In the void, the Word Bearers battleship Infidus Imperator turned amid a battlefield littered with wreckage and gunfire. Its engines began to accelerate as it headed straight for the Mandeville Point beyond the system.
The tide had turned. The Word Bearers had no choice but to admit that their strategic attempt to utterly crush the Ultramarines had failed.
Half of the Ultramarines fleet had already restored power, and the Weapon Array had been recaptured.
The captain of Macragge's Honour recognized the enemy's intent to flee. The primarch and the others were returning aboard other warships in orbit. He had to do something.
"Full power to the engines!"
Macragge's Honour's colossal hull began to accelerate, doggedly pursuing Infidus Imperator's trail, determined to blast the enemy vessel to pieces.
Infidus Imperator could not be allowed to escape. It had to pay for the blood debt of Calth.
But Infidus Imperator was faster than Macragge's Honour. Its engines had been modified, and were further empowered by vile sorcery.
The currents of the aether favored Infidus Imperator, and the Warp called for its arrival.
Kor Phaeron was dragged into the operating chamber by Word Bearers warriors. His condition was catastrophic: one of his hearts had ruptured completely, shredded to pieces by Guilliman's Lightning Claw.
The disruption field had left hundreds of fractures throughout his body and destroyed his internal organs. The fact that he was still alive was already a miracle.
Lorgar's adoptive father resembled a torn sack of flesh, blood and shredded meat leaking from his body as foul, black bodily fluids flooded the operating table.
The psychic backlash left Kor Phaeron unable to speak. That teleportation at the crucial moment had not come without a price. He had made a dangerous pact with the beings in the Warp, allowing him to unleash his psychic power and leave the Orbital Platform.
And whenever one struck a bargain with the Warp, the Warp was never the side that lost out.
The Apothecary began seeking ways to heal his flesh. The blasphemous laboratories aboard Infidus Imperator contained cloned bodies for transplants. He used drills and blades to cut open the clones floating in nutrient fluid, dismembering them to extract their organs.
Kor Phaeron's condition was utterly dreadful. The Apothecary believed replacing his entire body offered a better chance of saving him.
"No, replacing organs and limbs isn't enough. Hurry and perform the ritual!" the Apothecary shrieked madly.
Macragge's Honour's first broadside struck Infidus Imperator. The light was stopped by its void shields, but its speed dropped sharply, and boarding now became possible.
"Quick, finish the ritual! We must return to The Empyrean at once! Why won't these damned Ultramarines just lie down and die!"
"We made so many bargains with The Empyrean and paid such a terrible price, yet they're still chasing us like nothing happened."
A Word Bearer roared in fury. They had paid so much, only to badly wound the Ultramarines rather than destroy them.
The Chaos cultists aboard the ships chanted in low voices. Prisoners of war and civilians left aboard were agonizingly slain by ritual blades, cut open so their organs and bones could be removed while they were still alive, becoming offerings for the ritual.
Blood and pain were offered to the will of The Empyrean, and a gate to the Warp was opening.
"Not good, they're trying to escape!"
The Ultramarines' eyes went red with rage. They would never allow Infidus Imperator to flee before their eyes.
Faster! Faster! Machine Spirit, we beg you—go faster!
To that end, they even disregarded the immense danger and prepared to send another group of Ultramarines on a boarding action.
It would be a suicide strike. Whether they successfully boarded or not, the dispatched force would have almost no chance of returning alive.
But there was no time to consider anything else. The captain made the call and ordered the troops remaining aboard to prepare to enter the boarding torpedoes. They would be launched and accelerated by their thrusters to catch Infidus Imperator.
At the very instant Infidus Imperator was about to jump into the Warp, a starship that seemed to appear from nowhere suddenly dropped its camouflage.
Its rear engines spat out long blue trails, leaving a shining streak through the dark void. At an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, it slammed into Infidus Imperator's hull from the flank.
Warships colliding was always the most brutal form of combat. Every movement of these colossal metal constructs, each massive enough to generate a miniature gravitational field, unleashed incalculable amounts of energy.
The starship, only a kilometer long, plunged into Infidus Imperator's ribs like a short blade. The disintegration field at its prow effortlessly tore apart the outer armor before smashing through the central keel without slowing in the slightest.
Sealed compartments and structural frames were completely shattered by the devastating blow. The cultists and Space Marines within were either torn apart by the shockwave or sucked out into the vacuum of space.
A fiery chain explosion erupted in an instant. The engines failed completely beneath the impact, and Infidus Imperator was nearly smashed in two. Exploding metal fragments and fiery shockwaves killed almost everything aboard. With its Warp engines disabled, it had no possibility of escaping into the Warp.
"Where the fuck did that ship come from?! Can someone tell me?! Can someone tell me?!"
The captain witnessed Infidus Imperator's destruction through the augur array. It was an indisputable fact. He immediately altered his plan to follow Infidus Imperator into the Warp and ordered his warship to decelerate at once.
"Unable to identify the other vessel's keel number. It isn't an Imperial ship!"
"Should we destroy it?"
The officers awaited orders. Any starship without an identifiable registration number was treated as a hostile target on the battlefield.
"Negative. It helped us destroy Infidus Imperator. Continue observing it."
"Don't provoke it. Attempt communications."
The captain did not rashly order an attack. That was not merely because the suddenly appearing starship had sunk Infidus Imperator; more importantly, the augur array and scanning systems showed that it had suffered no damage whatsoever.
It was simply unbelievable.
Macragge's Honour's Machine Spirit was issuing warnings. The captain could clearly sense its resistance. It did not wish to attack this unknown starship.
"I hadn't planned to interfere, but if I didn't act now, that bastard really would have gotten away."
Lox stood on the bridge of the Red Alert, arms crossed as he leaned against a raised platform.
"Though it does look like I stole their kill, the Ultramarines probably won't blame me." Lox's mood brightened. "You thought you could escape right in front of me?"
"Sorry, this road is closed."
Flames from the reactor explosion spread across the display. The starship turned around at an unbelievable sharp angle, its speed dropping to zero in an instant before surging back to cruising velocity as it flew toward Calth's orbit.
Lox would not show mercy to enemies who had committed such countless crimes.
They might once have been human, but from the moment they became puppets and slaves of the Warp, they no longer deserved to be called human.
"This sun's transformation is irreversible. The lethal radiation released by a forming supernova will make this system, and even the nearby systems, uninhabitable for humanity."
"I should go meet Guilliman. The Battle of Calth is drawing to a close, and I ought to pay a proper visit to the Emperor's own son."
Lox guided the starship into low orbit over Calth. He had no need to dock in orbit, but it was a gesture—a way to expose himself to the Ultramarines and make them feel that everything remained under control.
The battle in space had already ended. Apart from the Word Bearers warships that had recognized the situation and activated their Warp engines to flee, all the rest had been destroyed by the Weapon Array and the space fleet.
Prosperous interstellar trade had vanished, and the endlessly passing merchant wanderers had fled. All that remained in the Veridian System were wrecks and space debris scattered across low orbit and the gravitational fields of several planets.
Calth still burned. The planet had become hell.
Lox stepped down through the starship's hatch. He ordered the Cogitator to remain on standby and refused every request to board the ship except his own.
If anything went wrong, he could teleport back aboard immediately, then fire up the engines and run.
Captain Ventanus had been waiting for quite some time.
"Honored guest, Lord Roboute Guilliman requests your presence."
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