Chapter 226: Red Lines Drawn
The Imperial Armada tore through the void, magnificent battleships breaching dimensional barriers with controlled fury.
Upon sighting the Transformers, the Astartes activated their armor's voidwalking protocols, transforming into towering giants wreathed in the cold fire of the Emperor's wrath.
"For humanity! For the Emperor, For Raven!" The battle-cant echoed across vox-channels. "Purge the xenos machines!"
Double-headed aquila banners unfurled in the airless void as Imperial forces charged forward, their eyes burning with righteous fury. They had come to deliver annihilation.
The Transformers had no desire to continue this slaughter. They'd only fought because Unicron commanded it. Now, with their memories restored by Primus, they wanted nothing more to do with that tyrant's schemes.
But the Human Empire had received no stand-down order.
Imperial forces crashed into the retreating Transformer formations like a tidal wave of ceramite and fury. Bolter fire and plasma beams carved through metal bodies.
Transformers who had only just remembered their true selves were torn apart, their burning wreckage tumbling through space in a grotesque display of destruction.
The survivors had no choice. They raised their weapons and fought back.
Under Primus's influence, the Transformers—still reeling from recovered memories and existential shock—were no match for the disciplined Imperial war machine. They fell back step by step, hemorrhaging casualties with each passing moment.
Energy beams and missiles crisscrossed the battlefield. The Astartes moved like hunters, their blades reaping a harvest of mechanical life. The Imperial Giants unleashed devastating light-based attacks, obliterating Transformer motherships and preventing their forces from reviving and returning to battle.
As the conflict threatened to spiral into total war once more, Primus established a psychic link with the Emperor.
"Stop, my ally. These children have returned to my embrace. They are your allies now."
And no sooner after, the Emperor's will rippled across the vox-network. The command was absolute: cease fire.
And so the great battle reversed itself in an instant.
The armies that had been screaming for blood and vengeance went silent.
Around them floated the evidence of their fury—burning metal wreckage, human corpses, the debris of a war that had consumed countless lives on both sides.
Everyone had expected this conflict to end only in total annihilation. Instead, the two sides signed an alliance amid the still-smoldering battlefield, over bodies that had not yet grown cold.
The Imperium of Man and Cybertron became allies, united against Unicron's remaining pawns.
"This is absurd." Lorgar's voice was tight with barely restrained anger during a private gathering of the Primarchs. "We should have exterminated every last one of those mechanical xenos."
He leaned forward, his tattooed features twisted with conviction. "Setting aside the fundamental incompatibility between humanity and xenos life—what of the fallen? The loyal ones. Those soldiers who died at those machines' hands? After signing this alliance, we cannot even claim vengeance for their deaths."
Lion nodded gravely, his features carved from stone. Angron's jaw clenched, old rage flickering behind his eyes. Several other Primarchs murmured agreement.
They had warred against Cybertron for years. The Human Empire had buried countless heroes in this universe's cold void. And now... alliance.
Many saw it as betrayal—a dishonor to the dead.
"Mechanical life is the dominant form in this universe," Sanguinius countered, his voice calm but firm. "We cannot condemn all mechanical beings for the mistakes humanity made under Unicron's manipulation."
Guilliman stepped forward, his tactical mind already working through the implications. "If the Human Empire expands with a policy of total extermination against all other races, we will face unified resistance. We will become the enemy of this entire reality. The Emperor's great work cannot survive such isolation."
The debate grew heated. Neither side would yield ground. Some Primarchs even suggested settling the matter through ritual combat, let the victor's wisdom prevail.
The argument spread beyond the Primarchs. Imperial officers, scribes, and officials formed their own factions, voices rising in passionate disagreement. Violence seemed inevitable.
Then the Emperor and the Raven intervened.
The Emperor's presence silenced the chamber like a thunderclap. When He spoke, His words carried the weight of millennia. "The Human Empire must remain vigilant against xenos and artificial intelligence. This truth is immutable. However, we must also evolve. We must establish boundaries—red lines that define friend from foe."
The Raven stepped forward, his dark eyes surveying the assembled Primarchs. "If a species does not cross these lines, we will pursue peaceful coexistence. If they cross them..." His voice hardened. "We will purge them utterly. No mercy. No redemption."
"What are these red lines?" Lion asked, his gaze piercing. The question every Primarch wanted answered.
"First," the Raven said, "no hostility toward humanity. Second, no actions that threaten human civilization's development or survival. Third, no xenos may participate in activities designed to subvert or destabilize the Human Empire."
He paused, letting the words sink in. "The Human Empire will eventually fall into its age, like all empires before it. But that collapse must come from within, from humanity's own choices. Any xenos interference in that process will be met with absolute extermination."
The Emperor nodded His approval.
Even a single galaxy cannot be completely purged of xenos life. Across the infinite expanse of the multiverse, total genocide becomes not just impractical but impossible. Better to establish a framework: befriend some species, suppress others, eliminate the rest.
This approach would reduce war costs while maintaining Imperial dominance.
The Transformers, despite their mechanical nature, possessed the Spark—a true soul, complete with emotions, desires, and free will. They were not mere machines executing programming. They were beings capable of choice.
An alliance with them offered mutual benefit.
The Emperor used His authority to broadcast the new red lines to the entire expeditionary force. The Raven personally met with each Primarch, addressing their concerns and doubts, guiding them toward acceptance.
This moment rivaled the Council of Nikaea in significance. One wrong step could plant the seeds of future civil war. This decision would define the Human Empire's relationship with indigenous civilizations throughout the multiverse.
Under the combined efforts of the Emperor and the Raven, the internal strife subsided. The two factions reconciled, preparing once more for war, this time, united.
The first target of the new alliance was obvious: the Quintessons, Unicron's most favored servants.
After Sentinel Prime's death, the Quintessons had recognized their precarious position and withdrawn from the battlefield, preserving most of their forces. They'd escaped through their own dimensional gateways rather than Cybertron's stargates, evading Primus's interdiction.
The Quintessons were unique creatures, semi-cylindrical bodies supporting five distinct heads, their forms wreathed in anti-gravity light, multiple tentacles composed of flesh and cybernetic tissue writhing beneath them.
They were few in number, but each was known for ruthless cunning and casual cruelty.
The combined armada advanced on the Quintessons' homeworld: Quintessa.
Quintessa was one of the universe's oldest cradles of intelligent life, but unlike Cybertron, it had evolved into something twisted, a cruel metal world that spawned biological organisms of extreme malevolence. The Quintessons had inherited every dark quality their planet possessed.
They pursued knowledge and power with rabid desperation, never considering the consequences of their actions. They felt no remorse for their crimes. They derived pleasure from suffering.
As soon as the allied fleet emerged from the dimensional breach at the edge of Quintessa's star system, the Quintessons detected the intrusion.
They immediately dispatched fleets and armies to repel the invasion.
"Have you lost your minds?" A Quintesson commander's multiple heads rotated in agitation as he faced the approaching Primes and Imperial forces. "How dare you aid Outsiders against us? Unicron will never forgive this betrayal!"
"Let that bastard come."
Nexus Prime's rage ignited at the Quintesson's words. He'd been memory-wiped by Unicron, forced to serve as an unwitting weapon for years, committing atrocities he would never have chosen. He'd even blasphemed against his creator, Primus, and attempted to kill him.
All of it orchestrated by that tyrant.
If Unicron appeared before him now, Nexus Prime would draw his blade without hesitation, regardless of the odds.
Before the Quintesson finished speaking, Nexus Prime closed the distance. The Star Saber flashed once, bisecting the creature in a spray of mixed fluids and circuitry.
"Eliminate them all," Nexus Prime commanded coldly. "Leave no survivors."
The Quintessons quickly found themselves overwhelmed.
They were powerful, yes. But the combined might of the Human Empire and Cybertron Civilization was greater still.
Multiple strike forces penetrated the system's defensive perimeter. Overwhelming firepower reduced fortresses and strongholds to expanding clouds of debris. Occasionally, Quintessons on the surface would see the sky suddenly brighten as starforts and battleships exploded in brilliant death throes, like newborn stars burning their last.
After securing orbital superiority, the invasion began in earnest.
The Quintessons unleashed the killing machines they'd built over millennia. The battle was savage beyond description. Cities were reduced to rubble. Mountains shattered. The ground split open in massive fissures.
But victory belonged to the Human Empire.
The Sharkticon legions and Quintesson Robot Guards were pushed back relentlessly by the Astartes and Imperial Giants.
Sharkticons, also called Iron Sharks, were amphibious robotic beasts created to conquer low-tech worlds. They were individually weak but terrifyingly effective in swarms, their razor-sharp teeth capable of shredding armor like piranha stripping flesh from bone.
The Robot Guards were different: massive constructs comparable to Heavy-Duty Transformers, but soulless, no Spark, no consciousness, just puppets executing their masters' commands with mechanical precision.
These were the Quintessons' trump cards.
They would not be enough.
[End of Chapter]
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