Chapter 2: Chapter 2

The destroyer Dauntless Blade had been rendered adrift and was effectively dead in space. All it took was one beam - not even a volley - of the enemy’s blinding beams to tear through the void shields, and another beam took out the ship’s engines. The ranking techpriest detected some sort of incursion through the communication frequencies, but before they could elaborate further, the red-robed priest keeled over with an ear-scarring shriek, sparking and convulsing violently in their station.

Beyond the bridge, the attempt at forcing compliance on the Nexus system was quickly going wrong, with what was left of the expedition fleet eventually routing from the field. Captain Borik N’dole looked out through the bridge’s windows to find the Dauntless Blade helplessly drifting amidst a sea of debris, the obliterated remains of its sister ships.

This was the first time in four decades of serving in the Great Crusade that the captain had ever seen a human civilization bearing such firepower. Usually, it was the xenos races that bore terrifying weapons, and such things were obvious enough to detect. Here though, the Nexus Unity kept its strength hidden even to the most advanced and thorough Mechanicus sensoria arrays.

Borik sighed sadly at himself. It was the first time in four decades, and also likely the last.

“We’re picking up another spike of unidentified frequency,” a communications officer exclaimed over the shrieks of the techpriest.

The captain frowned at that. An attempt at communication? Was this the Nexus demanding the Dauntless Blade to surrender?

The alarms began to sound across various decks of the destroyer. The bridge crew anxiously looked to their consoles. “Incursions reported in enginarium and the lower decks, the enem-”

A blinding thunderclap interrupted the report, causing all in the bridge - sans the shrieking and convulsing techpriest - to cry out in surprise. When their senses recovered, the captain and his crew found metal figures standing amongst them, some towering humanoids, others swimming in the air and trailing tentacles.

Captain N’dole sighed again. A teleport signal. Of course. He should’ve known.

He didn’t bother drawing his sidearm as a trio of humanoid monstrosities loomed over him. The bridge would be cleared of all life by now if the invaders had wanted to, he was sure of that.

“You have been boarded,” the voices from the metal monsters declared in unison as a deep, monotonous choir. “Surrender your lives and your ship, and be held as prisoners of the Nexus Unity, or the Nexus Unity will forcibly claim both.”

Should he defy them? It would likely be a very short act of defiance, but it was the dutiful, honorable thing to do, to resist the enemies of the Imperium with one’s dying breath, was it not?

Then Captain Borik N’dole saw one of the many-tentacled abominations tear out the metal augmentations from the techpriest, causing the servant of the Omnissiah to shriek even louder as the tentacles lifted them into the air and plucked away at the metal implants.

Suddenly, defiance wasn’t looking like the best course of action anymore.

“Issue the orders to stand down,” the captain ordered to the bridge, as calmly as he could as he was stared down by three pairs of cold, red optics.

*****

Their initial efforts so thoroughly rebuffed, the Imperial Expedition made for orbit around the fourth planet of the system, a rust brown world of almost a perfect clone of Mars. While the landings were unimpeded, it was soon discovered that the Nexus had a small outpost on the highest peak of that planet.

Not wanting to risk further recklessness, Horus gathered the remnants of his forces on the red planet while sending an urgent astropathic message back to the Imperium. The primarch had no doubt that even if he could capture this lifeless planet, the habited Nexus homeworld would remain out of his reach with what he had for now.

Horus had his martial pride, but he knew better than to let pride blind him from calling for aid. His brothers can snicker behind his back at this failure, but he’d see how much they’d continue doing so after they themselves have faced the wrath of this backwater world.

At the same time, sensoria arrays detected the Nexus Unity sending out crafts to rummage through the blasted wrecks of the Expedition ships that were now wreathing their world in a cloud of broken and melted metal. The expeditionary fleet suffered humiliating losses, having almost the entirety of its escort ships obliterated, while most of the capital ships had remained unscathed simply due to the enemy outright ignoring them. Whether this was meant as an insult or a result of some strategic calculation by the Nexus remained unknown, but Horus felt like the former was more likely.

Just as badly mauled were his sons who served aboard the compliance fleet, hundreds of legionnaires lost to the catastrophic landing attempt. Despite that sobering knowledge, they rest of the Luna Wolves still bayed for blood and vengeance, with even the Mournival advising Horus to exact a retaliatory strike on the listening post just out of spite.

Horus granted his legion their request, and the Luna Wolves marched on the surface of the mirror-Mars in full force. The Nexus defenders that greeted them horrified the Martian allies that joined them. Metal, bulbous and tentacled things studded with red optics flowed through the air in large numbers, and behind them were metal humanoids and quadrupeds of varying sizes.

“Soulless automata!” the magos Vel Breya hissed in the comms. “These people damn themselves by using abominations!”

Horus easily ignored the arch magos' tirade, having seen worse throughout the Great Crusade. Soulless or not, battle automata were dangerous, but were a far more straightforward threat to face. It also indicated that the humans of the Nexus Unity were reliant on these machines for their military, which would likely prove a major weakness to be exploited.

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Leading at the front, the primarch of the Luna Wolves gave the order to open fire. Felblades and Falchions roared alongside Whirlwinds, Basilisks and Predators as they unleashed the fury of an insulted legion. Legion heavy support squads joined in the song of battle with lascannons and missile launchers. Behind the battleline of legionnaires, the weapons of the god-titans of Legio Mortis roared as well.

The legionnaires unleashed the firepower to bring down titans, but as the beams and shells impacted, Horus found himself surprised to see that the metal swarm in the sky and the horde on the ground were flying and marching through the smoke and dust with seemingly no losses suffered. A pit formed in the primarch’s core as it became quite clear that as the barrage continued the metal legion were easily staggered or blown back by the Luna Wolves’ firepower, but not destroyed or even damaged in any meaningful way.

Only the mighty weaponry of the war titans of Legio Mortis caused any significant damage, melting or shattering groups of the metal defenders, but even then it barely slowed down their advance.

Legion scouts relayed the status of the unstoppable tide of metal, and for the first time in the Great Crusade, the Horus froze with doubt. He simply stared as the metal monsters of the Nexus Unity hit the legion lines like a wave against a child’s sand wall, unable to form a response.

Bolters barked briefly before claw-tipped tentacles drowned the legionnaires. Melta and plasma weapons only left heat blooms, while power weapons and even chain fists just left visible scratches on the metal shells of the soulless horde. At the same time, the legionnaires were being torn limb from limb, and tanks were smothered and disassembled within seconds.

The titans’ warhorns blared their fury as they tried to stave off the swarm, but they were eventually disabled by beams of white laser from the quadruped automata that overloaded their void shields and then cut away at their weapons in precise volleys. Then the flying robots began burrowing into the titans, and one by one even the greatest Imperator class titan was brought down and silenced.

Through the thick cloud of metal, Horus spied the humanoid automata trailing plumes of exhaust as they rocketed into the air and landed amongst his sons. Ceramite armor that stood strong against the keen blades of eldar corsairs and the brute strength of ork raiders did little to stop the claws of these mechanical monstrosities. Legion assault squads tried to intercept the enemy, but to a man they were torn out from the skies and fell in pieces onto the ground below.

Horus himself fought for his life, the talons he wielded to tear apart warbosses with contempt now only barely denting the robots as he fended them off. His Justaerin were falling in pieces around him, with even brave Ezekyle roaring in defiance as the claws tore into his lumbering form.

Rage and dismay filled him as he fought on, desperately batting away the growing tide all around him. His armor was barely holding onto his form, suffering from too many glancing swipes that took out chunks of master-crafted ceramite and adamantium.

This was not how he would die! This couldn’t be how he exits the Great Crusade!

Then, in a literal blink of an eye as the claws were about to smother him, the automata stopped. All of them, across the battlefield, went still, then slowly pulled back away from the massacred legion.

Horus steadied his breath as he staggered, looking across the field of his fallen sons. Then he heard the groans and defiant curses, and as the XVIth primarch looked down to his broken Justaerin guard, he realized that they were alive, but only just. A quick scan with his post-human senses noted that all of them, literally all of his legionnaires within sight, were still alive. Their limbs had been torn bloodily from their body along with their armor, but they were still alive. Not a single plate of the Luna Wolves’ power armor could be found. The Nexus was utterly thorough in disassembling and stealing away every suit.

In the distance, the titans of Legio Mortis were in pieces, the fates of their occupants unknown. Horus also couldn’t find any of the Martian allies who had stood alongside his legionnaires, their red robes completely absent from the battlefield.

What kind of enemy was he facing?

As the horror settled on him, the primarch found himself looking to the utterly still enemy lines barely a mortal’s stone throw from him. There was a bit of movement, and the battle automata parted to allow the familiar figure of Sev to stroll into view. The young man wore a frown as he surveyed the carnage, and then gave Horus a curious look with his head tilted to one side.

“Do you wish to surrender?”

Launching himself into action faster than even an eldar could perceive, Horus Lupercal summoned all of his strength to pounce at the man. He would likely die from this attempt, but the machines were too far to intercept him, and they were too far to shield Sev from Horus’ lightning-wreathed talons. If this would be his end, Horus thought, let it be one that had some meaning. Decapitating the Nexus Unity would serve advancement of his father’s Great Crusade, and would at least-

Sev remained standing, unflinching and unsurprised, disappointment in his eyes as the adamantium claws made contact with his face and snapped rather than pierce or even hurl the man back. Horus landed on his two feet, and Sev remained still as the primarch’s combat instincts drove him into lashing out with blade and bolter.

None of it worked, and after a flurry of blows that would have brought down squadrons of Dreadnoughts, Sev retaliated by suddenly dodging Horus’ broken claws and landing a bare knuckled punch into his chest. Masterwork armor and gene-wrought reinforced skin, flesh and bone gave way as the ruler of the Nexus Unity buried his fist into Horus’ main heart, and tore it out before him.

“Last chance. Surrender and serve as compliant prisoners with all the perks that come with it, or don’t, and I’ll be dissecting every one of you and your soldiers and recycling the waste material as fertilizer for my crops.”

Coughing blood from the grievous wound, Horus Lupercal simply fell to his knees before Sev, and managed a slow, weak nod.

“I…surrender.”

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