HH6：肃清诺斯特拉莫星区（2）
Of those worlds within the Nostramo sector known to have been inhabited prior to the outbreak of the Horus Heresy and the subsequent loss of contact, only two retained any viable population by 017M31. The rest lay in ruins. Same of these worlds were found to have been obliterated or infested by hostile xenos breeds, while others appear to have destroyed themselves in brutal internal civil strife, both between those of Loyal or Traitor sympathies and between factions of the VIIIth Legion itself .However, some of these bearing many similarities to those who struck Tenebor.
在荷鲁斯叛乱爆发之前，诺斯特拉莫星区内的世界就已经有人类定居了，它们随后与外界失去联系。等到017M31，仅有两个世界仍保有着能够自主发展繁衍的人口，其余世界则化为废墟。某些世界被发现是遭到了敌对异形种族的毁灭或侵袭，其他的则是在残酷的内战冲突中毁灭了自身：既是因为忠诚派与叛军之间的战争，也是因为第八军团自身内部派系之间的内斗，不过，其中的某些部队与进攻Tenebor的势力有很多相似性。
The following pict-record is from the personal logs of the Rogue Trader Erasmus Skathe, and is excerpted from the voyage his ship, the Invidious Glory, made through the Nostramo sector in the early years of the first century of the 31st Millennium. It deals with an expedition to the ruins of Hive World Cairn which, in the years before Horus tore the galaxy apart, was a hive world of untold billions and origin of much of the Nostramo sector's riches. While Rogue Trader Skathe found none of the wealth he sought, what he did uncover speaks of the character and origins of the unknown enemy who struck the sector.
下文的图像记录来自行商浪人艾拉斯莫斯 萨卡瑟的个人日志，内容节选自他的飞船“傲人荣耀”号的航行记录，这艘飞船在第31千年第一个世纪的早期前往了诺斯特拉莫星区。她探索了巢都世界Cairn的废墟——在荷鲁斯叛乱撕裂银河之前，有数不清的数十亿人口居住在那里，星区中大多数最富有的家族也起源于此地。虽然行商浪人萨卡瑟并未找到他想要的财富，但他的经历揭示出了进攻诺斯特拉莫星区的未知敌人的特点和起源。
Log File 844/014/Nostramo, As dictated by Rogue Trader Erasmus Skathe, Master of the Invidious Glory, to his Servant, the Faithful Cadmus Rahn, in 020M31:
日志文件844/014/诺斯特拉莫，由傲人荣耀号之主，行商浪人艾拉斯莫斯 萨卡瑟口述给他忠诚的仆人卡德穆斯 拉恩，时间020M31：
LOG FILE 944-ALPHA
日志文件944阿尔法
Thanks to star charts set down to aid the Great Crusade, and the fitful graspings of our Navigator, we arrived in orbit of the world once known to the Imperium as Cairn. Described in the old records of the Great Crusade as an enclave of technology and reason among dark and squalid stars, Cairn was a towering bastion of industry whose creations brought untold wealth into the coffers of the lords of Nostramo before the Night Haunter brought destruction upon that world. Here, where the servants of the undying Emperor had reported only ruins and silence at the end of the Horus Heresy; we had hoped to find a treasure of salvage; a wealth in stored resources perhaps, or storehouses of arms and munitions still waiting to be claimed by the warriors of the Horus Heresy, maybe even that most sought after of treasures, the encoded secrets of a lost STC template.
多亏了这张为协助大远征而编绘的星空图，以及我们的导航者断断续续地抓住了航向，我们抵达了曾经被帝国称为Cairn的世界的轨道，大远征时期的古老文件将此地描述为黑暗污秽群星中的一片科技与理智的飞地，在午夜幽魂将毁灭带往此地之前，它是一座高耸的工业堡垒，其产品为诺斯特拉莫领主们的金库带入了数不尽的财富。不过在荷鲁斯叛乱的末期，不朽神皇的忠仆报告这里只剩废墟和沉寂。我们希望找到可回收的财宝：可能是被储存起来的资源，或者一间仍在等待被荷鲁斯叛乱的参战者们开启的武器弹药储存室，甚至有可能是最受热捧的财宝——遗失的STC模板的编码机密。
LOG FILE 946-ALPHA
日志文件946阿尔法
From orbit the appearance of the once great world dampened our enthusiasm, for whatever disaster had overtaken Cairn had rendered the towering hives into little more than blasted rubble. Our only consolation was that the sub-surface levels of the old hive cities appeared to be intact, sealed closed by the rubble above them and likely kept safe from scavengers. Intending to explore these artificial caverns, we set down a shore party by arvus lander; twenty-three of the ship's armsmen, many of whom were veterans of Solar Auxilia pattern regiments of the Imperial Army, myself and such of the ship's engineering crew that had been initiated far enough into the mysteries of the Machine Cult that they could identify any items of true value.
从轨道上看去，这个曾经伟大世界的外表就挫败了我们的热情，发生在Cairn的灾难将高耸的巢城蹂躏得仅剩被炸碎的瓦砾。唯一令我们欣慰的是古老巢城的下层似乎完好无损，它们被自己上层的瓦砾封得严严实实，可能没有被拾荒者侵入过。为了探索这些人造洞穴，我们用阿尔福斯型登陆艇派出了一支登陆先遣队：船上的二十三名武装兵，其中大多数都是来自帝国军中太阳军模式兵团的老兵；我本人，以及船上那些对于机械教派的秘密钻研得足够的工程船员们，他们能够辨别出有真正价值的目标。
LOG FILE 946-BETA
日志文件946贝塔
Breaching the rubble that sat atop the lower levels like a shield proved more difficult than we initially imagined; it almost appeared as though someone had purposefully demolished the hive above so that it would form a formidable barrier to either entering or leaving the lower levels. We were forced to utilise specialist breaching tools in order to force entry; but could excavate only a small entrance lest we collapse the unstable layer of rubble above us. Within minutes of forcing a path into the hidden vaults below Cairn, we were attacked by a wave of stinking, hollow-eyed, emaciated creatures that we initially thought some debased xenos breed.
从巢都低层结构上方覆盖的那层护盾一般的瓦砾中打开一个通道口远比我们刚开始想象得要艰难，就像有人故意拆毁了上层的巢城，瓦砾形成了一层可怕的阻隔，阻止有人进入或离开下层巢城。为了打开入口，我们被迫动用了专门的钻孔工具，但是也只能开出一个很小的入口，以免我们破坏我们上方不稳定的瓦砾层。在我们打开通往Cairn下方隐藏宝库通路的几分钟时间里，一群恶臭、双眼空洞且消瘦的生物攻击了我们——我们一开始认为它们是某种堕落的异形种族。
They came as a terrifying silent horde, scrabbling from the opening we had torn in the rubble, blinded by the weak light of Cairn's distant sun. The engineering adepts that had manned the cutting equipment were swiftly pulled down by the wretches and even our outlying sentries, veteran soldiers armed with modem lasrifles, fell prey to the numberless swarm. The creatures were only driven back at length by the disciplined fire of our armsmen, who retreated from the entrance way to form a firing line on more open ground, abandoning some few of our party to save the greater proportion. In this brief engagement, though we were to emerge triumphant, much of our limited supplies of ammunition were exhausted. In the wake of the attack, we determined that the creatures that assaulted us were in fact human, the remains perhaps of the original inhabitants, ruined and broken by life in the rad-soaked darkness of the ruins beneath Cairn. Rather than risk our depleted numbers in tile pitch-black warrens beneath Cairn, I elected to bring down reinforcements from orbit, having fortunately bartered the considerable authority of my Writ of Trade for the services of the depleted 83rd Memlok Cohort of Solar Auxilia, who had previously been stationed at Gulgorahd for refit.
他们如同恐怖沉寂的兽群般冲来，从我们在瓦砾层上挖开的出口伸手抓挠，不过Cairn遥远太阳的微弱光芒使他们目盲。操纵切割设备的工程专家们很快就这些混蛋拽倒了，甚至那些装备了现代的激光步枪，在外围负责警戒的老兵们也沦为了这群怪胎的猎物。只有武装兵有规律的开火射击才能把这些生物赶回去，前者从入口通道撤回，在更开阔的场地形成了射击线列，为了拯救大多数人，我们抛弃了极个别人。虽然我们在这次短暂的交战中获胜，但我们也消耗掉了有限弹药补给中的大部分。在这次攻击之后，我们确信这些生物事实上就是人类，他们可能曾是幸存的定居者，但Cairn废墟中辐射遍布的黑暗生活（环境）毁灭和破坏了他们。我没有让减员的探险队在Cairn漆黑的街区上继续冒险，而是选择从轨道上呼叫增援。幸运的是，通商特许状所给予的可观权力为我换来了严重减员的第83梅洛克太阳辅助军兵团的协助，他们之前驻守在Gulgorahd来进行修整。
LOG FILE 947-ALPHA
日志文件947阿尔法
We made our second foray into the artificial caverns beneath Cairn, with techadepts moving in the wake of the armoured auxilia and utilising powerful but temperamental lumen-caster arrays to ward off the smothering darkness and to catalogue any potential finds. What we found within those caverns haunts me to this day: charnel pits that stretched beyond what light our equipment could cast,the squalid and hideous detritus of the cannibalistic nightmare that had consumed the survivors of Cairn. Every chamber and passage held the macabre remains of those dragged down by what had once been fellow citizens, and in the shadows about us, those who remained and the terrible progeny they had begot lurked and waited to feast upon us. Some units of Solar Auxilia were lost in that bleak realm,when their lumen-casters failed and the inhabitants of this shadowed realm overwhelmed them; of these souls we found little but bloody bones and torn fragments of their armour, the wounded dragged away as stock for their gruesome larders. Whatever humanity had once existed in these creatures, it had long since been extinguished by more than a decade trapped in the black pits beneath Cairn, forgotten by an empire consumed in civil war and never to return.
我们进行了第二次进入Cairn地下人造洞穴的尝试，技术专家们跟在全副武装的辅助军身后，使用功能强大但也反复无常的流明投射阵列（机仆：特大号探照灯…）来驱散令人窒息的黑暗，并登记任何潜在的发现物。我们在这些洞穴中发现的事物困扰我们直到现在：照明设备投射出的光线也无法照到的阴森坑洞，已然吞噬了Cairn幸存者们的食人噩梦般肮脏丑陋的残垣断壁，每个房间和每条走廊都堆着受难于自己曾经的同胞骇人遗骸，而且在我们周身的黑影中，那些残存着的居民和他们可怕的后代潜伏着，等待着将我们大快朵颐。某些太阳辅助军单位迷失在了这片阴冷的区域中，他们的流明投射器失效了，暗影王国的居民们压倒了他们。我们几乎未能找到这些可怜士兵的遗骸，只有血淋淋的骨头和他们的护甲被撕碎的碎片，伤员则被这些怪人们拖走，成为了他们幼崽的存粮。无论这些怪物曾经拥有着怎样的人性，十多年困在Cairn地下黑色深坑都已经在很久之前就毁灭了这些品质，被内战吞噬的帝国也遗忘了他们，他们再也未能回归为人类。
Log File 947-BETA
日志文件947贝塔
As we scoured this lightless hell we discovered arteficts of Cairn's fall but these were not the valuable tech-salvage I had hoped to procure. Instead they were the remains of Cairn’s executioners: bolt shells and fragments of Legiones Astartes battle plate in a black and red heraklry that was unknown to me. The doom that had befallen the world had come at the hands of Legiones Astartes other than the Night Lords. Further artefacts of this distant catastrophe were uncovered by our tech-adepts as we cleared the lower caverns, most often items of Legiones Astartes, wargear rendered non-functional by damage and discarded, all in the same unknown heraldry pattern. Within the deepest vaults of the fallen hive we finally uncovered the remaining data archives, stored within a vast cogitator marix of truly ancient design that had, to our great dismay, suffered extensive damage. It seemed that the deformed survivors of Cairn's fall had long since destroyed the caretaker automata that had once tended the data-engines，perhaps intending to silence the great machines themselves, and now nested in that complex in large numbers.
随着对于这片无光地狱的搜索，我们也发现了一些人工制品，但它们并非我希望回收的科技复原物，相反，它们是Cairn世界处刑者的遗物：爆矢弹壳和带着某种我未知的红黑色纹章的军团阿斯塔特战斗装甲碎片。降临在这个世界上的末日是经由午夜领主之外的阿斯塔特军团施加的，随着我们清理出了下层洞穴，技术专家们发现了更多与这场遥远灾难相关的造物，大多数通常都是阿斯塔特军团的弃物：被丢弃的因损坏而失灵的武器装备，而且全都带着那种未知的纹章。在倒塌巢城最深处的仓库中，我们终于发现了残存的数据储存器，它被安放在一台某种真正古老型号的巨大沉思者矩阵中，但让我们非常沮丧的是，沉思者遭受了大量损坏。似乎Cairn废墟中那些畸形的幸存者们很久之前就毁坏了那些照看数据引擎的自动机械看护者，可能是为了让这些伟大的机器沉寂下来，现在这些机械大量地嵌套在那个复合体中。
All our tech-adepts were able to coax from the machine’s depths over the course of several fraught days of interminable invocations and ritual, the Solar Auxilia vigilant all the while to the ever-present threat of the creatures that dwelt in the depths of Cairn, were a series of recordings and data entries. While these provided little in the way of technical information, they did give a disturbing insight into the final days of Cairn. This world, it seemed, had not been merely destroyed, but rendered into a warning for other systems in the sector; its armies utterly annihilated and its population herded into the depths of its hive cities before they were collapsed and sealed, the price of their defiance. These tactics match well the descriptions of the Dark Compliance inflicted by the Sons of Horus on a number of worlds during the Horus Heresy, yet Cairn was already sworn in service to the Warmaster's cause through their Night Lords masters and would seem an unlikely target for such terror tactics.
在忧心忡忡的数天时间中，我们的技术专家进行了冗长的祷告和仪式，太阳辅助军也一直对那些居住在Cairn深处的生物所不断造成的威胁保持警惕。我们最终能够从机器深处骗取到的就是一系列记录和数据条目。虽然这些内容几乎未能提供科技信息，但也向我们展示了Cairn末日时那令人不安的场景。这是世界似乎并非是仅仅被毁灭了，而是被制成了一个对于星区内其他世界的警告：军队被彻底摧毁，在巢城崩塌和被封住之前，将居民们驱赶到巢城深处——就是他们抵抗的代价。这种战术极其符合人们对于大叛乱时期荷鲁斯之子军团在许多世界上实行的黑暗归顺的描述，但Cairn已经通过他们的午夜领主统治者宣誓效忠于战帅，它似乎不太可能成为这种恐怖战术的目标。
Log File 948-Alpha
日志文件948阿尔法
Clearly shown in a number of pict images are Legiones Astartes warriors, each outfitted in baroque variations of the older Mark II battle plate once common during the Great Crusade. The heraldry in use by these warriors is unlike any I have seen before, a deep black with the pauldron and helms daubed in a dull red. Many of the Mark II armour's segmented plates have symbols inscribed on them, not in a regimented pattern that would indicate marks of rank or status, but almost at random and in the form of primitive tribal runes or gang symbols like those once worn by the Sons of Horus. Many also bear the raptor and lightning bolt symbols of the Emperor, an honour usually reserved only for those Terran recruits who fought by His side on the battlefields of Ancient Terra and the other worlds of that system, and often considered a sign of Loyalist allegiance. Trophies of fellen enemies, in the form of fragments of weapons, and skulls and claws of xenos beasts adorn the warriors, many in forms I have never witnessed before, and I have seen much that few others have borne witness to in my travels, and small charms on carved green stone, similar perhaps to Terran jade. Most notably, each warrior displays a strange sigil upon the pauldron that would normally boast the symbol of one of the Legions, a circle ringed by jagged claws, ash-white on a field of red that matches the colour of dried blood, an ominous and sinister emblem.
许多捕捉影像里都清晰地显示出了阿斯塔特军团战士的形象，他们每个人都装备了曾经常见于大远征时期的马克2型战斗装甲的怪异改装型号。这些战士们的涂装标志不同于我之前见过的任何同类事物：深黑色的肩甲，暗红色的头盔。马克2型动力甲的许多分段甲片上都刻着标志，但并非是某种表示军衔或地位的有条理符号，而是某种近乎随机的图案，形式类似荷鲁斯之子们曾经佩戴的那些原始部落符文或帮派标志。许多人也佩戴着帝皇（赐予）的猛禽和闪电箭矢标志，这份荣誉只被保留给了那些在古老泰拉和太阳系其他世界的战场上随侍在他身边的泰拉裔战士，通常被认为是忠诚派的标志。这些战士用来自死亡敌人的战利品——通常是武器的碎片，以及异形野兽的颅骨和利爪装点自己，我曾在旅程中见证了许多几乎没有其他人要忍受着去目击的事物，但这些东西中的多数都是我之前未曾见过的形式，我还见到了雕刻在绿色石头——某些类似于泰拉玉石的物质上的小型奇怪记号。最明显的是每名战士的肩甲上都显示出来一个奇怪的标记——那里正常来说应该自豪地佩戴着某个军团的标志，但有的只是一个被锯齿状的爪子圈住的圆环，肩甲的底色是堪比干燥血液的红色，其上的标志则是灰白色。这是种不祥而险恶的象征。
LogFile 950-ALPHA
日志文件950阿尔法
Whatever their loyalty, it was these warriors who plundered Cairn, for the information contained within the archives details a number of STC templates, construction matrices and other technological treasures that once were held by the rulers of Cairn, but now are notably missing. The world was broken and then striked clean, before its attackers vanished into the chaos of the Horus Heresy. I can only wonder how many other worlds within the Nostramo sector fell prey to similar attacks by forces bent on their own gain and the creation of petty empires while the eyes of the mighty were fixed on distant Terra. I fear our expedition to the Nostramo sector may be doomed to fail.
无论他们忠于何方，就是这群战士掠夺了Cairn：保存在数据储存库里的信息表明Cairn的统治者们曾经握有诸多STC模板、建造矩阵和其他科技财宝，但它们现在明显都失踪了。进攻者们破坏并洗劫干净了这个世界，之后便消失在了荷鲁斯叛乱的混乱战局中。我只能猜测：当强者们的双目注视着远方的泰拉时，诺斯特拉莫星区中还有多少个世界沦为这些醉心于自己的利益和创造微型帝国的势力的猎物，类似的攻击发生过多少次恐怕我们对于诺斯特拉莫星区的探索注定是要失败了。
