HH6节译：Xana入侵行动（2）
The False War
虚假战争
The news of the attack on the Xana System had inevitably reached the Sons of Horus, whose own vessel had detected the incursion from the Warp of the Imperial forces and bore witness to the apocalyptic response from Xana's defences. Koraddon demanded answers. He was met with profuse apologies for any alarm caused, and assured that the matter would be dealt with promptly and without risk to the Warmaster' delegation,and that there would be no need to alter the planned exchange of gifts and demonstration of the Ordinatus. For Xana, both the demonstration and the impending void battle had become a necessary display of strength before their future allies in ways they had never planned, but no less vital because of this. The Vodian Consistory would not lose face before Horus.
Xana星系遭到进攻的消息已经不可避免地传到了荷鲁斯之子处，他们自己的舰船也检测到了帝国部队离开亚空间发起的入侵，也目睹了Xana防御系统那启示录般的还击。科拉顿要求Xana做出回答。Xana的贤者们为帝国部队入侵而引发的警告向科拉顿不断致歉，他们保证自己会及时处理这些琐事，不会让战帅的使节团遭遇危险，而且已经计划好的礼物互换仪式和将军炮开火演示也无需更改。对Xana而言，开火演示和即将发生的虚空战都成为了在未来盟友面前对于自身实力的必要展示，他们从未计划用这种方式展现力量，但其重要性并不会因此而降低。监铸教廷不想在荷鲁斯面前丢脸。
So it was that even as the Loyalist and Mechanicum warships and torpedoes hurtled at unimaginable speeds towards each other in the void far beyond, the matter of Xana's formal alliance with the Traitor cause proceeded with much ceremony and clockwork precision. By prior arrangement the Warmaster's cargo was delivered from orbit, even as Xana Il's planetary interceptor batteries fired, cycled and fired again, sending torpedoes speeding into the night on columns of fire. The gift-cargo was landed between the barrage launches, still sealed in consignment to the landing ports of several of Xana's major forge-fanes: Tephra, Escorial and Setna, no doubt to prevent discord in the Consistory itself by dividing the spoils between the archmagos, to be released by code key transfer as the accord was formally made.
所以，尽管忠诚派和机械神教双方的战舰和鱼雷正在遥远的虚空中以难以想象的速度互相攻击，但Xana和叛军之间仍然进行了极为隆重且精准的正式结盟仪式。尽管Xana II的行星截击炮塔正在重复着开火、装填、再开火的循环，发射出的鱼雷正在拖着尾焰火柱冲入夜空，但战帅的货物仍按事先的安排从轨道上运输着。运输礼物的货舰在弹幕间穿过，降落到了地表；它们被以密封状态运送到了Tephra, Escorial和Setna等多座铸造神殿的着落港中。毫无疑问，监铸教廷是要通过将战利品分发给大贤者们来避免教廷内部的不和，在正式达成协议后，教廷会用密钥转换器来打开这些集装箱。
Meanwhile, the Sons of Horus warship, Cicatrice Tyrannis, was permitted into close orbit of the moon of Xana-Tisiphone, sheltered from the waves of fire unleashed from the Forge World itself and Koraddon, with Unvacar Noon at his side, descended with a full company-sized honour guard of Sons of Horus to the surface via wings of fully armed Stormbirds and assault landers; a display of foree and perhaps of displeasure that could not be lost on the waiting Mechanicum delegation. Ready to meet Koraddon's party on the edge of the great proving grounds, a vast artificial battlefield outside the half-kilometre high walls of the great prison-forge of Tisiphone-Shaol, was Archmagos-Procurator Gilim Raijan, the prime arbiter of Xana's ruling Vodian Consistory and his personal covenant of magos, guardian-servitors and lexmechanics.
同时，荷鲁斯之子的战舰“创痕暴君”号也被允许进入了卫星Xana-Tisiphone的低空轨道，它受到了铸造世界自身释放出的数波炮火的庇护；在一整支荷鲁斯之子连队组成的荣誉卫队的护送下，科拉顿和跟着他身边的“满阳正午”降落到了地表，运载他们的是由全副武装的风暴鸟炮艇和突击登陆艇组成的中队；战帅的特使借此展示了实力，或许也表达出了自己的不悦，等待中的机械神教代表团不会放过这些表现。准备会见科拉顿访问团的是监察大贤者基里姆 莱詹，他正站在大型演示场的边缘——这片区域是Tisiphone-Shaol监牢铸炉那半公里高围墙外一片巨大的人造战场。基里姆 莱詹是统治Xana的监铸教廷的首席仲裁官，陪同其前来的是他的私人贤者盟约团、护卫机仆和编录机僧。
Such records that remain of this meeting are fragmentary and uncorroborated, and suggest a cold and tension-laden encounter between the barely contained arrogance of the Sons of Horus warlord and the chill, precise civility of the Archmagos of Xana, with the strange and macabre figure of the Davinite priest acting as intermediary. Of the impending void battle nothing was mentioned, and after the initial diplomacy and greetings were concluded, the nature of the planned demonstration was detailed.
残留了这场会面（内容）的记录文件都是碎片化且未经证实的，其表明：在此次会面中，荷鲁斯之子军阀表现出了近乎不加抑制的傲慢，Xana的大贤者们则表现出了冷漠且精准的客套，而且是由怪异可怕的达文牧师充当中间人，双方的接触是冷淡且紧张的。至于迫在眉睫的虚空战，这些资料则只字未提。在最初的外交活动和问候结束后，贤者们详细介绍了计划好的武器演示的性质。
What was presented to the Warmaster's emissaries was to be a false war of sorts, but one in which the carnage would be very real. Thousands of armed slaves and human chattel, some were abhumans, others forge serfs and adsecularis, while others were military prisoners taken in raids by the Xanites —soldiers from the Loyalist cause for the main— were unleashed onto the kilometres-wide proving grounds. Controlled by remote-denoted suicide-collars and spurred on by auto-injected chemicals where needed, this damned regiment was equipped with a panoply of weapons ranging from small arms up to and including even heavy tanks of Imperial pattern, and they had been given a simple but impossible task—to survive what was coming.
Xana贤者们要展示给战帅特使们的是一场虚假战争，但该过程中的屠杀是真实的。数千名武装奴工和凡人奴隶（某些是亚人类，其他的则是铸炉仆役和技术契奴），同时还有在掠袭Xanites世界时抓获的战俘（主要是忠诚派士兵）都被释放进了数公里宽的演示场。这支注定遭受毁灭的部队被用遥控引爆的自杀项圈控制着，有必要时还会被自动注射化学药剂以进行刺激。他们装备了全套武器，从轻型武器到主武器，甚至还包括帝国形制的重型坦克。Xana贤者给了他们一个简单但却不可能的任务——从将要到来的进攻中存活下来。
From within the armoured observation cupola of a hulking Mechanicum land crawler, flanked by a pair of Sons of Horus Mastodon carriers forming escort, would the Warmaster's emissaries and the Archmagos Raijan observe the bloody game that was to follow, inviolate behind their void shields but within the thick of the contrived battle. It was to be a thing of sheer destructive spectacle—a massacre made to order. The vast black vaulted gates of the prison-forge opened and the three monsters emerged into view, Mithrax, Nepothax and Ashurax each Ordinatus fully armed and operational, and each with a coterie of Sons of Horus Techmarines on board to observe their operation first hand.
战帅的特使与大贤者莱詹则身处一台巨型机械神教陆地爬行车的装甲观测圆顶舱中，两台荷鲁斯之子乳齿象运输车在其两侧护卫着；他们躲在虚空盾的保护后面观赏着即将到来的血腥游戏，不会受到这场预谋战斗的伤害。这将是一场具有纯粹破坏性的精彩表演——贤者们要展现的是一场按命令进行的屠杀。监牢铸炉巨大的黑色拱形大门被打开，三台怪兽都进入了人们的视野——米萨拉克斯、涅博萨克斯和阿苏拉克斯这三台将军炮全副武装且运转正常，而且每台将军炮上都有一小群荷鲁斯之子技术军士来观察此类武器的一手操作。
With a coded signal which promised instant death if compliance was not given, the first wave of enslaved soldiers attacked, hundreds and then thousands of infantrymen pouring across the broken, shell-pitted ground. In response, the Ordinatus spread out and deployed, advancing, forming an echelon, half-seen clusters of humming automata hovering to guard each huge war engine's flanks should anything close to endanger their mighty charges.
随着被输入不服从就是立刻令其死亡的编码信号，第一批被奴役的士兵发起了进攻，成百上千的步兵冲过了遍布弹坑的破碎场地。作为回应，将军炮们分散开来，前进并排成编队，成群嗡嗡作响的自动机兵隐约可见，它们盘旋着，守护在每台巨大战争引擎的侧翼，以防有任何东西接近到足以危及将军炮强悍的冲锋。
Like a vast ground-swarm of insects, the infantry wave surged and began to encircle the rumbling metal beasts, the Ulators' vast and baroque cannon beginning to crackle and glow with building energies of savage force, building until flares of sudden lightning arcs and shimmering surges of distorted air spat from their barrels and coils like angry ghosts. The first of the desperate attackers' weapons fire 一heavy stubber rounds and unguided rockets— had only just began to patter harmlessly from the Ordinatus' all-encompassing protective power fields when at last the Ulators' sonic destructors spoke. There was a brief blinding flash. A roaring, all-consuming silence that devoured all sound, the surface of the world itself seemed to ripple like a tortured sea and in that instant a thousand lives were snuffed out. Bodies, torn to red rags by the all-destroying waves of sonic energy, were blasted across the battlefield as if driven by a hurricane, and beneath them three great trenches now gouged the earth to mark the unleashed blasts. Beside these furrows scores of bloodied men staggered on broken limbs, their senses devoured and minds shattered. Those fortunate to be far enough away saw the fate of their comrades and fled if they were able, or simply collapsed in shock.
就像一大群在地面上蠕动的昆虫那样，步兵们冲了上去，并且开始围住这只轰隆作响的金属巨兽。乌拉托将军炮巨大且华丽的主炮开始劈啪作响，闪烁着力道野蛮的能量逐渐增强而产生的光芒，光亮不断增强，直到闪电、弧光和扭曲的空气突然如愤怒的幽灵那样从线圈和炮管中喷射出来。当乌拉托的声波破坏炮最终开火时，绝望的进攻者们用重型伐木枪和无引导的火箭弹开始攻击将军炮的全方位防护能量护盾，但只能发出些无害的声响。将军炮开火时产生了令人目盲的短暂闪光，（之后）一阵吞噬一起的寂静呼啸而过，寂灭了一切声响，地表如同被（风暴）折磨的大海那样起伏不定，一千条生命在瞬间被抹杀。人的身体被毁灭一切的能量音波撕碎成鲜红的碎块，仿佛被飓风吹飞了那样，尸体被炸飞到了战场的各处。尸体下方的地面被刨出了三条巨大的壕沟，标志着将军炮释放出的爆炸。在这些沟壑旁边，几十个血淋淋的人踩着断肢蹒跚而行，他们的感知能力被毁灭，意识变得破碎模糊。这些人有幸在足够远的地方看到自己战友们的命运，他们要么是趁着自己还能活动时逃跑，要么就只是在惊恐中崩溃了。
The Ordinatus, implacable, rolled on, the observer column behind them in their wake, towards the ultimate goal of a shattered cityscape some nine kilometres distant; a city that had been built and rebuilt many times in the past, only to be destroyed in the testing of Xana's guns. The signal went out and the second wave was ordered in, this time a mixed force of armoured infantry and supporting armour. The attack was even more desperate, the storm that erupted across the Ordinatus' shields more violent, but the outcome was the same: an army wiped out as by the hand of an annihilating god. The signal was issued again and again and the bloody charade of war continued, now armoured forces alone, now jump troops, now battle-servitors, now a column of super-heavy tanks to test the mighty Ulators' defences to the limit. The killing went on for hours.
将军炮们不依不饶地继续前进，观摩团则跟在它们身后，驶向了大概九公里之外作为最终目标的那片破碎城市景观；那是一座在过去被（反复）建造和重建过很多次的城市，用处只是在Xana的火炮测试中被摧毁。贤者们发出了信号，第二波部队被命令发动进攻。这次出阵的是装甲步兵和支援型装甲单位组成的合成部队。这次进攻甚至更为绝望，如风暴般在将军炮护盾各处炸开的炮火更为猛烈，但结局还是一样的：一位毁灭之神伸出一只手便抹去了一支军队。信号被一次又一次地发出，战争游戏也一再上演；独自出阵的装甲部队、跳跃部队、战斗机仆和一支超重型坦克纵队依次上场，测试着强大的乌拉托将军炮的防御极限。杀戮持续了数个小时。
The Shadow of the Angel's Wing
天使双翼之影
While the power of the three gifts was being so emptily and murderous demonstrated on Xana-Tisiphone, in the void the opposing fleets met. Unimaginable forces of destruction were unleashed as beam lances wove traceries of annihilating light across the void, waves of torpedoes slammed into thunderous barrages of counter-fire and atomic explosions rippled like dying stars across the firmament. The Imperium's battleships formed a conical wedge to protect their lethal entourage of fire ships from attack, their escorting frigates and destroyers darting madly around them to intercept any torpedo salvoes or servitor-fighters that broke through the titanic barrages of the Amphion and her sisters, some paying with their lives to cany out their bloody task, interposing their own frail hulls against the fury. Slowly, Xana's fist of iron closed around the Loyalist fleet, and though scores of Mechanicum hunter-killers perished, torn to spiralling fragments by the macro-cannon and plasma cannonades of the Loyalists, and entire war- arks were sliced in half from stem to stern by the Amphion's prodigious giga-scale primary lances, the attacking fleet began to falter and shrink. First one of the Loyalist battleships, the Dequenne's Fury, fell out of formation, a burning hulk, then soon after a second, the venerable Sceptre of Io, spiralled out of control, the beasts of steel gnawing and coiling across her hull like ravenous ghouls, Thallax Covenants and Castellax battle-automata injected like poison into the battleship's veins as the Solar Auxilia armsmen aboard fought desperately for survival to little avail. The Loyalists' defensive shield forced open, its escort screen stripped away, the fire ships themselves began to flare brightly in their death throes. Slowly, and at great cost, the Xanite Mechanicum were winning the battle, the Loyalist fleet would never reach striking distance of the bounty ships hidden in the debris belt.
就在Xana的三件礼物在Xana-Tisiphone上极其空洞且残忍地展示着自身力量的同时，双方舰队也在虚空中相遇了。光矛射线在虚空中编织出湮灭之网，一波又一波的鱼雷猛冲上前与敌方的反击弹幕猛烈相撞，原子爆炸如垂死的恒星般扩散在苍穹各处，无法想象的毁灭之力被释放而出。帝国的战列舰组成了一个锥形的楔状编队，以保护随行的纵火船免受致命火力的攻击。护航的护卫舰和驱逐舰在它们周围疯狂飞驰，拦截着所有突破了安非昂号及其姐妹们强大弹幕的齐射鱼雷或机仆战机；某些护航舰牺牲自己来完成这血腥任务，用自己脆弱的船体来对抗机械神教的怒火。Xana的铁拳在忠诚派舰队周围缓慢合拢，虽然忠诚派舰船的宏炮和电浆炮将数十架机械神教猎杀者引擎撕碎成了原地打转的碎片，安非昂号巨大的主光矛炮塔也将整艘的战争方舟从船头到船尾切成两半，但进攻舰队仍然开始收缩攻势。第一艘掉队的忠诚派战列舰是“德奎恩之怒”号，它的船体熊熊燃烧得；不久之后第二艘战舰——可敬的“艾奥权杖”号也在原地失控旋转起来，钢铁野兽们如贪婪的食尸鬼那样啃咬着她的各处船体，死隶机兵和堡星战斗机兵如同被注入战舰血管中的毒药，船上的太阳军武装兵们拼命奋战以求生存，却几乎毫无效果。忠诚派被迫张开了自己的防御盾，护航舰组成的屏障也被剥开，纵火船在垂死挣扎中开始发出耀眼的光芒。Xana机械神教进展缓慢，而且遭受了严重损失，但他们正在赢得战斗。忠诚派舰队永远也不会抵达能进攻到藏在碎片环带中那些满载的货船的点位。
The weapons platforms in the murky stratosphere of Xana II had fallen silent at last, their munitions spent, as had the ground silos on Xana II discharged in full. In the void distant, the matter was now being decided by the brutality of a close-range void battle in which they would play no part. So it was that the Mortis-XI defensive station at the heart of the debris belt's defence network began to cycle down its systems to a defensive posture, the Tech-Priest chorus cyber-bonded to its control gyre reaching out with their djinn-sight to the dozens of weapons platforms they controlled, reporting status and correcting positional anomalies in their deployment caused by their now reduced mass. Suddenly, their auguries screamed with a new hostile contact, a warship impossibly close, not beyond in the void of space, but beneath them in the thick atmosphere of Xana I. The Mortis-XI station died in an eruption of nothingness, vortex torpedoes ripping it out of reality in a squall of disintegrating wreckage. In its place a sable-black ship sliced out of the mirk, long and wicked as a blade, the near-seamless armour of its surface featureless save for a single crimson icon across its low prow, graven in the image of a winged sword.
Xana II昏暗大气中的武器平台最终也陷入沉寂，它们的弹药耗尽了，Xana II地表处发射井也释放出了全部导弹；在远处的虚空中，残酷的近距离虚空战将会决定一切，但它们无法在其中发挥作用。所以处于碎片带核心区域的防御空间站“死亡十一号”开始将系统循环到防御姿态，通过数据灵精的视界，那些用智控网络将自己连接到空间站控制环流的技术神甫团观察着其控制着的几十个武器平台，他们汇报状态，修正因其质量减少而导致的部署位置异常。突然，鸟卜仪警声大作，报告了一次新出现的敌对接触：有一艘战舰不可思议地靠近它们，而且不是虚空之外，而是就在它们的下方，躲在Xana I浓厚的大气层中。死亡十一号在爆炸中灰飞烟灭——漩涡鱼雷将其撕裂成了一堆支离破碎的残骸，之后将其吸入了亚空间。继而一艘黑色的舰船从星球幽暗的大气中滑出，它如同利刃般修长而危险，飞船表面那几乎无缝的船体装甲毫无特色，只有一个深红色的纹章横亘在低矮的船头——那里被刻上了一柄长有双翼的长剑。
The sable ship turned almost lazily in an arc towards the dozens of lumbering transports and freighters whose protection within the debris belt of Xana I was worthless now against this wolf among the flock, and she began to kill. Secondary plasma batteries and defensive lasers spat from the spent weapons platforms towards the murderous vessel but they were too little to even give her pause. On Xana II the cold minds which ruled the forge-fanes quickly identified the vessel, for she was a unique killing engine alongside which their own forces had fought many decades before during the Rangdan wars. She was no mere Legiones Astartes strike cruiser, but a lone relic of Old Night, a thing recovered from the permafrosts of Ganymede by the Emperor's own hand. Her name was the Dark Sovereign, and she belonged to the Ist Legion, to the Dark Angels.
那艘黑色飞船几乎就是懒洋洋地划了个弧线，飞向了那些缓慢笨拙的运输船和货舰，Xana I的碎片带已经变得毫无意义，黑暗天使的飞船现在就是一只钻入羊群的恶狼，她开始了杀戮。精疲力尽的武器平台用次级电浆炮塔和防御激光射击着这艘凶恶的飞船，但这些进攻太弱了，甚至不能让后者停顿。在Xana II世界上，统治着铸造神殿的冷酷意识很快就辨别出了这艘飞船——她不仅是一艘阿斯塔特军团打击巡洋舰，而且是一件来自旧夜时代的独特遗产，是帝皇从Ganymede世界的永冻层中亲手回收的飞船。她名为黑暗君王号，属于第一军团——黑暗天使。
The Wrath of the Betrayed
受叛者之怒
On Xana-Tisiphone, news of the blade in the dark was shock enough to call a sudden halt even to the contrived carnage of the Ordinatus' demonstration. The macromunitions explosions of the dying transports in the debris field of the Xana I gas giant were potent enough to be clearly visible in the skies overhead. The Warmaster's prizes were dying in flames, and Xana's void ships were simply too far away to prevent it.
在Xana-Tisiphone上，一柄利刃从黑暗中刺出的消息令所有人都颇为震惊，甚至连将军炮的人为屠杀展示都被突然叫停。在气体巨星Xana I的碎片环带中，垂死运输船上的巨量弹药发生了爆炸，其程度严重到地上的人们能够在头顶的天空中清楚看到这一切。战帅的战利品正在被烈火焚毁，而Xana的虚空舰船们距离太远，无法前去阻止这一切。
On the observation deck of the hulking Mechanicum crawler, Archmagos-Procurator Gilim Raijan turned to Unvacar Noon, perhaps to offer explanation or perhaps to entreat the Sons of Horus' own warship to attack the Dark Angels vessel, only to find Noon's features melting like wax before him. The emissary's arm flashed out,too fast even for the augmented reflexes of the Archmagos to react against, and a gilded barb sunk into his body, a roaring electroshock surge shorting out his power systems and collapsing his personal defensive shield. Raijan fell back away from his attacker as his own guardian-servitors fell on the blurring, shifting, shadow-quick assassin, but behind himself he found the armoured bulk of Koraddon looming over him as he staggered. The verdigris-armoured warlord reached down to the fallen Archmagos and wordlessly tore off Gilim Raijan's head with his power fist in a shower of sparks and black fluids, and then pulverised his twitching metal body into scrap.
在巨型机械神教爬行车的观察甲板中，监察大贤者基里姆 莱詹转向了满阳正午，他或许是要辩解，或许是要恳求荷鲁斯之子们派出自己的战舰去攻击黑暗天使飞船，但他只看见满阳正午的脸在他面前如蜡般融化了。这位特使猛得伸出手臂，速度快到甚至令大贤者强化过的反应能力都无法应对；特使将一柄金色的钩刺扎入了大贤者的身体，一阵声音尖锐的电击随即短路了他的电力系统，令其个人放护盾崩溃。莱詹从攻击者身边向后退去，而他自己的机仆护卫们则扑向了这个身影模糊、行动如暗影般迅捷的刺客；当当他踉跄后退时，又发现科拉顿身穿动力甲的身形在自己身后若隐若现。身穿铜绿色动力甲的星际战士军阀朝着倒地的大贤者伸出手来，他一言不发地用自己的动力拳将大贤者的脑袋撕扯下来，断口处喷出火花和黑色流体。莱詹抽动着的金属躯体之后又被碾成了碎片。
The Hour of Execution
处决之时
The Lords of Xana had been deceived and by that deception the Loyalists' bloody stratagem had borne fruit. Some three hours after the initial exchange of fire of the engagement against the Loyalist raiding fleet led by the Amphion, the full forces of the Mechanicum's void defences had been drawn out and committed to the battle, Xana Il's long range munitions had been expended and their warships were now locked in closequarters fighting with the Terran battlegroup. The Xanite vessels were now simply too far away to defend their home Forge World, or more importantly, protect the huge supply fleet that lay at anchor in the Xana I debris belt, when a new Loyalist attacker, the deadly Dark Sovereign, launched her own devastating surprise assault from within the gas giant Xana II's atmosphere.
Xana的领主们被欺骗了，而且忠诚派也以这种方式让自己的血腥谋略结出了成果。在Xana防御系统与安非昂号率领的忠诚派掠袭舰队的初次交火过去大概三小时后，机械神教虚空防线上的全部力量都被引开并参与进了战斗中，Xana II的远程弹药已经告罄，战舰也在和泰拉战斗群的近距离交锋中脱不开身。Xana的舰船要么过于遥远到无法保护铸造世界母星，要么就是在执行更重要的任务：当那艘新出现的忠诚派进攻飞船——黑暗君王号从气体巨星Xana II的大气层中发动毁灭性突袭时，它们前去保护锚定在Xana I碎片环带中的巨型补给舰队。
Amid this general chaos, the sudden battle on Xana-Tisiphone went all but unnoticed as another lie was revealed, and those who had masqueraded as the Sons of Horus and the emissaries of the Warmaster revealed themselves to be cut from entirely different cloth. Legiones Astartes they were for the main, but they were not Malcador's chosen 一later to be called Knights-Errant— these were the bitter fall-out of Legions who had turned traitor while they had remained resulted loyal, a decision many had already paid for in blood and sinew in battle against those who they had once called brother. Their leader was Endryd Haar, a World Eater once, and it was he who had passed for the Sons of Horus warlord Koraddon, who it is likely that he himself had earlier slain. He and those with him had by brutal surprise attack taken over command of all three of the Ordinatus Minoris intended as gifts for the Warmaster, and now with malign savagery; turned their dread power on their creators.
在这一团混乱的局面中，Xana-Tisiphone上发生的突然战斗却几乎没有引起注意，因为另一个谎言被揭开了：那些伪装成荷鲁斯之子和战帅特使的人表露出了自己完全不同的身份。他们主要是阿斯塔特军团战士，但并非并非马卡多的亲选者们（此类星际战士在后来被称为游侠骑士），而是一群凄苦之人：他们来自那些背叛了帝国的军团，但自身仍旧忠于帝国；他们中有很多人都为自己的决定而付出了惨痛代价——他们要与自己曾经的兄弟兵戎相见。这群战士的领袖是恩德瑞德 哈尔，这位曾经的吞世者被Xana贤者们认作了荷鲁斯之子军阀科拉顿，而后者可能在之前就已经被哈尔所杀。他和自己的下属们发动了残忍的突袭行动，夺取了全部三台原本打算作为礼物送给战帅的小将军炮，而且这些星际战士们现在有了个恶毒野蛮的计划：将它们可怕的力量用于对付其创造者。
First, the escorting guardian-automata had been shot down and crushed by the Sons of Horus-liveried Mastodon heavy tanks that had served as Koraddon's honour guard, before the baleful power of the sonic destructors of the Ordinatus had swept nearby Xanite armour and support vehicles to oblivion. The anarchy was further accelerated when the Loyalist Techmarines compromised the local djinn command skein by interfacing with the shattered remains of the Archmagos Gilim Raijan to operate the remote release on the collars of the thousands of remaining war slaves who were to be used in the bloody demonstration of the Ordinatus' power. These armed slaves, once free, fled where they could, spreading further the disorder and wild violence that had been unleashed.
首先，充当科拉顿荣誉卫队的荷鲁斯之子乳齿象重型坦克击落了护卫将军炮的机兵守卫，之后将军炮那声波破坏炮的邪恶力量毁灭了附近的Xana装甲载具和支援载具。当忠诚派技术军士接入到大贤者基里姆 莱詹的破碎残躯，远程解除了数千名残余战争奴隶的项圈（他们原本要被用作将军炮威力血腥演示的牺牲品），以此令当地的灵精指挥（通讯）束失效后，混乱状况进一步加速发展。这些武装奴隶一旦获得自由便四处逃窜，从而进一步扩大了业已释放出来的混乱和暴力。
The desperate bid to seize the highly prized Ordinatus was only the beginning of the operation on Xana-Tisiphone. The huge warship which had brought the supposedly Traitor delegation to Xana, the Cicatrice Tyrannis, dropped lower into Xana- Tisiphone's orbit, placing the shadow of the moon between her and Xana II, shielding herself from any retribution that was to follow as her crew ignored all requests to attack the Dark Sovereign or otherwise aid the defence against the Loyalists. The Cicatrice Tyrannis then commenced her own company-scale ground assault on Xana- Tisiphone, Stormbirds and Thunderhawk gunships descending as the power of the Ordinatus was turned upon the cyclopean gates of the great prison-forge of Tisiphone- Shaol, sundering them.
但不顾一切地夺取备受珍视的将军炮仅仅是Xana-Tisiphone上行动的开始。那艘将叛军代表团送到Xana的巨大战舰——创痕暴君号也下降到了Xana- Tisiphone的轨道上，她躲入了Xana II那颗卫星的阴影中，以此避开了之后将要到来的任何报复行动，同时船员们也忽略了所有关于进攻黑暗君王号，或以其他手段帮助Xana防御忠诚派进攻的请求。之后，创痕暴君号派出连队规模的兵力向Xana- Tisiphone发起地面进攻，风暴鸟和雷鹰炮艇冲向地面，同时将军炮也攻向了Tisiphone- Shaol监牢铸造厂那巨大的正门，并将之击破。
