40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 185: Worse

Was is bad luck? Fate?

Mere coincidence?

We'll never know, anyway.

But the 40k universe was certainly ironic and vindictive. And the enemies of humanity numerous and overpowered as well.

I had barely landed at the The_Citadel_of_Titan, the fortress of the Grey Knights on Titan, using a shuttle to pass through the various defenses, which included void and dimensional shields, plus numerous psychic and data wards and firewalls.

And then, the Solar System came under attack, simultaneous demon strikes at the Webway Gate leading into the Imperial portion of the Webway, Necron Scythe ships breaching the Khthonic Gate defenses at Pluto and heading directly for Mars, Chaos ships supported by Dark Mechanicus engines emerging almost near Elysian Gate at Uranus.

Meanwhile auspex long range sensors detected an emergence of Eldar ships pouring though a hidden Webgate far in the comet cloud. Far for human ships, that is. I expected the Eldar to arrive at Mars just as fast as the Necrons.

"Probably not a coincidence." I mused to myself while Rose lost all color to her face.

"The Golden Throne...it was breached." she reported in near panic.

I nodded slowly while taking stock of the attackers. Alpha Legion ships, led by Omegon himself, like they boasted on every Vox chanel? Too good to be true, I suspected.

Perhaps possible, if the Necrons were not present as well. But now, it seemed more likely this was another scheme by Mephet'ran the Deceiver, as that C'tan was fond of making his enemies kill each other while he laughed.

As for the Eldar...the presence of Dark Eldar ships among the fleet pointed to the Ynnari, not that I could be certain yet. I was being blocked by the Grey Knights shields around me, and the similar shields on the leading Eldar battleships.

As the crisis was being managed, a Grey Knight Ferryman approached me and began scanning me for corruption. Kinda late for that, since I had already met the Emperor.

"You have seen the Black River, Pef Lancefire?" the Grey Knight asked ignoring all the alerts and the defense batteries firing bursts of white-hot plasma and entropic curses at the advancing enemies.

"So I've been told, Brother. Your demon blade looks nice too." I answered with a grin, pointing at the corrupted weapon at his hip.

The Grey Knight waved off my concern with barely a shrug. "It's only a tool, Lamenter. And quite effective at killing demons, permanently."

I nodded in acceptance, since I used something of a similar nature for the task. "There's a massive Chaos incursion on Terra via the Webway, supported by trillions of cultists and traitors attacking the Imperial Palace from outside. You're lucky I was around to lend a hand." I explained politely and began heading towards my shuttle once more.

The man ran after me and entered the shuttle at my side. "There is no luck, Lamenter. There's a woman on the Throne now, and you placed her there while removing the Emperor. The Great Enemy had to strike now." he spoke as the shuttle sped higher into the methane skies of Titan.

"A woman?" Rose asked in a cold voice.

"Griselda. A native of Illevar and a new Alpha level psyker. Possibly not the best choice, in hindsight." I muttered as we passed through the dimensional field over the fortress and the tesseract view filled with the horrible reality of the Solar System once more.

"Not trained to hold that post, indeed. Strength is no substitute for skill." Rose whispered as her eyes flashed blue with psyker spells, most likely receiving psychic updates from various informers and Inquisitors on Terra.

The Chaos fleet had another Glorianna leading the way, and a dozen smaller battleships acting as escorts, plus actual Daemon cruisers and destroyers to act as screen elements. For only a minute.

The smaller corrupted warships didn't have dimensional shields, and were quickly dispatched into the Sun, while I ordered the Black Fortress to head straight for Mars and the Singularity to engage the Chaos fleet with the Voidclaw.

With a black beam of superheavy gravity, the Singularity fired upon the Alpha Legion fleet, crushing a dozen battleships despite their potent shields.

However, the Glorianna was not damaged too much, except for a brief flicker of its dimensional shields. Multiple shields at that, and even stronger than what I've seen the Dark Mechanicus use in the past.

Still, I managed to peek a millisecond inside the ship, and the fake Omegon on the bridge was definitely not a human nor Primarch.

The same second, lance batteries and more exotic Mechanicus weapons on the corrupted Glorianna turned and fired directly at my shuttle. Sorry Mona Lisa, but here is we last see each other. I chose to sacrifice my old shuttle to give myself time, and try to intercept the Necrons.

My party arrived on the Black Lament's bridge just as my fortress fired on the lead Necron ship heading for Mars. "Minimal damage to target, Captain. We need to increase realspace speed and reload the Nova Cannons for another shot!" I heard my daughter Clara speak out loud. Well, Necron capital ships were hard to destroy even at the best odds, and these ships seemed also protected against tesseracts. Clever enemies weren't as fun.

Janice looked back from her command chair and smiled sweetly at her parents. "Hey mom and dad! Trying to make another sibling, for me?" she asked in a cheerful tone.

Rose coughed a bit embarrassed. "Not the time for jokes, girl. What are the Necrons doing here?"

I linked with the Machine Spirit and projected the fleet situation on the hololith screen, while transmitting vectors for the other Lamenters and Lancefire ships, as the Blackstone Fortress accelerated in pursuit of the xenos.

Drop Cruisers were split in two squadrons, one directed at Mars and one at Terra to provide cover and fire support for the defenders, and our troops later.

The Heavy Cruisers with Nova Cannons were spread apart to cover a larger volume, while the battlebarges and battleships were directed to hold a defensive orbit around Luna. And likely provide heavy orbital fire support if the invasion proceeded as I suspected.

My four remaining carriers disgorged their corvettes and starfighters to support the fleet against smaller sized targets, following the bigger ships as screens and escorts.

Just in time, as the Minotaurs Chapter fleet holding station next to Forge World Jupiter decided it was just the right moment to support the hopeless Hexarchy coup against Sanguinius and Guilliman, by blowing up my carriers in a surprise attack. They only managed to fire once at the last carrier, catching a few hundred corvettes before they could launch. I rescued the crews and the other carriers with the Labyrinth while cursing the stupid idiots in my mind.

Their moment of glory didn't last long anyway, as the Imperial Fists, the Ultramarines and the Space Wolves began boarding and pacifying the Minotaurs ships and barges the next minute, with some aid from my Lamenters and well-placed grenades by yours truly.

And because things can always get worse, another Webway opened near Venus to unleash a powerful Dark Eldar raiding fleet, while small Warp portals opened all over the Sol System to allow Ork Bikers to cross into realspace at high-speed, shooting pistols and waving axes from their saddles.

Sounds silly, but when these bikes could ride on water, methane or ice without problems, and even climb the side of buildings it made things quite hilarious. For me.

Probably not that funny for their victims though, so I had to stop and collect a billion greenskins and their bikes for later use.

While I was doing that, the Black Lament fired again and managed to blow up a Necron ship, with four remaining and speeding up themselves while choosing different vectors to approach Mars from different angles.

I admit, I was rather curious what these Necrons were trying to achieve with this suicide run, but considering the sleeping C'tan on Mars, I had a valid suspicion anyway.

The Dark Eldar were stealing people from Venus, now transformed into a large industrial world filled with workers, servants and serfs, as well as PDF regiments, Imperial Guards and a couple of Legio Cybernetica Skitarii maniples.

As expected, humans with lasguns stood no chance against fast moving and advanced vehicles of the crazy elves, only the Skitarii with their cybernetic enhancements and Volkite weapons managing to hold the lines somewhat.

I deployed my Knights and Dreadknights to support the Venus defenders, while in orbit I launched a hundred Nova Mines at knife range with the spiky ships of the spiky Eldar.

Still, I was getting overwhelmed by the cacophony of various attackers, which was possibly quite the point of all these distractions.

On Luna, a Warp Portal was opened to allow Ahriman and other Sorcerers to come through, once more supported by demons and daemon engines, and some ethereal corrupted marines called a Warp_Talon.

In the tunnels and catacombs of the Selenite clades and PDF bunkers, the Chaos Sorcerers had a field day, while the Warp Talons were able to phase in and out with reality and attack their targets with impunity.

It was a damned mess, and I had a niggling feeling the worse was yet to come.

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