Just as the Crusade of Retribution fleet began once more to crest the roiling waves of the Warp, the Prospero system in the Ultima Segmentum had dissolved into total chaos. A massive Imperial Navy battlegroup and thousands of Ultramarines from the Five Hundred Worlds had been locked in bitter combat there for nearly three months.
"Lord Calgar." A Bladeguard Veteran of the Honour Guard signaled to Calgar, who stood upon the bridge.
"What is the situation on the surface?"
The veteran shook his head. "The Warp interference is too potent, my lord. We have yet to receive any further intelligence."
Calgar struck the long table before him with his power fist. The holographic display flickered once, then vanished into darkness. A Chapter serf nearby silently added another entry to a log; this was the seventeenth time in recent weeks that the tactical briefing table had required maintenance. He could only hope the tech-priest responsible for its upkeep would not make things difficult for him. Such tables, integrated with complex machine-mechanisms for holographic projection, were typically resilient, yet the barrage of bad news had been relentless.
Five months prior, Calgar had received intelligence that a massive gathering of Iron Warriors Chaos traitors was assembling in the Ultima Segmentum. He had ordered numerous Ultramarines and their successor chapters to bolster their defenses. Despite these precautions, two successor chapters, the Howling Griffons and the Aurora Chapter, had been devastated.
A battle barge belonging to the Howling Griffons, along with its three embarked companies, had been annihilated by a suddenly appearing Iron Warriors traitor fleet. Though the Griffons had mounted a desperate, fearless boarding action, they were overwhelmed by the Iron Warriors' numerical superiority and firepower, and were systematically exterminated within hours. The traitors had outclassed them not only in sheer numbers but in the quality of their material support.
The fate of the Aurora Chapter, an independent chapter descended from the Fourth Chapter of the original Ultramarines Legion, renowned for their armored warfare, was even more harrowing. While they were purging a world of a daemon-infested uprising and heretical cults, two of their armored companies had been ambushed by the Iron Warriors. Their vaunted tank formations were pulverized by the traitors' heavy ordnance. The enemy had crippled the ground forces before shattering their orbital support as well. Had the traitors not seemingly been driven by a more urgent mission, hurriedly embarking after harvesting a vast number of Imperial subjects, the remaining companies would have been eradicated entirely.
Similar atrocities were occurring across numerous Imperial worlds. The Iron Warriors were launching hit-and-run raids, capturing personnel, seizing materiel, and even assaulting Imperial warehouse worlds before vanishing into the void. It was this erratic behavior that had drawn the Ultramarines' attention to the long-abandoned Prospero system. Calgar had personally led a fleet to trail an Iron Warriors flotilla, desperate to uncover the traitors' true intent.
But when they arrived at Prospero, they were met by a dense network of orbital defense platforms that savaged Calgar's pursuing ships. Over half the fleet sustained critical damage. Yet, they did manage to glean a critical piece of information: a new planet had appeared within the system. More concerningly, tech-priests utilizing long-range auspex had identified its state from afar.
An incredible, terrifying surge of Chaos power was roiling across the world, its blasphemous influence bleeding into the neighboring dead worlds. Though these planets had once been subjected to Exterminatus, the corruption of the Warp had caused bizarre, psychically-reactive flora and aberrant organisms to take root upon their surface.
To prevent irreversible losses, Calgar was forced to withdraw the fleet and immediately ordered the mobilization of additional forces. No matter what the traitors were planning, he would not suffer their continued actions. Beyond this, Calgar had dispatched several waves of scouts, covertly dropping them onto the surface to uncover the secrets of the chaotic world. None had returned, and no communications had been received.
Calgar sensed an encroaching doom. Among the final batch of scouts sent, Calgar had deployed an almost legendary warrior: Malum Caedo. A Sternguard Veteran of the First Company and a warrior of near-mythic achievement, Caedo had volunteered to descend when the previous squads failed to report in. Given his illustrious record, Calgar had granted his request.
The Ultramarines did not know what this world, protected by layers of Iron Warriors fortifications, truly signified. Six Terran months ago, these Iron Warriors, led by their Warsmiths, had responded to the commands of Perturabo and begun fortifying the surrounding dead stars. Simultaneously, under the command of Magnus, the Thousand Sons began arraying a vast network of chaotic artifacts. Both factions worked against the clock, preparing with extreme caution for the arrival of the Iron Men fleet.
Magnus had unleashed scores of chaotic sorceries, attempting to seed the Iron Men's transit route through the Warp with traps designed to slow their approach. Yet, the traps remained untriggered. The sheer devastation wrought by the battle between Axion's forces and the Old One's fortress had shattered the local flow of time. A voyage that should have lasted mere days had, unbeknownst to them, dragged on for nearly eight months. This extended duration had allowed the real-space conflict between the Ultramarines and the traitors to escalate into full-scale war.
Neither the Thousand Sons nor the Iron Warriors had anticipated that their awaited quarry would fail to appear, instead finding themselves embroiled in a protracted conflict against Calgar and the Ultramarines.
Benefiting from the ample time, and the traitors' total disregard for mortal life, they had completed their defenses. After the sacrifice of hundreds of billions of Imperial civilians pressed into slavery, their fortress complexes and orbital platforms were ready. Thick void shields and layers of orbital batteries became the first line of an impenetrable barrier. For three months, Calgar had hammered against them, yet he had achieved almost nothing.
He did not know that the architect of this defense was no mere traitor, but the Primarch of the Iron Warriors himself: Perturabo. With the strategic genius of a Primarch, he had easily dissected every tactical deployment and contingency Calgar could devise.
Meanwhile, Magnus remained upon Sortiarius, incessantly attempting to divine the future to tip the scales of the coming battle. As for the reconnaissance teams that had infiltrated the sorcerer-world, almost all were captured by Ahriman and his cohorts. Only one Bladeguard Veteran had vanished into the chaos of the fray.
Ahriman had lost over a dozen Rubric Marines to that single warrior, and even a summoned Lord of Change had been banished by the heroics of the lone Ultramarine. The veteran's shoulder plate marked him as a warrior of the First Company, his unique helmet markings denoting his status as a veteran of the long war. But the way he had decapitated his foes had made Ahriman's eye twitch, as if he were seeing another Ultramarine the Thousand Sons had grown to loathe.
Had it not been for verified intelligence confirming that the one called Titus was currently elsewhere, busy pulling the heads off Orks, Ahriman might have truly suspected that the other warrior had ascended to the ranks of the First Company.
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