In the war-torn world of Vikia, the flames of battle raged mercilessly. Even with the arrival of Commander Poole and Lance's Imperial fleet, salvation was far from assured.
The metal abominations that plagued this planet—cold, relentless, and unyielding—could not be driven back. All the fleet could do was hunker down in bunkers and bastions, shielding what few survivors they could.
But even this fragile defense could not last long. The xenos machines wielded weapons far beyond anything the Imperium had anticipated. The only recourse was to withdraw—evacuate with what information they had gathered on these mechanical horrors before they were utterly annihilated.
But that choice came at a cost.
Not everyone could be saved. Some would be left behind, abandoned to the mercy of soulless killers.
This was the grim calculus of war—known all too well by the officers of the Imperium.
Grim-faced and silent, senior officers moved with purpose through the command deck, their boots echoing in tense rhythm. The gravity of the situation weighed heavy on every soul.
The rescued survivors—gaunt, hollow-eyed—watched in mute despair.
Their world had been shattered, their homes razed by the xenos scourge, and they themselves had no strength to reclaim what was lost.
Even now, opportunistic nobles slithered to Lance in private, offering bribes—"donations"—in exchange for safe passage off-world.
Lance, too tired to be angry, simply had them thrown out of his office.
Among the displaced were the war orphans—young and traumatized. The xenos invasion had left scars that would never fully heal.
One of them, a boy named Sano, gazed silently through the observation slit of the fortress, eyes dulled by too much loss.
His mentor—his teacher—had fallen in battle. Sano, still a teenager, could do nothing but watch as the body was carried off.
But he had managed one thing: recovering the personal recorder from his teacher's bulletproof vest—standard issue for every Guardsman.
Normally, such devices were retrieved by the Departmento Munitorum. But the quartermaster, perhaps moved by pity, turned a blind eye and let the boy keep it.
Through it, Sano saw the final moments of his mentor. The man—tattooed with the golden Aquila across his face—fought to the bitter end.
Not once did he beg for mercy.
That scene etched itself into Sano's memory, offering a sliver of solace. As the Magos often preached, the souls of the loyal and the brave returned to the Golden Throne in death.
To Sano, that meant his teacher now dwelled in the God-Emperor's celestial domain—his spirit rewarded with eternity, basking in divine light.
"May your soul return to the Throne," Sano whispered. "You'll be there. I know it. And one day… when I fall in battle… I'll see you again, teacher."
Still only a child, Sano could not imagine adulthood—his vision of the future was shaped solely by death and war. His fondest hope was reunion with lost kin beneath the Emperor's gaze.
The footage was burned into his mind.
He watched his teacher, mortally wounded, lungs pierced—voice a rasping roar as he charged.
The foe was a silver monstrosity—metallic, skeletal, expressionless.
Despite his massive, muscular frame, the Guardsman's uniform was torn through effortlessly by the xenos weapon.
Even as he was lifted bodily into the air, blood pouring from his mouth, he still fought—slashing weakly with his monomolecular blade.
His last breath was spent spitting curses at the soulless machine.
To Sano, it was still a mystery what these creatures were. But his teacher had named them:
Aliens.
Though young, Sano's heart seethed with hatred—a hatred that would one day fuel his faith, his fury, and his fire.
In that brief footage, the man never yielded. He stood his ground until the very end.
Green energy beams had scorched the sky overhead, and heretics screamed their obscene litanies as they charged the Imperial Guard positions.
But Sano remembered: no matter how dark the battlefield, his teacher never retreated. He led from the front, again and again, no matter the odds.
Once, Sano had asked him what it meant to throw one's life away in service.
The man never answered with words—only with a faint, knowing smile.
That same man had once stood at Ophelia VII, witnessing the resurrection of the Primarch, Lion El'Jonson. He had stood among the crowd outside Hymn Cathedral Square, listening to the Lion's speech—cheering with hope reborn.
He had joined the Imperial forces in the liberation of Varro, purging the taint of Chaos. From the top of a Rust-pattern Leman Russ, he had shouted with his battle-brothers as the enemy was crushed beneath the treads.
At that moment, their wills converged—and the entire world trembled beneath their unity.
He had been on Belia IV, fighting alongside the Warmaster, celebrating the banishment of the daemonic. He had stood shoulder to shoulder with countless Guardsmen, and at the Warmaster's coronation, he and his fellow soldiers shouted until their throats were raw:
"For the Emperor! For the Warmaster!"
He had witnessed the resurrection of the Primarch, Lion El'Jonson, and walked among rejoicing citizens as Imperial banners were raised in shattered cities. It was a moment of hope—a rare light in a galaxy gone dark.
In Sano's heart, his teacher was not just a man—he was a living angel. An angel of the Emperor, of the Warmaster, sent to bring faith and fire to the forsaken. He had brought enlightenment and purpose to the broken people of Vikia. And now, like so many saints before him, he had given his life for this world—and returned to the Warmaster's side in glory.
"For the Emperor, for the Warmaster, for the golden years!"
The man's voice rang out one last time through the vox-recorder, hoarse and defiant.
Sano clutched his mouth, trembling. Every warrior longed for their soul to return to the Golden Throne—yet when the moment came, the pain of loss still tore through him. He fought to hold back the tears.
That man had been his mentor, his guide—the instructor of the Youth Auxiliary.
The man used to joke grimly that it was the failure of their generation that forced children into war.
But Sano didn't agree.
The Imperium spanned millions of worlds—and on each, war was a way of life. There was no such thing as peace. The so-called golden age was nothing but a myth, a dream that died ten thousand years ago.
The man had known this. He'd seen death approaching the moment the metal skeletons appeared—xenos horrors known to few outside the Ordos: the Necrons.
Sano remembered the grim expression on his teacher's face, the rare stillness in his movements. The man had prepared for the end. He left behind a will and distributed his treasured possessions among the remaining youths.
Among them was a sack of Throne Gelt, heavy enough to reach a man's waist.
Sano had been shocked. Throne Gelt was hard currency across the Imperium, and enough of it could buy a man a life of luxury on many compliant worlds.
The man had explained, smiling faintly, that these coins had been salvaged from a museum by a fellow soldier.
Sano had never understood how any museum could hold so much wealth.
There had also been a tattered family portrait, and a photo of the man with a young girl.
If Ophelia VII, second only to Holy Terra, had not been engulfed by Chaos when the man was just fifteen… perhaps he could have lived a quiet, unremarkable life.
But fate had forged him into a weapon of the Imperium.
At the end of the footage, his flak armor was shredded, and a dark green metallic spear stabbed through his body multiple times. Bladed edges punched through flesh and bone, and blood sprayed from his lips as he collapsed.
The Necron kicked his limp body aside, and it twitched once… then fell still.
Around him, the planet of Vikia was aflame. The sky twisted into a churning warpstorm. Imperial defenses crumbled. Regiments fell back under overwhelming pressure.
Soldiers screamed as they fought—but their cries were silenced beneath the emotionless advance of the Necron phalanxes.
One by one, men and women died—without glory, without witness.
Servitors—once prisoners repurposed into mechanical thralls—were torn apart in the trenches as Chaos and Necron forces surged forward.
In the Imperial Command Bunker, grim silence reigned.
"We won't last much longer. If you want to save those civilians, do it now."
An Astropath hacked violently, blood and warp-taint gushing from his mouth.
The enemy was not just Necrons. Chaos had also spread its vile corruption across Vikia. Cultists, warlocks, and Daemonhosts had infiltrated the highest levels of command, decapitating leadership and nearly wiping out Imperial High Command.
Only by providence was the conspiracy discovered in time. Most senior officers survived, though many bore grievous wounds.
The Imperial Psykers, however, had paid dearly for their confrontation with the Chaos Sorcerers—many burned out or rendered hollow shells.
"We can't take all the survivors," someone said quietly.
Commander Poole's holo-image hovered over the command table, silent for a long moment.
"We can't ask for miracles," he finally said. "Lance, form a rescue party. Prioritize the children. Get them out of this hell. Their lives must not end here."
The fighting outside was beyond belief. A nightmare born of blasphemy.
This was something no one had prepared for: Necrons fighting alongside Chaos.
At first, the Imperial Fleet had blasted its way through the Necron orbital defenses and secured low orbit over Vikia.
But with the sudden appearance of Chaos forces, the situation had turned dire.
If the Imperials wanted to escape, they would need to flee before the xenos and warp-beasts completed their encirclement.
In the skies above, Thunderhawk Gunships soared through flak and fire, strafing enemy positions to carve out a corridor for the evacuation craft.
It was official now:
Vikia had been marked for Exterminatus.
"Commander, we might have one last option."
Lance's voice cut through the static.
All eyes turned as the young hero traced a symbol on his chest with two fingers.
Poole narrowed his eyes.
"You mean to plant an Imperial Beacon? A Claim Marker?"
He hesitated. That would mean anchoring a signal for future reclamation—staking a right of vengeance and return.
It was suicide.
But when he saw the fire in the young man's eyes, the refusal to surrender, Poole swallowed his protest.
"Do it," he said, placing a firm hand on Lance's shoulder.
Only then did he realize how much the boy had grown. Once a junior officer—now a soldier of iron resolve, ready to defy gods and monsters alike.
"Come back alive, son," Poole said quietly.
"Yes, sir!"
Thanks to the efforts of the Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus, a landing zone was cleared. The last few Arvus Lighters and Valkyries prepared for departure.
Sano, along with a cluster of children, boarded one of the transports.
His world was gone. The homes, the faces, the hopes—all torn apart by alien horrors and heretical corruption.
Now, as the gunship engines roared to life, he knew:
They were wanderers now. Orphans of the Imperium.
But at least… they still lived.
And they would remember.
Humiliation. Rage. Vows unspoken.
There was fire in Sano's eyes.
Hatred had taken root within him—its seeds planted in ash and watered by grief. One day, he knew, it would grow into a towering inferno.
Through the open hatch of the transport, he could still see it all: the Imperial main force had not yet withdrawn. Enginseers and servitors were working furiously, assembling something—some kind of structure surrounded by chanting Ministorum priests, their scarlet robes forming a solemn square.
Beyond them stretched the layered defense lines of the Astra Militarum, bolstered with tank hulls, sandcrete barriers, and lascannon nests. It was a final bulwark against the xenos and the warp-born.
And through it all, even from the rumble of the aircraft engines, Sano could still hear the monsters' screams.
High, fast, panicked.
Even they can feel fear…
His lips curled slightly.
They're afraid… of us.
There was something beautiful about the sound of their shrieks.
As the chanting rose, Imperial priests—draped in flame-scorched vestments—sang hymns of martyrdom. Ethereal fire danced upon their bodies, neither consuming nor sparing them. It was the fire of faith.
Their words thundered from anti-grav vox-casters, echoing across the battlefield, across Vikia, and even, perhaps, to the edges of the void.
This galaxy was a place of unending screams and unrelenting dark.
The God-Emperor of Mankind did not need the Imperium. But the Imperium needed Him—now more than ever.
He was the Eternal Light, worshipped by billions. And in this nightmare, survival and faith were all that remained.
"The Emperor… He's crying!"
A voice broke the trance.
Sano turned. The shout came from somewhere outside the transport.
There, on the ruins of the blasted city, stood a shattered Imperial statue—a half-destroyed icon of the Emperor, arm broken, face blackened with ash.
And yet, from the statue's eye, a single golden teardrop fell.
The priests lost themselves to ecstasy and awe. They raised their arms, the sacred skulls hanging from their vestments clattering like windchimes of bone and brass.
"He watches over us!"
Their cry was unanimous, desperate, victorious. With their vestments alight and faith burning brighter than the pyres around them, they fell to their knees on the cold ground.
They screamed until their throats bled. And still—they chanted.
Fanaticism. Devotion. Glory.
Then something changed.
High above the battlefield, within the war-torn skies of Vikia, a burning sigil appeared—like a halo of thorns set ablaze, a celestial brand carved across the heavens.
Sano's breath caught.
The transport was lifting off now, engines roaring to full power as they began their ascent.
And then—he saw them.
Through fire and ruin, a torrent of warriors emerged.
They marched from the flames as if born of it—disciples of vengeance, blades drawn, moving like an unstoppable tide. Heretics, xenos, traitors—all were crushed before them.
It was like watching the impossible.
The lines of Chaos and Necron forces—unstoppable until now—were torn apart like parchment.
And then…
Sano's eyes widened.
In the midst of those warriors, among the flames and the fury, stood a figure he knew.
His heart stopped.
The man turned, slowly, deliberately—and their eyes met across the smoke-choked sky.
There was no mistaking it.
Even through the chaos, even across the impossible distance, Sano recognized him.
His teacher.
His mentor.
Alive.
The man looked at him one last time as the gunship carried Sano away.
The image blurred—tears, smoke, altitude—but Sano didn't look away.
And then, as the skies of Vikia fell behind, Sano smiled.
He knew the truth now.
The man had not died.
He had become something more.