HH3:帕拉玛五号攻防战（4）（完结）
Dynat's Gambit
迪奈特的开局
Bombardment and counter-bombardment between Paramar V and the Traitor ships in orbit continued unabated, but now for the Alpha Legion it served a different purpose; it held open the way for their ground invasion. Heavy Argo class assault landers, Stormbird carriers and Thunderhawk transporters paved the way, deploying hundreds of Alpha Legion tanks onto the rocky desert soil. Following them came the gigantic shapes of the mass conveyors of the Legio fureans, blotting out the three suns, the ground shuddering with the impact as the massive portals fell open and the Titans of the Tiger Eyes, hungry for battle, thundered forth. Behind them from the cavernous recesses of the mass conveyers streamed the beetle-backed hovering carryalls of the Taghmata Satarael, their Battle-automata and the other arcane war machines of the Warmaster's Mechanicum hung in complex iron latticework cages beneath them.
在帕拉玛五号与轨道中叛军舰船之间，轰炸与反轰炸行动有增无减，但阿尔法军团现在有了不同的目标：他们要为地面进攻打开通道。沉重的阿尔戈级突击登陆艇、风暴鸟和雷鹰运输机将数百辆阿尔法军团坦克部署到了多岩的沙原上，为进攻铺平道路。虎眼军团的巨型运输舰紧随其后，它们巨大的身形遮蔽住了天空中的三轮赤日；巨大的出入舱门轰然倒落张开，地面都随之颤抖，虎眼泰坦们前进入阵，脚步声若雷霆。Satarael机神禁卫军的悬浮运输车也出现在泰坦身后，从巨型运输舰那洞穴般庞大的壁舱中鱼贯而出，它们有着突出的背部运输舱，车体下方还挂载着复杂的格栅铁笼——其中运输着战斗机兵与战帅派机械神教其他玄奥的战争机器。
This was to be no siege campaign but an armoured spearhead assault, and the Alpha Legion Harrowmaster was resting the chances of victory or defeat on a single throw of the dice; an all-out attack, holding back no reserves and digging no defences to fall back to if repulsed. The assault force was fully mechanised and with nigh preternatural speed and organisation it formed up and moved out without pause. Executing a complicated dance of destructive force and intricate interlocking movement, it rumbled and roared across the vivid red desert land.
将要发生的并非是一场攻城战，而是一场装甲矛头突袭行动，阿尔法军团猎袭之主孤注一掷，成败在此一举；阿尔法军团全军出动，不留预备队，也没有挖掘构筑用于撤退喘息的防御工事。进攻部队完全机械化行动，他们以近乎超自然的速度和组织度完成了集结编组，未做任何停顿便出发了。阿尔法军团从鲜红色的沙漠中咆哮着轰隆掠过，他们用破坏性的力量配合着错综复杂的连锁运动，上演了一出复杂的舞蹈。
The amber and sable Titans of the Tiger Eyes led the way, striding forward at flank speed, contemptuous of any ally who might get underfoot in their headlong charge and behind them, taking advantage of the shadow of the Titans void shields came two vast strung-out echelons of Alpha Legion strike armour: Predators and Sicaran tanks and the deadly new Scorpius Whirlwinds. Behind these came the columns of superheavies: Fellblades and Glaives for the most, chosen for their speed as well as firepower, and behind them the dispersed squadrons of Land Raiders and Spartans, in which the infantry strength of the attack was carried, a hundred tanks strong. Above flew gunships and speeders in close air support, a hazardous task given the choking air. Further back from this vast conglomeration of apocalyptic armoured might, came the sinister and strange forces of the Taghmata Satarael creating their own spider-like formation, the air around them shimmering with the distortion of a mobile power field generator mounted on a hovering Ordinatus class platform at the centre of the mass of arcane war engines. Alongside the Taghmata came the bronze and crimson Knight walkers of House Perdaxia and the ghost-grey Knights of House Rajha, answering the deafening war sirens of the battle Titans with kindred answering cries of their own.
虎眼军团的泰坦们一马当先，它们琥珀色的机体上带着黑色的饰纹，以最快速度大步前行，傲视着任何盟友——后者可能被它们在一股脑的冲锋中踩在脚下；跟在它们身后的则是两支庞大的阿尔法军团装甲进攻梯队，它们由掠食者坦克、西卡然战斗坦克与致命的新型天蝎式旋风坦克构成，载具们都沿一条线排开，躲在泰坦虚空盾的庇护之后。跟随在坦克梯队之后的是超重坦纵队：其中大部分载具都是残暴之刃和飞刃，它们因自己的速度与火力而被选中；分散开的兰德掠夺者和斯巴达突击坦克中队紧随超重坦纵队之后，这一百辆坦克上运载着此次进攻的步兵力量。炮艇和速攻艇从上方飞过，提供着近距离空中支援，考虑到混乱到令人窒息的空中情况，这是一项危险的任务。而在这支启示录般装甲力量构成的庞大战斗集团的后方，诡异不祥的Satarael机神禁卫军组成了蜘蛛状的编队，大量奇异的战争引擎将一台安装在悬浮式将军炮级别武器平台上的移动力场发生器簇拥在中央，周围的空气都因力场的扭曲形变效果而闪烁。随着禁卫军而来的骑士机甲：佩达西亚家族的骑士披着青铜和猩红两色的战袍，莱扎家族的涂装则是幽灵般的灰色；战斗泰坦们发出震耳欲聋的战争汽笛声，骑士们也用自己相似的战吼加以回应。
Rearing up a vast swath of dust behind it like an oncoming hurricane, the army of the Traitor Legion and its allies thundered towards the Paramar Nexus.
叛军军团的部队及其盟友如雷霆般杀向帕拉玛枢纽站，他们如同一阵袭来的飓风，身后卷起大片的尘烟。
The Plain of Fire
烈火燎原
It was the weapons of the Titans that spoke first, for they had found former brothers waiting for them. The War Griffons, the Titans of the Legio Gryphonicus, had stationed themselves in a five kilometre wide cordon across the vast ferrocrete-paved Landing Zone Secundus of the Paramar Nexus complex guarding the main approach across the open desert. With their own terrible war siren cries, they answered the bellowed challenges of the Tiger Eyes and marched forth to engage them on the open expanse, their great adamantium-shod feet shattering the ferrocrete and sending up grey plumes of dust to shroud their pale granite carapaces. Across the confined distance between the two phalanxes of Titans such a cataclysmic eruption of firepower was unleashed than had seldom been seen, even in the battles of the Great Crusade. Destructive force equal to levelling a city in a single sweep crashed and screamed as the very air between the two walls of rushing Titans was annihilated in a pulse of blinding, tortured light visible from orbit. Void shields split with shock wave thunder and collapsed, rock and stone boiled and vaporised and ceramite armour proof against atomic fire crumbled like chalk. The Tiger Eyes Warlord Lyakam simply ceased to exist, its reactor core rupturing in a hell-storm of plasma which blew the Warhound Blood Hunger which loped beside it into a spill of burning cinders, while the War Griffons Reaver Southron Shield came apart in a fury of las-blasts like a carcass on a butchers block. These were but the first of many God-Machines to die that day.
率先用武器开火的是泰坦们，因为它们发现昔日的兄弟们正在等候自己。鹰狮军团——“战争狮鹫”军团的泰坦们已经各就各位，它们把守住帕拉玛枢纽站那由铁凝土铺就的次级降落场各处，形成了一条五公里宽的封锁线，守卫着穿越开阔沙漠的主通道。战争狮鹫泰坦们也拉响了恐怖的战争汽笛，以此来回应虎眼泰坦们的怒吼挑衅，它们稳步前进，要在开阔地带迎战敌人。泰坦们包裹着精金（装甲）的巨足踏碎了铁凝土地面，扬起的灰色沙尘覆盖在了他们那苍白花岗岩色的外壳上。在有限的距离之内，两个泰坦方阵之间爆发了极为灾难性的火力交锋，交火规模前所未见，哪怕在大远征时期的战斗中也是如此。双方的武器洪声嘶吼，释放出的能量能在一次进攻中就将一座城市夷为平地，两排泰坦相对冲锋，它们之间的空气都在一道磨人眼球的刺目亮光中被毁灭耗尽了——人们甚至能在星球轨道中看见这道光芒。虚空盾在雷霆般的冲击波中破裂并崩溃，岩石融化沸腾乃至蒸发，陶钢装甲也在原子火焰的炙烤下如同白垩般粉碎了。虎眼军团的战将泰坦“利亚卡姆”号被炸得灰飞烟灭，地狱风暴般的电浆轰击炸裂了它的反应堆核心，并将飞奔在其身边的战犬泰坦“嗜血者”号化为焦黑残渣；而战争狮鹫军团的掠夺者泰坦“南境之盾”号也被一阵猛烈的激光爆能束所肢解，宛如畜肉被放到砧板上切分开。但它们只是第一批被摧毁的神之机械，今天还有很多泰坦将要陨落。
The two lines of Titans unleashing destruction against each other on an incomprehensible scale quickly formed a no-man's-land to the fore of the Nexus complex that no man or machine could hope to cross and survive. This factor had already been taken into account by the Alpha Legion attack plan, and the echelon forces of their strike armour divided in two behind the Tiger Eyes and streamed round the hell zone the Titan battle had created at maximum speed; one striking towards the main landing and provender complex to the south-west of the Terminus, while the other took the longer elliptical route to strike at the Terminus itself from the south-east. While these striking arms raced ahead, already coming under fire from the defenders, the following columns of superheavy tanks and mechanised infantry also bifurcated in turn, while minor detachments struck out independently for other targets of opportunity or areas of higher ground in which to deploy support weapons. What was to follow was to be a direct and pitiless battle, that were it not overshadowed by the calamity and slaughter of the Dropsite Massacre that had occurred so soon before, it would have gone down more infamously as some of the most intense fighting in the Imperium's history to that date. The battlefield was largely open, with little or no cover to be had, and without respite the hammer of the Alpha Legion's armour struck the anvil of the Mechanicums fortifications, bolstered greatly, particularly around the Terminus complex, by the rapidly constructed Castellum Strongholds of the Iron Warriors of the 77th Grand Battalion.
两支泰坦军团相互释放着规模庞大到令人无法理解的毁灭，这很快就在枢纽站综合体的前方形成了一片无人区，任何人或机械都无望活着此地。阿尔法军团的进攻计划已经考虑到了这个因素，他们跟在虎眼军团身后的装甲进攻梯队一分为二，以最快速度从战斗泰坦们已经创造出的地狱两侧绕行前进。其中一支装甲梯队攻向了航站楼西南侧的主降落区和补给库复合体，另一梯队则沿着更长的椭圆形路线，从东南方向着航站楼进攻。在这些进攻部队向前狂奔之时，它们就已经遭到了守军的火力进攻，跟在其后的超重坦和机械化步兵以依次分散开，而这些次级分队要么是去独立袭击有机会攻下的其他目标，要么就是去攻占用于部署支援武器的高地区域。随之而来的便是一场直接而无情的战斗——倘若没有被不久前发生于登陆点大屠杀中的灾难和屠戮所遮掩的话，这场战斗将会变得更为恶名昭著，因为其是帝国历史上最激烈的战斗之一。这篇战场极开阔，几乎没有可供使用的掩体，阿尔法军团的装甲重锤毫不迟疑地击中了铁砧般的机械神教防御工事——此地的防御工事被用钢铁勇士第77大营快速建造的坚堡要塞进行了大幅强化，航站楼周边尤为如此。
By the third hour of the battle the duelling Titan Legions warred on, but their numbers had been savagely reduced and much of the vast landing zones where they had fought was obscured by a pall of dense smoke and radioactive fallout from the wreckage of the God-Engines that had already fallen in battle. The Provender and supply complexes to the south-west had already fallen to the Alpha Legion, and here they had secured their swiftest and surest victory, Armillus Dynat himself having led the attacking spur here by extant record. Now the ruins of the complex were being used as a firebase from which to attack the Terminus itself, and Alpha Legion headhunter squads were now scouring the area, purging it of survivors and seeking ingress to the subterranean complexes known to lie beneath. Across on the far side of the Titan battle, the attackers had suffered a major reversal of fortune however, when a large detachment of Iron Warriors super-heavy armour, supported by several talons of Dreadnoughts, had attacked from positions of concealment in underground macro-silos, effectively cutting the western attack spur in half. The Iron Warriors superheavies, primarily Stormblades, Falchions and Typhon siege tanks, had devoted the bulk of their firepower against the lighter Alpha Legion strike armour from the rear and the result had been carnage. At the same time the Iron Warriors Dreadnought talons, reinforced by Legio Gryphonicus Battleautomata, had charged into the Alpha Legion super-heavies to attack them at close quarters, and while many had been destroyed in the charge before they could reach their targets, once they got amongst the lumbering war machines they wreaked havoc, attacking in hand-to-hand combat and tearing open the enemy tanks where the primary weapons of the super-heavies could not engage them.
等战斗进行到第三个小时，泰坦军团之间的对决仍在继续，但它们的数量已经严重下降，殁于战火的神之机械残骸散发出大量浓密烟雾和辐射尘，被泰坦们用作阵地的巨大降落场上的很多地方都变得模糊不清。西南侧的补给库复合体已经落入了阿尔法军团之手，他们在这里取得了最迅速也最有把握的胜利——现存记录资料表明，阿尔梅留斯 迪奈特亲自领导了此地的进攻分队。现在，阿尔法军团将复合体的残骸用作重火力点，向航站楼发起进攻；猎头者小队们正在搜索该区域，肃清幸存者，并寻找通往地下复合体的入口。然而，在这远离泰坦混战（战场）的一侧，进攻者们遭遇了运气的重大转折；就在此刻，一支钢铁勇士超重型装甲载具组成的大规模分队，在数支无畏机甲分队的支援下，从地下巨型发射井的隐蔽阵地中发起进攻，有效地将东侧的阿尔法军团进攻分队一切两断。钢铁勇士的超重型载具主要是风暴之刃、弯刀和提丰攻城坦克，它们用庞大的火力从后方进攻阿尔法军团那更轻型的装甲攻击部队，进行了一场屠杀。同时，在有鹰狮军团自动机兵增援的情况下，钢铁勇士无畏机甲分队们也冲向了阿尔法军团的超重型坦克，对其发动近战攻击；虽然有很多无畏与机兵都被摧毁在了冲锋过程中，（甚至）没能接触到目标，但只要接近了这些笨重的战争机器，它们便会以肉搏战的形式大肆进行破坏并撕开敌军坦克（车体），而超重型坦克的主武器在这种情况里是无法与之交战的。
Both sides had finally been thrown back with heavy casualties when repeated energy blasts from a squadron of Glaive superheavies Volkite carronades had accidentally penetrated deeply buried underground fuel lines, drowning the area in an eruption of burning promethium and for a time splitting the battle line apart.
就在双方都遭受了严重伤亡，双双撤退之际，一支飞刃超重型坦克中队爆燃臼炮重复射出爆能束意外击穿深埋于地下的燃料管线，熊熊燃烧着的钷素喷涌而出，该区域陷入一片火海，战线一时被分裂开。
The Nexus Falls
枢纽站之陨
By the fifth hour of the battle, the speed and overwhelming force of the Alpha Legion's attack had taken its toll and the battle was swinging full force in the Traitors' favour. Although the cost in tanks and Legionaries had been heavy, bastion after bastion, defence line after defence line had fallen to the invaders' onslaught and now only the Terminus remained to resist them. It had been the Siege-automata of the Taghmata Satarael. shielded by the pressing bulwark of the Patraxis Cerastus-Lancer Knights that had finally broken the Iron Warriors cordon of Castelkim Strongholds that guarded it. Even with their walls shattered, the grim Legionaries of the IVh would not retreat, raining their last supplies of grenades down upon the thallax who overwhelmed their position before they at last fell back. Their Warsmith, Kyr Vhalen, his body smashed, was finally dragged from the rubble by his apothecaries still spitting his hate and invective at the foe, as the towering figures of the dozen surviving battle-worthy Titans of the Legio Fureans loomed out of the black fog of war to seal the doom of the Terminus.
等战斗持续到第四个小时，阿尔法军团的进攻速度和压倒性力量已经（对守军）造成了损失，战况正在完全倒向叛军一侧。尽管损失了大量坦克与军团战士，但入侵者们仍然攻占了一座又一座堡垒，攻破了一道又一道防御线，现在只有航站楼还仍在抵抗。在帕特拉西斯家族赛拉斯托斯长枪骑士们的护卫下，Satarael机神禁卫军的攻城机兵最终攻破了钢铁勇士们用坚堡要塞构筑的防线。但哪怕护墙已被击碎，这些第四军团的冷酷战士们仍未撤退，在最终英勇就义之前，他们将最后的手雷如雨点般丢向击溃自己防线的死隶机兵。战争铁匠凯尔 瓦伦的身躯被碾碎了，当药剂师最终从废墟中将其拖出时，他仍在痛骂着敌人。十二台仍然具备战斗能力的虎眼泰坦幸存下来，其高耸的身影在黑色的战争浓雾中若隐若现，他们前去完成对于航站楼的毁灭。
What followed was the simple mathematics of force. Against the massed firepower of the Tiger Eyes Titans, the Terminus could not stand. Armillus Dynat stood impassively atop the broken wreckage of his own Legion's Fellblades and looked on in silence as the Myrmidons of the Taghmata Satareal sundered the gates of the Panopticon and exterminated everything within without mercy. But of the surviving Iron Warriors that had retreated within, their wounded master, or of the Archmagos Suyria Nihhon whose domain this had been, there was no sign found save the echoing darkness below. To the Alpha Legion, however, such things did not have real importance, for their primary objective had been achieved; the Paramar Nexus had fallen and with it Paramar V belonged to the Warmaster, its stockpiles and industry intact.
之后便是纯粹的力量运算。航站楼自然无法抵挡虎眼军团泰坦们的强大火力。阿尔梅留斯 迪奈特面无表情地站在一辆阿尔法军团残暴之刃残骸的顶端，一言不发地看着Satarael机神禁卫军的契奴兵们切开圆厅的大门，并且无情地消灭了建筑内的一切。但无论是撤退到圆厅内的幸存钢铁勇士和他们受伤的统帅，还是曾经统治此地的大贤者苏利亚 尼洪，叛军都未发现其迹象，只看见一片回荡在地下的黑暗。但对阿尔法军团来说，这些事情已经无关紧要了，因为他们已经完成了主要目标；帕拉玛枢纽站已然沦陷，帕拉玛五号也归战帅所有，其上储备的物资和工业设施也被叛军完整夺取。
The Devil is not Mocked
魔鬼是不会被嘲弄的
When news reached Horus of the conquest of Paramar V, it came not as a report of an unalloyed victory, but as a barbed gift. Swiftly following on the heels of the news of the Alpha Legion's success came fresh entreaties for aid and reinforcement from the Traitor Mechanicum which now garrisoned it. The Alpha Legion had departed seemingly as swiftly as they had come, but not before taking what they had wished from Paramars stockpiles for their own. The Taghmata Satarael protested it did not have the manpower alone to hold the system, and feared both revolt by the menials of their new possession, and attacks by escaped Loyalist elements which had not yet been found, not withstanding any threat of a Loyalist counter-attack to reclaim the system. The Warmaster then was in turn forced to divert additional forces to Paramar to hold the system, forces which he had desired to use elsewhere, as having gained this great prize he could not afford for his enemies to regain it. This fear would be proved accurate as the system would see an attempted counter-invasion two years later and further catastrophic warfare during the dark years of the Scouring.
当帕拉玛五号被征服的报告被递交给荷鲁斯时，它并非是一场纯粹胜利，而是一件带有讽刺意味的礼物。在阿尔法军团获胜之后，目前占领着帕拉玛五号的机械神教叛军部队也马上发来新的恳求，希望战帅给予帮助和增援。阿尔法军团离开得似乎和他们到来时一样迅速，但他们在动身之前洗劫了帕拉玛五号上储存的物资，将之据为己有。Satarael机神禁卫军提出抗议，表示自己没有足够的人力来控制帕拉玛星系，他们既害怕新属地的奴仆们发起反抗暴动，也害怕逃走的保皇派分子们发动袭击——这些残军还尚未被发现，更抵御不了保皇派们为夺回该星系而发起的任何反攻。随后，战帅被迫向帕拉玛转移额外的部队以守住该星系，而他原本希望将这些部队用作他处。既然已经获得了这个重要的战利品，荷鲁斯就不能让敌人重新夺回它。事实证明这种担心是正确的，因为两年后，该星系就将见证帝国试图进行的一场入侵反制行动，在大肃清的黑暗岁月中则还会发生灾难性的战争。
As a further addendum to this account, there exists an entirely unsubstantiated report of Horus' barely suppressed fury with the Alpha Legion and their Primarch following the events at Paramar. He is said to have sent Alpharius a missive demanding an explanation for his actions. By this account the Primarch of the Alpha Legion offered a response in two parts: the first open, stating that he and his Legion had done all that had been asked of them to the letter of their order; they had been ordered to take Paramar, never to garrison it. The second was said to have been encrypted in the substance of the first, and took the form of an ancient Terran proverb in a tongue long millennia dead; "MaIekara Nul Ky'a Jay" or in the modern form "The Devil is not Mocked'.
我对本文还要进行一项补遗：跟一份完全未经证实的报告所称，帕拉玛事件发生后，荷鲁斯几乎抑制不住对于阿尔法军团及其原体的愤怒。据说他向阿尔法瑞斯发送了一道公函，要求后者解释自己的所作所为。而据该报告所称，阿尔法瑞斯的回答包含两部分内容：第一部分是公开的，内容是阿尔法瑞斯表示自己和第二十军团已经按照荷鲁斯的命令，完成了所有任务；第二部分内容则是被进行了加密，混入到了第一部分内容当中，那是一句古老的泰拉谚语，而且是用某种已消亡千年的语言写成的——“MaIekara Nul Ky'a Jay”，其在现代语言中的说法为：魔鬼是不会被嘲弄的。
