The fierce battle was over within ten Terran hours, though a few of the enemy's countless small escort ships and gunboats ultimately escaped. The dense barrage could not stop every enemy determined to flee. Even the Light of the People's shock wave could only temporarily paralyze their machine spirits. After the Iron Warriors applied their mysterious mechanical gifts and the Dark Mechanicum performed its blasphemous consecrations, the ships regained their damned ability to move.
There were too many of them, and we did not have enough warships.
"All right, withdraw. Everyone, clean up the battlefield." Even if the Iron Warriors received the distress signal, their supporting fleet would need at least three Terran days to arrive from the previous major planet along the warp route. The Iron Warriors aboard the enemy ships could not hold out that long.
The Iron Warriors were far too good at breaking through enemy defenses. To them, superhuman warriors encased in adamantium were little different from Land Raiders fitted with reinforced adamantium armour plates. At first, they had not realized that the warriors before them were not the enemy's elite trump card, but ordinary Astartes.
Well trained, they rolled out artillery and tanks intended for the coming siege, laid ambushes across broad areas, and planted bombs around the macro-cannons to detonate their ammunition. They exhausted every method they had, until, as golden giants fell one after another, more anti-psyker warriors emerged from every direction.
Some surrendered. Although their Primarch's summons had greatly raised their morale, after one suit of silver-green power armour after another fell, the few remaining Iron Warriors reached the brink of collapse.
The battle barge Evan had boarded carried the Warsmith commanding this battle.
Warsmiths were masters of every aspect of war, including tactics, strategy, logistics, construction engineering...
The commander of this