Time: M42.001 Location: Boarding Action Zone, "The Rock" Perspective: Unit 7-Delta, Bond-sve of Vashtorr / Dark Mechanicum Monitor

  This pce is neither reality nor the Warp. This is "The Rock"—the asteroid-sized fortress-monastery of the Dark Angels Legion.

  And right now, it is burning.

  Vashtorr the Arkifane, Master of the Soul Forge, is tearing this ancient bastion apart. His fleet mauls the void shields while Daemon Engines sm into the outer hull like boarding torpedoes. Scrapcode viruses are frantically eating through the Rock’s logic-stacks and defense protocols.

  Monitor 7-Delta is hardwired directly into the auspex array via neural jacks. His cortex boils as it processes oceans of battle data. In his electronic vision, the world is a cascading waterfall of red arms and green hex-code.

  "Void shields colpsed. Inner Circle defense breach at 89%. Target: Tuchulcha Engine. Estimated capture time: 30 minutes."

  Victory is within grasp. The stubborn warriors calling themselves the "First Legion" are crumbling. Their lines are shattering under the pincer maneuver of Warp entities and traitor machine spirits. Even the tactical cogitations of their Supreme Grand Master cannot stem this tide of chaos.

  Suddenly.

  A deluge of unquantifiable data floods 7-Delta’s neural circuits without warning. It is not code. It is not a virus. It is not even a psionic shriek.

  It is a roar.

  Deep within the Rock, in stasis-sealed forbidden zones that not even the Chapter Master has trodden, an ancient, powerful, and absolutely furious life-sign ignites. The sheer brightness of that soul burns through 7-Delta’s retinal projection, causing every dark servitor connected to the same frequency to scream in unison as their fuses blow.

  "Father... It is Father!"

  7-Delta intercepts the noise on the Dark Angels' encrypted vox-channels. It is no longer calm tactical chatter, but a cry of near-religious fervor. Broken defense lines reform in an instant. The dying Astartes seem injected with a stimunt far more potent than any combat drug. Fear evaporates, repced by an atavistic ecstasy and a singur will to kill.

  Data-logic tells 7-Delta this is irrational. Biological instinct tells him exactly what this is.

  The Lion has returned.

  In that same second of life-or-death reversal, 7-Delta’s wide-range auspex catches another anomaly. At the edge of the system—in the void lit red by the fires of war—gravitational waves twist unnaturally.

  A lead-grey fleet briefly decloaks, shimmering into existence millions of kilometers away. It is not of Imperial Navy configuration, nor is it a Chaos raiding party. It possesses a cold, dead industrial aesthetic, hanging in the void like a procession of silent pallbearers.

  They seem to have been poised there, ready to intervene. But the moment the Lion’s roar echoes through the Warp, that lead-grey armada ceases its engine charge. It submerges once more into the darkness, re-cloaking into nothingness.

  In the final microsecond before his brain is fried by the overload, 7-Delta processes the tactical significance of that maneuver:

  Yielding.

  That mysterious fleet knows no reinforcements are needed here. The protagonist of this stage py has arrived. All other powers—friend or foe—are now merely the audience.

  < CONNECTION LOST > < SIGNAL SOURCE 7-DELTA TERMINATED >