HH4节译：肃清独眼巨人星群2
The Emissary of Mars
火星特使
It became known much later, that at the height of the spreading alarm throughout the Cyclops Cluster in the closing quarter of 006.M31, the Forge Worlds of M'Pandex and Mezoa, the two greatest independent powers within the region, each received the Emissary of Mars, and with very different outcomes. The ambassador in question was the Magos known as Regulus (or at least an entity bearing that name, as there are extant contradictions in the records regarding the location of this individual at various times). This senior Tech-Priest of the Mechanicum had for many years served alongside the Warmaster, long before the betrayal at Isstvan, and now remained his, body and soul, being part of Horus' inner circle and bound in allegiance to the Traitor's cause. Regulus came bearing dual patents of authority, the first from his Warmaster and the second from the hand of Kelbor Hal, none other than the Fabricator- General of Mars, and by right the voice of the Omnissiah and supreme pontifex of the Mechanicum. Kelbor Hal had also thrown in his lot with the Traitor Horus, sparking a civil war on Mars itself a fact not yet known by those in the Cyclops Cluster. To each Forge World in turn he made an offer and a demand; the demand was for fealty, that they serve the Warmaster as their own Fabricator- General bid them to do. That they obey him and offer up their arts and the fruits of their forges to him and his armies, and open their ports to his warships, while denying these things to both the forces of distant Terra and the local Imperial Commanders, already demonstrably squabbling amongst themselves in fear and disunity. To honey the threat of force, Regulus offered the Warmaster's protection for their Forge Worlds and, just as he did to sway Kelbor Hal to his cause, he also offered gifts; STC technologies harvested from the later Great Crusade era and kept solely by Horus and those he trusted, and the freedom to pursue those technologies and arcana the Emperor had so cruelly denied them as forbidden knowledge since the Treaty of Mars.
很久之后人们才知道：在006.M31的最后一个季度，当传遍独眼巨人星群各处的警报达到高潮时，该区域中最强大的两股独立势力——铸造世界梅左阿和M'Pandex都迎来了火星的密使。我们提及的这位大使是被称为“雷古鲁斯”的贤者（或者至少是一个被冠以此名的实体，而且关于此人在不同时间段所处的地点，现存的记录也存在矛盾）。这位机械神教高级科技神甫已经在战帅身边服侍了很多年，他在战帅于伊斯特万星系背叛帝国很久之前便效忠于荷鲁斯；而且他现在也是全身心地服务于荷鲁斯，成为了战帅内环的一部分，并效忠于叛军的事业。雷古鲁斯拥有双重的权力，第一重来自于战帅，第二重则来自火星铸造将军凯尔博 哈尔——他是万机神的圣音（使者），以及机械神教的至高主教。凯尔博 哈尔已经加入了荷鲁斯的派系，并亲自在火星上引发了内战，而独眼巨人星群中的人们还不知道这些事实。哈尔依次向各个铸造世界提出了一个倡议和一个要求；他要求各个铸造世界献上忠诚，要求各位铸造将军命令自己（统治下）的铸造世界为战帅服务；各个铸造世界要遵守他的命令，将自己的技术和铸造成果提供给他和他的军队，把自己的星港开放给他的战舰，同时不得将这些物资提供给遥远泰拉和当地帝国指挥官的部队——他们已经因为恐惧和不团结而争吵不休了。为了美化自己的武力威胁，雷古鲁斯也向他们的铸造世界提供来自战帅的保护，而且就像他说服卡尔博 哈尔支持自己一样，荷鲁斯也赠送了礼物；仅由荷鲁斯与他信任的人所保管的来自后大远征时期的STC技术，以及允许他们追求那些禁忌知识——自从火星条约以来就被帝皇残酷禁止他们研究的科技与奥秘的自由。
On M’Pandex, an ancient Forge World whose history had been blighted until re-contact by the Great Crusade, here a Magos also identifying himself as Regulus was greeted with great reverence and courtesy, and personally led to direct audience with the High Ourteka of M'Pandex to put his case. What passed between them at this private conference is unknown, but from then onward and without recourse to consorting with the synod of M'Pandex's Magos for confirmation, the Forge World was pledged to the Warmaster. There was in some quarters brief but violent resistance to this new order, but the world was long used to internecine conflict in its ranks, and the High Ourteka was merciless in wielding the handful of Martian Skitarii and the small detachment of Legio Mortis Titans based there to aid in his worlds protection, now his private enforcers to ensure compliance. This new allegiance, while firm, was not widely broadcast and was unknown to outsiders. M'Pandex was quickly girded for war, its production capacity ramped ever higher and now destined for Horus' armies, while whatever Loyalist or merchant ships passed into its space were seized and impounded, their crews and complement forcibly converted into adsecularis slaves for a growing Taghmata of the Forge World's own.
在M’Pandex，这个历史一直被破坏、直到大远征与其重新取得联系的古老铸造世界上，一位自称雷古鲁斯的贤者受到了极其尊敬和礼貌的欢迎，他本人被带去与M’Pandex的至高主教进行直接会面来表明自己的观点。我们不知道双方在这次私下秘会中进行了怎样的交易，但从此之后，在未与M’Pandex的贤者议会进行确认的情况下，该铸造世界便被承诺给了战帅。某些区域爆发了对新秩序短暂但暴力的抵抗，但这个世界早已习惯了内部的自相残杀，M’Pandex至高主教无情地派出了一小群火星护教军和驻扎在此地的死颅军团小规模分遣队前去镇压——后者原本是协助保护该铸造世界，现在则成了M’Pandex至高主教的私兵。M' pandex很快就为战争做好了准备，它的生产能力不断提升，而且现在注定要服务于荷鲁斯的军队。任何经过此地的忠诚派舰船和商船都会被扣押，船员和乘员们被强行转变为该铸造世界不断壮大中的机神禁卫军的技术契奴。
The reception which greeted the Emissary of Mars at Mezoa, however, could not have been more stark in contrast than to that at M'Pandex. Regulus found a star system already geared for siege and conflict; his warp runner was stopped at the outer edge of the system and forbade entry on the threat of immediate destruction. Mezoa had ever been a militant system, born of the ferocious wars of the Great Crusade and fashioned as much as a fortress as a centre of macro-industry, its Magos fiercely independent from their kin elsewhere and just as fiercely loyal to the ideals of the Imperium whose expansion they served.
然而，梅左阿对于火星特使的接待与M'Pandex的形成了鲜明对比。雷古鲁斯发现整个星系已经为了冲突和（遭受）围攻而整军备战，他的亚空间快船被截停在了星系外环边缘，对方禁止其入内，否则就威胁将其立刻毁灭。梅左阿是一个好战的星系，它诞生于大远征的残酷战争中；它被塑造为了一座堡垒，也是一座宏大的工业中心。当地的贤者们极其独立于自己在其他各处的同胞们，他们服务于帝国的扩张，并强烈忠实于帝国的理念。
Forced to communicate via only the most primitive two-way vox circuit with a hulking Mezoan battle-sphere rather than directly with the Forge World, and under the condition that any attempt at other communication or the passage of data-djinn or other influence over the circuit would result in immediate annihilation, Regulus nevertheless put his case. In response the Pentarchy of Archimandrites, which had by tradition ruled Mezoa, offered a blunt rejection of the Warmaster and a formal secession from the authority of Mars. Further, they called Regulus and Kelbor Hal both apostates and blasphemers in the eyes of the Omnissiah, and pronounced them or any under their command to be under sentence of death if they entered the Mezoan system again. They finished their communication with a single word in judgement: "Heretek". Regulus fled.
雷古鲁斯被迫通过原始的双向音频（通讯）线路与对方交流，而且与他通话的是梅左阿的巨大战球，并非是铸造世界直接与其交谈；在这种情况下，任何试图进行其他通信、试图影响数据灵精通道或对线路进行其他影响的行为都会导致自身的立刻歼灭，但雷古鲁斯还是开出了自己的条件。作为回应，梅左阿传统意义上的统治机构——牧首五人议会直截了当地拒绝了战帅，并且正式与火星当局脱离关系。另外，他们称雷古鲁斯和凯尔博·哈尔为万机之神眼中的叛教者和亵渎者，并且宣布到：如果他们或者他们指挥下的任何人再次进入梅左阿星系，梅左阿机械神教就会将其处以死刑。五人议会用一个带有审判含义的词结束了通讯——“异端”。雷古鲁斯逃之夭夭。
The Blockade of Mezoa
封锁梅左阿
Shortly after the denial of Regulus, a blockade of Mezoa was begun. With the direct aid of the warships of M'Pandex — both their own Mechanicum vessels and those they had captured and now operated under false flag, as well as more shadowed forces operating under the Warmaster's direction— the various star systems that fed into Mezoa were cut off from it, with the aim of choking off its supply of raw materials. Resources which, where possible, were now directed instead to the hungry forges of M'Pandex. The Mechanicum of Mezoa actively resisted where they could, although they steadfastly refused to sally forth with their full force, treating the attacks as bait in a trap. Instead, they ordered their outposts and detached forces to resist until destroyed, and on far flung mining stations and on the decks of mass transporter vessels, the forces of the two Forge Worlds, long rivals but never before enemies, clashed in mortal combat.
在梅左阿拒绝雷古鲁斯不久之后，叛军便开始了对于此地的封锁行动。对于这次行动，M'Pandex战舰（即有其自身的机械神教舰船，也有被其俘获后在叛军旗帜下行动的飞船）提供了直接协助，而且还有更多的暗影部队在战帅的命令下运作起来——为梅左阿提供资源的各种星系都被与其切断了联系，目的是阻断梅左阿的原材料供应。在可能的情况下，这些资源都被输送进了M'Pandex饥渴的铸炉中。梅佐阿机械神教对此积极抵抗，但他们坚定地拒绝全力出击，将（对方的）攻击视作陷阱中的诱饵。相反，他们命令自己的前哨和派遣部队拼死抵抗，直到被毁灭为止；这两个铸造世界虽然长期相互竞争，不过之前从未成为过真正的敌人，但现在，双方的军队在遥远的采矿站和大型运输舰的甲板上展开了殊死较量。
Mercy was not to be found in either sides’ circuit-augmented hearts and the adsecularis cohorts of M'Pandex were matched savagely by the armoured centuries of Mezoas Thallaxii which, while fewer in number, vastly overmatched the adsecularis in individual might. In what seemed now to outsiders to be a civil conflict between the Mechanicum rather than a move in a wider game, refinery stations on Jujya and Gunnar's Rock burned, and on New Providence, thousands of fleeing vapour-mill workers, caught between the battle lines, were crushed beneath the tracks of Krios tanks and slaughtered needlessly in the withering crossfire of blazing energy weapons as both sides utterly ignored them, as if they had all the consequence of stalks of wheat caught in a hurricane. Confusion as to the cause of this conflict forestalled any intervention by the Imperialis Armada, fearful of the consequences of their actions, until it was too late.
双方用电路改造过的心中都不再留有仁慈，M'Pandex的契奴军团与梅左阿的死隶机兵装甲百人队残酷激战——后者虽然数量更少，但在个体力量上远超契奴兵。对现在的外人们而言，这似乎更像是机械神教的内部冲突，而非某盘大棋中的一步；Jujya和Gunnar（小行星）岩石上的精炼站在燃烧，而在New Providence世界上，数千名逃难的蒸汽工厂工人被困在双方的战线之间，他们在克里欧司坦克的履带下被碾碎，被火光耀目的能量武器的激烈交叉火力不必要地屠杀——交战双方都完全无视了他们，仿佛这些凡人的遭遇就是麦秸被飓风刮断而言，不值一提。由于对这场冲突的原因感到困惑，帝国无敌舰队并未进行任何干预——他们担心其行动所造成的后果，直到为时已晚。
By the end of 006.M31, the Mezoan system had been almost entirely cut off, and now enemy warships were circling the edge of its outer reaches as sharks waiting for prey. Mezoa was a prize not to be underestimated, but it was also fortified beyond ready conquest, even by a force as large as a fully marshalled Expeditionary fleet, but once cut off from aid and from giving aid to others, it was now effectively neutralised. Mezoa would wait. The next stage of the Warmasters plan was about to begin.
在006.M31年末，梅左阿星系的对外联系已经几乎被完全切断，敌军的战舰就像等待猎物的鲨鱼那样环绕在此地外侧边境的边缘。梅佐阿是一个不可低估的战利品，但它的防御工事坚固，哪怕是一支全副武装的远征探索舰队这般庞大的力量也难以将其征服，可是一旦被切断了外部向其提供的援助，也阻断了其提供给外部的援助，梅左阿的防御力量也就被有效中和了。梅左阿将会等待，而战帅计划的下一阶段也将要开始。
It was just as the fleet command at Port Maw was finally progressing with a plan to break the blockade of Mezoa in order to counteract the growing loss of advanced munitions and macro weapons supplies the Imperialis Armada was predicting, that dire news reached it via garbled astropathic signal from Lascal on the edge of the Grail Abyss. Previously, a number of reports of worlds 'going dark' had come out of that region and the stars which bordered it, but to the authorities on Lascal, Dominica Minor and at Port Maw, the abyss was too distant, its worlds too unimportant to be considered a priority for action, or to justify the diversion of their finite supply of warships where the wolf was evidently at the door of closer, far more strategically imponant systems.
就在巨口港的舰队指挥部最终开始计划打破叛军对梅左阿的封锁，以解决帝国舰队预计中的先进弹药和宏炮武器供应日益减少的问题时，一条恐怖的消息通过乱码的星语信号从圣杯深渊边境的Lascal世界传来。之前，很多条关于（多个）世界“在变得黑暗”的报告已经从该区域与其周边的星球上传出，但对Lascal、Dominica Minor和巨口港当局而言，圣杯深渊太过遥远，那些世界也过于无足轻重，以至于他们没有考虑对其优先采取行动；他们将自己有限的战舰派往了那些明显遭到叛军的迫切威胁、在战略上也远为重要的星系中。
Now such parochial thinking had born dark consequences, and without warning a massive fleet had torn out of the Empyrean at the edge of the Lascal system, and there would be no time to rally reinforcements to meet it. Much of the strategic detail of what was to be Lascal's last broadcast had been lost to the soul-static of the Warp, but what images and allegories remained were clear enough: bleak warship after bleak warship, slab-grey and bone white, stained and pitted with the scars of ancient battles and recent acts of murder. Alongside these were Warp—carried images of the death's head and the black sunburst, the scythe of the reaper. The Death Guard Legion had come for the Cyclops Cluster。
这种狭隘的想法现在导致了黑暗的后果。在没有任何预警的情况下，一支庞大的舰队撕开至高天，出现在Lascal星系的边缘，而当地（政府）丝毫没有时间来召集增援部队与之交战。Lascal世界发出的最后一次广播中的大部分战略细节都遗失在了灵魂静滞的亚空间中，但留下的图像和寓言却足够清晰:一艘又一艘黯淡的战舰，喷涂着浅灰色和骨白的配色，往昔战争和最近的杀戮行为所留下的伤痕玷污和凹陷了船体。与这些信息一并到来的还有亚空间输送的图像：死者的头颅、黑色的日光射线与收割者的镰刀——死亡守卫军团已经来到了独眼巨人星群。
The Death Guard Unleashed
死亡守卫出阵
When the XVIIth "Sun Dragons" deep range cruiser squadron of the Armada Ultima finally forced their way through the warp turbulence which had dogged their attempts to reach Lascal in answer to their home station's distress call, they broke into a scene of still burning carnage. The war fleet, mustered at the Armada's high orbit anchorage over the fifth world of the system —some forty ships of the line and more than a hundred escorts, including three Retribution class battleships: the Sceptre of Iron, the Ozytnandias and the Star Tamer— was blasted to ruin; some of the larger hulks still bleeding fiery plasma from broken reactor cores and frozen air from their rent and lifeless hulls. Further scans shockingly revealed precious little wreckage that could be identified for certain as belonging to an enemy, speaking of an attack utterly overwhelming in its suddenness and its overmastering power. Further in, they found the fleet anchorage station had been torn into a new debris belt ringing Lascal V; and the core worlds themselves were dense with a ghost fog of weapons-fire radiation and the garbled echoes of distress calls.
作为对自己母港空间站遇难呼救的回应，极限星域舰队的第十七远航巡洋舰中队——“艳阳之龙”中队前去支援；当这支舰队最终艰难穿越了阻碍自己航行的亚空间乱流，抵达Lascal时，他们便闯入了一片仍在燃烧的屠杀现场。此地集结在星系中第五颗星球上方的舰队高空轨道锚地的战争舰队被炸为残骸——该舰队由大约四十艘战线（主力）舰和超过一百艘护航舰组成，其中还包括三艘报应级战列舰：钢铁权杖号、奥兹珊迪亚斯号和驯星者号；在某些大型的废船残骸上，破裂的反应堆堆芯中仍在喷射着炽热的等离子体，冻结的空气从裂缝和无生命的船体中泄露而出。进一步的扫描则揭示出令人震惊的情况：只有极少数的残骸能被确定是属于敌军，这表明此次进攻是以突然性和压倒一切的力量完全击溃了Lascal战争舰队。艳阳之龙中队还发现舰队的锚地空间站已经被撕碎，化为了环绕Lascal世界的碎片带；核心世界本身也笼罩着一层幽灵般的烟雾，其中弥漫着武器开火的辐射，以及求救呼叫的混乱不清回声。
Proceeding with caution through the dangers of the war zones aftermath, still deadly with unspent ordnance, rumbling wreckage and waiting mines, the Sun Dragons swept the ruins of the systems with their auspexes and their weapons primed for ambush, but no attack came. Lascal had not been merely invaded or conquered; it had been purged of life and left to the dead. The system's sole primary world, Lascal IV, once a burgeoning Imperial colony with a population in the tens of millions, was now a poisoned orb, its atmosphere thick with toxic green and black strata betraying the tell-tale signs of mass biochemical bombardment.
未用完的炮弹、轰隆作响的残骸和等待着的空雷让该区域仍旧致命，艳阳之龙舰队小心翼翼地穿过这片危险的战区，各艘舰船都用鸟卜仪扫描着残骸，并准备好武器以防遭到伏击，但进攻并未到来。Lascal并非是仅仅被入侵或被征服，进攻者清空了星球上的所有生命，令其陷入死寂。星系中唯一的首要世界——Lascal四号曾是拥有数千万人口的帝国新兴殖民地，而它现在则是一颗有毒的石球，大气中充满了含有毒素的绿色和黑色云层，显示出大规模生化轰炸的迹象。
Solar Auxilia landing parties in full hazardous environment gear launched from the Sun Dragons cruisers to the palace of its Imperial Governor and several known defence bunkers all returned, ashen faced, with the same tale of utter destruction. The dead in their thousands covered the land, struck down in their stride by blistering airborne poisons and murderous nerveagents. In those few places, such as the Imperial Governor's palace, which had been sealed in time, a more direct hand had been taken to destroy those huddled within. Ferrocrete walls had been shattered by direct cannon fire, bulkhead doors torn from their mountings by the merciless gauntlets of power fists, and everywhere was rank slaughter and the litter of spent bolt shell cases, unmistakably Legiones Astartes in pattern. As if any more evidence was needed of the perpetrators of this atrocity, in the auditorium of the Imperial Commander, above the cast-down Aquila and impaled in the bloated corpse of the man who had ruled there in the Emperor's stead, was a ragged banner bearing the death's head and black sunburst of Mortarion's Legion.
配备了全套危险环境防护装备的太阳军登陆部队从巡洋舰上乘空降艇前往帝国总督的宫殿，数座已知的防御堡垒出现在他们面前，其表面也都覆盖着灰烬，都同样遭到了彻底摧毁。成千上万的死者倒在地面各处，他们是在奔跑逃亡的过程中死于炽热空气中的毒素和致命神经毒剂。而在极少数及时封闭起来的地方，比如帝国总督的宫殿中，进攻者们用某种更为直接的手段消灭了（躲在这里）挤成一团的人们。钢筋混凝土的墙壁直接被炮火炸得粉碎，隔离门被进攻者用动力拳从固定架上无情撕下，到处都是惨无人道的屠杀（景象）和成堆被废弃的爆矢弹弹壳——毫无疑问，这是阿斯塔特军团所为。仿佛是要留下更多的证据来证明犯下这一暴行的人那般，在帝国司令部的礼堂中，倒塌的帝国天鹰（标志）上方，一面破烂旗帜（的旗杆）刺穿那个曾为帝皇统治此地的男人的肿胀尸体，将其钉在墙上，旗面上带有死者头颅和黑色日光射线的图案——莫塔里安麾下军团的标志。
As the Sun Dragon squadron left the charnel house of Lascal behind them, news of what they had found quickly spread, and in the systems of the Cyclops Cluster, already fraying apart from each other in fear, pure terror now took hold. At worlds such as Endicott, Moravasis and San Pardor, when the news of the murder of Lascal escaped to the general population —perhaps aided by agents and fifth columnists already planted among the population by the Traitors' spy network— widespread civil insurrection, rioting and rebellion toppled the Imperial authorities from power and left only chaos in their wake. But barely had similar dissent been put down in the orbital habitats of Dominica Minor, the seat of the Cyclops Cluster's notional political leadership, the Guildmasters, when news reached them that the reaper's scythe had visited two more systems, the mining colonies of Grist and Rabbasan, and left none alive. Both star systems lay in a near direct path via the known warp routes between Lascal and Dominica itself and left the Guildmasters in no doubt that they would soon be next.
随着艳阳之龙中队离开Lascal的停尸间后，关于他们所发现情形的信息快速传播开来；在已经因恐惧而彼此关系紧张的独眼巨人星群各星系中，纯粹的恐惧现在已经占据了上风。在诸如Endicott, Moravasis和San Pardor等世界上，当Lascal大屠杀的消息被泄露给公众时（其幕后推手可能是叛军间谍网络早已在当地人中安插的间谍和第五纵队），广泛的内乱、暴乱和叛乱推翻了帝国当局，只留下一片混乱。当得知收割者的镰刀已经砍向了另外两个星系——采矿殖民地Grist和Rabbasan, 而且无人从进攻中存活时，在独眼巨人星群名义上的政治领袖——行会总管们的所在地：Dominica Minor的轨道定居站中，类似的异议却几乎未被平息。这两个星系都位于Lascal和Dominica之间已知亚空间航线上近乎直接的通路中，行会总管们无疑很快就会成为莫塔里安的下一个目标。
Frantically, they attempted to invoke their Terran-bestowed primacy and call to them a muster of fresh forces from their dominion of worlds, but were answered with silence or scorn. They found with horror that the Mezoan blockade was now reinforced with dark-hulled warships of unknown origin, and the Forge Lords of M'Pandex had reached out to nearby worlds and seized control with their implacable half dead cohorts of adsecularis, butchering any who would stand in their way. Worse yet, reports reached them that Gethsamaine's Imperial Commander had bent the knee before the Traitors, and delivered up his world without a shot fired in its defence. His actions were echoed on the lesser worlds of Vargas and Bleak Harbour, while the feral natives of Zavarich had massacred their Imperial overseers and abased themselves before the Sons of Horus as if they were gods descending from the heavens. It was to the Guildmasters of Dominica Minor suddenly apparent that, with a surgeon's skill, the Cyclops Cluster had been dismembered and laid bare before onrushing death, as much by human weakness as by the sword of the enemy.
他们疯狂地试图利用泰拉赋予的主导地位（来平息内乱），并且想要从自己统治的（各个）世界上集结一支新的部队，但对方的回应只是沉默或轻蔑。他们惊恐地发现：有来源未知的黑色船体战舰增援了对于梅左阿的封锁行动，M'Pandex的铸造领主们也向周边的世界伸出魔爪，用他们那不可阻止的半死者半机械契奴部队控制了这些世界，屠杀掉挡在他们（前进）路上的所有人。更糟的是，他们还得知Gethsamaine世界的帝国指挥官在叛军面前下跪屈服，未放一枪一弹便放弃了自己的世界。Gethsamaine总督的行径也在次级世界Vargas和Bleak Harbour造成了反响；Zavarich世界上处于蛮荒状态的当地人屠杀了此地的帝国观察员，之后他们向着荷鲁斯之子们屈膝下跪，仿佛后者是自天堂降临的神明。Dominica Minor的行会总管们突然意识到：在独眼巨人星群冲向死亡之前，叛军便已经靠着外科手术般的高超技艺将其肢解并扒去了防护，而在这一过程中，人类的软弱性发挥了和敌人利剑同等重要的作用。
