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Chapter Forty: Prise de Fer

Checkpoint A, Daylight Wall
Imperial Palace, Terra

Battle-Brother Diodoros had only heard the most fragmentary accounts of Operation Desert Goliath, yet he saw the results every time he stepped foot in the Imperial Palace. Beyond further fortifying the continent-spanning complex, the countless millions of soldiers evacuated from Mars bought much-needed efforts to the overtaxed evacuation efforts. Though undoubtedly exhausted, they seemed to find processing refugees and distributing aid to be infinitely preferable to the horrors they had faced on the red planet. His thoughts were interrupted as the Rhino's ramp lowered, and the Astartes warrior began gently ushering his charges forward.

They were greeted by a middle-aged man clad in the plain robes of an Adeptus Ministorum Preacher and flanked by a pair of Imperial Guardsmen. The familiar sight would steel the haggard Imperial citizens for the sights that lay beyond, sights that the Battle-Brother would have thought heretical scant years ago.

"Please form two orderly lines," the Preacher spoke into a portable vox unit that projected his voice throughout the entire motor pool, "Anyone in need of medical attention, proceed to the tents on my left."

The man motioned towards the cluster of medical aid stations. A handful of Eldar civilians and Black Knights medics stood outside the nearest tent, working at a feverish pace to triage incoming patients. The lower-priority were treated on the spot or moved aside, while the sicker and more injured were moved inside. The Salamander's superhuman vision saw the cluster of tents at the back where covered stretchers were moved into and nothing came back out.

"Everyone else, proceed to the tents on my right," the Preacher paused for a brief moment before hurriedly adding, "There is enough food and medicine for everyone, so there is no reason to push!"

Under the drab olive open-air tents, Imperial Guardsmen and Tau Earth Caste workers passed out boxes of disaster relief rations. Passing Black Knights soldiers had shudderingly referred to the grey food bars as "solid nutrient paste," and upon sampling one, Diodoros was inclined to agree with the sentiment. They were highly-nourishing and the Black Knights had, clearly through some form of techno-sorcery, infused a passable amount of flavor into them. However, nothing would mask the texture.

Even the Battle-Brother's genetically-enhanced hearing strained to pick out the heavy synchronized footfalls of a Custodes squad, though spotting them proved trivial: the behemoths of gold and crimson easily towering over all else. The Astartes warrior watched as they escorted a group of refugees, with a surprising degree of patience and gentleness, through a sickly-green portal flanked by a pair of Necron legionaries.

Tower of Hegemon
Imperial Palace, Terra

Eager to put the events of Mars behind her, Nunnally had thrown herself into the monumental task of coordinating relief efforts across the entire Imperial Palace. Operation Desert Goliath had dropped a massive airlift fleet straight into her lap, and it took only a tiny amount of arm-twisting to convince Suzaku to hand the transports over rather than redeploy them. Even carefully distributing the fleet throughout Terra to stagger arrivals threatened to overwhelm the antiquated Imperial logistics, and setting up an adequate command center from scratch would have taken time they no longer had. Only the datafeeds and surveillance infrastucture of the Tower of Hegemon could possibly handle the monumental task of coordinating arrivals at the Eternity Wall and Lion's Gate Spaceports while also overseeing efforts to restore vast swathes of the Imperial Palace to house all the incoming refugees.

The governor of the Black Knights was still admittedly quite surprised how readily the Adeptus Custodes had opened their headquarters to her. Upon arrival, she found a veritable army of serfs and even several Custodes that Captain-General Caius Quintinus had assigned to help her and her staff. When the sprawl of cabling and computer equipment used to tap into the tower's data networks threatened to spill into neighboring areas, the serfs silently cleared out additional space. The Custodes proved every bit as fearsome against the Imperial bureaucracy as they were against the Imperium's enemies; the gold-armored guardians deftly navigated the Adeptus Terra's innumerable departments and effortlessly cut through even the Administratum's infamous red tape. As wasteful as it seemed to use some of the Imperium's finest warriors as glorified bureaucrats, Nunnally couldn't deny their effectiveness.

Nunnally groaned, briefly stretching muscles that had stayed still for far too many hours, as she skimmed the report before her. A recent outbreak of plague in a neighboring hive was pushing medical crews to their limits and threatened to exhaust their supplies. Her staff had already ordered additional personnel and medicine from the orbiting product fleets, and she elevated the request's priority status with a tap of her finger. The airlift flotilla assigned to the affected hive could move sixty thousand people in a single trip, and she needed to ensure that the first wave of supplies and personnel were already on the tarmac to meet the incoming patients. She paused momentarily, then ordered additional supplies and personnel delivered to the hive itself. If they acted quickly, they had a chance to contain the outbreak before it became an epidemic.

An indeterminate number of reports that ultimately bought no new or interesting information to Nunnally's attention later, her eyes settled on an innocuous-looking summary of recent security movements. In contrast to the upper echelons of the Ecclesiarchy, many of who secluded themselves after Lelouch had cast them down, the lay members had largely taken their sudden lack of official authority in stride. Many had volunteered to assist with the relief efforts, and the governor was forced to reluctantly admit that their presence had headed off numerous headaches. The devout populace of Terra followed their orders without question, and a few choice words had defused more than one riot. The sheer size of the relief effort meant that some clashes still occurred, however, and several members of Nunnally's staff dedicated every waking hour solely to juggling security priorities.

Though she could ill afford to spend the extra time, the petite woman found herself fiddling with the report for several more minutes. Her efforts paid off when she noticed the well-hidden data packet buried within. The heavily-encrypted message was addressed directly to her, anonymous but recognizable as a communication from the most secretive order of the Adeptus Custodes. Nunnally instantly sat up a little straighter as she realized what she was looking at. Neither she nor Lelouch particularly cared what the former Ecclesiarch and Cardinals did with their newfound free time so long as they didn't jeopardize their efforts to defend Terra. The Custodes clearly thought differently, as they demonstrated with a long list of people either placed under surveillance, arrested, or outright assassinated. Nunnally had scarcely finished reading the final lines when the message digitally shredded itself.

The next interruption came some hours later, with heavy footfalls snapping the exhausted governor out of her thoughts. Nunnally looked up and offered the approaching gold-armored titan a grateful smile as he placed a ration bar on her desk, silently set up a folding cot, and left as suddenly as he came. She strongly suspected that the Custode who had taken up the colossally wasteful task of ensuring she ate and slept at least somewhat regularly in addition to his normal duties was acting on her brother's orders rather than the Captain-General's.

Olympus Mons Forge
Tharsis Region, Mars

As the Fabricator-General's seat of power and one of the few fully-functional forge complexes left on the surface of Mars, Olympus Mons had become the most heavily-defended location on the entire planet. Powerful surface-to-orbit weapons batteries and overlapping void shield arrays effortlessly brushed aside any attempt at orbital bombardment, and a potent air-defense grid kept the skies clear of Chaos aircraft for many kilometers in every direction. Any attempt to take the complex would devolve into a brutal, grinding war of attrition through hundreds of kilometers of hostile, fortified terrain. The enemy was perfectly willing to fight such a war, the Fabricator-General noted dispassionately as he beheld the hololith projection before him.

The entire situation was unfolding just as the Emperor had predicted before he departed for Terra: Chaos forces were slowly pressing in from the east and the south, carefully skirting around the Noctis Labyrinthus while steadily advancing up the Daedalia and Syria Plana. Then practically overnight, a renewed offensive crashed through the Tharsis Montes, quickly seizing the facilities on and around Arsia Mons before the flat-footed Mechanicum armies could muster a response. The followup reconnaissance mission was borderline wasteful, as even the newest Biocognatus could figure out the situation: the three Traitor Legions on Mars had begun moving again.

The Fabricator-General spared the Fabricator-Locum of Mars, currently standing statue-still off to his right, a brief glance before sweeping his gaze over the sea of crimson and metal before him. Some of the highest-ranking Tech-Priests in the entire Mechancium were packed into the chamber, and the air was filled with the steady buzzing of binary and electronic communications as the audience pondered why the Fabricator-General had summoned them. He allowed the muted conversations to continue for a moment longer before silencing them all with a single long burst of binary.

From a hidden sector of the Fabricator-General's mind, the Emperor of Mankind's final directive emerged. The hololith projection zoomed out as dozens of runes blinked into existence, each representing a significant element of Mechanicum or Chaos forces. The runes began moving as soon as the image settled, each Tech-Priest in the chamber quickly finding their rune and committing their part of the upcoming operation to memory.

Unusually for such a high-ranking member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Fabricator-General had never replaced his eyes. Between the Fabricator-General's raised hood, the chamber's barely-adequate lighting, and the fact that the other Tech-Priests' attentions were turned elsewhere, none noticed his red-rimmed irises.

Adeptus Mechanicus Fighter Sigma-Theta One
Final Approach to Tractus Catena

While nominally based off the same STC template, the resemblance between the twenty Lighting Strike fighters of Sigma-Theta Wing and those distributed to Imperial Navy aircrews ended at the visual. Built on Mars itself, the Mechanicum fighters boasted markedly more advanced avionics and significantly increased performance compared to their Imperial cousins. Their pilots, drawn from the finest of the Skitarii, flew in seeming silence: specialized neural implants allowed them to communicate mind-to-mind in binary. Conventional vox communications seemed slow and insecure in comparison.

In order to stay beneath Chaos ground augur sweeps, the twenty Lightning Strikes had gradually lowered their altitude throughout their flight. One brief burst of binary from Sigma-Theta One later, the fighters leveled off and slowed in preparation for an attack run. As though seeking to prove the superiority of metal over flesh, they had performed the maneuver without their formation wavering so much as a centimeter. Sigma-Theta One silently counted down the final kilometers to the target zone, hovering his thumb over the ordnance release as he regarded the distant blobs slowly appearing on the heat-see.

Ten Lightning Strikes under Sigma-Theta Two peeled away from the formation. They would take a longer approach to strike the target from a different direction, their attack run timed to exploit the confusion in the moments following the first strike. Sigma-Theta One paid them no mind, his eyes glued to the fortifications before him. Natural rock formations obscured the enemy's true numbers, but the Skitarii pilot counted at least twenty Leman Russ tanks on the heat-see. Several hundred smaller thermal signatures ran between squat rockcrete bunkers and well-placed trenches. He even spotted a small number of anti-aircraft emplacements, none of which were pointed skywards or even scanning the horizon.

Sigma-Theta One spared his chronometer a brief glance—2306 hours—before releasing his first pair of bombs. He watched through the heat-see as the smaller blobs began running in every direction, and the pilot surmised that air raid sirens were going off below, in the seconds before impact. The first bomb seemed to land well away from any fortifications, but the second slammed into the side of an enemy bunker. Nine brief bursts of binary followed as his wingmen confirmed successful release, and the night sky lit up seconds later. Sigma-Theta One's vision swam as he pulled his fighter into a blistering high-g turn, the other nine Lightning Strikes following suit. He turned around just in time to see the other ten fighters of Sigma-Theta Wing begin their run.

Rally Point Lambda-Sigma
0630 Hours, Day Ninety-One of the Battle of Mars

The enemy was not allowed even a moment to breathe: mere minutes after the last Lightning Strikes withdrew from Tractus Catena, the first wave of artillery shells pulverized the surviving forward positions. Dozens of Minotaur-pattern self-propelled guns—perhaps the last of their kind left in Imperial hands—dropped tens of thousands of kilograms of high explosives upon the entrenched Chaos forces.

The forces marshaled at Rally Point Lambda-Sigma paid the hours-long bombardment little mind. Hundreds of Skitarii sat ramrod-straight within their assigned transports, quiet and still as statues. Only the growls of idling engines broke the oppressive silence, drowning out the rumblings of distant artillery at the same time.

At the appointed time, the silence ended with a burst of static from the forward spotters. Thick plumes of crimson smoke choked the skies above Tractus Catena, signaling the gathered forces to begin their advance. A line of modified Crassus transports roared out from under the camouflage netting, the high-pitched whining of their motorized flails filling the air. Several seconds later, the remaining armored vehicles emerged from their hiding spots and joined the charge.

Mechanicum Transport Lambda-Sigma One-Six
One Hour Later

Not one of the thirty Skitarii riding in Lambda-Sigma One-Six so much as flinched when the purpose for the unorthodox modifications made itself clear. A series of rapid-fire whumps sent vibrations up the transport's chassis as the squadron hit the first belt of minefields. The enemy's forward trenches seemed to recover some of their wits, and several Skitarii were thrown forward in their harnesses as a krak missile corkscrewed through the smoke and struck Lambda-Sigma One-Six. The transport's heavy bolter chattered in response, and the retaliatory missile sailed past the Crassus to annihilate one of the Chimeras huddling behind it.

The heavy bolter immediately fell silent, its final burst punctuated by a rapid-fire series of pops as the transport laid down a thick layer of smoke. The response came moments too late for Lambda-Sigma One-Two, a shell from an enemy Leman Russ punching clean through the transport's frontal armor and detonating within. The passengers and crew of Lambda-Sigma One-Six acknowledged the loss of Lambda-Sigma One-Two with a brief burst of binary confirming none of the Skitarii aboard the transport had survived.

As one, the thirty Skitarii turned to face the deployment light as it strobed green. Restraining harnesses retracted and hands tightened around weapons as the transport ground to a halt. The vehicle shook as a barrage of mortars found their mark, detonating against the transport's top armor. The shredded remains of the gunner's torso dropped into the passenger compartment and hit the floor with a combination of a metallic clang and a wet squelch. The gathered Skitarii responded by cycling to heat-see as the ramp crashed against the red Martian soil. A hail of lasbolts and autogun rounds tore through the smoke screen, shredding two of the cybernetic soldiers before they even left the ramp. The survivors simply stepped over the bodies.

Mechancium Leman Russ Lambda-Sigma Two-Seven
Ten Minutes Later

With only the rapidly-dissipating smoke screen from the artillery bombardment for cover, the commander of Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven kept his heat-see folded in its mount. While noticeably more disciplined than the bulk of Chaos forces, the defenders arrayed against the tanks of Lamda-Sigma Two seemed determined to highlight their positions to the Mechanicum crews. An ill-advised melta blast slammed into the Leman Russ' side armor but ultimately failed to penetrate, and the commander rotated his periscope to face the new threat. He had barely centered the camouflaged position in his sights when the tank's main gun was bought to bear, the loader rammed a high-explosive shell home, and the enemy heavy weapons team was reduced to a rising column of greasy smoke.

A squad of Sydonian Dragoons sprinted past the commander's line of sight, the formation of agile walkers temporarily parting to avoid Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven before closing up again. An ineffectual burst of multilaser fire pelted the lead strider, and the Dragoons responded with a volley of hallucinogenic incense. The incoming small-arms fire gradually slackened off as the walkers began their charge. Radium flooded the forward trenches, and dozens of Chaos soldiers fell to the ground screaming and clawing at their skin as their bodies fell apart. A small detachment of lance-armed Dragoons broke off from the main force, bounding over the trenches and ramming their weapons into the thin side armor of dug-in Chimeras. The crew of Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven had seen enough such weapons in action to know what would happen next: a massive electrical discharge fried flesh, boiled blood, and cooked off fuel tanks.

The raging promethium fires provided a convenient backdrop against which to spot camouflaged enemy armor, and the commander of Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven quickly spotted a Leman Russ encrusted in Khornate symbols as it was drawing a bead on an unaware Dragoon. The driver of Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven altered course slightly to bring the enemy tank into the lascannon's firing arc. The Chaos crew had just enough time to point their turret at the oncoming Mechanicum tank before a well-placed battle cannon shell destroyed the rotation gears. Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven roared past the stricken tank, the thick armor blocking out the crunching of bone and cut-off screams as it drove straight over an enemy trench.

The second belt of trenches had recovered their wits somewhat, though it did them little good as Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven's sponson-mounted heavy flamers flooded their positions with burning promethium. Meanwhile, the Leman Russ' main turret turned around and sent a shell through the rear turret armor of its disabled Khornate opponent. The resulting explosion sent the enemy tank's turret spinning through the air and buffeted Lamda-Sigma Two-Seven's crew.

Tractus Catena Outer Fortifications
One Hour Later

Lambda-Sigma Two-Seven slowly crept between the squat rockcrete bunkers, acting as mobile cover for the squad of Skitarii clustered around it. A surprisingly-large number of the defenders had survived the nighttime airstrike and the followup artillery barrage, as wave after wave of infantry and armored vehicles crashed against the gradually-advancing press of Mechanicum forces. Burned-out hulks and corpses littered the streets, and the Skitarii methodically tossed grenades into the wrecks and re-shot the bodies to reduce the chance of unpleasant surprises as they advanced.

The ever-present chanting of blasphemous litanies grew louder, and Lambda-Sigma Two-Seven immediately stopped its efforts to nudge a destroyed Chimera aside as the Skitarii pressed themselves behind whatever cover they could find. Five Leman Russ' encrusted in Chaos iconography rolled out into the street and were promptly shredded in a brutal crossfire of tanks from Lambda-Sigma Two and Lambda-Sigma Four. The infantry accompanying them simply moved between the burning wrecks and into the waiting guns of entrenched Skitarii. Autogun rounds, lasbolts, and even the occasional volkite beam tore through flak armor and flesh.

It was only when the Chaos soldiers unfortunate enough to survive their wounds fell to the ground screaming as their bones cracked and flesh twisted that the Mechanicum forces realized the enemy's true intentions. Previously-destroyed vehicles roared to life, resurrected as twisted amalgamations of flesh and metal; blood replaced promethium, razor-sharp shards of bone and globs of acid replaced ammunition. Corpses, mutated beyond recognition, unsteadily rose to their feet as freshly-summoned daemons acclimated to their stolen bodies.

Bursts of binary, as close to panicked as the emotionless Skitarii were capable of feeling, filled the airwaves as the now-besieged Mechanicum forces called for reinforcements that did not exist.

Vicinity of Olympica Fossae
Eight Hours Later

Most commanders would have assigned Eta-Gamma Five a truly grandiose callsign; as an Adeptus Mechanicus armored formation, however, it was designated like any other other twenty-seven-strong unit. The enemy commanders were thus left none the wiser until the six Shadowswords, four Stormlords, and seventeen Baneblades of Eta-Gamma Five—screened by nearly three thousand armored vehicles, among them four hundred Leman Russ'—began tearing into the fortifications around Olympica Fossae. Lightning Strikes circled overhead, dropping countless tonnes of high explosives and incendiaries upon the flat-footed defenders.

The advance stalled as Mechanicum forces closed on the fossae themselves, well-entrenched armored units raining shells down upon the defenders from neighboring ridges. Anti-air batteries filled the skies above with flak, their positions along the valley floor granting them virtual impunity from Mechanicum airstrikes.

The Baneblades of Eta-Gamma Five fell into an arrowhead formation, using their heavy armor to screen the more vulnerable elements of their unit. A squadron of Lightning Strikes screamed overhead, flying fast and low in an effort to avoid the intense anti-aircraft barrage. Hydra tanks opened fire from their camouflaged positions as the strike fighters dove towards the valley entrance. Three aircraft went down in flames immediately, while another belched smoke and flame as it gradually lost speed and altitude and was eventually reduced to a greasy smear against the valley walls. The survivors rapidly broke off, their maneuvers only succeeding in highlighting their positions to Chaos air-search augur arrays. Two more fell from the sky, one of them landing amongst friendly forces and crushing two Chimeras beneath flaming wreckage.

Eta-Gamma Five-Seven's cratered flank armor stood as testament to dozens of shells that found their mark but ultimately failed to penetrate. The ancient Baneblade had not escaped completely unscathed: a lucky shell hit had blown off its port heavy bolters and jammed the rotation gears of the adjacent lascannon. A burst of binary, and Eta-Gamma Five-Seven's much-abused brakes screeched in protest as they bought the massive tank to a halt. Eta-Gammas Five-Eight, Five-Nine, and Five-Ten followed suit, and the quartet of Baneblades used their massive hulls to shield Eta-Gammas Five-Eighteen and Five-Nineteen as the pair of Stormlords rotated to bring their weapons to bear.

The enemy seemed to notice, as numerous krak missiles corkscrewed through the air and slammed into the super-heavy tanks. The Baneblade escorts absorbed the majority of incoming fire, and the barrage of anti-tank rockets slowly died down following a few blasts of the tanks' mighty demolisher cannons. A high-pitched whine filled the air for a brief second before the hellish bark of a Vulcan mega-bolter replaced it. While designed to suppress massive infantry formations, sheer volume of fire nevertheless allowed the weapons to chew through cover and even knock out several armored vehicles that failed to retreat back down the ridge in time. The slower, deeper reports of heavy bolters was lost beneath the din as the Baneblades mopped up with their lighter weaponry.

A salvo of hunter-killer missiles streaked over the crimson sand, slamming into Eta-Gamma Five-Ten as the Baneblade prepared to move again. The mobile fortress slowed, belching smoke and flame for a brief moment before its ammunition detonated. The explosion sent armored blowout panels flying, venting the explosion upwards and saving the tank from complete destruction. Two-thirds of the Baneblade's crew was either killed instantly or gasping through their final agonized breaths and half of its weapons were inoperable, but the Eta-Gamma Five-Ten remained mobile and could—at least hopefully—eventually be repaired. The tank's Machine Spirit took over, and the crippled titan limped to the center of the formation.

Buoyed by the sight, the defenders intensified their fire. Anti-armor mortars rained explosives from above, the shells too weak to penetrate armor but more than sufficient to shred delicate sensor antennae and communications aerials. A platoon of traitorous Leman Russ' appeared on a nearby ridge, their turrets barely poking above the sand, and opened fire. Even at such short ranges, the shallow angle of impact meant that shell after shell bounced off. Eta-Gamma Five-Twelve backed up several meters, the extra distance allowing the Baneblade to elevate its main gun enough to retaliate. A rocket-assisted shell tore off an enemy Leman Russ' turret and sent its comrades scrambling for cover.

A formation of Chimera transports screened by a dozen walkers roared past the super-heavy phalanx, their pace only slowing as they began climbing the nearby ridge seemingly heedless of the Leman Russ platoon that had taken cover behind it moments before. Heavy bolters steadily chattered away in an effort to keep Chaos infantry and light vehicles suppressed. The first Chimera to climb over the ridge was instantly hit by a dozen battle cannon shells, the sheer force of impact actually flipping the transport over and sending the burning hulk sliding back down the slope. One of the Chimeras in the wreckage's path swerved to avoid colliding with it, though the transports behind it simply plowed through.

The engines of Eta-Gamma Five slowly sputtered back to life, and the super-heavy tanks matched pace with a passing Leman Russ formation. Another Chimera crested the ridge, and the retaliatory battle cannon shell punched straight through its thin belly armor and cooked off its promethium tanks. The transports behind it simply rolled around the burning obstacle. Lacking anything capable of directly damaging the tanks, the transports opted to simply ram them. The shock of impact distracted the enemy long enough for Skitarii to attack melta charges or for striders to circle around and drive their lances through vulnerable flank and rear armor. More Chaos vehicles were dug in further down the ridge, and they fired into the melee with little regard for their own side.

The first Mechanicum Leman Russ' cresting the ridge tipped the fight towards the attackers, and Eta-Gamma Five joining moments later turned the charge into an unstoppable tidal wave of metal sweeping downhill. The devil's laughter filled the air as Vulcan mega-bolters shredded lightly-armored vehicles and infantry positions alike. Dozens were blinded as the Shadowswords opened fire with their Volcano cannons, the apocalyptically-powerful laser cannons reducing entire platoons of Leman Russ' to rings of soot in the Martian soil. Demolisher cannon shells reduced entrenched position into showers of metal and limbs while the Baneblades' other armaments picked off targets of opportunity. When the first line of Chaos tanks drew closer, the phalanx didn't slow their pace: the super-heavy tanks used their enormous mass and momentum to simply crash through the Leman Russ', even crushing several beneath their treads.

The Martian sun had already sunk under the horizon by the time the final Chaos positions at Olympica Fossica fell. Legions of Skitarii flooded into the fossa, reinforcing depleted units and hurriedly setting up fortifications. Squadrons of Lightning Strikes screamed overhead on their way to strafe the retreating enemy columns. Thick columns of smoke choked the skies above the newly-established no man's land, a grim testament the strike fighters' handiwork.

The intact tanks of Eta-Gamma Five assumed defensive positions along the opposite ridge, their crews bracing for the inevitable Chaos counterattack. Eta-Gamma Five-Ten rested on the valley floor, surrounded by Mechanicum recovery vehicles. The interior was hosed out and the larger pieces of Skitarii were simply tossed aside for later disposal. The Tech-Priests dispatched to tend to the stricken Baneblade had found a set of reasonably-intact blowout panels and hurriedly set about installing them as heavy-lift servitors cleaned and refilled the ammunition hoppers. The surviving crew, having spared as much thought for their deceased comrades as an Imperial Guardsman would a worn piece of kit, stood alongside their reinforcements as they silently observed the repair efforts.

If any of the gathered Skitarii or Tech-Priests noticed the minute vibrations, they saw no reason to acknowledge them until seismic alarms began blaring. The air raid sirens followed suit moments later, though Mechanicum forces had no time to react before the first wave of Chaos strike fighters screamed overhead. Explosions ripped through the valley as enemy aircraft targeted augur arrays and searchlights. Whatever retaliation the defenders could muster proved sporadic and ineffective, the attackers banking around for a second pass virtually unmolested as the droning of countless bombers filled the air.

The Mechanicum forward spotters switched to night vision just in time to see the first of numerous Chaos Titans appear over the horizon.

Combat Information Center A
Black Knights Space Station Ikaruga

Battle Group Lisbon's maneuver had inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking Chaos fleet, and the offensive on Luna faltered for several critical hours. Capitalizing on the enemy's disorientation, the defending fleet had pushed the attackers back with the aid of the Ring's weapons batteries. The reprieve had not gone to waste: ships were resupplied, crews were reinforced, and repairs to the hard-hit Port Luna were started. Just as importantly, if not even more so, the Ikaruga's crew had time to activate additional Combat Information Centers and reorganize the data feeds. Though he still maintained an overall view of the battlefield, Lelouch was able to delegate most of the moment-to-moment operations to subordinates.

The main tactical display had not received any updates of note for the past several hours, so the Emperor's attentions turned towards the side display depicting the situation on Mars. Elite Skitarii legions had made enormous gains over the last half day, but their initial momentum was rapidly waning. Armies of cultists and daemons were converging on Olympus Mons, and even the corrupted Craftworld Altansar was subtly shifting its orbit to bring it closer to the greatest of Mars' forges. What few casualty reports the Ikaruga could intercept painted an increasingly-desperate picture, and even an amateur could see that the Olympus Mons garrisons were mere weeks—if not days—away from collapse.

A quiet buzzing, audible only within his mask, temporarily disrupted his focus. A flash of annoyance crossed his features, and it vanished just as quickly when he saw the message's origins.

A single phrase, heavily encrypted, and broadcast directly from the Fabricator-General's fortress on Olympus Mons.

ALL TASKS AT HAND HAVE BEEN CLEARED. OPERATION TYPHOON MOVING TO PHASE TWO.