The tithe-collection fleet was a modest task force, comprised of a Lunar-class Cruiser, two Sword-class Frigates, and dozens of heavy transport craft. Ordinarily, a Tithe-prefect would not command such a significant military escort; however, this fleet carried the retinue of an Inquisitor. Multiple reports of mutation and sedition involving Ratlings had finally drawn the Ordo's icy gaze.
Combined with the fact that the Ratling homeworld, Ornsworld, had been swallowed by a localized Warp storm, the Inquisition had mobilized these assets to investigate, and, if necessary, purge.
Yet, as they reached the Mandeville Point, the fleet shuddered violently. Alarms shrieked across every deck.
"My Lord! The Light of the Astronomican is fading rapidly! We must translate to realspace immediately!" the Navigator screamed, his voice raw with agony.
The Fleet Commander reported the crisis to the Inquisitor. Even a zealot of the Inquisition dared not gamble with the fickle tides of the Warp; permission was granted. They would complete the journey in realspace—a delay of a week, but a necessary one.
As they drew closer to Ornsworld, a sense of mounting dread permeated the ships. The taint of the Empyrean was palpable, forcing the Inquisitor and his acolytes into constant, feverish prayer to the God-Emperor.
Accompanying the fleet were two full Companies of the Hammer Strikers (a successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists) and twenty regiments of the Adeptus Arbites. With such force, even a planet-wide rebellion could be crushed with swift, righteous violence.
Given the historical utility of Ratlings as abhuman auxiliaries, the Inquisitor had already decided: those not directly involved in the treachery would be drafted into Penal Legions to die for their sins. The fate of such traitors was a story written ten thousand times over, and the ending was always the same.
As payment for the Hammer Strikers' service, the Chapter had been promised Ornsworld as a new fiefdom and recruitment world once the purification was complete.
"My Lord, we have arrived. But... this does not look like Ornsworld."
Following the rating's report, the Inquisitor strode to the observation port. The world beneath them was unrecognizable. The lush, verdant landscapes had vanished, replaced by a churning, desolate wasteland reminiscent of a Death World.
The now-dun-colored sphere was flecked only by pinpricks of sickly green light, concentrated heavily at the poles.
"Launch the landing craft. The Will of the God-Emperor shall be done!" the Inquisitor commanded.
The fleet stirred. The Adeptus Astartes boarded their Thunderhawk gunships, preferring the tactical flexibility of the craft over the cramped discomfort of Drop Pods for a non-urgent deployment. Below them, the "Gravely-marching" masses of the Arbites followed in mass-conveyors.
The Hammer Strikers, clad in yellow power armor with red horizontal banding, were the first to make landfall. They selected a barren, open plain to establish a base of operations, seeking a wide kill-zone where their auspex arrays could easily detect the Ratlings' signature ambush tactics.
The descent was unopposed. The planet seemed dead. The Astartes established a perimeter with practiced ease, planting beacons to guide the following Imperial waves.
"I doubt this rock will serve as a recruitment world now. Damnation," one Astartes remarked, his voice echoing with disappointment behind his Mk X faceplate.
"Do not lament, brother. We still serve the Emperor and the Primarch by bringing glory through battle."
The Space Marines conversed casually as they fortified their lines. To them, the inhabitants were either dead or had devolved into wretched mutants, hardly a threat to the scions of Dorn.
But within the jagged ruins and seemingly abandoned sewers, figures lurked. Half-fused with iron, power-packs humming on their backs, they rested heavy sniper rifles, linked by pulsating cables, against the uneven rock.
Ordinarily, Ratlings, much like their Skaven "cousins," suffer from a hyperactive metabolism that makes them twitchy. However, this trait now served them; their accelerated reflexes were honed into a preternatural stillness.
One Ratling sniper peered through his scope. His half-mechanical eye saw everything with terrifying clarity.
The scope did not rely on optics alone; it looked through the Warp. This allowed the sniper to observe targets from impossible angles and, by overtaxing the power-pack (at the risk of a catastrophic explosion), fire rounds that traveled through the Empyrean to strike a target seconds, or even minutes, into the future.
The victim in realspace would be struck by a lethal headshot out of nowhere, long after the sniper had pulled the trigger and relocated. This horrific Warp-tech was the genius of Chrot, and while it carried the trademark Skaven risk of self-destruction, it made them the most lethal marksmen in the galaxy.
"Yes-yes... he is... mine."
Clad in a camoline-weave cloak, the sniper chose his mark: an Astartes whose ornate panoply marked him as a high-value target. Through his Warp-sight, he identified a microscopic flaw in the Mk X power armor's gorget. Though these warp-rounds could punch through the hull of a Dreadnought, a precise kill was the ultimate prize.
Crack—
A short, muffled report rang out. A streak of green light slammed into the Librarian's throat.
"Ugh—!" The Librarian collapsed to one knee.
The Astartes reacted instantly, unleashing a blistering wall of suppressive fire toward the origin of the shot. Though the sniper was three kilometers away, well beyond the effective range of a standard bolter, the Ratling hissed in frustration.
The Librarian was groaning, but he wasn't dead. He clutched his throat and forced himself back to his feet.
"The enemy... Ratlings... have fallen to the Archenemy. This is the power of the Warp!" the Librarian rasped. A shard of raw warpstone was lodged in his neck, its corruption spreading, but he held the rot at bay with his own psychic might.
An Apothecary rushed forward, wielding his reductor to extract the fragment.
"I have never seen such a munition. What is this?" the Apothecary asked, staring at the glowing green crystal held in his forceps.
"Destroy it! It is filth! Utter blasphemy!" the Librarian roared, snatching the shard and casting it aside before incinerating it with a bolt of psychic lightning.
Then… thump, thump, thump.
Five more Astartes fell in rapid succession. This time, there were no survivors. Five heads shattered like porcelain.
"Take cover! Snipers!" the Captain of the Third Company bellowed. The Astartes retreated toward the hulls of their Thunderhawks and Land Speeders, desperately relaying intelligence to the Inquisitor.
Unless they intended to invoke Exterminatus, the situation had turned catastrophic. To wage war against an entire planet of snipers was a death sentence, and as the Captains knew all too well, a Lunar-class Cruiser rarely carried the cyclonic torpedoes required for planetary annihilation.