HH4节译：肃清独眼巨人星群3
Death on Dominica Minor
Dominica Minor上的死亡
Datacore recordings retrieved from the sundered command tower of the lance cruiser Pride of Hemicron, which had been cut free of her hull by enemy fire and left adrift for nineteen years before its eventual recovery, logged the attack on Dominica Minor as occurring at 4392007.M31. With typical brutal efficiency, the warfleet of the Death Guard Legion appeared at the outer system's primary warp transit nexus, first blunting the waiting minefields with fire ships —converted mining barges no doubt taken from the dead worlds they had visited— and then simply ploughing through the remainder of the minefields firing as they went, undeterred as the atomantic ordnance and servitor guided-missile clusters exploded against their pale hulls. The attacking force comprised perhaps a half of the recorded Death Guard Legion fleet, now reinforced with warships taken as prizes from their murdered brethren at Isstvan, and was arrayed in four columns of attack. Each was led by a heavy Capital class warship made famous in the Great Crusade, now turned against the Imperium they had helped create: the Reaper's Scythe, the Spectre of Death, the Mia Donna Mori, and the newly re-named and re-built Dread 一 formerly the battle barge Winter's Oath of the Iron Hands Legion. Of the dark roll of the Death Guard's heaviest vessels, only the Terminus Est was absent, its location and purpose at this time unknown. Against this mighty force, the defenders of Dominica Minor were a poor match indeed, fielding half of their enemy's number of line warships, with only an aging Goliath class battleship, the Spear of Umbriel, long relegated to second line duties, to match the Death Guard's heavy Capital class ships. Furthermore, the fears of the Guildmasters had pulled their fleet in to defend their capital world of Dominica Prime and clustered it around their orbital fortifications, robbing them of the ability to manoeuvre and abandoning the outer worlds and precious void-refinery complexes of the system to their fate. But as these sacrificial victims bleated vox-signals of frantic surrender, they were ignored and bypassed, and the Death Guard fleet, its engines burning at battle speed, came on for Dominica Prime.
从光矛巡洋舰“赫米克罗恩之傲”号被切断的指挥塔（敌军的炮火将其从船体上切下，在被最终回收之前，其在虚空中漂浮了十九年）中索回的数据核心记录表明：对于Dominica Minor的进攻发生于4392007.M31。死亡守卫军团战争舰队以其典型的致命效率出现在了星系外环的主要亚空间传送枢纽处，他们首先用纵火船削弱了等待中的雷区——这些由采矿货船改造而成飞船无疑是来自他们曾造访过的死亡世界，之后则径直地穿过剩余的雷区，并在行进的同时开火；自动火炮和机仆控制的集束导弹炸开在他们苍白的船体上，这这些飞船对此不屑一顾。组成进攻部队的或许是死亡守卫军团舰队中有记录战舰一半，而且现在还用那些在伊斯特万星系作为战利品夺取自他们被杀的兄弟手中的战舰来进行了增强，并被排列为了四支进攻纵队。每支纵队都由一艘大远征期间的著名重型主力级战舰来领导，现在它们都转而来攻击自己协助创建的帝国：收割者之镰号、死亡幽灵号、吾之死亡女士号以及最近被重建和重命名的恐惧号——她之前是钢铁之手军团的战列母舰“冬日誓言”号。在死亡守卫最重型战舰的黑暗名单中，只有终焉号缺席，我们不知道她当时的位置和目的。面对敌军强大的力量，Dominica Minor守军确实难以匹敌，他们派出的战舰数量仅有敌军的一半，唯一能够匹敌对方重型主力舰的飞船只有一艘古老的哥利亚级战列舰“本影之矛”号，而且是在很久之前就被降级来执行二线任务。另外，恐惧令行会总管们聚拢起舰队来保卫首府世界Dominica Prime，并将之聚集在自己的轨道要塞工事周围；他们剥夺了舰队的机动性，并且放弃了外环诸世界和星系中宝贵的虚空精炼综合体，任其自生自灭。但当这些被牺牲的受害者们用音频通讯系统发出投降信号时，死亡守卫舰队被忽视和绕过了它们，舰船们引擎燃烧加力，达到战斗速度，扑向了Dominica Prime。
The battle which followed was brief and catastrophic, with the attacking fleet holding its fire under the desperate barrages of the defenders until almost within boarding range, the void shields of the Death Guard ships blazing like dying suns and their armoured prows cracking and splining under torpedo strikes and blasts of annihilating energy. When at last the four columns of attack spread open like a clawed hand to grasp Dominica Prime, as one the Death Guard fleet turned broadside and let their guns speak at last, and the defenders were swept aside in fiery ruin. Mutilated and blinded, the Spear of Umbriel met her end as the Death Guard Legion assault ship, The Fourth Horseman, mercilessly rammed her amidships from above and broke her back. With her died any hope of resistance. Of the handful of Loyalist warships that endured the firestorm, none survived the desperate hour that followed as hunter-killer packs of destroyers tracked down any that tried to escape, leaving Dominica Prime to the Death Guard Legion, and the world would now pay the price.
随后的战斗是短暂且灾难性的。顶着守军绝望的炮击轰炸，进攻舰队一炮未发，直到几乎进入了跳帮距离内。死亡守卫舰船的虚空盾如同濒死的太阳那般燃烧闪烁着，装甲船头在鱼雷的进攻和毁灭性能量的爆炸冲击下裂开和弯曲。当四支纵队如同将要握住Dominica Prime的利爪巨手（的四根手指）那样分散开时，死亡守卫舰队向着守军亮出自己的侧舷，舰炮也最终开火，将防御舰队化为熊熊燃烧的残骸。本影之矛号严重受损且被致盲，当死亡守卫军团的突击舰“第四骑士”号从上方（用船头撞角）撞进她的中部船体并折断了她的船脊时，这艘飞船也就被摧毁了。与之一并死去的还有防御者们全部的抵抗希望。有少数几艘忠诚派战舰承受住了火焰风暴（般的炮击），但她们在之后的绝望战斗中无一生还——驱逐舰组成的猎杀群追踪着所有试图逃跑的飞船。
Planetfall
行星登陆
The orbital assault came in inexorable and measured steps, the Caestus Rams and Thunderhawks of the Death Guard descending amid the meteoric fires of the falling ships that had perished in Dominica Prime's defence. This first wave selected its targets and deployed its strike forces to ruthlessly destroy them; communications towers, defence batteries, auspex arrays and militia bastions—all were systematically neutralised to pave the way for the next wave. Unhurried, like the reaper setting out upon a field of wheat, came the heavy assault landers and Stormbirds, dropping down into the centres of the great caldera-cities of Dominica Prime formed from the craters of vast open-cast mines that pitted the planets surface. Whole districts of habitation blocks were crushed beneath the landers and panic gripped the cities even before the dull-armoured forms of the Legionaries marched out in horrifically rhythmic unison, the sound of the ceramite-shod footfalls of thirty thousand Space Marines echoing like a hammer beating out the world's doom. With them roared the thunder of mighty engines as squadrons of Predator and Typhon tanks poured forth from the gaping maws of the assault ships and simply tore a path through the habitation blocks, sending up great black clouds of choking dust as the roughly built prefabricated buildings closed like rotten petals around them.
轨道进攻在无情且有步骤地进行着。那些为保护Dominica Prime而被摧毁的飞船坠落下来，形成流星般的火团；死亡守卫的拳套突击艇和雷鹰炮艇就是这些火焰中降临到了星球上。第一批登陆艇选中了自己的目标，并部署了进攻部队来将之摧毁；通讯塔楼、防御炮台、鸟卜阵列和民兵营房——所有目标都被系统性抹除，来为下一阶段进攻铺平道路。而就像割麦者走向着麦田那样，重型突击登陆艇和风暴鸟炮艇从容地来到此地，降落到了Dominica Prime巨大矿坑城市们的中央——那些让星球表面变得坑坑洼洼的巨大露天矿井组成了这些城市。登陆艇碾碎了自己身下的（数个）完整居民区，哪怕在全副武装的军团战士们以可怕的整齐节奏列队走出之前，恐慌情绪便笼罩了城市；三万名星际战士陶钢战靴的踏步声回荡在城市，其声响宛如一柄重锤在敲奏出这个世界的毁灭。伴随着它们的还有强大引擎的轰鸣声——掠食者战斗坦克和提丰坦克组成的中队从突击舰张开的巨口中涌出，并在居民区中撕开了一条通路，而当粗糙建造的预制建筑在它们周边如同腐烂的花瓣一样合拢关闭时，形成了由令人窒息的灰尘所组成的巨大黑色云团。
The workers militia that struggled to rally against the invaders outnumbered their foes twenty and thirty to one in places, but it did not matter. Their autocarbines and scatter-locks were all but useless against Legiones Astartes power armour, and their few heavy weapons —field mortars and crew-served autocannon for the main part— were woefully inadequate and soon silenced. On came Mortarion's Legion, patient and inexorable, dealing death at every turn; frail human bodies were torn apart by bolter shells, buildings undermined with cannon fire or simply torn down by the hulking clawed hands of the Legion's Dreadnoughts. Faced with such terrible and controlled power, the militia swiftly broke and ran, and in the killing of the rout, the Death Guard made no distinction between combatant and civilian. As the force spread out, Whirlwind batteries blanketed the workers slums with aspyx-gas warheads, while the horror of burning phosphex was unleashed into breached bunkers and poured through deep cellars sought as final, desperate refuges as the invasion became a massacre.
工人们组成的民兵部队奋力集结起来抵抗入侵者，在某些地方，他们的数量是敌人的二三十倍，但这无济于事。他们的自动卡宾枪和分散封锁（战术）在星际战士的动力甲面前毫无作用，他们的少数重武器——主要是野战迫击炮和组员操纵的自动炮也可悲得不足，并且很快就陷入沉寂。莫塔里安的军团耐心而冷酷地前进着，他们到处杀戮着敌人；凡人脆弱的躯体被爆矢弹撕碎，建筑物要么炮火摧毁，要么就是被军团无畏机甲巨大的利爪拆倒。在如此恐怖且精心安排的力量面前，民兵们很快便崩溃奔逃；而死亡守卫毫不区分平民和战斗人员，将之作为溃兵一并屠杀。随着部队分散开来，入侵行动也演变为一场大屠杀：旋风（坦克的）炮塔用神经毒气炸弹覆盖式轰炸了工人们居住的棚户区，同时还释放出熊熊燃烧的恐怖磷火来攻破碉堡，火焰灌满了被用作最后的绝望避难所的深层地下室。
Like a blackening stain visible from orbit, the Death Guard radiated out from their landing zones and the crater cities fell around them. Soon only two knots of serious resistance remained, the first at Dominica Prime's largest starport, where a rag-tag company of industrial servitors and colossal mining engines had been turned into makeshift war machines to bolster the last stand of the planetary defence militia, and the second at sub-surface compound, where a score of Salamanders Legion Space Marines had suddenly appeared to hold the line. The Salamanders were recent arrivals, refugees from the orbital battle around Isstvan, their crippled strike ship had made the journey to Dominica Minor against the odds but could travel no further, and they were trapped there, doomed it seemed to replay the fate that had befallen so many of their brothers before them.
死亡守卫们从登陆区呈辐射状向外前进，矿坑城市在他们周边倒下，这一切就像是可以从轨道上看见的发黑污点。不久后便只剩下两个仍在顽强抵抗的节点，第一个位于Dominica Prime最大的星港，一支由工业机仆和巨大的采矿引擎所改造成的临时战争机器所组成的衣衫褴褛的部队被用于支援星球防御民兵们的最后阵地；第二个位于地下复合体处，数十名火蜥蜴军团星际战士突然出现在此地，控制住了防线。火蜥蜴是在近期才抵达这个世界，他们是从伊斯特万世界周边的轨道战斗在逃出生天，冒着极大的风险驾驶着受损严重的打击舰航行到了Dominica Minor，之后便再也无法前进了。火蜥蜴们被困在了此地，那已经降临于他们诸多兄弟们的命运似乎注定要在这些战士们身上重演。
The Hammer
重锤
Against the starport, a new element was brought to battle. The great mining engines —each massing more than a scout Titan and staunchly armoured一 had resisted the firepower of the Death Guard's heavy support squads, and alongside suicidal attacks by the overridden industrial servitors, actually managed first to stand off and then drive back the Legion's attack. Rather than waste more Legionaries in an overwhelming charge, or wait until massed artillery support could be wielded to engage the huge machines, a new heavy lander was summoned from orbit, bearing not the heraldry of the Death Guard, but the crimson blaze and crossed black warhammers of House Makabius.
一些新的部队被引入了星港处的战斗。巨大的采矿引擎——它们的体积比侦察泰坦还要庞大，而且拥有坚固的装甲——抵抗住了死亡守卫重武器支援小队们的火力，搭配着被超持控制的工业机仆们的自杀进攻，守军实际上首先成功顶住并在之后击退了死亡守卫军团的进攻。但死亡守卫并未浪费更多的军团战士去进行压倒性冲锋，也并未等待能够对付这些巨大机器的大规模炮兵支援。一艘新的重型登陆艇从轨道上降落，但船身上并没有死亡守卫的纹章，而是带着马卡比乌斯家族的深红色火焰和黑色交叉战锤（的家徽）。
From the moment the heavy blast doors of the assault lander crashed down, the doom of the starport was sealed. Thirty Knights in the proud quartered sable-and-shadow of the House of Makabius, their armoured forms each looming twice the height of a Land Raider and more, strode forth. They moved with a speed and purpose the hulking mining engines and brute servitors that opposed them could never hope to match. Mortar shells landed in their midst and autocannon fire rattled from their armoured plates, but they paid it no heed, and war-horns blasting out, they formed with clockwork precision into a series of interlocking echelons and advanced, all the time gaining speed.
从突击登陆艇的防爆门轰然打开的那一刻，星港的毁灭便注定了。从中走出的是三十台喷涂着马卡比乌斯家族漆黑暗影配色的骑士，他们的机体全副武装，其高度是一辆兰德掠夺者的两倍，甚至更高。这些机甲大步奔来，他们的移动速度和目的是那些笨重的采矿引擎和粗陋的机仆们永远无法企及的。迫击炮弹落在他们中间，自动炮射出的炮弹也撞击在它们的装甲板上，但骑士们毫不理会，他们轰鸣起战争号角，如钟表般精准地组成了一系列紧密连接的梯队并前进着，速度也在不断提高。
Entering range, they opened fire, the battle cannon of their Knights Paladin picking out the lumbering servitors and blasting them to bloody shreds of flesh and metal. Breaking out to the flanks, the swifter Knights Castigator and Acheron hunted the remaining militia strongpoints and gun pits, raking them with their mega-bolters and obliterating them in swathes of incendiary flame. Against the colossal mining engines themselves, the core echelons of Knights Errant struck, with a cadre of Cerastus Lancers forming the spearpoint of the attack. Rather than engage the lumbering hulks,which might have easily crushed even such as they, the Knights broke around them like the tide against a rocky shore, using their superior speed and mobility to evade the roaring drills and saw-toothed maws of the mining engines. As close in as they were, not even the dense armour of the colossal machines could deny the searing power of the Knights Errant's thermal cannon, nor the deft savagery of their chainblades, while the blinding flashes of the Lancer's strikes blew out their control mechanisms and blasted apart vital couplings. Soon the gigantic engines were reeling and crashing like dying beasts, smoke belching from a dozen rents in their scorched plating. All that remained for the last defenders of the starport was a terrified rout, which ended with the waiting Death Guard.
在进入射程后，骑士们开火射击；圣骑士们的战斗火炮挑选出笨拙的机仆们，把他们炸成血肉与金属的血腥碎片。速度更快的惩戒者骑士和冥河骑士向侧翼突围，进攻剩余的民兵据点和炮位。骑士们并未与笨重的巨型机器交战（哪怕是它们，这样做也会被轻易撞碎），它们如同潮水撞上岩石那样在采矿机器周围散开，依靠自己卓越的速度和机动性来避开敌人咆哮的钻头和带着锯齿的巨口。当足够接近时，哪怕这些巨大机器的质密装甲也抵挡不了游侠骑士热能火炮的灼热威力与它们灵活残忍的链锯刃；枪骑士电能长枪那带着令人目盲的闪光的突刺进攻摧毁了采矿机器的控制装置，炸掉了其重要的联轴器。很快，巨大的机器就像垂死的野兽一样摇摇欲坠，轰隆轰隆，烧焦的机体上有十几个冒出浓烟的裂口。留给星港守军们的只有一场可怕的溃败，其最终命运是被等待中的死亡守卫们屠杀殆尽。
The Scythe
镰刀
At the adamantium gate of the sub-surface Guild Hall, against all odds the line still held. The few Salamanders who stood fast fought on like devils, unyielding, driven on beyond even the superhuman endurance of the Legiones Astartes by the desire for vengeance and the power of raw hate. With them stood the last of the Guildmasters' finely equipped elite bodyguards, knowing that they had nowhere else to run, even as the Guildmasters themselves cowered in the bunkers beneath them, save a few who had chosen to stand and die with their men. Only when reports that Space Marines had been sighted among the defenders of the gate filtered through to the Traitors' command, did Mortarion himself Primarch of the Death Guard, deign to join the battle in person. The first the beleaguered Salamanders knew of it was when the Traitors' guns fell suddenly and eerily silent in order to await their masters arrival.
在地下行会大厅的精金大门前，尽管困难重重，但守军依旧坚守着防线。阵地中的少数火蜥蜴军团战士们如同魔鬼般顽强地战斗着，复仇欲望和原始仇恨的力量驱使着他们超越了阿斯塔特军团战士那超人的忍耐力。和他们一同战斗的是行会总管们最后一批装备精良的精锐护卫，他们知道自己无处可逃，而且除了少数选择和自己的下属们共同坚守并战死的人外，哪怕（其余的）行会总管们也就蜷缩在他们脚下的碉堡中。当关于在大门守军中目击到星际战士的报告传到叛军指挥部时，死亡守卫原体莫塔里安本人亲自屈尊前去参战。而被围困的火蜥蜴们最初意识到这一情况，是在叛军们突然停止射击，陷入可怕的寂静中时——这是为了等待他们主人的到来。
Like a circling carrion crow in the smoke- stained sky, the Primarch's banered and battle-scarred Stormbird descended steeply, braking sharply at the last, its retros flaring bright as it disgorged its deadly cargo; the master of the XIVth Legion accompanied by his silent Deathshroud. At once was battle mercilessly re-joined, as the disbelieving Loyalists unleashed everything they had left at the spectre of the grave come for them, and the Death Guard surged forward from their positions in an all-out attack.
如同在烟雾弥漫的空中盘旋着的食腐乌鸦那般，一架带着原体旗帜（标志）战痕累累的风暴鸟陡然降落；炮艇在最后阶段刹住车，制动火箭喷出明亮的尾焰，同时致命的乘客们——第十四军团之主也在他一言不发的死亡寿衣（卫队）的陪同下走出船舱。双方立刻再次进入战斗，当莫塔里安如墓穴中的幽灵般冲向忠诚派时，后者释放出自己留在手中的所有武器向其进攻，同时死亡守卫们也冲出阵地，发起全面进攻。
Though one of his Deathshroud fell never to rise again and a score of his Legionaries were cut down mid-stride, Mortarion came on through the storm of shellfire and las bolts, as unstoppable and inviolate as death itself his tattered cloak streaming behind him and his scythe held high. He crashed into the defence line like a thunderbolt, sending the first two Salamanders he reached to their deaths with ancient Noctumian curses on their lips, bisected in a sweep of his great, reaping blade. The third caught him with a melta blast which set the Primarch's armour bubbling and running like molten wax, but he did no more than stagger soundlessly for a moment, before splitting the valiant Loyalist open with a single downward sweep of his scythe. Then fell a fourth, a fifth and a sixth. By then his Death Guard had smashed into the defence lines with him, and crashed over the last of the Guildmasters' elite like an obliterating wave, so that the crush of splintered bone and the racking of reloading bolters was all that could be heard. Then came a mighty, amplified roar like that of a monster of ancient myth, and from a pile of broken rubble rose up a huge form, cast in deep emerald armour chased with ruddy gold. It was Shar'rac Grenn, once Consul-Centurion of the Salamanders 3rd Company, bound to serve for the last four decades within the deathless shell of a Contemptor Dreadnought, and for all that he knew, the last of his kind.
尽管有一名死亡寿衣和二十名军团战士在冲锋过程中被击杀，但莫塔里安顶着炮火和激光矢弹冲上前去，就像死亡本尊一样不可阻挡也不可侵犯，他破旧的斗篷在身后飘动，手中的镰刀高高举起。原体如同雷霆般冲入敌军阵线，用巨大的镰刃将自己首先遇到的两名火蜥蜴战士斩为两截，并用古老的夜曲星诅咒斥骂着他们。第三名火蜥蜴用热熔枪向他射击，使得原体动力甲（的表面）起泡并如同融化的热蜡那样流淌下来，但莫塔里安只是无声地踉跄了一下，之后便将镰刀向下一挥，劈开了这名英勇的忠诚派战士。第四名、第五名和第六名火蜥蜴战士之后也倒在了他的刀锋下。此刻，死亡守卫们也已经和他一并冲进了防线，他们如一股毁灭性的潮水那样撞向了行会主管们的最后一批精锐护卫，人们在战场上只能听到骨骼被撞碎的破裂声和重新装填爆弹枪的咔哒声。接着一阵被放大的洪亮怒吼传来——那声音宛如古代神话中怪兽的咆哮，一个穿着深绿色甲胄、镂刻着红金色装饰的巨大身形从破碎的瓦砾中站起身来。他是沙尔拉克 格伦，火蜥蜴第三连队曾经的百夫长；在过去的四十年中，他一直在蔑视者无畏机甲的不死躯壳中服役，而且据他所知，自己是同类中的最后一人。
A tongue of flame spitting from his whirring assault cannon, Grenn blasted a path to his arch-foe, slayer of his brothers, and betrayer of his Emperor. Mortarion, as still and impassive as lifeless stone, waited for his enemy to come on. The Dreadnought charged, bellowing his war cry, cannon blazing, power claw drawn back to strike. Mortarion spun, stillness to blurring speed quicker than a mortal eye could follow, the great scythe sweeping out in its lethal arc. The blade struck, ceramite and adamantium split, and the Dreadnought bellowed in shock as his severed arm fell, the assault cannon still firing wildly as it clattered across the rubble. Mortarion turned again for another strike but the Dreadnought turned with him, bathing the gaunt Primarch in roaring fire from the heavy flamer concealed in his power claw. Mortarion's shoulder slammed into his foe's sarcophagus, knocking the mighty machine reeling, in return its crackling power claw pitched the Primarch a blow that would have sundered a battle tank, but the Reaper did not fall. The great scythe lashed out, again and again, and with each cut Grenn howled in bitter rage and frustration as the Contemptor Dreadnought's armoured frame was taken slowly apart. At last crippled and burning, the mighty Shar'rac Grenn fell, and Monarion’s scythe plunged like a raptors beak at its prey to slay the flesh within the machine. It was over, Dominica Minor had fallen two-point-seven-five sidereal hours after the attack had begun—less than three hours was all it had taken to murder a world.
嗡嗡作响的突击炮喷出一条火舌，格伦炸出了一条冲向大敌的通路——他要向那屠杀自己兄弟且背叛帝皇之人发起进攻。莫塔里安则仍旧如同无生命的磐石那样镇静冷漠，他等待着敌人的到来。无畏机甲怒呼着战吼发起冲锋，自动炮不停射击，动力爪也后缩蓄力，准备进攻。莫塔里安也行动起来，从静止（瞬间）进入凡人双目捕捉不到的快速状态，巨大的镰刀挥出一条致命弧线。刀锋劈开了陶钢和精金，无畏机甲发出震惊的吼声——当他被斩断的手臂落下，掉落在瓦砾堆中时，突击炮仍在疯狂射击。莫塔利安再次转身准备进攻，但无畏机甲也随着他转过身来，隐藏在无畏动力爪内的重型火焰喷射器喷出烈焰，直击那位面容憔悴的原体。莫塔利安则用肩膀撞在敌人的石棺上，把强大的机器撞得近乎跌倒；作为还击，无畏机甲用闪烁着噼啪作响分解力场的动力爪给了原体一记重击，这一击能将战斗坦克砸碎，但收割者莫塔里安并未倒下。巨大的镰刀反复挥舞，每一击都在慢慢撕碎蔑视者无畏机甲的装甲框架，也都令格伦发出愤怒且沮丧的咆哮。最终，无畏机甲严重受损并熊熊燃烧起来，强大的沙尔拉克 格伦倒下了，莫塔里安的镰刀像猛禽的喙那样刺向它的猎物，杀死星际战士藏在机器里的肉体。一切都结束了，Dominica Minor在进攻开始2.75个恒星时后沦陷了——死亡守卫只用不到三个小时便毁灭了一个世界。
