Today was the day that would determine who became the governor of this planet.

Flight Captain Galius, the commanding officer for flight squadron 315, was feeling good on the big day of the grand assault as his personalised fighter aircraft cut through the purple sky towards the frontline with his trusted squadmates in tight formation. They had the governor's forces where they wanted them and a decisive battle was commencing. Going from past experience of dozens of engagements, there was no way they were going to lose this fight.

Galius was not a man who was particularly interested in the politics of it all, the governor and her half-brother had a quarrel so war broke out. As far as he was concerned, he was just glad that he was on the winning team.

After this was done and settled, Lord Kaithan would replace his half-sister as the new planetary governor, things will carry on as normal after the mess was cleaned up, the God-Emperor will remain as unmoving as the Externus sun and by His good grace maybe he will earn a few medals and get a good raise. Things were looking up.

That said, the forward squadrons ahead of him had not sent their updates yet and the chatter from headquarters went still some time ago. Galius was about to double-check if he had muted his vox unit by accident when a message started playing. From it came a calm and soothing female voice that he had never heard before.

'Attention to forces under Kaithan von Klaeus, this is a statement made on behalf of Khatalina von Klaeus, the rightful Governor of Nusquam backed by a joint declaration from the Inquisition, Adepta Sororitas and Adeptus Mechanicus. Your actions of taking up arms against Governor Khatalina is deemed illegal and misguided. By the Emperor's grace, we will confer to you a chance to surrender. Choose wisely when the opportunity to return to the right path presents itself. The Emperor protects.'

Galius was livid, just what in the Throne's name is headquarters doing? Losing out on electronics warfare now of all times? Galius tried a few settings on his vox unit but all the frequencies were occupied with the same repeating message.

Just when he was about to turn to another frequency the message changed. 'Attention to flight squadrons 315 to 320, your chance is here, we have total control over your radar net, vox network and ground anti-air systems, eject from your aircraft now for salvation…'

Galius gulped and felt a cold premonition as the vox singled out his flight group, making it sound less like an empty threat by the second. He quickly checked on his auspex and was stunned to find its readings had gone haywire and he could not even contact his squadmates. At the same time, his onboard warning system started to chime, signalling his craft was being targeted by anti-air systems despite the fact they were still flying in air space under their control.

'This is not a drill, please don't die from this. You have 10 seconds to comply starting now. 10, 9…' Galius watched in disbelief as his day abruptly turned 180. He looked outside from his cockpit and witnessed the rest of his squadrons seemed to be in the same predicament, his first wingman was even frantically hand signalling to him.

'6, 5, 4 …' the gentle female voice continued her relentless countdown, the incongruity between how it sounded and its lethal implication paralysed Galius. Then he saw it, on the edge of his vision, far off in front were the forward squadrons and they were falling from the sky in droves, trails of smoke signalling the deaths of aircraft and explosions filled the sky while the warning chime inside his cockpit was getting deafening.

'2, 1…' Galius screamed and hit the eject button, a split second later he was in the air with his seat. He looked down just in time to witness his prized personalised fighter aircraft being blown to bits by anti-air fire originating from behind the lines.

Meanwhile, higher in the sky elsewhere, Zharphia Abaiyo was praying to the Emperor while waiting for the green light to deep-strike into battle. She and her three hundred seraphim sisters had gone on a very risky mission riding on blind faith, boarding unfamiliar air transports flying over enemy air space with no fighter escorts.

As prepared as she ever would be for the impending operation, Zharphia went into a warrior's meditative trance, making peace with herself while awaiting whatever fate awaited her.

Just hours earlier Canoness Diadinah had returned from her abrupt departure with a renewed sense of zeal none of them had ever remembered witnessing. A quick meeting involving all the highest-ranking members of the Order was then held.

Zharphia and the others had come out of the meeting infected by that zeal as well, but it still sounded too good to be true. She had still harboured a sliver of lingering doubts until witnessing that light herself. Just the fact that their Holy Daughter was with them had burned away any question if their actions were ordained by His will.

Strangely, despite currently being in the most dangerous part of the mission, Zharphia felt totally at peace. Having strong faith is one thing, witnessing the divinity of one's god manifested, bringing absolution to that faith was a totally different level of experience.

His divinity is real. She could die now and be happy, knowing even if this mission failed with her death, somehow it will still be part of His divine plan.

Ding! A system chime broke her reverie, she recognised the sound and put on her helmet for the tactical relay update. What she saw shocked her, a complete tactical map of their target base with astonishing detail was displayed in her helmet's data feed together with an ETA countdown of two minutes.

She did a quick mental calculation and came to the realisation they had already gone over the rebel air fighters defence net, meeting no resistance the whole way. Syrine's words came back at her. Have no worries, for we have methods to deal with them.

Hardly able to contain her excitement, Zharphia went over the information quickly and could not help but smile after looking at the number of troops currently stationed in the base. The rebels had no chance.

* * *

I watched as a literal god of war as the rebel flight squadrons 315 to 320 blipped out of existence, further cementing total air superiority for our side as the grand trap was about to be sprung. I was not sure if the pilots ejected from their aircraft in time but a final warning was delivered before the anti-air weapons hit their aircraft. Everything was calculated down to the second, giving them no chance to react outside the script.

The next targeted message was prepared as I kept up with thought acceleration to control multiple complex processes, compiled my warnings in digital sound data and delivered it to the next batch of rebel strike wings while targeting them with anti-air assets from the rebels' own backyard. At the same time I was fabricating false data and auspex readouts for their headquarters to keep their main battle force on the ground rolling deeper into our trap.

There would be a lot of confused people on the rebels' side as their anti-air placements were seemingly firing at random, but since most real long-range targeting was done by cogitators it was a simple hijacking operation for me once a connection was established from the backend.

My eyes were closed but a virtual map of the battlefield created from live data had replaced my vision. Hundreds of thousands of unit indicators populated the map, each signalling their real on-field counterparts.

Thousands upon thousands of messages of cogitators establishing connections and complying flashed by in my view and I soon learned to tune it out. With the secret aid of Mechanicus personnel from the inside, we now had total control over the long-range vox network of the rebels and millions of vox messages were intercepted, decrypted and analysed by Kryptopher's advanced cogitators in orbit for tactical information while I acted as a conduit between the whole process.

Exabytes worth of data must have gone through me every second to direct the battlefield, and for the first time, I felt a bit strained.

Kryptorer's comment popped into my head, he was on his own command throne close by elsewhere to oversee the deployment of Mechanicus forces.

The dominus' words prompted me to double-check on the status of Zharphia and her sisters. It seemed like they had successfully reached their destination and were in the process of deploying from the sky.

I heaved a sigh of relief but immediately got back to my feet checking on everything since the biggest hidden threat of all -- the renegade space marines had yet to show themselves. The looming threat of an ultra-elite force of unknown numbers and modus operandi was the biggest unaccounted risk factor of the whole operation.

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Despite all the war meetings we had been through, no ideal solution ever surfaced on how to deal with them so we had left it at that, reserving some forces on our part and hoping for the best.

I asked via the information link established via the podium.

* * *

'...your actions of taking up arms against Governor Khatalina is deemed illegal and misguided. By the Emperor's grace, we will confer to you a chance to surrender…'

Rearguard General Borrin raised his eyebrows at the message coming from the central vox unit of his command bunker. Charged with all the artillery battalions under Lord Kaithan, Borrin had multiple units of dedicated artillery groups under his direct command tucked safely behind the main offensive line guarded by layers of protection.

He was ready for a day of action on delivering death to the frontline via extreme range and had been waiting for targeting orders from the main battle group, but it was strangely quiet from the front.

Then the vox network seemed to be hijacked by the governor's forces and had been repeating the same weird message ever since.

'Bah, humbug.' Borrin scoffed, 'as if talking rubbish alone will change the course of the war, we have thousands of guns here waiting to sing to your demise, soon to be ex-governor.'

'Maybe she knew her only way to get out of this is to talk us into surrendering,' one of his aides offered. Borrin laughed slightly at his aide's awkward effort to shine his shoes but had to admit he was never much of a fan of Khatalina due to personal taste.

The general mused at his own thoughts but was soon getting back into working mode and demanded, 'quit idling around, who can tell me when will the vox network be fixed?'

Suddenly there was a commotion and a lot of sounds were heard from the outside. Borrin was alarmed as he searched his memories and it reminded him of the retro-boosters of jump packs, but none of the units under the banner of Kaithan utilised such advanced equipment.

Before he could verify what was happening the sound of bolt weapons firing was heard all around. 'We are under attack!' Someone in the command bunker snapped to his senses and called out. 'The vox… the vox is not working!' Another shouted.

Impossible! Borrin thought to himself, the governor's forces had deep-struck jump pack units directly onto his position and cut off his communications? But the auspex radar net had picked up nothing, unless… 'All our auspex and vox network had been compromised!' He shouted his belated realisation.

Not only that, the fact that elite enemy units had directly landed on his command bunker meant a catastrophic level of classified information might have been leaked out.

'The short-range independent vox units should still work, get the emergency runner truck going and warn Lord Kaithan that we are compromised!' Someone did that and a Taurox truck parked at the edge of his base immediately sped off towards their headquarters. Borrin had been a general for decades, he prepared such a contingency for any just-in-case scenarios.

Little did he know squads of Mechanicus Sicarian Infiltrators had infiltrated near their base. The truck was ambushed and never reached the headquarters, while their short-range vox was hopelessly out of range to warn their colleagues.

Back in the base, Borrin watched in disbelief as the reinforced plasteel door of his command bunker began to glow red hot and was cut down by the distinct superheated melta beams.

The administrative staff inside Borrin's command bunker were still frantically voxing for help when the armoured angelic forms of multiple Sororitas seraphims stepped through the fallen plasteel door and came straight for them with bolt pistols and inferno pistols raised. One of Borrin's bodyguards fired a few las pistol shots at the seraphims but the las-bolts bounced off harmlessly from their power armour and his brain was blown off for his troubles. Borrin had drawn his laspistol but he knew it was a lost cause. Against elite sisters wearing power armour in close quarters, their odds of winning were close to zero, so he waited for death.

To his surprise, the sisters pointed their weapons at him but took no further action, for a while the only sound that could be heard inside the bunker was the vox unit repeating the same messages.

Staring down death, General Borrin watched in astonishment as the seraphims in front of him parted, giving way as a seraphim superior stepped forward. Borrin could easily tell she was a sister superior as the leading seraphim was brandishing a power sword and wore a more decorated helmet than the rest. The sister superior looked at him and removed her helmet, revealing a stern-looking dark-skinned woman. She eyed Borrin for a while before speaking. 'Greetings general, I am Zharphia Abaiyo, Seraphim Excelsior of the Order of The Shining Beacon.'

She then turned her head at the vox unit which was still continuing its message '... choose wisely when the opportunity to return to the right path presents itself. The Emperor protects.'

Zharphia seemed to smile upon hearing that and eyed General Borrin again before saying, 'our Holy Daughter has spoken, this act of mercy will only be granted to you once, so what is your choice? Choose wisely, general.'

Borrin gritted his teeth, made his resolution to die standing and replied, 'You won this fight. Do what you want but I will not betray my people.'

Again he expected death, but Zharphia simply looked at him with an expression that suggested pity, like a parent looking down at a wayward child throwing a tantrum. 'General, I believe you do not understand the gravity of the situation. Fortunately, there is a certain someone who could enlighten you. Sisters, secure the others in a separate room.'

It was at this time a skull probe with a sophisticated looking device attached underneath it floated into the command bunker. It flew around doing some sort of scanning for a while, then it stopped flying and settled down on a desk in front of the general. As it did so, all the vox devices inside the bunker finally stopped broadcasting.

In the eerie silence, the device under the skull probe came to life and out pops a hologram featuring a young lady with an air of saintly regality. As one, all the seraphims present bowed deeply towards the figure. 'Excellent work, sisters.' Said the figure in the hologram, her voice a match with the one that was on ceaseless repetition earlier. 'Now, I would like to have a few words with the general.'

Moments later, a hapless Borrin was forced into a conversation with the hologram, a diligent Zharphia looking from the side. 'General Borrin Yalstin, I am sorry we have to meet as opposition on this battlefield. My name is Syrine, daughter of the Emperor. I am supporting Governor Khatalina von Klaeus in this unfortunate conflict.'

Receiving no response, Syrine paused for a moment before asking a shocking question.

'Have you forsaken the Imperium, general?'

Borrin felt his breath was taken away by the deeply offending question but his inert stubbornness held up his composure.

'What? Never!'

'So you are still a loyal servant of the Emperor?'

'Always have been, always will be.'

'Then why did you raise your weapons against the Sororitas?'

'That… they meddled into our politics and came into our crosshairs on their own volition, it was unfortunate but it had to be done. We would never actively seek to oppose them.'

Syrine did not respond and her expression remained inscrutable.

'I don't care what you want. Kill me now, there is nothing you can do to change my allegiance.' Borrin declared with pride.

Syrine smiled softly on that reply, 'So unfortunate, your courage is commendable but your actions are misguided.'

'... what are you trying to tell me?'

'General, do you not realise your actions might have aided the great enemy in their heresy against my father?'

'Wait, who is your father? Who are you again?'

Borrin was confused, while he did hear Syrine's self-introduction clearly, it was common knowledge all members of the Sororitas identify themselves as daughters of the Emperor, why she would bring that up was beyond him, unless…

Syrine closed her eyes, suddenly all the communication devices in the command bunker came back to life. Borrin witnessed in utter bewilderment as he heard his own voice berating orders into the network, ordering multiple smoke screen barrages deployment in quick successions with his field units quickly giving back acknowledgements.

'You… how?' Borrin cried out in despair as his authority over multiple artillery battalions was hijacked live in front of him. Then to his utter horror, he realised Syrine could have just ordered explosive shells instead of smoke screens. The shock was too much for him, his knee gave way as he dropped to the ground kneeling.

Just as Borrin felt it was all over, Syrine started speaking again.

'My offer of mercy to you still stands and I intend to extend the same offer to as many of your colleagues as possible.'

Not believing what he had just heard, Borrin looked up at Syrine again and found the latter looking back at him, a golden halo around her head. That halo… Borrin gasped.

'How about it? I promise you no order will come forth to drop explosive shells on your allies. General. I would much prefer you to continue serving my father than otherwise.'

Daughter of the Emperor, I should continue to serve her father, going against her father is heresy. Borrin finally put two and two together, his mind went totally blank upon the revelation.