Rewind time to half an hour ago.
While the people on the ground were busy with their routines and Stele's conspiracy had not yet fully taken shape, Ferrus stood calmly in the center of the Battle Barge's bridge. He utilized a Primarch's brain—far surpassing the Astartes level—to analyze all feasible options with terrifying efficiency. Like the most precise instrument, Ferrus arranged every tactical maneuver, organized every military asset under his command into squads, and assigned specific combat missions.
The efficiency was so high that the Iron Fathers realized a stark fact with both regret and relief: no matter how much mechanical augmentation they underwent, they could never match the supercomputer-like brain of their gene-father.
Ferrus's plan was simple and direct. He was tired of red tape. The unknown heretic below had no standing to dither with a Primarch. The gap between the two sides was as vast as a chasm. If his brother—currently busy in Terra writing decrees and reviewing documents overnight—were here, he might be interested in an exchange to see if the opponent could be redeemed.
But Ferrus Manus would not. He was a machine. He was iron. He was war itself. To Ferrus, war was a perfect and precise machine. Strategy, logistics, tactics, operations, psychology, and morale—all aspects had to be covered. These were like incomparable gears coupled together to forge the concept of war itself. This was simply part of his professional duty.
"What is happening?" On the surface, a Blood Angel frowned at his auspex, noticing a massive amount of static. He tapped the device experimentally, saw no improvement, and said, "The machine spirit is displeased... fetch a Tech-Marine to check this."
Evidently, this Astartes felt no alarm. It looked like perfectly normal interference. One does not live life being that hypersensitive. However, what this Blood Angel did not know was that subtle interference was appearing all over the surface. These strange noise spots manifested in the Blood Angels' auspex arrays, data networks, and vox communications. After brief adjustments, some were fixed while others were not—it appeared normal, but under Ferrus's meticulous operation, it was disguised as a routine occurrence.
Of course, such an anomaly could not last forever; someone would soon realize the truth. But for a short time, no one considered it a precursor to an attack. Yet, for Ferrus Manus, this "short time" was terrifyingly abundant.
"...It seems these whelps truly lack experience in large-scale warfare," Ferrus remarked, looking at the data feedback and shaking his head. "The first wave of scrapcode interference was very effective. Proceed to the next phase of the plan."
At that moment, inside the hangars, Iron Hands in grey power armor marched out. They swarmed into shuttles. With the roar of plasma thrusters, several Great Crusade-era Stormbirds detached from the barge. Due to the scrapcode interference, they pierced through the clouds and were only discovered by the terrified Blood Angels on the surface when they were practically in their faces.
Without time to care about the Blood Angels' psychological state, the transport wings flew in the shortest straight lines to their destinations, easily clearing any anti-air fire that dared to retaliate with their mounted missiles and heavy bolters.
Then, they reached their objective.
"The flesh is weak!" Along with the war cry of the Iron Hands, the hatches slowly opened as high-altitude air currents rushed in. Iron Hands assault squads equipped with jump packs leapt out. Rocket thrust slowed their descent, turning them into flickering meteors that jumped precisely into their target—the orbital defense platform that posed the greatest threat to the Battle Barge.
"For the Emperor!" A Blood Angel instinctively raised his bolter, but before he could aim, he was struck directly by an incoming stasis bomb. His form was instantly frozen in an amber-like transparent medium, stuck in a firing pose with even the look of terror fixed on his face.
To complete this mission, Ferrus had personally designed a non-lethal weapon. It was essentially a rotary grenade launcher, but it fired miniature stasis bombs. The Iron Hands warriors advanced silently. Their movements were precise and efficient, moving in groups of three to five with interlocking cover. The roar of launchers echoed as the Blood Angels who were supposed to charge were turned, one by one, into battlefield statues.
Influenced by numerical superiority, the element of surprise, fire support, and the "first-time encounter" effect of the weapons, the orbital platform changed hands in just a few minutes.
"Phase two is a success." Ferrus looked at the screen, his brow furrowed slightly—whether sighing at the decay of Imperial armaments or evaluating the battle, it was hard to tell. "Execute phase three."
At the Primarch's command, dozens of cylindrical drop pods fell like rain from the belly of the Battle Barge. Initially a slow free-fall, the tail rocket thrusters ignited a thousand meters above the ground. Countless meteors appeared in the sky, spraying orange-red flames as the drop pods accelerated, screaming through the air toward the surface strongholds!
By now, the Blood Angels' anti-air fire had been paralyzed in the first wave of strikes. They could only watch as the "meteors" crashed down.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With violent roars, the drop pods hit the ground, counter-rockets firing to negate the impact. Under G-forces that would easily kill an ordinary human, the iron boxes slammed into the earth. The hatches blew open, and the Iron Hands filed out. The modified rotary grenade launchers roared again, creating barriers of blue stasis fields.
On the streets, the Blood Angels tried to organize a resistance but fell back under the intense suppressing fire. The Iron Hands moved in textbook squads, immediately attacking key street locations under Ferrus's command the moment they landed.
In the street, a Blood Angel captain had just raised his power sword when three stasis bombs whistled in from different angles, freezing his defiance forever the moment before he swung. His second-in-command roared and pulled the trigger of his bolter, but the Iron Hands warriors had already dispersed. Under crossfire, the second-in-command's body fell backward stiffly like a falling stone. Reflected in his pupils was the sight of even more drop pods falling continuously.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Every explosion meant another batch of Iron Hands had joined the fray. The advance was like a tide; every street and intersection was precisely blockaded and cleared. One Blood Angel after another entered a state of stasis before their firepower.
"Phase three complete," Ferrus said, his voice calm and level as he watched the tactical screen.
"Next, it is time to meet this 'Reincarnation of a Primarch.'"