As the Laeran underwater cities boiled down in the depths, above the waves war raged its bloody dance. 

The Laer had been slightly caught off guard by the sheer number of Night Watch insurgent strikes and operations but that had been the nature of the war on Laeran almost since the start. They had been in the process of responding to it when the [i]real[/i] surprise of the Night Watch launching a full scale assault on a number of their cities and positions hit them. 

Had this been any lesser foe that would have been the end of the purging of Laeran with it just being a question of time. However the reality was a much more brutal affair. Between the element of surprise, the groundwork laid by the squads sent up to perform sabotage efforts and the bravery of the Astartes and Imperial Army elements (both human and xenos) the Laer had lost a lot of ground and bodies before it had a chance to properly fortify and properly fight back. The underwater actions of the Lurkers and Lions aided in furthering the chaos and limiting the ability of the serpents to respond to any given threat even further. 

But recover, they did. 

Some places, such as the capital itself, had just been naturally more fortified and prepared to defend itself. The Night Watch that had assaulted the capital had been met with defenses and obstacles far beyond what they would have been expected to succeed against, with the rate of injuries and death being high. However, this had been accounted for; As much as Micholi had hated to commit any forces to what was almost certainly going to be a waste of life, the capital had to be put under siege in order to lock its forces down and prevent them from aiding other cities or positions. 

Other spots where the Imperial advance was going to be brought to a halt hadn’t been as clear from the onset. Some had simply been misfortune; With the amount of chaos that the insurgent squads had been raising it had meant that zones had been undermanned by the defenders and offered up easy victories, but it had also meant that with the moving of troops some areas had benefited from having a lot more defenders then it would have otherwise. 

However, there was one area that didn’t make any sense as Micholi was forwarded to the current status of the war from his seat in the back of a thunderhawk. By all accounts the site didn’t have any tactical value to the Laer, lacked any unique resources according to all information that had been gathered, nor was it near any of the other cities or sites of interest to warrant much in the way of defenses. Hell, it had been so low on the priority list that none of the Night Watch squads had been sent in to cause trouble for it. 

Which made the fact that when the assault there began Imperial forces found a defensive force on par with the capital itself all the more confusing and suspicious. Something had been missed and what Micholi hated the most was that he couldn’t respond to it right away personally. In the grander scheme of things, his personal presence was required to break one of the Laer strong points that would compromise half a dozen other Laer positions and make life for the average imperial on Laeran easier. 

However, the Night Watch wasn’t alone in this campaign. Micholi quickly sent a report back to his HQ with instructions to send the current information to the ships of reinforcing legions while marking key locations… and adding this relatively remote, strangely highly defended location that they had known suspiciously little about as a point of interest with a simple message connected to it from the Primarch himself.

‘The Laer have gone to great pains to hide the true value of this location from our efforts until this point. It is one of the most strongly defended points on the planet and we don’t know why. This concerns me greatly.’

What secrets this strange site held would not be discovered by Micholi himself through. Tightening the grip on Unity’s shaft as his transport started to dodge and weave to avoid anti-air fire and prepare for landing, he needed to focus on the battles ahead of him.

That focus was briefly disturbed by his Vox Operator (A Nerub officer) signaling to get his attention. “It’s the Stargazers.” the spider like xeno chittered softly. 


[hr]

High above the planet, three large fleets of ships, each vessel emblazoned with titanic structural emblems of the Cog Mechanicum, settled into stable orbit and began to disperse according to some predetermined strategy. Three Macroclade Fleets of the Twelfth Astartes Legion, the Stargazers, had finally made their way to the planet from the edges of the system. Their arrival was met by a cursory number of attacks by defensive installations on the planet that had not yet been taken offline or had remained dormant to evade initial detection, but those few strikes and munitions that lashed out at the fleets did little damage and were met with immediate and overwhelming retaliatory bombardment. Clearly, the Laer’s opposition meant little to the three fleets’ internalized organization, some amongst them even welcoming the exchange as a beginning to something far more wide-spanning. Few of them, gathered within the Macroclade’s grand warships, amidst huddled corridors and absent halls, whispered initiation of a plan long in the making. Their hushed and furtive tones were absent of the usual trappings and creeds of the faith of the Mechanicum - and would have aroused great suspicion had they been overheard - but they were not, and as the fleets move forward, so too did they with their own agenda.

Beyond that initial rain of destructive hailfire, the fleets did little else save to disgorge a small number of dropships and pods, though only in small numbers, not amounting to any true kind of offensive deployment - with the remnants of the Laeran fleet being chased off and eliminated elsewhere in the system and with no credible defensive emplacements left that could challenge them, the Mechanicum-styled and ordered fleets began to a final and uncontested grid of orbital control across the entire planet. If the Laer’s defensive campaign had not been there already, it was the beginning of the end for any hope of repulsing the invaders - and the only recourse afforded them in the moment was that the Stargazers’ fleets had not already begun to fire surgical strikes at their remaining bastions.

[hr]

With a respectful nod, Micholi accepted the Vox communicator and made it quick, since he was aware that the Stargazers took after the Mechanicum in liking to waste as little time as possible. “This is Micholi.”

“Most venerable child of the Omnissiah.” The return address was equal parts reverent and reproachful, as if the speaker was disappointed in Micholi’s lack of decorum. “This is Archmagos Dominus Grantov Rakir.” The Primarch, from his experience with the Stargazers as well as with the internal hierarchy of the Mechanicum, knew that meant the speaker was equivalent to a Lord Commander of a Legion Chapter. “Representing the three joint Macroclade Fleets in this task force of the Twelfth Legion. We have arrived in orbit and are presently establishing decisive theater control. Be advised that Malagra Dinwright is also present on this channel.” Malagra being a title afforded specifically to members of the Mechanicum’s Prefecture Magisterium.

“The Omnissiah’s might be with you, most holy Primarch.” A second voice, reverberating with obvious synthesized speech waves additional distorted over the vox-hail.

“We have arrived and are in position in accordance with your astropathic imperative, Primarch.” Rakir continued. “We await your command.”

Micholi listened and took the Vox away from his mouth to allow a sigh to escape him as his Thunderhawk touched down on the ground with a shudder and thud. “Forgive my lack of decorum. My thunderhawk has just touched down and I am moments away from engaging the foe directly so time is a factor on my end. I will offer proper thanks for your aid when I may. Have you received the current intel my command staff at my headquarters on the planet can provide?”

“That we have, my Primarch.” Dinwright’s synthetic voice voxxed back. “We have been told there are a number of warp-touched and malign xenos artifacts in the hold of the second legion which require immediate containment. With your blessing, my agents shall immediately make planetfall to have the foul instruments returned to the fleets and consigned to the most secure of our Black Vaults, for secure return transport to the Dawnbreaker.”

“Understood, my staff on both my flagship and on the ground have been instructed to cooperate with you in this regard. All three confirmed tainted weapons are secured on my flag ship in orbit. A pointless warning, but I advise caution while transporting them. Whatever triggers their ability to possess the carrier is unknown. It didn’t attempt it right away with myself or the other two ‘gifted’ them, but when a menial picked one up by chance it happened instantly.” 

“Rest assured we have protocols for dealing with foul artifacts such as these, Primarch.” Rakir intoned. “They shall neither trouble nor curse another soul for the rest of time.”

“Another matter, before you must make landfall and head into battle, most venerable Primarch.” Dinwright interjected. “Given the finding of these most intolerably heinous implements here, and in light of your most noble efforts to secure as much of the xenos medical technology as is feasible, I would like to suggest my Magisterium agents immediately set out to commandeer your Techmarines’ evaluation operations in order to safely sanctify as much of the technology as is possible. As agents of the Mechanicum, they will also be able to bestow final rites of propriety, casting aside any need for further review by the Prefecture of Mars itself. This should allow our operations to proceed expeditiously and to conclude the crusade upon this planet as quickly as possible.”

“Understood. After the discovery of the blades we’ve had our librarians inspect every piece of Laer technology we’ve collected to test if it shares the same strange corruption. So far we’ve uncovered nothing, but while I trust my librarians I wouldn’t fault you for double checking. We also have working examples of their anti grav technology that they use in producing their floating cities… as well as several captives of Laer origin who are classified as engineers and medical personnel. We are more than happy to hand them over as well for questioning. I intend for them to be the last Laer alive.” 

“Blessed be your attentiveness and care, Primarch.” Dinwright intoned. “I shall contemplate the ninth and fifteenth universal laws as my agents proceed with their work. The alien mechanism is a perversion of the true path, but ritual honors the Machine Spirit.” With a signal chime, the Malagra dropped out of the vox-cast.

“In the meantime, Primarch, our Macroclades are entering their final orbital coordinates.” Rakir carried on. “I shall have our tactical stations link up with your planetary headquarters so that we may establish Overwatch. Are there any immediate priority targets of your designation which require either elimination or containment?”

Micholi paused for a moment at the question. It was a good one. “We have several enemy strong points that would benefit from orbital bombardment. Please double check with my HQ for intel on areas of importance for Statis bombardment, for while I’ve gotten updates fresh data of the situation is better. However, I believe there is one site I have marked as an abnormality. All the data we’ve collected from prisoners and machinery have been false about that area and I am concerned that something highly valuable to the Laer is located there. I would investigate it myself but my duty is to the greater needs of the campaign.” 

“Shall we deploy a drop-assault group to the site, or do you merely wish it contained, Primarch?” Came the reply.

A pause for thought, before a simple answer. “Contain it. Stasis bomb it. If it is the site of some last ditch weapon to defeat us, I don’t want them to be able to activate it until we’re ready to deal with it.”

“Acknowledged. By your orders, Primarch. May the Omnissiah’s spirit be with you.” With an additional signal chime, Rakir also dropped from the vox-cast.

Returning the Vox Com to his operator, Micholi took a deep breath as he pushed himself to his feet, weapon in hand as the door of his thunderhawk opened and combat joined. 

[hr]

Scant moments later, the Stargazer ships began to beam with scintillating, flickering beads of light as they began to bombard the designated Laeran installations. Lance-fire from ships, like pillars of volcanic fury, shot down from the vessels and pierced through the atmosphere of the planet to explosively smite a number of Laeran installations and facilities. A few had prominent shielding that would protect them from the merciless hail of energy fire for some time - but not forever. Not as ray after ray of wrathful power scythed down from above to impact them time and time again.

In other areas, rather than the brilliant incandescence of lance-battery fire, a number of areas were struck by deceptively small shell munitions - and with a faint trembling of the air and a booming shriek to precede their manifestation, a series of massive stasis domes would erupt from the points of impact to completely engulf the surrounding areas in shimmering, hazy fields of energy wherein time itself slow to a standstill, munitions and maneuvering xenos soldiers freezing in place wherever they were - all attempts to enter the stilled areas met with futility, and lost limbs at the boundaries of the bombardment zones.

Within the Macroclade fleets themselves, the round of Stasis bombardment had not gone unnoticed by the infiltrators. It was an unwelcome development - there was little even they could do to subvert a stabilized stasis field. But their mission was absolute, and would come to pass, even at the expense of their lives if necessary. Quickly improvising a plan, the small group discretely devised a course of action.

[hr]

The site chosen for the inspection, perched atop an outlying hovering island, would have betrayed the nature of the planet’s inhabitants to even the most inattentive of observers. The very shape of the building was difficult to describe. More than anything, it resembled a prismatic dome, formed of innumerable facets, like the eye of a gargantuan insect, and surrounded by short, wickedly tapering spires. The tassels composing the outlandish structure were themselves an enigma of form, ranging from smoothly triangular to sharply rhomboidal through spectra of variations so subtle that even augmented eyes could not clearly place the boundaries between the two extremes. The colours, on the other hand, had no such subtleties, and the glassy ceramic surface was crisscrossed with clashing variations of unabashedly garish violet, bright poisonous green, dazzling pink, flaring from the brightly resplendent glassy ceramic surface. Even the ear was not spared from that spectacle of ostentation, for as the breeze wound among the tips of the edifice, it bled a ghost of a sibilant melody, drawn from painstakingly measured concavities and angles.

While the whole could scarcely be expected to be anything but dizzying to the senses, there was an oddly mesmerizing quality to the building’s design, an exotic harmony of shape that so often marked the Laer’s constructs. If anything, it inexplicably seemed more subdued in its eruption of lavishness than most others of its kind, and at the same time more fraught with dark promises of triumphs yet to come - a place where lives unthinkable for the human mind were woven and nurtured like so many breathing works of art. For that was the way of Laeran.

The arrival of the agents of the Prefecture Magisterium was a circumstance of contrasts. Their entourage consisted of a full four Skitarii Maniples and nearly half as many servitors, as well as a full Squad of Twelfth Legion Astartes, but the core party representing the Prefecture Magisterium itself numbered less than a dozen individuals. Every aspect of their arrival was given ceremonial pomp and lavish courtesy - the Skitarii forming themselves into a parade-ground columns before the dropship they arrived in, to fall in synchronous devout prayer as the Malagras passed them by, but the agents themselves proceeded in a perfunctory fashion, proceeding in silence and their servants immediately scattering to the wind to assume more strict battlefield doctrine the moment they were out of eyeshot. The Malagra - who numbered four in total - were accompanied by one of every order of Tech Priest, as well as a personal Astropath and an actual civilian member of the Administratum. Their dress and decorum seemed almost purely ceremonial, but the weapons they brandished freely and the manner in which they wielded them indicated they were no strangers to live combat conditions.

The Malagra themselves were nearly indistinguishable from any other Tech Priest, at least to the outside observer. They were clearly Magos who had crossed the threshold of the crux Mechanicus, each more machine than man now, and wore the traditional Martian-red robes and hoods bearing the iconography of the Cog Mechanicum. Seemingly the only thing visibly designating their office were the banners held high about them by their servitors, boldly emblazoned with the gold and black icon of the Prefecture Magisterium.

Off to the side, a group of Astartes clad in deep-blue armour stood watching the proceedings with expressionless crystalline eyes. Having committed what were, in Terech Ormis’ words, their foremost experts on xenotech extradition to the operation, the Abyssal Lurkers were not remiss to maintain a presence at the most crucial steps in the integration of the Laer’s salvage. Though the distance they kept from the site indicated their deference to the Prefecture’s authority in the matter, the asymmetrical servo-claws of the Fleshweavers leading the party clicked and snapped hungrily, and their diagnostor arrays periodically rotated as if squinting to better appraise the examined goods. The marines in their escort seemed almost immobile in comparison, but slight turns of their helmeted heads betrayed their interest in the proceedings.

With the ongoing conflict, few members of the Night Watch legion had been free in order to take part in the proceedings. By virtue of losing his right arm and a suitable replacement requiring some time to organize, Tech Marine Peeter had been selected to be the Night Watch’s representative for the overview and inspection of captured Laer technology. Despite the fact that his armor hid his features from those around him, the perspective Astartes present might have noticed Peeter’s seeming refusal to gaze at the Laer’s inhuman, exotic architecture for long. 

While Peeter had been the only Astartes that could attend, he was not alone; While normally one would have expected to see members of the Imperial Army patrolling and securing the site, the First Division of the Night Watch had many allies within the Mechanicum who tended to bring along their Skitarii forces to aid the legion in its endeavors… and considering the nature of what was going to take place it was the logical conclusion. 

Alongside the Skitarii was a single Questoris Knight Paladin, the [i]Punishment of Tyrants[/i]. The reason for its presence was easy to see: While its primary weapons and the upper parts of the Paladin were clearly operational, the suits Sacristans and support crew were hard at work repairing some fairly serious looking damage that had been done to the legs, alongside missing portions of its carapace where additional weapons would normally have been. Still performing their duty by standing guard, but clearly not in good enough condition to risk being involved in full scale warfare at this time.

The leader of the Skitari who travelled alongside the Night Watch was an old friend of Peeter’s. The Electro Priest Octavian-c54 had fought alongside the legion for decades and his dedication to the Motive Force had pulled squads through some dire times when the chances to safely recharge power for their armor and equipment behind enemy lines would have otherwise been low.

The first item on the agenda showed signs of the same inhuman, logic defying nature of all Laer creations, but its ‘beauty’ and ‘perfection’ had clearly been ruined by the damage it had undertaken, clearly torn apart by explosive force and further scarred by a long soak in Laeran’s ocean waters. “We dragged this up from one of their floating cities that a squad sabotaged to fall out of the sky. We have a few working models as well, but since they are currently operating to keep areas we’ve captured afloat we thought it a good idea to start by tearing apart a broken one. One such working model is currently keeping this island we’re using up so we can examine it at your command.” 

“You have recently taken injury in battle, Astartes.” Malagra Carphanos clicked, a seething layer of sparks underlining his tone. He seemed to be ignoring the xenos technology even as his compatriots and their entourage began to surround and inspect it. 

A respectful nod at the statement for it was the truth. “I have. While under other circumstances General Nelinho would have been here to greet you personally Malagra, the continued battle for Laeran has required his personal attention, much like it has claimed the Primarch’s. While I confess to not knowing Primarch Micholi personally, I know for a fact that the General would be deeply distressed if his absence from the battlefield resulted in unacceptable Imperial losses.”

“The flesh is fallible, but ritual honors the Machine Spirit.” Carphanos clicked in reply. “And it is the Machine Spirit that guards the knowledge of the Ancients. Approach of the Crux Mechanicum with Reverence, Adept. We shall cure you of your weakness. This day, be as one with the Soul in the Machine.” The Tech Priest bowed in reverence and, likely prompted by some invisible signal, a number of servitors and servo skulls began to approach and flock around Peeter, and the Rune and Electropriests turned from their observations ahead and also began to approach. The Corpuscarii began chanting litanies in High Gothic, while the Rune Priests’ servo arms began to swing ceremonial censer incense through the air. 

To an outsider, it would have appeared almost as if the priests and a small horde of their machine servants were descending upon Peeter in order to cannibalize him for parts - though in fact it was the reverse that was true. It seemed they intended to install a bionic prosthesis for him on the spot. 

For any other Astartes, the swarm of servitors and tech priests likely would have been met with a degree of confusion and uncertainty… but Peeter was an adept of the Cult Mechanicus, even if his status as a Tech Marine made his exact position in the hierarchy somewhat unclear. Instead of confusion, he instead knelt down out of reverence as he allowed his distant brothers of the Motive Force perform their rituals and repairs upon his flesh… as well as allowing them slightly better access to the area that they were intending to replace.

For a time, Peeter was completely obscured by the bustle of servitors, floating skulls, and flailing mechadendrites and servo-arms swarming around his person - the only evident sounds being the whirring and whine of high-powered motors, the high-keening pitch of some surgical laz-implement, the sonorous, wailing crescendo of the Corpuscarii as they made ceremonial gesticulations as they raised their empty eye-sockets upwards and chanted.

And then, like waves parting from an island’s shores, the crowd of metal receded from Peeter, save the Rune Priest, who was anointing Peeter with sanctified oils.

“The blessing of the Omnissiah be with you.” The gathered Tech Priests all intoned as one as the Rune Priest finished their evocation of the Marine’s new bionic prosthetic. 

Peeter kept his head bowed until the last of the prayers and blessings had been given. Only once the final blessing had been granted did he raise to his feet and inspect his new prosthetic with a mixture of awe and admiration. “May this limb serve me as I serve the motive force and the goals of humanity.” He answered back softly, before turning his attention back to Carphanos. “Thank you. Now shall we inspect the foulness of Laer creation and see what information might be salvaged for the good of the Imperium?”

“If the needs of all the faithful servants of the Omnissiah have been attended to.” Carphanos clicked back - turning even as he spoke back to the assembled row of Laer anti-grav devices. “These devices seem to operate on fundamentals already familiar to the Imperium. I foresee no grievous complications in our evaluations…”

The examination process the Malagra subjected each device to was thorough, but expeditious. They recorded the official intended use of the device, activated it for an immediate field test, subjected it to an active integral examination while it operated, dismantled it entirely and then reassembled it on the spot, constructed a duplicate using their own materials, and reran the same battery of tests on both.

The devices which proved both functional and aligned with their intended purpose were ceremoniously bashed with the end of a Fulgurite’s Stave and inscribed with an emblem of the Cog Mechanicum by the attending Rune Priest, punctuated by a canticle recited by the Corpuscarii - and the party would then proceed to the next device.

A small hiccup occurred soon into the process, with but the third device, halfway through the first inspection.

“This device cannot plausibly serve the described intended purpose.” Malagra Carphanos declared. With a shared undulation of hisses and scathing chants, the Fulgurite ceremonially staved a dent into the machine’s edifice, which the Rune Priest then pierced with a golden data-spike while anointing the machine in liquid prometheum before a servitor armed with a flamer set the entire thing ablaze - and then the device, still on fire, was cast into a stasis barrier, dragged to the edge of the floating island, and thrown off the edge into the abyss of the sky below.

“This device and all like it are ordained: HERETECH.” Carphanos decreed solemnly.

The entire elaborate process of condemnation and disposal had transpired because of a cogitator-miscorrected typo in the written intended purpose for the device during recitation. 

Peeter had not been the tech marine that had done the original examination of the captured Laeran devices. As he stood and watched the process, he frowned slightly under his helmet but didn’t raise any objections to the condemnation or disposal of the device; After all, a major reason for the rites and examinations [i]were[/i] to catch things that had been missed in the original examination and prevent dangerous and harmful technologies from slipping into the Imperium. 

“A shame a brother miscalculated, but via the Omnissiah’s will the mistake was caught before it could cause any harm.” Was all he muttered after the piece of Heretech was cast aside.

“The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.” Carphanos agreed. “The alien mechanism is a perversion of the true path, but ritual honors the Machine Spirit. I will suggest a momentary spiritual retreat to my colleagues, I suggest you and yours take the allotted time to review the assembled documentation for these devices to ensure there is true comprehension of them and their purpose prior to examination. Understanding is the true path to comprehension, and comprehension is the key to all things.” Which was more or less the Malagra’s way of telling Peeter to have all the documentation for the remaining devices double-checked to ensure this exact scene did not happen twice.

A respectful nod of his head was joined by a stern verbal answer “Of course. While one mistake could be understandable due to the nature of the human mind trying to make sense of that of the works of the truly inhuman, a second would require more serious investigation. I will examine the documentation post haste with this new knowledge to see if the flaw goes further.” 

Dutifully parting ways with the Malagra in order to pull back to a position upon which to further inspect the documentation to ensure that it was free of errors, Peeter quickly found Octavian moving to his side to join him. Octavian didn’t say anything for there was nothing to say; An error had been made, a piece of technology that had wrongfully been deemed ‘safe’ had been rightfully condemned and now it was time to make sure that this had simply been a glitch and not a dire warning of neglect of duty. 

Octavian’s presence was still supportive and Peeter took some manner of comfort in that as he started to review the work of one of his brothers to judge his sense of judgement. Errors were uncovered in the review, but the cause was not entirely human in nature; Several other miscommunications and typos of the exact same nature as the one that had condemned the earlier piece as Heretech were present in seemingly random locations, suggesting that the cogitator in question required maintenance.    

The fact that one of his brothers had [b]failed[/b] to notice that the Cogitator in question was not undergoing the correct rites of maintenance in the first place was frustrating and words would be had later, but in the meantime Peeter focused his efforts on undoing the errors so that they could present the true facts of the matter. 

However, as Peeter’s efforts drove deeper he started to notice a...pattern to the error. While originally appearing randomly, in harsher review the change seemed to manifest in areas related to certain parts of the Laer’s version of a cooling system that had been translated via human science and reason. His frustration given away to a strange curiosity and concern, Peeter found himself going over to one of the few portable cogitators they had managed to bring to the testing site in order to run the numbers again. 

Once again, the typos and errors started to appear whenever the numbers behind the cooling system were calculated. Considering that this wasn’t the same cogitator that had done the original calculations, this required further investigation… and the sad truth of the matter was that he didn’t quite understand why this error was happening.

Doctrine had to be maintained through and those with the technical knowledge were currently in the midst of cleansing their spirits. For the sake of covering all bases Peeter performed a basic rite of evaluation on the cogitator to ensure that it was in good repair and found it to be working as the Omnissiah intended. 

However, the situation wasn’t as bleak as it seemed, problem aside. The issue seemed to originate and stay around the mathematics of the xenos cooling system; Other parts that were not connected could be examined while this issue was properly investigated. So with grim determination, he moved and took a position to make a partition of the Lexmachinc that the Prefecture had brought along services to uncover the source of this confusion once their spiritual retreat was complete. 

Of course, it seemed that during the course of the Prefecture’s ‘spiritual retreat,’ somebody had made them aware of the Laer prisoners and mechanics, who the priests were now all slavishly torturing in manners that would have made Drukhari blush. The interrogations tended to be perfunctory, as were most of the activities the agents of the Magisterium pursued, but every split instant of time during which they plied their questions to the xenos captives was filled with anguish delivered by torture amps, voltaic feeds, drill-tipped mechadendrites, and merciless data-spikes that cut through bone and brain alike. The tech priests seemed engrossed with their inquisition, and so when Peeter relented and had an inquiry sent directly to the Lexmechanic in question, he knew he had his answer before their reply was even relayed back when the participating Lexmechanic managing the data-spike feeds did not even turn from their work.

[i]’It is not the duty of the Prefecture Magisterium to abridge a gap within your handling of xenotech. Do what you must to ensure the remaining devices are ready for our examination by the time we are finished with our questioning. Any devices not sufficiently prepared for study due to inadequate documentation will be consigned on the spot.’[/i] 

A sigh was all that escaped Peeter as he accepted the answer he was given and left the Prefecture’s to their work. Some might have been disturbed by their methods of data extraction in relation to the living Laer captives that had been taken, but having been on Laer for months Peeter had no such objection to the traitorous Xenos filth getting what they deserved. 

Unable to get assistance to find the answers he required, he did the only thing he could under the circumstances. The cooling system needed to be torn out and replaced. “Octavian, I require your assistance.” Time was not on their side, but they had been in tougher spots then this and came out the other side. They could do it again.………………

In the end they did, but it wasn’t a clean job. Some minor systems of the anti-grav device were simply too entrenched with the cooling system and thus had to be sacrificed with it as it was torn out and cast aside like the cancer that it was, but the loss of such ‘innocent’ systems provided room for a human cooling system to replace the foul xenos one. It was a rush job and it wasn’t pretty by any means (even if in Peeter’s opinion the device looked more palatable to him now that there was some good, honest human tech involved) but it had been done professionally and skillfully nonetheless.

Hopefully it would be up to muster. 

Installation of the replacement system was another matter entirely, but the hope was the work could be done as the Prefecture agents performed their examinations one device at a time. The breakneck pace they performed their examinations at, even given that they ran their tests multiple times and duplicated each device from scratch, would be a challenge - but entirely within the realm of possibility.

When Malagra Carphanos and his entourage were finished with the last of the Xenos captives - reduced to little more than a number of vivisected and then subsequently dissected Genetor specimens in labeled jars - he returned to Peeter, mechadendrites still being cleaned off of xenos blood by a number of servo skulls with sanitation devices.

“We are ready and pleased to resume the most sacred work. Present us with the next of the xenos artifacts for us to examine.”

The following examinations were pleasingly uneventful. Nearly two dozen devices, including those with replaced cooling systems, were reviewed and sanctified without comment by the Malagras. If the agents of the Prefecture Magisterium found it off that many of the devices appeared to have been hurriedly jury-rigged with shoddy Human analogues, they made no comment of it - and in fact, much to Peeter’s relief, they even sanctified a number of the xenos devices with replacement coolant systems that simply had flat-out failed to work. The Malagras seemed more than willing to assess how each artifact should have worked had each component been fully functioning. The first device to finally be consigned by them had in fact not been due to any integral fault, but due to what appeared to be an improvised explosive that had been adhered, disguised as a power node attached to a capacitor. 

Peeter offered Octavian a profession nod of a job well done as their work, while done in haste, had met with satisfaction. To the Malagra he mentioned “Of course, future refinement of what insights Laer technology has for humanity improving its own will have to be made. Alas, we did not have the resources to do so here while actively fighting the Xenocide of the Laer.”

The Malagra did not deign to reply to the invitation for deeper conversation. “I believe we are done with all of the designated xenos anti-gravity devices. What remains for us to examine?”

Peeter understood that the attempted conversation was as good as dropped as they moved on to the next. “We have captured a great deal of their bio-engineering and medical technology, as well as managed to secure some data sources about how they work and under what principles. While the Laer’s genetic structure does mean that their technology doesn’t by default benefit humanity, it is hoped that it might still provide insights into improving humanity's own fields in these areas. This way.” 

While it was clear that casual conversation wasn’t really on the table, Octavian of all people decided to speak up briefly. “The degree in which the Laer modify themselves from birth is astounding, completely going beyond reasonable sanity and into excess.” 

“Reviewing the xenos biotechnology will take an extended period of time. Longer than with the gravity devices. Unlike physical mechanisms, such concoctions and methods must be more closely and carefully examined, particularly in regard to possible interactions with Human physiology.” Carphanos mentioned, his words hissing through the air almost in the very split instant Octavian finished speaking. Whether or not he had actually waited for the man to finish speaking or had simply chosen that exact instant to speak would have been a matter for debate. “It may also be advantageous to have the xenos artisans on hand for the examinations themselves. Heighten patrols of the area and establish a containment pen for our use.” 

“We will arrange it at once Malagra.” Peeter answered, offering a respectful bow before righting himself and striding with purpose to make said request reality.

By and by, the hours passed and while the Night Watch guard regiment assembled the xenos samples and tech to be examined along with the captive Laer, the Prefecture Magisterium agents themselves erected a sterilized containment zone consisting of a two-layered pyramidal formation of stasis barrier rods, with a single access point via a curious electrostatic assembly - with what looked insidiously like volkite emitters pointing inwards as well. With Skitarii Vanguard sweeping through the internal zone afterwards to sterilize it with hard radiation, anything that went inside was not going to get out again without the Malagras’ express approval. An additional cordon of the Stargazers’ Astartes circled the site, prepared for any eventuality.

All throughout, the pretenders had maneuvered and plotted. Even before the antigravitational validation protocols had been affixed and validated. Familiarizing themselves with the technology which the Night Watch themselves had secured. Their plan was not yet finished, and neither was it on hold; action and eventualities unforeseeable to all but them were soon to spring into motion, as they discreetly tampered, their movements cloaked by their impressive capacity to mimic proper work. Work of which would soon begin to manifest. 

Their work began when the Servitors wheeled in the first vacuum-sealed case of Laer biotech samples. The examinations were less evidently exciting than when they had been taking xenos engines apart and putting them back together - if anything the Tech Priests simply seemed to be engrossing themselves in interaction with the various pieces of field equipment they had deployed inside the containment zone, and many of them did not even move for the better part of an hour as they studied unseen cogitator analysis and ran esoteric chemical assays.

One of the parties present, however, grew animated with an energy inversely proportional to the Prefecture adepts’ newfound sedateness, and that was the Lurkers. The many-limbed, bonesaw-wielding Fleshweavers, who had shuffled about in tedium as long as the inspection concerned itself with the antigravitational components, had sprung into action as soon as the first specimen had been delivered, fanning out among the Mechanicum gathering. Their display of reverence for the Cult’s representatives all but gone, they trampled their way to the containment field and avidly peered inside, leaned over to espy the activity of diagnostic arrays, looming over the attendant Techpriests as though they were negligible obstacles, and generally made a nuisance of themselves through irrefrenable curiosity. Their martial brothers made few attempts to recall them to order, and if anything brought even more difficulties upon the procedure by obliviously trailing into the path of the hurrying servitors.

Of course, the site was far too massive for all the technology to have already been localized, the duty of bringing the most important artifactual technology given to the Stargazers’ own Astartes and other Techmarines. Anything from containers and capsules to more sizable treaded-carts were sequentially brought into the massive centralized site for inspection, the Astartes chanting litanies to the Omnissiah as they performed this most sanctified of duties. 

From amongst the crowd, a large mass made itself known as it went around one of the Laer’s architectural monstrosities. Its size was as impressive as its guard, a total of five Astartes made their way through a now clearly formed pathway splitting the gathering. The transport was almost as impressive as its delivery, mimicking the same proportions of an ordinary tank, were it not for its flatness and close ground-clearance. Instead, the device it carried took up most of the space, half as tall as the Knight standing guard over the site. It seemed circular in its representation, but at the same time hollow, and nigh translucent, as it glowed in strange hues with every ray of light that made its way across its form. 

The suspense amongst the gathering seemed to increase with its simple reveal. As chatter quieted, from behind the same crevice that the spherical device had revealed itself, another followed, and soon a column of four devices slowly loomed their way along large, but slow treaded crawlers. Clear animosity falling upon anyone foolish enough to tread too close towards the convoy.

For Peeter and those forces that had traveled here with him, the appearance of the large, circular objects was cause for curiosity for sure, but their attentions were focused on their respective duties while their brethren in the Mechanicum and Stargazer legion did theirs. For the most part, they were focusing their attention outwards; While it was unlikely for the Laer to launch an attack at this location due to more serious concerns literally closer to home, neglect of duty would not be allowed. 

However, a couple of Skitarii were positioned slightly… differently from their brethren. Instead of looking outwards they were gazing towards the containment zone, armed with sniper rifles. The incident with the Laer swords that had largely been what started this xenocide in the first place had required certain… precautions be taken for the health and safety of all. While the Librarians had cleared the samples of technology that the Night Watch had acquired of the same mind controlling taint, these handful of snipers still had orders to overwatch their betters and be prepared to act if something went horribly wrong. 

For their own part, the Lurkers present were quick to turn their attention away from the first examined batch, by that time almost spent without any notable anomalies, and towards the newly arrived cargo. For once, the Fleshweavers drew back, beckoning their escort to follow, so as not to delay the unloading and unveiling of what seemed to be a prize piece.

They were not wrong to hold such high-esteem towards the devices in question, as they seemed to parade their slow way towards the containment zone. These were definitely the apex, and pride of the Laer’s biological science: a gene-manipulation device. The purpose of its immense protection due to the strange manner of its process- 

And suddenly, an immense vapour seemed to erupt from the convoy, a plume of not smoke, but what seem to be organic tissue; a vapour of flesh erupted like an explosion. The guards around the machine turned their eyes towards it, but it was already too late; the plan had blossomed, and before they could shift their las-guns, they were consumed by a bright, and glowing bolt of lightning stretching from the now increasingly electrostatic sphere as it plunged into one of the pretenders, and shredded his skin. His collaborator turned towards him with weapon readied, pointed straight at his collaborators heart, but it was too late; the mimickry would end here, for as he was about to fire his own weapon, he too was consumed within the seemingly electric discharge of the sphere and stripped of flesh.

The same would soon occur around all devices brought, seemingly selecting entities around it at random to rip their flesh off. 

But this was not what it was doing; it was making them perfect, or what the pretenders had deemed was ‘perfect’ in their ploy, and soon, with a great blast of thermal heat, their bodies were remade, their flesh stripped, but then added onto, made perfect, and more perfect, and yet more perfect, until the Stargazers’ soldiers were now, numbering ten, hulking abominations of twelve eyes and many more arms, deformed and drenched of their humanity as they wailed in screeching laudles.

The snipers were the first to respond to the mess that was the activation of the Laer gene-manipulation device. At first some shots had been taken at the devices themselves, trying to damage them enough in order to stop whatever foul xeno plot was at play. When their weapons failed to inflict the damage required, they turned their efforts towards the poor bastards who had been caught by the devices, firing shot after shot in an attempt to bring their lives to a quick and sudden conclusion; Despite being accurate, the rate in which the xenos machines were… remaking them seemed to be undoing their efforts and preventing death from claiming them.

Even as the Night Watch snipers saught their first targets, alarm voxxes began to blare, and the voltaic and volkite-ray shielded chokepoint granting entrance to the stasis containment area seethed to life - completely cutting off access to the interior and flash-vaporizing anything caught in the field down to the atomic level - including several unfortunate servitors and Skitarii handlers, who were flesh and metal one moment and rapidly disintegrating plumes of champagne-colored vapor in the next. The agents of the Prefecture Magisterium, utterly safe and impervious within the isolated area, were powerless to help - only able to rise from their work and observe with sensors replete, and wait for the conflict to resolve one way or the other.

The ending of the conflict should have come in the form of the [i]Punishment of Tyrants[/i]. While its current condition had meant that it had taken longer to turn towards this new threat then it would have normally done so, once it did and raised its main weapons and prepared to blow the creatures away - before its pilot’s view was crowded with warnings and imagery indicating the presence of too many allied signatures occupying the area around its targets. The Maniples of Skitarii, the Astartes of the Lurkers and the Stargazers, had been caught flat-footed by their own kin being turned against them by the xenos weapon - and were clustered around the mutated monstrosities at such range that for the Knight to have opened fire would have been the height of recklessness.

Unable to fire on the twisted forms of what had once been servants of the Imperium without killing more of them, the pilot of the [i]Punishment of Tyrants[/i] turned the heavy stubber towards the Xenos devices themselves and took aim. With the size of the devices and controlled bursts, she intended to at least stop the threat at the source before it created any more monsters that needed to be dealt with. Her intentions were proven a success, but with the immensity, and strangeness of the explosion, the situation would unfold less than pleasantly for those soon to perish amongst the hands of an unknown scheme..

The snipers were faced with difficulty, for as they were just readied to take the first killing blow, the aberrant creations moved with great haste, as they lunged into the Skitarii formation, ripping many asunder with their now ordained strength, and the ambidextrousness of their former bodies exemplified in its omni-directional carnage. The explosion of the devices gave the soldiers of the Imperium no respite, as these beasts seemed to carry no reason left within their putrid and excessive forms.

Yet more of the beasts strayed into the battle, charging straight against the frontlines of the Stargazer and Lurker combined Astartes formations with the strength to rupture even their formidable power armours, sending them flying against the background of the increasing chaos.

The Skitarii Maniples all began to scatter. Most of their rank were Rangers and Vanguards, with few of their Sicarian Brethren present - and at such close range, the Vanguards dared not fire their weapons for fear of fatally irradiating most of their cohorts below the threshold of the Crux Mechanicum, while the Rangers simply were not suited to such close-quarters combat. Their Astartes Masters to whom they were neuro-synced bade them to retreat and reform further afield where they could properly bring the strength of their armaments to bear, while more than a dozen various servitors bagun to plod and trundle towards the monstrosities in order to slow and occupy them. 

The beasts’ ferocity was unquestionable as they tore apart those who had not yet had their chance to flee, but with the arrival of the Servitors, they were certainly stopped, briefly, by their presence. But it seemed only a matter of time, as the berserkers did not stop as they faced them. The only skill of their adversary, the Servitors, was their bulk. Bulk of which slowly, and under the great enhanced strength of the bestial brutes, would soon crumble.

The Stargazers themselves also began to fall back aflank of their brother in arms amongst the Abyssal Lurkers - trusting the superior close-combat speciality of the fearsome ninth legion to provide them with the cover they needed to outmanuever and flank the enemy. 

As the servitors moved in to stall the sudden monstrous beasts that had been created by foul technology from good sons of the Imperium, the snipers saw their opening to start taking somewhat more… reckless shots in order to try and inflict enough damage to put their former peers out of their misery. This task was made somewhat complicated by the new forms of their former peers, none of them knew just how things like their internal organs had been shifted around inside of their fleshy prisons. But without fear of harming the servitors, damage was going to be done.

Caught as unaware by the organic eruption as the rest of their fellows, the Lurkers nevertheless were fast to demonstrate the iron discipline they dedicated their lives to honing. Not a word was spoken, but in a manoeuvre as natural as the shifting of the tide the Fleshweavers had suddenly withdrawn behind the line of their brethren, motioning orders and readying the exotic ammunition of their bolters. At the same time, their keepers had dropped their own firearms, leaving them hanging from their magnetic clamps, and reached as a man for their chainswords or prepared their power claws.

The monstrosities were upon them in a blink, but that had been time enough. Chainblades roared and inhuman blood sprayed in spurts as the sparse lines clashed, hapless servitors caught here and there by the blows traded between both sides. The fleshy hides of the assailants were soon covered in gashes, and some staggered and collapsed, hemorrhaging to their final demise. Yet some of the dark-clad warriors followed them to the ground, felled by the creatures' tremendous strength, and gaps opened in the Lurkers' ranks.

That was when the Fleshweavers and the Stargazers opened fire, taking advantage of the momentarily clear line of sight afforded them. Bolts laced with hellfire acid and vaporized toxins rained upon the scene, while the Stargazers poured las pulses and sustained volkite beams into the sickening, twisted masses of flesh. While most, guided by the accuracy of enhanced Astartes eyes and augmented tactical auspex readings, found their mark, some went wide, thrown off-course by the targets' own agility, or pierced through their bodies outright. Foetid clouds that ate away at flesh and metal alike blossomed sparsely across the plain, some dangerously close to friendly positions or the still loaded vehicles as well as to the otherwise secured Laer biotechnology, ladden across the path in cases and canisters. Some of these burst apart when exposed and degraded to the Lurkers’ vile and caustic munitions. With most of the breached vessels, the sudden release of their contents proved harmless - a number of gaseous substances either dispersing into the atmosphere or a number of iridescent fluids seeping into the ground, inert. 

Some of the containers, however, had also been tampered with by the infiltrators who had set off the larger Laeran devices - and spewed explosive, aerosolized clouds of shimmering and crackling haze across the battlefield, causing flesh to boil and seethe and metal to corrode while bionic sensors went haywire attempting to scan through the deadly mist. Already, the ranks of the Skitarii filled with the sound of pulsing radium rifles and arc munitions as they preemptively turned on those most proximal to the blasts, ending their misery without giving them any chance to turn against their fellows.

It was around this time when Peeter managed to return from the outer perimeter, a squad of Skittarii rangers following him at speed. When the chaos had started, his first instinct was that whatever was happening may have been a diversion and thus had ordered the bulk of the perimeter guard to remain there, selecting a single squad of rangers to join him. While clear of the carnage and hazards, Peeter himself kept both flamers held by his appendages aimed to try and keep the hazardous clouds and the monsters clearly within it at bay while the rangers took aim and started to open fire on what was quite clearly the enemy under the circumstances.

Among the chaos, the ones who had been thrown into the least disarray by the new peril of the hazard eruptions were, ironically enough, those responsible for their appearance. The Abyssal Lurkers were as much at home in the midst of toxic haze as they were below the waves, and with their enemy, as well as most of their allies, crippled and disoriented, they took the initiative.

The surviving tactical marines surged ahead, with little regard for whether they ran into friend or foe. Stray Skitarii were shoved away or simply trampled as the charge collided with the horrors, hacking into them with a fury of whirring teeth and force-coated talons. As the beasts were left reeling, the Fleshweavers closed in from the sides, and their saws and carnifex needles proved as effective in bringing death as they were in staving it off. Blood flowed copiously enough to turn the ground into rank murk, and at last, among a hail of mortiferous strikes, deathly howls born of no human throat pierced the air.

Shadows moved in the thick of the foul cloud, and the figures that strode out victorious were clad in ichor-spattered deep-blue armour. The one in the lead raised a palm, accompanying it with a similar gesture from his third bionic claw, and proclaimed in a hollow, cavernous voice: "All aberrants are neutralized."

The announcements was followed by a hissing tone as the Skitarii Vanguard who had just withdrawn began to advance, their approach covered by large voltagheist fields which pushed back and dispersed the hazardous murk left over from the haphazardly breached Laeran containers. The Skitarii converged on the corpses of the fallen monstrosities and immediately began to saturate them with radiation, so harsh and severe even the Lurkers were forced to stand back as the molten masses of flesh began to degrade, wither, and burn away.

With the all-clear having been given, the voltaic and volkite-ray shielded access point leading into the examination area shut off. The agents of the Prefecture Magisterium came out from within in procession, led by Malagra Carphanos. He gazed from one end of the field to the other with his bionic eyes, and from afar, Peeter registered the telltale fluctuation in signal chatter screaming through the air on the vox channels to know that the Malagras were neuro-syncing with every Skitarii, Servitor, and cogitator-assisted Astartes on the battlefield, processing all that had transpired from innumerable vantage points and evaluating all of it in but scant moments.

The Malagras had all turned inwardly and were chittering amongst themselves in Lingua-Technis. Peeter knew if he had anything to say or report, now was the time.

While he knew that, he didn’t have to either say or report. Examining the scene he was able to connect the general dots about what had transpired, but he had been at the perimeter keeping an eye out for Laer trying to slip in. However, some parts of the scene weren’t adding up. 

Gazing at the containers from which the hazardous vapors that had blanketed the sudden battlefield moments ago had originated from, he frowned under his helmet since the chemicals contained within those things shouldn’t have had the effects they did on release. Respectfully taking a step forward towards the Malagras, he decided he did have something to report after all. “Malagras, I fear this site is compromised in more ways than one. I know for a fact that the chemicals in those containers shouldn’t have reacted to open air in this manner. Unless they change properties in containment on their own, I fear that someone or something has clearly tampered with things on site.”

“Comprehension is the key to all things, Astartes.” Carphanos’ synthesized voice hissed, the Tech Priest not quite turning to face Peeter. “But the Flesh is Fallible and Understanding is the True Path to comprehension. We have reviewed bionic and helmet footage from the Maniples and Stargazers. All of them were acting in accord with standard operating procedures and protocols. We understand your Human, emotional need to assign an alternative explanation as to the failure of this endeavor, but the precedent is clear and what we have witnessed is evident. The Alien Mechanism is a Perversion of the True Path, Astartes, and while the Omnissiah Knows All, and Comprehends All, it is beyond - and in many instances impossible - for his servants to both accurately and safely assay the properties and qualities of degenerate and unsanctified xenos technology. Unless you have evidence to elucidate us with, or a confession you wish to make, we have seen enough.”

As much as Peeter wanted to respond right away, there was some wisdom in what the Malagras was saying and thus he paused long enough to ensure that his decision making process and reply wasn’t some knee jerk reaction to try and save face for a possible act of neglect. So it was with certainty that he responded “You are correct in that the alien mechanism is a perversion in many aspects, but while I cannot rule out the possibility of xenos created chemicals changing their properties on their own, I did the chemical analysis of them originally and can at least prove that when we contained them, they lacked this reaction or ability to cause this kind of damage.” 

“Your original examination and documentation have already been reviewed by us, Astartes. It is in light of them and all we have seen here that we have nonetheless arrived at our final conclusion. The Prefecture Magisterium is merciful. We will not cite you as the fault for all that has transpired here, and leave the facts of the circumstances open for the venerated Primarch to examine and judge what shall be made of you. But we have arrived at our ruling - it is final, and we are certain.” He then gestured at the nearest Skitarii Alpha, who bore an enhanced data-tether pack, who immediately threw a mechanical salute before approaching.

“Open a vox channel to the Primarch’s planetary HQ and to our flagship in orbit. I will be making a planetwide voxcast.”

[hr]

All across the planet, a priority, emergency vox cast was relayed to every Astartes and soldier still fighting or otherwise.

[i]’This is Malagra Carphanos, of the Prefecture Magisterium. By the authority vested in our office by the Omnissiah, the Prefecture Magisterium has examined and witnessed the true nature of the Laeran Xenotech, and has ordained all xenos technology of this origin to be HERETECH. This has been noted by a recording member of the Adeptus Administratum. I am hereby issuing an order to all Adepts of the Imperium to evacuate the planet, and abandon all xenos technology currently being held, preceding planetary Exterminatus by Cyclonic Torpedo.’[/i]

The vox-cast, using a number of frequency overrides, overbore a number of more local battle vox-casts - including a status report that Micholi himself had been intently digesting mid-sentence, leaving him then and there with only the ruinous revelation that everything he had fought for on this cursed planet had been for nothing.

For a moment, Micholi was silent. The revelation that all the death and suffering had, in the end, been for nothing of value was always a harsh one to have to bear. However, bear it he would. It was just the nature of somethings that as much as one desires for all the madness to mean something, reality had no obligation to reward hard work or punish the wicked, no matter the intent. 

However, despite everything there was some solace to be taken from this horrid mess. Accepting the Vox communicator, he sent a quick message back to his HQ. “All forces are to abandon the planet immediately. We’re done here.”

He wouldn’t feel any pleasure from it, but watching Laeran cease and the Laer wiped from existence would help ease the pain of this bitter waste of a campaign.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 
[hr]

Withdrawing from the battle and ultimately Laeran itself was, for the most part, a rather easy affair. The Night Watch generally favored tactics that revolved around hitting the target and then pulling back before a proper counter attack could be mustered in the first place, but the truth was that the war on Laeran was more or less finished when the judgement that their technology was Heretech went down; Outside of a few major strongholds (mainly the capital and that one site that they had stasis bombed), the Imperium was quite clearly going to win and the defenders were either fleeing for those few positions still intact enough to make a last stand or going down fighting which just made the purging all that easier. 

The fact that the retreat could be covered by orbital bombardment in order to prevent the Laer from attempting a true counterattack against the suddenly withdrawing Imperials only made the process easier, simply making the withdrawal from Laeran a logistical matter. This was a task that was largely handled by Micholi’s High Command and the humans and xenos who made up its number proved their worth in such a role; Extraction zones were planned, no Laer equipment and resources were loaded up and personnel were extracted off world in a orderly, planned fashion. 

What might have taken other people in their position days to accomplish, they managed to do in less than one, evacuating most Imperial personnel in the process. Of course the Laer didn’t make this a perfect extraction; Squads of the snake bastards to small too be detected from orbit and blown to ash by support craft launched raids against the withdrawing Imperials, through such had been expected and the extraction zones were fortified and defended until all Imperials in their respective area had left Laeran for the last time.

The hardest extraction zones to plan for were for those of the Lions and Lurkers under the seas of Laeran. Tidal forces and the depths of the waters caused… room for error when it came to scans and thus locating where either the Lions or Lurkers were at a given time was a bit more complicated than most imperial forces. Not to mention their own efforts to mask themselves from the attention of the Laer. However, a reasonably sized, stable island suitable for ships to land and take off from was selected for them to head towards, with Night Watch squads delaying their own extractions in order to secure that area to ensure a safe departure.

Of course, this was complicated by the fact that the Abyssal Lurkers refused to use that extraction zone, saying that they had their own plans of leaving the planet. This complication was solved in the command room itself, when one of the human officers asked a Lek counterpart “We have their refusal recorded, right?”

“Just let me double check… yes we do.”

“We’re in the clear then so fuck ‘em, we’ve got other shit to do. Now did that bombing run finally knock out that last remaining AA in sector 2b?” And the gears of logistics continued uninterrupted.   

[hr]

[i]Ninth Legion Field Command Post[/i]

When the Abyssal Lurkers had first arrived on Laeran, they had immediately sought the depths of the planet’s world-spanning oceans, fighting tooth and nail against the multifarious xeno defenders for a place in the familiar darkness. Their outposts had risen over the ruins of plundered seabed cities, like necrophage fungi blooming on corpse-ridden battlefields. However, when the time had come to consolidate their foothold and establish a groundside base of operations, they had broken that pattern, instead raising a cluster of bunkers on a small island that had been preliminarily scoured of indigenous life. Those outsiders intrigued by this anomaly may have laid their minds to rest upon seeing voxceptor antennae seemingly taking advantage of the high ground, yet anyone venturing into the inner chambers of that improvised headquarters would have discovered a more sinister truth.

There, in stasis vats arranged in alcoves, water tanks lining the walls, containers bubbling with bio-nourishing ooze, were the prizes of dozens of scavenged fields and looted buildings. Alien machines large and small, broken and barely scratched, stood alongside Laer bodies in various stages of dismemberment and alteration, flanked by encoded labels. Pending the Prefecture Magisterium’s inspection and decree, possession of most of them was equivocal at best, yet their retrieval and arrangement had clearly been a labour ongoing since the first stages of the legion’s deployment. Many a captured site had been scoured in darkness, in the sightless deep or under the cover of night, and clandestine spoils had furtively been dragged along the supply lines, converging from all across the hemisphere like prey pulled by a spider to the core of its web.

At the heart of the structure, the masterminds of the operation toiled to draw fruit from their occult gains. Though the Imbrifices of the Second and Fifth Tempests were formally in command of the legion’s presence on the planet, and indeed directed the bulk of its military actions, it was no secret among the Lurkers that Ormis and Veryan truly dictated its purposes and selected the targets that would most benefit their schemes. The envoys of the two elders, nominally attached to assault forces to assist the Night Watch’s original directives, ensured that the aftermath of every battle was as fruitful as possible for their masters first and foremost.

Presently, the effective leaders of the intervention force awaited their greatest prize yet. Like formless specters, they paced across an ample hall lit only by their many glimmering eyes. The ravenous clicking of Fleshweaver instruments cut through the stagnant air in lieu of words, as lines of acolytes stood ready to aid their paragon in action. At length, the wide doors at the end of the vault soundlessly slid open, and two adjutants stepped in. Ahead of them they pushed a wheeled contraption vaguely reminiscent of an ancient stretching rack, to which was strapped a long, sinuous shape. Even in the clutches of its enemies, the Laer continued to struggle, tugging at its bonds and gnawing at the bars that held it with its mandibles, but it was weak. The raw, gaping wound that awned where its right arms should have been had bled its toll before being provisionally sealed by its captors, and toxins had been injected into its body in meticulously measured doses so as to leave it all but helpless at the hands of the sculptors of flesh.

“Closer, closer, brother,” Ormis hovered around the contraption like a vulture circling a dying beast, clicking his finger-needles together almost frantically, “Let us all see the inhuman thing. Look at this subdermal layer,” he stabbed a talon into the xeno’s wound, and, through its dazedness, it writhed and hissed in pain, “If only the Lord Progenitor were here to guide us through the filthy maze of its interiors with his illuminated insight, long may his aeon be. But here we are without him, proving ourselves worthy of his trust.” He plunged a needle into the Laer’s back, and it screeched and pulled with such strength that the entire rack shook. Ormis tapped the fingers of his other hand in annoyance. “Brother Veryan, if you would?”

With an inarticulate murmur, the Grand Herald took a stride closer to the captive and, in a motion that was but an instantaneous blur, grasped its head with one hand. It struggled and spat as his gauntlet pushed into its scaly hide, and screamed again when the Silence coursed from the expressionless helmet of the psyker and into its skull. Behind Veryan, some of the spectators flinched as echoes of his mental emanations found their way to their heads. The alien’s screech died as suddenly as they had begun, fading to a rasp as its faceted eyes glazed over. The Herald let go of its head with a motion of disgust, and it remained hanging limply, barely twitching with dazed breaths.

“Thank you.” Ormis held up his index, and the needle on its tip extended with a click, revealing itself to be a fine, impossibly sharp monofilament scalpel. He ran the diminutive blade along the ridge of the Laer’s back with a smooth, practised and somewhat needlessly flourished pull, parting the thick hide and muscular flesh underneath as easily as paper. The creature could only issue a helpless gurgle as the Elder Fleshweaver carefully pried open the cut, pulling apart folds of skin without shedding so much as a trickle of inhuman blood.

“Brother Arkios, hold this edge.” The claws of one of the adepts latched onto one side of the wound, keeping it open as Ormis stooped over it, the diagnostor arrays on his helmet cycling their lenses as if infused with a life of their own.

“To think that all this is not a quirk of evolution, but planned out, designed to the last fiber. Astounding what these things have accomplished with their debased minds. This makes the dark-wraiths’ fumbling look hopelessly primitive in comparison.” He dug about in the exposed web of sinew, nerve and blood vessels, the blades and spines on his fingertips folding and unfolding as his whim demanded. At one point he sharply prodded something, and his eyes whirred appreciatively as the Laer’s head gave a sharp tug forward, drawing a surge of seeping blood from its exposed arteries.

“Muscular reactions encoded as thoroughly as the vitae helix. Not indoctrination, mind you, but [i]memory[/i],” he held up a finger to still one of the apprentices, who had leaned over preparing to ask a question, “the memory of the flesh. A replicae vat-incubation could never do this. Post-facto augmentation? Not even in question. They calculate the permutations of the genome, arrange the birth of a body ideal for its purpose, and more yet! That body’s knowledge is formed in days, hours, maybe even concurrently!”

“How is that possible?” the inquisitive younger Fleshweaver leaned in again, “Localised neural nodes? We have not found anything like that in the dead ones.”

“Nothing of the sort in this one, either,” Ormis’ scalpel ran further up, to the back of the xeno’s head, “The only other possibility I can imagine is a central process, which we would see if we looked here-”

He practically tore into what passed for the alien’s skull and peered in with the finest of his eyes. There were minutes of tense silence as he observed something visible only to him, by the end of which even the impassible Veryan was expectantly flexing the fingers of his right hand. Finally, Ormis recoiled in surprise with a wheeze from his respirator tube, almost slamming into the gaggle of adjutants that had formed up behind him.

“By the deep, it is true! Their machinery suggested this, but I thought that sort of control was impossible. And yet! It all comes from the core, there can be no mistake.”

“Its mind is broken and silent.” The sepulchral sound of Veryan’s voice drew everyone’s eyes to him for an instant. It was a rare thing to hear the Grand Herald say anything, let alone so long an utterance.

“But the flesh thinks! It lives, it breathes, it [i]thinks[/i] without anything to guide it!” Ormis, being the most familiar with the taciturn psyker, was the first to recover. “The same spontaneity of a beast, but in an organism of this complexity. And now we know that it can be done. With our resources, ‘how’ is only a matter of time.” He seemed to have lost interest in the dying xeno, and now paced around the room, clicking his gore-coated fingers together. “Brothers, do you realise what it means for the Project? For us?”

“For the Swarm,” Veryan added.

“For the future of our kind! No more depending on mortal castoffs to salvage, or on degenerating replicae! With all that we have in our hands, we can mould life as we will with minimal expense, from birth to death! Entire strains, species, biospheres!”

“And its uses for Astartes induction?” came a voice from the darkness of the chamber.

Ormis paused, fingertip needles ticking. “Augmentation, that is extraneous, but a surrogate, a simulacrum… With freedom of modification and indefinite production capabilities, the results would be notable in any case. The Lord Progenitor must hear of this.”

The air of triumph in the room was interrupted by the sound of hastily approaching steps. The door was pushed aside, and a Fleshweaver trudged in, servo-arms snapping anxiously.

“Eldest, there has been a complication at the inspection site.” Dozens of eyes turned towards the messenger. “A malfunction of bio-modification equipment, casualties among us and the Prefecture. All indigenous constructs are declared forbidden. Planetary exterminatus is imminent.”

From how little time it took for Ormis to react, it was obvious he had been preparing for the need to beat a hasty retreat. After all, regardless of what the Prefecture ruled, the outcome for the Lurkers would have been much the same in most cases.

“Send word to the Imbrifices to evacuate, and transfer all we have recovered to orbit under cover of troop movement. There is nothing more to do for us here.” One of his eyes fell onto the captive Laer, all but torn apart on the dissection table, yet still breathing by the miraculous force of its constitution. “And put that one into stasis. It still has much to tell us over the journey.”

[hr]

[b][h2]The bridge of [i]Unity’s Light[/i][/h2][/b]

From his command throne on the bridge of his flag ship, Micholi sat with a thousand yard stare as his mind processed… quite a lot actually. Emotions, plans for the future, dashed dreams and conversations and meetings he was going to have to have for political reasons in order to maintain the good relationship himself and his legion had with other imperial organizations. But what finally got him to raise to his feet was the knowledge that he was going to have to say something to not just his legion, but all Imperial forces that had joined him during this damned campaign. 

Taking a deep breath as he nodded towards one of his officers, he waited until he got the signal that his message was live. “Servants of the Imperium, I am Primarch Micholi Vakarian. Lord of the Night Watch legion, commander of the Emperor and builder of the Imperium. As we are about to witness the final destruction of Laeran and the death of the vile, twisted Laer, I wish to take a moment to offer each and every one of you my personal thanks for your service. From the Imperial Army regiments who served alongside my own legion to those Astartes of our brother legions who answered our call for aid. Special thanks must also be given to Malagra Carphanos and the Prefecture Magisterium, for answering the call to come to a planet that was still an active warzone. To all of you, your service and presence are both welcomed and valued.”

A sigh escaped him. “I confess, as we watch Laeran burn I am...  disappointed. Early diplomacy had given me high hopes about the Laer, but their true monstrous nature dashed them. I had even harbored hopes that even if they were monsters who didn’t deserve the merciful fate of death that their technology might have provided them with a positive legacy to outlive their vile race that would benefit the Imperium and all who dwell within it. Alas, they failed even to do that. They were a race that gave an impressive first impression, but all of that was nothing more than a facade to hide how monstrous and worthless they truly were.  The universe is better off without them.” 

“Malagra Dinwright, you may end this blight on existence are your leisure. I raise a toast to all servants of the Imperium here today. To your sense of duty, heroics and the friends who will be avenged in mere moments with the death of Laeran. Let the Laer’s final legacy be to be hated by the few who faced them until they are forgotten forever. Viribus in unitáte venerémur.” 

And with a simple hand gesture, the connection was cut and recording devices started to run in order to capture and showcase the death of Laeran for all to see.

[hr]

Even as the Primarch had been issuing their address, the preparations for the Exterminatus had been underway aboard an Ark Mechanicum poised directly over the planet’s equator. Within a dimly lit silo bay only rarely serviced, illuminated only by the faint glimmering hints of status indicators and guide-lights along the curves of the cramped confines, a towering armored scepter of annihilation hung suspended amidst dozens of secured pylons and tethers - waiting for its bonds to come undone and for its immeasurable rancor to blossom.

A small procession of three Tech Priests - Malagra Dinwright and two trailing Rune Priests - descended the spiraling access ramp that corkscrewed along the length of the silo, attending servo-skulls whirring softly as they examined every device and mechanism along the path. The humming of their grav impellers slowly began to fade away amidst the rising chorus of electrical pops and static buzzing emanating from the consoles and panels of the chambers, for the silo was more than a mere launch bay - to the Mechanicum, it was an entire pantheon, brimming with innumerable and unspeakably hallowed machine spirits which directed one of the most forbidden and ineffable secrets of the Omnissiah: The shape and form of the knowledge necessary to destroy all life on a celestial body. As the Machine Spirits were awakened by the passage of the three Tech Priests, their treble-chanted hymns in Lingua-Technis, Cant Mechanicum, and High Gothic resonating and reverberating eerily as they went, swaying a censer overflowing with ceremonial incense that whorled and danced across the surface of the torpedo hanging within the chamber. With showers of sparks and a sonorous, building tone interlacing the air between the treble-cant of the tech-priests, the secret knowledge safeguarded by the Machine Spirits was embodied in the Motive Force, flowing through cables and system interlinks and bringing warmth and animation to the single greatest Machine Spirit of all those within the silo: The Machine Spirit at the heart of the Scepter of Annihilation, the central core of the Nucleonic Type One Cyclonic Torpedo, a weapon of the apocalypse rousing from its sleep to cast its long-prophecized flames.

As the Primarch began to approach the end of his address, Dinwright and the two Rune Priests arrived at the foundation of the silo, and separated to traverse three catwalks and approach three activation podiums that ringed the torpedo itself. Having received the blessing of the Machine Spirits and their decree that the artifice of man was as it was meant to be, the three Priests began the final preparations for launching the torpedo, removing the sealed safety-covers by ritualistically laser-engraving runes of obviation upon their faces, causing the transparent caps to disintegrate into fuming powder. The priests each produced a mechadendrite-mounted mechanical key, which they slid home into the podium interface and turned in sequence. The Rune Priests bowed their heads and continued to mutter in treble-voiced verse as Dinwright poised a hand over the final rune - labeled tellingly in High Gothic,

[center][h1][b][u][color=#000000]Exterminatus Adversater[/color][/u][/b][/h1][/center]

The Primarch gave his - at this point, rather redundant - leave. Dinwright pressed the activation rune, raising his free hand to sign a reverent gesticulation as he did so.

The silo was filled with the wail of rushing air as vents drained the atmosphere from the chamber. All was stilled and made silent then, and with perfect tranquility, the launch bay doors slid open just as the secure pylons and tethers suspending the Cyclonic Torpedo gave way. The missile was ejected from the silo by an initial galvanic-kinetic shock detonation at its peak, and sailed serenely away from the Ark Mechanicum - and then began to fall into Laer’s atmosphere, a crown of flames adorning it upon entry and maneuvering thrusters roaring to life to both accelerate and properly orient the weapon. 

Only a few isolated Laeran sensor relays detected the incoming torpedo, but few of those remained staffed and even had the alarm immediately been raised, there was nothing to be done - there were no planetary defenses remaining that could shoot the incoming munition apart before it reached the surface. Nobody saw the projectile itself, for despite its awesome power, the torpedo itself was smaller than most Imperial Titans in both width and length - almost impossible to pick out in the air as it accelerated shortly before touching down upon an empty plains.

The impact detonation was so energetic that the crown blast shockwave propagated at C-Fractional velocity, encompassing everything within a radius of three thousand kilometers in unfettered light in less than a second. A ravenous sea of empyrean, nucleonic fire rushed outwards to embrace the whole of the planet, briefly transforming the planet into a second star within the system. Even as the merciless light at the fringes of the crown blast began to dull, they were abruptly reignited by the relapse of the initial shockwave completely circumnavigating the breadth of the planet and rebounding fully upon itself - which it then did so again. Twice.

The utterly haunting glow of a planet transformed into a gateway towards oblivion finally began to abate - and thus, the otherworldly pressure the Nucleonic flame had been exerting upon the mantle of the planet also receded. A number of tremendous fissures blossomed across the planet’s face, visible as crooked lines of furnace-hot coals and embers tearing through the shimmering samite waves of the Sidereal Fire blanketing its surface - and at the site of impact itself, where that pure and crystalline flame had finally at long last began to lessen in intensity, there was a second detonation and a dozen shards of incandescent crust ejected themselves into the void of space like angelic feathers, so great had the force of the detonation been at the impact site that the mantle had been pulverized - and now it was swept outward, carrying the crust that had shielded it outwards as it went.

What remained of planet Laer would not cool for over a century - though cool it eventually would, the shattered fragments of one side of its crust collapsing back towards the surface in time to form a new, massively lopsided continental plate with the planet itself having assumed a new, more exaggerated elliptical orbit around its home star due to the force of the impact.

But though the planet would come back together in time, it would never bear life again, smote as it had been by the Scepter of Annihilation.

The reaction to the final destruction of Laeran was somewhat mixed on the ships crewed by the Night Watch Legion. While there were those that took to it with good cheer, the majority of the Astartes, at least, were silent. Many were quietly and privately mourning the brothers in arms and close personal friends that had lost their lives on the planet and while its destruction and the final death of the serpents that lived there would serve as a balm to the soul, some wounds needed time to heal. 

Others were introspecting on the fact that the entire campaign, while technically a success for the Imperium, had largely been for nothing. The whole reason behind the ground war had been to try and pry secrets from the Laer that might have had longer reaching benefits, but it had been dashed when the technology in question was labeled Heretech. They might as well have ended the world without the ground invasion for all the good it had done in the end. 

Micholi himself withdrew from the bridge in order to head towards his own private quarters and privacy. He could already feel the weight of Laeran resting on him and he desired some time to reflect on his decisions and the consequences of them. Hopefully he would be able to make peace with himself before the fleet arrived at Ullanor. He didn’t need to show weakness in front of the Emperor, let alone some of his siblings.