六版圣典补充翻译：考勒姆斯之战（上）
Upon the Dawnbreak expedition’s return to Medusa, the recovered xenos machineries were consigned to vaults deep underground and their fate commented upon no further.
在破晓星远征探索队回到美杜莎世界后，回收的异形机械被交付到了地下深处的仓库中，它们的命运（之后）不会再被谈论。
Meanwhile, Clan Company Raukaan was reinstated to full front-line duties. The decades that followed saw them victorious time and again under the continuing leadership of Iron Father Kristos and Iron Captain Graevaar – now an honoured Iron Father in his own right. It was nearly two hundred years after the victory on Dawnbreak that word reached the Iron Council of the plight of Columnus. A venerable forge world on the western fringe of Segmentum Solar, Columnus sat directly in the path of a vast Ork Waaagh! Even now, the xenos were flowing toward Columnus like a huge wave, depopulating outlying systems and sweeping the scattered Imperial defenders before them like flotsam on the tide. The forge world’s senior magi had requested immediate aid, and the Iron Hands would give it.
与此同时，拉卡安氏族连队恢复了全部的前线职责。在之后的数十年中，钢铁圣父克里斯托斯和钢铁连长格莱瓦尔（他现在也凭自己的力量成为了一名受人尊敬的钢铁圣父）不断领导着氏族连队夺取了一次又一次的胜利。在破晓星大捷过去大约两百年之后，关于考勒姆斯世界困境的消息抵达了钢铁议会处。考勒姆斯是位于太阳星域西侧边境的珍贵铸造世界，它正好位于欧克兽人某次规模庞大Waaagh! 的路线上。目前，异形如同巨浪般涌向考勒姆斯，它们屠杀边远星系中人口，如同潮水冲走漂浮物那般扫清了它们面前分崩离析的帝国守军。铸造世界的高阶贤者们请求帝国立即提供支援，而钢铁之手们将会欣然前往。
Less than a month after the distress call had been received, a mighty fleet of black-hulled ships hove into orbit above Columnus, each bearing the white gauntlet of the Iron Hands upon its flanks. Over a third of the Chapter’s strength had been deployed – no fewer than ten Iron Fathers led this expedition, commanding a force that included the whole of Clans Raukaan and Garrsak as well as representative forces from almost every other clan company.
在收到呼救不到一个月后，一支黑色的强大舰队进入了考勒姆斯上空的轨道，每艘飞船的侧面都带着钢铁之手的白色手铠战团纹章。战团部署了超过自身军力三分之一的力量——领导这次远征的至少有十位钢铁圣父，他们指挥的部队包括完整的拉卡安氏族和卡尔萨克氏族，外加来自几乎所有其他氏族连队的代表部队。
As the Iron Hands’ helm-servitors established vox-links with the defenders on Columnus, the Iron Hands learned that they would be fighting in good company. The entirety of the Legio Ferrax had been assembled, the ‘Iron Wolves’ boasting over thirty Titans of varying classes.
随着钢铁之手的轮舵机仆与考勒姆斯上的守军建立音频通讯连接，星际战士们了解到自己将会和卓越的盟友并肩作战。坚铁泰坦军团——或者说“钢铁之狼”泰坦军团集结起了全军，他们自夸拥有超过三十台不同型号的泰坦。
Phalanx upon phalanx of Skitarii, Cataphractii and augmented tech-guard garrisoned the sprawling, city-sized fortress factories that dotted Columnus. Dozens of regiments of Imperial Guard tanks, artillery and super-heavy armour had been assembled on the planet’s crimson plains, or held the raised super-highways that connected one fortress factory with the next. Countless guns pointed skyward, waiting for the Orks’ assault, and the Iron Hands moved quickly to add their own. As the Orks’ landing sites were likely to be both random and numerous, it was deemed that the Iron Hands’ strength must remain as concentrated as was practical. The Iron Fathers thus split their force into three company-sized armies, and deployed them to the greatest of the fortress factories – Kemlos, Urdri and Slartav. Yet as the tanks of Clan Raukaan roared up the highway toward Urdri, Kristos and Graevaar were to receive disturbing news. The Iron Hands were not the only Space Marines present in defence of Columnus.
护教军、铁骑自动机兵和技术守卫们组成了一个又一个的方阵，驻守在分布于考勒姆斯各处如城市般大小并四处蔓延的堡垒工厂中。数十个帝国卫队团的坦克、炮兵和超重型装甲载具要么是已经集结到了星球绯红色的平原上，要么就是把守着连接起一座又一座堡垒工厂的高架快速路。无数枪炮对准天空，等待着兽人的来犯，钢铁之手也很快将自己的武器加入其中。由于兽人的登陆地点可能将会是数量众多且随机的，钢铁之手认为必须一如既往得将自身兵力集中起来。于是钢铁圣父们将部队拆分为三支连队规模的军队，并将其部署到Kemlos、Urdri和Slartav这三座最大的要塞工厂中。然而当拉卡安氏族的坦克在高速路上咆哮着冲向Kemlos、Urdri和Slartav三块区域时，钢铁之手们将会收到一个令其烦恼的消息：他们并非是唯一前来防守考勒姆斯的星际战士。
As the warriors of Clan Raukaan began moving to their posts within the labyrinthine factorysprawl of Urdri, Shadow Captain Stenn of the Raven Guard approached them. Accompanied by his command squad, Stenn extended the Iron Hands’ commanders a greeting and offer of brotherhood. He explained that his force had been effecting a fighting retreat before the oncoming Orks to slow their advance, giving the defenders of Columnus time to prepare. Now Stenn’s men were ready to fight in earnest, and he possessed important information regarding the peculiar strengths of the foe. In response, Kristos’ silence stretched long, growing ever more uncomfortable as his augmetics hissed and whirred. Finally the Techmarine replied.
当拉卡安氏族的战士们开始在Urdri迷宫般四处蔓延的厂区中前往自己的阵地时，暗鸦守卫的暗影连长斯特恩向他们走来。斯特恩在自己指挥小队的陪同下来到此处，他向钢铁之手的指挥官们致意，并且表达了兄弟之情。他解释到：自己的部队已经在兽人到来前进行了一次战斗撤退，以此来减慢异形们的前进速度，为考勒姆斯的守军们争取到了备战时间。现在斯特恩的下属们准备在东部地区作战，而且他掌握了关于敌人特殊力量的重要情报。克里斯托斯则以漫长的沉默作为回应，他的（机械化）增强部位发出的嘶嘶声和嗡嗡声令对方感到更为不适。这位技术军士最终回答到：
‘The Raven Guard cannot be relied upon,’ he announced in buzzing tones. ‘You fight like smoke, drifting away in the slightest breeze. Additional: Orks are no new foe to the Iron Hands, you know nothing that our battle simulations have not already told us. We will not fight alongside you, Shadow Captain Stenn, for it is in all we do as Iron Hands to avoid the fate suffered by our Primarch.’ The Iron Father and his men swept past the bristling Raven Guard, the crash of their boots receding as they made for their command-post.
“暗鸦守卫是不可信赖的，”他用嗡嗡作响的声音宣布到，“你们如烟雾般作战，在微风中飘散。另外，兽人也并非钢铁之手的新敌人，战斗模拟还尚未告诉我们（可能的）战况，你们根本就一无所知。我们不会和你并肩作战，暗影连长斯特恩，因为身为钢铁之手，我们所做的一切都是为了避免我们的原体所遭受的命运（在我们身上重演）。”钢铁圣父和他的下属们从怒火中烧的暗鸦守卫们身旁掠过，他们走向自己的指挥所，战靴碰击地面的声音渐行渐远。
The Orks arrived scant days later, and their fury was a thing to behold. The Astropaths had been wailing for hours, many dying in the grip of convulsions so severe that they broke their necks or chewed off their own tongues. As each psyker perished, the Tech Adepts of the Colosseum Astropathica simply unlocked another from stasis storage, yet the Astropaths were dying as fast as they could be plugged back into their thrones. Now, as the Orks’ enormous fleet appeared above Columnus, an almighty surge of psionic energy rolled out from amid the greenskin armada. As the bow-wave struck home, every single surviving Astropath died at once in a blaze of green flame that consumed the Colosseum, leaving nothing but a glowing crater in its wake.
兽人在仅仅数天后便到达了考勒姆斯，而且它们的怒火是显而可见的。星语者们哀嚎了数个小时，很多人都在剧烈的抽搐中死去——他们要么折断了脖子，要么咬断了舌头。每当一个灵能者死去，星语站的技术专家们就会从静滞库中解锁另一个，然而星语者们被架到星语传送王座上的速度就和他们死去的速度一样快。现在，随着兽人的庞大舰队出现在考勒姆斯上空，一股强大的灵能能量被从绿皮舰队中释放而出。当弓形波集中目标时，所有幸存星语者都死在了一团吞噬了星语大厅的绿色烈焰中。火焰过后，原地只剩下一个发光的巨坑。
THE BEAST DESCENDS
野兽降临
Even as the bodies of Columnus’ first fallen were blazing in the wreckage, orbital augurs were
attempting to calculate the size of the greenskin armada descending upon the planet. The Ork ships resembled a meteor storm of incredible density. Rocket-propelled asteroids and tumbling, thruster-studded lumps of metal jostled for space with snub-nosed attack ships that belched trails of black smoke into the void as they passed. Ploughing through the mass like predatory beasts came slab-sided capital ships, each a preposterous tangle of armour and guns. Worst of all, at the fleet’s heart loomed a mighty space hulk the size of a small moon. Around it played a weird halo of green lightning, alike to a storm in space. This was Waaagh! Zagdakka, and it descended upon Columnus at breakneck speed.
就当考勒姆斯第一批死者的尸体仍在废墟中燃烧时，轨道鸟卜仪正在试图推算降临到考勒姆斯这支绿皮舰队的规模。兽人飞船们集结成了一阵密度惊人的流星风暴，火箭推动的小行星、布满推进器且翻滚着的（不定形）金属肿块状飞船互相推挤着从太空中穿过，钝首的攻击舰在经过时向虚空中喷出黑烟。侧面平坦的主力舰们如同掠食野兽那样从大群的飞船中驶过，而且每艘主力舰上都是火炮和装甲以荒谬古怪的方式堆积缠结而成的造物。最糟糕的是，在舰队的中心隐现着一艘小号卫星尺寸的巨型太空废船，其周身散发着绿色闪电构成的诡异光环，好似太空中的一道风暴。（兽人军阀）怪战者的Waaagh!以极快的速度向考勒姆斯袭来。
The orbital fortresses were the first to feel the Orks’ wrath. Forge worlds are repositories of the most ancient and deadly technologies, and Columnus’ orbitals were equipped with a vast array of weapons systems. Strobing webs of high-powered lasers reached out into the void, cutting through Ork ships to dissect them in seconds. Vortex warheads detonated amidst tightly packed clusters of greenskin craft and dragged them into the howling void. Gravity drivers crushed Ork ships to scrap or smashed them into one another with deadly force, while vast cycling batteries of missiles and lasers lit the skies of Columnus with their fury. The Orks simply accelerated, charging into the rain of fire.
轨道要塞们首先感受到了兽人的怒火。铸造世界们代表着最为古老且致命的科技，考勒姆斯的轨道上也装备了庞大的武器系统阵列。高能激光束射向虚空，形成带着残影的火力网，这些激光束切穿兽人的舰船，并在几秒内将其切碎。漩涡弹头在密密麻麻的绿皮舰群中爆炸，将它们拖入呼啸着的虚空中。重力驱动器碾碎了兽人的飞船，或用致命的力量使其相互碰撞。同时，循环发射导弹和激光的巨大炮塔也用自己的怒火点亮了考勒姆斯的天空。而兽人们只是加速冲入这阵火雨。
Thousands of attack ships and ramming craft were blown apart, shattering into expanding clouds of fire and spinning debris, yet thousands remained. Having exploited the smaller craft as crude shields, the larger assault craft and cruisers now ploughed forward through the plummeting wreckage and opened up with weapons of their own. A ferocious firestorm tore the heavens from pole to pole. Missiles and explosive munitions filled the diminishing gap between the orbitals and their myriad aggressors, the curtain of fire and debris becoming so dense that it seemed nothing could survive it. Yet impossibly, as if driven by some will greater than their own, the Orks came on. Many of the larger asteroids simply ploughed through the incoming fire, their rocky ‘hulls’ absorbing impacts that would have annihilated more conventional craft.
数千艘进攻飞船和撞击艇被炸碎，裂成了不断膨胀的火焰云团和旋转的碎片，但还有数千艘仍在前进。大型突击艇和巡洋舰是纯粹将小型舰艇用作了护盾，他们在坠落的残骸（群）中奋力前进，用自己的武器开辟通路。一场猛烈的火焰风暴撕裂了星球两极之间的天空，星球轨道与无数入侵者之间的间距不断缩小，双方用导弹和爆炸性弹药相互不停射击，炮火弹幕和碎片变得如此密集，以至于似乎没有什么东西能从中幸免于难。但令人难以置信的，仿佛是受到了某种比他们更为强大的意志驱使那般，兽人们突然出现了。许多大型的小行星简单地穿过了来袭的炮火，他们的石质“船体”吸收了本可以摧毁更为传统的舰艇的冲击力。
Without slowing, they slammed into the orbital fortresses and ripped them apart. Proud bastions that had hung in space for millennia fragmented like shattered glass, explosions stitching through them and immolating their doomed garrisons. From the surface of Columnus it appeared as though the sky had caught fire, the planet’s omnipresent smog banks shredding to reveal tumbling, blazing swathes of wreckage falling toward the surface.
在毫无减速的情况下，兽人的小行星们猛烈地撞向轨道堡垒，将之撕碎。悬挂在太空中千年之久的高傲堡垒们像碎玻璃那样支离破碎，它们接连爆炸，其上的驻军们也被一并烧死。从考勒姆斯的地面上看去，那场景仿佛是天空着起了火，星球上无处不在的烟雾（层）被撕开，露出的大片翻滚燃烧着的残骸正在坠向地面。
Amid this rain of metal and fire came the Orks, ploughing their crude ships down through the atmosphere without the slightest pause. All across the planet, defensive batteries and silos opened fire, desperate to destroy the steel rain before it hit. They would not succeed.
金属（碎片）和火焰如雨点般落下，兽人们也混在其中一并前来——他们粗陋的飞船毫无停顿地穿过了大气层。星球各处的所有防御炮塔和导弹发射井都在开火，绝望地想要在这场铁雨击中地面前将之击落，但它们是不会成功的。
A LOGICAL COURSE
逻辑过程
Columnus writhed like a beast in pain. Tumbling agglomerations of wreckage the size of mountains crashed down upon fortified outposts and massed armies, obliterating all they struck. Swathes of Skitarii and Imperial Guardsmen were killed as the blast waves from each impact rolled outward. Super-heavy tanks were flung end over end, while Titans reeled and shook like men standing in the path of a gale. Firestorms howled around them, overloading their void shields one by one. It was madness, destruction and death on an unimaginable scale, and in its midst the Orks made planetfall. Asteroid ships gouged vast craters from Columnus’ arid plains as they struck. Huge scrapmetal cruisers burned retros, or else were enfolded in skeins of shimmering green energy that seemed to slow their descent, skidding to a stop at the end of miles-long blazing trenches. Smaller craft fell all around them, skimming low on gravity cushions, lurching to a halt on flaming clouds of jetwash, or simply crashing headlong into the planet’s surface at full speed. Many Orks were killed upon impact, yet millions remained to spill out from their landing sites onto Columnus’ burning surface.
考勒姆斯像只痛苦的野兽那般扭动着。山峦般大小的残骸轰然砸向加固过的哨站和密集的军队，摧毁了自己击中的一切。当每一次撞击所产生的冲击波向外扩散时，都有成群的护教军和帝国卫军被杀死。超重型坦克被一辆辆地甩了出去，泰坦们则如同直面狂风的凡人那样摇晃踉跄。火焰风暴在它们周围咆哮，令它们一个接一个的发生虚空盾过载。这是一场规模无法想象的疯狂、毁灭和死亡，而兽人们也混在其中登陆了星球。小行星飞船击中星球表面，考勒姆斯的干旱平原被凿出巨大的陨石坑。废金属拼成的巨大巡洋舰燃烧起反冲火箭，或者是被似乎能减慢它们下降速度的绿色闪光能量束包裹着，他们在地面上滑出了数英里长的燃烧壕沟后才停了下来。小型舰艇落在它们周围，靠着重力缓冲器从低空滑过，这些小船要么是在（引擎）喷射出火焰云来突然悬停，要么就是干脆全速撞向星球表面。撞击过程杀死了很多兽人，但仍有数百万兽人存活了下来，它们从登陆点冲向了考勒姆斯燃烧的地表。
Now the war began in earnest. As the greenskin space hulk settled into low orbit and began to rain fire and drop-craft onto Columnus’ surface, the Iron Hands’ fleet moved to engage,dwarfed by their monstrous foe yet unwilling to show a moment’s weakness. Around them,Mechanicus war barges and Imperial Navy battleships swept forward, adding their ordnance to the Iron Hands’ own and lighting the skies with a fresh storm of fire. On the surface,meanwhile, the Iron Hands found themselves with no shortage of foes to engage. The fortress factories had been protected from the worst of the devastating bombardment by humming banks of void shields, yet elsewhere the forge world’s defenders had been horribly mauled.
战争在东部区域打响了。随着绿皮的太空废船进入低空轨道，并将炮火和空降艇如雨点般射向考勒姆斯地表，钢铁之手的舰队也前去迎战，虽然相比于怪物般庞大的敌人它们是渺小微弱的，但星际战士们不愿表现出片刻的软弱。星际战士舰队周围的机械神教战争巨舰和帝国海军的战列舰也共同前进，所有战舰共同炮击着敌舰，天空再次被火焰风暴点亮。同时，那些身处地面的钢铁之手们也发现自己不乏与之交战的敌人。隆隆作响的虚空盾保护着要塞工厂，能令其免遭最严重的毁灭性轰炸，而铸造世界其他区域的守军们则遭到了残酷进攻。
Whole regiments had been obliterated in moments, major forge complexes swept from the map or buried in blazing wreckage. The world’s noosphere was clogged with crackling static and radioactive interference, yet cautious estimates by the senior Colomnite Technomagi suggested that as much as forty percent of their world’s defensive strength had been lost at a stroke, wiped out or left so shattered and cut off as to be as good as dead. Now the plains were awash with xenos who moved with a single purpose, vast tides making straight for the fortress factories and evidencing none of the typical infighting that might be expected from the barbaric and fractious Orks. What such a thing could mean, the magi could not guess.
整编的卫军团在顷刻间被毁灭，主要的铸炉复合体被从地图上抹去或埋入了燃烧的废墟。铸造世界的人类圈中充斥着劈啪作响的静电与辐射干扰，考勒姆斯高阶技术贤者们做出的周密预测表明：他们一举丧失了自己世界上40%的防御力量，那些部队要么是被夷平，要么就是变得极其支离破碎并且被切断了通讯，就和（全员）阵亡了一样。目前，星球的平原上遍布着为（同）一个目标而行动的异形们，庞大的绿潮直扑要塞工厂，而且有证据表明：这些野蛮暴躁的兽人们并未像人们可能期待的那样发生典型的内斗。贤者们无法猜测这意味着什么。
Superior systems meant the Iron Fathers had retained contact with one another where the other defenders had not, and they swiftly confirmed that all three primary fortress factories were within hours of being besieged. Already there were isolated warbands of greenskins loose within Kemlos, and millions more were on their way. It was agreed that, with so many of the lesser defenders removed from the equation, even the might of the Iron Hands and Titans present on Columnus could not hope to face the greenskins out in the open. While Iron Father Kristos reported that the Raven Guard had departed Urdri in order to harry the advancing Orks and gather survivors, the Iron Hands saw no valid reason to do the same.Thus it was decided – the three great fortress factories would be islands against which the Orks would break. All Iron Hands would remain within the bounds of the cities, and exterminate the Ork forces as they advanced into engagement range. All Imperial assets beyond the walls would be considered lost and no effort wasted in attempting to rescue those too weak to save themselves. Only when the greenskins had exhausted their strength by hurling wave after wave against the defences would the Iron Hands sally forth and crush what remained of the greenskin threat. It was a logical, pragmatic course of action and the Iron Fathers dispersed to prepare their forces.
钢铁之手们拥有更卓越的系统，这意味着钢铁圣父们能够在其他守军们无法彼此沟通的区域进行相互联系，他们很快便确认三座主要的要塞工厂会在数小时之内遭到围困。已经有孤立的绿皮战帮攻入了Kemlos要塞工厂，另外还有数百万绿皮在进攻的路上。铁父们一致认为：在将如此之多的低级守军排除在（战斗）计算方程之外的情况下，哪怕是凭借位于考勒姆斯地表上的钢铁之手与泰坦们的力量，也无望在开阔战场上与绿皮正面交锋。同时铁父克里斯托斯报告称：暗鸦守卫们已经离开了Urdri要塞工厂去不断袭扰前进中的兽人并聚拢幸存者，钢铁之手们则认为自己没有正当的理由去采取相同的行动。于是他们做出了决定——这三座要塞工厂将成为被兽人攻破的孤岛，所有钢铁之手都将会待在城市边界以内，并在兽人部队进入交战距离后将其歼灭。城墙外的所有帝国资源都将被视为已损失，也不要浪费精力去救援那些弱小到无法保护自己的人们。只有当绿皮们在对于守军防线一波又一波的冲击中耗尽兵力时，钢铁之手们才会冲出去粉碎剩余的绿皮威胁。这是一个合乎逻辑且务实的行动方针，铁父们分散开去整军备战。
