HH4节译：肃清独眼巨人星群（4）（完）
The Sorrow of Moab
Moab之殇
Almost at the same hour that doom befell Dominica Minor, a tragedy of a different character was to unfold on Moab. This chill, desert orb had, through accident of history and its location at a relatively stable junction of currents within the Warp passing though the Cyclops Cluster to the Manachean Commonwealth, become the most populous world in the region, and a crossing point for colonists and labour cohorts setting out across the sector. Moab was a world possessed of a single coin; its people, and in terms of political power and economic might, it had long lived in the shadow of more favoured worlds such as Dominica Minor and Mezoa. Now, as darkness reached out across the stars, Moab found itself alone before the wolf；its defensive squadrons stripped away for deployment elsewhere, and its few picquet ships and orbital gun stations, intended to deter corsair and renegade incursions, offering little hope where far mightier bastions had already fallen.
几乎就在末日降临于Dominica Minor的同时，Moab世界上也将要展开了一场特征不同的悲剧。由于历史上的偶然事件，及其位于从独眼巨人星群流向Manachean联邦的亚空间波潮相对稳定的交汇处的（地理）位置，这个寒冷的沙漠星球成为了该区域人口最多的世界，以及动身前往星区各处的殖民者与劳工团的过境点。Moab世界只有一种资源，那就是它的人口，而且在政治影响力和经济实力方面，它也长期生活在诸如Dominica Minor和Mezoa等更受青睐的世界们的阴影下。现在，随着黑暗伸向群星各处，Moab发现自己是在独自面对恶狼；它的防御舰队被夺走以部署到其他地区，（留下的）极少数哨戒船和轨道火炮空间站也是用于威慑海盗与叛军袭击，在面对着令远为强大要塞陷落的战争时，它们只能提供渺茫的希望。
When the enemy came, it was not the palehulled, implacable warships of the Death Guard, but the knife-like deep viridian and sable predators of the Sons of Horus. Arcing into Moab's near-void space without warning, they appeared from behind the local gas giant, their drives blazing like torches in the heavens, a wide spearhead comprising eight strike cruisers and, at their apex, the dreaded Ikon, her ultimatum this time delivered from the barrels of her accelerator cannon. Moab's orbital defences were quickly silenced, its single great geo-stationary satellite —a tangled conglomeration fashioned from the hulls of colony arks and used as the planet's primary orbital transfer — was mauled and boarded with almost contemptuous ease by the Traitors. Ground fire was late in coming so swift was the attack and it too soon faltered of its own accord as the cruisers danced back out of range.
当敌人到达时，出现于此地的并非船体苍白且毫无宽恕之意的死亡守卫战舰，而是状如匕首且喷涂着深绿和乌黑两色的荷鲁斯之子舰队。舰队毫无预兆得冲进了Moab几乎空无一物的宙域，它们从当地气体巨星后方现身，驱动引擎喷出熊熊燃烧的尾焰，如同天空中的火把。八艘打击巡洋舰组成了一道宽阔的矛头，冲在最前方的是可怕的“圣像”号，她用速射火炮的齐射作为最后通牒。Moab的轨道防御设施很快便陷入沉寂，叛军们几乎就是轻蔑地袭击并跳帮了该世界唯一的大型同步轨道卫星——由殖民方舟的船体制成的复杂聚集团块，用作该星球主要的轨道中转站。进攻来得太快，地面炮火姗姗来迟，当巡洋舰们快速脱离到其射程之外时，地面火炮自然也就退缩迟疑了。
The Imperial Commander of Moab, one Malthus Grange, was quick to signal his world's surrender. The call went unanswered. The signal was made again, this time on all available vox channels, but still the cruisers circled without answer. Again and again the signal was made, with increasingly frantic and shameful pleas for mercy, all the time the fear built on the planet and the tension mounted to breaking point as the hours wore on, for while the Night Lords were the Legion most renowned for their use of terror as a weapon, the Sons of Horus were well versed in its application too. Below, within their fortified enclaves, the muster barons who ran the great labour barracks began to turn on each other, and civil insurrection and infighting broke out. The tension became unbearable, until Malthus Grange himself was slain, and the next transmission of surrender now carried images of his bullet-ridden body as further offering to the fleet in orbit. It was only then that the ikon answered. Pict-screens across Moab were filled with the image of a savagely armoured Legiones Astartes in a black-plumed, snarling-masked helm, all but unrecognisable as once one of the Imperium's finest warriors. They had made a beginning, the nameless master of the Ikon told them, but it was not enough. Horus had sent him to save them from the Emperor's lies, and from the weakness he had fostered, and the due payment for this boon was to serve Him. But only the strong, only those who deserved to survive would live, and the blood of the weak would buy them that survival. “Kill in His name and live, or perish with your Emperor's name on your lips; it is for you to decided.” What followed was unspeakable.
Moab的帝国指挥官——马尔萨斯 葛兰格很快便表明自己的世界投降，但叛军并未对他的呼叫做出答复。信号再次被发出，而且这次是动用了全部可用的音频通讯频道，但巡洋舰们仍旧在盘旋，未做出任何答复。星球当局一再发出信号，动作越来越手忙脚乱，并且可耻地恳求着对方的怜悯。随着时间过去了一个又一个小时，恐惧在这颗星球上不断累积，紧张情绪上升到崩溃的地步；虽然将恐惧作为武器是午夜领主军团最为著称的一点，但荷鲁斯之子们也深谙此道。在下方的星球上，统治着巨大的劳工营的工商业巨头贵族们躲在自己坚固的堡垒中，他们开始开始相互进攻，民众起义和内战爆发了。紧张的气氛变得令人难以忍受，直到人们杀死马尔萨斯 葛兰格；在Moab世界传给轨道上的舰队的下一份投降书中，附上了总督弹痕累累尸体的图片。圣像号此刻才做出回应。Moab世界世界各处的图像屏幕上都充满了一位野蛮地全副武装阿斯塔特军团战士的形象，他带着一顶饰有黑色羽冠、面甲呈愤怒情状的头盔，让人几乎辨认不出他曾经是帝国最优秀的战士之一。他们已经有了一个开端，圣像号的无名主人告诉他们，但这还不够。荷鲁斯派他前来从帝皇的谎言及其所培养出的软弱（性格）中解救出Moab世界上的人们，而当地人对于这份恩赐所要做出的回报就是服侍战帅。但只有那些强壮且值得幸存的人才会活下来，而他们要用弱者的鲜血来换取自己幸存。“以他的名义去杀戮并活下来，或者哭喊着你们帝皇的名字去死；你们自己选择。”之后发生的事情令人无法形容。
It was many days later when the dark bulks of orbital lighters began to appear in the skies of Moab, and descended into its barrack cities through the blood-reeking smoke that hung over them like a pall. Into their cavernous holds filed haggard, hollow-eyed men and women by the thousands, bound into the Warmaster's service as footsoldiers by a pact far darker than any sane mind could know or comprehend.
很多天之后，黑色机体的轨道驳船开始出现在Moab的天空，它们穿过那层如乌云般笼罩在城市上方并弥漫着血腥气味的烟雾，降落在劳工营组成的城市中。数以千计面容憔悴、双眼深陷的男男女女走进洞穴般的巨大船舱，他们签订了一份比任何有理智者所能知晓或理解的都远为黑暗的契约，成为了效劳于战帅的步兵。
Silence Falls over the Cyclops Cluster
沉寂的独眼巨人星群
By the closing days of 007.M31, the steady flow of broken and fleeing Loyalist warships, refugee transports and escaped merchant craft that had made the desperate flight to the nearby sanctuary of the Manachean Commonwealth had ended as swiftly as it had begun. The last news that came to Manachea — bordering the Cyclops Cluster in the Ultima Segmentum to the galactic east— was of the direst import. The reports spoke of scores of worlds in the grip of the Warmaster, and of scores of others laid waste, or simply descended into anarchy and barbarism as if Old Night had come again.
在007.M31的最后几天，支离破碎且逃亡求生的忠诚派舰船、难民运输舰和逃亡的商船不再稳定流入Manachean联邦——它们曾绝望地朝着附近的避难所航行，一切都像开始时那般快速结束了。最后传到Manachea世界（该星球与处在银河东部极限星域中的独眼巨人星群交界）的尽是可怕的消息。报告声称有数十个世界被战帅掌控，另有数十个世界化为废土，或者是沦落到了混乱无序野蛮的状态——仿佛旧夜再次降临一般。
Only Mezoa, it was said, held strong amidst the darkness, although now besieged by the numberless cohorts of its ancient rival M'Pandex, pale-hulled Legion warships, and turncoat siege-monitors of the armada. The first great assault had been hurled back, it was whispered, only because the Mezoan Magos had somehow turned the fabric of their molten world against their attackers, causing vast swathes of the planets mantle to suddenly and violently collapse under the enemy's landing zones. The wilder reports even said that colossal island-sized chunks of magma had somehow been hurled up into space at the attacking ships, and that an ashen-black war machine called by some 'the dragon', claimed to have been dug loose from the black sands of Isstvan itself, had somehow appeared to meet the attack and torn the Traitor Archimandrite limb from metallic limb.
据说，只有梅左阿还在黑暗中顽强抵抗，但它也遭到了古老竞争对手M'Pandex的无数部队、苍白色船体的军团战舰和叛变的海军攻城监测艇的围攻。叛军的第一次大规模进攻被击退了——据说梅左阿的贤者们以某种方式改变了这颗熔融世界的（地层）结构来对抗入侵者，他们的行动导致敌军登陆区下方的大片行星地幔发生了突然且猛烈的塌陷。更疯狂的报道甚至声称：岛屿大小的巨型岩浆块被以某种方式被抛入太空来攻击舰船，而且一台被某些人称为“龙”的战争机器（据称它是被从伊斯特万星球的黑色沙地中挖出来的）也似乎以某种方式迎击了进攻者，并扯下了叛变（机械神教）大主教的金属肢体。
Regardless of the truth, that the Traitor forces had been hurled back was known, but Mezoa was but one light amid a sea of night and how long it would last could not be predicted. All astropathic communication from the Cyclops Cluster had ceased, and the rising warp squalls blinded any attempt to pierce the darkness with probe ships.
不管真相如何，叛军部队已被击退是众所周知的，但梅左阿也只是暗夜之海中的一盏孤灯，我们无法推测它还能持续多久。所有来自独眼巨人星群的星语通讯都已经停止了，亚空间中卷起了狂风，帝国用探测船来穿透黑暗的任何尝试都徒劳无功。
Silence had fallen across what was now the domain of the enemy.
寂静降临到独眼巨人星群各处，那里现在已经是敌人的领地。
（肃清独眼巨人星群，完）
机仆：衔接在独眼巨人星群战役之后的是Manachean联邦战争，下文是Manachean联邦战争结束后的情况。
The Spoils of War
战利品
Mortarion and the core of the Death Guard fleet had already long departed the region by the time the Manachean Commonwealth had fully submitted, and the Warmaster and his own fleet were soon to follow, the course of the war carrying them far away. His wrath was to be visited on a dozen other worlds in the years to follow, from shunned Gyrien, to storied Dwell and the vaunted fortress world of Molech, whose defences stood greater than even Manachea's, but would also be shorn in the talon of Horus in its turn. Behind them they left the Coronid Deeps sundered into fragments; a realm of broken cities and dead worlds, war zones still left bleeding and the unity of Imperial rule irrevocably severed. Port Maw was now his and rapidly was returned to order, serving as a resupply and repair base for Traitor forces in the northern Imperium; much of its armada was stripped from it, warships, turncoat troops and war machines dispersed to reinforce Traitor battle lines and attack fleets across a score of sectors where the war now raged. This had left only a skeleton fleet of perhaps sixty line warships at the Maw, strong enough to defend it from attack and to enforce dominion over the Manachean worlds, but far too small in number to ensure full mastery over the wider Coronid Deeps. Commanding this pocket empire in the Warmaster's name was a detached Sons of Horus battle company under Taloc Thorne,once a line captain of the Sons of Horus, now Tyrant of Port Maw. The seat of his power was the blood-bedecked Ttiumph of Reason, renamed 'The Lash'. Under his rule, Port Maw's ship-forges worked in endless cycle to arm, construct and repair warships, as Dark Mechanicum emissaries took charge of the anchorage facilities in the Warmaster's name, and six cohorts of Chthonian Jackals, Solar Auxilia recruited from the Sons of Horus home world but judged unsuitable for Legiones Astartes conversion, were installed as Port Maw's garrison. Beneath this shadow, the hives of Manachea became little more than vast slave-camps run by those natives who had pledged themselves wholly to Horus and who now competed with each other to prove their loyalty by enforcing the brutal quotas demanded by their distant and merciless overlord.
当Manachean联邦完全臣服时，莫塔里安与死亡率的舰队核心已经离开该区域很久了。战帅和他本人的舰队不久后也会离开，战事将让他们前往远方。在之后的几年中，荷鲁斯的怒火将造访另外十多个世界，从被回避的Gyrien，到传奇的Dwell和自负的要塞世界Molech——它的防御甚至比Manachea的更为强悍，但最终也会被荷鲁斯的利爪撕碎。而在他们身后，王冠深渊分裂为了一堆碎片：这里成为了残破城市与死亡世界所组成的王国，以及仍在流血的战区，帝国统治所带来的统一被彻底中断。巨口港现在属于荷鲁斯，而且很快就被恢复了秩序，它充当着叛军在帝国背部的补给站和维修基地；当地的舰队也被夺走，战舰、叛变部队和战争机器被分散到了战争仍在肆虐的二十个星区中，用于增强叛军的战线和进攻舰队。巨口港只剩下了一支由大概六十艘线列战舰组成的舰队，虽然它强大到足以保护巨口港免受攻击并加强对Manachean联邦诸世界的统治，但数量太少，远不足以确保对于更广阔的王冠深渊地区的全面掌控。以战帅之名统治着这个口袋帝国的是一支被派遣的荷鲁斯之子连队，他们的指挥官——塔洛克 索恩曾是一名荷鲁斯之子前线连长，现在则是巨口港暴君。他的座舰是溅满鲜血的“理性胜利”号——现在更名为“鞭笞者”号。在他的统治下，巨口港星舰铸造厂不断进行着生产循环，武装、建造和维修着战舰，黑暗机械神教的特使们也以战帅之名掌管着锚地设施。六支克苏尼亚豺狼兵团也驻守在了巨口港——这些太阳军士兵也来自战帅的母星，但他们被判定不适合接受阿斯塔特军团战士转化手术。在这些阴影的笼罩下，Manachea世界的巢都们沦为了巨大的奴隶营地，由那些完全屈服于荷鲁斯的当地人经营着。现在这些凡人统治者们相互竞争，通过完成他们那位遥远且无情的领主下达的残酷（生产）配额来证明自己的忠诚。
Between Thornes fleet and the Taghmata of M'Pandex, the embanled but still unconquered Forge World of Mezoa continued to be blockaded, but attempts to besiege it had failed, and it remained a threat whose influence would spread. Though the main warp routes to the galactic west stayed in the Traitors' hands, allowing Port Maw and Manachea to serve their function, much of the Cyclops Cluster around them was now little more than a war-ravaged wasteland. Here the Traitors' writ ran only where the shadow of their warships fell to extract tithe and plunder. Beyond, to the north, the Grail Abyss had sunk back into an all-encompassing darkness as before the coming of the Great Crusade; a haven for renegades, vengeance-seeking Loyalist survivors, marauders and far worse. To the west of the region, considered strategically less important than the core systems conquered in the war's initial bloody phases, in the area known as the Coronid Reach, conflict still raged unabated and matters were very much in flux. Here the Forge World of Cyclothrathe, spuming the direct involvement of the Sons of Horus garrison at Port Maw as much as it dared, was still prosecuting its own war of conquest, although it too had acquiesced to Horus and dispatched a significant portion of its Taghmata to join the Warmaster's armies elsewhere. What remained under the command of the baleful warlord Archmagos Draykavac was engaged in ongoing protracted battles to control Numinal and the surrounding star systems, while a number of Rogue Trader fleets, Death Guard poison ships and the reavers of the Traitor Knight House AErthegn —all in theory operating under the Warmaster's banner, but each with their own agendas— were all active in the region, as was substantial and increasingly co-ordinated Loyalist resistance. Both sides were at turns both hindered and helped by the rising tides of warp turbulence which, having seemed to abate during Horus' invasion, were now rising again in temper.
梅左阿身处困境但仍未屈服，索恩的舰队与M'Pandex的机神禁卫军继续封锁着它，但叛军攻破梅左阿的尝试失败了，这颗铸造世界仍旧是一个将会传播影响的威胁。虽然通往银河西部的主要亚空间航线仍掌握在叛徒手中，巨口港和Manachea世界也在为叛军发挥自己功能，但他们周围的独眼巨人星群的大部分区域现在已经变成了饱受战争蹂躏的荒地。在这里，叛军们只在自己战船投下阴影的区域中执行命令，即收取什一税和掠夺。北侧的圣杯深渊又沦落进了大远征到了之前那种包围着一切的黑暗状态中，成为了变节者、寻求复仇的忠诚派幸存者、掠夺者和某些更为恶劣事物的天堂。叛军认为该区域西侧在战略上不如那些在战争最初的血腥阶段所征服的核心星系那般重要，在被称为王冠边境的地区中，冲突仍在激烈地进行且没有减弱，情况很不稳定。铸造世界Cyclothrathe仍在进行着自己的征服之战，它还大胆地将荷鲁斯之子驻守在巨口港的军队直接卷入其中，但它也顺从于荷鲁斯，并派遣了相当一部分机神禁卫军去加入战帅位于其他地区的军队。而在大贤者德拉卡瓦克这位邪恶军阀的指挥下，剩余的机神禁卫军正在进行一场旨在控制Numinal世界和周边星系的旷日持久的战斗，同时很多行商浪人舰队、死亡守卫军团的投毒舰和来自叛变的艾尔泽恩骑士家族的掠夺者部队们也都活跃在该区域中——他们在理论上都是于战帅的旗帜下行动，但每支势力都有自己的目标计划。同时忠诚派的抵抗力量也在不断壮大，而且越来越协调。在荷鲁斯入侵期间，亚空间湍流的上升趋势似乎有所减弱，而这些乱流现在又卷土重来，令双方都受到了阻碍和帮助。
By the dawning of 008.M31, the Coronid Deeps, once a stable outpost of the Imperium, had become in pan a fractured series of Traitor-ruled domains in a wider galaxy riven with strife. But this too was soon to be challenged as the spirit of war that had been unleashed would not be so easily assuaged, and for some victory was to prove fleeting.
在008.M31初期，在这片被纷争所撕裂的广阔银河中，王冠深渊这座曾经稳定的帝国哨站，已经变成了一系列由叛军们所统治着的破碎领地。但这一局面也很快就受到了挑战，因为人们释放而出的战争恶灵不会那么容易就被平息，某些胜利也将会被证明是稍纵即逝的。
机仆：这部分之后的剧情就是解放Numinal。
HH4剧情部分——征服王冠深渊，全文完。
剧情顺序：肃清独眼巨人星群系列——Manachean联邦战争系列——解放Numinal系列。
