In the words of Valeran Mortoc, Captain, Shatter Corps

We have lost.

The fleets of the enemy hang overhead, now. I look to the skies and see fire raining down from them, lights that set worlds ablaze. Where is the fleet that so confidently strode against the Inquisition starfort? What of the worlds conquered in their wake? Reclaimed? All of them? News to me, but it must be so, for our enemies are here—damnable Wolves included. I am sure they do not collude with the Inquisition, but that does little to ease the fact that both are shooting at us.

We have won.

The enemy is at our doorstep. They reveal themselves to us in plain view. Are they aware that we have the surface-to-void armaments to blow them all to hell? Would it change their approach to their siege even if they were? Unlikely. Their zeal is their weakness, their dogma their vulnerability. They make landfall and stand before our weapons. We will drown their forces in the flood of their own blood, and what survivors we can pluck from the murky depths will be fed to a greater calling on our homeworld.

Scouts and scans tell me Inquisitor Blackgar himself has made landfall. He thinks, he must, that I will relent upon his position because I have wanted him alive. He neglects the ferocity a cornered beast may wield. I will take him alive, if I can, but he is a fool to think I will hit his encampment weaker for his presence. Or perhaps he is a sacrificial martyr, believing that I may choose to hit him harder, expending more resources on him than he deserves and weaken the defenses of my other fronts in the process. In either case, he has exposed a clear path to my victory on Jaegetri, and through that, a resurgence into Ixaniad.

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He is an idiot, which is disappointing. I had thought to be facing down some tactical wisdom in the Inquisition. Perhaps my fleets had managed to kill such intelligence before they were wiped out, which is itself disappointing as well. I wonder if I can still fetch Lords Caliman or van der Skar from a later incursion.

***

Inquisitor Callant Blackgar is laid before me now, unconscious. We had knocked him out so, but later drugged him to keep him down. He is…small. He is not so great an enemy to me as may intimidate the human foes he has yet faced. He is frail, weak. We have stripped him of his armor and armaments, though we have kept those instruments of war intact. For later.

This is the one, then, that you have chosen for our climactic battle, oh Architect of Ends? He is the one you think worthy of being my match? He, you believe, threatens you as I do? We shall see. And we shall speak. The three of us, Ouranos, I will invite him to our fireside chats. Perhaps we may tear asunder this game of yours and fall upon you as one. I think it unlikely, as the Inquisitor is no doubt blinded by the very zeal that thrust him here to begin with. But I will extend the offer all the same, and should he accept it, well! Woe is you to have given him to me!

He stopped us in Abseradon. He stopped us again on Amnes Minoris. For his part, and despite his diminutive stature and despite his reprehensible decision to set foot here on Jaegetri, he has proven a capable adversary for some years now. If nothing else, it will be good to be rid of him at last.

The war for our world proceeds as expected. Our insurgents make decent headway, advancing upon our fortresses and eliminating our defenses. Or so they believe. But when he comes to, I will reveal the truth of the matter to Callant Blackgar. I will show him the depth of the ocean he has plunged himself and his men into. It is an ocean from which they will not see the light of the surface again. There is a chance that may break him, then and there, but I expect the Inquisitor to resist me even still. He has proven resilient thus far, after all; there is no reason to expect less of him now. He has always shown to have a bit of mettle to him. Iron, even.

We will see how much Iron of his I need spill before he comes to heel.

Iron Within, Iron Without!