I stood on the bridge, staring at the view transmitted by the main screens. I watched with anger in my eyes as the Conqueror burned, slowly disintegrating in the void. The battle was difficult. And now I was watching the results. Oxygen was escaping from every part of the hull. It created white, swirling clouds that, in the vacuum, kept the fires burning. The remnants of flammable materials—engine oils, lubricants, fabrics—fueled the flames that consumed the ship from the inside.
Explosions shook the wreck, each one taking another piece of the structure. One of the gun turrets detached, hitting the upper segment of the hangars, which then exploded. Entire sections of the ship vanished in successive flashes of red, orange, and black.
The vessel was slowly ceasing to be a warship and becoming a drifting, burning tomb.
"What's the situation on the surface?" I asked, looking at the wreck.
"The Primarch is fighting his traitorous brothers, but he's losing," Grumpy reported, watching the situation through the cameras.
I looked at the planet's surface. From orbit, it was clear that the entire globe had been engulfed by Warp storms. Red flashes broke through the layers of the atmosphere, and swirling tornadoes of the Immaterium swept across the continents. The planet was consumed by the power of Khorne.
The sight reminded me of Earth... that moment when Harlock unleashed Dark Matter. When, in a few minutes, the planet became uninhabitable. It was similar now—the raging power of Chaos was devouring everything left on the surface.
Maybe I should do the same. Use Dark Matter. With a single move, close this world off from the rest of the galaxy for all eternity. But I held back. It's not about morality. It's something else. I would be showing my hand. One of the last, maybe the most powerful. What if the enemy learns? What if they analyze and adapt?
But that's not all. Another thought gnaws at me. What will happen if the energy of Dark Matter collides with what is now consuming this planet? The power of Chaos and the Darkness. The Immaterium and Black Matter. One of these forces could consume the other. Or... they could merge. And if they merge... what will be born from that? Will we create something worse than anything we are fighting? I don't know. And that's what worries me the most.
"Captain, what do we do?" Cornelius asked, seeing that Harlock was lost in thought. The Ultramarines needed help. And they couldn't just keep drifting in orbit.
I sighed, so quietly and unnoticeably that no one even realized I had done anything.
"We're landing. We'll pick up those suicidal fools and head back to Macrage."
"You heard the captain! Prepare for landing!" Grumpy yelled.
At the same time, Silent connected with Trek. "We're landing. Prepare for close combat."
"Got it," he replied with a single word and ended the conversation.
The Arcadia began to descend into orbit, immersing itself in the thick, chaotic clouds of the Immaterium. Bolts of lightning, red as blood, repeatedly struck the hull, melting the outer layers of the plating and leaving trails of glowing embers and charred metal. The shield systems had stopped responding earlier; now everything depended on the ship's structure itself.
Soon, a thick, heavy, almost living black mist began to flow from every crack. It wrapped around the hull, hissed upon contact with the hot metal, and then slowly began to repair it. New plates formed where parts had been burned away, and old wounds healed like muscles after a sword cut.
Slowly but surely, we pushed through the Warp clouds. Thick and sinister, they pulsed around the hull, writhing like living beings. Thousands of daemons, red, covered in armor and scars, rained down on the Arcadia's hull like a storm from hell. Their claws dug into the plating, their jaws gnashed at the metal with fury. Each of them was thirsty for blood, each ready to give everything just to get inside. Everyone watched through the glass windows, behind which dozens of Khorne daemons pounded, ripped, and howled. One of them tried to break through the armored glass with an axe.
The bridge crew began to feel uneasy; a few meters behind the hardened, reinforced glass, daemons roamed, who, in the best-case scenario, would just kill them.
"The Arcadia is not an Imperial ship to fail at the most important moment," I stated, dispelling their doubts and fears. "Lord Cornelius, deal with those abominations."
"Aye, aye," he replied, quickly clicking on the console.
The anti-aircraft cannons furiously turned towards the bridge and, with a sniper's precision, began to fire on the daemons standing on the bridge's windows. Thousands of projectiles shredded the daemons, smashing their armor and weapons into tiny scraps.
The projectiles ricocheted off the windows, and the ricochets hit another daemon. In a few seconds, the entire horde of daemons lost their lives and returned to their master. After a few minutes, we broke through the clouds; the sight of daemons here now was normal. The planet had been corrupted.
We landed on the wreck of the Fidelitas Lex. "Cornelius, you're in charge while I'm gone," I said, leaving the bridge.
I ran quickly, faster than ordinary pirates could react. Leaping over railings, I avoided obstacles, shortening the time it took to reach the Hangar. Jumping from one floor, I flew 10 meters down, straight to the hangar where the hatches were already opening.
"Trek," I said, landing precisely next to him, startling him and the surrounding pirates.
"CAPTAIN!" he screamed in fear, quickly looking up and estimating from what height I had jumped.
"You protect the ship. Two thousand pirates are coming with me."
The hatches hissed open under pressure, and the metallic jaws slowly slid apart. The moment a crack appeared, the first Khorne daemons forced their way through. The Arcadia's pirates, although their primary weapons were their axes and they specialized in close combat, were not foolish. They carried plasma pistols, which now flashed, casting blinding light across the hangar. In a fraction of a second, the space was filled with thousands of blue discharges. The plasma burned holes in the daemons' bodies, ripping them apart, turning them into a bloody mess.
The pirates, led by Harlock, rushed forward. They ran through the ruins of Besh, a city that once teemed with life, but was now just a charred graveyard. They passed thousands of murdered civilians—bodies lay everywhere, some ripped apart, others burned to charcoal, frozen in macabre poses on the streets of this dead city. Even oxygen masks helped little; the stench of burning flesh, blood, and decay was so overpowering that it seeped into their mouths, causing nausea and a burning sensation in their throats.
The pirates, despite being protected by their helmets, contorted their faces in grimaces as the sights and smells seeped into their minds, arousing disgust and horror. Despite this, they did not slow down, rushing forward. Their Captain, Harlock, was like a blurry streak. Every daemon he encountered fell, dismembered or torn apart, before anyone could fully register his movement. For an ordinary human, his speed was simply impossible to perceive, too lightning-fast to track the blade that cut through the air.
Harlock's saber swirled through the air, cutting and slicing with precision. Even the daemons' thick armor was no obstacle for it; it cut through them like paper, giving them no chance of salvation against Harlock's power and ruthlessness. They ran on, heading toward the sounds of fierce fighting that were clearly coming from ahead. It had to be a bloody battle between the Ultramarines and the traitor legions: the Word Bearers and the World Eaters. In this chaos, somewhere, Guilliman was certainly facing his two traitorous brothers. And worse, Harlock knew that soon Angron would complete his transformation, becoming a full-fledged daemon, which would only worsen an already hopeless situation.
Finally, around another corner, the vast area before them was filled with daemon armies that seamlessly blended into the ranks of the traitor armies, creating an impenetrable mass of evil. At that moment, Harlock was enveloped in a thick, black mist, heavy and dark, betraying the power of Dark Matter that only he controlled. Suddenly, like a lightning bolt, he covered several hundred meters, leaving a blurred trail behind him; the air rippled where he had just stood. In that same fraction of a second, the hiss of a saber cut through the air with such force that it almost drowned out the chaos of the battle, and the head of the first Bloodthirster of Khorne rolled to the ground, severed with surgical precision.
The pirates joined the fight a few seconds later, rushing into the very middle of the enemy. Their massive, two-meter-long energy axes crushed the ranks of traitors and daemons with a roar. Each blow crushed armor and bone, sowing destruction in the enemy ranks. But even they suffered temporary losses.
One of the pirates, caught off guard by a Bloodthirster, was stabbed in the stomach several times. His armor didn't hold up, and the daemon's claw dug deep into his insides. The pirate fell dead, soaked in blood. But after only a moment, his eyes opened wide, and a raspy cough escaped his lips. With a swift move, taking advantage of the daemon's surprise, he slit its throat with his short knife, sending the killer to the ground in a fountain of blood.
Slowly but surely, the pirates fought their way through the enemy ranks. As they advanced, they rescued more Ultramarines who had been cut off from their forces. The Space Marines, though reluctant to submit to Harlock's command, had no other choice. In such a critical situation, they realized their traditional command structures had become meaningless. They silently accepted his orders, knowing that until they met their own commander, like Captain Orfeo Cassandar or Captain Avenius, Harlock's orders were their only hope of survival. His effectiveness in battle against the daemons and traitors was the only argument convincing them to obey him, even if only temporarily.
Seeing the slain pirates get back on their feet and rejoin the fight, the traitors finally understood they had to find a way to immobilize them if they wanted any chance of victory. In response, the large siege daemons changed tactics. With a roar, they began to topple entire sections of the surrounding ruins onto the pirates and Ultramarines, dropping thousands of tons of concrete and steel on them. However, the Ultramarines who had joined Harlock's forces reacted instantly, countering the threat with demolition rounds. Their grenades with penetrating ammunition turned the collapsing walls to dust before they could crush them.
I plunged my saber deep into a traitor Marine's neck. I looked straight into his eyes, watching his life drain away with the trickle of blood that ran down the blade, dripping from the hilt of my weapon. In one fluid motion, I yanked the saber from his body, and with a single flick, I shook the blood from it, leaving red stains of traitorous gore on the ground. I looked around the battlefield. Despite the enemy's massive numerical superiority, my forces were dominating the area. The pirates and the Ultramarines who joined them were pushing forward with ruthless efficiency. Yet, on the horizon, reinforcements were approaching from all sides—another wave meant to drown us. We had to push deeper into Guilliman's position or hope that he and his forces could break through to us.
"YOU!" I snapped, turning to the nearest Ultramarine and pointing at him with the tip of my saber, which still dripped with blood. "Is there any way to establish a connection with our forces?"
"The vox is completely jammed, Captain," he replied with dry precision, his voice distorted by the speaker in his helmet. "It's still possible to establish a connection over short distances, but the range is minimal. Anything beyond a few kilometers is a toss-up."
"Broadcast a rally signal on that hill to all forces on an open channel!" I snarled, deflecting a powerful axe blow from a raging Chaos Berserker who charged me with a roar.
"Then everyone, including the traitors, will hear us!" he reacted dryly, firing a full magazine at the charging horde of daemons.
"There's a better chance our people will hear us. EXECUTE!" I yelled, watching the Ultramarine retreat to focus on broadcasting the signal through his communicator. "And don't even think about ignoring me!" I added under my breath.