A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 21: World on Fire

"One last chance to save mankind. One last opportunity to stop the doom that awaits us. One last war to end all wars."
-Star General Julius Perturabo, M24. 312.

Caleaden System

M24. 314.

War was, ultimately, a mathematical process.

UR-200 understood that this was not the case for beings of flesh and blood. But when you were a being of silicon and electricity, with the emotion modules disengaged, and a sensor suite that let you see out of the eyes of countless soldiers, ships and vehicles, then it became so much less personal. Like an equation.

Target: Aeldari continental pleasure dome. Protection: Standard psychomaton defense grid, alongside planetary hexomantic shield. Objective: Terminate all Aeldari lifeforms, and rescue any non-enemy entities.

You want an equation to make sense. So you arrange the variables to get the desired result.

As the ships of the 37th Warfleet translated into the Caleaden system, the psychomaton defenses awoke to face them, as the hundreds of clueless young spacefaring races before the rise of the Federation had found out, their ships obliterated by straying into Aeldari space, or worse, captured. But this time, the attackers were ready.

Spinal mounted energy weapons on the human ships opened fire as soon as they appeared at the Mandeville Point. Thrusters were turned to full speed as the Warfleet accelerated towards their target with all haste. The goal was simple; saturate the space between them with so much firepower that the psychomaton defences would be forced to counter the attacks instead. Already thousands of smart railgun rounds were streaking towards the planet, nimbly dodging defensive countermeasures. Kill-drones spilled out of carrier shells, scattering while brandishing weapons of their own.

A nudge there, an adjustment there. Reinforce shielding on the front ships.

When the ships got within range, the psychomatons had already finished preparing their own proper defense fleet. Expected. It wasn't a large one, by any means- this was not one of the holdings owned by a Great House, nor an important military installation. But it was an Aeldari fleet nevertheless, possessing some of the most advanced ships in the galaxy.

The main priority was never about fighting them, of course. When the Federation ships entered orbit, the personnel deployers were already primed and ready to fire- millions of automata ensconced in orbital drop pods loaded into railgun launchers. As the opposing ships exchanged the first wave of artillery fire, the human craft launched their payload, countless silver dots falling down to the planet below.

They couldn't pass the hexomantic planetary shield by force, of course. The sorcerous field was built to withstand days of planetary bombardment, and the assault forces would just splatter all over the shield like an egg thrown at a wall. It was fortunate, then, that they were not relying on force.

Subspace travel technology required a beacon to send objects over a far distance. But sending something forwards a few meters? That was unnecessary. As they neared the shield, the built-in spatial shifters on the drop pods activated, and the troops were teleported into subspace, and then back- except that now they were behind the forcefield, having bypassed it entirely.

As they made planetfall, crashing through entertainment domes and crystal spires, the pods unfolded, passengers marching out and firing weapons. The robotic foot soldiers of the Federation spared no time in unleashing havoc; writhing sculptures were reduced to ash, shocked Aeldari incinerated by plasma shots.

Solar Operators fell towards the shield generator, located on the northern pole of the planet. The fighting was fierce; the shield generator was garrisoned by divisions of psychomatons, who responded to the invasion with no mercy. All within acceptable parameters. Sacrifice a squadron or two. Breach the power core. Detonate a concentrated 130-megaton melta bomb. The battle was picking up in pace now, UR-200 manipulating the tools they had at hand like the conductor of an orchestra. With the shield gone, they could now bring the full force of the fleet to bear on the planet, and more pods fell down to the earth below.