Over half of the planet Kolossi is now on fire, some by accident, some by enemy fire and the rest by our own ships or ground units setting fires to anything corrupted by Chaos.
Luckily, we did have a thousand Silent Sisters as well as Sister Stern to halt the Nurgle plagues from melting the main continent, and Immaterium Beams to splash infected zones from orbit and kill anything alive, or not.
The Keep Inviolate remained mostly intact, if depopulated. Most of the civilians were still held in my tesseract, but the vast majority of their Arbites or local militias were riddled with disease so virulent it could only be cured by flaming promethium.
The genetor clone, Anzion was already working on new vaccines and better cloneskeins to protect our future population agaisnt such attacks, but for a good portion of the Kolossi people, it was too late.
Not even the Knight pilots of the Raven House got away intact, losing over 70% to disease and over half of their Knights suits. They still survived as a House, but barely.
Luckily, Sister Stern was close enough to Demonifuge away the plague from the Keep, and Lady Vardus remained alive. Maybe it was also the Blank child inside her.
Not even my Crusade fleet got away intact, not from a near-equal opponent in the Chaos Fleet. My Apocalypse-B pattern Battleship was too close from the main concentration of Chaos Battleships, and its Void Shields failed before it could retreat away. The new Weave Shield lasted just enough for me to notice and hide it away in the tesseract, but not before substantial damage was inflicted.
The Serenity Battlebarge took a full strike from the Chaos Bombers and got battered badly as well.
And the sad part was that Rotigus may have escaped, banished and surely bruised, but returned into the Warp.
The other one, Belakor died his final death, but he was still only a mortal raised to Daemonhood, not a real Great Daemon.
As for myself? As expected I am stealthily investigating the STC Constructor under the Keep, although I also found a large Vault filled with Knight suits. Over 1000 of them!
It seems the Constructor was at some point building new suits for the colonists, and storing them inside this Vault. But then someone important died and took the secret with him.
Happened way too often in the Imperium, to be fair.
Their loss and my gain. I will only confiscate half of these suits, the more advanced variants like Knight_Castellan . Smaller models like Armiger-class could be traded back to the House Raven.
However, even among the Armiger there is an interesting model I will keep, called Knight_Moirax
These have a whole bunch of ancient tech on them, from a Construct_Shield to Graviton_Pulsar and even a Volkite_Veuglaire that can also be used as a tank cannon. The Construct Shield itself is a wonder of DAOT times, a small and compact Void Shield that can be also mounted on heavy tanks and Leviathan Dreadnoughts.
While the Graviton Pulsar is too small to be mounted a main weapon on starships, it can be used in a different role, to lock a target in place for other weapons to destroy it, for example in fighter combat, or even by my larger Knights as a secondary weapon. The Leviathans should also be able to use it, as they are larger than an Armiger Knight.
The STC Constructor had all these templates installed, and locked to a Princeps genetic code. I was way overqualified for that, with my Titan pilot credentials and the Clavis engrams of my Rossette.
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It even had the template for a Lightning_Lock , basically a directed EMP weapon. Sadly, would be useless agaisnt Tyranids and Orks, or even any infantry in general, but certainly of use against technological enemies like Eldar or Tau. Chaos and Necron were likely immune, due to different operating principles. It would be nearly useless to me right now, but I will trade it away for more ships.
Click, and the giant automated constructor vanished in my tesseract. With a bit of repair and code-cleaning work, this Constructor should be able to churn out any type of walker suit, from Sentinels and Dreadnoughts, to Invictus Warsuits and more Imperial Knights. Maybe even power armor, like Terminator plate? I wasn't sure it could actually construct the smaller Warhound Titans, since Titans had vastly different specifications.
A day later, after the cremations were over, I arrived officially at the Keep and met the remaining Noble Knights.
"Brave Knights of the Imperium! We have fought together and triumphed over this horrible attack by the Ruinous Powers. House Raven still stands and the Keep Inviolate has remained intact. But, you are in poor shape right now."
I spoke in a mourning, grieving and lamenting voice.
"House Raven stands!" they all declared with zeal, as expected of brave Knight pilots.
"Have faith and stand strong, because your ancestors are watching! Deep under the Keep, I found a cache of ancient Knight suits, over 500 of them! The vast majority are Armiger-class, but even so, they will hep you recover faster."
I continued on a more joyful tone.
"Yay! Hurrah!" people cheered, as their loses would be restored with ease.
"I have also spoken with Baroness Vardus, and concluded that your outer holdings planets can be easily defended by Armed Sentinel walkers, which any Forge World can provide with ease. As for the rest, I believe your House would be much safer if your stronger Knight suits were stationed on a Forge World. Not only they would get repairs and upgrades, but they would not be vulnerable to another sudden invasion." I proposed in a calm voice, and just waited.
Basically, they would need to split their House into three groups, one holding the ancestral Keep, one defending the spread out planets of their House( with Sentinels), and the main force beholden to a Forge World for safety and possibly an influx of technology transfer and industrialization towards their Noble House.
It didn't take long for the consultations to degrade into shouting matches and insults.
"It seems to me, you all are under the impression this was a suggestion. It is not. When I arrived in the system, I instantly detected multiple summoning rituals, calling for these Chaos forces here. A third of my Black Shield regiment was killed, defending you Noble brats. A thousand brave Deathwatch Space Marines! Give me a reason to burn the other half of this world, I dare you!" Inquisitor Ramaeus shouted, while her Deathwatch simply leveled their bolters at the surviving Nobles.
Well, that ended the negotiations even faster. Lady Vardus nodded at me, and it was done.
Bang! A single bolter fired, exploding a Noble that reached under his robe. Oh well. There was always one, wasn't it?
The other Nobles kneeled down at once, maybe a bit more impressed now. I could only shrug and move away, already thinking about my next move.
I could take the fleet towards the Forge World of Sigma-Ulstari or I could continue South or West, and crush other Tyranid Fleets still roaming the galaxy. Or I could split the fleet and do both.
What to do? Let's wait for now, and repair the ships with my magic Necron orb, as well as any other damaged stuff.
Better be ready for whatever the universe threw at me next. For in the dark future of the 40th millennium, there was only war.