HH4节译：肃清独眼巨人星群1
006-007.M31
006-007.M31
The first region of the Coronid Deeps to feel the Traitors' fury in the birth-years of the Horus Heresy was the Cyclops Cluster. The cluster was, at the time, famed for both its industrial output and the harshness of its living conditions, and had proven a key factor in the supply and expansion of the Imperium, both across the Coronid Deeps and the eastern Segmentum Obscurus. These factors made it a prime target for attack, as the warp route access through its star systems —known to many Navigators— was still yet clear of turbulence, making it a welcome avenue of escape by fleeing Loyalist forces retreating from the catastrophe at Isstvan.
在荷鲁斯叛乱的初始阶段，王冠深渊中最先感受到叛军怒火的区域是独眼巨人星群。在当时，这片星群因其工业产出与粗劣严酷的生活状况而著称，无论是在整个王冠深渊还是在东部的朦胧星域中，其都被证明对于帝国供给和扩张有重要意义。这些因素导致此地成为首要进攻目标，因为许多导航者都知道：穿过此地的各恒星系的亚空间航线仍未出现乱流，对于那些从伊斯特万星系的灾难事件中逃出生天的忠诚派部队而言，此地是一条可随意使用的逃生途径。
The Hounds and the Hunted
猎犬与猎物
While Terra and a few select and powerful Imperial Commanders, who were given to know the truth that Horus and what was then believed to be four Legions had turned against the Emperor, waited with various apprehension for the outcome of the battle at Isstvan V, the worlds of the Cyclops Cluster, and their billions, turned ever onward in ignorance. Defence states had been heightened on many frontier worlds, but in the Cyclops Cluster, as elsewhere in the Coronid Deeps, such a condition was a regular occurrence, and no reason or enemy was given to those lower down the chain of command. The changes of security codes and targeting matrixes to forbid the vessels and retinues of the four turncoat Legions was a precaution enacted swiftly, but one that would ultimately prove futile.
当泰拉和极少数被选中的有权势帝国指挥官们（他们知道真实情况是荷鲁斯和四个军团被相信背叛了帝皇）怀着各种疑虑等待伊斯特万五号上的战斗结果时，独眼巨人星群中的世界与其上的数十亿人仍在无知状况下继续生产生活。很多前线世界都已经提升了自己的防御状况，但在独眼巨人星群中，就和王冠深渊中的其他区域一样，这种情况是经常发生的，位于各级指挥链下方的士兵们也不会被给予原因，也没有遇到敌人。不过，独眼巨人星群也迅速实施了防御措施，修改了安全密码和瞄准矩阵以禁止四个叛变军团的舰船与随从（人员）们进入，但这一举措会被证明是徒劳的。
The first harbinger of the war to come was a ship of the dead. The Malin Dawn, a Gladiator class frigate belonging to the Emperor's Children Legion, was detected moving at a low velocity in the outer reaches of the Gethsamaine system by watchful servitor—gunstations guarding the system's astropathic beacon at 4598006.M31. So alerted, high speed reconnaissance cutters were launched and their close range augurs found the ship to be badly damaged and almost without power. Having identified the vessel as a derelict enemy ship, the warden captain of the system took the decision for the vessel to be prevented from closing with its core worlds, her motion arrested and the ship boarded under all possible precautions. Leaving nothing to chance, the system’s two primary defence monitors, Gaius Herab and Brazen Bull, conducted the operation flawlessly, Veletaris troopers performing the incursion of the vessel without resistance.
即将到来的战争的最初预兆是一艘运载着死者的飞船。在4598006.M31，Gethsamaine星系中负责守卫该星系星语灯塔的机仆炮台侦测到：一艘属于帝皇之子军团的角斗士级护卫舰——“险恶黎明”号正在星系外环区域低速移动。收到警报后，当局派出了高速侦查快艇；侦查艇的近距离占卜仪发现这艘护卫舰受损严重且几乎没有了动力。辨别出这艘舰船是一艘敌军弃舰后，星系的守备队队长决定阻止这艘飞船接近星系内的主要世界；她停止了行动，在采取了一切可能的预防措施的情况下登船。该星系的两艘主要防御监测船——“盖乌斯 赫拉波”号与“黄铜雄牛”号没有（给潜在敌人）留任何机会，完美地执行了这次行动，维勒塔里斯部队在未遭到任何抵抗的情况下进入了舰船。
Inside they found nothing but the dead. Slaughter bedecked the corridors where Space Marines and crew in the purple livery of Fulgrim's Legion had fought a brutal close quarter combat in defence of their ship against others of their own kind and Legiones Astartes in the white and azure of Angron's World Eaters to their mutual extinction. Further interrogation of the ship's logs revealed that the Malin Dawn had been a casualty of the desperate battle over Isstvan III, having remained loyal only to be turned on by her fellows in murderous ambush. During the confusion of the battle in the system as the Traitors exterminated their brethren, and under heavy assault, the ship had barely managed to escape, but in the Warp the battle within her hull had raged on until she had become nothing more than a flying tomb, bent upon a preordained course. Her Navigator had clung on to life long after the rest of the ship had fallen silent, and held on in the forlorn duty of carrying a warning of treachery that fate had, unknown to her, given to another to herald. When the frigate had, after her arduous voyage, broken into realspace in the dark of the Cyclops Cluster's stars, life had finally fled the Navigator's body before she could broadcast her distress call.
跳帮队在船上找到的只有尸体。走廊上遍布屠杀（留下的）的痕迹：为了保卫自己的飞船，穿着福格瑞姆军团的紫色制服的星际战士和船员们进行了一场残酷的近距离战斗，他们所对抗的敌人是自己的其他胞亲兄弟，以及一些身穿安格隆的吞世者军团蓝白两色动力甲的星际战士，双方在战斗中同归于尽。对于飞船日志的进一步审查揭示出：险恶黎明号是伊斯特万三号上空绝望战斗中的遇难舰船之一，这艘忠于帝皇的舰船在一场致命的伏击中遭到了“同伴”们的进攻。这艘飞船卷入了叛徒们在伊斯特万星系消灭其（忠诚派）兄弟的战斗，在遭受着激烈进攻的情况下，她勉强逃出了九死一生的困境；但在进入亚空间后，船舱内的战斗仍在继续，两方相互厮杀，直到飞船最后变为一座飞行的坟墓，一心一意地向着预定的方向行驶。当飞船的其余部分都陷入沉寂之后，导航员仍旧坚持存活了很久，她肩负着一项难以实现的任务：把叛变的警告传递给另一个人以进行示警（尽管她并不知道）。在经过艰难的航行后，这艘护卫舰在独眼巨人星群的黑暗中进入了现实宇宙，但在导航员能够广播自己的遇难呼救（信号）之前，生命便最终从她的身上流逝而去了。
Even as this omen of war caused great consternation among Gethsamaine's high command, and urgent messages were dispatched to Port Maw and Lascal, the fabric of reality ripped open and the Hunters appeared; a wing of four Havoc class heavy destroyers in the slate grey and bronze of the 507th Attack Squadron, an Imperialis Armada formation attached to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet of Warmaster Horus, and behind them the Huntsmaster to these hounds, the Ikon, an Eclipse class battlecruiser in the dark viridian of the Sons of Horus Legion. Battle was joined immediately as the Traitors charged headlong at the system defence monitors, their destroyers releasing cycling volleys of fusion-warheaded torpedoes as soon as they entered effective range. The Gethsamaine defence monitors were powerful ships designed for protracted operations, each with the firepower of a cruiser and the armour of a battleship in their own right. Used primarily for planetary blockade and picquet, they were slow and lumbering compared to the sleek interstellar warships that confronted them. Their turbo laser and plasma-caster batteries threw up a blazing barrier of fire against which even the heavy salvos of the Havocs' torpedoes could not prevail, while the monitors' own dorsal lances pulsed frantically at the attacking destroyers through the web of fire.
这条战争预兆在Gethsamaine世界最高指挥部引起了极大恐慌，巨口港和Lascal世界也被发送了紧急信息，但就在此时，现实宇宙的结构被撕开裂口，猎捕者们从中现身；出现在此地的是四艘喷涂第507突击中队的蓝灰与青铜配色的浩劫级重型驱逐舰，一支附属于战帅荷鲁斯本人的舰队——第63远征探索舰队的帝国海军编队，还有就是跟在这群猎犬身后的猎首——喷涂着荷鲁斯之子军团暗翠绿色的日蚀级战斗巡洋舰“圣像”号。随着叛军们急速冲向星系防御监测船，战斗也很快开始；一经进入有效射程，叛军驱逐舰们便循环齐射聚变弹头鱼雷。Gethsamaine星系的防御监测船是设计用于拖延行动的强悍飞船，每一艘都拥有巡洋舰级别的火力与战列舰级别的装甲。此类飞船主要被用于行星封锁和警戒哨卫任务，相比于面前线条流畅的星际战舰，这些飞船缓慢而笨拙。它们的涡轮激光炮和电浆投射炮塔抛出了一道炽热的炮火屏障，甚至浩劫级驱逐舰密集的鱼雷齐射无法将其压制住，同时监测船背部的光矛也穿过火网向进攻的驱逐舰疯狂射击。
Drawn close together to maximise their overlapping fields of fire, the monitors fell into the defensive tactics for which they were designed, while soon the vast distance between the Loyalist and Traitor ships shortened inexorably and the firestorm went on unabated between them. The duel waxed hot and between the relentless barrages of the destroyers' torpedoes and the heat of the monitors' cannonade, it was up to the fates which were to fail first. Then, at once, elation flashed across the Brazen Bull's command deck as one of the Traitor destroyers blazed suddenly out of existence as a lance strike found the Havoc's reactor. But triumph turned at once to horror and despair as a frantic message voxed through by the skeleton crew left on board the broken Malin Dawn cut through the static. They had seen what the monitors, blinded by the fury that they and their enemies were unleashing, had not; the Ikon, her massively powerful engines burning at over-thrust, had split from behind her destroyer screen and corkscrewing wide of them had overtaken the firefight and was about to attack from their flank.
两艘监测船共同接近敌舰以最大化他们的交叠火力（覆盖）范围，他们用出了自己被设计（使用）的防御战术。不久后忠诚派和叛军飞船之间遥远的距离就不可避免地缩短了，双方之间的激烈交火也继续有增无减。战斗愈演愈烈，驱逐舰鱼雷齐射，监测船释放出炽热的连续炮击，哪一方先失败将取决于命运。之后，黄铜雄牛号的一发光矛击中了某艘浩劫级的反应堆，这艘驱逐舰猛烈燃烧起来，最终化为无物，监测船的指挥甲板上立刻响起一片欢呼。但胜利立刻变成了恐惧和绝望，因为残破的险恶黎明号上的已化为骷髅船员切断静电干扰，发出了一条疯狂的音频信息。他们看到了监测船未能看到的东西，后者因自己与敌军释放出的怒火而目盲；是圣像号，她强大的引擎燃烧着过度推进的尾焰，她从驱逐舰的后方脱离，并在两方进行交火时从远方进行螺旋前进，她现在将从监测船侧翼进行攻击。
Panic gripped the Brazen Bull's command as they attempted to answer this new threat, but the diversion of fire did nothing but open a gap through which the latest torpedo volley streamed, striking her amidships just as the broadside macro-cannon batteries of the Ikon spoke and ripped the Brazen Bull open from stem to stern. With dismissive cruelty she flew on beyond the two monitors, loosing a wave of Dreadclaws in her wake. The remaining monitor Gaius Herab was bracketed and torn by the concentrated final volley of the Havocs' torpedoes as they too sped on by the wounded defender. Swiftly after, the attacking wave of Dreadclaws slammed home into the stricken defence ships, and the cargo of Sons of Horus they carried —once the proudest warriors of humanity— tore into the crew within, who in turn sold their lives with desperate futility.
恐慌攫住了黄铜雄牛号的指挥层，他们试图应对这一新的威胁，但炮火的转移只是导致了一个（火力）缺口的出现，最后一批齐射的鱼雷由此进入，正中了船体中部；同时圣像号侧舷宏炮炮塔开火，把黄铜雄牛号从头到尾撕开。她带着轻蔑的残忍飞离了两艘监测船，并在身后丢出一波恐惧爪。剩余的监测船“盖乌斯 赫拉波”号也被包围，浩劫级驱逐舰也从受伤的防御监测船身边急驰而过，当受伤的防御监测船从她们身边急驰而过时，驱逐舰发射出的最后一波密集的鱼雷齐射也将其撕开。紧接着，进攻的恐惧爪们猛冲向受损的防御监测船，刺入船身；这些跳帮艇中运载的是荷鲁斯之子军团战士，这些人类曾经最高傲的战士冲入船舱，船员们在绝望中被撕碎。
Shorn of its most powerful defenders, Gethsamaine's system lay open before the Traitor Hunter squadron, and again the skeleton crew aboard the powerless Malin Dawn were forced to watch helplessly as one after another gun-stations and watch posts were out-ranged and out-manoeuvred and destroyed without mercy. Without the monitors to shield them, Gethsamaine's few static defences were isolated and blasted into flaming debris, just as the screams and pleas for help on the still-open vox channels from the Gaius Herab grew fainter and fewer.
在被夺去了最有力的防御者后，Gethsamaine星系在叛军的猎杀中队面前洞门大开。星系内的炮塔和监测站的武器射程与机动性都逊于叛军飞船，它们被一个接一个地无情摧毁，而险恶黎明号上化为白骨的船员们被迫再次无助地目睹眼前的惨象。失去了监测船为它们抵挡进攻，Gethsamaine星系中的少量静态防御设施被孤立并炸为燃烧的碎片，同时盖乌斯 赫拉波号（的船员们）在仍旧公开的音频频道上发出的尖叫声和呼救声也越来越微弱。
Hours later, the Dreadclaws finally detached from their prey and flew to rendezvous with their mother ship, by which time both the Gaius Herab and the Brazen Bull were little more than blood-splattered charnel houses of rent metal, venting air into the void, and the system's astropathic relay station was nothing more than a dissipating cloud of vapour. Gethsamaine Colonus, the major inhabited world of the system, its planetary weapons primed for an attack which never came, had itself been spared, but as the Ikon departed for the Warp, she left a chilling message behind her. It was a message which with variation in word, but not intent, would be repeated shortly across the Cyclops Cluster and in a hundred star systems in the years to come, a dark ultimatum which promised a future only of despair and destruction.
几个小时之后，恐惧爪们最终从自己的猎物身上离开，并再次飞回到母舰中进行汇合。此刻，盖乌斯 赫拉波号和黄铜雄牛号都只化为了由破裂的金属所组成的血腥停尸房，其中的空气也在喷泄到虚空中；星系中的星语中继站也变成了一团消散中的蒸汽云。Gethsamaine星系中的定居主星——Gethsamaine Colonus的行星武器已经准备好迎接一场从攻击，但叛军舰队并未发动攻势，它们放过了这个世界，但当进入亚空间离开此地时，圣像号留下了一条令人不寒而栗的信息。这条信息很快就会在独眼巨人星群各处被重复，并在之后的几年中被传达给一百个恒星系。信息的文字（措辞）各式各样，但意图始终不变，这份黑暗的最后通牒预示着未来只有绝望与毁灭。
“Bow before Him who is the Warmaster,
abase yourselves before His truth.
Serve those who serve Him,
harken only to their words.
The Imperium is His. Mankind is His.
You are His.
Submit to the Warmaster, or die by His hand.
There is no other choice, and you will be given the chance to kneel but once.
Horus is Lord. Horus is Death."
“尔等当向战帅屈服致敬，汝辈在他的真理面前卑若蝼蚁。
侍奉战帅的忠仆们，聆听他们的训诫。
帝国属于他，人类属于他，汝辈是他的奴仆。
汝等臣服于战帅，否则便死于战帅之手。
汝等别无选择，战帅会赐予你们下跪求饶的机会，但只有一次。
荷鲁斯是尊主，荷鲁斯是死亡。”
The Reign of Fear
恐惧的统治
The destruction of the Gethsamaine astropathic relay, vital in a system often troubled by turbulence in the Warp, prevented the swift dispersal of the news of the sudden attack by the Traitors, but the seeds of fear had already been sown. By the time the Imperialis Armada was properly alerted to the incident, there was no chance of forming a pursuit force to track down the Hunters, and it was only then as alerts were raised to forewarn the worlds of the cluster about these marauders, that it was discovered that a score of distant frontier outposts could not be raised. Soon after, ships and freight convoys passing through the northern stars of the Cyclops Cluster towards the Grail Abyss began to be declared first overdue and then lost. Within a dozen sidereal months standard, the dark rumours about the attack at Gethsamaine and the words the Sons of Horus had delivered —compounded and amplified many times in the telling— had passed through the void-borne, the trade ships and the patrolling Imperialis Armada, spreading like a contagion.
在一个经常受困于亚空间乱流的星系中，星语中继站极其重要。Gethsamaine中继站的毁灭使叛军发动突袭的消息无法被快速传递。当帝国舰队实际收到关于这一事件的警报时，它们已经没有机会组建一支追击部队来追捕猎杀中队了，而直到向星群中的各个世界发送关于此类掠袭的警报时，人们才发现有十数个遥远的边境哨站无法收到信息。不久之后，穿越独眼巨人星群北部区域前往圣杯深渊的飞船和货运舰先是被宣布晚点，继而被宣布失踪。在十二个（泰拉）恒星月标准的时间之内，关于Gethsamaine星系遭受的进攻与荷鲁斯之子留言的黑暗谣言便在虚空族裔、贸易飞船和巡逻的帝国舰队中传递开来——而且内容在口口相传的过程中被夸大了很多倍，流言如同传染病般传播开来。
The Eve of the War
战争前夜
The Cyclops Cluster was now raised to arms, and the auspexes and astrotelepathic auguries of a hundred worlds began to reach outwards in fear and keen vigilance. Reports were channelled through to the centralised Imperialis Armada commands at Lascal and Dominica Minor to be sifted and organised in the hope of divining a pattern and planning a defence. Only now did the extent of the silent intrusion become clear. At Taracanis, the ikon had once again appeared and delivered her bleak message, but only after blasting a docking station from orbit, the wreckage costing thirteen thousand lives as it fell to earth. At Shear, long range detectors had observed a savage void battle between a score of Capital class warships, which lit up the occularis screens of the savant-surveyors of the Imperial Legation's bastion for more than nine hours with their dread fires, before disappearing again unknown and unidentified into the deep night. Black-hulled ships were sighted over Dark Haven, while at the edge of the Zavarich system, a hulking Dolmar class mass conveyor carrying processed nutrients enough to feed millions simply disappeared without trace on its way to its assigned Warp transit point. As news of the events spread, an insurrectionist revolt flared up on Moab, the mob chanting the Warmasters name, only to be bloodily put down in a five week pacification pogrom and the instigation of planet-wide martial law.
独眼巨人星群现在开始全副武装起来，一百个世界的鸟卜仪和星语占卜仪开始带着恐惧和敏锐的警惕向外伸展探测。报告被传送给了位于Lascal和Dominica Minor上的帝国舰队中央指挥部，其内容被筛选和组织，希望能以此来预测出（叛军行动）模式并计划防御措施。直到现在，这次无声入侵的（严重）程度才变得清晰起来。在Taracanis世界，圣像号再次出现并发送了那条阴森的信息，但在此之前，它炸毁轨道上的一座对接站，残骸坠落到星球地表，杀死了一万三千人。在Shear世界，远程探测器观察到二十艘主力级战舰之间的一场野蛮虚空战斗，他们恐怖的火光照亮了帝国使节堡垒的神秘屏障护盾，持续时间超过了九个小时；之后，这些不为人知也未能被辨别出的飞船再次消失在了夜空深处。“黑暗天堂”世界上空被看到了黑色的飞船，同时在Zavarich星系边境，一艘多玛尔级大型货运舰在前往被指定的亚空间中转点时消失得无影无踪——船上运输的加工营养物足够供养数百万人。随着关于这些事件的信息传播开来，Moab世界上也爆发了反抗暴动，在为期五周的镇压行动与全球范围军事戒严状态的刺激下，星球当局血腥进攻了那些高呼战帅之名的暴民们。
It was to this fever of rumour and baleful repon that confirmed word of the Dropsite Massacre came at last and overdue, like a death blow to a wounded man. Panic erupted amid the ruling classes of a score of threatened worlds in the Cyclops Cluster, factionalism long simmering came to the fore, and worlds long used to operating largely independently from each other became isolationist and insular, distrusting their own neighbours and withdrawing troops and ships from their tithe to the Imperialis Armada's overall plan of defence. Almost unheeded, other stranger reports came to the attention of some Imperial Commanders and authorities, but in a rising climate of distrust and paranoia were either ignored or simply not shared onwards: reports of a deadly race between Loyalist and Traitor for the sanctuary of the underground hives of distant Keopsis before the solar fires of its angry sun scorched its surface in its endless cycle of life and death. Of a great dragon-prowed battle barge, perhaps once emerald and gold, now blasted nearly cinder-black, taking on supplies at a feral world near Fellwatch Keep, but departing before interceptor vessels could draw close. Of the most direly portentous report —that of a deadly plague erupting on Hialis within hours of an unknown comet appearing in the heavens of the recently contacted feudal world— was nothing inferred or was anyone forewarned. Everywhere, crackdowns against unrest were brutally enforced, trade links grew thin, emergency laws were enacted, workers were conscripted to militias, industry began to grind slow, and everywhere rumour and fear began to overtake the dream of unity. The Cyclops Cluster as a coherent structure within the Imperium began slowly to unravel.
就在谣言与恶毒评论四起的状况下，关于登陆点大屠杀的确切消息才最终姗姗来迟，如同向一个受伤的人发出了致命一击。独眼巨人星群中数十个遭受威胁的世界的统治阶层都陷入了恐慌，长期酝酿的派系主义走到前台，长期以来相互独立运作的世界们变得孤立保守，他们不再信任自己的邻居，并从用于帝国舰队整体防御计划的什一税中撤回了舰船和部队。几乎没有人注意到，其他一些奇怪的报告引起了某些帝国指挥官和当局的注意，但在不信任和偏执的氛围不断加剧的情况下，这些信息要么被忽视，要么干脆未被分享:在遥远的Keopsis世界上，忠诚派和叛军们为争夺地下巢都的避难所而展开了致命的争斗，之后他们头顶上暴怒的太阳释放出了恒星（耀斑）火焰，在无休止的生死轮回中烤焦了星球地表；一艘巨大的龙首（样式）战列母舰在Fellwatch要塞附近的荒蛮世界上获取了补给——它曾经或许喷涂着翡翠绿色和金色，但现在几乎被炸成了煤渣黑色，但在截击舰船能够接近之前，它便动身离开了。其中最恐怖的一份预示性报告是：一颗彗星出现在了最近与帝国接触过的封建世界Hialis 的天空中，数小时后该世界上爆发了一场致命瘟疫——此事未得到暗示，也没有任何人得到事先警告。各地都残酷地镇压骚乱，贸易联系变得稀少，紧急状态法案也被颁布，工人们征募为民兵，工业生产开始减缓，谣言和恐惧开始在各处取代统一的梦想。作为帝国内部一个有凝聚力的结构体，独眼巨人星群开始慢慢瓦解了。
And so the name of Horus, once almost a talisman in itself of protection for the common man and woman, was now a byword for a terror that dare not be named.
荷鲁斯，这个名字曾经几乎是护佑普通人类的护身符，现在则是一种无人胆敢说出其名讳的恐惧的代名词。
