40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 180: Balance

I hate it when I'm right.

I mean, it's great to be able to predict the future and outmaneuver your enemies with better positioning and prepared defenses.

But the Chaos forces had their own gods and seers on their side. They came here to win, and came prepared as well.

Even as my fleet began firing on the emerging Warp portals, and closing some of them with cataclysmic levels of firepower, the space above Fenris distorted and gigantic Demon Engines called Silver_Tower_of_Tzeentch began to emerge, shielded from nearly every weapon we could fire at them.

"Wolves, have every ship docked at the Fang depart right now and hold Vox silence." I commanded just as my fleet turned all sensors to autistic mode.

I have tried to instruct the Wolves how to maintain information security and provided them with advice and technical specifications for switching off active auspex sensors, but maintaining comm discipline wasn't something that came naturally to humans.

We are a gregarious species after all, eager to shout insults and threats at our enemies and friends alike.

Plus the Space Wolves were all Alpha predators, and resisted any order by default, and sheer stubbornness.

"Don't teach me how to suck eggs, you....intruders!" a Space Wolves Captain replied right back at me.

I sighed inward and ejected his corrupted intruders into the sun before they could damage the battlebarge too much.

At least a dozen of those Silver Tower constructs were dimensionally shielded, which pretty much ensured that Fenris would suffer greatly until I managed to destroy the things with overwhelming firepower.

A hundred more Silver Towers were not so well shielded though, and I began inserting plasma warheads right in, torching the Chaos wizards hidden inside as magic artillery, before hurling the things into the sun.

At the same time, I extracted the feral locals from the surface of Fenris into the labyrinth, to prevent their bodies and souls being used as fuel for Chaos sorcery. The Fang itself was heavily protected with armor, shields and defense batteries so it could take care of itself quite well. The defense lasers targeted the shielded Silver Towers with battleship strength beams, even managing to core one of them with the aid of their defense fleet and orbital forts.

But the worst was yet to come. The moon of Fenris called Valdrmani held an astropathic relay filled with psykers, and that was the main target of the invasion.

A Greater Demon emerged from a Warp Rift and batted aside the volley of lance batteries and the hail of Nova shells with contempt, before crushing his way inside the astropath station.

I managed to grab most astropaths but not all of them. At least a dozen were left behind as a psychic howl transformed into a Warp shield around the base, preventing the tesseract from interacting with that region of space.

Damn it! Why couldn't the invaders be Orks! Orks were so much simpler.

I say that, but high level Orks were just as dangerous, once they began creating Battle Moons and Warp highways. And I suspected their Waagh field held even more potent weapons from the Old Ones arsenal.

"We are not attacking?" Amberley asked in a soft voice, watching the invasion unfold with trepidation.

"There is more to come, Inquisitor. If a Greater Demon can emerge, other guests should be able to enter the Materium, soon." I muttered with my eyes closed, as I leaned into the command chair.

It didn't take long either, just as the Dark Angels and their fleet began firing at the Silver Towers and some of their Battle-Brothers descended on Valdrmani to engage that Bloodthirster demon, a hundred more Warp Rifts opened in the system.

An entire Chaos armada poured through, from trillions of demons and billions of armed cultists, mutants, xenos of a dozen races, traitor marines and heretek techpriests, corrupted Titans and Knights and worse.

Fallen Primarch Lorgar himself, on board a Glorianna battleship, with his Word Bearers and a cohort of traitor warbands and Chaos Lords, millions of Daemon engines and even a handful of Daemon Princes. Heading directly for me and ignoring the juicier targets in the system.

The Dark Angel's Rock and the Lion Primarch were engaged by another Chaos fleet, led by Primarch Angron and his World Eaters, plus another giant wave of demons and assorted followers.

And lastly, Magnus the Red leading his Thousands Sons, escorted by Ahriman and his Rubicae and Scarab marines descended upon Fenris with furious Warp spells and a Blackstone Fortress of their own.

"Now this is a target-rich environment indeed." I whispered in amazement. It was also quite a bit more than I expected. An Emperor-damned Black Crusade, right on top of me and my sons.

"Focus, Lord Pef! These invaders must be what you were waiting for, right?" Inquisitor Vail demanded in a harsh voice, while the bridge crew snickered at my words.

"Quite so, my dear Inquisitor. Our reinforcements should arrive as well, but I'll hold the line until then." I explained in calm voice.

With a mental push, the Black Lament began charging its Immaterium beam, dialed at half-strength.

Meanwhile, the Singularity battleship sped down and away, preparing for a blackhole shot. Even with Jokaero adjustments, the energy drain on its systems will only allow a single shot before the capacitors needed to regenerate, so best make the most use of it.

"Go for a triple shot when you can, Larrisa." I whispered in my daughter's mind, while indicating the wanted targets.

"I'm not that lucky, dad! Settle for two and hope I don't miss." Larrisa grumbled back, and I slumped in defeat. Perhaps a triple shot was wishful thinking.

So, I marked the two Glorianna battleships as the main targets and unleashed my Tyranid army on Magnus and his Thousands Sons.

It wasn't like Fenris would emerge intact from this adventure anyway. Already volcanoes were erupting and the seas were boiling under the corrupted Primarch's assault on the Space Wolves' homeworld.

Two hundred cruiser-sized Tyranid bioships crashed on top of the Fenris attackers, and disgorged their billions of hungry biologic war engines, including nearly a thousand of Tyranid bio-titans. That should keep Magnus busy for some time, even with all his Alpha-plus psyker powers.

"Lancefire, I've come for your head!" a giant howl emerged from the grotesque form of Lorgar, as the idiot climbed on top of his warship to brandish a black sword at my battlestation.

I mean, he was safe inside the dimensional shield of his battleship, so why come out? Was he urging his Navigators to drive closer, so he could hit me with his sword? Very likely.

Then again, logical reasoning was a rare quality among the denizens of this dark future, Imperial or Chaotic alike.

I clenched my left fist, and the cretin joined the labyrinth prison beside his brothers, Mortarion and Perturabo.

A second later, a pinprick of concentrated gravity fired from the Voidclaw on board the Singularity, crushing Lorgar's battleship, his fleet and surrounding demons, and all of his corrupted marines into space dust, before continuing onwards and doing the same to Angron's fleet and followers.

Amazingly though, half of the second Glorianna remained mostly intact, possibly because the Voidclaw had expended most energy by breaching the dimensional field around Lorgar's battleship.

Didn't matter all that much though, since half a ship would not protect the insane Primarch from my reach. Angron vanished into the tesseract as well, appearing into a straight-jacket made of phase-iron and Tyranid chitin.

'Clever play, Lamenter. I see you are just as tricky as Ahriman has told me.' Magnus the Red spoke directly into my mind, despite me holding the Empathic Null Staff in my left hand.

I would have become a vegetable without it, most likely. Damn psykers and their cheat codes!

In response, I fired the Black Lament's beam at the other Blackstone Fortress, the black Immaterium beam snuffing out all the souls in its path, demons and cultists alike, and reducing the valued artifact to a flying coffin filled with dead corpses.

Sadly, it was still surrounded by a Dark Mechanicus dimensional field, but now nobody could enter the Will of Eternity anymore. Without a living crew to lower the shield, not even Magnus could make use of the Fortress.

And right after this, the cavalry arrived.

First, an Eldar fleet led by an Avatar of Khaine, keeping a safe distance from human ships and forts while blasting away at demons and Chaos traitors from thousands of energy guns and bright lances. Advanced torpedoes and missiles, spacefighters and bombers unleashed fury on the Chaos forces, and the Avatar himself powering a giant beam to strike the at Silver Towers.

Then, the rest of the Space Wolves fleet arrived, led by their Great Wolf himself, Logan Grimnar and escorted by a Grey Knights cruiser. I wasn't expecting much from them anyway, but any help was welcome right now.

And lastly, Janice and her Adepta Sororitas arrived with a legion of Sisters of Battle, plus her Silent Sisters, a fleet of Mechanicus warships and a dozen Rogue Traders allied to my House.

Now the balance of power was restored, and I felt confident to begin the next phase.