the fleet guarded the system.
• Three days later, Gray and Mo Tuo led their forces toward the planets, where four frigates entered orbit.
• Zakli was stunned to find the four frigates, which had appeared without his psychic power detecting them.

Gray led the Star Space Marines in a drop assault on Star Sea I World, while York brought the Defense Force in to support them. The attackers breached the city wall, leaving the assault poised to enter the city.

• Gray placed a teleportation beacon in a secure location, then led the Star Space Marines down to the planet in drop pods as anti-aircraft guns fired unsuccessfully at them.
• Gray ordered more than seven hundred Star Space Marines to charge the city, and York led over five thousand Apocalypse Tanks and more than a hundred thousand troops to cover them.
• Viscount Kadir rallied the defenders on the city walls, whose gunfire failed to penetrate the Space Marines' shields.
• An Earth Dreadnought charged ahead and used its Ripper Rifle and a full-power Melta Cannon blast to tear a tank-wide breach in the city wall.

Gray and his Star Space Marines stormed the city and fought through waves of soldiers driven by a Psyker’s influence. When the Psyker’s attempt to control them failed, he attacked Gray’s unit with psychic lightning.

• Gray ordered the Star Space Marines to enter the city and kill anyone holding a weapon.
• Gray led his guards toward the city wall, cutting down soldiers who charged them under the Psyker’s influence.
• Viscount Kadir ordered his Psyker slave to defeat Gray’s forces, promising to free him in return.
• The Psyker tried to control Gray and his guards, but his power failed against their mental strength.
• The Psyker conjured blue psychic lightning and launched it at Gray and his guards, blasting nearby soldiers into charred corpses.

Gray’s forces killed the Psyker whose powers had driven the city-wall soldiers to fight, and the soldiers immediately surrendered. With Kadir’s defenses collapsing, the nobles around him fled while Kadir remained in despair.

• Gray recognized the enemy Psyker as the priority target and ordered his Space Marines to fire on him.
• Wright charged through the Psyker’s barrier and killed him with a Power Fist after entering the range of his Psychic Null Field.
• The soldiers, freed from the Psyker’s control, dropped their weapons and begged Gray’s forces for mercy.
• Gray spared the ordinary soldiers and ordered Wright to bring the officers to him, killing any who resisted.
• Kadir admitted defeat and told the nobles they could flee before Gray’s forces arrived, so they escaped with their guards.

Gray executed Viscount Kadir after Kadir surrendered, then warned the remaining soldiers that resistance against the Lord of the Stars would mean death. Gray and his Space Marines pushed into the city, where fanatics continued to attack them, while Defense Force soldiers began taking the kneeling captives into custody.

• Kadir surrendered to Gray after the Space Marines killed the fleeing nobles and their guards.
• Gray sentenced Kadir to death, and Wright shot him in the head.
• Gray told the kneeling soldiers they could live if they stayed put and surrendered their weapons.
• Gray led his guards into the city, and the captives remained kneeling until Defense Force soldiers arrived to settle them.
• Star Space Marine squads fought fanatical attackers who charged them with Meltabombs, killing them before they could reach the Marines.

A noble tried to rally World One’s commoners against the Star Space Marines by staging accusations of their cruelty, but the people distrusted him and returned to work. After his agents failed to stir support, he regretted that the strange man beside Viscount Kadir was no longer there to command the people for him.

• A noble urged the crowd to resist the Star Space Marines while hired men described alleged atrocities by the invaders.
• The commoners doubted the noble’s concern for them and worried that their lives would remain miserable under any ruler.
• A sickened factory worker returned to work because he needed to pay the nobles’ taxes and feed his family.
• The crowd dispersed, and the noble cursed them for refusing to support his cause.
• The noble aimed his pistol at his kneeling agents for failing to persuade the people, but spared them because he needed his remaining guards.
• The noble wished the strange fellow beside Viscount Kadir were still available to make the commoners serve as cannon fodder.

Grand Duke Willy’s nobles failed to recruit many civilians, while the Defense Force broke into World One and began taking control of its key facilities. York left troops to collect prisoners at the wall and led the main force deeper into the city.

• The nobles complained to Grand Duke Willy that they had recruited only a little over a hundred thousand people and blamed Kadir’s absence for their difficulties.
• The nobles mocked Kadir for defending the wall, unaware that he had been captured after the Star Space Marines attacked and overwhelmed its defenders.
• Grand Duke Willy ordered the nobles to keep working and warned them that the Ecclesiarchy might hold them accountable after the invasion.
• York led the Defense Force’s Apocalypse Tanks through the breach made by the Earth Dreadnought and learned that Gray had captured the wall.
• York sent a company and two Apocalypse Tanks to take custody of the prisoners, then led his main force into the city to seize factories, power stations, and waterworks.

Nack led his squad of Star Space Marines to attack the largest power station on Star Sea I World, aiming to cripple the resistance's supply network. The defenders' attacks failed to harm the Marines, and Nack's squad continued advancing through the facility as the Skitarii launched a desperate charge.

• Nack brought his squad of twenty-four Star Space Marines to the power station, which supplied most of the industrial city's electricity.
• Nack checked that his squad was ready, then led the Marines openly toward the station with their shields activated.
• The Skitarii opened fire with rifles, guns, and grenades, but their attacks were stopped by the Marines' Void Shields.
• Nack's squad returned fire with Heavy Ripper Rifles, killing Skitarii defenders as the Marines advanced.
• A Skitarii commander led a charge against the Marines, and Nack ordered his squad to kill the charging soldiers rather than mock their faith.

Nack’s Star Space Marines defeated the Skitarii at the power station and left it operating so the surviving workers could continue earning food. Bishop Zakli learned the station had fallen and realized the heretics were advancing toward the cathedral.

• Nack surveyed the fallen Skitarii, whose three hundred thousand defenders had fought to the last, and ordered his troops not to shut down the power station.
• Nack explained that the city’s factories would no longer supply the rebels and chose to spare the workers from further hardship.
• A Defense Force battalion arrived late after fighting the Emperor’s followers on the road, and Nack ordered it to secure the power station before he advanced into the city.
• Bishop Zakli panicked after learning that a Space Marine had killed a psyker with ease and decided to wait for Imperial reinforcements.
• A follower reported that the power station had fallen, and Zakli watched smoke and gunfire draw closer to the cathedral.

Gray’s forces annihilated the Skitarii defending the Ecclesiarchy cathedral, and Gray confronted Bishop Zakli after discovering a psychic barrier protecting the Emperor’s statue. Zakli attacked Gray, but Wright moved to intercept him and revealed himself as a Blank.

• Bishop Zakli stayed inside the cathedral, choosing to face death rather than flee as Gray’s Apocalypse Tanks destroyed the Skitarii defenses.
• Skitarii charged the tanks with explosives, but their attacks failed and their bombs caused further casualties among their own ranks.
• Gray ordered his forces to destroy the Emperor’s statue, but a psychic barrier blocked the siege shell and revealed someone was protecting it.
• Bishop Zakli emerged and charged Gray after Gray mocked the Emperor, while Wright drew his Power Sword to intercept him.
• Zakli unleashed psychic lightning at Wright, but it vanished near him, and Zakli realized Wright was a Blank.

Gray’s forces destroyed the Emperor’s statue and church, killed the Ecclesiarchy’s remaining leaders, and captured the key locations in World One. As Gray sent his troops to clear the last resistance, Mo Tuo reported that his forces had also captured World Two.

• Wright killed Bishop Zakli after Zakli lost the use of his psychic power.
• Gray ordered the Emperor’s statue and church destroyed, and the tank unit reduced both to ruins.
• Star Space Marines reported capturing World One’s Governor’s Mansion and the nobles’ headquarters, killing those who resisted or tried to surrender.
• Gray praised his troops and ordered them to assist the Defense Force in wiping out the remaining resistance.
• Nack complained about sparring with Wright, prompting laughter from the Star Space Marines.
• Mo Tuo told Gray that he had captured World Two and was clearing its remaining resistance.

After Art Student informed Hogood and Anglie that the Star Sea Galaxy had been captured, the two set out to manage and rebuild its planets. They planned to build cities in the southern hemispheres and relocate the crowded populations, leaving the story with their plan to clear hidden monsters from the old industrial cities.

• Art Student told Hogood and Anglie that the Star Sea Galaxy had been taken and ordered them to manage its two planets.
• Hogood and Anglie traveled with their subordinates aboard large maglev transport aircraft, which Anglie and his engineers had developed after failing to build space docks and battleships.
• Anglie proposed building cities in the planets’ southern hemispheres and gradually moving people out of their immense, overcrowded northern industrial cities.
• Hogood warned that relocating tens of billions of people would consume enormous supplies, but agreed that the move was necessary to improve management and prove their worth to Lord of the Stars.
• Hogood and Anglie planned to use 3D-printing robots to build new cities and help Star Space Marines expose and eliminate monsters hidden among the populations.

Anglie told York to begin moving the population of the giant industrial city to newly completed cities on Star Sea One and World Two. York started relocating the first people, including a frightened family of five, while the Defense Force struggled to control the immense city.

• Hogood and Anglie used 3D-printing robots to build self-sufficient cities with housing and industrial facilities on Star Sea One and World Two.
• Anglie contacted York and told him to relocate the first one hundred million people to the completed city.
• York arranged for Defense Force soldiers to escort people from the giant industrial city to a teleportation platform.
• A Defense Force soldier threatened a family of five into leaving their shack, and they joined the people being escorted out of the city.

Defense Force soldiers processed civilians evacuated from the industrial city, screening and registering them before sending them through a mechanized cleansing facility. The first civilian finished the process and waited in the teleportation hall to be sent to Star Sea 101 City.

• Defense Force soldiers questioned civilians about whether others disliked them and whether they had unusual abilities, while robots kept the lines orderly and killed troublemakers.
• A soldier vaccinated a civilian, and another issued Wumu Weien an identity card containing Stellar Credits and a smartwatch linked to Gaia's terminal.
• Staff directed male and female civilians to separate rooms, where soldiers ordered them to discard their clothes and enter a conveyor-belt bathhouse.
• The conveyor belt washed the civilian with disinfectants and brushes, after which he received clean clothes and food.
• The civilian went to the teleportation hall to await transport to Star Sea 101 City.

As Star Sea 102 City grew, a former magic cultist reported the cult’s hidden bases to the city administration. Anglie arranged a reward for the informant and sent the intelligence to the Defense Force for follow-up.

• A man told a staff member in Star Sea 102 City that he had been sent by a magic cult to spy on the relocation of the old city’s population.
• The man described the cult’s two magicians and gave the staff member the locations of several hidden bases.
• The man explained that he preferred his improved life under Lord of the Stars and accepted the staff member’s promise of a substantial reward.
• The staff member sent the report to Anglie, who recorded the staff member’s merit, approved the informant’s reward, and assigned the Defense Force to handle the cult.

York sent Tal and 1,500 Defense Force soldiers with thirty Apocalypse Tanks to capture the God of Magic cultists in D36 District. When the prisoners refused to reveal their other strongholds, Tal ordered a Memory Extractor used to recover their memories.

• York received intelligence from Anglie and ordered Tal to eliminate the God of Magic cultists.
• Tal led his battalion into D36 District and captured the cultists at their stronghold.
• Tal questioned the prisoners, but they refused to betray their church, so he killed one to frighten them.
• Tal ordered soldiers to use a Memory Extractor on the prisoners.
• The Memory Extractor painfully extracted a cultist's memories, leaving him vacant and chuckling.

Tal used extracted memories to locate Tzeentch’s hidden bases, and the Defense Force launched a brutal campaign against the cultists. At a hidden base, Bishop Vane fled after his strongest ally David was killed and his followers were overwhelmed.

• Tal’s soldiers used the Memory Extractor on captured cultists, shared the resulting intelligence, and continued hunting down Tzeentch’s followers.
• Bishop Vane watched the Defense Force attack his hidden base and ordered his cultists to fight back.
• York ordered the soldiers to target David, but David’s Psychic Lightning failed against their armour and Psychic Null Fields.
• The Defense Force vaporized David with plasma fire, and Vane ran from the battle, abandoning his remaining followers.

After Vane fled the Defense Force, York ordered the soldiers to pursue him through the industrial city. Vane led his pursuers into the giant pipelines, where a hidden Genestealer patriarch realized its secret refuge was exposed and summoned its kin to battle.

• After Vane escaped, the remaining cultists fell into disarray, and the Defense Force killed those who continued resisting.
• York discovered that the God of Magic Cult's bishop was missing and ordered the soldiers to track him down.
• Vane ran through the industrial city, then entered the giant pipelines when he could not shake the pursuing soldiers.
• Captain Tal ordered the Defense Force to leave the Apocalypse Tanks behind and continue through the pipelines on foot.
• A Genestealer patriarch watched Vane and the soldiers enter its hidden territory and sent a psychic message summoning its millions of kin to prepare for battle.

The Genestealer Patriarch warned his cult leaders that the intruders were far more powerful than they expected and assigned Bishop Dinar to command the defense while he targeted the enemy leader. With the Patriarch’s psychic help, Dinar tracked the Defense Force soldiers through the underground pipes as they pursued a man in black.

• The Genestealer Patriarch summoned his hybrid descendants and warned them that powerful intruders had entered their territory.
• The Patriarch shared his observations of the intruders’ strength, silencing the confident Genestealer leaders.
• Dinar asked the Patriarch what to do, and the Patriarch ordered him to command the battle while he killed the enemy leader.
• Dinar sought the intruders’ whereabouts from the Patriarch and began considering how to protect his brethren.
• The Patriarch sent Dinar his psychic observations, and Dinar spotted Defense Force soldiers pursuing a man in black through the underground pipes.

Dinar prepared an ambush for the invading Defense Force soldiers, but Vane was killed as he entered the Genestealers’ gathering point. Tal’s troops fortified the vast underground hall and opened fire on the approaching Genestealers as York sent reinforcements.

• Dinar ordered Moore and Shito to lead ordinary clansmen in an ambush while he prepared an elite force for a surprise attack.
• Vane entered the vast underground gathering point alone, where Genestealers shot him with gunpowder rifles.
• Tal’s Defense Force soldiers detected the Genestealers and quickly established a shield perimeter, dug trenches, and assembled heavy weapons.
• Tal reported the discovery to York, who promised reinforcements and asked whether the underground space could fit an Apocalypse Tank.
• Moore and Shito led hybrid Genestealers toward the soldiers, and Tal ordered his troops to attack with rifles and mortars.

Moore and Shito's Genestealers failed to break through Tal's position and lost their armored vehicles to the Defense Force's firepower. Bishop Dinar ordered a retreat, and Tal waited for reinforcements before pursuing them.

• Moore and Shito sent Genestealers and armored vehicles against Tal's defensive positions, but the Defense Force's weapons killed many attackers and destroyed the vehicles.
• Moore asked Bishop Dinar for guidance, and Dinar ordered the Genestealers to retreat rather than waste more lives.
• Moore ordered the Genestealers to withdraw, and Tal held his soldiers in the trenches instead of pursuing them.
• Tal reported the retreat to York, who ordered him to join the arriving reinforcements and exterminate the Genestealers.

John led Defense Force reinforcements into the underground tunnels after the Genestealers unexpectedly retreated, then used Bio-Radar to locate millions of them and began a sweeping operation. Aboard the Lord of the Stars, Tina observed the deployment and the account explained the intended roles and future recruitment of the Adeptus Custodes.

• John arrived with ten thousand Defense Force soldiers and more than seventy thousand Intelligent Auxiliary Robots, and Tal explained that the Genestealers had suddenly fled.
• John and Tal used Bio-Radar to find millions of lifeforms in the tunnels, which they believed were almost entirely Genestealers.
• John divided his forces into seven battalions to clear the tunnels while he remained at the gathering point to command and support them.
• Tina reviewed the troop deployment aboard the Lord of the Stars Flagship and recognized the operation as a chance to test newly developed weapons.
• The account described the Judgement Custodes’ authority to monitor deployments and the future selection standards for ordinary Adeptus Custodes.