Primarch Khan was waiting, his hand holding the Dao's hilt as to better focus his mind.
Four Fury fighters patrolling the outer edge of the Amarah's system had gone dark, almost tracing a straight line towards the system's sun, yet avoiding the planet itself. Was it a real attack, or a feint?
The Lexmechanics and several Sages inside the command room put forward a theory, deducing the attacker was a single ship, somehow disguised or invisible to their auspex or psyker senses.
A few seconds later, a las-comm message arrived from the Eternal Lament. "Librarian Valerian Lancefire reporting! Large Necron ship, present on the other side of the sun. Take evasive action and declare battlestations!"
Short and to the point, and almost ordering a Primarch what to do!
Already the Halo Crusade fleet was moving, accelerating towards the nearest moon while sending out fighters in a wide screen, and three wings of corvettes down into low orbit. "Tell me more, damn Lancefire!"
the Primarch growled as he noticed the Lancefire ships going dark, vox channels closing abruptly.
"Set condition red! Enemy attack imminent." the Primarch decided in another second, the vox order spreading through the Indomitus Fleet, as well as the White Scars and all successor Chapters.
A sage to his left tried to speak, but faltered and fell on his face, leaking blood and brains through his nose and ears.
"We are already under attack..." he realized a bit too late.
"My Lord, the sun..." the nearest lexmechanic muttered in a pained voice, then crashed in a sputter of electric crackles.
"This is Primarch Khan! Turn off all vox channels! Confirm!" he yelled, but nobody replied over the static.
"...A Primarch? Such a worthy prey!" an alien voice spoke through the vox speakers, mechanical yet filled with anger and hate.
"My lord, what do we do?" the Glory's Captain yelled in confusion, then burst into smoke and flames as his command throne short-circuited violently.
"Begone, foul xenos!" a Cardinal shouted in a furious voice, and began shooting his las-pistol all around, even glancing hits off Astartes armor nearby. Choom choom! Two bolt rounds splattered the fanatic fool before he could ruin even more stuff.
"Stay calm, everyone! It's just a single Necron ship! Let's find it and finish them off!" Khan boomed in a command voice, restoring some order on the bridge of the Glory battle-carrier.
"My lord, the sun is wobbling! Nav Cogitator predicts cataclysmic event in T minus 9 minutes!" the Navigation officer managed to provide, in a more coherent tone.
"All ships, evasive action. Ground units, seek deep shelter! Void Shields to maximum! " Khan ordered in a calm voice, and watched his sons nodded and rush away, already knowing what to do.
The new las-comm systems began to light up nearest ships, providing a modicum of control over the flailing fleet.
The Black Lament fortress changed vectors and moved to interpose itself between the sun and the planet, and moments later a deep Pariah blanket covered the entire system.
"Energy readings similar to the known Necron Pylons, but far stronger! Also, there is something moving inside the sun! A green giant!" the Auspex officer noticed, eyes glued to his archeo-tech scanning device installed by the Emperor himself.
For once in his life, Primarch Khan felt outpaced by the developing situation. An invisible ship, able to manipulate suns? A giant creature able to move inside that sun? What was the next course of action?
"A C'tan, and stronger than a mere shard." he heard the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor mutter to her Deathwatch escort.
"We need Lord Lancefire..." he heard the Lamenter Deathwatch whisper to his Inquisitor.
"Or I could use that." the Black Shield Deathwatch proposed with a gloomy voice.
"Blowing up another sun won't help us right now, Brother Alric." the Inquisitor answered in a soft, yet calm voice.
'Calm down, everyone! Pef Lancefire is here." a small voice spoke inside everyone's heads, making Semnai, the Lamenter Deathwatch chuckle for no reason.
'Primarch, steer your fleet behind the planet, versus the sun. May save some of them, that way...' Lancefire continued on a personal note.
'How far are you?' he asked instead, while his fingers flashed the orders to his gene-sons around.
'Still 200 AU away. Their Necron leader wasn't home.' the strange Blank said with a careless tone, as if his words didn't already indicate an entire Necron Dynasty was destroyed, with a single escaped ship causing trouble for the Orpheus Sector's capital world.
Kicking the fried ship-captain's corpse away, the Inquisitor sat comfortably in the command throne, and began to steer the Glory away, the las-comms pulsing rapidly towards the other las-comm equipped capital ships in the Indomitus fleet.
The poor frigates and destroyers remained behind, likely still shouting for orders on the jammed vox channels.
A claw-shaped solar flare rose from the sun and began reaching for Amarah, when the Black Lament fired its beam towards the sun, causing a terrified scream to emerge from the green giant inside.
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The other Blackstone Fortress fired its beam as well, making everyone on the Glory fall to their knees in pain, as their souls felt sucked out from their bodies.
Khan raised his Null Rod and held it high, covering the nearby Astartes and command staff with a Nullification aura.
After a long minute, something exploded deep inside the sun, shattering into a thousand green shards. Then one by one the green crystals began to vanish, and the sun lost its furious claws. However, a single solar flare continued on its way to Amarah, while the Black Lament stood valiantly right in front of it.
Just before the flare struck the escorts ships, they vanished by miracle and reappeared on the dark side of Amarah, already ahead of the Indomitus fleet.
'Detecting multiple infiltrators inside the Indomitus ships. Deploying my Thallax now' Lancefire spoke in a mild voice, and a hundred Thallax suits teleported quietly all over the bridge.
A second later, a green flash appeared in a corner up high, and a dozen Thallax fired their weapons at the sneaky Deathmark assassin.
Khan jumped to his feet and sped towards the Necron assassin, only to find his Dao pass through the xenos robot without any damage. Phase tech!
Another green flash and the Deathmark vanished.
'One second...now!' Lancefire spoke in his mind, then appeared just above him and sliced through empty air, for the Deathmark to emerge from a teleport right into the path of his Phase Claw.
They both vanished after this, leaving behind only a Necron arm holding half of a xenos rifle.
"He's got upgrades now..." Deathwatch Semnai observed with a cold, but curious voice.
"We need to form a Kill-team and go after their leader. Auspex, find me a teleportarium target!" Khan demanded in a harsh voice, and kicked the Necron arm away. He was almost shot in the head from above!
Gritting his teeth, he placed his helmet on, and powered up the refractor shield. Looking cool was fine, but losing his head was not survivable. He was not Vulkan! Not that his poor brother survived either.
Copying their Primarch, his Honor Guard also placed their helmets on, and held their weapons at ready. Another Deathmark was not likely, but better to be safe.
"Lord Khan, there is a mass-signature being lit up by the Nova Cannon bombardment from the Crusade fleet. Nova shells ineffective!" the Auspex Officer explained and placed the readings on the main screen.
Clenching his hand on the Dao, Khan nodded towards the lexmechanic. "Understood, my lord. Calculating spatial coordinates for a teleport..."
Without a teleport, Khan and his entire retinue got moved instantly aboard the Necron vessel, also escorted by thousands of Thallax suits already firing at invisible targets.
Peeking into a side corridor, Khan noticed a large Tyranid Tyrant painted yellow, ripping apart a Necron Destroyer, while a dozen Necron Immortals fired their Gauss beams and gouged fist-sized holes into the Tyranid's metal plates bolted to its chitin armor.
Khan signaled his group and took another tunnel through the Tomb Ship. That Lamenter Auxilia Tyrant wasn't very safe to go near.
As the Kill-team advanced, more Thallax suits ran by, covered in blue shields and firing their strange weapons at certain green devices, then sliced with Phase Blades through invisible Necron spider and millipede-looking constructs.
It was like an alien army battled another alien army, using strange weapons and finding themselves even while invisible.
"Large energy signature forward, my lord. It may be an engine or the bridge..." A nearby White Scar Captain pointed with his hand-held auspex.
An instant later, a centipede robot fell from the ceiling on top of the man, and minced him to small bits, even while the Kill-team fired their entire bolter mags with no obvious effect.
Khan entered hyperspeed and flashed forward, using his tremendous strength and the archeo-tech fields imbued into the Dao to chop the alien robot into several bits.
"Bolters ineffective, Primarch! Think you could get us some of these new Ion Beamers? Captain Noghai might have been saved." a veteran Sergeant asked with obvious grievance.
Khan grit his teeth and pushed forward. The Mechanicus were not the friendly types to give out rare-pattern weapons just because he asked.
"I'll need to ask Lancefire." he admitted with a complex voice. Lancefire would not refuse, but instead demand some strange task of him again!
"... Then we'll manage without." the veteran son muttered with disgust.
"Being willful is not the right way. And his Mourners are not that bad either." Khan grunted as his sword flashed once more, straight through a near invisible shape mimicking a column.
A dozen spider constructs teleported in front of them and just ignored the Kill-team, firing distorting beams at an ambush of Immortals led by a Destroyer Lord. The target Necrons vanished somewhere, and the spiders sped on ahead, showing bleeding hearts painted on their backs.
Necron Auxilia now? Khan wanted to spit in disgust, but it would only fill his helmet with phlegm. Crazy Lancefire!