Domain Region – Maddam Constellation

With church bells ringing long before the Elder warships arrived in the

Domain Region, the people of Xerah were ready for the worst.

Led by the divinely inspired charge of House Steward Pomik Haromi,

planetary defences were manned to full capacity for the first time in

decades. Under the guidance of Paladins, citizens fortified their homes

with weapons and supplies; streets, causeways, and transit platforms were

all blockaded; tanks, artillery pieces, combat MTACs, assault aircraft,

and anti-aircraft weapons were removed from armouries and assigned to

hastily called-up reserves. These were a war-loving people; their devotion

to God and to their legendary queen made them all but invincible in both

heart and spirit. Nowhere else in Amarr did people act with such courage

or conviction; nowhere else was Chamberlain Karsoth’s irrelevance more

evident than here.

On the nineteenth minute of the Elders’ strike, Pomik was contacted

directly by Grand Admiral Sundara. He reiterated what the House

Steward knew already from Sarum’s warning: to hide the heathens from

the skies. Slaves were rushed underground and sealed inside reinforced

structures at a panicked pace; use any means necessary, the House Steward

warned. Get them off the streets, get them out of the open, give them masks to

breathe in, he proclaimed. Short of those measures, execute them. You’ll

understand why soon enough.

No sooner had the people of Xerah complied when the first Insorumdelivering

drones appeared over the city; the Paladins immediately filled

the air with laser fire to shoot them down. But Pomik screamed for them

to stop.

‘Don’t hit them!’ he pleaded. ‘Let them explode . . . let the infidels fill

the sky with Insorum. Let them fill our lungs with it! Let them think our

slaves are free!’

Grand Admiral Sundara was already charging at full speed when they

arrived.

A thousand Minmatar ships, led by their cursed Ragnorak flagship,

warped into the space above Mekhios, not fifty kilometres from the hulls

of the Righteous.

That was exactly where he wanted them, and precisely where his

instincts expected them to be.

Leading the fleet from an Avatar-class titan – a colossal warship every

bit as powerful as the Ragnorak in both size and firepower – he could

sense confusion amongst the enemy:

We weren’t supposed to have this much firepower ready for them. We

weren’t supposed to be prepared for their attack.

Surveying the thick formation ahead, he thought back to the wars of

the ancients; to the days when warriors clad in mail and steel faced each

other down on grassy fields; when entire armies would bravely stare across

the very soil upon which men were about to fall; to the courage that

soldiers would find in the comrades standing at their shoulders. In a

primal roar, they would charge and clash with the enemy, face to face

with clubs and swords and hell incarnate.

Here, in the void, they would do the same.

I want to stare into the eyes of the men I kill tonight, he thought.

Boundless furore consumed his heart as the outlines of Thukker and

Minmatar ships grew larger.

You dare to show yourselves at these worlds? You dare to defile this holy

ground? Then by God, I shall have your blood!

It didn’t matter that Jamyl Sarum was alive, or that she was preparing

to join this battle right now. It didn’t matter that Amarr was being tested

– not just her military, but the very faith that had carried their civilization

for millennia. Grand Admiral Sundara would be here to give his life regardless

of duty or prophecy.

He watched as the enemy unleashed their surface drones and fired

their Insorum warheads towards his beloved planet, filling the space

beneath them with a swarm of filth. Yet his fleet, closing range ever

faster, still refrained from opening fire, further puzzling the enemy.

They would fire only when the Minmatars completed their Insorum

bombardment, and not one moment sooner.