HH4节译：Manachean联邦战争（5）（完结）
Conquest
征服
The warships of the Sons of Horus cut into the Loyalist battle line at its apex, smashing into it head on, the turncoat warships of the Raven Guard being sacrificed to soak up the fury of the Loyalist guns as they closed. The Traitor spearhead of warships cut into the Loyalist fleet like a lance, piercing it bodily —splitting the Loyalist fleets defensive formation in two like an axe cleaving meat.
荷鲁斯之子的战舰们切入了忠诚派战列线的最前排，它们迎面撞了上去。在接近对方的同时，为叛徒们所用的暗鸦守卫战舰们成为了吸收忠诚派愤怒炮火的牺牲品。叛军的战舰矛头如标枪一般切入了忠诚派舰队，刺穿了队形——它们如利斧劈开鲜肉那般把忠诚派舰队的防御编队劈成两半。
At the apex of the spearhead, the Vengeful Spirit came on through the blast waves of flame and debris ahead of it like a beast of ancient myth made real, its huge armoured prow smashing aside Loyalist cruisers like toys, its many-decked broadside batteries smashing shields and cracking open hulls with contemptuous ease as it passed. Along its darkly armoured flanks, strange symbols writ as if by a colossal hand seemed to flicker and fade, as if pulsing to some terrible heartbeat and the void around it appeared to twist and recoil. The juggernaut-ship plunged on through the Loyalist vessels, dealing death as it went, unstoppable. The gargantuan battle barge of Horus had one goal, one true target; the Triumph of Reason protected at the heart of the Loyalist armada, and the focus of its command and control.
复仇之魂号处在矛头的最前端，它穿过自己前方混杂着火焰的冲击波与碎片，就像古代神话中的野兽跃入了现实。它巨大的装甲船头把忠诚派巡洋舰像玩具那样撞到一边；在它经过时，侧舷的多层炮塔轻蔑地轻松撞碎了敌舰的虚空盾，并令其船体破裂。船体两侧包裹着装甲，上面奇怪的标准如同是被一只巨大的手书写上去那般，似乎在闪烁明灭。那场面宛如某种可怕的心脏跳动，周边的虚空也在扭曲退缩。这艘巨舰冲过了忠诚派的舰船，势不可挡地一路向前，同时毁灭着旁边的飞船。荷鲁斯本人巨大的战列母舰冲向了自己真正的目标：处于忠诚派舰队的核心位置，受到层层保护的“理性胜利”号——忠诚派舰队的指挥与控制中心。
Its quarry in sight, the Vengeful Spirit made as if to ram the vast double-hulled Triumph of Reason, but as it closed —the guns of both hunter and deadly prey blazing savagely— the Vengeful Spirit's engines flared and it spun suddenly on its axis —a manoeuvre which at that velocity should have been fatal for any ship of its size— the manic and unexpected turn smashing to dust two hapless escorts that found themselves in its path, while a bastion frigate that caught the full blast of the Vengeful Spirit's engines as it swung was flung burning into the void. The space between the two gargantuan warships seemed to distort and shudder as the ship of the Warmaster violently arrested its progress so that it now flew above and alongside the Triumph—matching her course and velocity. In response to the seemly impossible manoeuvre and the threat now looming vulture-like over the Triumph, the lumbering giant below her tried to throw herself aside to evade what was to happen next or at least to roll and bring her own broadsides to bear, but she was too slow and it was too late.
猎物就在眼前，复仇之魂号仿佛是要撞向拥有双重船体的巨大理性胜利号。猎手和致命猎物的舰炮都在残忍地喷射着火光，但当复仇之魂号接近理性胜利号时，它的引擎加力爆发，船身突然绕着自己的前进轴旋转起来——对于所有与它尺寸相同的飞船而言，在这样的速度下做出这种机动都是致命的——这个疯狂且出乎人们意料的转向操作令复仇之魂将两艘位于其路径上的无助护航舰撞得粉碎，一艘在其转向时被卷入尾焰的堡垒护卫舰被燃烧着抛入了虚空。两艘巨大战舰之间的空间似乎在扭曲和颤动，因为战帅的飞船在暴力地阻止了理性胜利号的前进——它现在飞到了理性胜利号的上方且与之并排，两者目前的航向与速度是相同的。为了应对这一看似不可能的机动策略，以及如阴云般笼罩在自己上方的威胁，笨拙巨大的理性胜利号努力让自己躲开接下来要发生的事情，或者至少用自己的舷侧来承受，但她速度太慢，行动也太迟缓了。
Vortex missiles, rare and deadly weapons of the Dark Age of Technology, spat from the Vengeful Spirit's broadside launch tubes and exploded in ghostly spheres of silent nothingness that tore away the Triumph of Reason's void shields like paper and cracked open the decametre-thick hull plating beneath them like splintering ice. Seconds later, the Dreadclaws and Kharybdis of the Sons of Horus followed, punching through the weakened hull in a score of places and spilling out a cargo of death within. Gunships and assault rams followed, forcing their way into flight bays and hangars, crash landing in a storm of fire and shell.
复仇之魂号侧舷的发射管射出了一枚漩涡炸弹，这颗来自黑暗科技时代的罕见且致命的武器在寂静的虚无中爆炸，形成了幽灵般的光球，理性胜利号的虚空盾如同纸张一般被撕开，位于其后方的十米厚的船壳像碎裂的冰一样裂开。几秒后，荷鲁斯之子的恐惧爪和海妖突袭爪也紧随而至，它们从二十个位置穿透了理性胜利号被削弱的船体，释放出自己内部的死亡货物。炮艇和突击艇接踵而至，它们强行进入飞行港和机库，在风暴般的枪火和炮弹中迫降。
Throughout the Triumph emergency alarms sounded 'repel boarders', security bulkheads slammed shut and weapons cages were flung open to arm the thousands of crew, from the lowliest galley rating to the highest astrogator. The elite Solar Auxilia of LaBray's own Lifeguard Cohort rallied to meet an invader that was already within their iron walls, and soon corridors and gun decks were filled with the din of battle and the screams of the dying. Quickly, the Sons of Horus assault forces smashed their way into the core of the vast and labyrinthine double-hulled ship, killing with controlled savagery; viridian-hued Legion Breachers locking shields to march down on automated gun stations that turned the air in front of them into hurricanes of shellfire, heedless of their punishing losses. Elsewhere, Sons of Horus Reavers turned crew decks into blasted abattoirs, headless bodies strewn in their wake as crew, servitor and armsmen alike were slain without mercy by bolter and blade. At defensive choke points and at the gateways to vital companments, the Solar Auxilia Lifeguard made their stand as black armoured Terminators thundered inexorably towards them, maintaining disciplined volleys of las-fire of such intensity that the sable ceramite plates of the Cataphractii began to glow a dull ember red and their gilded chasements ran molten as hot wax. In the bowels of the Triumph, armoured locking mechanisms were thrown open, cryochambers vented and at LaBrays command, the last line of his gargantuan flagship's defence was let loose upon the enemy; Ogyrn Charonites——hundreds of them. Mutilated, cybernetically augmented monsters fuelled by rage and combat stimulants —barely controllable— the processes that created these beasts of war were themselves based on techno-arcana many had thought better abandoned to the Age of Strife. But such creatures were still maintained under Imperial dispensation to the masters of the Solar Auxilia, a weapon of dire resort that was unleashed now against the Sons of Horus. The hulking, surgically armoured abhumans towered over a Space Marine, and their augmentic fists could crush power armour as easily as bulkhead plate.
紧急警报声响彻了理性胜利号全舰，高呼着“驱逐跳帮部队”。安全舱壁砰的一声关上，武器笼被猛然打开，从级别最低的船奴到级别最高的宇航官，数千名船员被武装起来。担任拉布雷私人卫队的精锐太阳军们集合起来迎战那些已经进入了船舱中的入侵者们，不久之后，走廊和火炮甲板上充斥着战斗的喧嚣和垂死者的哀嚎。很快，荷鲁斯之子的突击部队冲入了这艘巨大且如迷宫般（复杂）的双体船的中心位置，以受控的残暴进行着杀戮；身穿铬绿色动力甲的军团破城者们架起跳帮盾，顶着自动炮台旋风般的炮火前进，毫不在意自身的惨重损失。在其他地方，荷鲁斯之子的劫掠者们把船员甲板变成了可恶的屠宰场，无头的尸体散落在他们身后，船员、机仆和武装兵都被爆弹和利刃无情地杀戮。在通往重要补给库的防御要点和通道处，太阳军卫队严阵以待，当身穿黑色动力甲的终结者们如同雷霆般势不可挡地冲向他们时，用激光枪不停地进行着有纪律的齐射，枪火是如此密集，以至于铁骑动力甲的黑色陶钢板都开始发出暗红色的光芒，镀金的雕镂饰品也如同蜡般融化了。在理性胜利号的最深处，包裹着装甲的上锁机械装置猛然打开，冷冻室进行着通风升温，在拉布雷的指挥下，这艘巨大旗舰的最后一道防线——数百名查洛尼特欧格林改造兵被释放向了敌人们。怒火和战斗兴奋剂驱动着这些被智控改造过的残缺怪物，他们几乎不受控制，制造这些战争野兽的程序本身就基于某种科技奥术——很多人认为这些技术最好被丢回纷争纪元。但在太阳辅助军的主宰者们的特许下，这些生物仍被保留着；现在这些可怕的武器被释放出来用于对付荷鲁斯之子们。这些用外科手术植入了装甲的笨重亚人比星际战士还要高大，对他们强化过的拳头而言，击穿动力甲就和击穿舱壁板一样轻而易举。
Even against the superhuman warriors of the Sons of Horus, in the confines of the Triumph's passageways and engine decks the Charonites proved deadly, smashing into their ranks and sending them flying or ripping them apart like over-cooked meat. Bolters hammered the Charonites at point blank range, blowing out bloody chunks of their chem-infused flesh, chainswords slashed and wheeled, but to seemingly little effect, and the insane abhumans ploughed on, heedless of wounds that would have killed even a Legiones Astartes many times over—even headless they sometimes continued to murderously flail around them until life was tom from bodies smashed beyond recognition. Force was met with force, savagery with savagery, and soon the Traitors' attack began to stall as casualties mounted on both sides. For the briefest moment, a glimmer of hope came to the embattled survivors of the Triumph of Reason, only to die as the eerie screams of reality being torn open echoed all across the Loyalist flagship as the Vengeful Spirit's second wave of attack teleported on board, and with them came Horus.
哪怕是面对荷鲁斯之子的超人战士，查洛尼特欧格林改造兵在理性胜利号的通道和引擎甲板上也被证明是致命的，他们冲进荷鲁斯之子的队伍中，将星际战士们击飞，或者把星际战士们像煮烂的肉一样撕成碎片。爆弹枪朝着欧格林改造兵们近距离开火，从他们注入了化学药物的肉体上炸下来血淋淋的肉块；链锯剑劈砍，链刃飞旋，但看起来却几乎没有效果，这些疯狂的亚人战士还在继续进攻，毫不在意自己身上那些甚至能杀死一名阿斯塔特军团战士数次的伤口——有些时候，他们甚至会在失去头部的情况下继续凶狠得猛击身边的敌人，直到他们的躯体被撕扯到面目全非，无法辨识。双方战作一团，野蛮地相互厮杀，随着彼此的伤亡同时增加，叛军的进攻也开始暂缓。就在那一刹，理性胜利号陷入了困境的幸存者们看到了一线希望，但这丝希望很快破灭了：现实被撕开的可怕尖锐声音回荡在忠诚派的旗舰上，复仇之魂的第二批进攻（部队）被传送到了理性胜利号上——荷鲁斯与他们一并前来。
Horus, the Warmaster, Primarch, God of Battle; nothing could stand before him. Into the thickest concentration of the Charonites he charged, his black-pelted cloak streaming behind him, his maul, Worldbreaker, crushing the Ogryns as if they were inert figures of gore-filled porcelain rather than the nightmares of the Age of Strife made flesh. In him his Legion found new vigour, a dark power seeping into their souls which hurled them at the enemy once more like the devils of ancient lore. Seeing that all was lost, La Bray led the last of his personal Lifeguard in an attempted break for the ship's fighter bays, hoping no doubt to escape to another Loyalist vessel, but even in sight of the launch bays they were cut off. Denied even the glory of a last stand, LaBray and his party were torn apart in a savage crossfire, his halfincinerated body only later identified long after Warmaster Horus had moved on from the war ravaged system.
荷鲁斯，战帅，原体，战神；没有什么能够阻挡在他面前。他冲入了查洛尼特欧格林改造兵最为集中的区域，黑色的斗篷飘动在他身后，他挥舞着手中的战槌——破世者将欧格林人们一一砸碎，仿佛这些改造兵是灌满了鲜血的迟钝瓷像，而非来自纷争纪元的血肉噩梦。在荷鲁斯身上，他的军团发现了某种新的活力，那是一种渗入他们灵魂的黑暗力量，像古代传说中的魔鬼一样令他们再次扑向敌人。看到自己失去了一切，拉布雷带领着自己的最后一名私人卫士，试图突入战舰的战斗机停泊港。毫无疑问，他们希望逃到另一艘忠诚派飞船上，但即便他们能看到发射港，道路也是被切断的。凶猛的交叉火力撕碎了拉布雷和他的下属，他们甚至被剥夺了进行最后一战的荣誉。在战帅荷鲁斯离开这个被战争蹂躏的星系很久之后，他那半焚毁的尸体才被辨认出来。
As a tide of murder, Horus and his sons crashed through the Triumph of Reason, obliterating all in their path, until at last the command decks were breached and the Strategium broken open, and all within slaughtered without deference to rank or title. Before Horus, the human crew of the Triumph of Reason simply cast down their weapons in despair, but such submission did not save them. From the corpse-strewn bridge of the Loyalist flagship, the Warmaster addressed the surviving Loyalist fleet, his voice burning across the cold void to the very depths of Port Maw where the fighting raged on still. To those who resisted him, this god of death offered mercy in praise of their valiant, if deluded, struggle; submission and service to him would spare them, only this. They would be his now and forever, or they would be exterminated utterly.
荷鲁斯与他的子嗣们如同一阵杀戮狂潮般席卷了理性胜利号，摧毁了沿途的一切，最终他们攻破了指挥甲板，冲入了战情室，舱室内的所有人员无论军衔和头衔如何，都被不加区别地屠杀掉。在荷鲁斯面前，理性胜利号的凡人船员们绝望地放下了武器投降，但这份屈服也救不了他们的命。在忠诚派旗舰布满尸体的舰桥上，战帅向幸存的忠诚派舰队下达了最后通牒，他的声音穿过了寒冷的虚空，抵达了仍在进行战斗的巨口港最深处。对于那些抵抗他的人，这位死亡之神给予了仁慈以赞扬他们的勇气——尽管他们是被哄骗着进行了斗争；臣服并效忠于战帅，他们就能免于一死，也只能这样。他们要么现在加入战帅的阵营，并永远如此，要么就被彻底消灭。
Leaderless, broken and alone, the Loyalists were now confronted with the same unimaginable force that had cowed and butchered countless star systems in the name of the Emperor, and had no answer to its inhuman power. One by one, save for a handful such as the Kurga who fled into the darkness, the Loyalist ships struck their flags —dispersing their shields and cutting their targeting auspexes— and thereby surrendered. Within the myriad corridors and vaults of the great station complex itself, the din of battle died away to a dreadful and expectant silence, broken only by the cries of the wounded and the dying.
忠诚派们现在群龙无首、支离破碎且孤独受困，他们面对的是一股难以想象的力量——同一股力量曾以帝皇之名恐吓和屠杀过无数个星系，这股超人的力量是他们无法抵抗的。除了诸如库尔卡号之类少数逃入黑暗中的飞船，（其他的）忠诚派舰船一艘接一艘地降旗，他们解除了虚空盾，关闭了瞄准鸟卜仪，向战帅投降。在巨大太空站的无数长廊和拱顶里，战斗的喧闹声渐渐消失，变成了预期的可怕寂静，只有伤病员和垂死者的呼喊声打破了沉寂。
Port Maw and everything in it belonged to the Warmaster.
巨口港和其中的一切现在都属于战帅了。
Manachea in Chains
束手就擒
The battle was in its eleventh day when the gates of the Palace of Light finally fell and crowned the end of the battle. For five days the defenders of Ilium had held out against the power ranged before them, but it had been the breaking of them, and after that had come six days of rout and the protracted slaughter of an enemy hounded to their end. Now, in the ash-blown city, Titans strode the great arterial roadways uncontested, wrecking and burning in spite at their own losses, as the skies above them shrieked with Legion gunships which plummeted like birds of prey when some last holdout of resistance or fleeing refugee band was spotted. Hive Ilium's once white plazas were strewn with broken bodies and the burned- out wrecks of tanks, the ordered rows upon rows of habitation blocks were mutilated and shell-pitted beyond recognition —where they had not been smashed and toppled entirely一 and the manufactora and seats of government were now merely skeletal frameworks of twisted metal clad in cinders.
在战斗进行到第十一天时，光之宫殿大门最终倒下，战斗结束了。Ilium巢都的守军抵抗了自己面前的敌人五天，他们最终还是失败了；在之后的六天中，他们一路溃败，被穷追不舍的敌人们不断屠杀。现在，在这座笼罩着灰烬的巢城中，泰坦们无所阻碍地走在主干道上，尽管自己也遭受了损失，但他们仍在破坏和纵火，阿斯塔特军团的炮艇从泰坦们头上的天空中呼啸而过，当它们发现最后的抵抗军和逃跑的难民群时，就会像猛禽一样垂直疾冲而下。Ilium巢都曾经的白色广场上散落着破碎的尸体与烧毁的坦克残骸，一排排井然有序的居住街区被严重损毁，变得坑坑洼洼，无法辨认——这还是那些未被炸碎或完全推倒的区域，铸造厂和政府机关现在只剩下了覆盖着灰烬的扭曲金属框架。
Not all had gone the attackers' way in the battle; even now amid the ruin of Block Fortress 77-4, the Tempestus Reaver Titan Raxvalian lay slain, its embers still glowing with decaying radiation. It had been the victim of an ambush attack by a handful of House Vyronii Knights caught on-world when the invasion came. It had meant their end but the Vyronii had sold themselves dearly. The Raxvalian had been the third Titan to perish in the assault, two lighter Warhounds having gone before it, and four others of various classes had met with severe damage in the armour-clash which had raged after the Legio Tempestus arrival. Hive Ilium's division of super-heavy tanks had acquitted itself with unexpected effectiveness in the attempt to hold back the Titans’ landing, though ultimately, with a demi-Legio of Titans before them and the Sons of Horus falling on their flanks, they had been doomed. Despite the bitter resistance of the Manacheans of Ilium, the city had fallen, victory now was no more than a formality. Having witnessed the fate of their capital, Manachea's other hive cities had already capitulated to the invaders, and its satrap worlds would swiftly follow.
但也并不是所有的守军都被攻击者消灭了;哪怕现在，暴风军团的掠夺者泰坦“勇者之王”号被杀死在了77-4号街区要塞的废墟中，它的余烬还在散发着衰变的辐射。摧毁它的是几台维伦尼家族的骑士所发动的突袭——他们在入侵爆发时被困在了这个世界上。勇者之王号是第三台被摧毁于这场进攻中的泰坦，在它之前被毁灭的是两台更为轻型的战犬泰坦；而在暴风军团抵达后爆发的一场装甲冲突中，还有其他四台等级各异的泰坦也受到了严重的损坏。Ilium巢都的超重型坦克分队在阻止泰坦登陆的尝试中发挥出了意想不到的效果，但最终，他们直面了半个军团的泰坦，而且荷鲁斯之子也降落在了他们的两翼，他们最终被毁灭了。虽然Ilium巢都中的人们进行了艰苦的抵抗，但巢城依旧陷落了，胜利现在只不过是一种形式程序而已。目睹了自己首府的命运，Manachea上的其他巢都已经投降了侵略者，这颗总督世界也就紧随其后。
Abaddon himself led the final assault on the Palace of Light, having deliberately spared it till last almost as a perverse joke so it could stand witness over the hive it had once ruled as the city was destroyed around it. Smashing his way inside with his Justaerin bodyguard at his side like a band of robbers come to plunder a defenceless Protector of Manachea, met the killer of kings. To the face of the armoured giant he spoke his words of rebuke and died, broken by Abaddon as casually as a man might swat a fly. With him died the Manachean Commonwealth. In its place was now a domain of Horus, a newly acquired bauble of conquest for a spreading shadow empire—a realm that existed only to arm and equip its masters for but one purpose; the overthrow of the Emperor of Mankind.
阿巴顿亲自领导了对于光之宫殿的最后进攻，它是被故意留到最后的——这几乎是一个变态的玩笑，这样它就会在巢都上层见证自己曾经统治的城市被摧毁。阿巴顿在身边杰斯特林卫队的陪同下破门而入，就像一群强盗来抢劫手无寸铁的Manachea护国尊主一般——后者面对着的是弑王之人。面对着这些全副武装的巨人，总督斥责着他们，然后便死掉了——阿巴顿就像拍死一只苍蝇那样随手杀了他。和总督一并死去的是Manachean联邦，这里现在是荷鲁斯的领地，也是战帅扩张中的暗影帝国新近夺取的战利品——这片国度的存在只是为了向其主人提供武装和装备，而其目的只有一个：推翻人类帝皇的统治。
