The battle raged on. Thousands fell with each passing minute, and death was omnipresent—merciless, indifferent, constant. The terror that had initially painted the faces of the pirate allies slowly faded, replaced by something worse: indifference. Even the pirates themselves, those who rose from the dead, began to get used to it. Their souls might not have felt pain, but their bodies did. Although wounds healed, torn muscles and shattered bones regenerated, their equipment did not share the same grace. Armor fell apart. Helmets cracked, plate pauldrons detached, and blades dulled and chipped in their hands. Finally, the moment came when death was no longer the problem, but the fact that they had nothing left to fight with. One by one, they began to retreat, not out of cowardice, but from a sober understanding of the situation. Without armor, with bare hands against bolters and axes, they became a burden. A dead weight. Not even for command, but for the battle itself.
"We can't hold out much longer," I said, shooting a common heretic, decapitating him.
"Avenius! Report!" Cassandar yelled, firing his bolter, resting the weapon on the command table.
"One hundred seventy million loaded aboard, out of two hundred!" Avenius shouted. His power sword was already in motion; three quick cuts, and the first wave of heretics that had breached the outer defensive lines fell at his feet.
"We're under fire from three sides," I finally said, my voice devoid of emotion. "If we don't change priorities, the rest will be torn apart on the ground."
"What do you suggest?" Avenius asked, pushing away a dying heretic who, with a torn jaw, was grabbing his leg.
"We close the hatches," I replied coldly.
"Thirty million. May the Primarch forgive me!" he cried, firing another bolter salvo.
I pulled out my hololith and connected to the Arcadia. "We're withdrawing. Leave one hatch open, the rest are to be closed. Prepare for takeoff," I said quickly to August.
Sirens wailed. The pirates immediately began to retreat towards the ship. No orders, just instinct. Exhausted, bloodied, but still alive. Some helped the wounded, others threw away their weapons to run faster. Their faces were blank, focused. In the vox channels, the order to withdraw reverberated. The Astartes didn't need anyone to repeat the order; in silence, they withdrew under the ship, covering the allies' retreat with bolter fire. Each step backward was paid for with a heretic's corpse. They reinforced lines, created barricades of bodies whenever they could. But they knew time was too short.
Thirty million people were left on the field. Most had no chance of reaching the ramps. They knew it and didn't try. They simply continued to fight, wanting to eliminate as many traitors as possible so that their friends and family would have an easier future, a future where war would certainly continue.
The last ramp burned from enemy fire. The air trembled with explosions, and the sky was obscured by ash and smoke. Harlock stood in the middle of the passage, saber in hand, his cloak billowing through the fire like a banner of defiance. Beside him stood Avenius with a bloody sword and Cassandar with a bolter resting on his shoulder. There were no more orders. Only battle. From behind the smoke screens, more traitors emerged. Mutated heretics, stained with blood. Before they could react, Harlock was already among them. His saber cut through them like air. It left no wounds. It left holes. Where a chest should be, there was a crater. Where a head had been, there was vapor.
Cassandar mowed them down with his bolter like a wall of fire. He reloaded on the fly, aiming with one eye, searching for the next target with the other. Avenius was like a machine. Silent, focused, his blade never stopping for a second. He severed the arms of one, knocked another down with a kick, and plunged his blade into the third's belly, pulling it out without a trace of emotion. For a moment, they stopped. Before them lay a pile of bodies. Dozens of dead, incinerated traitors. The ramp behind them was the last escape route. And they had turned it into hell. Harlock looked at them. Their armor was riddled with holes. Wounds bled. But no one retreated. Cassandar spat on the ground. Avenius reloaded his sword with a soft click.
Hundreds of Astartes and pirates, along with the three commanders, held the last strongpoint around the hatch as the last people evacuated from the landing zone. The remaining Space Marines, no longer able to descend to the surface, positioned themselves on the ramps, firing downwards. Volleys from their bolters pinned down the enemies, turning every approach into a slaughter. Time was running out. Harlock was like a god of the battlefield.
His saber cut with such force that ceramite shattered, blood gushed, and every move ended in a traitor's death. As he turned, his cloak sliced through the smoke, and when he raised his weapon, enemies recoiled a step. With a precise pull of his revolver's trigger, more followers of Chaos turned into smears of blood and bone. There was no time for pain, for screaming, for escape. One precise shot ended everything. Avenius and Cassandar fought right beside him, shoulder to shoulder. One with a sword, the other with a bolter. In the silence between volleys, only their breaths could be heard, heavy as hammer blows.
Kharn, "The Betrayer," tore through the carnage. The bodies of his own warriors flew aside as he roared and leaped over a barricade, holding his legendary axe with both hands. His target was Avenius. A veteran of hundreds of battles, an officer who had seen death up close more times than anyone had a right to. Avenius raised his sword precisely as Kharn's axe was about to split him in half. The ground beneath his feet cracked as the blow struck with the force of a meteor. He fell to one knee, but did not yield. His defense held.
He roared through gritted teeth and parried the madman in red armor. Not waiting for another blow, he charged forward himself. The cuts were lightning-fast, the thrusts perfected over decades, masterful. From every side, he struck, as if trying to decipher the rhythm of Kharn's own madness. He knew he had the advantage in reach, technique, and fighting logic. But he also knew whom he faced. Kharn, considered by many to be the strongest of the Astartes before the Heresy. A monster in human skin, with such strength and savagery that even his brothers feared fighting him shoulder-to-shoulder. A title rivaled only by Sigismund of the Imperial Fists, another demon of battle. But Avenius knew one thing: with Kharn, you didn't win through strength. With Kharn, you had to survive. His blows were clean, perfect... but none connected. Kharn deflected the blade as if he were built of steel and fury. Their weapons clashed with a roar that drowned out the screams around them.
Harlock turned his head, and time seemed to slow. The death machine approaching him no longer held anything human within. Remnants of armor barely clung to his bloodied body. Butcher's Nails protruded from his head, grinding with every step. His eyes glowed red with madness, and chainaxes roared like famished beasts. Angron. One of the Twenty. A legend, one of the bad ones.
He was larger than the rest. Heavier. Faster. And angrier. His body was massacred, but he moved like a wounded beast, kept alive only by hatred. One step. Two. Harlock moved. He didn't wait for the blow; he lunged first, sliding under the Primarch's raised axes. His saber struck exactly where it was meant to—into one of the many cracks in Angron's armor. Metal grated, flesh tore. His finger pressed the trigger hidden in the hilt.
A dull crack, a projectile fired from within the saber, tearing through the Primarch's arm. Blood spurted in a wide arc. Angron roared but did not recoil. He charged on, like a ram, like a hurricane, like death itself. Harlock bounced sideways, rolling on the ground and immediately rising to his knees. Saber still in hand, eyes icily focused. Angron paused for a split second. His arm hung unnaturally, but the axe in his other hand still trembled in rhythm with his fury. The duel was just beginning.
Onlookers couldn't believe it; this man had just, in a second, deprived a Primarch of one arm. Not literally, but no one had seen a non-Primarch manage to wound a Primarch so severely. Cassandar couldn't believe what he was seeing; he had felt the power radiating from this man since he met him in person, but this surpassed his expectations.
Angron raised his functional arm, holding the axe, and lunged at Harlock. In a few seconds, their weapons exchanged dozens of blows. Sparks flew in the air from their clashing weapons. Avenius, pressed against a wall, somehow managed to see a hero being born.
Harlock was Angron's equal. He was smaller, but faster. He moved with precision, every motion balanced. His saber struck the armor's cracks, which widened with each blow. For a fleeting fraction of a second, Harlock glanced at the Arcadia. Its engines began to hum, sensing what its owner intended. The hatch slowly lifted from the ground.
Avenius, covered in blood, sent Kharn several meters back with a single kick. He lunged towards the hatch, bullets flying over his head; he had to seize this one opportunity to get out. Cassandar was already on the ramp. Together with his men, he laid down suppressive fire. Their bolters tore up the ground, ripping apart those who still tried to break through. Harlock danced around Angron. His saber again cut through the air, again struck home. Angron roared and swung one of his axes. A miss. Harlock was already behind him. A blow, and a shot from the revolver.
Seeing the ramp detach from the ground and begin to rise, I broke into a run. With all the strength in my legs, accelerating with each step. At the last moment, I leaped, kicking Angron in the chest with both feet. The monster staggered, took a step back, and I performed a somersault in mid-air, landing on my feet. There was no time. Angron swung his axe. I dove under his arm, rolled, and leaped onto his back. Before he could throw me off, I pushed off his armor like a wall and soared towards the ramp. My fingertips caught the ramp's frame. Cassandar's and his men's bolters still thundered overhead. As I pulled myself aboard, Angron's furious roar echoed behind me.
"Mindless beast," I commented, seeing the last rays of sunlight penetrate the ramp's crevices. Moments later, the sound of metallic latches boomed loudly in the hangar.