Warhammer : Machinist and The Exile

The surface of Luna was a charred grave of ceramite, bone, and ash.

Above it all, the warp rift churned and gaped wider — an unhealed wound in reality, gushing daemons and sorcery across the shattered moon.

Fateweaver loomed over the ruins of Sector Fourteen, unraveling timelines with each twitch of his clawed hand, while Imperial lines buckled under constant pressure.

Then the sky cracked again.

Not from warpstorm — but thunder from emerging void ships.

From high orbit, the 3rd iron cohort battlegroup began deployment.

Dark, angular shapes descended — enormous, industrial in form, nothing like the sleek drop pods or ornate gunships the Imperium was used to.

High-Velocity Landers (HVL), each the size that could fit a company of guardmen, broke through Luna's low atmosphere, their hulls trailing fire and steam. Exhaust vents screamed like dragons.

"Admiral, multiple unidentified landers inbound. High-velocity signatures. Mass readings… Emperor's mercy, they're titan size," a sensor officer reported, voice tight with awe and fear.

Lord Admiral Carthen gripped the brass rail of the command dais, his gaze fixed on the hololithic display. Giant crimson dots dropped into the atmosphere like falling gods.

"Onscreen. Now."

The main viewscreen flickered, revealing monstrous, angular craft descending in formation.

"Throne… what madness is this?"

"Not Mechanicus. Not Imperial Navy. Configuration matches nothing in Segmentum Solar archives."

Carthen exhaled, his tone wary. "They move like drop pods, but… scaled for Titans."

His second-in-command muttered, "If they can deploy assets of that tonnage at will, we may be in trouble."

Carthen's eyes narrowed. "Maintain watch. Hold fire unless provoked. Vox Battlefleet Solar: full alert condition."

On the surface, Imperial Guardsmen raised their eyes.

"Throne of Terra…" a guardsmen whispered, stumbling back as a massive shadow eclipsed his trench line.

[Unknown drop pod inbound! UNKNOWN DROP POD!] barked a vox operator. [It's not slowing—!]

The shape grew larger like a falling building. One soldier screamed and dropped his lasgun, throwing himself into the dust, hands shielding his face.

The impact never came.

Instead, the HVL engines roared to a hover above the battlefield, retro-thrusters burning a trench clean of rubble. The vessel scanned for open ground, then pivoted gracefully, impossibly. toward a secondary landing zone.

Then it dropped.

BOOM.

The impact shattered the lunar crust. Cracks rippled outward. Dust exploded skyward, choking vox-signals.

Guardsmen and even some Astartes nearby stumbled from the shockwave.

From the smoking hold of the HVL, huge silhouettes emerged through the fog.

Six massive humanoid machines stepped into the light. Each stood fifteen meters tall, their frames painted military green or grey, mono-eyes glowing from domed heads.

A squadron of six Zaku II units.

Each carried oversized machine cannons that hissed and clicked as they spun up. One bore a power axe that crackled with field energy; one had a rocket pod slung across its back.

A Guardsman gaped up from behind a shattered Chimera.

"Emperor… what are those things?"

The Zakus moved forward in perfect formation, scanning the terrain.

Then came the first burst.

A roaring barrage of 120mm armor-piercing rounds tore across the battlefield. A squadron of shrieking Pink Horrors was obliterated mid-charge, their corpses disintegrating into warp mist.

The barrage shifted.

A daemon engine, goring its way through a squad of imperial fist, was caught in the line of fire.

The Zaku with the rocket pod unleashed two salvos resulting in two direct impacts detonated.

the daemon engine's hull turn in a ball of flame and blood-metal.

Mechanicus units on the rear lines scrambled.

"Magnify. Now," ordered Magos Lurien. Servo-skulls darted around him, streaming data into his cogitator.

"Unknown pattern walker. Not listed in STC libraries. Structure: bipedal. Armament: projectile-based. Chemical traces detecting from the repeating cannon's spent cassing. Armor, titanium composite."

A junior Tech-Priest whispered a binaric.

"Comparing to archived model," another auspex Adept chimed in. "no match."

Lurien's mechadendrites froze mid-air. One clicked.

"...The symbol on its pauldron," he voxed in encrypted Martian code. "Magnify."

The cogitators zoomed in on a subtle, unfamiliar cog-motif engraved on the Zaku's flank. A perfectly symmetrical cog with a human skull.

Not the traditional half-skull, half-gear of the Cult Mechanicus.

The HVL deployments continued.

Troop transports descended from orbit in waves — airborne VTOL gunships, sleek and brutal, disgorging platoons in battle dress unfamiliar to the Guard, yet unmistakably Imperial in form.

The ones using AMP suit mobile platform moved with coordinated speed, trailing drones and support infantry follows.

Type 61150 mm twin-barreled main battle tanks rumbled out behind them, flanked by Chimera-pattern IFVs albeit versions unseen.

The forces with coordinated movement noting the combined armed doctrine.

On the front lines, vox channels lit up.

[This is Echo Base — unknown friendlies deploying in support!]

[New vehicles in grid delta-five — they just neutralized two daemon engines in under thirty seconds!]

[Their using old solar auxilia pattern gear. Tech-Adepts requesting capture for study!]

Dozens of Chaos flyers screamed down toward the new landers.

3rd Iron cohort air assets responded immediately. Sleek interceptor craft angular, wedge-shaped, burst to low orbit.

Unlike the imperial counterpart who use dogfight doctrine, Machinist air forces use superior technology and long range weapon system to eliminate enemy from afar.

Still, should a dogfight occurred, they will answer with skill and calculated movement.

in the sky, an exile shows its short range fighting capability. with calculated flight path, it managed to lock on a flying daemon engine.

Twin railgun cannons tore through Hellblades mid-flight, detonating them before they reached the ground.

Fateweaver turned. His twin heads snapped toward the Zakus and the wave of descending exile forces.

His many clawed hands twitched as probability strands unraveled and reknitted around him.

One head croaked in cold amusement.

"Ahh… so this is that strand. One in one hundred and twenty-four million."

The second head snarled in open frustration.

"An anomaly."

With a flick of his claw, Fateweaver wove a snare of future threads around the lead Zaku's mono-eye.

For an instant, the massive war machine staggered as its optics flickering.

The built-in null field activates immediately. The snare unraveled.

Then the 15 meters war machine steadied. Its eye flared brighter, crimson defiance burning through the tangle of fate.

With a vengence, a burst of 120mm rounds ripped a winged daemon apart mid-flight.

Fateweaver's heads turned to one another.

"He has been watching. Now, he is coming."

Warp-light crackled around his talons.

"So be it.".

Magnus spared a glance as the Zakus began cutting a bloody swathe through his daemon legions. The Crimson King frowned, though his confidence held.

"As long as the Rift stands," he said, "they can bring a thousand legions and it will mean nothing."

Guilliman's gaze never left him — but a cold smile tugged at the edge of his mouth.

"Perhaps. But I prefer my wars with allies at my back."

From a nearby ridgeline, unseen by most, Seiji's Shinobi emerged.

At Seiji's side, Naon watched the warp rift in grim silence. The newly arrived sealing corps joined in under her authority.

Her fingers tapped the edge of her sealing ornament. Ready for total closure.

She voxed quietly:

"This is Naon. Encirclement complete. Sealing team in position."

Seiji's voice came back, calm as ever.

"Then we make our move."