Across the seven planetary war zones, the fighting had been nothing short of apocalyptic. In just a few days of localized engagement, Axion had lost eighty percent of his standing forces.
The Tyranid ground swarms, having suffered losses nearly a thousand times greater than the Iron Men, began to withdraw. To the Hive Mind, this war of attrition had become inefficient. In three theaters, the swarm was utterly annihilated; in the other four, the Hive Mind voluntarily abandoned the field. The wall of cold steel had made the cost of consumption far higher than the potential yield. After rapidly salvaging what biomass they could, the Bio-ships, each noticeably smaller than before, departed for other sectors.
Imperial forces moved in once more to reclaim these ravaged worlds. Three Terran days later, Axion signaled the Imperial transport fleets to return. Countless shattered chassis were recovered for the forge.
The final tally was staggering:
- 8 Executor Heavy Tanks and the Apocalypse-class Titan were completely lost; no salvage remained.
- 6,844 Erratana-class Armored Wardens destroyed (4,832 of which were melee variants).
- 159,238 Automated Sentry-Troopers lost.
- 11,237 Peltast Sniper Automata lost.
- 726 Eight-Legs and 29 Sapient Machine Automatons lost.
These units were beyond repair. The Tyranids had evolved specifically to counter Axion's Iron Men, deploying high-quality strains to deliver crushing blows. They had abandoned many traditional bio-weapons in favor of corrosive technologies; massive "Acid-Beasts" had been spawned to vomit bio-acids that liquefied metal alloys, rendering the chassis unrecoverable.
Yet, the kill-ratio was breathtaking. For the total Tyranid casualties across seven battlefields were:
- Total Organisms: 223,014,232
- Bio-ships: 12
- Bio-Titans: 72
- Large Organisms: 329,483
- Medium Organisms: 63,291,748
- Small Organisms: 159,392,917
The vast majority of "small organism" kills occurred within the first forty-eight hours of landing. In the subsequent fighting, the swarm stopped deploying small fry entirely, save for Rippers.
When Lord Solar Leontus reviewed the battlefield recordings, he felt a genuine sense of suffocation. For the first time since the Tyranids appeared, the Imperium had seen a force meet the swarm with such overwhelming qualitative superiority. Only the Legiones Astartes of old, supported by the Titan Legions of the Mechanicus, could have fought such a war. For mortal troops, the only role in such a theater was to cower in the rear and call for orbital strikes.
On the other side, Axion was forced to recycle his surviving Peltasts into the smelting vats to refine materials for reinforcements. He needed to rebuild. The swarm's adaptation had exposed a flaw: a lack of super-heavy units left his line vulnerable. The swarm could evolve in real-time; he could not. Quality could not defeat quantity if the enemy simply elevated their own quality. Furthermore, the swarm lacked the metallic salvage the Iron Men needed to sustain their "ecology."
He needed resources. Axion began a meticulous search of the Imperial star charts provided by Guilliman, looking for targets. Salvaging from fallen worlds was a fool's errand.
After cross-referencing strategic data from the defensive command, several ideal targets appeared. These were Repository Worlds.
These planets were unique. They possessed no mineral wealth and their climates were unsuitable for agriculture. Their sole value was their capacity for storage. Most Repository Worlds shared specific traits: vast plains or massive subterranean cavern systems converted into sprawling logistical hubs. They were largely uninhabited, with their entire surface area dedicated to the storage of the Imperium's endless tithes. The architecture was brutal and functional; multi-level bunkers and hangars designed to withstand the crushing weight of mountain-sized stockpiles.
Because they were vital nodes, they were heavily fortified with Aegis shields and massive batteries of AA cannons and missile silos. To the Tyranids, who sensed life-signs and biomass, these worlds were like porcupines, painful to bite and containing almost no nutritional value.
Axion's goal was these Repository Worlds within the lost sectors.
To facilitate future smelting operations, Axion ordered the stripping of all industrial facilities on Vorchad III, packing them into transport ships. The planet's useful resources had been depleted. In a few short months, the Hive Ships had processed the biomass, and Axion had systematically extracted and refined every scrap of relevant metal.
As Axion's fleet vanished into the void, Vorchad III was left as a graveyard of refined metal ingots stacked neatly on the surface, two hollowed-out Hives with nothing but power cores, and a few hundred automatons left for basic maintenance.
Shortly after his departure, a Black Ship belonging to the Tithe Collection Guild docked at the starport Axion had vacated.
Clang!
A tall man dressed in opulent silks looked with confusion at the sealed airlock. The rings on his fingers, etched with guild and house crests, glittered under the flickering lights.
"The docking is complete! Why is the hatch not opening?!"
His voice was thick with the arrogance of the high-born. A nearby guard pointed hesitantly at an indicator light.
"My Lord Cassius... the sensors indicate a vacuum on the other side. We must don void suits to proceed."
"By the Emperor, is this a joke? A starport without air? Is everyone on this rock dead?!"
The guard couldn't explain it, though he suspected the worst.
"I believe there has been a mechanical failure, my Lord!"
Cassius looked at the manual emergency release. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and yanked the lever. The guard, sensing the danger, gripped a nearby emergency rail.
Whoosh!
"Hull breach detected..."