It took time, preparation, and the mobilization of all the troops she could bring to bear. It took the construction of a network of fortress bunkers and the exploitation of the entire accused Spukarri mountain range. It took the creation of a one of a kind planetary shield network, built from the salvaged remnants of whatever advanced archaeotech Farah could find on Vedusa, along with the repurposed dead body of Asirnoth and her own gestation capsule. And it took an untold amount of logistical coordination and diplomatic conveyance to get everyone on Medusa to work together just right to achieve all this within the timespan they had before Farah's creator could reach the planet.
It was the perfect defensive network. Theoretically impregnable by any means that Farah could devise.
It took three hours before the Imperials made landfall.
All she could remember of it was coordinating her troops, organizing the proper distribution of energy and supplies, along with sending an extra garrison to her position near the shield generator complex just in case the invading fleet tried to initiate a teleportation strike against it.
What had actually happened made Farah wish they would have tried something so...expected.
It was as if the fabric of reality had been torn open. One second everything was normal, her shields high above were being pounded by ineffectual artillery fire from the void ships, her forces down below were joking around about how boring things had gone, about how their leader's perfect plans had robbed them of the chance for a bit of fun.
Then something tore her shields open, and steel rained down on them, along with highly concentrated, powerful artillery fire. The only which had ensured her forces had even survived were some redundant shield generators installed into every one of her mountainous fortresses.
Then she felt a presence. Then she fell to the ground, clutching her head as some foreign presence invaded her mind.
"Submit!" It had demanded of Farah. "You are strong. Incredibly so. But you are not stronger than I am. For the sake of your forces, submit!"
She fell to the ground as metal giants swarmed out of steel capsules, covering the mountain with their many colors. It was clearly only a matter of time till they would break her defenses, so long as their artillery kept on hammering her fortresses' void shields.
'I wont let them' she thought as she forced herself to stand back up, her mind reeling, unaware if it was awake or asleep, if it had only been a few seconds or a few hours, if Farah was even still living, or already dead.
'The shields. I just need to amplify the power on the shields' She thought as she ran as fast as she could from the battlefield back into her central fortress installation with a single minded focus, barreling over any who stood in her way, be they her own troops or the hulking armored giants.
'We will not lose this day. Even if it kills us, we will not give in to weakness!'
***
"Isn't this impressive, my dear companions?" The Empress said to her entourage in bemusement as she strolled through her gene forged daughter's central fortress, laying down any of Farah's troops who chose to get in her way. "I will have to have a long conversation with my daughter, once she has her fill of fighting. Such technological mastery, oh, she will be most useful in the battles to come"
She rubbed her head lightly as she felt an undue irritation. She could feel something change in the air around her, it grew saturated, heavy, something was amiss.
Then a splitting pain filled her head as she felt something interfere with her psychic abilities. The rift in Farah's planetary shield she had created for the astartes was closing up.
"Well, now I really am impressed," The Empress said under her breath as she knocked down another mortal trying to get the better of her, the numbers of the mortal fighters only continued to grow the further into Farah's base they went.
"My lady" Said the distinctive mechanical voice of a mechanicus magos from the Empress' personal vox channel. "Orbital bombardment are continuing as planned, but our targeting vectors are becoming non viable. The window of opportunity is shrinking, do we begin the sacred rights of reorientation, or continue to bombard the designated enemy positions despite the shielding?"
The Empress took in a deep breath before giving her response. "It is not your place to ask me to reconsider a situation. Continue with your current task, I will personally see to the destruction of the central shielding unit in short order"
Turning to Valdor, she gave her closest companion directions for the custodes, to take and hold whatever command chamber this complex might house and 'convince' the mortal brass to surrender.
"If that is your will, then we will enact it without question" Valdor said as she gathered her fellow Custodes to begin their new mission, "Be safe, my Empress. We will not fail you." and without another sound they marched off. While the Empress steadily approached her own objective.
The room flickered with erratic green light as Farah frantically worked on the central shield generator, using every tool at her disposal to increase its power output. The natural lighting of the room was all but gone as the maximum amount of power possible was diverted away from nonessential systems, leaving only the crackling energized form of her ramshackle device.
'Better. Harder. Faster. Stronger. I won't lose, I refuse to be the weak one. Now work dammit! Work!!!' Thought Farah as she frantically toiled away at her device, bent over it on her knees, her torso working away within its central chamber.
Farah was completely engrossed in her task, her normal posthuman hyperawareness compromised. She could only focus on rerouting power cables, touching up plasma fuse circuitry, overclocking the amalgam machine spirit of the device.
So it was that she only heard the steps behind her until the last moment. Cluttered within the cramped space, she simply could not get out in time before the heavy thunk of a power fist thundered throughout her device's superstructure. She hears the metal behind her warp and screech, and a split second after felt something heavy pressing down on her back.
She tried fruitlessly to get herself unstuck, but it was no use. Even if she could have gotten the proper leverage to pull herself back out, even if the living metal composite of her device wasn't strong enough to resist even her metal arms, she couldn't get out without messing up the insides of her device, and the extraordinary vital components within.
'Fuck!' Thought Farah as she slammed her fist in frustration against a metal panel, leaving a noticeable imprint in it. 'This can't be happening.
"So this was what you were up to" Said a mature, silky smooth voice from behind Farah. All of a sudden she felt a warm feeling well up inside her chest, a feeling that tempered her fury.
"You...you must be the golden warrior from my dreams. My enemy in this battle? Correct?" Farah asked.
"Of course" the voice replied. "I am the Empress of Humanity. And you are... well, to put it in terms you'd understand, you are my dear invention!" The Empress answered, her tone radiating might
"I figured. The gestation capsule made my nature all too obvious. So then, what now? Are you going to kill me?" Said Farah, growing impatient.
"Oh, dear child, of course not. I intent to recruit you and those who serve you so loyally into the Imperium. You should rejoice, you've only proved your worth this day. Now just say the words and we can put an end to this foolish squabble" The Empress told Farah, her voice honeyed and pleasing beyond the Gorgon's wildest dreams.
"No" Farah told her creator. "I will not be weak. I will not give in. I would rather die than submit without a fight!" She yelled out in defiance.
Ok, so Just so you know, if you want to be a person who helps shape the Isis Heresy Lore/story, comment what legion, or figure you would like to help, I'll interview, or my collaborator, Evnogena, and we will see if you would fit for the staff.
