After the discussion with Governor Hax, Archmagos Ferrum-Rho left for his ship.
Governor Hax on the other hand has a ticked off expression on his face. He knows that what the Archmagos took is valuable, but for now he cannot do anything.
There is also High King Mortian, looking for a chance to regain his seat as ruler of the planet. The trip to the forge world was short, Ferrum-Rho wanted to get everything set up in a very quickly so he could begin his research.
"[Directive]: Begin transporting the sacred template to theta prime, this unit will establish it my self."
"[Response]: Understood Archmagos"
"[Directive]: Inform the High King that we would keep the machines for some time before they will return to him."
The forge world of Mora-Tau did not sleep. It took Ferrum-Rho just under 2 days to finish setting up the sacred template back to its previous functionality.
Months later, with the fervor of a sacred template, Magos biologis Theron went there frequently to use it for her research. Meanwhile Ferrum-Rho continued to upgrade his skitarri, finally raising the number towards a more comfortable 50 thousand.
Mora-Tau has begun to change, becoming more like a typical forge world.
Its skies were a permanent bruise of industry ashen clouds lit from beneath by the glow of plasma furnaces and macro-forges. Continental manufactorums stretched like iron continents, their cathedral-spires vomiting fire into the heavens.
Rail-lines of molten metal cut across the land like veins. Every second, something was being built. Or unbuilt.
At the center of it all stood Archmagos Ferrum-Rho. Streams of binharic code scrolled across his internal vision as he oversaw everything, every conveyor line, every reactor pulse, every Skitarii heartbeat.
Not standard Skitarii. Not anymore.
Ferrum-Rho had refined them. Enhanced cognition lattices. Reinforced skeletal augmetics. Adaptive targeting arrays that recalculated firing solutions mid-trigger pull. They were not soldiers.
And they were about to be tested.
The first warning did not come as an alarm. It came as absence, a relay station in high orbit ceased transmission, no distress signal, no system failure report, just… silence.
Ferrum-Rho noticed immediately. His defense and warning network had been upgraded since he brought the sacred template back. He had been expecting governor Hax or another Archmagos coming to make deals with him for it.
What he discovered though he did not predict.
He ran predictive diagnostics across the network. Probability trees branched and collapsed in nanoseconds. Meteor strike: 0.002%. Reactor failure: 0.0008%. Hostile intervention: 89.3%.
His mechadendrites flexed.
"Alert condition sigma-venator," he intoned in binharic.
Across the forge world, systems shifted. Void shields thickened. Skitarii cohorts halted their labor routines and began redeploying. Titan reactor cores flickered into partial wakefulness.
Then the sky screamed. They came from nowhere.
Sleek shapes tore through the upper atmosphere, black, barbed, and impossibly fast. Drukhari raiding craft. Raiders, Ravagers, and needle-like fighters that danced between auspex pings.
They descended like predators.
Dark lances opened fire before the alarms could finish sounding. Coherent beams of void-born malice sliced through orbital defense platforms, gutting them in seconds. One station detonated, scattering debris across low orbit like shrapnel.
Seeing this, Ferrum-Rho adjusted his vectors.
"[Tactical update]: Vector reallocation. Prioritize atmospheric denial."
Macro-defense batteries rotated skyward. Hundreds of them. Their machine spirits roared as they opened fire, filling the heavens with flak bursts and tracer fire.
A Ravager exploded mid-dive, its hull tearing apart under sustained fire. But for every one destroyed, three slipped through.
They struck the manufactorum belts first, not the command centers, not the Titan bays. The struck not at the defences but at what could keep the Forge world functional.
This is a calculated strike, one with a lot of precision.
Ferrum-Rho recalculated.
"[Analysis]:They are not here for annihilation," he transmitted
"[Conclusion]:They are here for extraction."
He was not sure. One thing came to mind Farseer. But what could they be doing, he and the other fragments have not gotten to the point where they can affect things yet.
On the surface, the Skitarii responded. Under the lead of Magos Dominus Xerath-17, he had been given the title by Archmagos Ferrum-Rho, when they arrived back on the forge world.
Today will be the first time he will displace his worth
"[Command]: Cohort Sigma-9 deploy"
And they did, in perfect synchronization, forming firing lines across a ferrocrete plain as raiders skimmed overhead. Galvanic rifles cracked in disciplined volleys, their shots adjusted in real time by shared targeting data.
One Raider dipped too low, it was shredded, but the Drukhari adapted instantly.
They never stayed still, their ability to move at such a high pace and maintain combat efficiency was something to be desired in the skitarii.
Jetbikes screamed between structures, firing splinter rounds that punched through armor seams with surgical cruelty. Skitarii fell, not in panic, but in silence, their deaths registered as data points.
Magos Dominus Xerath-17 processed each loss, relaying the data back to Ferrum-Rho for adjustments. You might think that would take too long, it did not. Data exchanges between the 2 occurred in split second and decisions were made.
They adjusted, optimized.
"[Directive]:Deploy Knight Lance Arcturus," he ordered. High King Mortian was still in the campaign to subjugate the system, and was not present for this campaign.
From a distant hangar, ten Knight engines strode into war.
Towering war machines of adamantine and fury, their ion shields shimmered as they advanced through the industrial haze. Thermal cannons ignited, hurling blasts of sun-hot energy into the sky.
A Drukhari gunship vanished in a blossom of fire. Another veered away only to be caught by a rapid-fire battle cannon that tore it apart mid-flight.
For a moment, the advance stabilized, then a webway gate split open right in the battle field.
It appeared like a wound in reality, and from it poured the true forces of the Drukhari.
Talos engines, twisted constructs of flesh and metal, descended alongside waves of Kabalite warriors. Their laughter carried across the vox sharp and inhuman.
At their center rode a figure cloaked in living shadow. The Archon, the architect of this madness.
Priority target located.
The Drukhari changed tactics, they no longer skirmishing. Now they struck with true intent.
Talos engines crashed into Skitarii lines, their macro-scalpels carving through augmented bodies with horrifying ease. Splinter fire intensified, targeting command nodes and data relays.
They were isolating the network. Clever. But insufficient.
Ferrum-Rho responded with escalation.
"[Directive]: Magos Dominus Xerath-17, awaken Legio elements."
"[Response]: Acknowledged. Transmitting activation verification sequence"
Deep beneath the forge world, something vast stirred.
Warhound Titans rose first lean, predatory machines built for speed. 60 of them, their reactors flared to life as they began advancing toward the conflict zones.
Behind them, the heavier engines began to stir.
REAVERS. WARLORDS.
And in the deepest vaults…
WARMASTERS.
The first Warhound entered the battlefield like a god. Its turbo-laser destructor fired once, a Talos engine ceased to exist. This caused the balance shift, but Drukhari did not retreat.
They changed their tactic again.
Void mines deployed mid-air, detonating in blinding bursts that disrupted Titan targeting systems. Jetbike squads swarmed Warhound legs, planting haywire charges that crippled actuators.
One Warhound fell, its death scream shook the ground.
Ferrum-Rho felt it, his connection to that machine was severed.
[Calculated the loss]....
[Adjusting]...
He moved himself, it was time for him to get into this battle.
His personal form descended into the warzone, surrounded by a retinue of heavily augmented Skitarii. In his grasp was a weapon older than the Imperium itself.
A relic of the Dark Age of Technology, at least what he said to others, but this is a weapon he made himself using designs seen in the Caspian's vault.
Its form was elegant, almost simple, it hummed with contained annihilation.
The Drukhari had come for something.
Now Ferrum-Rho would show them the cost.