The Lion was exhausted. The Iron Warriors had brought good news — but the Rangdan were still there, directly in front of them.
Sixteen enormous war moons in close formation. Any fleet that tried to engage them would be facing the combined fire of tens of thousands of warships and sixteen war moons simultaneously.
If he had the option, the Lion genuinely wanted the Emperor to send Dorn over with the Phalanx to blow them apart.
"Father — the Space Wolves fleet has arrived! Lord Leman Russ sends word — they are coming at full speed!"
There was a thread of excitement in Koswain's voice.
These recent months had been humiliating. Now the Iron Warriors and the Space Wolves' main strength had both arrived — there was no reason to keep sitting in the defensive line any longer.
A communication request came through to the Unbroken Truth. The Lion accepted it immediately.
"Brother — we're here."
Leman Russ's rough voice came from the other end.
The Lion had expected to feel anger. He'd never particularly liked Russ. But hearing that voice right now, what stirred in him was closer to something like relief.
"We need to counter-attack. The Fourth Legion's fleet will arrive shortly. When it does, we advance on three lines simultaneously — the objective is the war moons."
Russ's eyes narrowed slightly when he heard the objective. Looking at the war moons on his auguries — each the scale of a small asteroid — he bared his canines. Then laughed, loudly, and answered the Lion.
"The six on the western side are ours."
"Good."
"Lords Lion and Russ."
Ferrix's projection appeared on the Liege King's flagship.
Both Primarchs were briefly silent.
Looking at the Star Forts and Gloria Reginas that had appeared at the head of the fleet, they felt, for the first time, that the Imperium's scale was perhaps not quite as vast as they'd assumed.
They had heard for a while that this brother's warships and resources were approaching parity with the Imperium itself — that portions of the Great Crusade's logistics were even coming from worlds under Perturabo's domain.
But hearing about something and actually seeing it were completely different experiences.
So the rumours of ambition weren't unfounded. Even the first time they had met this brother, both had sensed something was wrong.
The Iron Warriors' fleet and force strength, right now, exceeded the combined strength of both their Legions and the Imperial reinforcement fleet combined.
"How many ships do you have in total?"
The Lion asked.
"Fifteen Star Forts. Three Abyssal-class battleships of Father's own design. Twelve Gloria Regina-class warships. Over six thousand capital ships. Other vessels, combined, exceeding fifty thousand."
The Lion and Russ had nothing to say.
"Ground forces?"
"A hundred and fifty thousand Iron Warriors—"
"My lords — what is our assignment?"
Ferrix cut to the point, pulling both men's thoughts back to the present.
"The sixteen Rangdan war moons. Russ handles six. You handle—"
"The war moons can all be dealt with by us, my lords. No need to expend excessive fleet resources on them. But we will need your help with the ground forces — we can't spread our strength too thin across too many fronts simultaneously."
"Father will arrive soon. When he brings the next wave of fleet support, we should be ready to formally push back the Rangdan front."
There's more?
The Lion and Russ exchanged a glance, both of their expressions slightly off.
Where was this brother pulling all these warships from?
Even the cogheads on Mars couldn't have that many.
"Commander?"
"Agreed. We'll detach some fleet elements to assist you as well. The ground campaign is ours."
"Yes."
"About the Rangdan—"
"Don't concern yourselves, my lords. We've already engaged them. We understand their methods. Father provided us detailed intelligence."
Before he'd even finished speaking, Ferrix patched Perturabo's intelligence files through the ship's machine spirit as a direct projection to the Dark Angels and Space Wolves.
Both men went silent again.
"If there's nothing further, my lords, I should begin preparing the assault. We'll be counting on you for the ground campaign."
The communication ended.
On the bridge of the Unbroken Truth, the Lion and Russ looked at each other. Both men saw the same thing in the other's eyes.
Shock. And something that was difficult to name — a genuine wariness.
They couldn't be blamed for feeling it. Almost everyone in the Imperium knew what the First Legion and the Sixth Legion were for. This brother represented a threat to the Imperium and the Emperor that was simply too large to dismiss.
And they, apparently, did not have sufficient means to counter him.
"What do you think — how much is this brother of ours actually hiding?"
Russ's teeth showed.
"I don't know. The Emperor may."
The Lion didn't pursue the topic. If the Emperor wasn't saying anything, he wouldn't act on it either.
Ferrix looked at the sixteen war moons ahead — a truly absurd number.
The real reason for taking the naval front was, in fact, to avoid deploying too much Resentment Intelligence in front of two Primarchs.
They both already knew. But with numbers this large, concealing even a portion was worth doing.
Besides — you couldn't take all the credit.
What would that leave the two lords feeling?
When real support was needed, he'd send Iron Circles and automata down, then have his brothers lead the armoured forces in a straight push. That was more efficient anyway.
He had no idea whether the two Primarchs would need help, but he was monitoring the ground battle in real time — the moment anything went wrong, he'd deploy immediately.
For now, the priority was the xenos navy.
Win the naval engagement, and the war was already largely decided. Everything after that was mop-up — a matter of when, not whether.
The war moons hung in front of them like spherical beasts, each one encircled by terrifying chitinous tendrils — crimson war machines alive with horrible growth.
Far uglier and more terrifying than the three war moons they'd encountered before. Impossible to know how much human and xenos material had been absorbed to produce weapons of biological war this desecrated.
This enemy was more difficult than even the Krathos xenos Queen had been.
Ferrix still remembered the ritual that had nearly consumed an entire star system.
They had paid heavily in that battle. They would not make those mistakes again.
"Commander — Lords Lion and Russ have dispatched four hundred capital ships to reinforce our line."
Ferrix gave a small nod. These vessels were also, in some capacity, observers. He understood the First Legion and the Wolf Pack perfectly well — even now, fighting the Rangdan, if they wanted to learn something while the opportunity was present, there was no saying what they might do.
"Signal all vessels."
"Full fleet — battle formation. Star Forts forward, establish the main fire line. Abyssal-class to centre. Gloria Reginas split to both flanks. Capital ships protect the flanks. Support vessels to the rear."
"Target — Rangdan war moons. Free fire."
The moment the order went out, fifteen Star Forts began moving. Their size — considerably larger than the war moons — produced visible pressure even on the five Rangdan War-Commanders.
A single Dark Angels Legion had already been genuinely difficult to deal with. Even winning against it had required enormous cost.
Now all of this additional support had arrived. The Imperial coalition had run into something hard this time.
Should have pushed deeper, assimilated more, before committing to this attack.
The Star Fort engines produced a low, deep resonance. The giant fortresses carved cold trajectories through the void. Every surface bristled with gun batteries. The Nova Cannon arrays began charging — blue-white light flickering at the muzzles.
The Rangdan warships began moving in response. They weren't going to simply wait.
The sixteen war moons' disgusting mucus-coated gun emplacements began building power. Weapon systems on the warships locked onto the Iron Warriors' Star Forts.
Then fifteen Star Forts raised their void shields — layer by layer, stacking until the fleet behind them was almost entirely covered.
All other vessels brought up their own shields. The friendly four hundred capital ships were covered as well.
Jorin Bloodhowl and Arahos, watching themselves being thoughtfully "protected" by the Iron Warriors fleet, had already been thinking about boarding actions — and suddenly found themselves apparently locked into a stationary position from the opening moments.
Then what happened next shattered everything they thought they understood.
"Fire."
Ferrix's voice came through the fleet channel.
Fifteen Star Forts and the main battle fleet opened fire simultaneously.
Endless Nova Cannon beams tore through the void. Plasma macro-cannons and electromagnetic Nova Cannons hammered into the Rangdan fleet's formations.
The intensity of the light at this range nearly overloaded everyone's optical systems.
The Wolf King and the Greyshield had no words for what they were seeing.
A Star Fort large enough to compare to a moon, and those capital ships dozens of kilometres long — the fire they produced exceeded anything either of them had imagined possible.
The Rangdan War-Commanders were experiencing something entirely new.
This was not in any planning.
They knew you were capable — you annihilated three war moons and pushed all the way here. But nobody said you did it with this kind of firepower the whole way.
Don't your weapon systems overheat? Can this rate of fire be sustained for more than a few minutes?
Whatever the War-Commanders thought, the Iron Warriors' fleet — firing at intensity sufficient to destroy a star system — was landing on the Rangdan fleet with full force.
Uninterrupted fire. Thousands of Rangdan warships were vapourised in seconds. Their shields had no chance to function.
Even the shields the rear elements managed to raise were overloaded in moments by light so intense they couldn't look directly at it.
The Iron Warriors' firepower exceeded every parameter they had modelled.
The war moons' surfaces began to move. Countless gun batteries extended from the chitin.
Those batteries were biological — writhing as they emerged, then spraying luminescent biomass projectiles trailing dark red contrails.
But the near-total fire coverage intercepted most of those projectiles before they arrived. The twenty-two layers of void shielding absorbed the rest.
Star Forts and Abyssal-class battleships continued their salvoes, round after round. Gloria Regina Nova Cannons never paused. Capital ship broadsides fell like monsoon rain. The star-space around them had new colours — the dust and debris of what had recently been a Rangdan fleet.
The Rangdan force was beginning to fracture under the sustained pressure. Strange warships detonated one after another. The war moon surfaces were being cratered.
Their shields were irrelevant. Against genuine total fire coverage, every tactic they prided themselves on had no opportunity to function.
Cut communications? No opening to even try.
Slave wave tactics? Edict of Extermination sweeps from orbit — no ground landing required.
Psychic attack? The blue crystal shields standard-fitted on all Iron Warriors vessels had already formed a comprehensive barrier.
The Iron Warriors weren't naturally configured as a counter to the Rangdan. In close-quarters attrition they might even struggle to threaten them. But the fleet's raw power was more than sufficient to overwhelm those vulnerabilities through force alone.
Absolute mass. Firepower as the only doctrine.
No subtlety. No tricks. Unless a Necron dynasty suddenly appeared and deployed causal weapons or Dolmen Gate-tier technology, frontally defeating a fleet that could sustain full output for ten years without ammunition or energy concerns was simply not possible.
No fleet in the galaxy could match the fully-realised Iron Warriors fleet. Even a fleet personally commanded by the Emperor, without the Dragon of Mars, could not contend with it.
Perturabo had, in a strikingly short time, forged the Fourth Legion into a genuinely invincible force.
This was the gift he had been preparing for the awakening Necrons and the approaching Tyranids.
If Chaos wanted to corrupt his brothers — he had the strength to suppress any rebellion.
He had planned for Nurgle's rust-plague long ago. The blue crystals weren't coincidental. Even without them, he would have found alternatives.
With the Webway now opening up in the Halo Stars, Chaos worried him even less going forward.
He genuinely didn't believe Chaos could manufacture another rebellion capable of half-killing the Imperium.
Even if every other Primarch turned traitor simultaneously, even if Guilliman produced five million Ultramarines, Perturabo was confident he could suppress it alone — and that confidence came directly from the Malefic Discipline.
Put him in a fight — trade blows with all four Chaos Gods simultaneously? Perhaps not. But task him with preparing a war that sweeps the galaxy — he could accomplish that with minimal effort.
Right now, the Fourth Legion was demonstrating for the Rangdan with live fire what genuine strength looked like.
Against firepower like this, every scheme and clever tactic became pathetically small.
Never mind internal subversion — boarding attempts required somehow penetrating total-coverage fire first.
Teleportation required somehow defeating the opposing psychic shields.
The Rangdan War-Commander in the centre moon was close to weeping. It had only been ordered to delay this fleet's arrival as support. It had understood they were powerful — had brought three war moons to account for it. But nobody had told it they were this powerful.
The war moons were nearly wrecked. Retreat was no longer an option. Turn your back and your drives were targeted and destroyed.
"Counter-attack! Now!"
The War-Commander in the largest, most crimson central war moon issued its mobilisation order.
But the unrelenting fire made the order meaningless.
Warships destroyed the instant they moved. Shields overloaded immediately. How do you counter-attack when you're vapourised before you've even moved?
How do you hear orders when you no longer exist?
The coalition — already barely cohesive — began fragmenting.
They had firepower and fleet strength ten times greater than the Rangdan intercept fleet Ferrix had previously encountered — and yet Ferrix found this enemy easier to fight than the one before.
The Rangdan were strong. He acknowledged that.
But the Rangdan xenos reminded him of those black-armoured traitors in the simulation training — each faction holding cards behind its back, barely allied, with internal divisions almost certainly already running deep.
The war moons had appeared to be moving in tight coordination. But the moment Ferrix began his assault, the problem became visible immediately.
Five minutes of sustained bombardment, and the sixteen war moons had already split into three factions, beginning to disperse.
The fleets followed their respective factions — abandoning their prior offensive intent entirely and turning their vast fleet strength into complete chaos.
The disarray made clear to Ferrix and the Warsmiths that these xenos were, fundamentally, a mob.
Their methods were strange. Their individual strength and technology weren't negligible. Their sheer scale gave them weight. All of that together was why the Imperium had struggled — why the Dark Angels had been grinding away at them this whole time without being able to simply retreat to the Solar Segmentum.
Enemies like this performed well when winning. The momentum fed the confidence, and confidence fed the momentum.
But the moment there was any setback, the factions with their competing interests would start unravelling from within.
This was an xenos coalition with no unity of purpose — its leader almost certainly a compromise candidate no one fully trusted. Ferrix and his commanders had identified the pattern almost instantly.
"Filthy xenos, as expected. Even now, each of them is thinking only of their own interests. Useless. Does having some strength matter when it's wasted like this?"
Ferrix made no effort to conceal his contempt. What these xenos had done to humans and to battle-brothers — turned them into that — had already infuriated everyone.
This xenos empire had to be destroyed.
The Rangdan fleet began its counter-attack.
Scattered fire accomplished nothing against the covering bombardment.
The war moons fired back with their own terrible guns. It was difficult to imagine how those biomass gun apertures endured the temperatures of the beams they fired.
But most of that fire was intercepted by Iron Warriors counter-fire. What reached the shields barely caused a ripple in twenty-two layers of void shielding.
Two hours in. Two of the sixteen war moons had already been destroyed. The rest were cratered and scarred, pocked across every surface, leaking nauseating crimson fluid into the void — which was then vapourised by the relentless fire.
War moons were nothing in front of the Iron Warriors' fleet.
This was the Iron Warriors. The invincible fleet Perturabo had poured everything into building.
Overwhelming mass, firepower as absolute doctrine — expressed here in complete and total form.
The four hundred Dark Angels and Space Wolves in their capital ships were only now beginning to understand what their cousins actually possessed.
Arahos in particular — the war moons and Rangdan warships that had been pressing the Dark Angels into the ground for so long — destroyed to ruin within hours.
And throughout this entire engagement, the Iron Warriors had barely made contact with a single Rangdan warship. That terrifying fire had simply never stopped.
Did their gun batteries not overheat?
"Continue fire. Don't stop. Full elimination of these xenos."
"Second and Fourth Chapters — deploy fleet elements immediately to intercept. Not one of these xenos escapes."
"Yes, Commander."
Fire dispersed somewhat — but became more terrifying for it.
The Iron Warriors never needed precision. Perturabo and the Iron Warriors were actually quite skilled in that regard — but with infinite firepower, precision was irrelevant.
One Nova Cannon shot misses? Fire ten. Ten misses? A hundred. A hundred misses? Ten thousand.
How did those Eldar fleets get beaten into submission?
Even if it wasn't the Olympia main fleet, you could freely use raw firepower to teach xenos what the Imperium's fist actually felt like.
Physical universe firepower was the most important factor of all.
Even a psychic of Malcador's tier would find it genuinely difficult to tank the energy released from a Cyclonic Torpedo detonating a planetary core. These were just xenos with strange methods.
The Star Forts Perturabo had spent enormous resources building — even a Necron fleet would struggle to crack them. War moons couldn't do it.
Could the Rangdan here actually be more capable than those Greenskins Gorkamorka had personally blessed?
The front line here would be reversed quickly. Ferrix looked at the Rangdan warships already being reduced to debris and nebula, killing intent clear in his eyes.
Eliminating the fleet here wasn't enough. They needed to track back to the Rangdan homeworld to finish this permanently.
This xenos empire deserved the Edict of Extermination applied to it in full.
Watching two more war moons crack apart, Ferrix became colder. He would not allow a single one of these creatures to escape through his hands.
The Wolf King, now in position on the western side of the Sarn System, was preparing orbital drop to deal with the Rangdan ground presence.
"Pups — you see those xenos vermin down there?"
Russ's voice was large, carrying all the wildness and swagger of Fenris.
"KILL!"
The Space Wolves' barely-contained savagery was palpable.
"They desecrated our brothers. They defiled Imperial worlds. They used their disgusting methods to contaminate this planet."
Russ bared his canines in a sharp grin.
"So what do we do about it?"
"KILL! KILL! KILL!"
"Prepare orbital drop for ground forces — the rest of you follow me for the decapitation strike!"
"For the All-Father!"
"FOR THE ALL-FATHER!"
The Gloria Reginas' concentrated fire suppressed the orbital warships attempting to fight back. The fleet here wasn't strong — Russ and his forces dealt with it easily.
"Ground forces begin orbital drop! Prepare to board!"
The Space Wolves' wild howls filled the interior of every ship.
"For Russ and the All-Father!"
Thousands of drop pods hammered toward the surface.
"Stand by for orbital support on call."
Russ gave the bridge captain a brief instruction, then led the Wolfguard toward the drop pod bays.
He needed to personally engage. Ending the contamination on this planet quickly was the priority. He hadn't come all this way to stand back and watch.
Proud Space Wolves would absolutely not allow themselves to be relegated to atmosphere support.
Rational and composed behaviour was perfectly possible for Fenrisians — but when honour and the All-Father were involved, there was no reason to refuse a fight. Any unlucky soul who suggested otherwise would be striking from the boarding roster going forward.
The slave armies came charging from every direction across the planet's surface, and the Space Wolves loved exactly this.
Specialists in boarding and close assault, the Space Wolves preferred hand-to-hand contact above all else. It reminded them of hunting in Fenris's wild wastes and fighting the great sea beasts — the bloodlust encoded in their genes made them devastating in a straight melee.
If the Blood Angels didn't have the Red Thirst, the Space Wolves would be the Legion whose ferocity was the most feared.
Savage and brutal, the Space Wolves loved tearing enemies apart. Where they passed, bodies were everywhere. Survivors were rare. The wreckage they left was perpetually giving the Administratum and the Mechanicum headaches.
Russ had reined them in after his return — but only marginally. Any battlefield the Space Wolves joined remained genuinely terrible.
Not because they were Space Marines — but because Space Wolves simply liked killing.
In recent years, Russ had also discovered a genetic flaw in his sons. The usually sharp and loyal Wolf King had hesitated at that moment — and ultimately chose to conceal the problem rather than report it to the Emperor.
But right now, the Rangdan had enraged them.
No Astartes, looking at brothers whose bodies had been desecrated in this way, could maintain calm and reason with the enemy.
These xenos would be exterminated. Every Astartes would hunt them. Even if some remnants escaped, they would be chased across the galaxy.
Nobody insults the Imperium and the Astartes and survives.
The Space Wolves' ferocity made even the Scrannel Worm-Men concealed in the slave armies hesitate. They were already wondering whether retreat was the right call.
This was not a good match. The space fleet had already lost. Staying here had no upside. Better to pull back and reassess.
Chainswords and power axes were the Space Wolves' most common tools — tearing through enemies in close quarters, satisfying in a way that made them reluctant to put them down.
Russ made no effort to restrain his sons this time. There were no humans on this planet worth protecting anymore.
"Father — the commanders of these xenos are concealed in the slave armies. We simply can't reach them. We can't even pinpoint their location."
Varagyl said, matching Russ step for step, a power axe coming down on a Scrannel Worm-Man and ending it.
They hid too well. Even the Space Wolves — who had the keenest hunting instincts for prey of any Legion — couldn't locate them directly.
Russ looked at the seemingly endless slave armies and felt a genuine headache coming on.
The enemy's ground forces weren't weak either — they even had enormous biological war machines, Bonegnashers, capable of fighting Imperial Titans.
The Titan Legions' advance wasn't going smoothly.
Russ looked at the developing meat-grinder situation and felt frustration building.
His sons were effective in close quarters — but if they couldn't find the enemy commanders, what was the point of killing more slaves?
Russ had also made an error he was now regretting — he and his sons had pushed too deep, becoming mixed in with the enemy, which was preventing the fleet above from providing orbital bombardment support.
Just as the Wolf King was feeling genuinely stuck, more meteors fell from the sky at the edge of the engagement.
Iron Circles and automata coming out of drop pods. Contemptor Dreadnoughts immediately charging — crushing every monster and every desecrated Astartes-derived construct in their path.
Knight Households and Titan Legions dropping to the surface. Yellow and black hazard markings making their origin unmistakable.
Stormbirds and Thunderhawks bringing armoured companies to the ground.
A three-and-a-half-metre Iron Warrior in Tyrant Terminator armour came to stand before Russ.
"My lord — Fourth Battalion Captain Herakus reports."
Looking at this young man who was only a little shorter than himself, Russ's face split into a grin.
"Your lot already dealt with the xenos in space? And now you've come down here to compete with us already?"
"Commander has fully destroyed the enemy navy, my lord. We are now under orders to provide some assistance here."
"What? You already finished it?"
Russ's expression was one of genuine disbelief.
That was less than a day. Sixteen war moons — no one could win that fight without years of attrition.
Varagyl nearly spoke the words aloud. Stealing all the glory, and bringing it down to the ground too.
"Yes, my lord. We have finished off the Rangdan main fleet and are beginning sweeps of the surrounding systems. The Commander and the Battalion commanders are hunting the remnants. I was sent by Warsmith Dantioch to bring my company here and provide support."
"Your— company?"
Russ looked at the Titan Legions and Knight Households. This felt somehow unreal.
"Yes. Father prepared a great deal of strength for us. When we heard we'd be fighting Rangdan, he had us bring twice the usual firepower."
"My lord — please observe."
Herakus stepped aside. The ground armoured forces had already begun their full advance.
Large Iron Circles carrying tall sealed crates moved toward the Space Wolves' position.
"These are from Father — small, clean nuclear warheads, exactly suited to situations like this one. I believe no one can use nuclear warheads to greater effect than a Primarch, my lord."
Russ looked at Herakus. Then looked at the front line already beginning to push forward around him. Then burst out laughing.
That grin showed canines catching cold light.
"I like you, boy."
"All right. Watch."
He walked to the large crate, yanked the lid open. Inside: two-metre nuclear warheads.
He picked one up with one hand, effortlessly, and fixed his gaze on a Scrannel Worm-Man hiding in the slave army ahead. Then threw.
An enormous mushroom cloud rose in the distance. The shockwave was enough to stagger everyone nearby.
"HA HA HA HA!"
"Boy — get me a Thunderhawk."
The excitement in Russ's eyes was completely uncontainable.
"Yes, my lord."
After that, the ground battlefield periodically erupted in enormous mushroom clouds — cratering the entire surface, shockwaves cracking the ground into shifting continental plates.
Koswain stood on the ruins of a destroyed Rangdan biological factory, looking at the slave armies massing in the distance.
His black power armour was covered in dark red blood. His power sword had lost power entirely. At least a dozen wounds marked his body. One of his hearts had burst.
He had been deceived. He hadn't expected to be outmanoeuvred by these xenos.
Looking at the brothers who had fallen nearby, and at the xenos bodies around them, Koswain was barely holding on.
If it were only these xenos, they wouldn't have been enough to threaten him and his fellow Deathwing.
But another kind of xenos had been hiding in the shadows — their psychic attacks bypassing physical defences and striking directly into the mind, inducing involuntary stasis.
Koswain had fought through it on willpower alone, cut his way through the factory. But he was badly wounded now. Getting out alive was going to be difficult.
Watching the xenos closing in, the stabbing sensation came again in his mind. That type of xenos was back.
Scrannel Worm-Men.
Koswain raised his powerless sword. Even if he died here, he would take as many of these wretches with him as he could.
But then — a disturbance at the xenos' rear.
Koswain felt a familiar presence.
The Lion was coming — tearing through the slave armies with the Deathwing and the Ravenwing.
Koswain had destroyed the factory. The Rangdan could no longer produce weapons and vehicles. Even the Bonegnasher upgrades had stopped.
The xenos had only intended to use a decoy — they hadn't expected any human to be this formidable. Their best War-Commanders might have struggled to handle this level of attack. And yet this human had not only killed every trap-layer but destroyed the entire factory.
Twenty-two Scrannels dead. A severe loss.
The Lion killed quickly. No carbon-based life-form could gain an advantage over a Primarch in a direct frontal engagement.
Barring psychic intervention, a Primarch represented the absolute ceiling of carbon-based combat capability in the material universe.
"Father."
Koswain killed through the xenos and reached the Lion's position.
"Well done."
Koswain said nothing. He looked at the brothers lying on the ground and was silent.
"This was my error. Not yours."
The Lion accepted the responsibility.
"We still have tasks ahead, Koswain. You need to rest. I'll have Garlade and Kaisain temporarily take your place for the next phase. Luther is already commanding on another flank. Go back to orbit."
"The Iron Warriors have resolved the naval engagement. They're pushing on the ground now. There's nothing more for you to worry about here."
"They already finished the space battle? Impossible."
Koswain genuinely couldn't believe it. How long had it even been?
"They're already sweeping surrounding systems of Rangdan remnants. You can go up and accompany them. Arahos is up there already."
"Yes, Father."
The Lion said nothing more. He led the Legion forward and kept attacking. A Primarch's true strength showed itself here. A Legion with a Primarch was simply not the same thing as a Legion without one. Morale alone was the difference between night and day.
The front line moved quickly. The Iron Warriors were specialists in assault warfare — add Perturabo's overwhelming fire support to that, and the Rangdan defences across the entire planet were shredded.
Multiple Titans surrounding Bonegnashers, Volcano Cannons firing freely into slave army formations, Knight Households charging through Scrannels too slow to flee.
The Scrannels were psychically specialised offensive units — brute force was not their strength. Some of the Dreadnoughts and Iron Circles were crushing them underfoot during the advance without even noticing.
Resentment Intelligence never feared psychic corruption. Perturabo was their absolute backstop. And Resentment Intelligence didn't fear the type of psychic attack that targeted the interior of a body — unless it was raw brute-force psychic power, they were naturally immune to the specialised variety.
"Iron within, iron without!"
Heavy Centurion armour and Tyrant Terminator plate charged alongside the Iron Circles and Dreadnoughts.
Not one of them was outclassed by a main battle tank on the front line. The strength they brought to the assault was staggering.
And Perturabo had layered additional modifications onto that armour — making them even more reckless in the charge. Defensive fields and iron halos fully equipped. Armour comparable to a Saturn-pattern tank in thickness, but somehow not sacrificing mobility — the Tyrant Terminator plate was showing its full capabilities.
The Dark Angels looked at these battle-brothers they had once dismissed, and felt something complex stir in their chests.
Once, they had been the strongest Legion. They had fought in the Unification Wars. They had participated in the purge of the Thunder Warriors. They had been the first to begin the Great Crusade. With more secret technology than any other Legion.
And now they were being thoroughly outclassed.
"Repent, xenos — your death is at hand!"
No time to dwell on it. Kill more Rangdan and prove the First Legion was still the strongest.
The First Legion does not yield.
One month later, the Lion and Russ stood aboard the Unbroken Truth and looked at the thirteen shattered star systems around them.
And this was only the space from which they had cleared the remnants of the Rangdan main force.
What about the systems further in — the ones the Rangdan had conquered and occupied for much longer? How many of those were there? What strength had they not yet shown?
The Lion felt as though his skull was about to split. Long campaigns and excessive mental exertion had left him genuinely weakened.
"My lord — you need to rest."
Ferrix, whose frame had essentially never stopped growing, was now close to the Lion's own scale. With his custom Tyrant Terminator plate, he actually appeared somewhat taller and broader than the Lion himself.
Both Primarchs had been slightly surprised by Ferrix's physique the first time they saw him. They could feel the force in him — particularly that power fist, larger than a Dreadnought's siege hammer. Russ quietly suspected that even Custodian Tribune Valdor might not be able to defeat this one Astartes.
"I believe the medical automata can help you."
Ferrix directed one toward the Lion.
"I can manage. I don't need that thing."
The Lion had an instinctive aversion to Resentment Intelligence. He looked at the syringes with the suspicious and scrutinising expression of someone who absolutely would not allow an unknown compound to be injected into his body.
This was true even though he had just watched Russ receive several injections and visibly recover.
But the Lion's line was the Lion's line. He would not accept anything from Resentment Intelligence.
"The Emperor has asked us to exterminate the Rangdan as quickly as possible. Father is almost here. My lord — you need to be in good condition to continue commanding."
"Father will only be bringing fleet elements and his new inventions. He doesn't participate in command. We still need a commander at full capacity."
"The Emperor has expressed some dissatisfaction with our efficiency and rate of progress."
The Lion didn't believe the excuse about the Emperor pushing them — the front-line commander hadn't heard about this, and now this Iron Warrior knew?
But Ferrix had offered him a way to step down gracefully, and he took it. No need to hold out with this body when the Warsmith was right — he needed to be in good condition.
Ferrix directed the medical automaton to begin administering the compounds.
The Deathwing watched the Resentment Intelligence approaching their father and, as one, placed their hands on their power sword hilts.
The Lion also felt the instinct to knock the thing's head off — and held it down.
Feeling himself becoming sharper by the moment, the Lion let the Resentment Intelligence issue pass. The priority was exterminating the Rangdan.
But both the Lion and Russ instinctively looked in the same direction at the same moment — and Ferrix did too. They had all felt a familiar presence.
"Father has arrived, it seems. My lords — we can resume the offensive."
A vast fleet translated out of the Mandeville point.
Twenty Star Forts came through first. Then five Abyssal-class battleships and thirteen Gloria Regina warships.
Over five thousand capital ships and tens of thousands of support vessels followed at the rear.
The enormous battleship that Perturabo had forcibly modified to two hundred and twenty-two kilometres in length was conspicuous in the star-field even from this distance.
The Lion and Russ felt a powerful pull take hold of them simultaneously. When they gathered their senses, they were in an unfamiliar space — but the Resentment Intelligence units around them and the yellow-and-black markings on the large armoured figures nearby were enough to settle their nerves.
"Brother — a bit of advance notice next time you do that."
The Wolf King showed his teeth as he spoke, but the wariness in his eyes was unmistakable.
The Lion said nothing at all. He simply stared at the tall figure ahead — white robes, green laurel wreath.
"I don't like wasting time on social pleasantries. I've brought support. I also have some new inventions to field-test — you'll be joining me for that."
"Treat this as a command post for now. Anything you need to think through, I can help you look at it."
The Lion's first instinct was to refuse. This place was saturated with Resentment Intelligence and a kind of dangerous intensity that set his nerves on edge. Every part of him objected to being here.
But then he looked at the efficiency with which this brother used the logic engine to command the fleet, the power and convenience of the technology around him, the logic engine that had apparently analysed the entire current battlefield in moments—
The Lion found himself thinking that his own Unbroken Truth, with all its Dark Angels technology, was perhaps not quite the formidable instrument he had always assumed it was.