[No sound can be transmitted through the cold cosmic void.]
[Yet the terrifying shockwaves generated by the vanguard fleet's explosive deaths ripple outward with inexorable force. They slam into the middle section of the joint fleet where the battle barges hold position, causing the vessels to shudder and groan. Countless void shields flare with color as they absorb the impact, creating cascading rainbows of dissipating energy across the darkness.]
[Inside the Tempestus's bridge, the atmosphere transforms instantly into controlled chaos. Complicated streams of information pour across data screens in glowing green text. Alarms sound one after another, each with its own piercing tone, creating a discordant symphony of disaster. Warning runes flash red across tactical displays.]
[Your Fleet Master, Sheherz, immediately steps forward and moves past you, his heavy footfalls ringing against the deck plating. His twelve service studs catch the light as he bends over the communications console.]
[He tries desperately to coordinate with the Admiral and other fleet masters through the vox network, his voice barking orders as he attempts to command what remains of the vanguard fleet being systematically dismantled by the World Engine.]
[The Necrons' planetary weapon gives them no chance at all.]
[The massive sphere continues sailing forward with terrible, inexorable slowness. It advances through the terrifying bombardment from countless Navy cruisers and battleships like a man walking through rain. Laser beams splash uselessly against its shield. Macro-cannon shells detonate without effect. Missiles and torpedoes launched from the middle and rear sections of the huge fleet create brief flowers of flame before being absorbed into nothing.]
[The frigates in the vanguard fleet, those that haven't managed to change their sailing direction in time, are crushed like insects. The World Engine's silver shield simply passes through them, and the ships cease to exist. Hulls that survived decades of warfare are reduced to broken materials that float through the cold void like dust motes in sunlight.]
[The next moment catches your attention on the primary viewing screen.]
[A Lunar-class heavy cruiser, its hull bearing the crimson heraldry of the Crimson Fists Chapter, suddenly breaks away from the joint fleet formation. The massive metal vessel accelerates hard, its plasma drives flaring white-hot as it surges forward alone through the debris field.]
[The huge ship keeps passing through floating wreckage, pieces of destroyed vessels bouncing off its void shields as it drives directly into the World Engine's path. There's no hesitation in that maneuver, no attempt at evasion. Pure, suicidal determination.]
[Plasma light spears suddenly lance from the cruiser's weapon batteries, cutting through the cold void like the Emperor's wrath made manifest. The bombardment is continuous and terrifying, shot after shot hammering against the World Engine with focused fury.]
[But this level of assault has no effect whatsoever on the planetary weapon covered by its layer of silver shielding. The plasma dissipates like water against stone.]
[A silver spear of light erupts from the World Engine in response. It crosses the distance in an eyeblink and instantly pierces through the Moon-class cruiser's complete void shield as if it were tissue paper. The beam cuts away most of the bridge section in a single stroke, vaporizing metal and flesh alike. The cruiser's desperate attempt to fire its nova cannon, that last-resort weapon capable of cracking moons, is interrupted mid-sequence.]
[The next second, the World Engine demonstrates its power with deliberate cruelty. The massive planetary battleship continues sailing forward without hesitation or deviation.]
[It doesn't stop until the huge sphere has crushed the narrow, elongated body of the Moon-class heavy cruiser inch by terrible inch. Metal screams silently as it buckles and tears. The cruiser's spine breaks in multiple places, reactor containment fails, and secondary explosions blossom along its length like dying flowers.]
[Finally, it's over. What remains of the Crimson Fists' ship is unrecognizable wreckage spreading across kilometers of void.]
[The public communication channel of the entire joint fleet falls into a special kind of silence. The absence of chatter is more deafening than any alarm.]
[Distress signals from damaged warships crackle through the vox network, automated and desperate. Intermittent tragic howls from dying crew members pierce through the static. But there are no voices from any commanders. No orders. No encouragement. Just stunned, horrified silence.]
[You stand with folded arms, your expression carved from granite and utterly indifferent to appearances. Inside, rage and sorrow war for dominance, but you show nothing.]
[You stare at the bridge screen displaying the very tragic scene, and remain completely silent. There are no words adequate for this.]
[Fleet Master Sheherz suddenly slaps the metal shell of the communication device with one massive hand. The loud impact echoes across the bridge, making several nearby mortal crew members wearing communication helmets flinch and duck their heads.]
[You ignore the roar that follows from Captain Gretus as she scolds Sheherz for his outburst. Her wheat-colored face is flushed with anger and stress, her augmetic arm gesticulating sharply.]
[You simply take a deep breath, letting it fill your lungs completely, then release it slowly through your nose. The exhalation carries the weight of futility and bitter acceptance.]
[The first close contact between the Imperium of Man and the planetary weapon battleship known as the World Engine ends with the complete and humiliating failure of your stubborn, arrogant joint fleet.]
[The second month arrives with mechanical inevitability.]
[Terrifying energy tides sweep across the industrial planet, the ninth world from the Vidar Sector's star. The bombardment comes in waves, each one more devastating than the last. Gauss orbital cannons fire from the World Engine, their green energy beams stripping matter to its base components.]
[The planet dies screaming. Its surface is completely transformed into a lifeless husk, every structure reduced to molecular dust.]
[Countless Imperial citizens who lacked the time or means to evacuate are annihilated along with their shelter facilities. Billions of people, with their hopes and fears and loves and hatreds, are turned into handfuls of black ash that drift freely through the cold universe. Entire cities become monuments to failure.]
[During this period, none of you have time to mourn or grieve properly. There's no moment for funeral rites or remembrance ceremonies.]
[The combined fleet regroups again and again, reforming shattered formations with grim determination. You keep attacking the World Engine relentlessly, throwing ships against its shields like waves against an adamantium cliff.]
[But apart from losing more ships, the battle results remain negligible. Each engagement costs you frigates, cruisers, sometimes even capital ships. The casualty lists grow longer. The wreckage field expands.]
[The most frustrating aspect for the entire Vidar rescue fleet becomes painfully clear through repeated failure.]
[Not only are your void shields completely unable to resist any attack from the Necrons' weapon, but even your trump cards prove worthless. The nova cannons, those massive ship-killers capable of cracking continental plates, cannot shake the World Engine's silver shield at all. Cyclone torpedoes, warheads designed to penetrate fortress walls, detonate uselessly against that perfect barrier.]
[You're forced to fight a brutal war of attrition, trading ships at a catastrophic rate while desperately trying to develop a new attack strategy.]
[After several fierce arguments that nearly come to bolter-fire, the captains from all other Chapters reach a unanimous decision. They'll use the old method, proven through ten thousand years of warfare.]
[Boarding action.]
[Let the Astartes use assault boats to attempt a forced landing on the World Engine itself. Perhaps they can destroy the silver shield from within, or at least damage it enough to create an opening for the combined fleet's bombardment.]
[You discuss this desperate plan with Imperial Navy Admiral Cruz and the Ultramarines' Seventh Company Captain again, weighing options that range from terrible to catastrophic. Finally, you agree to this helpless decision. There are simply no alternatives left.]
[Before other Chapters can volunteer or debate who should have the honor, one captain steps forward immediately.]
[The Invaders' Chapter representative volunteers without hesitation. His voice is steady and calm as he commits his warriors to death. He brings three Terminator teams, veteran brothers all willing to undertake this one-way assault mission.]
[After determining the main attack force, everyone returns to their respective ships to prepare for the next, more intense phase of battle.]
[Meanwhile, the World Engine, having just finished reducing an industrial planet to lifeless ash, rushes toward the next human world blocking its predetermined route without any hesitation. It doesn't slow. It doesn't deviate. It simply continues its inexorable advance.]
[Your losses and failures haven't been entirely without gain, at least.]
[Through the sacrifice of countless frigates, ships deliberately sent forward to test the World Engine's responses, you've gradually pieced together some of its behavioral patterns.]
[Any Imperial ship that approaches within a certain distance threshold suffers immediate and devastating retaliation. The silver spears lance out without fail, killing with perfect efficiency.]
[But if ships maintain distance beyond that invisible boundary and show no signs of continuing to close or pursue, the World Engine appears indifferent. It ignores distant vessels entirely, focused only on its forward trajectory and immediate threats.]
[You decide to exploit this weakness, narrow as it might be.]
[Soon after making this decision, the reassembled joint fleet immediately takes the initiative. You cross the World Engine's invisible cordon deliberately, every ship surging forward in coordinated aggression.]
[Frigate after frigate provides cover for the cruisers and battleships, their lighter hulls absorbing the first devastating strikes. They attack first, launching everything they have.]
[Countless plasma light spears streak across the void like falling stars. Laser macro-cannons fire in thunderous sequence. Uninterrupted laser beams create a web of ruby light. All of it focuses on the World Engine's rear section, hammering away with desperate intensity.]
[But their true role isn't to damage the enemy. That's proven impossible. Instead, they exist solely to attract the World Engine's attention on this front, to make it focus all its terrible weapons on the obvious threat directly before it.]
[To buy an opportunity for a single battleship belonging to the Invaders Chapter, one that has separated far from the joint fleet and is approaching via a wide, circling route that takes it through the system's outer reaches.]
[That lone battleship needs time and distraction to release its precious cargo: landing assault boats carrying the Terminator squadron.]
[Everything proceeds according to the steps laid out in the plan. The execution is flawless.]
[The World Engine, sailing forward with its usual terrible majesty, is indeed drawn by the joint fleet's renewed assault. The massive planetary weapon warship immediately rotates its round silver sphere, changing sailing direction to face the attackers directly. It pivots with ponderous grace.]
[Silver light spears bloom continuously from within the sphere, each one finding a target. Ships die one by one, their void shields collapsing before their hulls are pierced clean through. But the sacrifice achieves its purpose.]
[At this moment, the Invaders' battleship, having sailed to the far side of the World Engine undetected, immediately opens its launch deck. Several landing assault boats carrying the Terminator squadron shoot into the void, their small forms dwarfed by the immensity of space around them.]
[These inconspicuous craft, deliberately hidden among drifting metal wreckage and lingering energy flames from previous battles, pass quickly through the distant space. They accelerate toward the World Engine's round sphere, approaching from its blind side while it focuses on the main fleet.]
[As the distance closes, assault boats begin firing their melta weapons. Red beams of superheated energy strike the silver shield directly, each shot designed to burn through the toughest armor.]
[But the meltas still have no effect whatsoever. Not even a ripple of energy disturbance mars the shield's perfect surface.]
[The assault boat pilots, who expected exactly this result, immediately send boarding signals to the Terminator teams inside their cabins. The message is simple: prepare for insertion.]
[The next second unfolds with perfect, desperate timing. The landing assault boats suddenly change their flight vectors, diving at sharp angles. Their bellies barely pass through a momentary gap in the silver shield's coverage, threading through space measured in meters where the barrier curves away from the World Engine's surface.]
[Three Terminator teams from the Invaders Chapter don't hesitate for even a heartbeat. Ancient mechanisms within their Tactical Dreadnought Armor activate with the scream of displaced reality.]
[They teleport directly into the interior of the World Engine itself, vanishing from the assault boats in bursts of crackling energy before the craft are destroyed by proximity defenses.]
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