Seraphs of the Emperor’s Judgment

Chapter 175: Scheming

Lothar was in an excellent mood today, though he didn't show it.

His silver, augmetic optics rolled like storm clouds, reflecting the flashes and echoes displayed on the Starfire's colossal, ocular main screen.

On the display, the grey-brown landmass of the asteroid was tearing itself apart in the void.

The fragments still maintained a roughly spherical grouping, but they were slowly dispersing.

Mountain-sized chunks of crust collided and shattered against one another; even larger fragments were already beginning to feel the agonizing gravitational pull of the system's star.

The fortresses and strongholds that had once been built upon its surface were now scattered, reduced to nothing more than microscopic, transient components of a vast dust cloud.

That was exactly what Lothar had anticipated.

He watched leisurely as it disintegrated, knowing that over the next few hours, the world's gravitational binding would entirely fail.

The tactical displays continued to flicker incessantly as swarms of fighters hunted down the surviving enemy aircraft. But against the backdrop of this planetary destruction, every insignificant explosion seemed utterly trivial.

Petty acts, nothing more.Simultaneous with the asteroid's destruction, bizarre radiological effects flared and faded within the expanding dust nebula.

Swirling vortexes of plasma and pulsing coronas of lightning painted a dazzling veneer over the portrait of annihilation.

Driven by a morbid curiosity, Lothar had ordered the ship's vox-officers to open all receiving frequencies. The dying screams and wails of the planet echoed through the bridge's augmitters, sounding like steel claws raking across the massive ocular screen.

Down in the forward crew pits below him, the bridge crew hunched over their stations, working in grim, teeth-gritting silence.

"These greenskins."

He remarked, a faint mechanical lisp coloring his words.

"They truly died a fitting death."

As he said, what they had just destroyed was a greenskin asteroid fortress. It was an outpost situated near the edge of the system, and the final greenskin stronghold in the Vorenus System.

It was the prelude to a monumental campaign.

Ten hours ago, a joint boarding action launched by three Chapters had completely conquered this asteroid. But the objective had not been to exterminate the xenos infesting it.

The Astartes had specifically deployed to seize the greenskins' long-range communication arrays, intending to relocate and deploy them upon a different asteroid world.

The two asteroids were not far apart, but their intended functions were worlds apart.

The former was a defensive line.

The latter was a trap.

The entire chain of outposts constructed by the greenskins across several surrounding light-years had already been conquered by human forces, meticulously disguised to appear as if they were still under Ork control.

Only this specific location had been left conspicuously empty.

As for the intent behind this strategy, few beside the three Chapter Masters knew the truth.

"Hm?"

Suddenly, Lothar raised a trembling finger, pointing at a tumbling, ice-coated fragment that still vaguely resembled a recognizable structure.

It was glaringly obvious that it had once been the only location of true significance on that savage world.

Following his gesture, the targeting cogitators instantly superimposed a hovering green reticle precisely where Lothar pointed, isolating the massive fragment and dragging it onto a sub-display.

The augur arrays zoomed in on the object. Lothar could almost make out the structures still haphazardly dotting the ruined landscape—it was the final remnant of the greenskin asteroid stronghold.

"Gunnery."

"Yes, Captain."

"Everything within one million cubic meters is to be reduced to gravel."

He added, issuing his final directive.

"That fragment must be ten times larger than that."

"Confirmed, Captain. Targeting now."

"Coordinate firing solutions with our allies in the expeditionary fleet."

"Yes, Captain."

Several minutes later, Lothar watched with a sense of profound satisfaction—one that transcended mere professional duty—as the intersecting tracer fire of macrocannon batteries slowly pulverized the stubborn remnants of the fortress into dust.

If it had been intact, its mass would have been nearly a thousand times that of the Starfire. But now, it was nothing more than a fragile eggshell. Its structural integrity had been compromised beyond all natural tolerance by the energies unleashed within the asteroid's mantle and core.

The massive rock quickly shattered into pieces. The sub-display filled with a blizzard of siliceous crust fragments and hazard markers.

"Hah!"

Lothar brought his hands together in a dull, metallic clap. The sudden noise startled the voidsmen in the crew pits below the command dais, causing them to look up in surprise at the figure leaning against the railing.

An unexpected outburst of joy was hardly in keeping with his renowned demeanor.

As the Master of the Fleet for the Astral Knights, the impression Lothar had always left upon everyone was one of unwavering stoicism—steadiness was practically his only defining trait.

But his mood was genuinely excellent.

Having commanded the fleet for so long, he deeply yearned to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with his brothers, yet he also understood the crushing weight of his responsibilities.

Being able to annihilate the great enemy of mankind so thoroughly and satisfyingly made him feel truly gratified in his abilities for the first time.

Ultimately, the Chapter's future required them to seek out ever-more distant horizons in the endless void.

With a magnetic clank, the locking mechanisms of the bridge's main bulkhead disengaged behind him.

Lothar turned. The massive blast doors were still sliding into their recesses as Soshyan and Sol strode through, their heavy footfalls ringing against the grooved decking of the incline.

The warriors accompanying the Chapter Master bore a diverse array of pistols and blades.

Soshyan and Sol walked past the crew without sparing them a single glance, as if they were merely another piece of bridge equipment. Only when they passed Lothar did they offer a slight nod of acknowledgment.

The other Astartes clattered behind their leaders.

"It's only a small patrol flotilla; it might not be enough to entangle them. If the greenskins don't take the bait, we might need a contingency plan."

Soshyan stopped upon the command dais, his gaze fixed on the shattered asteroid.

His position was the command sanctum situated on the right side of the bridge's mezzanine. Its reinforced hatches weren't nearly as thick as the main bridge doors, yet they were still as thick as the sloped glacis of a Predator tank—sturdy enough to withstand a multi-melta blast and remain operational.

The bridge crew did not look up as the Astartes stomped down the corridor.

Aside from deep respect, there was another reason.

Transhuman dread.

It was the primal awe and terror experienced by the unaugmented human mind when confronted with a being altered into something indescribable. Long ago, the Apothecaries had expended immense effort to analyze it, and the Chapter's command echelon had expended just as much extreme effort to excise this reaction from their senior mortal officers.

Only the Tech-Priest Loken looked up at Soshyan.

The Chapter Master was a towering giant. Clad in his master-crafted, artificer armor, his mere presence reduced most mortals to looking like toddlers.

At this moment, his face was pale, his eyes distant and calculating, as if he were pondering a particularly thorny conundrum.

Sol stood beside him, clad merely in standard power armor beneath a white tabard. According to the traditions of the Astral Knights, only Veterans earn the right to wear a tabard, upon which they would embroider the sigils of powerful foes they had slain.

Upon the hem of Sol's tabard, eleven Ork skulls had already been meticulously embroidered in red thread.

"Their only objective is to draw the enemy's attention. We cannot expect much more."

Sol rested a hand on the railing, voicing his own thoughts.

"It is merely a piece of fruit placed inside a snare, waiting for an impatient prey to reach in. Once they grasp the fruit tightly, they will not be able to pull their hand free."

"The enemy's fleet is massive."

"But we aren't planning to fight their entire fleet."