Lord Inquisitor Horst and Magus Vick cut through the silent void aboard a sleek Inquisitorial shuttle, gliding across the outer defense perimeter that ringed the Mandeville Point like a wall of steel and purpose. Their destination lay ahead, the Hive World that served as the primary capital of the Talon System.
It was Horst's first visit to this distant region of Imperial space, and despite decades of service and countless campaigns, the seasoned inquisitor felt a spark of childlike curiosity as he peered through the shuttle's viewport, taking in the sight of the Talon fleet and its defensive bastions scattered across the void.
What immediately struck Horst was how radically different the Talon fleet was compared to the fleets of the Imperium of Man, their warships bore no resemblance to the venerable designs of the Segmentum Obscurus or the Gothic War era.
There were no cathedral spires, no purity seals, no iron reliquaries bolted to armor plating. Even their hulls lacked the ornate iconography of the Ecclesiarchy.
To Horst, who once fought in the brutal campaigns of the Gothic War, the absence of Imperial design philosophy was unsettling. Yet what mattered most wasn't esoteric technology that reeked of sorcery, but rather the military strength of Talon's navy.
"Ten cruisers, five destroyers, twenty-seven escorts, and three battleships," Vick offered, noticing the inquisitor's interest. "They don't use void shields or Gellar fields. They don't even transition into the Immaterium for FTL travel…"
Horst's brow furrowed. Without Gellar fields, how did they survive transit through the Warp, or had they circumvented it entirely?
Horst, deeply familiar with naval warfare, found something troubling in the fleet's composition. These vessels couldn't properly constitute a battlefleet, nor could they be evenly split into proper squadrons. The underutilization of destroyers was especially glaring.
Perhaps it was because the Talon system wasn't a full Segmentumand lacked the resources to field a standard Battlefleet.
Or maybe their fleet design philosophy simply diverged so much from the Imperium's that their entire fleet doctrine was fundamentally different.
Horst noted that while the Imperium's fleets favored rigid class systems and layered defense formations, Lunar-class cruisers anchoring the core, Sword-class escorts screening the flanks, Talon's ships flew in looser wedge formations, emphasizing maneuverability over armor. This was a fleet built for fast redeployment and unpredictable engagements, not slugging matches.
But then Vick said something that made Horst's eyes narrow.
"All of these ships were constructed within a year and a half. Their Orbital manufactoria have been operating at full capacity, producing whatever they could, however much they could."
"A year and a half?" Horst was clearly startled. "How many servitor-laborers did they press into service?
"Even fully augmented slaves or labor-automata working themselves to death around the chron may not match the output. Their fabrication tech, it's like techno-sorcery. It manifests the object as if summoned from the Warp," Vick said with a grim tone. This update ıs available on 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭•𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦•𝘯𝘦𝘵
"A standard Imperial dockyard takes anywhere from five to seven years just to produce a single Mars-pattern cruiser," Horst muttered. "Battleships can take decades. And you're telling me they built three in less than two?"
"Yes. One shipyard here alone outputs what would be expected from four Segmentum-level forges," Vick replied. "Their resource acquisition is aggressive, but efficient, off-world asteroid harvesting, automated refinery moons, and an powerful logistical network."
Horst silently nodded, his eyes locking onto the silhouette of one of the battleships.
The Talon cruisers and destroyers looked similar, but their battleships were easily twice the size, massive constructs armed with heavy particle lances and banks of unfamiliar plasma weaponry. Though Vick's intelligence reports didn't detail the Talon fleet specs, they did list some of the weapon signatures used aboard.
Each battleship bristled with point-defense turrets, practically encasing the ship's superstructure. A vast hangar bay was visible near the rear, a sign of strike craft deployment capability. Put simply: the battleship was a scaled-up cruiser with exponentially greater firepower.
Unlike the Imperium's Mars-pattern battleships or the Apocalypse-class vessels that traded broadside power for range, Talon's capital ships appeared to favor spinal-mount weapons and omni-directional turret saturation. This indicated a focus on 3D maneuver engagements, perhaps even combat scenarios outside normal Newtonian predictability.
Horst, trained in naval estimation techniques during the Gothic War, performed a rough hand-measurement through the viewport, squinting with one eye.
"That ship's gotta be… 25 kilometers in length. Maybe 27… or 22 at the smallest."
"I've never measured it," Vick admitted. "Didn't ask either."
Horst let the matter drop. Instead, he turned to another curiosity.
"Do their ships have Class names? I mean, like Lunar-class, Tempest-class? Any equivalent?"
"No class designations. They're named individually post-construction," Vick replied, pointing to the first battleship on the left flank of the fleet.
On its prow was emblazoned the image of a man wielding a chainsword, arm outstretched, as if pointing forward in command.
"That's thePath of Glory. Designated as the current flagship, a title of honor typically reserved for the fleet admiral's vessel or the largest ship. I've heard rumors it houses a secret weapon.
The other two battleships are theUnyielding LoyaltyandNew Kato. The first commemorates the Loyalist resistance on Talon II. The second is named after a new city established by the Lord of Talon in the lower hive. I don't know much beyond that."
Horst fell silent after hearing the explanations, then turned to Vick with a cold glint in his eye.
"Lord of Talon... Classic cult of personality. They're lucky it's me visiting and notKaramazov. He'd glass the entire system just to be sure the Emperor's will hadn't been diluted by all this unorthodox success."
The name hit Vick like a bolt round. Even someone not steeped in Inquisition politics knew the name Inquisitor Karamazov, a zealot of the highest order.
"The Throne's Burning Hammer," Vick muttered. There was once a man much like the Lord of Talon, who led Loyalists to victory over heretics, only to be dragged away by Karamazov, tortured until dead, reduced to bones and ash.
Karamazov didn't believe in grey areas. He saw doubt as treason, and innovation as deviation. Entire worlds had burned under his word alone.
Vick had to agree, but then smirked and muttered:
"If Karamazov ever showed up, a single particle lance would had turnt hisInquisitorial Cruiserto slag."
"Quite right," Horst nodded, his gaze drifting to the distant orbital bastions. "If that man, once tortured by Karamazov, had possessed Talon's firepower and heretical technologies, the Ordo Hereticus would've likely opened an potential heretic investigation into Karamazov himself."
Vick offered no reply, simply sitting in silence.
Horst, meanwhile, resumed gazing out the viewport.
Two orbital satellites spun slowly in the void, their sizes comparable to small moons. Between them, vast mechanical constructs were at work, clearly assembling something massive.
Construction pylons stretched like spires toward each other, welding together a new vessel or station, its skeleton pulsing with crimson work-lights. Judging by the curvature and exposed weapon hardpoints, it could have been a mobile dreadnought platform, possibly a command carrier or siege barge.
Horst wasn't a tech-priest, but his instincts told him that whatever was being constructed between those two fortress-moons, once completed, would render Talon a veritable fortress. A bastion not just of survival, but of expansion.
Still, compared to the existential threat looming over the entire species, the Talon system's ascension was a footnote.
While Horst drifted slowly toward the hive world aboard his shuttle, Belisarius Cawl had already arrived.
The moment Cawl laid cybernetic eyes on Qin Mo, he realized the man wasn't the least bit surprised by his presence, so he didn't bother with explanations and simply followed Qin through the hive.
To the untrained, the logi-servitors and drones might fool even a well-read inquisitor. But not Belisarius Cawl, High Magos of Mars, Archmagos Dominus, the tech-savant of the Imperium. He saw through their tricks in an instant.
Once deep within the hive's inner sanctum, Cawl confronted Qin Mo bluntly:
"You're using Abominable Intelligence, aren't you?"
"Yes," Qin Mo admitted without hesitation. "But it's safer and bolder than anything you've created, or are currently researching."
Cawl regarded him for a long moment. Then he laughed.
"Ha… I've never researched such forbidden knowledge. But you, if the Imperium learns you're employing AI, they'll burn entire sectors to erase you."
"I doubt your primary consciousness is even here. Let me guess, what I'm seeing is one of your sub-personality replicants, the one with a bashful virgin's demeanor. Otherwise, you wouldn't be acting so damn pure."
Cawl's laughter deepened into something darker, layered. "And yet even my bashful aspects have erased entire research outposts for less."
Had it been any other Magos, Qin Mo would already have taken a plasma shot to the chest.
But Cawl was different. A radical among radicals. He carried a litany of proscribed technologies, many of which the Inquisition would brand as heresy and would have any lesser Magos executed.
His reputation within the Cult Mechanicus was both revered and hated. His list of enemies stretched from Holy Terra to Olympia Mons. Yethe believed in his grand cause. And rightfully so.
The Enhanced Primaris Astartes, the means to awaken a Primarch encased in stasis, and a dozen other monumental innovations, these were Cawl's legacy.
Qin Mo knew he didn't need to hold back in front of such a man. If he had the scientific prowess of a C'tan, he'd be even more reckless.
"You know me well?" Cawl asked, narrowing his mechanical eyes. "You act like we've met."
"Just did my homework," Qin Mo replied casually.
Cawl could sense the enigma that surrounded this man, but he didn't press. He was here for one reason, technology. Any kind. Anything useful.
The Talon system wasn't unclaimed space. Acquiring its tech would come at a price.
"I've developed a high-efficiency heat dissipation tech. I'll gift it to you, on one condition," Qin Mo said.
Cawl, curious, nodded without protest.
"Don't use Vick as your errand boy. Let him actually accomplish something in your Forge World."
Cawl tilted his head, puzzled at first by the personal nature of the request. But he quickly saw the solution. Disassociate Vick, vouch for him, hand him off to a more conventional Tech-Priest, and give him access to a few non-heretical schematics.
From there, it would be up to Vick, if he worked hard and luck favored him, perhaps he might one day acquire an STC template… perhaps even rise to a rulingMagos Dominusof a Forge World someday.
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