Chapter VII: Empress's Wrath
Southern Dependencies
Great Blood Wolf, Citadel War Barge
Neith
She returned to the Great Blood Wolf via its airlock from the crude Urruk space station that orbited the planet, kept in place by thrusters. The station’s many airlocks had been rebuilt to function with Imperial starships. The paint scheme was as crude as its construction. There was no overall plan for construction clearly. It had just been built – almost randomly – and the asymmetry of it frustrated her to no end. If the station hadn’t been strategically important in conquering the planet blow she would have immediately ordered its rightful destruction. Her light body-hugging armor dripped with blood from thousands of Urruks that she had torn apart.
“Welcome back aboard, Archon,” the Adjutant welcomed her.
“When is the Death Wolves ready to depart?” She asked in her customarily low voice.
“The Legionary Fleet is expected to be ready in forty minutes.”
“Good. I want to get on with the campaign into the Inner Worlds.” The Inner Worlds were a region that circled the Galactic Core, containing some of the wealthiest and most powerful individual worlds in the galaxy. Many were members of the Commonwealth, but plenty was not. Her mother had tasked her and her siblings Ibeji and Ares with bringing down a minor, albeit powerful, empire in the Inner Worlds. It bordered both Imperial and Commonwealth space and hundreds of worlds under their rule. She was very intrigued to face that famed warrior culture in the field of battle. She wondered if they would be as powerful as acclaimed.
As she passed two lines of space marines boarding the ship as well they all halted and snapped to attention. The mortal men and women of the Imperial Marine Corps had fought very well and had bled the most to occupy the very space station they were currently docked at. When squads of Death Wolves were almost overrun it was the space marines that broke the Urruk defenses.
She left a trickle of blood in as wake as she walked to her armory in her personal apartments onboard. She removed her armor and replaced it with a long black robe as dark as her mane of hair. Her next target was her shower to clean herself, to clean out dirt and blood from her hair, and from her pale face. It felt wonderful when the water touched her skin, after long days of bloody warfare a shower was just what she needed. When she left the shower and wrapped herself in a towel properly sized for her use she heard the Adjutant.
“Archon, the fleet is almost ready to depart – however – a starship has arrived.”
“Imperial?”
“Yes. They are requesting to speak with you at your convenience.”
She frowned. “Very well. Did they say why they are here and didn’t just contact me regularly?”
“They did not.”
“Fine. I’ll come to the bridge soon.”
She dressed in her dark multilayered robe and made her way to the bridge in the center of the ship where it laid protected. Crewmen saluted and bowed to her when she passed them in the corridors and in the bridge when she strode through it to the command center in its center. Several ship officers were there, including the Death Wolves Anhur and Foul-mouth Fabricius. She saw sparks of awe written on his faces, which made her curious about what was going on.
“Show me their ship of the holo-map,” she ordered.
“Affirmative, Lady Archon,” a young navy officer affirmed and keyed the holo-tables console.
The hologram of the visiting starship appeared and even her eyes widened when she read the data attached to it. It was a ship of war with a thick obsidian-black and iron-grey hull and on its forward upper sections held the golden insignia of the greater Imperium. It had an impressive array of super, heavy, and medium classified mass accelerator cannons and plasma cannons, as well as an impressive amount of railguns to ward off strike crafts. What truly impressed upon her was the size of the vessel. Her mother’s flagship, the Peace-through-Blood was the largest starship built to date by the Imperium with a length of close to eleven-kilometers. At least she thought it was the largest. She had just been proven wrong on that apparently. The ship displayed had a massive scope of 20.8 kilometers, a width of 6.7 kilometers, and a height of 2.7 kilometers. Before she laid the largest warship she had ever seen or even heard of.
“Well, at least it is one of our ships. Apparently.”
“You didn’t expect it then, my lady?” Anhur asked. She shook her head. “I’m surprised you weren’t told of a project of this scale.”
She agreed there. She was surprised and pondered what else may have been kept from her – and did her siblings know and was it just her that didn’t know? There was only one way to find an answered then.
“Contact them.”
“Opening channel, Archon,” the Adjutant complied.
“This is Archon Neith of the Death Wolves.”
“My Lady Archon, I am honored. I am Captain Timothy Wood,” a man’s voice answered. By his voice, she estimated his age at sixty, possibly up to sixty-five. “I am the Acting commander of the Empress’s Wrath, this Battleship you have no doubt gotten a look at by now.”
She noted the use of the term acting commander. His voice revealed that he was excited over this meeting, more so then she expected from someone who met an Archon for the first time.
“What brought you here, to the Southern Dependencies? You did not travel this far into the galactic south to congratulate me on a successful campaign against the last Urruk Empire here.”
“Indeed I did not, my lady. The god-empress commanded it.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Why did mother do that then?”
There was a pause, hesitation, or more likely a surprise that she referred to the empress as a mother.
“Ah, my lady.” He cleared his throat twice. “This Zahoriana-class Battleship is the crown jewel of the Imperium’s might and projection of power, and I was tasked with the honorable duty to inform you that it was constructed to be your new flagship.”
She saw the excitement over many of the officers’ faces, even Anhur. She was caught off guard by the declaration for a second. Her eyes studied the magnificent design of its frame. The name of its class also piqued her interest and revealed that her mother had sunk her heart into its construction.
“I see then. I presume all my siblings will receive one of these behemoths.”
“I expect that to be the case, though I’m merely a captain so nobody tells me those things,” he said with a chuckle. “I do believe, that this is the first of its class in service, however.”
She smiled. “Very good, captain. Prepare to receive me.”
“Yes, my Archon.”
A shuttle transported her over to the massive battleship and touched down in one of the hangars. She took with her Luscinius Libo and a squad of her honor guards the Old Wolves and Arcturus Saar Mengest. His angelic wings were folded behind his back against his white robe. Luscinius Libo and his squad wore their full power armor. The hangar was large enough to keep a few hundred shuttles or gunships. The corridor was flanked by two statues. The right statue depicted a human in the army’s relatively new power armor. The other depicted an Ultra Marine of her legion. There was a name written on the podium the statue stood on. CAPTAIN GREEN-EYE. She remembered the name well. He’d served in the legion in the seven-hundreds of the millennium and he’d risen quickly in the ranks after impressive feats of bravery and skill on multiple battlefields. Despite his skill and bravery he never even managed to gain the honorary rank of Hastati: to have served for a century. A poor nameless conscript had fired a boltgun turret and took his head and helmet apart. She’d been left to wonder if it was her fault. Had she promoted him too quickly or was it just an unlucky throw of the dice? The question was still there, in the back of her mind where she had pushed it.
Arcturus said a prayer as he gazed at the statue of the Death Wolf. He then said, “This is not just a memorial for him, but a gateway to every Death Wolf that has fallen in the Age of War. Every man and woman that has given their life for the cause.” He spoke with great reverence. “All those that have gone to the afterlife’s Celestial Lands.”
“Remember the fallen,” Neith iterated with the same reverence.
“Remember the fallen,” they all voiced in unison.
Neith and her small retinue and a few of the Empress’s Wrath’s officers’ walked through the ship and studied its various decks. As they did that she began to transfer tens of thousands of Death Wolves from the legion onboard her flagship to-be. She was told by the ship’s Adjutant that it was equipped with forty hangar bays and even a foundry where munitions could be produced as long as materiel were accessible. The idea of factory ships was not entirely new, for the legion of her well-spoken brother Set had for some time commanded two Citadel War Barges rebuilt to hold foundries for arms and munitions production.
“A ship with this much firepower can change the tide of battle alone,” Neith said with approval. “It is not too large either.”
“Is there such a thing, my lady?” Libo asked, confused by the notion.
“Of course there is,” she answered. She looked at the Captain of her honor guard. “If a ship is too powerful the enemy will focus on destroying it at almost any cost. It makes it inevitable that it will perish eventually.”
“Ah, I see. Clever thinking, my lady. I had never thought of it that way.”
She ran her hand along with the mosaic on the wall in the large bridge section. “I do wonder how many Citadel War Barges could have been built with the material used to construct this giant.” She counted the size of either class in her head in a second and determined that four full Citadel War Barges could have been constructed.
“A fleet with a few of these leading the charge will break through all the way to the Commonwealth’s capital world,” Libo said.
She understood that he referred to the rumors about a massive campaign planned against one of the galaxy’s great powers.
“My mother didn’t slow down the Imperium’s expansion to make way against the Commonwealth,” she said flatly.
Libo’s visor turned and looked up at her. “We’re not? I assumed it was why we slowed down to prepare for that war. Most others don’t border us and don’t pose much of a threat.”
Certainly, if her mother still planned on conquering the galaxy then they would eventually have to bring the Second Galactic Commonwealth into the fold.
“I assure you there are no plans for that, good Captain.”
In all honestly, she understood that Ultra Marines pondered why the expansion had slowed down. There had been pauses before many times to recuperate their losses, but never for close to a century. There were many a foe for the Ultra Marines to theorize about whether her mother planned a large campaign against them. The Abyssal Dominion – an empire forged by demons – was one she had heard come up many times as well as the Commonwealth and the more elusive and mysterious Xel’Azai or a variety of Urruk empires that existed around the known galaxy. She didn’t know her mother’s reasons, but she knew that it was not for war with any of those. When the expansion began to slow down her dear sister Atete was sent deep into unknown space with her legion – and after close to a century, she had yet to return. Her mission yet continued. Whatever that was. Her mother played her cards close to the chest, to use the expression humans liked to use.
She was pleased to be greeted by a command chair crafted to fit her specifically. She could sit there in battle in her light armor, but her siblings in their power armor had no chance to fit there. A smile spread across her pale face as she sat there and looked at the holographic map of her fleet in orbit around the planet. She ordered the Adjutant to show a map of the known galaxy. On her command, the AI highlighted the Imperial Voidlane from Gaevalon and up to the Throneworld. From there the Adjutant highlighted another voidlane lane, the Tzeenagian Run up northwest from the Imperial Core region, through the Mid Territories – formerly part of the Inner Colonies – and into the Inner Worlds. There laid their target. Ibeji had chosen to have their three legions meet in the Mid Territories at the planet Khuhuru. It was one of the worlds the Tzeenagian Run traveled passed and it laid close to the edge between the two regions.
While relocating one-hundred-thousand Death Wolves to new bunks aboard the new flagship delayed her departure with several hours, the fleet would eventually jump to Darkspace for Gaevalon. Weeks passed as they made their way toward their final goal in the Mid Territories. It pleased her to find that her legion was terribly excited to see what the Empress’s Wrath could do in battle against the Imperium’s enemies.
The world of Khuhuru laid in a system with five other worlds and two small moons lied in orbit around Khuhuru. A tether from the surface was attached to a large commercial space station. Hundreds of civilian ships and cargo haulers were docked to it and other starships traveled the lanes to and from the surface. Her brothers had both already arrived as a fleet of ships awaited them. To her displeasure, only a few hundred ships from the Daughters of Mara were there. The Imperial Hand had brought over a thousand and then there were close to five-hundred ships with an overall design that was not imperial. Compared to her own three-thousand they had brought far less then she had expected.
“We are being hailed by the God of War, Archon Neith,” the Adjutant informed her. She visibly sighed and remained silent for a moment.
“Should we put him put, my lord Archon?” The lieutenant commander near inquired.
Her eyes shifted down to the middle-aged man and he trembled under her hard gaze. He breathed out as she looked away, realizing his mistake.
“Hail the Humble Grim Reaper,” she then commanded. Ares would have to wait.
“Opening a channel,” the Adjutant answered.
Ibeji, Lord of the Imperial Hand, appeared on the holo-screen. He was a tall man and like her stood at four-meters, eyes like sharp sapphires and a dusky complexion. He carried a wide smile on his face and was clad in heavy power armor in the colors of his legion.
“Neith! My dear sister, it’s so good to see you. It’s been far too long.”
“I am happy to see you brother. It’s been, what, fifty years?”
“Fifty years, aye. It’s the misfortune of mother forging an Imperium so vast,” he said with a chuckle. “Why don’t you come aboard? We’ll all talk in person.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you soon then,” he said with that broad smile before she terminated the transmission. “Prepare my shuttle. I’m heading over to the Humble Grim Reaper.”
“Affirmative,” the Adjutant responded.
A squad of her Old Wolves followed her over to the hangar of the Humble Grim Reaper. There she was greeted with the tall frame of Ibeji and Ares, both followed flanked by a squad of honor guards – Ibeji with his Ibeji’s First and Ares’s Olympian Guard. Ibeji strode forward and clasped forearms with her affectionately with a wide smile on his face.
“It is so good to see you.”
“It has been a long time,” she said in a low voice.
“Yes indeed,” he agreed with a chuckle as he continued to hold onto her. “I hear you obliterated the last Urruk Empire in the Southern Dependencies, and quickly so.”
“Is that a surprise?”
“Hardly. You wield the Death Wolves with perfection.”
He released his grip and her eyes shifted to Ares. Her brother wore a layered robe that was dyed in the colors of his legion. The collar was brown and the second and third layers were a different shade of it and the rest was bright and warm green. He had a round chin, low cheekbones, and close-set eyes bright like sapphires. His skin appeared soft and his short onyx hair had small streaks of pearl-white.
“Neith. Always a pleasure,” he said. His voice was welcoming´, but she saw the opposite in his eyes.
“Same to you, brother.” It was all she said and her voice was neutral and her eyes equally revealing to his.
Ibeji sighed. “Come now. Mother would hardly want her siblings to struggle so to get along. He approached to put a hand on both of their shoulders. “Now let us speak in my apartment. We’ll decide upon how to carry out this next campaign.”
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