The Office of the Empress of the Imperium
“The strikes on the Imperium’s fringeworlds have been going on for nearly three years now. The collective has been capable of capturing entire planetary populations and then escaping. The Navy hasn’t found a trace of any ships in the area by the time they arrive, and it’s getting on my nerves mom” Violet mused. Visenya, her mother seemed perturbed by her daughter’s annoyance. Normally she had the patience of a saint in some of the worst situations where she herself would’ve already lashed out and destroyed everything in her path. Visenya looked up from the novel she had been reading, and placed it on the desk infront of her “I agree these things can be frustrating, but given the circumstances you’re doing quite well Vi…” Violet seemed to grimace at her mother’s nickname for her but allowed it to pass “We’ve already been gathering clues when we arrive, the populations of these worlds have almost unilaterally resisted the collective and it’s provided interesting clues. Such as robotic parts on Feral Worlds where things like that are naught but concept, sometimes even farfetched or even entirely alien to the populations. There’s no sign of the Mechanicum having done it, and if they *had* done it, they’d have doubtlessly left a lot more than some parts behind. They tend to be quite sloppy like that.” Violet shook her head, her reddish curls bouncing with the sway of her head. “You’d think with all their fascination with technology, they’d be picking up the stupidest things they find on the ground of a planet” Visenya chuckled “Once upon a time they certainly did.” At that moment, a servant entered the office of the Empress and gave a bow to both Empress and her mother. “My apologies to bother you, your majesty but I’m afraid that I have some relatively grave news.” Visenya stood up and grabbed the man by his shoulder, and led him outside, closing Violet’s office door behind her. “If it’s bad news you tell it to me, stress on a pregnant woman as far along as she is, is not good” the man seemed to nod understandingly “Yes your Grand Majesty” he hesitated for a moment “I bring news that your mother’s wives and daughters have disappeared from their planet” he handed her a brief communique that she watched on her hand-held dataslate “♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥…” she watched as the collective’s fighting elite swarmed over her mother’s household guards like nothing and led off the unconscious wives and princesses effortlessly. As she screened through several videos watching her family be carried off, she knew the next targets. They were clearly avoiding those who could actually defend themselves and she quickly disappeared from sight, running at a speed that only a hybrid could toward a small café on the other side of New Phoenix.

Madeleine, her sister Alannah and her mother Felicity sat outside of the quiet little café gossiping about the latest news among the family and all across New Phoenix. Their meal was pleasant, the warm summer afternoon matched their meal with effortless efficiency and yet Madeleine stood up when she saw a familiar silver-gold head come jogging down the sidewalk toward the outside cordon of the Café. “Visenya??” she looked startled that Visenya looked so intent as if she was preparing for something, and no sooner had Visenya shouted a warning, a shot rang out. Visenya had darted quickly into the way, blood streamed down the front of her shirt. But she was unabayed, the Coursers of the collective moved in to secure their quarry. Visenya opened a pocket dimension and dropped them in briefly before closing it and turning to face the nearly dozen coursers that had tried to take her family members away from her. The all-too-familiar scream of her Hust Swords echoed, sending the populace running. The Corusers lowered their weapons “Stand-aside and bring back your relatives and you will be allowed to live” they said with an almost robotically strange unity to them. Visenya darted forward as bullets riddled her form, a blade hewed one of the Coursers apart, sending its synthetic bones flying across the street, and they flared and cracked with electricity as they impacted the ground. The fight had begun with frightening ferocity, and the Coursers were fast, but Visenya was unabayed, for she could not be killed by mortal means any longer. The coursers, realizing this attempted to subdue her with shock batons, but found their limbs hacked off, and their bodies torn asunder. The last thing the final courser was able to transmit to the collective was Visenya expelling all the bullets they had shot her with before punching the courser apart and the video cut out…

As the police arrived to investigate the crime scene, Visenya re-opened the pocket dimension and aided her relatives in leaving. Madeleine’s eyes scanned across the carnage of destruction and her eyes grew wide “What happened here?” she questioned, and her mother Felicity seemed to ask the same question if only by her facial expression. “I believe we have our culprit in the multitudes of disappearances across the galaxy is what happened here.” Visenya escorted her relatives home and called for a substantial guard to garrison the homes and businesses of her relatives. A duty that the Legio Custodes were all too happy to fulfill, meanwhile Visenya went for a secretive meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff where she laid out an aggressive plan that would scour the enemy from the galaxy, by predicting the moves they would make in real-time and then ruthlessly countering their offensives with entire fleets of the imperium’s overwhelmingly powerful planetoids and their large complements of parasite warships and fighters. But furthermore; she laid out a plan that would ensure that all civilian traffic would have escorts of the Imperium’s Battlecruisers, and that in order to allow for these battlecruisers to escort civilian warships. The Empire would orchestrate convoys for all merchantmen crossing the galaxy, enabling substantial escorts to be organized for these fleets; and to allow for the smaller ships of the fleet to do their jobs and to keep the termini needed for FTL travel open…

Meanwhile on the furthest frontier of the Imperium, a fleet of derelict warships from the bygone era of the Horus Heresy traveled ancient space-lanes and still used dangerous technology. This fleet was led by a hero of the olden days, Solar Admiral Spire, but the fleet that he led was known as “The Misfits” for a reason- they were some of the most undesirable Spacers that had ever haunted the Imperium. Forced to make do with ancient equipment, forbidden from returning to the core, and cut off from any plea of reinforcements they were the least important fleets. And yet they were going to go down in history as some of the greatest heroes of the current modern era…

On the world once known as Mars Secundus, now named for the Anatolian land of Phrygia a young patrician girl labored to bring a child into the world. A mystical child who would always be looked at as no less than a Demi-God by his mother’s culture. Upon his birth they gave him the name of Herakles, named for the greatest of the ancient Greek Heroes from which the Empire has descended. This young boy and his mother however were seen as outcasts by their culture. The mother, a harlot for breaking a sacred marriage proposal to lay with one of the unconscious sky-gods and the son as the offspring of the mighty warriors of the heavens – someone that not even the kings of the world would be able to command. Over the term of several years the child grew swift, strong and happy. But then the sky gods came to take him from his homeworld, the Empire had never allowed its own offspring to be raised by what they considered to be backwards cultures that blooded themselves rather than against the foes of their lands. The child’s mother railed against it and in some cruel twist of fate – she was permitted to accompany her child to the capital of the sky god’s home.

On New Terra however, the arrival of the child and his mother was met with no small measure of scrutiny the child’s father was the *legendary* leader of the ghosts – Nicholas Owen. Who had returned several months after his recorded “fall” a changed man, he wanted no further part of the bloodshed of the world and sought to ignore the reminders of the events that he had been forced to bear witness to against the cruelty of the settlement defense front. However; he chose to accept that his son was his own and he penned his son and his mother up in a well-to-do neighborhood and looked after their every need. He paid visits and ensured that his son grew well and knew his father, but also decided that he should bear his own name. After deliberation with the child’s mother, they chose the name Christopher for their son in the homage of Nicholas’ grandfather who fought on the blood-soaked sands of Gallipoli against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

While the Empire worked to repair the damage wrought by the Settlement Defense Front, Empress Fiona had been briefed by Visenya that she had prepared the tool with which Fiona would be allowed to finally abdicate and leave the eye of public scrutiny because of her mother’s wrongdoings across New Terra. In several years, Violet – the newest daughter of Visenya and Valaena and hand-crafted on a genetic level by Visenya and the Empire’s finest geneticists to be an excellent ruler was ready to ascend to the throne of the galaxy’s mightiest empire. The day was met with much fanfare and the people seemed content to know that a much more “competent” per se. Ruler was ascending to the throne, a woman whose name was not tainted by controversy and who even in her earliest days was rebuilding the Empire on a grand scale. Forging stronger alliances and sealing trade pacts across the galaxy, the value of the Imperial Mark *soared* to all-time highs and the people were content with even the most average Imperial Citizens making more than some of the wealthiest Old Terrans before the great diaspora in the face of the K’Chain Che’Malle’s arrival in the galaxy.

As Christopher grew and developed his own passions and interest; he largely followed in the footsteps of his father. At the age of eighteen after graduating in the top ten of his class of high school, he had been singled out for officer’s candidate school upon enlisting in the Navy and exceeding expectations. His passion for the nimble A-5 Ghostrider, the mainstay of the Imperial Navy’s Planetoids was not lost upon his instructors. He over-achieved in every aspect of fighter combat; though he did not like the task he also performed well in simulated strike missions against enemy warships and ground targets. After several years, Christopher found himself in the cockpit aboard Her Imperial Majesty’s Planetoid Royal Birhat where he served with distinction fighting in border wars with slavers. Eventually, his record caught the eye of Visenya and he found himself assigned to the vaunted, the famed and the powerful VF-92 assigned to the Graceful Maiden. As part of the aerial component of Empress Violet’s personal bodyguard he was to act as part of the public face of the Empire through flying escort missions for her majesty wherever she went. Be it on New Terra or at some place across the stars.

-Unknown Location, Dark Space-

A pillar suddenly flashed to life; on an unknown planet just outside the rim of the Milky Way Galaxy. A trillion voices spoke as one – through their Speaker they had decided long, long ago that today would be the day of reckoning. The day that this unknown force would finally come down on the heads of the Imperial Bloc and would finally reunify the galaxy into a place of order and equality for all through assimilation into their Collective. The Speaker gave the order for her (for she had chosen feminine programming) cohorts to begin assembling their mighty war manufactoria. Within a matter of days, over this world *hundreds* of Shipyards had been formed, the robotic bodies of the collective enabled them to work 24 hours per day and seven days per week. They didn’t take holidays and they didn’t stop working, within several months in Dark Space just beyond the galaxy. The Collective had slowly amassed the largest fleet that had ever existed, but they needed more consciousnesses to control said warships, as well as the platforms. But Mercya – the Speaker of the mighty collective had deduced that several of the Frontier-most worlds of the Milky-Way held the key to such manpower problems. And as the collective’s forces moved into the galaxy and assimilated worlds, they would only be limited by the amount of resources they had. The “Council of War” had deemed that the collective had more than enough assets with which to conquer these frontier worlds but afterward it would need to rely heavily on assimilated Imperials to crew out its warships and it’s ground platforms. Synths would be used to obtain intelligence and the collective’s prodigious spy network would ensure that it’s takeovers of the planets would give them the most assimilatable Imperials and the least amount of material losses.

Several tediously slow years later, the Collective had achieved much along the Empire’s frontiers. It had destroyed several of Frontier Fleet’s prodigious Task Forces. Entire worlds had been assimilated; leaving them nothing more than un-inhabited husks. Passenger Liners and cargo vessels that had stumbled across the collective’s fleets were swiftly boarded, and their occupants taken to the collective’s homeworld to be assimilated. Even children were forcibly grown into adults in several instances to serve as more powerful uploads into various combat platforms that the collective had possessed. In order to ensure that the Empire’s greatest weapons – the warrior “monks” of the Adeptus and Legiones Astartes could not be brought to bear. SIGNIFICANT collective resources were being diverted to the homeworlds of the legions and their respective successor chapters. With the near personal realm of Roboute Guilliman and his successors being the targets of the vastest majority of the enemy forces. The 500 worlds of Ultramar would be a hotly contested area in the war to come; even with the Ultramarines Legion and their nearly 43,000 successors present alongside tens of thousands of Imperial Army soldiers garrisoning their worlds and support from the Imperial Marines. Some Astartes worlds would be swiftly liberated such as Cthonia, Nuceria and Fenris such was the ferocity of their people, their lords and their successors that even the robotic armies of the collective could not face down their fury.

The Empire was suddenly roused when the collective issued its ultimatum to assent to assimilation voluntarily or to be destroyed and forcibly assimilated. The first Imperial Governors declined; only to have their system defense forces destroyed and their worlds assimilated. On other worlds, the governors found that the collective had already knew where their forces were deployed and entire Imperial Army and National Guard units had their positions destroyed and overrun in a matter of hours. The next planet to fall into the collective’s gaze was the planet of Laonides, a peaceful civilized world with a population of nearly 10 billion people and a world with no orbital defenses. It was the perfect target for assimilation, and it was about to become the site of one of the greatest mis-matches in Imperial History…

-Over Laonides-
Frontier Fleet Task Force 47 was in the process of performing final checks before leaving the system after having finished resupply and its crews having taken shore leave. Rear Admiral William F. Jones was about to give the order for his fleet to travel to the hyper limit. Nearly fifteen minutes after they had disembarked from their orbital moorings there was a translation at the hyper limit. Thirty-two high-tonnage warships deployed from the Hyper Limit in a disorganized column; escorting a massive ship that could only have one purpose – the storing of Imperials to be assimilated. Admiral Jones’ command consisted of eighteen light carriers; nine destroyers and fourteen frigates they were facing off against no fewer than *five* Collective battleships; ten heavy cruisers; two light cruisers and fifteen destroyers. The range between the two forces was estimated to be no more than one hundred million kilometers and closing. The Admiral ordered his carriers to commence launching of their complements of fighters, and then to steam west toward a growing radiation storm that would foil any and all attempts to acquire locks on his valuable aircraft carriers. Meanwhile; his destroyers and frigates received orders to screen the retreat while the F-4s struck out at the oncoming CSAT forces.

Radarman 2nd Class Robert A. Smith had been sitting before the destroyer “Hermes’” radar scope when he noticed a blot that was bigger than a silver mark coin. “Oh my god!” he near-shouted as he watched the formation bear down on the small Frontier Fleet Task Force. The titanic CSAT force dwarfed the Frontier Fleet task force in tonnage; firepower and even more. As Radarman 2nd Class Smith rushed to the bridge, he found the Hermes’ Captain standing on the bridge before the PA system. He listened as the captain orated “A large CSAT fleet has been detected, they are nearly a hundred million miles away and are headed for Laonides. They are believed to possess five battleships, twelve cruisers and a number of destroyers. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which our survival cannot be expected we will do what damage we can. All hands to general quarters, we’re being attacked.” All across the destroyers and frigates of the screening force, Readiness One was being sounded and spacers and marines rushed to their battlestations as the collective’s missile volleys already began firing. Well-beyond the range of *any* counter fire from the Imperial defenders, though the collective’s fleet rashly approached in a general attack rather than forming into a powerful wall of battle. Captain Roberts of the Hermes was not about to let the collective overwhelm his forces without a fight, breaking with standard naval doctrine – he ordered his ship to go on the offensive. Missiles shrieked in, but superior imperial ECM and countermeasures managed to keep the destroyer from being bracketed. On the way in, Radarman 2nd Class Smith spoke with Captain Roberts “Sir, I just wanted to mention that I was on a tin-can back during the SDF war and we never fired any of our Graser Torpedoes.” The Captain seemed to contemplate this for a moment before turning to Radarman Smith and saying “Well then let’s go ahead and make our torpedo attack” the Hermes advanced under the rapidly firing broadsides of its foes. Its shields screaming under the strain of attack by capital warships. But the Hermes finally entered 60,000,000 kilometers, striking distance for its Mark 23 MDMs it tore out and started firing at its targets. Its first volley of missiles met an enemy destroyer and the laser heads tore through the hull. CSAT’s point defense had not been active, and the machines, in their arrogance had not activated their countermeasures systems in anticipation of a quick and easy victory. The collective’s battleships quickly rectified this and the next volley of MDMs from the Hermes was slapped down mercilessly. But as the destroyer closed, and turned broadside to fire its Graser Torpedoes. The spider drives lit and drove the torpedoes toward a pair of heavy cruisers, the two warships heeled over in an attempt to evade but the spider drives ensured that counterfire from the opposing vessels could not get a solid lock on the incoming torpedoes. The Graser-heads activated on contact and vaporized two incredibly heavy warships that weighed more than all of the ships in Task Force 47 put together. However, the Hermes’ triumph had come at an enormous cost – it had brought the tiny warship well within range of a collective dreadnought. The Mass-Drivers mounted on the front of such a leviathan fired. The rounds were propelled in at the speed of light. Crossing the distance in a fraction of a moment, the two rounds sliced through the Hermes’ hull – dead center. The fusion cores of the destroyer had been damaged and their casings leaked radioactive coolant, men and women fought to control the fires amid the damage. Not even a second later, a missile impacted the bridge and killed everyone on the command deck, save Captain Roberts and three others who moved to the aft steering station and proceeded to make an attempt at withdrawal.

As the Hermes’ fight for survival began, the other ships of Task Force 47 prepared to engage with their own torpedo runs. As pilots from the fleet’s air wing bravely threw their lightly-armed F4s to the attack, though armed with little more than Hetlasers and a pair of Plasma Cannons to supplement their small ordnance racks. They attacked with gusto, the 432 F4s of the fleet came shrieking in – too small for CSAT’s batteries to engage. None of the collective’s ships in this fleet carried fighters of their own, for they had arrived intending to simply assimilate the world and now they found themselves in battle with an entire Imperial Formation. The ships of the fleet engaged with gusto, suffering horrendous casualties against the mighty fortresses that were the collective’s warships. In a battle that lasted more than two hours, the tin-cans of Task Force 47 were succumbing to the withering firepower of the collective’s armada. But amazingly, the tiny warships of the Frontier Fleet had won. Mercya signaled her people – return home. And the leviathans of the collective fled from the system, harassed the whole way by the F4s of Task Force 47. The victory however, had come at enormous cost; 6x escort carriers, 6x destroyers and 4x frigates had been destroyed and the fleet had suffered nearly 3,000 casualties between the losses of the fleet and several stray missiles that had leaked through and damaged orbital habitats.

However the collective had more sinister plans in store for the Empire, plans that Mercya was just beginning to lay out for her assets to enact…

The war with SDF had pulled a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn, the Front’s military forces were now being overwhelmed by the might of the Imperial Marines and the Imperial Guard. Whereas they had hoped to cripple the Imperial military long before they could effectively mobilize, knock out the Imperium’s client states and force them into submission to the front. And when all of this had been done and the front stood from the position of strength – they could convince the Imperium to surrender. But the war had not gone that way, the Imperium’s client realms ferociously defended their independence and the fleets of the various polities had sundered more than a few of SDF’s major fleet units in highly lopsided engagements that the front was not expecting. Though the capture of the Ring of Iron from Mars and the front’s population enabled them to continue the war for this long, they were now on the ropes and the Imperium was poised for the killing blow. But the front would not go quietly to its grave, Mars Secundus’ frontier-born population were vehemently anti-imperial, and now they were preparing to turn their world into a fortress. And with the aid of the Ring of Iron’s Manufactories, the task would be swift, sure and brutally effective against the coming attack. Minefields were set up, the entire population was being armed and equipped for the swiftly approaching battle. Captured Imperial Military medical personnel were being drafted to serve the front’s military. Tens of thousands of C-6 Robotic Infantry Units were being churned out every week and hundreds of tanks, tracks and aircraft were being prepared. The Front was ready for its final stand in more ways than one.

Major Nicholas Owen, commanding officer of the Ghosts lay in his rack aboard one of the Ghosts’ many prowlers. Once again they were heading into action, but this time the entire unit was being called upon to aid in the finalization of the war. The Imperial Navy and the other branches of the Imperium’s military were about to make a full combat jump into the final system occupied by the front. Nicholas studied his dog tags, all three from the collective times that he was in the military, the electric light on the ceiling cast its light over his Spartan quarters. He threw his legs off the bed and stood up, walking over to his desk he studied the order of battle and the overall plan that had been drawn up. The Aeldari would attack the planet from its northern-most sector, landing at its pole and swooping south at high speed. The Marines and Astartes, accompanied by tens of thousands of Imperial Guardsmen had orders to make a near-universal landing across the planet and to mop up the front’s forces and shepherd them to the capital. He sighed when he saw that the Ghosts had a single, key objective – to be the first into the city using stealth and to cause as much havoc as they possibly could. Artillery batteries; orbital strikes and air support would be given to them on a priority basis until the other Imperial Units arrived into the city, at which point. The units were instructed to provide support for their own units, and the Ghosts would need to make do as they had been forced to do for the last five years of the war.

When the Imperial Navy arrived in orbit over Mars Secundus, they arrived with enough weaponry online to scour the galaxy clean fifty times over. Planetoids exchanged fire with the orbital defense platforms in a horrifying display of gravitonic power. The Front deployed their warships cleverly, for as the Planetoids drove down the center; absorbing the vast majority of incoming fire. The Front’s Supercarrier; the Olympus Mons led an assault of other carriers on the right flank of the Imperial fleet. In its path, lay the Graceful Maiden whose shipmistress was looking for payback after the disastrous battle over Earth. The Maiden wasted no time in loosing it’s batteries upon the incoming formations, unlike last time its shields were at full strength and its engines hot. The Handmaidens’ Battle Barge interposed itself between the vulnerable neck of the advancing Planetoid Formation that was scouring the Orbital Defense Grid, and disgorging Imperial Marines to take possession of the Ring of Iron once more. Magnetic Accelerator Cannons barked as the Maiden closed the gap, almost immediately three of the incoming Carriers were obliterated and the battle finally began in earnest. The Front’s 30mm Cannons raked the adamantine flanks of the Battle Barge, who returned fire with their own shipboard-caliber macrocannons and microcannons. Graser-headed Missiles barked from their silos, impacting with enough damage to destroy a city, they were joined by more sinister weapons from the Dark Age of Technology in the form of biochemical, matter and anti-matter missiles and the Imperium’s brand new megaton-level gravitonic warheads. Warships were enveloped in explosions, quickly redlining and taking with them their various contingents of Skelters and trained pilots. The horribly one-sided action continued until it was only the Olympus against the Maiden, an action that soon would come to a terrifying conclusion.

While the battle raged in orbit; hundreds of transports descended upon the Feral World of Mars Secundus and from within these transports flowed platoons and entire companies of Imperial Guardsmen and Imperial Marines. The siege-level equipment that would be needed to take the capital, including Titans, the Imperial Guard’s super-heavy tank companies and much more would be disembarked as soon as there was no danger to the precious god-machines that often took decades if not centuries to create. Unknown to both the front and the Imperium, the Ghosts had long-made planetfall before the arrival of the fleet thanks to their stealthed prowlers which they stowed away in a nearby mountain range overlooking one of the Feral World’s many Greco-Romanesque cities in the dead of night. Their objective, in addition to destroying all semblance of command that remained on the world was to drop the orbital defenses and allow total and complete dominance over the planet. A task that was well-suited to the force that had become honed and tempered through nearly a decade of war as the Ghosts had. The small commando unit made good time “on the bounce” across the planet, arriving outside the central command post where the orbital defenses were cleared. Nick ordered his vox operator to call down a pinpoint microcannon bombardment on the outskirts so the Ghosts could avoid the worst of the fighting, once inside they’d kill the power and have the entire garrison at their mercy. The vox operator endured a short conversation with an orbiting battleship, and the rapid fire microcannons slammed into the dirt around the building a rapid-fire barrage of virtually high caliber cannon fire sent light vehicles and bodies flying through the air. With the outside garrison finally cleared out, the Ghosts quickly lept over the square mile to the building and tore the door off the hinges. Rushing into the building they made swiftly for the command center, short contacts were made between defending Front soldiers and the attacking Ghosts. But against such battle-hardened warriors, SDF was woefully outmatched. A myriad of weaponry being borne by the entire unit ensured that no matter the kind of battle they became engaged in, they’d be able to handle it swiftly and with minimal casualties. However when the Ghosts arrived in the control room, they found that the computers had been hardwired, and that the only way to de-activate and re-purpose the orbital defense grid would be to upload a virus which would set the Ghosts up to defend against overwhelming numbers of enemy forces attacking a position that they couldn’t hold. Regardless, knowing the value of getting the defense grid knocked out so the heavy units could be deployed, Nicholas gave the order for his technician to get to work.
While the computer technician got to work, Nick deployed the Ghosts in two-man teams spread across the facility in positions of cover. He killed power to the lights and nothing else, the advantage of wearing jet-black stealth combat armor would enable the ghosts to have a significant advantage over their opponents and they wouldn’t need to wait very long for their opponents to arrive in the hopes of halting the crucial defense grid’s fall.

The Imperial unit that was closest to the defend grid’s command center, was the 1st Battalion of the 317th Imperial Guard Tank Regiment, with an attached Mechanized Infantry Company. Their commanding officer was renowned ace Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Harris, having heard of the ongoing attack against the orbital defenses’ control center he deployed his battalion immediately. The thirty Leman Russ tanks with an equal number of fully-loaded chimera armored personnel carriers and ten manticore missile platforms immediately set off in battle order. Lieutenant Colonel Harris knelt in the cupola of his Leman Russ Vanquisher, the long barrel of the tank’s vanquisher cannon stretched out ahead of him. He proceeded to check the heavy stubber nearby for his personal use as the tank’s commander, already the sounds of grav-guns cracking and the telltale retort of SDF autoguns could be heard. Lt.Col Harris immediately buttoned the tank and he spoke into his intercom “Loader, load SABOT” his loader confirmed with “UP!” and as the tanks crested the hill near the command center they saw several SDF tanks waiting with their backs to the incoming Leman Russ Tanks. Lieutenant Colonel Harris gave the order to fire, and his gunner’s call of “On the way!” along with the concussive wave of the cannon firing felt like a battering ram to the heart. The Imperial Guard’s Tankers took up positions on the hill, they had the Front’s Tank and C-6 Infantry units entirely surrounded and mercilessly opened fire with Vanquisher and Battle Cannon, Lascannon and Heavy Bolter. When the Front’s own tankers re-asserted themselves and were soon joined by a pair of motorized rifle battalions who loaned their own prestigious firepower in terms of anti-tank missiles to the fray. Seven of the battalion’s Leman Russ Tanks burst in the course of the fifteen minute long engagement; and three chimera armored personnel carriers were destroyed each with their squads of Imperial Guardsmen still on board. However, with the aid of the manticore anti-tank missile platforms, the 1st of 317th secured the area and it’s nearly 300 surviving Imperial Guard Infantrymen quickly disembarked and joined the defense. When the battle was finally over, the tankers were ordered to prepare to join the assault on the world’s only metropolis, its capital where the children of the Feral Worlders were taken and turned into further SDF soldiers and citizens. The Ghosts however; had another engagement to attend to, the freeing of a group of hostages being held in a nearby Uranium Mine, the hostages were the key to owning the world. A collection of rulers and other leaders of the various realms, city-states spread across the planet who were being held hostage by the front in order to ensure their homes’ goodwill towards the regime.

In space, the battle had devolved into a close-slugging melee of epic proportions as Dahak successfully hacked into the front’s remaining planetoids. Turning the leviathans against their owners’ own warships, gravitonic warheads detonated in and among the remaining enemy warships quickly enveloping even the most ferocious of the front’s task forces in balefire. The Battle Barges of the Legiones and Adeptus Astartes joined the fray in an engagement that finished off the majority of the Front’s carriers, leaving their destroyers and cutters isolated against the renewed engagement of Imperial Warships. For its own part, the Graceful Maiden quickly overwhelmed the Olympus Mons, in a head-up fight when both warships were prepared it was universally known across the entire galaxy that the handmaiden’s battle barge was second only to the equally legendary warship – Terra’s Honor. The microcannons of the maiden opened half a hundred rents to space with rapid fire bursts of nearly ancient dreadnought-caliber shells; the Olympus was quickly venting atmosphere as its hull was compromised. A last parting shot with its F-SpAr cannon tore a flame-enshrouded hole in the Maiden’s adamantium-sheathed hull but no more incoming fire from the Olympus came. For Admiral Salen Kotch had lost control over his warship, and the Front’s best hope of victory in space crashed into the capital city, collapsing dozens of buildings ontop of advancing Imperial Guardsmen and Marines. Effectively burying an entire Regiment who was growing closer to the High Command’s governmental building which now served as SDF’s final outpost against the encroaching Imperials and their allies.

As the ghosts disappeared into the countryside, quickly becoming shadow-cloaked figures in the gathering twilight of the world. The 1st of 317th received its orders to initiate their attack on the city nearby, with their tracks unable to navigate the rubble-clogged streets of SDF’s Capital. Lieutenant Colonel Harris ordered his guardsmen to watch the vulnerable flanks of his heavy armor as they moved down four inter-connecting streets. The armor initially met with little, if any resistance that was quickly quelled by coaxial stubbers, or the accompanying guardsmen’s autoguns. Until all hell broke loose once more, a quartet of missiles impacted the leading tank of the battalion at the crucial merge point, immediately knocking the tank out and bottling up the rest. The Guardsmen suppressed the building effortlessly but were engaged quickly by C-6 Infantry units and SDF Soldiers who emerged from side-streets. Lieutenant Colonel Harris dropped down and buttoned the tank once more, he ordered “One round, HEAT on my command. Target, third floor, building front.” The Vanquisher’s loader responded “Up!” at the loader’s response, Lieutenant Colonel Harris ordered “Fire!” the HEAT round impacted the third floor, exactly where he was hoping that it would. The building was blasted into a slag-heap by the round and the incoming fire was successfully silenced, though he mused that the initial ambush had cost him three tanks in various areas. The street they had merged onto was large enough that given a short amount of time, his tanks could maneuver around the destroyed armored vehicles. He also gave the order for Lieutenant Abe of the 4th Infantry Platoon to check for survivors, fortunately the crews of the two other tanks had survived albeit they were in no shape to continue the fight. He reluctantly gave the order for Lieutenant Abe and his platoon to bring their wounded to the Samaritan Chimeras of the Medical Platoon for immediate evacuation to the field hospital. As they were doing this, the much diminished tank battalion lumbered down the street toward the high command building where cap troopers; Imperial Guardsmen and many others fought against the defenders in a brutal affair of death and horrifying destruction…

Nick and his Ghosts had finally arrived overlooking the mine where the rulers of the Feral World were being kept. He turned to his motley collection of warriors “I want everyone to split into four teams, we’ll use lascutters to get through the rock if we get separated. Even spacing, use your suits sub-vocalization suites for comms the vox arrays won’t work down there. Clear?” His warriors nodded intently and they descended into the mine, swiftly finding their way toward the mine’s heart where the various rulers were being kept in cages. Nick called for an evac and when the assault shuttle’s pilot indicated that they were waiting for their precious cargo. He sent the rulers up with teams two, three and four and kept team one to scour the mine. Intrigued that he hadn’t encountered any SetDef soldiers over the course of their ingression into the mine. With four ghosts in tow, they descended further and further into the mine several moments following team two’s leader indicating that they had reached the surface and were loading the hostages for medical examination and re-placement with their realms. He discovered exactly why there were no defenders – the place was rigged with what had to be a single kiloton of Trinitrotoluene, Nitroglycerin and nearly an accompanying ton of plastic explosive rigged to explode at a moment’s notice. Nick turned to his men “RUN!” as the five ghosts turned to flee from the coming explosion but they were too late and the explosion rocked the mine. Collapsing the entire construct in on itself, the ghosts of the latter three teams saw this and immediately tried to sort through the visible rubble on the surface but to no avail. It seemed that their leader, founder and friend in addition to four other members of their unit were dead. They retreated with the heads of state, and immediately reported Nicholas Owen, and the four other members of their unit as MIA so as to preserve the legend of Nicholas’ legendary skills and invulnerability in battle.

In the capital city; the fight was over and had been over for quite some time when news of the mine’s collapse and the “disappearance” of legendary war hero Nicholas Owen was announced. Dozens of Imperial Marines and Guardsmen went to the mine, their search only bore the bodies of the four ghosts who accompanied their legendary leader. And not the body of the man, the myth and the legend himself unbeknownst to them. He was still alive, teetering between worlds and pinned beneath dozens of tons of rubble, protected only by his combat armor and bioenhancements. As he contemplated finally giving in, after a commendable life of service to his nation and to his family, he began to hear the voices of his ancestors. He could see them, his Australian ancestors who fought in Africa and at Gallipoli; Kokoda Track; Pakchon and Nui-Le. They reminded him of the sacrifices that they and their brothers had made on the battlefields of Old Earth, and the countless thousands of Australians who had bled on foreign soil – just as he had. They bade him to continue his struggle with death, they told him words that rang in his ears “You’re Australian, Nicholas. You’re impossible to kill” those words seared into his mind. And he focused, feeling the world around him and proceeded to punch at the rubble around him. The more fatigue clawed at him, the more he continued to hammer at the boulders around him, until he finally emerged after what felt like months of struggle to emerge from the tomb that SDF had intended for him. He rolled onto the grass, and finally gave up. A nighttime rain had settled over the land, trickling on his armor’s skull-carved faceplate. When he finally succumbed to unconsciousness, a group of Feral Worlders from one of the nearby city-states stumbled upon one of the legendary sky-gods who had delivered them from enslavement. He was clearly wounded, his armor rent and shattered. They figured out how to unseal his armor plating, and they bore him back to the city on a litter before turning him over to the care of the apothecary. Through a combination of potions; powders; balms and poultices they managed to bring him back from the brink of death’s door though he would not emerge from the coma he had fallen into for another three days. He ascended from his bed, where a young-looking girl was studying him with awe-struck eyes. He asked for food; the girl led him downstairs to her family and he was treated to a fine supper. When the meal was over, he left with a simple word of thanks after retrieving his grav-rifle from the room where he was being kept and began a long trek back to Imperial lines.

When the legendary leader of the ghosts arrived at a forward outpost of the Imperial Marines, left behind for a cleanup operation. It was as if a dead man walking had just arrived in their camp, they were awestruck to find that the man himself had survived such a horrifying explosion. After he finally convinced them that he was indeed who he claimed to be. They placed him on the next transport to New Terra to return to his family, once again a hero. Unbeknownst to Nicholas however, he had unknowingly left behind a child in the womb of the girl who had been watching over him as he slept… When he arrived back on New Terra he was greeted with fanfare of the most epic proportions, and in order to finally sort out the problem that had caused this endeavor in the first place. He went to the office of the man who sought to conscript his family and put a .50cal bullet square between the man’s eyes and left without a trace.

Admiral Salen Kotch stood aboard the bridge of the SWC-1 Olympus Mons, in the recent weeks his flagship had been the bane of the Imperium’s shipping and the Front had won several victories across the frontier, and now as part of a heavy task force. He led the Front’s three Planetoids and their minimal, six-thousand person crews to cut off the vein of the Imperium’s trade and weapons manufactoria. And now as they dropped into space amid a large asteroid belt, keeping together with the aim of providing mutual firepower they saw their quarry. The Planetoids’ transponders would keep the ships from rabbiting until it was already too late and the hyper missiles came for them. But now, he was in for a surprise as thousands of sublight missiles streaked in and the asteroids came alive. His fleet had blundered into a trap! The Imperial vessels hammered the planetoids, but the Comp Cents of the ex-Imperial Warships had point defense up and running immediately and a vicious two-way battle gave way before the nearly one hundred planetoids deployed their fighters in a massive cloud. The incoming ordnance overwhelmed all point defense and sent the planetoids back to whence they had come. The Olympus managed to bring down eleven Planetoids in conjunction before Kotch ordered his flagship to make the drop back to Mars Secundus, for the front’s flagship had suffered too heavy of damage to continue and still make it home. It was a horrible pyrrhic victory for the Imperium, they had destroyed the Front’s last remaining fleet units that were capable of challenging Battle Fleet as a whole. But Olympus Mons had escaped, eleven planetoids were gone and seventeen more were badly damaged, with those eleven – 880,000 Imperial Navy personnel perished in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, the Ghosts under Nick had been waging a shadow campaign that gave the entirety of the Settlement Defense Front and their allies pause. A small group of highly trained guerillas with more experience than the vast majority of entire army divisions put together had been set loose in the back field. Entire SDF Fleets found themselves devoid of life when the Ghosts boarded their ships in port after blending in to place charges and then purposefully space themselves in a skinsuit to be picked up by their waiting Prowler as the entire fleet exploded all around them. Army units found their provisions and weaponry melted to slag under their noses. The Ring of Iron had been infected with a Mechanicum-made virus that halted all production, of their one hundred and fifty survivors from the engagement that forged them. The Ghosts had been cut down to one hundred and twenty, split into small cells totaling roughly four men each, commanded by an experienced commander that had been hand-appointed by the commanding officer of the Ghosts. Now, the Ghosts came together for another mission – one that would decide the fate of the entire war in the long run. Recent intelligence garnered by the impromptu unit of commandos had revealed that the entire SDF High Command was gathering for a meeting about the running status of the war. And Nick was not about to let such an occasion go untouched, his various cells returned from their mission and they requisitioned a large subprowler that could fit the entire group as opposed to the small, old ONI Prowlers from the empire’s earliest days that they had rescued from the scrapheaps. The group outfitted themselves for EVA, and upon arrival they found the SDF fleet waiting inside an asteroid belt where they would be able to have cover. The Ghosts swiftly went to work, all one hundred and twenty of them left the prowler armed with laser weapons and anti-matter charges. They approached the massive carrier, avoiding larger patrols and upon arrival at the hull of the mighty warship. They began to place the massively powerful antimatter charges in key locations all across the entire fleet, Nick calmly noted that there must have been twenty something vessels around but his teams had laid enough charges to obliterate an entire planet three times over and he finally gave the nod for his crew to return. When they arrived back aboard their subprowler, they activated the vessel and fired a pair of cyclonic torpedoes, the resulting explosion after a very slow approach to the powered down warships caused a massive fireball that resulted in the Ghosts making good their escape amid the carnage of detonating cyclonic devastation and anti-matter reacting with the environment.

Two T-years later, the Ghosts led a devastating raid of Imperial Marines and Imperial Guardsmen on nearly two dozen Front-controlled worlds. The campaign was swift, and precise as a scalpel which was a contributing factor for the front’s drastic unpreparedness. It was more than common knowledge that the Imperium preferred the sledgehammer on the vast majority of its campaigns. But it was not above using stealth and precision when it was necessary, and there were thousands of such men and women who could be called upon to do such jobs when they were required. And now, the Tempestus Scions were deployed on every single front-controlled world. With mastery of space finally theirs, the Imperium was able to launch major offensives on all remaining Front worlds. After nearly a decade of warfare having been waged in brutal fashion. Executions of Imperial citizens, and the Imperium launching exterminatus on more than one heavily defended front-controlled world had reduced the war to mutual slaughter. But the Imperium had deeper pockets, better warships and soldiers, and its leaders were willing to get their own hands dirty when compared to their SDF counterparts. The Front’s fleet had been reduced to a handful of moldering warships, as they had been when they engaged the Achuultani however these crews were worked up, experienced and could cause significant damage. The few wallers spread throughout the SDF’s remaining fleet could drop a Planetoid with several dozen well-placed hits if they managed to get the drop on the Imperial warships. Now however with Visenya’s sons who were spread throughout the galaxy as proxy commanders making massive spearheads into SDF space and annihilating their defenses. Victory was finally in sight, but the offensive on Mars Secundus would require a great many more warships than even the Imperium itself could muster. And a high-level summit needed to be called in order to gather enough warships and soldiers to finally break the defenses in Mars Secundus’ Home System like a dried branch in summer’s heat. It was doubtless in the minds of the Imperium’s leaders that all remaining SDF forces were falling back to defend their homeworlds and with tens of millions of highly trained SDF soldiers along with their fleet’s most powerful ships and static defenses to rival the Imperium’s own awaiting. The time had now come for patience, rather than outright assault that would end in certain death for hundreds of thousands of men and women of the Imperium.

The Ghosts for their part, resolved to continue their war in the shadows. Too many of their brothers and sisters had perished in the fighting for them to set aside their weapons for a fresh bloodletting. Their prowlers and their skills would enable them to continue their shadow war, despite their own logistics requiring them to scavenge all weapons and armor, as well as fuel for their prowlers. However as was typical of their commander, they thrived on the challenge and they made good their continued shadow war. Awaiting the news that the Imperium was on its way, and for the day that they would reunite with their brothers and sisters to finish that which was started so long ago…

The war with the Settlement Defense Front had been raging for nearly a year, Nicholas Owen’s prescense had rejuvenated the Imperial Defenders. Other heroes like Sly Marbo; Lord Solar Macharius; the Primarchs and other great heroes of the Imperium had effectively stop-gapped the Front’s assaults but even then SDF remained a sizable threat. Even now, they held the Imperial World of Gryphonne I in a death-grip as thousands of C-6 Infantry Units and nearly one and a quarter million SDF soldiers besieging the world’s under-strength garrison of Fifth Imperium soldiers, sailors, marines and militiamen whose cities were under siege and whose ships had been destroyed in orbit. Nicholas was recalled to New Terra where he met with Visenya who gave him an important mission as well as promotion. By that point Nicholas was a First Lieutenant in the Imperial Marine Raiders, but at Imperial Decree he was promoted to Major and was given command over a company of Imperial Marines with orders to hold Gryphonne I at any and all costs. Reinforcements *would* arrive, but he needed to ensure that the planet held out long enough to see the arrival of said warriors. Thus with Royal Command and a single stealth pinnace, Nicholas set out with his Marines, his ship snuck through the SDF blockade and landed on the surface in the capital city of Cavalero. Nicholas and his men soon took up their command, he retrieved an order of battle from his “deputies” a demi-company of Heralds of Hektor Legionaries under Lieutenant Cassander, his 150 Imperial Marines, several dozen Manticoran, Havenite and Grayson Marines. And after much counting, he had several hundred warriors of the Adeptus Ministorum in the form of Frateris Templar and Frateris Militia and the remaining thirty to forty thousand soldiers were predominantly Imperialis Militia personnel. It was much to Nicky’s dismay that in typical militia fashion, they were armed with anything which made a grave supply problem. His soldiers had informed him that there were several dozen calibers of autoguns and black powder muskets. Some militiamen were wielding Volkite Weapons and other famous weapons that Nicky remembered from his time in the Solar Auxilia. Regardless, Nicky was confident as he laid his plan. Knowing full well that even though the Militia was motivated to defend their homes, they were very reluctant soldiers and were demoralized that so many cities had already fallen to the invaders. Nicky divided the Marines and Astartes, career soldiers all. Among his militiamen with orders to act as both squad sergeants and lieutenants with which he would dismember the Front’s assaults on his defenses.

With an entire understrength corps under his command Nicky was intent to reclaim as many of the cities already taken by the Front’s forces as he could in order to keep their commander’s forces divided among multiple fronts. He deployed militia armored units to scythe through the Front’s positions in several smaller townships and localized areas, his remaining astartes not serving as officers, were deployed to a munitions depot that they overwhelmed and destroyed with melta charges. Imperial Marines used their stealthed combat armor to sever communications and assassinate officers all this as effective as it was, was only a delay to buy time for the city to be fortified against any incoming opponents. Nicholas received word that the world *did* have minor air and artillery assets remaining and so decided to employ them when SDF made their attack, it was his hope that with a rejuvenated fighting force deploying effective combined arms strategies – SDF would be taken aback and with luck, would be destroyed in a matter of weeks. Now all Nicholas and his men had to do, was wait for the Front’s commander to make his move and attack, or retreat.

Meanwhile, in the Zuckerman System a large Imperial Fleet was preparing to relieve Gryphonne I. It was composed of nearly a hundred warships of albeit vastly older marks. But after what Fiona had seen of the Settlement Defense Front’s Warships, it would be more than enough to defeat the vast majority of whatever SDF could throw at it. As the fleet was making ready to enter hyper to reach Gryphonne and break the siege of the planet, patrolling fighters were the first to detect it when a sudden spike in static pressure signaled the arrival of a warship. Suddenly the SWSC-1 Olympus Mons dropped in the direct center of the fleet, before the ships of the Imperium could even raise their shields the warships F-SPAR cannon that caused such damage to the Graceful Maiden tolled. The beam took a pair of nearby cruisers through the hull and caused them both to simultaneously combust and explode. Missile Banks and 30mm Cannon shells were chewing into the escorts as torpedoes; macrocannons; fusion beamers and all manner of Imperial weaponry hammered the Mons’ prodigiously resistant hull. The ship’s complement of Skelter fighters streaked into space to do battle with Fury Interceptors. Plasma bombs from Starhawk bombers hammered the Olympus’ hull, the extreme heat boiling the hull plate to no avail. By now a quarter of the fleet was offline, more and more Imperial Attack Craft streaked into the void to hammer the monstrous flagship of Admiral Salen Kotch. The Imperial Warships received a universal hail on Imperial Frequencies (a boon of the Front having captured a trio of Planetoids) “This is Admiral Salen Kotch of the Olympus Mons, You are defeated, Death is no disgrace!” before the message cut off immediately afterward. By that moment, nearly the entire fleet and every single troop transport had been destroyed. The Attack Craft Pilots’ home warship, a Nemesis-class Fleet Carrier one of a rare breed opened their own communication channel to inform the rest of the fleet as to what they were doing. “Bloodhawk is moving to intercept course for tactical collision!” one of the pilots protested by saying “Do not execute collision!” to which the Helmsman of the Bloodhawk replied with “Captain’s Orders 1-1” the massive carrier collided with the Olympus, sparks and explosions flying from where the armored prow began to scrape the Olympus’ hull. By the time the Bloodhawk’s collision maneuver had finished, the Olympus quickly dropped out of the system, leaving behind the sundered remains of the Imperial Fleet that was supposed to reinforce Nicholas at Gryphonne I.

On Gryphonne I, all hell had broken loose Nicky had found himself in several firefights where he led his militiamen to victory over the Front’s Commandos. The Astartes’ assault-bike spearhead had destroyed virtually all of SDF’s C-6 Infantry Units in a massive charge of assault bikes and militia tanks. But by the time the C-6s had been destroyed, a further eleven cities and townships nearby had been taken and much of Nicky’s air force had been shot from the skies or were eradicated by SDF warships in low orbit. And now his fortifications had all but been blown to pieces over the last week or two of engagements on the planet. Nicky’s forces had blooded the Front’s with ruthless efficiency over five hundred thousand SDF soldiers had been slaughtered over nearly a month of fighting by constant ambushes; IEDs; and straight-out clever tactics and stubborn defenses of buildings and even individual rooms at times. Now, with less than an understrength brigade remaining and virtually his entire force of reliable soldiers killed, Nicky’s defense was in jeopardy and so he ordered that the streets and entryways be booby-trapped with nuclear mines triggered to a central detonator in the governor’s palace. And when that was finished, no sooner had his men retreated back to their defensive positions did SDF soldiers come advancing up the pathways toward the governmental palace. Nicky pressed the detonator and sent nearly a quarter of a million SDF soldiers to their deaths, and when the rest of them met his defensive line. They encountered the Astartes in Terminator Armor, mowing them down with ruthless efficiency, Assault Cannons, Cyclone Missile Launchers, Plasma Cannons and other super-heavy weapons of the Legiones Astartes sent entire companies to their deaths as the three remaining squads of Lieutenant Cassander’s demi-company blocked the approaches to the Governor’s palace several of the Astartes gave their lives against heavy energy weapons fire but resolved to continue on. They withdrew with cool efficiency and were reinforced, this pattern continued for nearly two days before Nicky had less than four hundred men remaining, and so he decided to evacuate the remaining city, sending Lieutenant Cassander and his command squad to escort the remaining civilians out of the city while Nicholas and his men re-took positions on the line among the bodies of their fallen brothers-in-arms to await SDF’s attack. When they came within range, now much diminished but expecting to face the battered and destroyed remnants of the Imperial defenders. Like dead men risen, astartes and imperial marine alike rose from the dead bodies, energy guns spat their horrifying death, and chainswords roared their defiance. Bioenhanced muscle punched holes in bodies, servo-muscles upended robot support. The risen warriors of the Imperium slaughtered all before them, going from guns, to blades and then to fists as the situation commanded it. And by the time the sun had begun to set on that terrible day, the Imperial Marines and their allies were victorious having eradicated the settlement defense front’s remaining forces. It was then and there, that Nicky knew the bonds of his remaining warriors, some hundred and seventy five men in all had been strengthened to that of battle steel, and honed to a molecule edge. This force he decided, would remain together forever and he dubbed them in that moment – the Ghosts.

However, the Ghosts owed more than just their existence in their final moments – to the Imperial Navy’s 37th Fleet of Planetoids which arrived on the system’s edge and sundered the entire SDF fleet in a storm of gravitonic warheads. Reinforcements and aid soon descended on the planet, in the wider sphere of things, the Imperium was back in the fight and was evenly matched with SDF’s prodigious strength. Thousands of people died with each passing day in the various engagements across the galaxy, but the Fifth Imperium had its most telling edge – the vast improved Planetoid Fleet that it possessed was a weapon unlike anything that the galaxy had seen in the previous Imperiums before it.