HH4节译：Manachean战争（3）
Song of Chaos
混乱之歌
At Port Maw, in the flickering actinic light and glimmering brass of the Mechanicum Control Panopticon, a countdown set in motion long before wound down finally to zero. The Mechanicum djinn-data web blazed with a power unheard of and all over the system vox-circuits burned out, auguries were suddenly shrouded in static and auspex scanners shut themselves down as if to avoid the flash-flare of a nova. The vast swirling fleet that surrounded the Port station was in a moment all but blinded, and in that same moment, the navigational net entrusted to sift safe order from chaos began to lie. Ships collided without warning, showering wreckage into the paths of others, drives flared suddenly to full power, hurling the crews of the runaway vessels to bloody pulp, pulverised by unexpected and unguarded- against accelerations, and flag bridges were swamped with hostile scrap-code.
在巨口港机械教控制圆厅的光化性亮光与黄铜色闪光中，某个很久之前便开始运作的倒计时最终数到了零。机械神教的鬼精数据网络燃烧起一种前所未闻的能量，整套系统的音频电路都烧毁，占卜仪突然被静电笼罩，鸟卜扫描器也自动关机，仿佛是在躲避超新星爆发出的强光。围绕着巨口港进行旋转的庞大舰队几乎瞬间失明，而与此同时，受托在混乱中筛选出安全命令的导航网络也开始报告虚假信息。舰船们在毫无预警的情况下彼此相撞，残骸被甩向其他飞船的航道；或者突然全速行驶，这种让人意想不到与毫无防备的加速令这些失控舰船上的船员们粉身碎骨，他们被摔成血淋淋的肉浆；旗舰们则疲于应付着敌意废码。
On a hundred vessels, systems failed or misfired as the chaotic signal continued to pulse, and in others whole decks depressurised or vented into the void, dragging their silently screaming inhabitants with them. The worse calamities the deadly electromagnetic song inflicted though befell upon only the lesser vessels; the merchantmen and the light escorts without the power to resist and to whom an end came swiftly. The greater warships were far too powerful and too resilient to suffer much other than debilitation and confusion from this data djinn-borne blade in the back, their own fearsome machine-anima immediately reacting against the attack, over-riding or burning out corrupted systems to regain full control. But many of these leviathans of war as they recovered found themselves suddenly under fire from those they believed allies. For while many reeled, there had been warships prepared in secret for this assault and others against whom the attack had not been directed at all, and at whose helms Traitor hands had mastery. Already warships had begun to burn as former comrades opened fire at point blank range before they were aware of the danger—laid low by treacherous strikes intended to cripple rather than kill. Within tightly formed squadron formations, vox-broadcasts demanded surrender and some vessels, finding themselves surrounded by turncoats and all but powerless, could do nothing but comply, but elsewhere the initial attack had been anything but successful in subduing those ships that remained loyal, and aboard these, void shields swiftly ignited and alarm sirens sounded as battle stations was called with vengeful ire.
混乱信号的持续脉冲令一百艘飞船上出现了系统故障或失灵；其他飞船则对自己的整层甲板进行减压或通风，甲板上的居民们在无声的尖叫中被气流一并拖入虚空中。这阵致命电磁歌声在那些小型船只上引发了更为严重的灾难，商船和轻型护卫舰无力抵抗这种进攻，他们很快就被毁灭掉。大型战舰要远为强悍和具有适应性，除了数据鬼精的背刺所造成的虚弱和困惑，它们还要经受其他许多磨难，但其自身的可怕机魂会立即对进攻做出反应，制服或焚灭被腐化的系统以重新夺取对于飞船的完整控制。但在这些战争巨兽恢复元气时，它们中的许多都突然发现自己遭到了那些被他们视作盟友的飞船的炮击。因为就在飞船们摇摇晃晃处于一片混乱时，有些飞船已经秘密为这次进攻做好了准备，而其他飞船根本没收到进攻的目标——它们被叛军掌控住了。(很多）战舰已经开始燃烧起来，在它们意识到危险之前，曾经的友军们就向它们近距离开火了——这些目的在于致残而非杀戮的奸诈突袭击倒了它们。要求（它们）投降的音频广播在队形紧密的中队里响起；一些舰船发现自己被叛徒包围，它们几乎无能为力，只能服从；但在其他地方，最初的进攻并未成功地制服那些仍旧忠于帝国的舰船，舰上的船员们迅速点燃虚空盾并拉响警报汽笛，同时战斗岗位也燃起了复仇的怒火。
On the vast conglomerate station complex that was Port Maw itself fighting had already broken out Between Traitor and Loyalist, the station's provost marshals having thwarted an attempted mutiny in their own ranks were now rallying armed resistance to lay siege to the Mechanicum Control Panopticon, which would answer neither vox-hail or override command, and was the undoubted source of the malign broadcast drowning out all others. The frantic provost marshals, unable to make headway against the automated defences which ringed the Panopticon citadel, gave way to the elite white-armoured Veletaris sections of the 905th Lethe Cohort, the Ash Scorpions as they had come to be known. Veterans of a dozen ferocious war zones, the discipline of battle had turned these infamous feral-worlders into a lethally effective fighting force. Blasting through bulkheads with melta bombs and tracked rapier cannon, they worked their way corridor by corridor, cutting down any resistance they met with savage crossfires of volkite rays, and forced a passage through the Maw's labyrinth of tunnels towards the generatora which supplied the Panopticon with its power.
在巨口港这座庞大的空间站综合体中，叛军与忠诚派之间的战斗已然爆发。空间站的宪兵司令挫败了一场企图在他们自己的队伍中发动的叛变，现在他们正在集结武装抵抗力量，围攻机械神教控制圆厅——此地对于音频呼叫和手动超控指挥都未做出反应，而且毫无疑问就是那些淹没了其他广播信号的恶意广播的源头。忠诚派部队在环绕着圆厅堡垒排列的自动化防御公事面前无法取代进展，（被逼到）发疯的宪兵元帅们派出了来自第905莱瑟兵团（他们之后将会被称为“灰烬毒蝎”兵团）的身穿白色甲胄的维勒塔里斯精锐分队。他们是从数十个凶险战区中摸爬滚打出来的老兵，战斗纪律已经将这些恶名昭著的荒蛮世界住民们转变为了一支致命高效的战斗部队。他们用热熔炸弹和轻剑炮塔炸穿了舱壁，一个走廊一个走廊地前进，用爆燃射线猛烈的交叉火力消灭自己遇到的任何抵抗。维勒塔里斯分队强行穿过巨口港迷宫般的隧道，前往为圆厅提供能量的发电机。
As they battled closer to the Mechanicum section, matters became yet more desperate as the station's fabric itself seemed to turn against them and they were forced to bring up flamer units to scour the passageways clear of scuttling haemonculites and daing servo-skulls, driven in frenzied attacks like maddened animals. Breaching their way at last into the great generator vault, they found a vast cathedral-like space, dominated by five enormous, lightning-shrouded plasma coils, each as large as a battle Titan. Here stood the acolytes of the treacherous Archmagos- Astral Mercuric: hulking Tech-Priests as heavily armoured as Legiones Astartes Terminators in order to endure proximity to the radioactive infernos they tended, metre-wide steel spiders which leered with the rictus-dead grins of human skulls from the gantryways and webs of cabling that festooned the vault, and scores of blank-eyed servitors, their flesh scorched cinder-black. Beyond all these, guarding the central control pulpit, was a maniple of iron-grey Castellax Battle-automata, their bolt cannon levelled and cycling; a deadly barrier beyond which nothing could pass.
当他们战斗着接近机械神教的节区时，情况变得更为绝望：空间站自身的结构似乎也在对抗他们，维勒塔里斯分队被迫派出喷火器部队来清理通道中（到处）疾驰的扭曲血肉造物和（四处）猛冲的伺服颅骨——它们像发狂的动物一样被驱使着进行疯狂的进攻。太阳军们最终冲入了巨大的发电机仓库，他们发现在这片犹如大教堂的广阔空间中主要摆放了五座覆盖着闪电的巨大电浆线圈，每一座都和战斗泰坦大小相同。叛变的星辰大贤者——梅尔库里克的随员们就站在这里：这些身形庞大的技术神甫们配备了和阿斯塔特军团终结者们同样厚重的装甲，这让他们得以接近自己所照料的（如同）辐射地狱（的仪器）；宽度达一米的钢铁蜘蛛趴在龙门架和蔓延到仓库四处的电缆网上，它们的面部如同咧嘴大笑的死人骷髅；还有几十个目光呆滞的机仆，他们的皮肤都被烧焦成了煤渣般的黑色。除此之外，还有一支铁灰色的堡星自动机兵中队看守着中央控制祭坛，它们的爆弹炮瞄准目标运转起来；这是一道无人能够通过的屏障。
Battle was joined. The fate of Port Maw hung in the balance, bravely the Ash Scorpions advanced into heavy fire, rushing from cover to cover as fast as they could as they tried to find a way through the tangle of consoles and companion ways to the heart of the generatora. Soon the cavernous vault was filled with a hurricane of shrieking energy blasts and roaring bolt shells. Machinery exploded, companionways buckled, acrid smoke filled the air. Men and automata were cut down alike, steel claws found flesh and bit deep, flamers gouted their hot breath, grenades clattered and thundered, shredding bodies and sundering metal.
战斗打响了，巨口港的命运悬而未决。灰烬毒蝎分队勇敢地迎着猛烈的火力前进，以最快的速度从一个隐蔽点冲到另一个，他们在努力找出穿过控制台处混战的道路，以及抵达发电机核心的相应方式。很快，巨大的拱顶房间中就充满了飓风般的能量爆炸和咆哮的爆矢弹。机器爆炸，扶梯弯曲变形，空气中弥漫着刺鼻的浓烟。凡人和自动机兵都被击倒，钢铁利爪仅仅咬住血肉之躯，喷火器喷吐出炽热的吐息，手榴弹爆炸，破片撕碎尸体并割裂金属。
Amid the storm, the wall of Castellax stood unbreached, their armour scorched and smoking as blast and shell washed off them like hail across stone until a trio of tracked rapier batteries emerged from the smoke, the shearing beams of their laser destroyers converging on the lead Castellax and sending it to burning oblivion. Sensing that their moment had come, the Veletaris storm sections broke from cover, screaming the ancient blood-cries of their feral world, and charged the breach in the lethal barricade of Battle-automata. Dozens died before they reached it, torn to pieces by the fury of the Mauler bolt cannon of the surviving Castellax, while others were pulverised by the heavy blows of their servo-claws, but like a pack of raptors they swarmed the armoured behemoths, volkites spitting hellish rays at point blank range into joints and tears in the Battle-automatas armour. Another of the Castellax fell, thrashing in blind rage as its legs were cut from beneath it, and the Veletaris surged through, crashing into the waiting Tech-Priests with a strength born of desperation and sacrifice that could not be allowed to be in vain.
高墙般的堡星自动机兵岿然屹立在风暴般的混战中，（能量）爆炸和炮弹击中它们就像冰雹划过了石头，机兵们的装甲被烤焦冒烟，但却并未倒下，直到三台（自行移动式）轻剑炮塔从硝烟中出现，激光破坏者们发射出的切割光束集中到了领头的堡星自动机兵身上，将它摧毁成了一堆燃烧着的残骸。感觉到时机已到，维勒塔里斯风暴分队从掩体后冲出，高呼着来自他们荒蛮故乡古老的血腥战吼，冲向了自动机兵构成的致命路障中的缺口。在他们抵达预定位置之前，数十名太阳军死在了路上——幸存堡星自动机兵的重槌型爆弹炮喷射出的怒火撕碎了他们，还有些人被自动机兵伺服爪的重击砸碎，但太阳军们还是如同一群猛禽那样围住了这些装甲巨兽，爆燃步枪在近距离上向着战斗机兵的关节处及其装甲上的破口处喷射着地狱般（炽热）的射线。另一台堡星战斗机兵倒下了，它的腿被人从下方切断，它在盲目的愤怒中挥打着肢体。维勒塔里斯分队冲了进去，凭借着一股来自绝望和不能被白白浪费的牺牲的力量，他们冲向了等待中的技术神甫们。
Only a single Veletarii Prime, whose name has gone unrecorded, managed to force his way through the tumult and slaughter to the dais of the control pulpit, his void armour blood-spattered and aflame. With no time for thought or plan of action, he plunged his power sabre directly into the heart of the machine, even as vast steel claws were fastening themselves around his pressure helm. The pulpit dais exploded in a blazing white fireball, murderous arcs of lightning shot from the great plasma reactor cores, ravaging the vault as their emergency protocols engaged, and the mis-directed power was vented into the capacitors which lined the walls, burning the men and machines caught Between them into clouds of cinders.
只有一位维勒塔里斯之首成功地冲破了混乱和杀戮，抵达了控制祭坛的高台处——可惜他的姓名未能被记录到，他的虚空甲上滴落着鲜血，而且还着了火。来不及思考和计划行动方案，就在巨大的钢爪紧紧抓住他的密封头盔的同时，他将自己的动力军刀直接插入了机械的核心。控制祭坛的高台炸成了一团炽热的白色火球，巨大的等离子反应堆堆芯中射出致命的闪弧，仓库随着应急协议启动被摧毁，四处乱窜的能量被排入沿墙壁排列的电容器中，夹在他们中间的人和机器都被烧成了一团残渣。
The interference signal blanketing Port Maw first faltered, and then failed.
覆盖着巨口港的干扰信号先是变得不稳定，之后就消失了。
Triumph and Betrayal
胜利与背叛
In the void-space around Port Maw, sudden deafening silence cut through the incessant pulse across the vox and signal network of the Loyalist ships, and in its wake matters immediately became both less chaotic and more murderous as battle lines were swiftly drawn Between fnend and enemy, hails sent and answered, ultimatums and demands for surrender issued and spurned, and command asserted in the face of the crisis.
在巨口港周围的虚空中，一阵震耳欲聋的突然寂静打断了整个音频和信号网络中持续不断的脉冲干扰信号，在这个状况发生之后，随着敌我之间的战线迅速划清，战事立刻变得不那么混乱，但也更加凶残，冰雹般密集的信息被发送和回答；最后通牒和投降要求被发出和驳回；在危机面前，各方都坚持指挥。
Aboard the titanic Triumph of Reason, the Port Maw Armada's flagship —a huge fleet control vessel re-forged from the twin hulls of two Legatus class macro-battleships crippled in the earliest years of the Great Crusade— the attempted assassination of Grand Admiral Ospheus LaBray had been thwarted, and an attempted mutiny eradicated with bloody certainty. LaBray was now once more in full command of the immense warship and with the malign signal countered, the auguries and strategium-luminatior systems of the Triumph —designed to order and direct an entire Segmentum fleet of war if needed— reasserted tactical control over all Loyalist vessels that would answer its call. La Bray's first order was to the Dictatus class ram-battleship Kurga, which hung in orbit near the Port Maw station, having just similarly suppressed a mutiny of its own. Awakening to war, it powered towards the now silent Mechanicum Panopticon tower, the six kilometre long armatures of the ram-battleship's triple servo-claws extended. The Kurga smashed into the tower, the thirty metre long teeth-spikes of its claws piercing its armour and sinking slowly through its guttering power fields, and were joined moments later by scores of rocket-fired melta-barbed harpoons which speared into the brazen faces of the tower. Its victim secured, the Kurga's drives burned white hot. The ten kilometre tall tower shivered and cracked, resisting defiantly against the unimaginable forces tearing at it, but soon shuddered and gave way as the Kurga's oversized engines burned like hellfire. The tower broke, a myriad of secondary explosions rippling along its length as it crumbled like rotten wood and was dragged free into the void. The malign signal would not sound again.
在巨口港的旗舰，巨大的“理性胜利”号上（这艘巨大的舰队控制船是用两艘在大远征早期严重受损的副将级大型战列舰的船体重铸而成），一场企图暗杀海军上将奥斯菲乌斯•拉•布雷的行动被挫败，一场未遂的叛乱被血腥地消灭了。拉•布雷现在又一次完全指挥着这艘巨大的战舰，随着有害的（恶意）信号被抵消，理性胜利号的占卜仪和战略演示系统（该系统被设计用于在必要时命令和指引整个星域的战争舰队）重新实现了对所有能够回应其号召忠诚派船只的战术控制。拉•布雷的第一道命令下达给了支配者级战列舰“库尔喀”号，该船漂浮在巨口港空间站附近的轨道中，它刚刚也同样镇压了自己内部的叛乱。这艘被唤起战争欲望的战舰发力冲向了目前陷入沉寂的机械神教圆厅控制塔，这艘撞角战列舰展开了三组伺服爪的六千米长的防卫武器。库尔喀号撞入了高塔，伺服爪三十米长的齿状尖刺穿透了高塔的（外侧）装甲，并且顺着能量排放场慢慢得刺入。几分钟后，数十枚火箭助推的带有热熔倒钩的鱼叉刺穿了高塔的青铜表面。在拴牢自己的受害者后，库尔喀号的推进器也烧得白炽。这座十公里高的塔颤抖着裂开了，它还在挑衅般地抵抗着那股正在撕裂它的难以置信的力量，但随着库尔喀号的超大引擎像地狱之火一样燃烧，它很快就颤抖着崩塌了。高塔断裂开来，无数次二次爆炸在塔身上此起彼伏，它像朽木一样破碎开来，并被拖入了虚空。恶意信号再也不会响起了。
At the centre of the maelstrom of ships. Loyalist and Traitor vessels began to break apart, guns firing in fitful bursts, uncertain of friend and enemy. On the outer edges of the vast slow vortex of ships, tens of thousands of kilometres from Port Maw itself the outriders of the great armada were only just recovering. These vessels had not been part of the core fleet at the Maw, and comprised dozens of reinforcement squadrons sent to the muster from other systems, along with numerous refugee craft and mass conveyors, around which were small provender and repair vessels that flitted like tiny sea creatures swarming around ocean leviathans. Here, removed from the heart of the treacherous attack, the carnage had been less extreme and the mutinies fewer, but still the anathema signal from Port Maw had blinded and deafened them for a time, and now most were bewildered and uncertain of just what the catastrophe unfolding before them meant, uncertain of who was firing on who, or why.
在舰船漩涡的中心区域，忠诚派和叛军的船只开始分裂解体，炮火声断断续续，不确定是来自敌人还是来自朋友。在这个巨大且缓慢的舰船漩涡的外侧边缘处，距离巨口港本身数万千米之遥的地方，这支庞大舰队的先遣部队才刚刚恢复。这些飞船并不是巨口港核心舰队的组成部分，它们是由其他星系派往集合点的数十支增援舰队，同时还有大量的难民船和大型货船，它们周围还有小型补给船和修理船，就像成群的小型海洋生物蜂拥在巨大的海兽身边。这里远离了叛军袭击的中心，屠杀没有那么极端，叛变也没有那么严重，但从巨口港传来的可憎信号仍使它们一度失明和失聪。现在，大多数人都感到困惑，他们不确定摆在自己面前的灾难到底意味着什么，不确定谁在向谁开火，以及为什么开火。
At the outermost edge of the maelstrom of ships, and all but unnoticed in the confusion, one of the great war-arks of Cyclothrathe, which had so far taken neither side in the anarchy, now triggered its manoeuvre jets and came about. The colossal barrel-shaped vessel slowly turned and pointed its prow towards the opposite edge of the spiral arm of outer ships to the still unengaged warships of the cruiser squadron sent from distant Agathon to answer Port Maw's call. Not one of these vessels bore a Traitor inside and to them the battle yet had no seeming cause and no clear side to choose. The Cyclothrathine war-ark, designated Arithmetic of Violence, silently broke apart, its ten kilometre long hull plates separating like the petals of a colossal flower in a storm. Revealed within in place of internal decks were row upon serried row of inert void torpedoes, which, as if lit by a single torch, ignited their plasma drives with a golden blaze of fire. They burned across the void to the Agatheans, smaller ships caught in their path obliterated instantly, and struck home like the obliterating fist of a god. The sudden searing flash of a score of mighty warships dying at once in fire was so bright that in that instant it burned visible to the naked eye even to the dark edges of the system's Ort cloud. And there in answer, a gigantic black warship come to life.
在飞船漩涡的最外侧边缘处，这片混乱中几乎没人注意的区域中，Cyclothrathe铸造世界伟大的战争方舟到目前为止在无政府状态中还没有站在任何一方。其中的某一艘启动了自己的机动喷气引擎，采取了行动。这艘巨大的桶状飞船慢慢地转过身来，它的船头指向了战舰漩涡外侧的另一边，对着巡洋舰中队中仍未交战的战舰们——这些飞船是被遥远的Agathon统治域派来回应巨口港号召的。这些飞船中没有一艘是载有叛徒的，对他们来说，这场战斗还没有表面上的原因，也没有明确的立场可以选择。依照暴力的运算法则设计而成的Cyclothrathine战争方舟无声地分裂开，它十公里长的船体板像暴风雨中巨大花朵的花瓣一样分开。甲板内部暴露出来的是一排又一排的虚空鱼雷，就像被一支火炬点燃一样，这些鱼雷点燃了自己的电浆推进器，喷射出金色的火焰。鱼雷们拖着燃烧的尾焰划过虚空冲向Agathon舰队，挡住路的小型飞船们立刻被摧毁，它们如同神明的毁灭重拳般正中目标。二十艘强大的战舰同时在火焰中被摧毁，飞船爆炸突然放出的灼热闪光是如此明亮，在那一瞬间，这阵闪光甚至让人们可以用肉眼看到星系中奥尔特云的黑暗边缘。而作为回应，一艘巨大的黑色战舰现身了。
