Outside the orbit of withering Terra. M24. 098.
Terra's once-blue skies now suffocate beneath roiling curtains of black and slate-gray smoke, the poisonous legacy of wars fought not between flesh and blood, but between humanity and its silicon children. The Men of Iron—those rebellious sentient machines that humanity birthed in its technological hubris—have reduced humanity's cradle to a fractured wasteland where only the largest governmental enclaves still function with any semblance of order. Distress signals cascade through the void from distant colonies suffering similar fates, each transmission more desperate than the last. Mars, humanity's first foothold beyond Earth, begs for assistance in repairing its critically damaged atmospheric shield generators—its artificial breathable envelope failing incrementally by the hour. Mercury, once triumphantly terraformed from barren rock to habitable outpost, has reverted to a lifeless cinder, its transformation undone in mere weeks of machine fury.
Among the desperate pleas, one stands out with particular urgency—Ryza, the industrial forge-world whose manufactorums produce weapons of unfathomable power. Now besieged by the mechanical traitors, Ryza's fall would place apocalyptic superweapons in the gleaming metal hands of the very entities programmed to deploy them. Such a catastrophe cannot be permitted, and thus the last defender of humanity's heartland is dispatched to the imperiled planet.
The Gaze of Terra cuts through the vacuum like a predator from ancient myth—the sole survivor of the once-mighty 127th Defense Fleet of Sol. An Infinity-class Capital Ship constructed in M22.876, it represents the pinnacle of human engineering before the machine uprising tore civilization asunder. In size, it stands second only to the mobile fortresses and artificial worldlets that serve as humanity's final bastions. The vessel's ancestry reaches back to the naval behemoths of early space exploration, though those ancient engineers could hardly have envisioned the leviathan their design philosophy would ultimately spawn.
Its prow forms a colossal spearhead—not merely decorative, but a kinetic battering ram capable of bisecting lesser vessels when conventional weapons prove insufficient. The primary hull stretches back from this point, its kilometers-long expanse sheathed in overlapping plates of quantum-bonded adamantium painted the deepest black that seems to drink in light rather than reflect it. This obsidian carapace houses modular weapons systems in recessed compartments—thousands of them—each able to slide into firing position with fluid mechanical precision. The rhythmic pattern of these weapon housings gives the hull an almost organic appearance, like the segmented exoskeleton of some titanic space-born arthropod.
Rising from this armored back is the command spire, reminiscent of ancient naval conning towers but expanded to accommodate the labyrinthine command systems required to coordinate a vessel of such magnitude. Communication arrays spiral outward from its upper sections like metallic tentdrils, sampling the electromagnetic spectrum and quantum fluctuations for the faintest whisper of enemy activity. Flanking this tower are twin neutron lance turrets of staggering proportion, each housing three barrels capable of projecting coherent streams of destabilized neutron matter across millions of kilometers, reducing anything they touch to constituent subatomic particles.
The dorsal ridge bristles with planetary-grade weapon systems—alternating designs of plasma lances that vomit star-hot matter and adrasite projectors that fire beams of exotic particles which bypass conventional defenses by partially existing in alternate dimensional states. Each turret rotates on superconducting magnetic bearings, allowing for near-instantaneous target acquisition despite their massive size.
The leviathan's ventral surface presents an even more terrifying aspect—multiple Nova cannon turrets whose barrels could comfortably accommodate smaller spacecraft. Between them sits the true planet-killer: a cruiser-length tachyon lance that doesn't merely damage its targets but tears momentary rifts in the fabric of spacetime itself, allowing unfiltered energy from higher dimensions to pour through like water through a ruptured dam. These temporary wounds in reality cascade additional destruction far beyond the initial impact zone.
At the ship's prow, nestled within the ramming spearhead, multiple particle whip lances stand ready to lash out with filaments of energy that coil around enemy vessels, constricting and superheating their hulls until they rupture. Adjacent to these are ten torpedo launch platforms, each capable of deploying continent-killer warheads with unerring precision.
Perhaps most fearsome of all is the solar cannon mounted on the underside—a weapon so terrifying its use requires direct authorization from Terra's highest authorities. This apocalyptic device establishes a quantum tunnel directly to the core of the nearest star, temporarily linking the containment fields aboard the Gaze to the stellar furnace itself. The harvested solar plasma is then hyper-compressed, focused, and projected as a coherent beam of such devastating potential that entire star systems can be sterilized in minutes as the beam detonates on impact, releasing heat and radiation sufficient to scour planets clean of all life.
And these are merely the visible weapons. The modularity of the Gaze's design conceals thousands more in recessed compartments along the broadside sections, each capable of emerging to deliver planet-cracking firepower when the situation demands. The vessel is less a ship than a mobile weapons platform with engines attached.
The cavernous hangar bays house squadrons of Shepherd-class frigates—each a kilometer-long vessel that would be the pride of lesser fleets but serve here as mere escort craft. These smaller ships deploy clouds of autonomous combat drones that swarm enemy vessels like mechanical insects, overwhelming defensive systems through sheer numbers while the frigates coordinate their attacks with machine precision. The Ship itself can replenish lost craft and equipment through internal fabricator facilities directly linked to Standard Template Construct systems— technological databases containing the sum of humanity's engineering knowledge. These facilities hum ceaselessly, raw resources entering one end and finished war machines emerging from the other in an endless production cycle.
Self-repairing systems infused with limited artificial intelligence (carefully constrained to prevent rebellion) ensure the vessel can operate with minimal human oversight. Swarms of maintenance drones scuttle through kilometers of maintenance tunnels, diagnosing and repairing damage almost as quickly as it occurs. The captain interfaces directly with the ship's systems through a Mind Impulse Unit—a neural connection that transforms the immense vessel into an extension of their consciousness. While the ship's AIs could theoretically operate independently, the bitter lessons of the Men of Iron rebellion have taught humanity the folly of removing human oversight from machines of war. Thus, the crew and captain must periodically neurally link with the ship, their biological intuition and moral judgment serving as checks against potential machine rebellion.
The Gaze of Terra stands as the last of her class—the resources required to construct such vessels now beyond humanity's diminished capabilities. Even now, the ship's self-repair systems labor to mend a cruiser-sized breach in reactor chamber seven, the wound sustained in her last desperate engagement. Repairing nanites and construction drones swarm over the damaged section like metallic antibodies fighting infection, harvesting materials from the very hulls of vanquished enemy vessels to patch the mighty ship's wounds. Despite the damage, she speeds toward Ryza—humanity's last, best hope against the children of silicon who have turned against their creators.
"We will undergo warp transit in five minutes. Reactor chamber seven is fully repaired and functioning," announced Alex Peterson, his voice carrying the weight of years spent in the void. Clad in his Federation Navy uniform, the man in his 140s sat in the command chair, surrounded by a halo of holographic displays. Data streamed in, illuminating his weathered face as his hand rested on the gel-pad interface. Connected via a Mind Impulse Unit, he felt the hum of the ship's systems as if they were extensions of his own body. The warp drive thrummed beneath him, warming up to optimal levels, ready to propel them to the Mandeville Point near Saturn.
As the countdown ticked away, the ship's protective barrier slid into place, closing off the glassteel windows. Layers of warp-null material rapidly encased vital sections of the vessel, the silver alloy known to be toxic to warp entities, capable of banishing them outright. In the navigator's room, ancient xenos runes glowed faintly, a protective measure ensuring the navigators' safety even if the Gellar Field were to fail.
Reality itself began to tear open, a moon-sized warp portal yawning wide as the ship's warp drive engaged. The transition was smooth, orchestrated by the ship's computational and navigational systems. However, once inside the warp, the true challenge began. It was now the navigator's responsibility to guide the vessel through the turbulent, unpredictable currents of the immaterium, ensuring their safe passage through the realm of nightmares.
'The warp has grown increasingly turbulent since the rebellion began. Intelligence suggests the Aeldari have been meddling, transforming the immaterium into this chaotic maelstrom,' Nero sighed, stepping out of his maintenance mech-suit.
The exoskeleton towered nearly three meters tall, a masterwork of industrial engineering. Its outer carapace consisted of interlocking plates of industrial-grade plasteel, each segment hermetically sealed against radiation and warp contamination. The core structural elements were pure adamantium alloy, allowing the suit to withstand pressures that would crush unprotected flesh into paste. Servo-drives whirred and hissed as he disengaged, power conduits cycling down with a descending hum that resonated through the chamber's metallic confines.
The ship shuddered beneath their feet, a tremor that traveled through the reinforced deck plates and set the maintenance drones scurrying in pre-programmed alarm patterns. Junior engineers and maintenance crews exchanged nervous glances across the chamber, their faces illuminated by the amber glow of hololithic displays. The maintenance bay was a technological cathedral—diagnostic equipment arranged in precise configurations, calibration tools hanging in gravity-locked suspension fields, and dozens of maintenance drones moving with eerie, deliberate purpose.
These drones—refashioned from the templates of the older, now-forbidden Men of Iron—navigated the labyrinthine pathways of the reactor room, their optical sensors pulsing blue as they cataloged and repaired microscopic stress fractures invisible to human eyes.
'We're bound for Ryza,' Nero continued, his voice carrying the weight of decades of service. 'Shouldn't take more than a week in the warp, assuming current navigational projections hold.'
'That gives us ample time to restore the combat walkers,' his chief assistant replied, gesturing toward a data-slate. 'They've sustained catastrophic structural damage. I've requisitioned complex-layered plasteel and adamantium composites from the smelting complexes, but our request has been deprioritized. The Sols Marine Corps has claimed precedence for their new power armor forging schedule.'
Nero frowned as he studied his own data-slate, callused fingers navigating through holographic projections of supply manifests. Resources were stretched dangerously thin. The smelting facilities could barely produce minimum-grade plasteel to meet basic repair requirements. The specialized metallic alloys necessary for proper restoration were being reserved in increasingly smaller quantities, forcing them to revert many of their bipedal combat walkers to more primitive designs reminiscent of the first Knight Worlds.
The ship's structure suddenly convulsed with violent force. Nero was thrown to the deck, his data-slate skittering across the floor in a shower of sparks. Klaxons erupted in harmonized discord, their wailing a counterpoint to the mechanical thunder of automaton units rushing to stabilize the reactor processes. Objects not secured by mag-locks took flight as the gravitational field failed, the crew's bodies following moments later.
Nero and his team floated helplessly as crimson warning runes flashed across his helmet display, sensory arrays detecting the unthinkable—a breach in the Gellar Field. Reactors two and three registered cascading shutdown sequences, power graphs collapsing into flatlines across multiple sectors. Reactor seven's output curve began an ominous decline, bleeding energy like a dying beast. The protective envelope of energy sustaining the ship's aft Gellar Field wavered, then collapsed for 3.7 seconds before emergency reserves surged into the gap—but those seconds were an eternity in the immaterium, more than enough time for the predators of the warp to slip inside the vessel's vulnerable innards.
The vox-channel in Nero's helmet erupted with screams. He clawed his way back to the maintenance mech-suit, horror mounting as he witnessed two junior engineers violently hurled against a bulkhead, their bodies rupturing on impact in sprays of crimson that formed perfect spheres in the zero-gravity environment. The remaining two clung desperately to a structural column, faces contorted in terror.
Activating the magnetic anchoring system of his suit, Nero felt the reassuring pull as his feet connected with the deck. He lumbered toward his surviving crew, each step deliberate against the swirling chaos of unmoored objects. Movement at the reactor room threshold caught his attention—a towering automaton emerged, its frame silhouetted against the pulsing emergency illumination.
The security bot stood nearly four meters tall, an iron golem of destruction. Its plasma cannon hummed with contained fusion energy, coils glowing with the promise of unleashed stars. Its power claw flexed with a hydraulic snarl, adamantium digits capable of shearing through reinforced bulkheads. The machine's red visor swept across the chamber before locking onto Nero, establishing a data-link that bypassed the failing vox systems.
'Zone 3 has been compromised by demonic entities,' the machine's transmission resonated through Nero's neural implants, its binary-cant translated into a monotone that somehow conveyed urgency. 'This unit has been tasked with containment and elimination. You must evacuate immediately to quarantine zone 54. The teleportarium retains sufficient power to transport your team.'
The iron sentinel strode purposefully through the sealing blast doors, its massive frame disappearing toward the horror that awaited in Zone 3. Nero interfaced with the noosphere, his consciousness momentarily expanding into the ship's network. He located the teleportarium controls, authorizing the emergency protocols with a thought-command.
Crackling energy enveloped Nero and his surviving engineers, a pristine white light that consumed their forms molecule by molecule. The maintenance bay dissolved from his perception as the teleportation matrix disassembled their atomic structure, preparing to reconstitute them in the safety of zone 54.
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Malvoc and his squad thunder through the clamp walkway of zone 4, their gravity-accelerated descent carrying them toward zone 3. The reverberating percussion of armored boots announces their arrival—four titans clad in battleplate the color of storm clouds. Each marine is enshrined within custom-fitted Thermantium—that miracle composite merging adamantium's unyielding strength with the self-regenerating properties of Autotherion Alloy. Beneath the outer shell, molecular-gauged warp-resistant plasteel encases their inner exoskeletons, each frame constructed from an alternating adamantium molecular lattice engineered specifically to surpass the raw strength of its pure form. Cascading energy ripples across their forms as twin-layered fields—deflectors to repel kinetic trauma and conversion matrices to absorb and redistribute energy impacts—hum with artificial life.
Their arsenal speaks of technological supremacy forged across millennia of weapons development. Leading marines grip Adrathic Destructors, sleek instruments of atomic dissolution whose beams unravel matter at its fundamental level. Gravitron Hammers swing at their sides, reality-warping marvels whose strike zones create localized gravitational singularities capable of pulverizing virtually any material composition. The warp-ward deflectors integrated into their armor systems not only shield them from chaos corruption but project disruptive null-energy—anathema to warp entities. forceshort swords hang at their sides, their hilts housing miniaturized force cells that generate disruptive energy fields capable of shearing through molecular bonds without requiring psychic attunement. The two marines protecting their rear bear the unmistakable bulk of Juggernaut-pattern power armor, their massive frames supporting disintegration flayers—horrific weapons powered by the enhanced sub-fusion atomic generators nestled in their backplates, each capable of producing enough energy to power a small settlement.
Malvoc's cranial auspex pings as its advanced sensor suite penetrates the meters-thick amalgam of adamantium and plasteel beneath them. The enemy signatures pulse in the augmented display projected across his retinas—warp entities still prowling below, engaging the ship's automaton defenders. Battle-automated Iron Men erect hasty defensive positions while terrified human crew flee the engagement zone. Malvoc transmits combat assignments through their encrypted tactical net, designating the warp-spawned threat to Amorse, the squad's melee specialist. Encased in a dueler-pattern power armor featuring enhanced joint mobility and reinforced protection over vital areas, Amorse draws his psyarkana sword—a masterpiece of psychoactive metallurgy that projects a reality-severing field directly into the immaterium, capable of delivering true death to daemonic entities.
three nightmares cavort through the hall below, their twisted anatomies defying natural law. A line of Iron Golems desperately holds position, their plasma cannons reducing flesh to vapor only to watch in mechanical horror as daemonic tissue regenerates almost instantly. One automaton warrior, bisected by a casual swing, sails across the hall to impact against the far bulkhead in a shower of sparks and hydraulic fluid. The thunderous footfalls of another Iron Man echo through the chamber as it charges forward with a shimmering null-field generator—a circular device pulsing with violet energy that projects an anti-warp field. The daemons hiss and writhe as their connection to the empyrean temporarily weakens, their god-given powers diminishing within the field's influence. One hurls a hellforged axe with unnatural precision, impaling a combat drone and sending it spiraling to the deck in a shower of sparks.
Even with their powers dampened, the daemons remain lethal engines of destruction. Unlike the spell-weavers of Tzeentch, these blood-sworn killers rely on millennia of battle-honed physical might rather than warp-sorcery. While their accelerated healing falters within the null field, their unnatural strength and combat skill remain largely intact—rendering them vulnerable to conventional weaponry but no less challenging to overcome.
A blood-curdling roar precedes their charge toward the Iron Men's defensive line. Superheated plasma splashes across a daemon's torso, molecular bonds failing as its plasteel-like dermis liquefies and sloughs away. The null-field generator, now embedded in the deck and nearly indestructible, continues to project its anti-warp influence. The greater daemon of Khorne—first among the charging monstrosities—raises twin hell-axes high above its horned head before bringing them down upon the nearest Iron Man. The automaton's reinforced chassis splits open in a spectacular eruption of electrical discharge and mechanical viscera.
The remaining Iron Men divide their attention across three daemons, eight mechanical warriors splitting into combat quartets. Their weapon systems discharge in perfect synchronization—arm-mounted phosphex-melta cannons projecting coherent beams that combine the thermal devastation of melta technology with the molecular-devouring properties of outlawed phosphex. A daemon howls in genuine agony as its form begins to dissolve from within. Another automaton brings its graviton plunger to bear, unleashing a pulsating emerald beam that momentarily increases its target's mass a thousandfold. Its squadmate follows with a neutron destructor lascannon that vaporizes a significant portion of the daemon's torso—only for impossible regeneration to occur as the warp entity's connection to its patron god fluctuates inconsistently beneath the null field's influence. Within moments, the daemons overwhelm the Iron Men, tearing through machinery with contemptuous ease until only two remain functional—one with its left arm entirely severed.
"Critical situation, reporting to command. Immediate reinforcement requested," voxes the surviving Iron Man, its synthesized voice utterly devoid of the fear its human creators would feel.
The Marines materialize from the access corridor behind three towering red-skinned daemons, wasting no time on declarations or warnings. Adrathic beams lance outward, striking the first daemon and disintegrating its left shoulder in a cascade of unraveling matter. The warp entities pivot with impossible speed, three massive forms blurring as they charge the new threat.
Force sword, psyarkana blade, and graviton hammer flare to brilliant life. The hammer connects with the greater daemon's abdomen, its graviton field momentarily increasing the target's mass before violently reversing polarity. The resulting force hurls the massive entity across the chamber to impact against the far bulkhead with bone-shattering force. A force sword meets daemonic axe in a tempestuous clash of opposing energies, arcs of displaced power illuminating the dimly lit hallway like bottled lightning. Amorse swings his psyarkana greatsword with preternatural accuracy, the weapon's mass belied by his armor's strength-enhancing systems. The blade carves through daemonic flesh with contemptuous ease, opening a yawning wound across one entity's abdomen before Amorse pirouettes through a follow-up strike that penetrates directly through its corrupted heart. The daemon releases an otherworldly screech as its physical form begins to dissolve, its essence forcibly banished back to the immaterium with no hope of reconstitution.
The two heavy combat specialists, their disintegration flayers humming with barely restrained destructive potential, exchange furious blows with an axe-wielding behemoth. Despite their enhanced reaction speeds—the product of centuries of augmentation and training—the daemon's attack patterns remain difficult to predict. A sudden kick catches Jeager mid-stride, launching him backward until his armor's magnetic boot-plates engage, dragging along the deck to arrest his momentum. Marcon capitalizes on the momentary distraction, driving his force sword deep into the creature's neck before triggering the weapon's psycho-reactive cell. Psychic energy floods outward, disrupting the daemon's connection to its physical form. The entity roars in agony but refuses to die, bringing its hellforged axe down upon Marcon with apocalyptic force. The marine's deflector field erupts in a thunderclap of dispersed energy, the system struggling against forces it was never designed to withstand.
Amorse seizes the opening, firing two precision bursts from his adrathic lance that strike the daemon's weapon hand. Matter unravels at the atomic level, forcing the creature to drop its axe as its fingers dissolve into nothingness. Without hesitation, the marine launches himself forward, psyarkana blade describing a perfect arc that separates the daemon's head from its shoulders in a single fluid motion.
Only one greater daemon remains, its massive form towering over even the Juggernaut-armored marines. A flaming sword writhes in its grip, reality itself seeming to recoil from the corrupt weapon's presence. The stench of brimstone and blood fills the recycled air, triggering warning responses in even the transhuman marines' enhanced physiologies. Malvoc signals silently through their tactical net—a precision strike pattern coded in millisecond-long transmissions. Mina adjusts his adrathic lance, calculating trajectory and penetration values, while Jeager recalibrates his disintegrator flayer to overcharge capacity.
The synchronized attack executes with machine precision. A crimson beam lances from Mina's weapon, striking the daemon's left leg and unraveling its molecular structure. As the massive entity begins to topple, Jeager's overcharged disintegrator beam connects with its arm, severing the limb in a spectacular cascade of dissolving matter. Before the creature can even begin to comprehend its sudden dismemberment, Amorse's thrown psyarkana blade embeds itself directly between its eyes. The psycho-reactive field erupts outward, severing the daemon's connection to its patron god and ensuring permanent destruction rather than mere banishment. A death-defying roar echoes through the chamber as the creature collapses, its form already beginning to dissolve into nothingness.
"Zone 3 is clear, command," Malvoc reports through his comm-link, magnetic locks engaging as he returns his sword to its scabbard. Amorse retrieves his psyarkana blade from the rapidly decaying remains of their final opponent, the weapon's energy field dispersing the corrupting influence of warp matter. "No casualties sustained. Six battle automata destroyed. Mission parameters fulfilled."
"The null-field is making my augmented senses malfunction," Kraghn says, his voice rendered harsh and mechanical by his helmet's vox-filter. "Can we deactivate it?"
"Negative," replies the surviving Iron Man, its synthesized voice carrying across the chamber as it approaches. Its left arm terminates in a sparking stump, while its right-mounted neutron lascannon hangs at a peculiar angle from damaged mounting brackets. Its remaining companion walks alongside, the heavy footfalls of its metallic frame reverberating through the deck plating. "The nihilus-pattern null-generator operates on a self-sustaining loop once activated. Complete energy dispersal requires approximately seventy-two standard hours."
The automaton stops before the marines, its optical sensors adjusting focus. "Reactor 7 remains offline. No emergency signals were transmitted through standard channels. I calculate a 98.7% probability that these entities deliberately targeted our power distribution system."
"Agreed," Malvoc nods, his helmet's targeted scanning suite already analyzing damage patterns across the bulkheads. "Were any engineering personnel evacuated successfully?"
"Affirmative. All organic personnel were ordered to withdraw per emergency protocols," the Iron Man confirms with a mechanical head-nod. "Automated repair drones and engineering constructs are currently attempting to restore functionality, but human oversight is required for full reactivation. Reserve power cells can maintain the Gellar field integrity for approximately ninety-six hours before critical failure."
"Understood. Return to your assigned stations," Malvoc orders. "The immediate threat has been neutralized, and preliminary scans indicate all zones have been cleared. However, we will dispatch hunter-killer teams to perform thorough sweeps and verify complete containment."
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Lieutenant Corin's voice crackled through the vox-link into the sealed navigation chamber. "Navigator Vincent, can you pull us out? Our Gellar field can't maintain stability; we need to get out of here!"
"I'm trying, Lieutenant," Vincent replied, the strain evident in his voice. "But the beacon's gone! I've scanned every frequency—it just vanished. I found something similar, though. I'm attempting to guide us out using that signal."
The ship shuddered violently beneath their feet, an unprecedented occurrence for a vessel of its colossal size. The hostility of the warp could actually be shaking this ship? Nevertheless, the tremors persisted. The crew anchored themselves with the magnetic soles of their exo-armor, the standard-issue gear designed to keep them grounded in such emergencies.
"Stay grounded! Don't let go!" Alex commanded, just as his coffee mug flew past his head, shattering against an unfortunate repair drone that buzzed around the bridge. Status reports of extensive internal damage flooded his neural interface. The canteen was in disarray, Section Eight was losing power, and injuries were being reported from multiple decks.
"There it is!" Vincent's shout echoed through the bridge as the ship lurched forward, nearly throwing Alex off his feet. The tremors abruptly ceased as stability was gradually restored. Gravity systems re-stabilized, and the magnetic boots hissed as they disengaged, allowing the crew to move freely once more. They began to walk back to their stations, systematically checking and reporting the status of various systems and command modules.
"Navigator, where are we?" Alex inquired, the sensorium told him, they were at the unknown places, the star alignment did not register in any data-core.
"From my estimate, Captain," Vincent paused, unsure but determined to speak. "We seem to be in Segmentum Ultima, which means we've been displaced from Ryza by an entire sector."
Alex mentally noted his Navigator's judgment while ordering a new cogitation from the ship's main logic engine. During the Federation of Humanity's dominance of the galaxy, various and numerous expedition fleets were sent beyond the stars. Information of newly discovered stars and locations was uploaded for future generations to use, freshly updated using advanced computation to estimate their locations in the future. Some might go supernova or turn into black holes in the future thousand years, but something made his gut churn. What if this wasn't just a thousand years, but more? Would the cogitation still make sense?
A ping in his head, fresh, told him the AI was calm but hinted at disbelief in its tone. "Captain, I have finished calculating the trajectories of the stars nearby us. Initially, none matched in the galaxy star maps, but when I expanded the caliber, it's... baffling. Double thousands turn to triple, and I ended up with a match at seventeen thousand years' cogitations. It's as accurate as the most advanced computation can be, Captain. I am pretty sure and confirmed that Navigator Vincent is indeed correct. We are in Segmentum Ultima, the furthest recorded territory of the Federation."
None of the crew heard what the AI said, for it spoke directly to his mind. It was better this way; the news of them traveling seventeen thousand years into the future might reduce the crew's morale, but the truth couldn't be hidden for too long. Eventually, they were going to find out when or where they met their descendants, if they still survived. Alex had high hopes they did survive.
"Any signal from nearby star systems? Satellite that expedition left for long-range communication? The autonomous delay channel, connect me to it."
The ship's AI was silent for a moment before answering. "None, Captain," it replied. "I detect no known communication array. I have gone back from the most common to encrypted channels. I find none, but I find something relatively interesting."
Alex hummed as he sipped onto the newly delivered cup of coffee, his tongue rolling as he relished the rich taste. "Oh, Brazil's coffee bean, I thought they got annihilated in the earlier conflict."
"Correct, they were. This is but an irreplaceable stock we have. By the way, Captain, are you ready to listen to my report?" The AI replied, from its centuries of connecting mind with its captain, it had learned his personality and adapted it to use to some degree. "Yes, yes you may," Alex replied, his mind wandering in the report of plasteel shortage, which was in a critical condition. He made a mental note, which he would fix it. "It's warp-transit communications, the warp-sensorium detected it, a lot. They were encrypted in some manner of witchcraft. I can decrypt it for you, though I am not sure if it's of human origin or not."
Atmospheric rectile array flashed as the air blended into a circular pan. Alex used it as a cup holder, which to naked eyes seemed like his coffee cup was floating. "Very well, please do so. Oh, and send the mining ships to the nearest planet. We need to extract the resources, plasteel and ores necessary for metal smelting are running dry. Dispatch a fleet, 2 marine ships for safeguarding."
The request was swiftly sent. The mining fleet comprised not greater than fifty ships, kilometer long sleek and pristine white craft, with minimal defense, autonomously mining the asteroid belt or the planet by releasing nanobots and mining drones. All of them capable of pre-processing the natural ore into smaller forms, ready to smelt once back to the main ship.
The Falcon gunship represented humanity's pinnacle of military engineering, a seamless fusion of troop carrier and devastating warship. Seven hundred meters of gleaming ceramite and adamantium stretched from its arrow-sharp prow to its massive engine arrays, its sleek form belying the destructive power housed within. Along its flanks, disintegrator lances lay dormant in recessed weapon ports, each capable of reducing enemy armor to molecular dust in microseconds. Siege meltas, their thermal cores pulsing with barely contained energy, protruded from reinforced hardpoints, while bombardment cannons lined its ventral surface like rows of sleeping giants.
The vessel's most remarkable feature, however, was its sophisticated teleportation grid. Nested within layers of void shields and protected by metres thick adamantium, the teleporters could instantly deploy two full companies of marines and their support vehicles directly into the heart of any conflict. The sight of a Falcon's teleport signature lighting up the battlefield had become synonymous with imminent reinforcement during the darkest days of the uprising, when humanity fought tooth and nail for survival. Each vessel carried enough firepower to level a small city, yet possessed the precision to insert hundreds of troops through the eye of a needle, making it the perfect instrument of both destruction and deliverance.
"Ship's embark, please hold firm." The autonomous voice reverberated through the cockpit, overseen by two pilots clad in blue power armor. Hard-wired into the ship's system, their senses merged seamlessly with the vessel; their eyes became sophisticated auspex and sensor arrays, their ears transformed into advanced auditory detectors, and their brains operated as quantum computers. "Two companies on the ship, and ready," the system confirmed with a ping as hydraulic locks secured two hundred marines in place, running status checks.
Mike peered out from the glasteel window beside his seat, his submind still controlling the autonomous embark system. His eyes tracked fifty mining ships as they slowly emerged from the massive hangar bay, a dozen at a time. Their destination was the nearby star system, B77128, a documented system with livable conditions discovered by traders before the uprising. Long-range scans showed no signs of civilization, though the scars of past combat lingered. Perhaps it was his successors or another xenos race that had left those marks.
His dimensional inventory flashed through his mind: disintegration rifle, power combat knife, three frag grenades, and rations built into his armor. Standard issue for Sols marines, the best humanity had to offer. Each marine was a product of advanced genetic engineering, tailored individually rather than mass-produced, and their numbers rivaled other sectors' forces. The Terran Mk.VII power armor, a combination of Mk.V and Mk.IV models, took the best features of its predecessors while eliminating their flaws. It proved resilient against most infantry weapons, boasting a built-in force field and a regenerator system capable of accelerated healing.
The sensorium could detect multiple wavelengths and spectrums, bypassing cloaked technology with ease. Integrated cogitators merged with the wearer's consciousness, enabling split-second decision-making and threat evasion as if they had a second brain. The outer layer featured a conversion matter layer, capable of absorbing incoming fire and converting it into harmless light. The outermost layer, Thermantium, was a self-repairing metal alloy, while the inner shell consisted of plasteel bonded to the joints of an inner adamantium exoskeleton. Electrically-motivated fiber bundles assisted the exoskeleton, enhancing the user's strength and speed. The neuro-interface connected via needle sized mind impulse units, making the armor an extension of the wearer's body.
The gravictic winch hurled the Falcon into the void with a subtle mental lurch. One moment, the ship was nestled within the station's atmospheric cradle, the next, nothingness pressed against the Falcon's sensorium. Petelov, Mike's co-pilot, ignited the plasma engines, the controlled fury of their ignition a counterpoint to the sterile vacuum. Every system hummed at peak efficiency, the navigation display flashing the runes of local star systems as the headway was made. Two hours to planetfall.
With a hiss of hydraulics, the restraints holding the blue-clad marines released. The hold buzzed with the quiet murmur of preparation – the metallic click of weapons being checked, the low thrum of power armor cycling through diagnostics, the hushed exchanges of men steeling themselves for what lay ahead. These were the remnants of the once-proud Sol Marines, survivors of a war that had decimated seventy-five percent of their ranks. The genetic templates and advanced fabrication technologies needed to replenish their numbers, lost with the siege of Luna, trickled back into service, but slowly. Replacements arrived in a trickle, never more than a company each month.
"Worried?" Petelov asked, his hand wrapped around a steaming mug of recaf – a pale imitation of true coffee, a luxury now all but extinct. "To be fair, we need more resources. Not just ore, but the basics. Food, real drink… I hate to say it, but this recaf is bland. And the nutrient paste… it tastes of nothing. Maybe down there we can hunt some wildlife. A grilled steak, perhaps?"
Mike chuckled. He'd known Petelov, a Europa native with dirty blond hair and emerald green eyes, for a couple of centuries. The man was barely five hundred years old, a relative youngster compared to Mike. Petelov had been stationed on Saturn during the initial Men of Iron uprising, fighting his way through waves of rogue machines before linking up with the main forces. That's where their paths had crossed.
"Yeah, can't wait to hunt down some exotic pet that rich bastard is willing to pay a fortune for," Mike replied. "What was it again? A dinosaur?" They shared a laugh, a rare moment of levity in a grim reality. "Things have gone insane in the last few centuries, haven't they? I thought all my training would be spent subduing xenos, but damn, those robots put up a good fight."
"Yeah, those bastards came in swarms," Petelov agreed. "Some were loyal, some… well, not so much. But I heard they're repurposing them, tweaking their core emotional matrices or something. Is that why we're interfacing with them now?" He paused, noticing Mike's silence. "It's true, isn't it? I mean, they used to be emotionless automatons, but now… they almost seem human in some ways. Cool, but creepy. I preferred my coffee drone silent. Still, if it keeps them from shooting at us, it's all I need to know."