Warhammer: Starting as a Planetary Governor

Chapter 247 - 248 – Signs of Awakening

Under a barrage of fierce enemy fire, the ship lurched violently, clinging to the edge of disaster.

"Target sighted."

A servo-skull, linked by data cables, hovered in midair, issuing a warning. Belisarius Cawl gripped his circular, scepter-like tech-staff, a bluish field sparking to life at its tip. This was a masterwork Omnissian Axe, the favored weapon of the highest-ranking Archmagi.

Per the sensor feeds, Chaos traitors had deployed several Anvillus-pattern boarding claws, mechanical "daemon talons" equipped with melta cutters that could easily carve through the ship's hull. Now hundreds of Chaos traitors were pouring aboard, heading straight for this sector.

"They're advancing toward the bridge. We must engage." Cawl noted.

"Damn abominations, they sure picked their timing!"

High-heeled boots clacked against the deck as Inquisitor Greyfax strode off the bridge, loading her masterwork bolt-crossbow. Beneath her visor glowed eyes of cold fanaticism. For her, any time was good for purging abominations. All heretics deserved to die.

With her high-level psyker senses, Greyfax detected two distinct presences behind her. She instantly knew who they were: Saint Celestine, that golden-winged "witch," and the Eldar woman Yvraine.

Between them, ironically, Greyfax disliked Celestine more. She believed that any object of such widespread adoration was a potential corruption risk.

Misused belief was far more dangerous than any daemon in the Warp. Officially, Greyfax was the Emperor's most loyal servant—but a strict atheist when it came to worshipping anyone besides Him. She used to believe that anyone so obviously blessed by the Emperor should be executed, lest they stray toward Chaos.

She steadied her grip on the bolt-crossbow, holding back the urge to strike. For now, they were allies. All three fought for the same goal: to reach Macragge and heal the Emperor's Son. But first, they had to evade Abaddon's relentless pursuit. Those Chaos lunatics had chased them for weeks and now had finally managed to close in.

From afar came the clamor of battle—Cadia's survivors, the Black Templars, and an Eldar warhost had already engaged the invaders in the corridors. Heavy footsteps reverberated. A squad of Chaos Iron Warriors emerged from the shadows, howling as they stormed into the bridge.

Their blackish-gray power armor was warped with spikes, hooks, fleshy lumps, and dripping trophies. A twisted reflection of their frenzied souls.

"Die, foul abominations!" Greyfax roared, diving headfirst. Her bolt-crossbow thundered, specialized explosive bolts ripping through their shields and armor. Her own power armor crackled with psychic energy, blasting the nearest traitors.

A moment later, Celestine soared in on wings of golden flame. She seemed every bit the descending angel, brandishing a shining sword that sliced effortlessly through the vile, stinking traitors. That holy sword, guided by the Emperor's grace, sought to burn away every trace of evil.

Meanwhile, Yvraine, the formidable Eldar duelist, lunged among them with lightning speed. Her graceful blade danced with lethal precision, each strike piercing a vital point. Three of the galaxy's mightiest champions, standing side by side, carved a bloody path through an entire squad of Iron Warriors in moments.

Yet just as they glimpsed the battle's end, more Chaos Marines surged forward like a dark tide. The pressure on them multiplied at once, the traitors howling in their devotion to the Chaos Gods and their hunger for destruction.

Before long, multiple Terminators crashed through the defensive line, storming toward the bridge. Their objective was the precious artifact behind the Archmagos.

Boom, boom, boom—

Bolter fire thundered, a hail of shells rained down upon the lone figure of Cawl and the relic behind him, leaving him nowhere to dodge. But he remained utterly composed, making no move to evade. He couldn't risk letting them harm the artifact.

"Activate defense."

A calm order flashed through Cawl's system. A faint glow enveloped him—a shield field. The incoming bolter shells slammed into it but failed to penetrate. The Terminators ramped up their assault with meltaguns, focusing their destructive beams on the field. Even so, it held firm.

Meltaguns that could easily rend vehicles or Terminator armor proved useless against this little personal shield.

Cawl ignored them, continuing to input data as if they were an afterthought. They might as well have been gnats attacking a fortress. He had the Imperium's only functional personal void shield, normally installed on starships. Even a shot from a C'tan Shard might struggle to break it.

Realizing their guns were futile, the Chaos Terminators halted their melta barrage and advanced, chainfists and power axes raised high. Pounding across the deck, they closed in on Cawl and the relic.

"Target locked," the floating servo-skull announced. Data flickered in Cawl's multi-lensed eyes as the massive device behind him roared to life.

That was the Quantum Annihilator, a relic of the Mechanicus derived from forbidden tech. It locked onto the warp-energy potential of the Terminators at the subatomic level, forcibly releasing that energy from within their bodies.

In a flash, the Chaos Terminators' forms grotesquely swelled like balloons. Their final howls ended in a chain of psychic eruptions. Flesh, armor, and twisted souls burst into bloody mist.

Clang, clang, clang—Pieces of their Terminator armor crashed to the floor, empty shells without owners.

Zzzzt—

"Targets annihilated. Overload... Overload..."

The servo-skull fizzed as the Quantum Annihilator overheated, arcs of electricity skittering across its housing. Cawl frowned. The device would be offline for 357 seconds. Unfortunately, one Chaos Terminator survived.

Enormous and menacing, it loomed over the Archmagos, raising a power axe wreathed in malevolent energies for a lethal blow. At this range, it only needed a moment to cleave Cawl in half—along with the relic behind him.

"Die!" the Chaos Terminator roared.

Behind him, Celestine soared in blazing golden flame, clearly intending to intervene, but the blow was already mid-swing. She had no time to intercept. A flicker of doubt showed on her face, not fear of death but worry she had failed in the Emperor's service to protect the relic.

Cawl finally lifted his head, digital readouts flashing in his oculars. He was calculating everything in microseconds.

Bang—

A bolt of searing energy—an intense mix of heat and electromagnetism—punched through the Chaos Terminator's helmet.

The beam streaked onward, narrowly missing Celestine's snowy wings and scorching a deep hole in the cruiser's ceiling. Simultaneously, Celestine's sword lashed out, slicing the Terminator's torso in half, and the giant toppled with a thunderous crash.

"My apologies, Saint Celestine. I nearly hit you—I couldn't find a better angle," Cawl said, noticing the burn marring one of her feathers.

"You needn't apologize, Archmagos. We have each fulfilled the duty the Emperor laid upon us." Celestine's stern, pale face softened with relief now that the relic was safe. As the Emperor's devout champion, her purpose was to give everything in His cause.

Celestine gently stroked the charred feathers. A golden glow spread across her wings, healing them before everyone's eyes. Soon, they were pristine again.

By then, the fighting on the bridge had ended. Pieces of dead Chaos Marines lay scattered, the stench of corruption choking the air. Servitors shuffled in to cart away the tainted bodies for incineration. In the process, unholy growths sprang up on their mechanical limbs, the corrupt flesh quickly taking root.

Greyfax clutched a wound and stalked forward, grimly ordering the servitors to jump into the incinerator themselves after disposing of the corpses—lest they spread corruption.

But Celestine intervened, bathing them in purifying light and driving out the Chaos taint. It saved the servitors from being discarded.

"How foolishly merciful."

Greyfax frowned. Still, the next moment Celestine took her hand, passing healing warmth into her. The saint's power carried a living spark that mended wounds with remarkable speed.

"I'm fine," Greyfax snapped, yanking her hand away, high heels clacking as she walked off. Even so, she admitted inwardly that Celestine was...different from the heretics she feared. But that didn't mean she trusted the saint implicitly.

Celestine smiled, watching Greyfax go. That Inquisitor served the Emperor every bit as loyally. Then Celestine turned to help Yvraine with her injuries.

"Ladies, it seems we must hurry. Ultramar—this gem of the far east—faces a massive Chaos invasion."

Cawl hunched over a command console, issuing hundreds of orders in seconds to coordinate their starship's defense. Additional waves of enemy warships were closing in from behind. In response, the cruiser's engines flared to maximum, breaking free of the blockade and racing toward Macragge.

...

High Orbit Around Macragge...

From the cruiser's bridge, Cawl and the others gazed upon the planet's surface through the glass dome. Its swirling terrain of blues and greens blended into patches of gray—beautiful, yet war-torn.

Macragge, capital of the Five Hundred Worlds and home world of the Ultramarines, second only to Holy Terra and Mars in status within the Imperium.

Contrary to popular legend, it was a somewhat barren planet dominated by towering mountain ranges, forcing most of its population into the lowland valleys. Macragge City sat not far from the Faramis Sea, whose tides sometimes surged into inhabited areas.

Yet it remained a beautiful, highly civilized world. Under Guilliman's guiding principles, living conditions here were far above the Imperium's norm—a virtual paradise.

Now, however, it was aflame with war.

In orbit, the Ultramar Defense Fleet clashed with a Chaos armada, macrocannons and plasma broadsides weaving deadly webs of destruction. Shells lit the void in incandescent bursts, each shot accompanied by the rending of metal hulls.

Within the atmosphere, tens of thousands of Imperial fighters dogfought swarms of Heldrakes—demonic, red-metal craft with iron wings. Once loyal Imperial machines, they had fused with pilots forever warped by Chaos, becoming infernal creatures with razored claws and scorching balefire.

Their underbellies boasted Autocannons spitting cursed ammunition. The sky burned with streaking wreckage as aircraft on both sides exploded and crashed, yet Imperial pilots kept fighting, even resorting to kamikaze strikes to bring the Heldrakes down.

On the ground, vast swaths of land had cracked open, magma rising, and crimson mists all but blotted out the sun. Evidence of daemonic corruption. While Chaos Space Marines advanced, Ka'Bandha led a monstrous tide of daemons.

His colossal wingspan was visible across the skies—merely glimpsing the daemon brought many mortals to the brink of madness. Entire squads lost their nerve or collapsed with nightmares.

Roar—

Ka'Bandha crushed an Ultramarine beneath his hooves, pushing straight for the planet's highest peak—Mount Hera, location of the Fortress of Hera. Within that fortress lay Guilliman's shrine, the resting place of the Primarch himself.

Meanwhile, a dropship activated cloaking fields, slipping into the atmosphere toward the fortress. Inside, Cawl observed everything, worry darkening his many-lensed face:

"This is destined to be a hard-fought battle. May the Omnissiah protect us."

Celestine's face was resolute. "Under the Emperor's guidance, we shall purge the heretics and prevail!"

Behind them, more Chaos Space Marines were punching through the lines, driving vehicles toward the fortress. The defenders were about to face a cataclysmic final stand.

——

In the Webway...

Eden materialized in his fearsome armor, hefting the oversized Holy Ash Shell and slotting it into the launcher. Rallying his Genestealers and Orks, he advanced toward the portal.

"Ka'Bandha, eh? Well, guess who's here—your Savior Grandpa has arrived. Get ready for a little gift from the Emperor!"

(End of Chapter)

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