40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 186: Occam

"Brother Semnai, you and five Lamenters Companies will deploy at the Eternity Gate and protect the glass throne inside. Janice, you and your girls go and help as well." I decided after a minute of consideration. While the Sisters of Battle weren't quite the supersoldiers of Astartes level, they had armor and weapons far ahead of regular troops, plus the mental fortitude to resist demons and psyker spells.

The veteran Astartes slammed his chest with an armed fist. "It will be our honor, my Lord!"

Well, honor for sure. Probably a glorious death as well. But no Astartes has died of old age, and I trusted my Blank sons a million times more than any other force in the Imperium.

With a flick of my gloved hand, half of the troops aboard the Black Lament vanished, to reappear inside the Imperial Palace on Terra.

"Princeps Dae, your Titan legion and the techmarines will deploy around the Palace and engage the traitors. Captain Chyron, you'll have local command on the ground." I ordered while splitting off the big guns, and deploying them to support the besieged Adeptus Custodes.

It helped that Terra had the greatest array of defenses known to man, not only ships and orbital forts but also a million Imperial Guard and PDF regiments, all eager to die for the Emperor. And die they did, as barracks and garrisons were being overwhelmed by crazed cultists and corrupted forces, entire traitor regiments and some Astartes Chapters supporting the coup, while minor Navy squadrons and Aeronautica fighters were strafing their positions with megatonnes of ordnance and laser batteries.

But stolen tanks and lasguns wouldn't fare that well against Titans and Guardian turrets, especially as each Titan was deployed with its support units, anti-air tanks, Armed Sentinels for close support and reconnaissance Weasels and Manticores loaded with krak missiles for suppressive fire.

There were other forces remaining in the reserve, the Auxilia regiments and the Silent Sisters, and those I began deploying regiment by regiment and squad by squad on Luna and Mars, trying to cover as many eventualities as possible.

Fighting inside the regolith tunnels on Luna was fairly similar to ship boarding, and the Rapiers and Sentinels of the Catachan heavy infantry could inflict much damage on the attackers. Traps and psychic protection would prevent my troops from being overrun with Chaos curses and illusions, while spaceports and large manufactorums on the surface of Mars could be defended by enclosed armored units and portable Bastion forcefields on Ragnarok tank chassis.

Mars itself had gigantic orbital defenses, from a ring of armored pylons supporting the orbital docks, to a large fleet of Mechanicus cruisers and battleships in high orbit, plus a billion Skitarii and battle-automata manning the defense bunkers and security portals into the lower levels under the red planet. But Necrons were mechanical as well, so I decided to send humans there to help with defenses instead of techmarines, since the Necrons might have cogito-viruses or other exotic means of subverting the cyborgs and the robots of the Mechanicus.

And indeed, less than an hour later my predictions came true, as the Necron ships crossed the minefields around Mars unimpeded, and lost a single ship to the Martian fleet, before crash-landing on the surface.

Waves and bubbles of EMP and engrammatic streams flooded the robotic defenders, shutting down a good portion of the Skitarii and the battle-automata in Valles Marineris sector, allowing the invaders to reach kilometers deep and breach the underhives with anti-gravity platforms and a large invasion force of Warriors and Scarabs.

Here, my armored regiments proved their worth, as their Volcano Lances and Plasma cannons matched the Necron weaponry in firepower, while their blackstone armor and Ion shields served as a bulwark against the terror of skin-flaying gauss beams and other energy weapons.

Meanwhile, the corrupted Glorianna battleship forced its way into Jupiter's defenses, laying waste to dockyards and orbital factories, and glassing the surface of Ganymede for some reason.

The Phalanx and the Singularity were the only human vessels able to confront it on equal terms, but the Phalanx Fortress was lacking repairs and maintenance, while the Singularity was unable to break the dimensional shields of the enemy battleship with its primary weapon, nor was it feasible to fire it too close to an inhabited world, so a hundred Nova Cannon cruisers were diverted to help.

Fighting continued all over the system, xenos, demons and traitors trying to crush the heart of humanity and nearly succeeding.

Without my fortuitous presence, they might have. Perhaps not just by myself.

Anyways, drop-pods with Tarantula turrets started falling from the skies on Terra and Mars, providing even more firepower to support the defenders, and the attacks on Venus were repelled with minimal losses. I started redeploying the Imperial Knights and the Leviathan Dreadknights to increase the weight of firepower on Luna and Mars, using the gigantic walkers as shields and breaching rams for my other troops.

"My lord, there are Harlequins here! Coming through the Webgate!" Semnai alerted me via a messenger from the Golden Throne room.

I stopped for a moment to consider this. Harlequins were special forces, not front line units. What could they want?

"Ignore them and focus on demons as per regular protocols." I replied a second later. The Emperor wasn't there anyway, so the Golden Throne was less of a priority than it would have been normally.

I could see the Custodes Captain with the Emperor in his floating wheelchair, and Sanguinus and Guilliman discussing something above a large holomap of the Sol System, my ships and troops highlighted in yellow, while traitors and xenos all appeared in red.

Why was I yellow? Weren't we on the same side?

My brain was heating up already, with the influx of information and the strain of moving troops around from crisis to crisis.

And the Machine Spirit of the Black Lament was trying to explode my mind as well, screaming for blood and vengeance.

I took out the Sounding Board and placed it right behind my command chair, while my left hand rested on my wolf's head at my side.

"What do you think, Canis? What is really going on here?" I mused to myself, while Clara glanced at me from her station with a confused look.

"Woo? Wooof!" the loyal wolf answered after analyzing the system map with wise eyes.

"Yes. Distractions all around. But that Glorianna battleship is the linchpin indeed. What else?" I hummed in a low voice.

"It's you, dad. You, the Blackstone Fortress and what we have on board." Clara said with a clear voice.

I turned my head to look at Rose, question unasked but nevertheless still asked.

The Inquisitor looked at me with her violet glowing eyes, then down at Canis. "It's possible. Trying to make you leave the Fortress, and capture it or destroy it. Janice is already away..." Rose commented with a logical tone.

The Deceiver then. He was possibly the only behind the destruction of the other Blackstone Fortresses, since their Immaterium beam was capable of killing Greater Demons or C'tan alike.

Canis nosed my glove as a hint. Yes, I suppose I could use the tesseract that way.

The next second, I had two Primarchs and the Emperor on board, plus Captain Valoris.

"Janice, I need you back on the fortress. With the glass throne." I sent via the Sounding Board. The device was multidimensional so it could reach her mind even inside the Golden Throne room.

"Pef, you better have a good reason for abducting us." Sanguinius growled at me in a low voice, while Guilliman clenched his hand on the pommel of his sword.

"There are demons and Harlequins inside the Golden Throne room. There's a C'tan leading that Chaos battleship laying waste at Jupiter, disguised as Omegon. Another C'tan is sleeping on Mars, with Necron troops filling the tunnels and trying to awaken him. Ahriman and other Chaos forces are looting Luna and the gene-banks of the Selenites, while a Hexarchy coup is taking place trying to depose you, Lord Regent. And there were Dark Eldar and Orks around as well, but I dealt with those already." I explained in calm voice.

Roboute Guilliman walked beside my chair to observe the real-time positions of my troops and their current activities. "The defenses of the Imperial Palace will hold, no matter how many traitors throw themselves at the walls. As for Mars...they haven't really used their better weapons yet. We need to go to Jupiter." the Primarch decided in a command tone.

The next second, the Blackstone Fortress vanished and reappeared beside the Phalanx at Jupiter, blocking a battery salvo from the enemy Glorianna with our hull.

"That's the Hydra, the flagship of Alpha Legion. And these multiple attacks, paired with human traitors and xenos...it certainly looks like Alpharius's work." the Primarch mused in a thoughtful voice.

"The strategy was indeed a multi-pronged attack, but the creature on the bridge is not a human. And I'll prove it." I declared confidently, while searching with the Sounding Board for a specific person.

"Brother Occam, you were fooled. Omegon is dead, and that thing wearing his face is only a sneaky C'tan called the Deceiver. The Emperor himself is beside me, here on the bridge of the Black Lament. But you have to act now, lower the shields and strike the xenos!" I spoke directly into his mind.

Occam was one of those Chaos traitors who were still loyal, in their mind. Sure, they attacked and pillaged humans without mercy, but they call it a test from the Emperor. Well, I had a true test, right here.

I could even call it the Occam's Razor.

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