I leaned and patted Canis on nose. "Look, Canis! If you had one shot, or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment. Would you capture it, or just let it slip?" I recited the ancient poem, and the wise wolf frowned.

'ETA 14 minutes. The Oruscar fleet will reach us first.' Lash added to the drama.

Canis raised a paw, and clenched his claws. "Wooogh!" he proclaimed in a determined growl.

Good. Time was too short to wait for the Wyrmwood to drill into the Lock dimension, but I had a solution. The 25 satellites of the Shivarik's Constellation . The ether beams of the archeotech weapon fired in a ring around the Wyrmwood, weakening the structure of spacetime, but I drew back and stored the satellites before they could overload and destroy my ship and everyone on board. A bit of help was fine, but the Grey Knights will finish things in time now.

"Lash, you can escort Canis to the Weapon, but don't interfere. This is his quest, his moment of trial and tribulation. Ascension will not be easy, even if covered by prophecy and divine will." I spoke out loud, and sent both wolves down on the Wyrmwood, as the original Key began to sink into the next dimension.

My 1000 Grey Knights were quite a boon, completing the unlocking ritual with haste, while the 30000 Iron Warriors under the command of Perturabo will come in handy once the Necrons arrived. They only needed new shields, since the Gauss weapons of the Necrons were quite deadly to anyone without extra protection.

I drew a line in the air with my gloved finger and 30000 Blackstone-lined combat shields appeared from my inventory on Sortiarius, beside the Iron Warriors Primarch.

'Necrons incoming in a few minutes, Perturabo. The Emperor is offering you all redemption in battle. I'll secure the void.' I warned Perturabo, while his gene-sons were already looting the fallen Chaos sorcerers on the surface.

'Autistic and passive sensors engaged. We are cloaked with the inverted Void Shield and covered in the Neutron Shield hugging our hull. Ion Shield on stand-by. Antimatter bottle at 98.67%. Secondary plasma reactors at full. Gellar Ramparts online. Void Claw on stand-by. Lance batteries cycling. Torpedoes primed and warming up. Deploying the Angelnet.' the Blade whispered in an encouraging voice.

I nodded and focused my Breath, deploying thousands of metal asteroids in concentric circles, bound with void steel chain, while further out I relocated a million ice and methane comets which I shattered into gas clouds, and then thousands of normal void mines insides those clouds to act as early detectors.

One minute earlier than expected, something invisible struck a plasma mine inside a gas cloud, and I added one Nova Mine in front of the explosion, catching a pair of small recon ships mapping the way for the Oruscar fleet. Maybe a little overkill wasting a Nova Mine so early, but I went for fear right now. Keep the Necrons guessing and made them act slower. They were doomed anyway, poor guys. If their main fleet was here, it meant that Yggra and Peffy will have free rein to demolish their homeworlds, starting with Thanatos.

A pair C'tan Shards with glowing green shackles appeared at the edge of the minefield and began scattering the gas and exploding the voidmines.

Hmmm. Each of the Shards would be a focus of a Necron_Decurion , the Necron version of a combined arms regiment, or even a division.

If the Shards reached the Iron Warriors intact, things could get worse. A filter dropped over my noosphere gaze, marking one Shard with a red contour and another in yellow. This wasn't Lash, since my xenos friend was already sinking into the Lock with Canis.

Most likely Zath was also around, keeping an eye out for me. 'Zath, if you're here, just say so...' I murmured in my mind, but whatever C'tan was being helpful didn't respond.

'Ordella, you're next. Stab the red mark and retreat.' I ordered my Silent Sister waiting in the tesseract, with her hand hovering close to the Daemon Lance.

Just as I spoke, a fleet of 5 Tomb Ships and hundreds of cruisers and escorts arrived with their inertialess drives to exploit the breach in the minefield.

My mind implant sped up to combat speed, but even so things happened much too fast for me to intervene much. Without drawing a Breath, I was still only human.

Ordella killed her target and vanished in her tesseract, while a single Tomb Ship exploded in a blinding flare, and the second C'tan Shard turned blue and then vanished. That would be the Tesseract Vault going up in flames, and another Shard switching sides.

My barrage of Nova Mines caught the Oruscar fleet in the face, blowing up every escort and crippling the cruisers, just as the Blade fired the singularity weapon into another Tomb Ship. I came out of hypercognition in a millisecond, and the battle was half-won already.

'Only 3 ships left, Captain. By Imperial records, we stand one in ten chances to live, agaisnt these odds.' the AI said in a calm voice.

"Never tell me the odds, Blade!" We have already won!" I proclaimed out loud for morale, and displaced a single Defense Laser on a distant asteroid to draw fire.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Necron Warriors, Immortals and several floating Arks teleported down on Sortiarius to engage the Iron Warriors, but without the C'tan support they wouldn't last very long.

I picked Perturabo for a good reason, since his gene-sons were all expert at shield wall combat, which worked pretty good even against Necrons if you had good shields.

A single Psi-Titan appearing at the back of the Necron Decurions was sufficient to blow up their antigrav Arks, leaving the Necron infantry devoid of heavy support completely.

Meanwhile, drones and fighters emerged from the Singularity's hangars to rush the crippled Necron cruisers, while I waited patiently for the Void Claw to recharge. Antimatter did work wonders in this aspect, and soon another single-point singularity crumpled the third Tomb Ship.

Doom Scythes and other Necron interceptors emerged from the remaining Tomb Ships to engage our own fighters, but too soon. A single Nova Mine scorched the void and the Necron fighters, and possibly damaged the nearest Tomb Ship a little. Damn things were crazy durable, and could self-repair very fast as well.

But, as long as my ship remained undetected, I only had to wait for the Void Claw to cycle again. Another teleport wave brought thousands more metal skeletons in battle with the Iron Warriors, but it was too little and too late.

The Blade fired our singularity weapon once more, leaving a single Tomb Ship intact, who turned tail and ran away, just as my drones and Aquilla fighters arrived to finish off the crippled Necron cruisers.

"We won! Daddy doesn't need to know the odds! He makes them." Athena yelled and jumped around the bridge, while the officers and a Company of Lamenters present on deck just shook their heads. Athena was new, and it showed in her naive exuberance at an easy victory.

For I always win. Only this time it was merely the opening salvo of a bigger battle, and the Oruscar Dynasty was not prepared. This won't last, as news of their defeat will spread to the other Necron Nobles or even their Silent King.

'Little Canis is dying, Pef Lancefire. And another wolf man has entered the Lock.' Zath voice spoke loudly in my head, as if the C'tan was right behind me.

'Leman Russ?' I asked to make sure. The Emperor would also have contingencies in place, like he always did.

'Anyway, I found your descendant called Dan, and what remains of the tech-priests you send with him. And a book written in ink, oil and blood. I'm not touching that.' Zath continued in a casual tone, and displaced the Explorer party I sent to search for Enuncia, right in front of my Command Throne.

Dan held the leather-bound book under an arm, and a smoking Inferno pistol in the other, while Faifthful stood straight and indifferent, with a Thalax Lorica suit covering a mess of cables, veins and artificial organs, arranged like a human anatomy chart, yet mostly machine. Magos Gyron was half the man he was before, standing in one foot by the grace of gyroscopic stabilizers. The other half of him was vanishing slowly in the tell-tale orange glow of a Disintegration weapon.

"It seems you three had quite an adventure. Not to mention the missing Thalax suits I sent as your escort." I observed in a mild voice, and confiscated the left glove from Gyron before he could turn the Adrathic weapon on me.

"Pef! My memories have returned! I recall the burning of Commorragh now!" Faithful spoke in the familiar voice of Minoris, the genial tech-priest who worked with me on many STCs heresies, a millennium ago. His memories were erased by anathema-class engrams after he guided an Exterminatus warhead into Commorragh, but it seems Enuncia can heal not only wounds but memory loss as well.

"That's great, Minoris. But most of that is still classified. Don't give the Inquisition a reason to burn you alive." I said with a sneaky smile, then turned towards Dan. "Well, Astartes? You have a book with a few words for me, right?"

Dan Lancefire shook himself and holstered his pistol. "Yes, Primogenitor. About a third of the words we found were too strong and had to be written in Blank blood. Magos Gyron experimented with holy oil as well, but things didn't go so well for him."

I looked at my old mentor for a minute. The right thing to do was to eliminate the risk now, and even the Emperor would agree, not to mention a Fabricator or an Inquisitor.

"Gyron. Did you speak a Word?" I asked with a soft tone. There wouldn't be a logical reason for a Magos to use disintegration on himself, unless he felt he was compromised.

The half-living tech-priest rose a mechadendrite to write 'Sorry' in the air. My heart broke once more, but I did warn him.

My mentor vanished into the Prospero's sun, and my heart bled for him. Another friend sacrificed for a chance at victory. Farewell Magos Gyron, and thanks for all the fish.

"Welcome back, Minoris. You have a lot to catch up, since the last time we talked." I told my other old friend, while Dan deposited the leather-bound book in my hands.

'Necron fleet inbound, 13 minutes.' the C'tan warning came just as I opened the book. Oh well. I should read fast then.