Though this was not the first time the Iron Men had produced casualty reports with such lopsided ratios, the data this time was truly grotesque. During the Tyranid wars in the Segmentum Pacificus, the Iron Men's machine legions had frequently logged kill counts reaching into the billions or even tens of billions against Hive Fleet Leviathan.
Seeing the combat data shared by Logan Grimnar, Calgar felt his own composure falter. As Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and a core pillar of Imperial military command, he knew how to assess force requirements. But the enemy this time was not the mindless, bottomless tide of the Tyranid swarms. They were the Iron Warriors and the Thousand Sons, a foe that not only participated in the fighting but brought to bear an astonishing array of sophisticated war materiel. Even the cultists did not charge with crude blades or clubs; the lowest of them was equipped with ragged pistols or basic thermal weaponry. More importantly, they possessed integrated defensive networks, fortified entrenchments, and massive bastions.
Under normal circumstances, the Imperium would require at least a dozen Astra Militarum regiments, tens of billions of guardsmen, and at least four Astartes chapters to excise an enemy this well-prepared. It would necessitate massive deployments of heavy ordnance, the summons of several Knight Houses, and the support of Titan Legions, and that would be merely the requirement for the ground theater. To even reach the surface, six Imperial Navy battlefleets would first need to neutralize the dense orbital defense platforms shrouding the worlds.
Yet, before the Iron Men, all of this complexity had been reduced to a triviality. While Calgar held no love for the traitors, he was well aware that the Iron Warriors were not incompetent. Man-for-man, the IV Legion was far more lethal than most other Space Marines, and their fortifications were second only to those of the Imperial Fists and the Iron Hands. Their dense, interlocking kill-zones had broken many a loyalist assault. That such a force could face the Iron Men's machines and fail to register a single confirmed kill was, frankly, horrifying.
The Imperial forces remained ignorant of the specific doctrines governing the Iron Men's reconnaissance units. Unlike the Astartes, who often relegated recruits to their scout companies, the Iron Men adhered to the wisdom of their ancient creators. Much like the elite, specialized scout forces of Old Terra, the Reaver-Eviscerators were not novices. Beyond their staggering environmental analysis capabilities, they possessed lethal combat utility and extreme durability. While the standard automata were not equipped with emergency field-repair modules in bulk, every one of these reconnaissance machines carried five sets of spares. In the most apocalyptic war zones, these were the units most likely to endure. It was no mystery why, after ten millennia of war, only these reconnaissance units had been found surviving among the ruins.
The construction machines and servitors of the Iron Men were also far from defenseless. While not designed for frontline warfare, they were hardly without destructive potential. To grapple with an Eight-Legs was to experience the multi-thousand-ton hydraulic force of an over-clocked mechanical pincer, and a servitor's high-energy cutting device could instantly shear through kinetic weaponry shielded by molecular-deconstruction fields. To the Iron Men, war never changed; slaughter was their vocation. They were the agents of their creator, tools of death, instruments of conquest.
As the Imperial fleet began to encircle Prospero and Sortiarius, the Warp energy on the surface of the Sorcerer Planet began to churn. Roiling currents of the Empyrean coalesced into arcs of scarlet lightning that flickered through the void. In the distance, the engines of the Void Sword flared to life, the titanic vessel beginning to accelerate.
Magnus had momentarily thinned the veil of power protecting the planet to channel his sorcery, and it was in this sudden, violent shift of energy that the Reaver-Eviscerators on the surface managed a brief, high-priority data upload. Based on the combat logs and telemetry provided, Axion immediately identified a primary target: Perturabo. The Primarch of the Iron Warriors was personally commanding a super-heavy tank company that had already claimed several Reaver-Eviscerators. From the damage signatures of the majority of the automata, Axion confirmed it: Magnus was on Sortiarius.
At that same moment, standing atop the Tower of the Cyclops, Magnus stood wreathed in crackling psychotropic lightning. A frantic, maddening whisper of the Warp roared around him, a psychic cacophony that would drive any mortal, even a hardened cultist, into immediate, gibbering insanity.
As a massive, complex ritual of chaotic sorcery reached its zenith, Magnus turned and nodded to Ahriman and the other sorcerers standing nearby. He then struck his weapon against the stone floor.
The Iron Warriors and Thousand Sons still locked in combat with the Reaver-Eviscerators on Prospero were instantly snatched away, teleported in a flash of sorcerous light back to the surface of Sortiarius. The mortal cannon fodder, however, were left behind to their fates. Many among the traitor legions were saved by this singular act.
A gargantuan surge of warp-energy shoved Prospero out of its orbital alignment. The planet began to accelerate, spiraling around Sortiarius in a trajectory that defied all physical laws. The impossible movement of the world brought it dangerously close to colliding with the surrounding Imperial fleet. While Imperial vessels were formidable, they were fragile things compared to the mass of a planet.
Within the White Scars' fleet, Jaghatai Khan felt a sudden, preternatural sense of impending doom. He immediately ordered his ships to unleash a barrage of fire upon the warp-cloaked Prospero. Yet, the same void shields that had repelled the Iron Men's assault flickered back into existence, consuming the munitions like a drop of water in an endless, hungry sea.
Axion, meanwhile, was frantically analyzing the erratic orbital data. While the massive sensor arrays could not pierce the veil of Chaos to scan the surface, they could read the planet's aggregate telemetry. Prospero's inertia was spiking; both its orbital velocity and rotational speed were increasing exponentially. The chaotic energy seemed to be warping the laws of physics to prevent the planet from tearing itself apart from the stress.
"Analysis complete."
"Prospero is being repurposed as a planetary-scale kinetic projectile. Imperial fleet is advised to evade immediately."
Axion's warning was broadcast without a millisecond of delay. Calgar did not question the machine's insight; he ordered the Navy and the Ultramarines to bank hard and retreat toward the outer rim of the system.
On the surface of Sortiarius, Magnus cast a lingering glance at the world that had raised him, his emotions unreadable. As he raised his weapon and pointed it directly toward the Void Sword, the chaotic energies of the planet gave a final, violent shove. Prospero broke free of its accelerating orbit, hurtling through the void like a shell ejected from a magnetic railgun, screaming across the stars on a collision course with the Iron Men's Titan-class ship.
——————
If you want to read ahead of everyone, go to my pat-reon: pat-re-on.c-om/magnor (remove the hyphen to access normally)