Unholy War of the Dilgar.

3 million years ago on the planet Omelos a medium sized feline species had started an evolutionary path that would set parts of the galaxy ablaze, though the tree climbing jungle cats that would become the Dilgar hardly knew that at the time, however in the end all that was Dilgar had coalesced into 6 solar systems and a fairly mighty civilisation, but it was a dying one. The Dilgar had 18 years until their sun would nova, so they did what had to too survive; they built several fleets and set off to conquer as much as possible so as to provide salvation to their people.

Though the Dilgar ships were light and the beam cannons on them crude and frightfully underpowered they still packed enough of a punch to send most battleships scurrying, for the technology behind the Dilgars newest beam weaponry was not Dilgar at all, it was Terran.

Based off the same technology as a lasrifle the Dilgar had managed to construct a, by Terran measurements wholly underpowered, Lascannon.

The weapon when deployed on dual mounts was fearsome against the weak armor of league vessels.

The Dilgar Conquest rolled like a tidal wave across the league until they hit the system of Tiree, a border system on the Terran-Markab border, at Tiree the massed refugee convoys of the league had been talking with the Terran 2nd border fleet and fervently requesting asylum and protection.

The commander of the border fleet granted that asylum and protection at just the right moment. The Dilgar 3rd Warfleet had arrived.

The Terran warships, had a simple objective: Get The Refugee ships into Terran held space, if that meant forming a line abreast and ploughing thru the 2400 ships of the Dilgar 3rd Warfleet then so be it, and that is what they did, the Dilgar held the Jumpgate and the League Refugees wouldn't survive the gravitational stresses in the Warp, so Vice-Admiral Hatcher spread his lighter ships out around the refugee fleet and put his heavy cruisers in an arrowhead formation, and ordered battlestations.

It was an unmitigated slaughter, the Dilgar Warfleet started the advance, using thinned staggered ranks, the Terran warship captains could care less what the Dilgar did, all they needed to know was that the Dilgar was in the way. The Terran Plough pushed forward torpedoes, plasma bolts and lances striking out ahead and gutting Dilgar warships ahead of the ships, Vice-admiral Hatcher watched the slaughter and after seeing the amount of damage he was inflicting ordered best speed, the massive cruiser engines flared and the advance started in truth, like the Scythe of the Reaper the Terran cruisers gutted the Dilgar Warfleet, in 20 minutes the numbers had gone from 2400 Dilgar vessels against 25 Terran warships and 600 Refugee vessels, a seemingly easy victory for the Dilgar, but now the numbers were 1600 Dilgar Warships against 585 refugee ships and 25 Terran Warships, Vice-Admiral Hatcher ordered a full weapons release, 1.4 seconds after the order had been spoken all turrets on the Terran Warships released and plasma bolts Lascannons and heavy antifighter bolters sang the anthem of death and the Dilgar fleet broke, was smashed into anarchy and at last was routed, but the terran fleet would not let the Dilgar escape easily and when at last the Dilgar jump points opened and allowed what did remain to escape, it was a mere 30 ships that did escape.

That battle had repercussions, it's repercussions got the Terrans off their armour suited butts and firmly into the war.

The shockwaves were ringing across Terran space, 16 million dead , after the battle of Tyree where the 2nd border fleet had stepped between the fleeing League fleet and the pursuing Dilgar forces, and though Terra had suffered few casualties at the battle, the Dilgar had suffered greatly and had now struck out at the nearby Eridani in retaliation for Terra having aided their prey, the only ones not dead by the biogenic weaponry had been the local garrison of Night Lords, out of 16 million inhabitants on Eridani the only survivors were the 2000 Astartes.

Overlord class cruiser, Revenant Justice, Theta System, Refugee Station: Alpha Primaris.

Commodore Hassan Al'Hakim of the Revenant Justice was a 3rd generation navy man and like most he was fairly pragmatic about life, however he could not help but feel nervous, for in less then an hour the battlefleet would arrive, and with it the emperor and the call to war.

For the past several weeks his border fleet had been the guardians at the gates for the league races, as they fled their home territories to avoid the shadow of death thrown across the sector by the Dilgar advance.

In the past hours he had sat, paced, prayed, taken calls from the administrations of most league nations and generally kept order in the system.

However it was time for the daily council session on Alpha Primaris.

After having shuttled over to the station, he sedately made his way to council chamber and even from 60 meters away he could hear the bickering of the peacemakers and warmongers.

The peacemakers wanted the Dilgar out of their systems then a return to normalcy, the warmongers wanted to destroy the Dilgar utterly, as he entered the octahedral chamber many of the voices quieted, they had of course all heard about the slaughter of Eridani and many were asking loudly if the terrans were to much of a trading nation to stomach war. He knew that in little less then 15 minutes the windows in the chamber facing the warp translation point, would reveal to them all the Terran stomach for war, he looked over at the Centauri ambassador, Lord Londo Mollari, the 4th generation of Mollari's to serve as liaisons, many had tried to usurp the Mollari position but they had been discouraged as the Mollari family had for the past 105 years hosted a rotation of Luna Wolves terminators, and those terminators had been very efficient at "discouraging" any assassination attempts made on the Mollari family, inevitably he was roused from his thoughts as the Natar of Abbai, asked him the question probably ready to burst from the others aswell, he knew they had been impressed and downright scared at the power his small cruiser squadron with escorts, could bring to the field of battle.

"How and when is your Emperor going to respond to the Dilgar assault, Commodore?"

Smiling calmly as his XO notified him of the first charges of a building warp translation point, he stood and in a theatrical and gentlemanly fashion merely pointed out the massive panorama windows, as space violently tore itself open and deposited the greatest concentration of military power outside of Alpha Centauri, right at the doorstep of the refugee station.

Now when the Astartes had first arrived in this universe, the prototype fortress battlebarges Spear of Prospero and Fist of Horus had been the flagships of the fleet, however after several unforeseen necessities had been taken care of the Spear of Prospero had been Semi-biologised and renamed the Valhalla's Hammer, and the Fist of Horus had been converted into the huge Fortress Astartes, so the emperor had commissioned a new flagship, based off a previously discarded battleship design, the design while an STC had needed a rare heavy element to construct the final thinnest layer of energy conductive armor, in this place, that element was known as Q40 and came by the planetoid.

So it was with a great fervour that during the last ten years the Admech had been forging and constructing the new flagship of the Imperial fleet.

The Vengeful Spirit

Massing more then even the greatest of the League fleets the Vengeful Spirit measured a massive thirty-two kilometers from armoured prow to stern

Now as the ship passed Lord Mollari's Octurion, one could note that the huge gold painted name measured larger and longer then the quite massive Centauri battleship.

Accompanying the Spirit was the near total of the Terran Fleet, a total of 400 ships, now in numbers they did not even outdo a single Dilgar attack fleet, however in sheer tonnage of the vessels and the power brought to the field, the Terran fleet stood as supreme masters of space.

In guarding positions around the huge flagship sat the ominous and terrifyingly huge vessels of the Astartes legions, eighteen kilometers to the meter and bristling with weaponry unseen and unheard of before.

The League representatives were in shock, they had of course seen the mighty cruisers the terrans used to patrol the refugee system, but now they saw the true might of the Terran Imperium, the escorts and cruisers the league races were used to seeing sat like minnows around the massive battleships, the battleships themselves completely overshadowed by the Flagship and the Astartes vessels.

As the initial shock had ended the leagues representative broke down crying, as the strain from the Dilgar assaults the harrowing reports of death and darkness and now the elation of knowing that with these forces involved the war would end soon.

The resentment would come later, but for now they were happy.

The league councillors hastily stood as the incredibly large form of the Terran ruler solidified and the ethereal mists and fel darkness of the Terran transmat device dissipated.

Sheathed in head to toe in some form of heavy black and grey armour, one armoured gauntlet ending in large dagger like claws, and the other conforming more to the classic shape of a Terran hand rested calmly on the handle of a broadsword.

The Terran security forces and Commodore Al'Hakim immediately snapped to attention with a hoarse proclamation of "Ave Princeps, Aeternus Vici!" (Hail Emperor, Eternally (you) Conquer)

Commodore Al'Hakim knelt before his liege before moving off the floor and leaving it to the Master of Sol.

"Esteemed allies and friends, two weeks ago we saved you from certain death, one week ago the Dilgar launched a massive vengeance strike comprising nearly the full might of 12 of their warfleets and though suffering heavy losses among their light ships, struck the world of Eridani with a series of bio weapons cleansing that world of our people, so on this day Terra will proclaim a message to the galaxy and the Dilgar people"

Horus nodded to Al'Hakim, who tersely ordered that 90 percent of the stations power be shunted to the comm. grid.

The weapons and shields of the massive Ramilies fortress became silent and for the first time in the history of two universes the pure massive power harnessed inside the powercore of a Ramilies Star Fort was turned into a blanket transmission on all frequencies possible for the communications grid to transmit upon.

Across the entire galaxy the broadcast went out, it disrupted all communications and destroyed many smaller relay stations, on every communications screen glowed the Imperial eagle for afew seconds before the grim hard eyes of Horus bored into the souls of all who saw it and proclaimed "Attero, Omelos has two weeks."

Tens of millions of worlds saw the broadcast and on every world whether they knew who the being was or what he meant knew it would not be good. For all races and people had that much in common that all knew such a look of cold burning hatred was never a good thing.

A week later the massed ranks and blood of Terra flashed into the Warp and set a course directly for Omelos, Home of the Dilgar.

Omelos T- 1 hour

Warmaster Jha'Dur Deathwalker's head was hurting, for 2 weeks they evacuated all Dilgar possible off Omelos, but there were still nearly 2 billion Dilgar on world, if that's wasn't enough, then she had better news.

For the past 2 weeks strangely constructed organic fightercraft had attacked and destroy parts of the evacuation convoys decimating the ships carrying food and medical supplies, oh there was a pattern alright, the fightercraft only destroyed food and medical supplies bought from the Terrans, not once had they targeted the packed refugee vessels or any ships carrying food from the annexed league territories.

The Dilgar Empire was a proud empire, and losing Omelos to a nova was one thing but losing her to an invader was another thing entirely, so it was that the full might of the Dilgar warfleets assembled, it was a truly majestic scene the huge armada numbering near 2500 ships of the line with 18000 escorts all gleaming with deadly intent, then they came, ripping a hole in the very fabric of reality the Terran fleet made its appearance, across the Dilgar fleet ethereal flashes solidified into warriors of the Adeptus Astartes who laid low the bridge crews of the flagships and took the Dilgar Warmasters back to the observations deck of Horus flag vessel, the massive windows of the observation hall showing the Dilgar homeworld and warfleets in their splendour, then the deck vibrated and flashes of death flew from the surrounding terran warships and Dilgar died as the fleets closed for battle.

Above Omelos' Solar Plane

Thousands Sons Flagship: Valhalla's Hammer

Magnus the Red sat in the command throne of his ship anticipating the signal from Horus, the signal that would herald the end of the Dilgar homeworld. In his mind it was a sad day as he watched the sensor suites report of the massacre in progress, oh the Dilgar did deserve a massacre but they would let the survivors of the battle run, run with the knowledge that they were a dead people.

The Hammer had spent the spent day coasting in towards Omelos on minimal power settings and would in a matter of minutes enter range.

The Terran Empire had been struck but in a quarter hour Magnus would prove that the might of Terra was merciless.

Horus calmly ordered the fleet to fall back beyond attack point Omega and to hold the Dilgar advance.

Terran trade had exported many things including hundreds of classical movies, one of the more popular ones had been star wars, making the geeks nerds and sci-fi freaks on the ´net say that the galaxy had been struck with the Teal'c phenomenon, referencing a main character in the hugely popular original series of Stargate.

As such three of the most well-known words in the galactic quadrant had heralded the end of peaceful Alderaan.

And while the Hammer of Valhalla didn't have the raw power of the Death Star, it had more then enough to destroy such a tectonically unstable world as Omelos.

Horus smiled predatorily and keyed general comms to the Hammer, keeping his eyes fixed on the Dilgar Warmasters guarded on the bridge he spoke, "Magnus, Commence Primary Ignition" two of the Dilgar fainted at those words, but all of them paled, each and everyone knowing the terrible fate behind those words.

Hammer of Valhalla, primary weapons range of Omelos.

Magnus sighed softly, as the chaplains and priests of Terra's faiths chanted the rites and passages of death. He keyed the comms to Horus and spoke softly "Commencing Primary Ignition".

Darkness rippled and the burnt orange hull of the Hammer started glowing a ghostly green, the four claws extending from the prow lit up and focused into 4 beams of green energy that met 2 km in front of the mighty vessel and seconds later the main planetary assault lance on the ship fired directly into one of Omelos most active fault lines.

To the Dilgar fleet, the massive ship had come out of the black nowhere and unleashed a weapon from the nightmares of space, they could see the oceans boiling away from the beam and great lines of lava cracked the continents and dust and steam at last obscured the final death of their Homeworld, what happened next would be forever burned into the minds of the Dilgar that witnessed it, the planet cracked and tumbled into a rapidly cooling asteroid field.

Horus keyed the holo comms and spoke quietly, "Dilgar Warfleet. stand down you have lost."

Jha'Dur Deathwalker looked at the massive form of the Terran Emperor and spoke softly "we surrender."

In a ghostly lit room in the heart of terran space 12 figures stood and watched the end of the Dilgar conquest.

"The Mon-Keigh have defeated the Dilgar, it was expected but their way of victory is concerning, I believe it is time, the war draws near and Altansar can no longer afford to stand alone, we must contact the Mon-Keigh and make our alliances, for it is time, the scouting fleets are reporting a resurgence in Vorlonn and Zha'do activity. As the farseer's vision a thousand years ago told us we need the Mon-keigh to win this war."

Exarch Kalanas of the Dark Reaper Temple watched the other exarchs grimly before speaking, "Who goes to the Mon-Keigh and makes this peace"

Farseer Tyrian spoke softly "I will go."

The council bowed to elderly Farseer and simply accepted his statement.

The Eldar were going to Terra.