Mid-Hive, outskirts of the District 9 Forbidden Zone.
Inside the Helios Group's temporary command post, several mercenary captains responsible for guarding the blockade were gathered around a table playing cards. The surface was cluttered with crumpled Imperial credits and several bottles of low-quality Amasec.
"Pair of Kings."
"Pass."
"I'm serious, when is HQ actually going to pay us? It's been delayed for half a month already," a bearded captain grumbled, slamming his cards onto the table. "If the money doesn't come soon, I'm taking my boys and pulling out. Let whoever wants to guard this dump stay here."
"I heard the finance department is cooking the books. Thor and those other old fossils want to pin the deficit on Zeman," another captain said, nonchalantly shuffling the deck. "Doesn't matter to us anyway. Our job is just to watch the perimeter and make sure no one gets in."
Rumble—
Suddenly, the wine bottles on the table jumped.
The ground began to vibrate violently. It wasn't the slight tremor of a heavy truck passing by; it was a terrifying force rising from the depths of the planetary crust, capable of tearing rock asunder.
"Earthquake?!"
Their faces paled. Before they could find their footing, an even more violent jolt struck.
Crack—!!!
A massive fissure split the ceiling of the command post, showering the room in dust and debris. Outside, the ground emitted a bone-grinding tearing sound. The once-level concrete plaza of District 9 was now being thrust upward by an invisible giant hand from below, bulging high in the center while cobweb-like cracks spread across the perimeter.
"Run! The ground is collapsing!"
The mercenaries didn't even stop to grab the money as they scrambled out of the tent. They hadn't run far before they witnessed a sight they would never forget.
At the center of District 9—where the entrance to Sector D once stood—the ground violently exploded. It wasn't a standard blast; it was like a volcanic eruption. Millions of tons of soil, rock, and the construction machinery Helios hadn't yet evacuated were hurled into the sky.
Amidst the swirling dust and rubble, a massive, pitch-black "drill" shimmering with an eerie blue light breached the surface.
No, that wasn't a drill!
That was a goddamn prow!!
It was the prow of the ship, armored with adamantium plating meters thick!!
The ship was encased in a visible, translucent force field—the void shields running at full power. Every rock, steel bar, and slab of concrete that struck the shield was either deflected or pulverized by the warped spatial energy.
The three-kilometer-long starship was like a great whale breaching the ocean surface. With unstoppable momentum, it forced its way through hundreds of meters of geological strata and surged toward the heavens.
"Holy... holy shit..."
The bearded captain stood frozen, jaw agape, his cigarette falling to the ground. "What the hell is that thing?!"
"A ship—it's a ship!"
"It flew out! It flew right out of the ground!!"
The ship's main engines were venting plasma plumes thousands of meters long. The brilliant blue flames tore through the hive's night sky, the sheer heat instantly igniting the surrounding air and glazing everything on the ground into glass.
A massive wall of sound followed, agonizing the eardrums of everyone nearby and shattering windows kilometers away.
Screech—
Accompanied by the screeching of tortured metal, the ship finally broke free from the earth's shackles. Carrying a shroud of dirt and stone, and bathed in the glow of its uncooled shields, the ship punched through the clouds with brutal defiance.
Upper Hive, Helios Headquarters.
Thor sat in his office, brow furrowed as he reviewed the latest financial reports. Suddenly, the entire spire shuddered. A water glass on his desk toppled over, spilling across the floor.
"What's happening? An earthquake?"
Thor stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. Looking toward the Mid-Hive, he saw a colossal pillar of smoke rising into the atmosphere. At the apex of that smoke, a massive black shape was ascending rapidly.
That silhouette. That scale.
Thor knew it all too well. It was the Rogue Trader starship he had dreamed of excavating but could never reach.
"No... impossible..."
Thor's hand trembled against the glass, his aged face etched with terror and despair. "How is it flying?! Who is piloting it?! Isn't that machine spirit insane?!"
"Quick! Contact the group's anti-air units! Shoot it down! Don't let it escape!" Thor turned and sprinted toward the comms console, screaming frantically.
But deep down, he knew it was too late. The ship was active. It was airborne. With the meager anti-air missiles Helios possessed, there was no stopping a starship of this class.
Unless... unless the Adeptus Mechanicus were willing to fire the orbital defense lasers.
Mechanicus Temple, Forging Spire.
Sigma-7 watched the scene unfold, his electronic eyes flickering with streams of red data.
"Warp engine signature detected. Void shield reaction detected."
"Target: Rogue Trader-class armed transport."
"Status: Forced atmospheric ascent."
Sigma-7's logic circuits calculated at lightning speed. Clearly, this was a severe violation of protocol. No filed flight plan, no orbital path application—it had even caused massive surface destruction during its forced takeoff. According to Imperial law and Mechanicus dogma, this could be classified as a terrorist attack and an act of absolute heresy. It had to be shot down!
"Fire! Open fire immediately!"
Sigma-7 roared in anger, his finger slamming down on the firing button for the orbital defense laser array. One press, and several megawatt-level lasers would descend from the heavens to slice the accelerating vessel in half.
However.
The expected destructive beams did not appear. Instead, a series of glaring red error codes lit up the console.
Beep—! Beep—!
[Error: Array Offline.]
[Error: Capacitors Unloaded.]
[Error: Fire-control Servo-skulls in Hibernation.]
[Last System Maintenance: 137 years ago.]
Sigma-7's hand froze in mid-air. His logic core nearly overloaded from sheer frustration.
"Damn those lazy organic remnants!"
Shit!
He just remembered that Forge VII's orbital defense system had been neglected for over a century. Since the last time they repelled Greenskin pirates, the system had been powered down due to budget cuts and a lack of maintenance. To reawaken this sleeping giant wasn't as simple as pressing a button. It required emergency repairs to ancient wiring, injecting high-energy plasma fuel into dry capacitors, and kicking awake the fire-control servitors currently sleeping in their sarcophagi for recalibration.
Sigma-7 quickly calculated the required procedures.
[Emergency Deployment Protocol Initiated—]
[Estimated Minimum Time: 3 hours.]
"Three hours?!"
Sigma-7 glared at the screen where the ship was already vanishing into the clouds. He wanted to smash the console. Three hours? Was this some kind of interstellar joke? The opportunity would be long gone!
Just as he was about to issue a reckless forced-override command—even if it meant blowing up the entire system just to fire—he suddenly read a string of highly specific code within the ship's identification signal.
It was a sequence of sacred code seen only in the most classified archives.
"That... is a signal from a Golden Age Fragment?"
Sigma-7 froze again. Anger was instantly replaced by greed and caution. If that ship truly carried a fragment from the Golden Age of Technology, and he shot it down, wouldn't he be the sinner who destroyed a holy relic? Besides, Archmagos Cawl was nearby!
Whirrr—
The exhaust fans hummed heavily as Sigma-7 forced his logic core to cool down.
Fine. Based on its flight path, it was clearly heading for low-earth orbit. He didn't know what it intended to do there, but since he couldn't fire anyway, he might as well use these three hours for something else.
"Three hours... let it jump around for three more hours."
Sigma-7 issued his commands: "Reboot the defense array at full power. All Skitarii move to Condition One readiness. Lock onto it. The moment it tries to leave orbit, my guns will be ready. By then, whether it lives or dies will be up to me."
Bridge of the ship.
The violent vibrations forced Andy to grip the handrails with all his might. Despite the inertial dampeners, the brutal takeoff method caused the ship's structural frame to groan in agony.
"Warning! Portside armor plating shedding!"
"Warning! Attitude thruster No. 3 blocked!"
"Warning! Shield capacity dropped to 40%!"
Six's voice remained calm as she processed tens of thousands of alerts per millisecond. "Correcting flight path. 15 seconds to orbital dock. Preparing to cut engines."
Andy watched the massive metal ring—the orbital dock—grow larger on the screen. Inside the dock, anti-gravity generators were already running at full power, creating an invisible force field funnel.
Please catch us... Andy prayed silently.
"We're in!" Six reported.
The ship's massive hull slid precisely into the embrace of the orbital dock.
Hum—!!
The anti-gravity field acted on the hull instantly. The massive inertia was softly neutralized, and the ship's speed dropped from several Mach to zero in a matter of seconds. It was like a high-speed baseball being caught firmly by a giant, soft glove.
Clang! Clang!
The dock's heavy mechanical arms snapped shut, locking the hull in place. A vacuum force field activated, enveloping the entire vessel.
"Capture successful," Six reported. "We are safe. For now."
Andy let out a long breath and sank into the command chair. Through the bridge's observation window, he could see the grey planet below. A massive, smoke-filled crater now scarred the surface of the Mid-Hive.
They had finally left the ground. But this was only the first step. The true challenge was just beginning.
"Everyone," Andy opened the comms. "We only have three hours. In three hours, we have to get out of this damn orbit, or the Mechanicus fire-control radar is going to light us up!"