HH3节译：法尔海战2

The Treachery of Iron

钢铁之叛

The Iron Warriors' attack began with overwhelming force. A vanguard of a hundred ships broke from the Warp and made flank speed for the closest concentration of Loyalist vessels, firing on the Imperial Fists as soon as they came within range. The Hammer of Terra, a veteran of the earliest days of the Great Crusade, is remembered as the first great ship to fall, and with it the Imperial Fists took their first casualties of the war. Dozens of other, lesser ships died or were crippled in those first moments, leaving the Imperial Fists in no doubt to whose allegiance the Iron Warriors now lay. Swiftly, more and more Iron Warriors ships came from the Warp ,their engines blazing, the perilously closely formed and high powered re-entry of so large an armada tearing real-space into tatters around them.

钢铁勇士们凭借压倒性的力量开始了进攻。一百艘战舰组成的前锋部队冲出亚空间，以侧翼速度冲向最接近的忠诚派舰船集中区，一经进入射程，它们便向帝国之拳舰队开火。泰拉之锤号，一艘参与过大远征最早期战争的功勋舰作为第一艘陨落的大型战舰被人们所铭记，它也属于帝拳军团在这场战争中遭受的第一批损失。其他几十艘较小的船只在最初的几分钟内便被击毁或瘫痪，这让帝国之拳清楚得知道了钢铁勇士们效忠于了哪一方。很快，越来越多的钢铁勇士战舰从亚空间中钻出，它们的引擎闪耀着离子火光。这支重新进入现实宇宙的舰队极其庞大，它们危险得紧密排列着，散发出很强的能量，（甚至）周边的现实空间都被撕碎了。

That it was the Iron Warriors who came to break the Retribution fleet now seems an obvious fact; the bad blood between the two Legions was well known and treachery had given that bitterness a killing edge. At the time though, the Iron Warriors' appearance in wrath before them was a shock that reverberated through the Retribution fleet as powerfully as massed cannon fire. Cut off from all communication, the Imperial Fists knew nothing of the massacre on Isstvan V nor the treachery of four of the Legions sent to confront Horus. To the Imperial Fists of the Retribution fleet, all beyond Phall was an abyss of the unknown. This crucial point, perhaps more than any other, would have greater significance for the battles conclusion than any other factor.

前来击溃报应舰队的是钢铁勇士军团，这似乎是一个明显的事实；两个军团之间的恶劣关系广为人知，而背信弃义之举使这种怨恨更有了杀伤力。不过在当时，看到钢铁勇士们气势汹汹地出现在自己面前还是令报应舰队感到震惊，这对他们的震撼就像密集的炮火那般强烈。帝国之拳军团被切断了所有通讯，他们对发生在伊斯特万五号上的大屠杀一无所知，也不知道在被派去对抗荷鲁斯的军团中有四个已经背叛了帝国。对报应舰队中的帝拳战士们而言，法尔星系之外的一切都是未知的深渊。在所有影响战争结果的因素中，这一关键的要素或许比其他的都更重要。

Before the attack, the Retribution fleet had formed the overall disposition of a great, shifting sphere. Constantly in movement, each ship and squadron sailed in a complex pattern relative to one another. The intention was to offer an attacker no fixed strength to attack, while allowing the Imperial Fists to reshape their response to any attacker entering the system. The Iron Warriors, for their part, behaved as they so often did; they applied overwhelming and unrelenting force to a single point. The Iron Warriors fleet came from the Warp in a wedge, its tip formed of the greatest ships of their fleet. Hundreds of escorts, gunboats and heavy- bellied assault carriers followed after. At the heart of their fleet the Primarch Perturabo himself directed the battle from the Iron Blood, last daughter of Olympia and his flag ship; a fifteen kilometre-long killing machine which alone had proved the death of worlds many times in campaigns passed. As allegory “As a fist punching an orrery of smoke'， is how the Iron Warriors' attack at Phall has often been described and it is apt enough, the blow striking but passing through, rather than shattering, for the main.

在（被）进攻前，报应舰队组成了一个巨大且不断变化的球状整体编队。在不断的移动中，每艘船和每个中队都以一种复杂的模式彼此相对。其目的在于让进攻者们无法攻击到一支固定（不变）的舰队，同时允许帝拳军团重整他们的反击模式以应对任何进入这个星系的进攻者。钢铁勇士们的表现则是一如既往，他们以压倒性的持续性力量攻向单独的某个点。钢铁勇士舰队是以楔形编队从亚空间中脱出，行驶在最前方的是舰队中最大的战舰们，数以百计的护卫舰、炮艇和船舱巨大的突击航母跟随在其后方。位于舰队中心的是铁血号，原体佩图拉博在这位奥林匹亚最后的女儿与他的旗舰上亲自指挥着战斗——在过去的战役中，这艘十五千米长的杀戮机器曾经多次独自毁灭掉（整个）星球。人们通常会用一种寓言式的手法描述钢铁勇士军团对法尔星系的进攻，称其“就像是一只拳头击打在了一个烟雾构成的天体仪上”；但这是足够恰当的说法，因为铁勇舰队的进攻主要是通过而非粉碎了报应舰队。

Despite the Imperial Fists preparations，the battle may have been lost in those first moments. Had the response to the sudden and overwhelming attack been panic and confusion, mere slaughter would have been the result. Indeed, even a skilled application of formally accepted defensive naval tactics would have likely resulted in disaster as well against such an unstoppable and perfectly ordered aggressive force, albeit with a higher butcher's bill for the attacker to pay. But neither of these outcomes was to be the case. Even as the void was lit with the fires of exploding warships and the silent screams of the dying, the Imperial Fists began to respond with stone-hearted discipline, exacting co-ordination and forward planning that their attackers could not have guessed at. In places they fled before the assault, while in others they held fast under the onslaught, inviting the fire of the Iron Warriors to strip the void shields from their hulls. Many of their ships seemed to fly from the battle sphere in disorder before the battering iron monster that struck at them, but this was an illusion, although scores of Imperial Fists vessels died under the guns of their implacable enemy to enact Polux's strategy. Drawn on the Iron Warriors pressed their attack, but even as the full might of the Iron Warriors bore down, the Imperial Fists began to strike back at the edge of their formations. The fleeing ships and formations, once beyond their enemy's firing solutions, turned back in curving arcs, looping back in high- thrust manoeuvres that were only survivable through the excellence of their master's skill and the experience hard-won through toiled practice. Like golden and yellow-hulled darts they struck the Iron Beasts flanks, attacking the weak edges of the Iron Warriors fleet, selecting the slow and the damaged to die, striking with blazing lance barrages or spreads of torpedoes as they raced past. The Iron Warriors responded by pressing on mercilessly.

尽管帝国之拳军团进行了备战，这场战斗可能在最初的那一刻就已经失败了。帝国之拳（最初）以惊慌和困惑来迎战这次突然且压倒性的进攻，结果仅仅是惨遭屠杀。事实上，在对抗如此势不可挡且完美有序的进攻力量时，指挥官哪怕是熟练使用自己正式学习演练过的海军防御战术，也是可能导致灾难的，不过进攻者也要为此付出更为高昂的代价。但这两种结果都未出现。就在战舰爆炸的火光照亮了虚空，垂死之人无声的惨叫在太空中回荡时，帝拳军团开始以铁石心肠的纪律性、严格的协调和事先计划来应对袭击，这是进攻者们始料未及的。在一些地方，帝拳战舰在遭到攻击前撤离逃走了，而在其他地方，他们扛住对方的攻击，主动让钢铁勇士的炮火把虚空盾从他们的船体上撕下。许多战舰看似是从凶猛袭来的钢铁怪物面前混乱无序的逃开，但这是波拉克斯的误导战略，不过为了执行波拉克斯的战略，有数十艘帝国之拳战舰被死敌们的炮火所摧毁。钢铁勇士舰队紧追不舍，但就在他们全力进攻的同时，帝国之拳舰队开始从铁勇舰队的脆弱边缘进行反击。逃离的舰船和编队一经离开敌军的开火范围，就会进行弧形转向，以高推力的机动性转过船身——只有凭借着舰长的精湛技艺和辛苦习得的经验，舰船才能在这样的机动中幸存下来。船体上喷涂着黄色与金色涂装的帝拳战舰如同飞镖一般攻击着钢铁猛兽们的侧翼，他们袭击钢铁勇士舰队脆弱的边缘，选出那些缓慢和受损的战舰以进行摧毁，当从敌舰身边急驰而过时，帝拳战舰依靠猛烈的光矛射击或大量的鱼雷齐射来进攻敌舰。钢铁勇士的回应则是无情地向前推进。

Losses on both sides of the void battle began to spiral. Macro cannon volleyed and thundered across the cold emptiness now filled with screaming fire and a kaleidoscope of hurtling wreckage. Brilliant lance-light stitched between leviathans of war, scrawling molten-red wounds in decametre-thick armoured hulls. Torpedo bays were shot empty, reloaded and fired again in frenzied pace until magazines meant to last hours of battle were spent in mere minutes. As ships closed to terminal range, hundreds of boarding actions spilled through the guts of grappling war vessels. In some cases, whole clusters of ships became locked together by boarding gantries, mauler claws and void bridges, with battle flowing back and forth across these spinning agglomerations in a wild tide, often to their mutual destruction. Bloated carrier barges flooded the fire- touched void with swarms of bombers, fighters and attack craft, but cast it to such an apocalyptic storm of battle, such motes had little expectancy of life. As the great ships clashed, every weapon of void warfare was wielded without restraint. Proscribed devices which had rarely been deployed since the dawn of the Great Crusade were drawn on in wrath: volkite implosionspheres, vortex warheads, nega-phospex webs and lightning-phage stained the void with their hellish light and nightmare fury. Ships died by the second. Millions of crew perished in flame, were torn into shreds of unrecognisable flesh or were smothered in the cold embrace of the void. It was the power of the Imperium —the power of the Great Crusade which had crushed a galaxy under its heel——turned on itself. 

这场虚空战参战双方的损失开始急剧增加。宏炮在冰冷的真空中齐射出雷霆般的炮击，现在战场上充斥着剧烈的火焰，飞速移动着的残骸以各种形式变化排列着。巨大的战舰们用光矛相互射击，炽热的光束在十米厚的装甲船体上涂写出熔融的红色伤口。鱼雷舱被射空，然后重新装弹，之后又以疯狂的速度再次发射，直到本应维持数小时战斗的弹舱在短短几分钟内被消耗干净。随着战舰们彼此接近到极限射程，数以百计的跳帮行动在挣扎着的战舰内部蔓延开来。在某些情况中，整整数艘船都被跳帮桶架、槌击爪和虚空登舰桥锁在了一起，在狂暴的攻势中，这些旋转的船团之间来回交战，这往往导致他们相互毁灭。船舱巨大的航母巨舰向虚空火海中释放出成群的轰炸机、战斗机和进攻艇，但是置身于这样一场末日风暴般的战斗中，这些尘埃般微小的载具几乎没有生还的期望。当强大的战舰彼此交战时，所有虚空战武器都会被毫无节制地使用。怒火中烧的参战双方都动用了自从大远征初期就极少被使用的禁忌武器：爆燃内爆炸弹、漩涡弹头、负衰减磷火网弹和闪电噬菌体鱼雷，这些武器用它们地狱般的邪光和噩梦般的狂怒玷污了虚空。舰船被瞬间摧毁，数以百万计的船员们被活活烧死、被撕碎成为一堆无法辨认肉片或在冰冷的虚空中窒息而死。人类帝国的武力转向了他自己，而正是这种武力曾令帝国在大远征时期将银河系踩碎在自己脚下。

The Arithmetic of Victory

制胜之道

The void burned and the dead multiplied in number. But while the Imperial Fists’ losses mounted, the dead of the Iron Warriors' tally grew higher. All the while the Imperial Fists shifted their attack pressing, yielding, standing to the last, and attacking in an ever changing whirlwind of controlled wrath. The Iron Warriors fleet inexorably began to fracture, the once constrained mass splintering into sub-fleets as damaged capital ships were forced to slow or break formation to attack a fleeing foe, dragging their escorts with them. This was compounded as ships simply ran out of control, drive systems bleeding fire or detonating in colossal explosions, scattering and blasting anything nearby. Slowly, inch by bloody inch, the tide was turning and the Iron Warriors had begun to spiral towards defeat.

虚空被战火所燃烧，阵亡人数也在成倍增加。但是，当帝国之拳的损失增加的同时，钢铁勇士的死亡人数也增加了更多。在这一过程中，帝国之拳的攻击方式也在不断变化，他们时而逼近对方，时而撤退躲避，一直坚持到最后，以一种不断变化且能控制住自己愤怒的方式发动旋风式的进攻。钢铁勇士舰队不可逆转地开始分裂，因为受损的主力舰要被迫减速或拆散编队以攻击逃跑的敌舰，所以曾经受到约束的大型舰队分散成（数支）次级舰队，这也拖累了他们的护航舰队。当舰船失去控制，驱动系统起火或者发生巨大的爆炸，碎片和火球向四处散射并炸毁了附近的一切时，情况变得更为糟糕。血腥的战斗一点一点地缓慢平息下来，战场形势开始倒向帝国之拳，钢铁勇士们则开始走向失败。

With a Primarch at the head of the Iron Warriors, their failure may have seemed impossible, but if the Great betrayal has taught us anything, it is that not even a Primarch is without flaw. Perhaps Perturabo did not anticipate the Imperial Fists' readiness, perhaps he was blinded by his hate and need for vengeance, perhaps he could see a path to victory and did not care that it led through the heaped dead of his own forces, or perhaps with forces as well—matched as the Legiones Astartes were against themselves, the merest outside factor could wildly and unexpectedly turn a victory. Also, the skill of Polux is not to be underestimated, for just as there are human minds which could rival and perhaps exceed those of Space Marines, so there were a few of the Legiones Astartes whose abilities could touch, or perhaps even exceed those of their fathers. Whatever the cause —or causes— at work, the Imperial Fists seem to have felt the tide of battle shift enough to attempt to strike a blow against the Traitors that would have seemed impossible before; they would kill Perturabo himself. 

对于原体率队的钢铁勇士军团而言，失败看似是不可能的，但大叛乱教授给我们一条道理：原体也并非是毫无缺陷之人。也许佩图拉博没有预料到帝国之拳的防范，也许他被仇恨和复仇的需要蒙蔽了双眼，也许原体是看到了一条通往成功之路而且并不在意自己的军团要为此付出惨重的伤亡，也许是在实力相当的阿斯塔特军团们自相残杀时，哪怕最微不足道的外部因素也能疯狂而意外地使某一方取胜。我们也不能低估波拉克斯的技艺，因为就像有些凡人的思维能力可以匹敌甚至超越星际战士那样，也有极少数星际战士的能力可以触及，甚至可能是超越了他们的父亲。无论是哪种或哪些因素发挥了作用，帝国之拳似乎也感觉到战斗局势发生了变化，而且变化程度足以让他们尝试去对叛军发动一次在之前看来是不可能的进攻——他们要杀死佩图拉博本人。

Through all, Alexis Polux had managed with near preternatural ability to comprehend the hurricane of battle-data that resulted from this titanic and utterly intricate and blindingly fast conflict. Though the outcome of the battle was stili by no means certain, he had seen a potential vulnerability; a gap in the defences that protected the Iron Blood itself had opened up. With decisive boldness, he reformed a sub-fleet under the command of Captain Armandus Tyr, with the sole task to strike directly at the Iron Warrior's flagship. Its purpose was not to break the Iron Blood with fire, for such a thing was not possible, but to deliver a strike force of Imperial Fists onto Perturabos flagship at any cost. The first wave of the attack was to establish beachheads in the Iron Blood's structure, and then seek out the Iron Warriors Primarch. Subsequent waves would reinforce the onslaught, press the attack and deny the Iron Wamors the ability to rally and prevent the thrust to slay the Primarch. It was a bold move, one that all involved knew would have the highest price, but they did not question the rightness of paying that cost; they had been sent by Rogal Dorn to bring retribution to the Traitors, and they would see that duty done no matter the expense. It was a valiant and audacious plan, and if it had worked who can say what fates would have spun from that moment. But even as the first wave of the attack struck the Iron Blood, fate cut that thread and made a different future.

总之，阿历克西斯·波拉克斯以近乎超凡的（思维）能力，理解了这场巨大、完全复杂而且快得让人眼花缭乱的冲突所带来的飓风般（庞杂的）战争数据。虽然战斗的结果还没有完全确定，但他已经看到了对方潜在的弱点：保护铁血号的防线出现了缺口。他果断勇敢地重组了一支由阿尔曼都斯 提尔连长指挥的次级舰队，其唯一的任务就是直接进攻钢铁勇士军团的旗舰。这支舰队的目标不是用炮火击溃铁血号——这也是不可能的，而是不惜一切代价将帝国之拳的一支打击部队送到佩图拉博的旗舰上。第一波进攻是要在铁血号的船体结构中建立桥头堡，并且找到钢铁勇士原体所处的位置。随后的几波进攻是为第一次猛攻提供增援，后续部队发动进攻，阻止钢铁勇士们重新集结，并防止第四军团的战士们阻碍突击队刺杀原体的行动。这是一个大胆的举动，所有参与者都知道这将带来最高昂的代价，但他们并不质疑付出这笔代价的正确性：罗格 多恩派遣他们向叛徒们施加惩戒，无论代价如何，他们都要确保这项职责的履行。这是一个勇敢而大胆的计划，如果它（真的）成功了，谁又能说得出从那一刻起命运会发生怎样的变化呢？但就在第一波部队前去攻击铁血号时，命运便切断了这条线，创造了一个不同的未来。