The Knight World of Daluoke

As the electric shackle flew toward his face, Curze threw a bomb. His body dissolved into black mist.

"I'll prove it to you, Corax. Prophecy cannot be wrong."

Corax had no time to argue. He rolled clear of the explosion. With a thunderous crash, smoke and dust billowed into the air, thick enough to blind even a Primarch. When it cleared, only the electric shackle lay on the ground. Curze was gone.

It seemed his brother had learned a few Warp tricks of his own. Then realization struck Corax. He raced toward his landing craft, but he was too late. By the time he reached it, the vessel was already rising, a blue flame streaming from its engines as it climbed into the sky.

Corax watched it dwindle to a point of light, feeling thoroughly defeated. Never underestimate any of his brothers. None was less intelligent than he was. His craft had automatic sensors and identity checks, but Curze had fooled them and gained flight access anyway.

Letting him loose in deep space would be a disaster. The Lion had once let Curze get aboard his flagship. He had failed to catch him, and a great many people had died.

Even the Dark Angels, with all their cunning, had been unable to stop him. Any other fleet that encountered him might be wiped out.

Corax had to stop him quickly, or at least warn the other fleets. Nostramo had once been a highly advanced civilized world. Perhaps he could find a vessel capable of interstellar flight, or equipment that could send a message to an expeditionary fleet. He headed for the nearest human settlement. He needed the locals' help.

When he appeared before them and declared that everyone in the settlement would submit to his rule, some resisted. Those who held power tried to kill him and restore the old order. Against a Primarch who had come to understand his own nature, however, the nobles' resistance amounted to very little. Corax easily killed everyone who tried to oppose him and took control.

His first act was to expand his army. He would seize resources elsewhere on the planet until he could obtain an interstellar vessel. There were few people here. Even after ten thousand years of development, the world remained desperately poor.

When Curze's fellow Primarchs had tried to bring him to judgment for injuring Dorn, he had killed his guards and escaped to Nostramo. He found that the world had not moved toward the bright future he had imagined, and began a massacre. After the Horus Heresy, the Imperial Navy had struck again in retribution. When the survivors emerged from underground, not a blade of grass remained. The world was bare. They had nothing left. With what few resources remained, they had painstakingly restored enough of its ecology to survive.

The population was small, and violence and disorder divided its communities. Yet thanks to his brother, Corax found it easy to take control of many factions. It seemed the awakened Primarch had returned here and tried to bring prosperity back in the Night Haunter's own fashion.

That made Corax wonder whether Curze had freed himself from the Warp's influence. He showed none of the madness of the Heresy, and seemed to be trying to reshape his own past. Whether he sought atonement or something else, Corax did not know.

His uncertainty did not stop him from taking over what his brother had accomplished. His appearance alone let him assume control of settlements already living in terror.

Elsewhere, a war against rebellion had begun. Kaliguisi, High King of the Knight world Daluoke, had repeatedly ignored Imperial demands. The messages his Astropaths received ordered him to surrender and stand trial for killing Imperial administrators. His actions had made his refusal clear. He had even tried to threaten Vigilus, a world vital to the Imperium. The Skyblade Judgment warship stationed there had taught him a painful lesson and sent him scurrying back to Daluoke.

The Cadian Gate, which had held for ten thousand years, had fallen. The Cicatrix Maledictum burst from the Eye of Terror and split the galaxy in two. The Imperium faced a catastrophe unlike any in its history. Destruction swept across the galaxy in the Great Rift's wake. Known physical laws broke down and warped. Space fractured. Time twisted. The barrier between reality and the sea of souls grew ever thinner.

Worse still, the Astronomican had briefly gone dark. It was the Emperor's guiding light, essential to holding the Imperium together. Imperial ships relied on it to find their bearings in the Warp, amid the claws of hell's daemons. After the storms of the Great Rift erupted, that light had briefly vanished. The Adeptus Astronomica and the Tech-Priests had swiftly restored it, but many worlds had already suffered unimaginable losses.

The Cicatrix Maledictum stretched across the galactic map, literally dividing the Imperium. One half was called Imperium Nihilus, the other Imperium Sanctus. Nihilus had become a realm of darkness, almost cut off from the Astronomican's light, communications, and shipping.

Even with his jump-beacon technology, Guilliman needed Vigilus as a staging point to reach Imperium Nihilus. Since the world's reconquest, more than two-thirds of the expeditionary fleets had used its beacon to cross into the dark half of the Imperium and relieve worlds ravaged by the Warp and daemons. The Nachmund Gauntlet was now a lifeline. Losing it would be catastrophic. The Departmento Munitorum had therefore stationed large Imperial forces on both Vigilus and Chidi. These included ten Skyblade vessels, with a Colossus warship ready to provide support. The corridor had to remain firmly under Ultramar's control.

Yet Kaliguisi, High King of Daluoke, had declared his independence from the Imperium. Perhaps the Warp rift was too close to his world. Its influence had driven many of the inhabitants into the same madness and paranoia as their ruler. Not everyone had succumbed. Some chose to leave for Vigilus or join the Indomitus Crusade.

Before Guilliman had made Vigilus and Chidi into safe havens, ships had tried to cross the corridor, only to come under Kaliguisi's guns. Vessels battered by Warp storms, seeking sanctuary or supplies on the Knight world, had been destroyed on his orders. Corpses and wrecked ships drifted through the Daluoke system. Even administrators sent by Ultramar had been killed.

The Departmento Munitorum could not leave a hostile world in such a critical position. Nor could it risk falling for a Warp-spawned diversion by weakening the garrisons of Vigilus and Chidi. Instead, it drew forces from elsewhere and assembled a new fleet to suppress Daluoke's rebellion. To minimize civilian casualties while obtaining firsthand data for the research institutes, the fleet carried a great deal of new equipment for battlefield testing.

The pacification fleet issued one final ultimatum: lay down your weapons, surrender, and stand trial for your actions. Kaliguisi showed no remorse. He quickly assembled his ships, preparing for a great battle against the approaching Imperial fleet.

What happened next surprised them. The Imperial fleet halted outside the system and released several teardrop-shaped craft toward Daluoke. The High King's ships soon detected and captured them all.

Their mercury-like shells reflected electromagnetic waves completely. Their surfaces were impossibly smooth. Kaliguisi's fleet commander could not understand what the Imperials were doing. He contacted the king and reported what they had found.

"Did they make these tears out of pity for me?"

Kaliguisi studied the teardrop-shaped probes over the communications link. The Imperium had never produced machines so exquisite. Perhaps something comparable might be found in long-forgotten ruins, but even that could hardly match the astonishing objects before him.

The most learned scholars could not determine their purpose. No method of observation revealed anything inside. Even under astronomical magnification, the devices showed only perfectly smooth surfaces, without a single flaw.

While they puzzled over them, Yide, commander of the pacification fleet, requested another conversation with High King Kaliguisi. The request was granted.

A middle-aged man wearing Imperial Navy insignia appeared on Kaliguisi's screen. The king gave a contemptuous smile. Imperial dogs. He had had enough of that rotten council and its idiotic decisions.

"Kaliguisi, this is your last chance," Yide said.

"Then I don't need it. We have declared our independence. We will no longer take orders from the Imperium." Kaliguisi was resolute. He was tall and powerfully built, but his face was drawn with exhaustion. His eyes bulged from deep sockets. The strain he was under was plain.

"Don't make your people pay for your stupidity," Yide said. "You have no idea what kind of enemy you're facing. Lay down your weapons and stand trial. There is still time to put this right."

"Spare me your lies, Imperial dog. Daluoke will never submit to the Imperium again. Our Knights and soldiers are ready. They'll make you pay dearly and send you crawling back where you came from." Kaliguisi sneered, dismissing Yide's threat.

"Will you really take it this far, Kaliguisi? Become a traitor to the Imperium and force me to butcher my own people?"

"Don't be so sure of yourself. The people of Daluoke won't let you slaughter them. If you dare attack, you'll pay a heavy price."

"You're a fool, Kaliguisi. You have no sense of responsibility toward your people."

Yide ended the transmission. War was now unavoidable. He did not want Daluoke to become a testing ground for the Imperium's new weapons, but Kaliguisi's obstinacy had left no way to prevent it.

"Activate all Water Droplets," he ordered.

The weapons supervisor pressed a button. A strange field emanated from the Water Droplets resting aboard Daluoke's ships. They rose slowly into the air, enveloped in blue light.

The rebel fleet commander knew at once that something was wrong. "Open fire! Destroy them!"

Whatever the objects were, shooting them was the best option. He had made the right decision. It changed nothing. Against such overwhelming superiority, nothing his men did could matter.

Blue rings appeared behind the Water Droplets. They shot forward like bullets at an unbelievable speed. Within seconds, they had punched through the ships' reactors and burst into open space. The vessels holding them were destroyed.

The rebel commander stared in shock. "Did they self-destruct? Check our systems for a virus!"

He thought the Water Droplets had detonated and taken the ships with them. Perhaps those tear-shaped craft really had been symbols of peace, of pity for his world. When negotiations broke down, they had exploded to announce the beginning of the war. That was how the commander understood it.