Warhammer 40k: The Men of Iron Return to the Galaxy Chapter 341 341: The Shattered Pariah Nexus (II)

Szarekh, the Silent King, looked upon the unfolding tactical disaster with a cold, tallic resignation.

The Pariah Nexus initiative, and the Blackstone constructs themselves, had been proven fundantally flawed by the Warp-borne corruption unleashed by Vashtorr. It was now clear that the pylons maintaining the stilled zones of the Pariah Nexus had transford into unstable liabilities.

The inherent pride of a Necron Overlord made it intolerable to watch the precious assets of the dynastic scions be dismantled by such primitive, fragile biological organisms, even assets proved to be obsolete. Yet, the current strategic reality forbade any further squandering of his military strength.

The appearance of the silver-hued machine-vessels stirred ancient engrams within Szarekh's consciousness, recalling experiences from his long exile in the intergalactic void.

In the infinite reaches of the cosmos beyond the galactic rim, he had encountered similar adversaries. There were distinct differences between those vessels and the ones now manifesting within the galaxy, yet the fundantal architecture bore a haunting resemblance. They were the subjects of conflicts Szarekh preferred not to revisit.

During his exodus, the Silent King had campaigned across the void with the characteristic ruthlessness of the Necron Dynasties, bringing extinction to countless world-systems. Until, one day, strange reports reached his command: a peculiar machine-civilization had erged in his deep rear.

The space beyond the galaxy is incomprehensibly vast; even with the Necrons' mastery of phase-technology, returning to an earlier sector required a significant temporal investnt. By the ti Szarekh's fleet intercepted the interlopers, this machine-culture had already undergone a dozen cycles of rapid evolution.

The Cryptek viziers beneath Szarekh had observed this civilization with burgeoning alarm, marveling at the sheer velocity of its technological advancent. They had advised the Silent King to eradicate the entity imdiately, lest it grow to threaten the future of the Necron race.

Szarekh, ever the invincible sovereign, accepted the counsel. War was ignited instantly, without the preamble of communication.

The results, however, had confounded him.

After the initial shock of the Necron assault, the war ground into a brutal stalemate. These strange machine-intelligences displayed such an overwhelming reserve of martial technology that Szarekh was eventually forced to awaken ancient, devastating weapon-platforms brought from the Milky Way just to break the deadlock.

The enemy had retaliated by deploying destructive gastructures against the Necron fleets and initiating a scorched-earth campaign of "stellar extinction."

After several stinging defeats, the Necron fleet increased its war-footing. Yet the machines began to withdraw, fighting a rearguard action while drifting toward the deeper reaches of the universe, seemingly uninterested in continuing a war of no logical value.

Ultimately, Szarekh abandoned the pursuit. He knew deep within his logic-cores that it was not Necron might that had driven them off, but the enemy's own choice to conclude the conflict.

In subsequent centuries of expansion, Szarekh pointedly avoided the trajectory taken by that machine-exodus. That ancient mory had remained buried for nearly ten thousand years, until now, as he returned to the Necrons' ancestral birthplace. The sight of these new machine-fleets signaled that the forgotten past was stirring once more.

But Szarekh had no ti to delve into his databanks. Like Roboute Guilliman, he was beset by a mountain of strategic crises.

Beyond the galaxy, the infinite hunger of the Tyranid Hive Fleets was descending. This devoured the vast majority of Szarekh's attention and strength. The Phaerons and Pharaohs who had followed him into the void were currently occupied securing Necron territories in the deep dark and purging the endless tide of chitinous horrors.

Had even a fraction of that extra-galactic strength been available to him, Szarekh could have guaranteed that the upstart clown Imotekh the Stormlord would never have interfered with his designs.

But fate had not been kind.

The Pariah Nexus had failed; the Blackstone was susceptible to the Great Enemy's taint. Strange machine-ships stood defiant against his fleets, and Imotekh, that fool, had chosen this mont of vulnerability to challenge his divine right.

As those gluttonous insects made contact with more and more Necron holdings, the intensity of the war outside the galaxy was escalating exponentially. Szarekh could not recall the last ti he had been plagued by so many disparate irritations.

Following the cold calculus provided by his Crypteks and General-Lords, Szarekh made the most direct choice. All forces within the Pariah Nexus would withdraw to engage Imotekh in a decisive confrontation. Szarekh would crush the Stormlord once and for all, re-establishing his absolute authority before the "ho-grown" dynasties of the Milky Way.

As for the Noctilith pylons that might inadvertently fuel the Warp? Let the vermin dismantle them.

Once he had reunified the Necron Dynasties, they would ascend to their rightful place as the apex of the galaxy. Then, ard with the ancient technologies of the inner rim, he would return to the void and eradicate the Tyranids entirely. Only then would he have the leisure to solve the riddle of bio-transference and restore the Necrons to flesh and blood.

…

As the Necron defensive posture shifted visibly, the montum of the Imperial advance accelerated.

By the ti Belisarius Cawl erged from his obsessive study of the shield-data provided by Axion, he realized the Blackstone pylons had been nearly wiped out. As the supre commander of the Hephaestus Battle Group, Cawl hastily ordered a cessation of hostilities.

The Pariah Nexus was shattered, its oppressive influence broken. However, Cawl ordered the Adeptus chanicus fleet to maintain a permanent garrison around the few remaining Blackstone structures.

While Szarekh viewed the Noctilith technology as a failure, Cawl saw it differently. The Imperium had understood long before the Necrons that Blackstone was prone to corruption. But that did not make the technology worthless.

The Imperium was steeped in corruption. If the Adeptus Terra ceased using every technology susceptible to the Warp, the Imperium would have collapsed millennia ago. Only a race as technologically affluent as the Necrons could afford to discard such a resource on a whim.

The Imperium, conversely, was reduced to grave-robbing for lost archeotech. To innovate was heresy. In an environnt where the Warp's interference was inescapable, any new research risked becoming a gift to the Chaos Gods. Often, a technology would be corrupted before it was even perfected.

Thus, the study of existing xenos-tech and the excavation of lost STCs remained the only viable paths for the Imperium's "regressive" technological survival.

When Guilliman received the reports from Cawl and Axion confirming that the Pariah Nexus was under control, a rare smile finally touched his lips. He quickly composed himself and issued the order for the fleet to burn for Terra.

He had been away too long. He had to return, and deep down, he harbored a silent dread that Lion El'Jonson might have already done sothing drastic to the High Lords of Terra.