800.M30
In the Immateruim, a soul has been moving about, exploring places that have never been seen by any human. Some knowledge contained in these places made it a gold mine for any psyker.
Unknown to this soul a being with 2 bird heads had been following it for the past 10 years. It has created knowledge deposits for the soul to find, making the soul always visible to it. It is a form of marking, letting other daemons know it has claimed this soul.
It did not rush to devour it, it did not interact with the soul, all it did was watch it. A soul that bright, and having a connection to the fracture that was felt through the Immaterium, wanting to know what the soul would do.
For real space 10 years have passed, but here a year or 1000 years have passed, the soul did not know. What it did know was it could not find any more knowledge and it is time for it to exit and be born.
Wandering around to locate its destined location, the soul came across a ship. This ship looked nothing like the ships of the Imperium. It also did not completely look like it a xenos vessel.
What attracted the soul to the ship was its mixed matched appearance. The ship moved as if it was fully operational, but how could a ship that has other ships fused to its hull and through it still function.
The soul approached the ship, using one of the aetheric resonances it had come across it left a print on the ship. It would look for the ship another time.
Then came a new vessel, one that was an Imperium's vessel. Within the vessel humans huddled up together in tight spaces and in disarray. They looked like displaced thralls moving to a new location.
Within the vessel there was a woman, pregnant and almost ready to give birth. The soul felt a connection to that woman and immediately rushed toward the ship.
The second the ship was about to exit the Immaterium, it plunged into the baby forming in the woman.
Arghhh
Immediately the soul entered the womb of the woman, she let out a scream in pain. The baby that was once within her body was gone, the soul remade the baby, not by choice, but by its very existence.
The body needed to carry the soul, and the original body that was already dead needed to be remade. The process was brutal, causing the woman to scream in more pain.
The pain caused the woman to go into labour immediately. She could not carry such a child, the second the new body was fully formed, it began drawing the bio-essence from the mother, taking away what little the woman had.
The vessel now in real space in their intended destination. The ship was bound for Verghast, a planet with a growing population of displaced thralls.
The woman, overcome with the strain of the child in her woman, passed out. Then came the sound of a baby crying, she did not participate, she did not push, she did nothing as the child came out crying.
All the passengers besides the woman were in shock, when they saw the baby, because it came out with a tattoo on the back of its hand.
It looked like a mandala of Impossible symmetry.a snowflake within a snowflake, within a snowflake, and on and on, a fractal star.
"Waaaahh"
The baby cried and a pulse traveled from it to the surrounding people. Their eyes glazed over as it washed over them and an idea was planted in their minds.
One that said this woman had given birth a month ago and this was just her child that had been traveling with them.
The child meanwhile was laying on its mother, looking like both were asleep. Its umbilical cord is cut, and it is wearing clothes. The mothers rhythmic breathing indicates she is alive.
While all this was going on, the battle of Neptune was still on the way.
Back in the Battle of Neptune, Sol System
Imperial ships first target was Triton, a moon that could be taken easily to establish a forward base for the remaining fighting.
Lance batteries of the victory-class battle cruiser and 10 dauntless light cruisers, targeted the moon's defensive installations.
BOOM
Fires erupted from its surface as many structures were removed.
"Primary beachhead identified. Commence Planetfall. Dispatch the first wave."
"Captain, focus Auspex sweep to Sector Tertius. Signs of massed life-signs beneath the mantle. " an officer called out in horror as he looked at the Auspex life scan readings.
Triton, largest of Neptune's moons, was no mere satellite, it was a fortress world in miniature. Its frozen crust concealed vast networks of bunkers, manufactorums, and defense silos carved deep beneath the ice. From orbit, it appeared lifeless.
Millions waited below.
Tetrarch Heavy Lander, Valkyries carrying imperial troops landed on the moon, they began clearing out a landing zone. When thunderhawks approached their landing zone carrying Astartes…
BOOM, KABOOM, BANG, BLAST
The first Imperial landings came under fire.
Dropships descended through a storm of anti-aircraft fire, their hulls rattling under impacts from flak bursts and plasma bolts. Several were lost before reaching the surface, their wreckage scattering across the ice plains in burning fragments.
Those that landed did so into war.
Solar Auxilia cohorts deployed with disciplined efficiency, forming shield walls against the bitter winds and incoming fire. Their void-hardened armor gleamed faintly under Triton's dim light as they advanced in tight formations, lasrifles firing in controlled volleys.
Malcador heavy tanks rumbled forward, their tracks grinding ice into vapor as battle cannons roared.
The defenders answered with relic weapons of terrifying potency.
Graviton imploders collapsed entire sections of advancing troops into singularities of crushing force. Radiation projectors bathed the battlefield in invisible death, reducing men to ash within moments. Entire Auxilia formations vanished, their sacrifice marking the cost of progress.
Still, they advanced.
Artillery batteries were established within hours. Basilisks fired in coordinated barrages, their shells arcing high before crashing into enemy positions with devastating effect. The ice itself began to fracture under the strain of sustained bombardment.
Then the first of the Legiones Astartes landed on the ground leaping from the gunship, officially entering the war.
Stormbirds descended like meteors, their hulls glowing as they cut through the atmosphere. Thunderhawks followed, delivering squads directly into the heart of enemy defenses. Where they landed, the tide turned.
Astartes breacher squads advanced into bunker networks, their boarding shields absorbing torrents of fire. Melta charges turned reinforced bulkheads into molten slag.
Inside the tunnels, the fighting became brutal and intimate. bolter fire echoing in confined spaces, chainblades tearing through defenders in sprays of blood and steam.
Orbital support guided their advance. Lance strikes from above carved precise corridors through enemy lines, collapsing strongpoints and isolating resistance pockets.
3 days of Attrition till the Triton was occupied by Imperial forces.
The war was not over but a foot hold has been secured.