(posted this on FFN a while ago figured I'd also do it here)
122 BBY (?)
The Ssi-ruuvi had never dared to strike beyond their tiny system of planets. At first, they had no need to. The prey races were plentiful in the closest systems, and for decades their infrastructure was too small to merit an expansion.
A recent population boom swelled the demand for slaves to power their entechment technology. And so, the Imperium expanded a second time into the outer edges of the Ssi-ruuk Star cluster.
Now their desire for slaves to power their industry could never be slaked, not until the entire galaxy was under their heel. Thus, the Conclave and the Council had sent spies to map out locate isolated planets inhabited by the lesser races.
One particular system, known as Endor, had proven promising in its wealth of undefended slaves. So a few decades after the second expansion, His Potency the Grand Shreeftut ordered a fleet of slave galleys piloted by their lesser cousins, the P'w'eck to fill their hulls with the primitive mammalians infesting the planet.
The only sign of the expedition was a hastily-transmitted image sent to the Conclave. A star-fortress shaped like some heretical church, box-shaped starships firing gargantuan shells. He had no doubt that they were but primitives.
Enraged by the insult to his divine rule, His Potency raised a fleet of warships, long and oval-shaped in honor of the eggs that birthed their species.
Twenty dreadnought-class starships, three hundred cruiser-class, each many times larger than the human Republic's Hammerhead cruiser. Each was more than enough to raze worlds. He was certain that divine wrath would fall upon the prey race that dared to refuse the glorious ascension one gained from the process of entechment.
But reality was hardly so kind.
And they had no idea of the true scale of the threat they faced.
Sh'iiv'tha was a red-skinned Ssi-Ruuk, the designated admiral of the fleet raised in the name of His Potency. He stared at the blinding, cobalt madness of hyperspace, lost in visions of glory and service to the Imperium.
The thought of Endor burning as its prey-populace was ferried back to the Ssi-Ruuk Star Cluster relaxed the mild feeling of doubt pooling in his stomach. He observed the countless gray shapes of the Ssi-Ruuk navy, then turning around at the phrase, "Exiting hyperspace!" that came from a P'w'eck operating his flagship's nav-computers.
He was rather galled to admit that their own hyperdrive technology was at least several years behind the rest of the galaxy. Thus, they returned to realspace countless miles from Endor, the gas giant smaller than a penny even to his species' sharp eyes.
He had defeated the Chiss ascendancy in occasional engagements years ago, proving the spiritual, physical, and racial superiority of the Ssi-ruuk over the Chiss in spite of their own inferior technology. The gods were on his side those days, he had no doubt it was the same today.
"Slaves," he began. "Today is your opportunity to prove your worth to His Potency and the Ssi-Ruuk Imperium! We have conquered a dozen races in the name of the gods, and these prey-things will be no different! Let us grant them the glory of entechment!"
They opened their comms with the primitives surrounding the planet, as they neared ever closer to the gas giant Endor. As a blue projection came to life on their hologram, Sh'iiv'tha's gun commander paled, crimson turning into a pink hue.
"My lord…" he sputtered. "They're… they have two gargantuan-"
"Shove away your cowardice, Vik'i'Thii," he spat. At that moment, a towering image of a bipedal mammalian, clad in ornamental armor, and a masked, conical helmet came to life. The prey-thing's voice was a terrible, mechanical growl that almost set him shuddering.
"I am Diocletian Coros, of the Legio Custodes. You have one chance to leave this system or be annihilated."
In spite of the strange, freezing feeling in his gut, Sh'iiv'tha forced a grin, displaying knife-sharp teeth. "Be glad! The joy that we bring goes beyond mere sensory happiness. Yours is the privilege of assisting the Ssi-Ruuk in liberating the other worlds of the galaxy."
"If you do not turn around in the next half-minute, the Ramilles will fire upon your vessels," the bipedal rasped, the comms shutting off.
"Worry not, captains! We shall win this day, and liberate these primitives into the light of entechment!" he said to the other ships' commanders.
"Sir, look!"
He quashed the urge to assault his second-in-command and chose to look at where he was pointing. Only a few hundred kilometers away from them, easily a quarter of the diameter of the gas giant, a mind-bogglingly huge space station, lined with guns, orbited Endor.
They couldn't turn back now. The thirty seconds limit had already passed, and it would take too long to enter hyperspace coordinates.
"Fire on that abomination!" he yelled.
Bright yellow bolts flew from his fleet, visible even kilometers away in the depths of the void and the blaze of Endor's local star. It was a barrage that could cripple even the dreadnoughts of the advanced Chiss Ascendancy, a tactic used to obliterate their orbital fortifications and superior capital ships.
For several minutes, a barrage that could have slagged planets slammed against the blocky space station. Its colored windows and buttresses were of gaudiness that would not be out of place in the Palace of Cree'n'aak. Unfortunately, it did not seem to detract from its durability.
At last, the turbolasers of his fleet had to recharge. His skin pinkened and he swallowed, realizing the sheer scale of what he provoked.
Then the space station fired. Blinding flashes too quick and distant to count. Then, signals from half of his fleet went dark.
"I… what-"
"There's another one orbiting that moon!"
Blinding blue lights raced towards the ships of his fleet, one missing his flagship by a few meters at most. Lasers. Weren't those primitive technologies?
Another third of his ships were wiped out, then.
"Admiral what do we do?!"
How did this happen? He froze, staring in silence towards the space station that dwarfed entire moons.
Then the screams came.
The door to his bridge turned to molten metal, searing the skin of nearby slaves and crewmen. One of the tall mammals with the conical helm. He turned, at last, roused from his shock. In the time it took for him to pull his blaster from a bandolier and press the trigger, half his crew was dead.
The shot he fired missed by several meters, not due to any lack of skill, but because the intruder had already knocked the gun from his grip by the time the ion bolt was hurled out of the barrel. A fist clamped around his neck, of such terrible strength it made him seem like a babe in comparison. He slammed two fists down on the gold-plated arm, a dozen times, but the limb did not budge.
In his lungs' desperate attempt to gulp down oxygen, wretched heaving noises rang from his throat. Armored witches, bald save for a single red ponytail, entered the room, their presence filling him with a sense of revulsion and horror that sent his legs kicking.
It did not free his windpipe from the stony grip, and his strength left him as his world turned black.
+Diocletian, we found the foul technology powering this xenos ship. Frighteningly similar to the Ordo Sinister's psi-titans.+
The Custodian powered down his Volkite weapon, bound the xeno's red hands, and prepared his teleportarium.
+They call it entechment,+ a Witchseeker signed.
He paused. A memory buried in his subconscious came to surface. The Prognosticators' urgent warning, of a foul process that drew the denizens of the Warp to prowl the edges of realspace for potential hosts.
This was why.
"Have you investigated the lower hulls of the ship?" he asked.
+Yes. An abhuman psyker was tied into one of their disgusting machines. She had begun screaming as soon as we entered.+
He frowned. That bode ill for his master's plans against daemonkind. For psykers to be in the new galaxy…
+From the tech-priest's analysis of their fleet, all of their ships are powered using soul-draining technology.+
The inefficiency of it, he lamented. For the xenos used such a macabre source of energy from lightbulbs to lances, they could be a species as depraved as the Drukhari of Commorragh. "Then we must return to Terra Secundus, and prepare a compliance procedure," he said. "To carry the Crusade's obliterative policies in this place may be unwise."
