The Emperor’s Angel of Death

#3183 - Spider Star Scourge

Chapter 3187: The Spider Star Disaster

Standard Terra Calendar 986.M41, Tempest Sector, Alarith Prime Forge World, Satellite Nizzkhara

Alarith Prime, once a shining forge star in the Steel Road, and a top-ranked forge world in the Adeptus Mechanicus, fell into civil war during the Horus Heresy, repeatedly declining, and its glory has yet to be restored.

Although it served as a supply hub for the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, it did not bring it more glory and resources. The recovery of another forge world, Udish, consumed most of the resources. Alarith Prime only received more orders and limited resource supplies. It once possessed territories spanning ten star systems and hundreds of resource planets, supplying its sky-obscuring forges and shipyards capable of producing massive battleships, but now... it only has two star systems using meager resources to supply the forge world's production, like a weak mother feeding a hungry baby with scarce milk.

All of this stemmed from the forge world's wrong choice during the Horus Heresy. In fact, Alarith Prime did not completely betray, but it was still labeled a traitor, purged, and stripped of most of its territories and lands. The main star, already severely damaged, did not receive assistance from Mars and other surrounding forge worlds. The remaining Tech-Priests could only repair their home bit by bit in despair, even forced to dismantle many of their once-proud ancient facilities to ensure the most basic energy and material production and supply, including their Titan factories, which were completely dismantled under Mars' strict orders, only retaining the repair facilities. This was merely to take care of the remaining Legio Cybernetica. Even the Titan Legion itself became a shadow of its former glory, perhaps never to return to its original state.

Ten thousand years have passed, and Alarith Prime has finally recovered somewhat, but it is still weak. Therefore, when the deafening WAAAGH! of the Orks echoed from the void, the Fabricator-General immediately realized that something was wrong, and immediately sent out psychic warnings to the surrounding areas, while ordering the planet to enter a state of full readiness.

But as with their ferocious nature, when you can hear them, they are already in front of you.

After disengaging from the warp, the Orks' massive hulks headed straight for Alarith Prime with a brutal attitude.

As the core of the first line of defense, Alarith Prime's two satellites, Nizzkhara and Ikotomi, were the first to feel the Orks' savage war spirit. These two satellites were also the starting point of the forge world and the base of the Legio Cybernetica. When the Martian Mechanicus colonists arrived here, they found that this planet, with a land area three times the size of Terra, was inhabited by a large number of giant animals and was very fierce. The exploration ark could not directly establish a colony on this planet, so the first to welcome civilization were the planet's two satellites. A large number of factories dedicated to war quickly sprung up on these two satellites, and at the same time, the Legio Cybernetica was born and began to carry out local biological extermination missions on the planet's surface.

During the civil war of the Horus Heresy, the planet's mainland was controlled by the rebels, while the satellites were controlled by the loyalists, and the loyalists ultimately won. This highlighted the importance of the satellites for planetary defense operations—if the two moons are intact, the forge world is intact; if the two moons are lost, the forge world is lost.

To this end, the two satellites naturally deployed the most advanced defensive weapons, almost two massive space fortresses, equipped with a large number of giant and even super-giant lethal weapons and technological systems that only the forge world could maintain and use. Before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, some Dark Age secret weapons were even deployed.

Therefore, when the Orks' crude ships rushed towards the forge world, they were first greeted by the super-giant, super-high-energy laser cannon 'light show' and the roar of the giant plasma turrets—in the first few seconds, the defensive firepower of the two satellites quickly cut the first wave of Ork ships into pieces.

Immediately afterwards, the second wave of extremely deadly missile waves exploded in every place where a large number of Ork vehicles gathered, and then stirred all the Ork fleets that were almost close together into a storm of destruction.

The last to show their power were the various weapon platforms surrounding the satellites. Tens of thousands of kinetic turrets sprayed large areas of ammunition at the enemy.

The two satellites, like two fiery hedgehogs, angrily fired every turret's ammunition, launch bay's missiles, and thick laser beams at the Ork fleet, as if gnashing their teeth to erase the enemy from the void.

At the same time, the forge world's limited fleet also intercepted the Ork fleet on the outer periphery of the planet, especially those scattered small ships.

Despite suffering huge casualties, these Orks didn't care, just accelerated even more, rushing straight into the rain of fire.

The largest hulk, like an out-of-control meteorite, smashed towards Alarith Prime. All the firepower was absorbed by it, but only harmlessly peeled off layers of garbage and ship wreckage attached to it.

Relying on primitive shields and a suicidal attitude, nearly half of the Ork ships crossed the kill zone and began to counterattack with various crude weapons on their garbage-assembled hulls in an attempt to clear the way.

As the Orks counterattacked, the two satellites also began to recklessly overload their systems to fire. The density of the resulting firestorm quickly overwhelmed the Orks' firepower, even reaching an almost unbelievable fire density. Anyone who witnessed it could only believe that nothing could survive under that level of terrible firepower.

But the Orks did it, really did it under almost impossible circumstances, as if some unspeakable existence blessed them, or their collective roar weakened the human firepower.

The massive hulk rapidly approached the satellite Ikotomi in an almost unbelievable manner, and absorbed most of the terrifying firepower that would have annihilated other small ships with the strange green light emerging from it and its asteroid-like size. Under its protection, a large number of Ork small ships directly accelerated to a crazy speed, crashing towards the satellite's outer defense stations.

In just a few minutes, Ikotomi fell into complete chaos. Tens of thousands of Orks roared out of the burning wreckage. The originally fatal impacts and crashes seemed to them to be just a flat fall.

Soon, the firepower of this key defensive satellite began to gradually subside, allowing more and more Orks to directly reach the satellite's surface. The Adeptus Ministorum on it struggled to support themselves under the Orks' siege, but still could not prevent most of the satellite's structure and weapons from falling into the hands of the Orks, and the Orks also launched their terrible creativity, began to manufacture various terrible war machines on the spot, trying to destroy the last bit of the garrison, and began to bombard the planet's surface with weapons on the satellite.

In this case, the Titan Legion on Nizzkhara had to extract most of its strength to support Ikotomi, but Nizzkhara itself was also under attack. At this time, the weakness that the forge world once thought it had overcome was exposed again.