Treachery at Port Maw - The Song of Chaos: At Port Maw, in the flickering actinic light and glimmering brass of the Mechanicum Control Panopticon, a countdown set in motion long before wound down finally to zero. The Mechanicum data-djinn web blazed with a power unheard of, and all over the system Vox-circuits burned out, Auguries were suddenly shrouded in static and Auspex scanners shut themselves down as if to avoid the flash-flare of a nova. The vast swirling fleet that surrounded the Port Maw station was in a moment all but blinded, and in that same moment, the navigational net entrusted to sift safe order from chaos began to lie. Ships collided without warning, showering wreckage in the paths of others, drives flared suddenly to full power, hurling the crews of the runaway vessels to bloody pulp, pulverised by the unexpected and unguarded against accelerations, and flag bridges were swamped with hostile scrap-code.On a hundred vessels, systems failed or misfired as the chaotic signal continued to pulse, and in the others whole decks depressurised or vented into the void, dragging their silently screaming inhabitants with them. The worse calamities the deadly electromagnetic song inflicted, though, fell upon only the lesser vessels; the merchantmen and the light Escorts without the power to resist and to whom an end came swiftly. The greater warships were far too powerful and too resilient to suffer much other than debilitation and confusion from this data-djinn-borne blade in the back, their own fearsome machine-anima immediately reacting against the attack, over-riding or burning out corrupted systems to regain full control. But as they recovered, many of these leviathans of war found themselves suddenly under fire from those they believed allies.For while many reeled, there had been warships prepared in secret for this assault and others against whom the attack had not been directed at all and at whose helms Traitor hands had mastery. Already warships had begun to burn as former comrades opened fire at point blank range before they were aware of the danger, laid low by treacherous strikes intended to cripple rather than kill. Within tightly-formed squadron formations, Vox-broadcasts demanded surrender and some vessels, finding themselves surrounded by turncoats and all but powerless, could do nothing but comply. Elsewhere the initial attack had been anything but successful in subduing those ships that remained loyal, and aboard these, Void Shields swiftly ignited and alarm sirens sounded as battlestations was called with vengeful ire.On the vast conglomerate station complex that was Port Maw itself, fighting had already broken out between Traitor and Loyalist, the station's provost marshals having thwarted an attempted mutiny within their own ranks were now rallying armed resistance to lay siege to the Mechanicum Control Panopticon, which would answer neither Vox-hail or override command, and was the undoubted source of the malign digital broadcast drowning out all others. The frantic provost marshals, unable to make headway against the automated defences which ringed the Panopticon citadel, gave way to the elite white-armoured Veletaris sections of the 905th Lethe Cohort, the "Ash Scorpions" as they had come to be known. Veterans of a dozen ferocious war zones, the discipline of battle had turned these Feral Worlders into a lethally effective fighting force. Blasting through bulkheads with Melta Bombs and tracked Rapier cannon, they worked their way corridor by corridor, cutting down any resistance they met with savage crossfires of Volkite rays and forced a passage through the Maw's labyrinth of tunnels towards the generatora which supplied the Panopticon with its power.As they battled closer to the Mechanicum section, matters became yet more desperate as the station's fabric itself seemed to turn against them and they were forced to bring up Flamer units to scour the passageways of scuttling haemonculites and darting Servo-skulls, driven in frenzied attacks like maddened animals. Breaching their way at last into the great generator vault, they found a vast cathedral-like space, dominated by five enormous, lightning-shrouded plasma coils, each as large as a Battle Titan. Here stood the acolytes of the treacherous Archmagos-Astral Mercuric, hulking Tech-priests as heavily armoured as Legiones Astartes Terminators in order to endure proximity to the radioactive infernos they tended, metre-wide steel spiders which leered with the rictus-dead grins of human skulls from the gantry-ways and webs of cabling that festooned the vault, and scores of blank-eyed Servitors, their flesh scorched cinder-black. Beyond all these, guarding the central control pulpit, was a maniple of iron-grey Castellax Battle-automata, their Bolt Cannons levelled and cycling; a deadly barrier beyond which nothing could pass.Battle was joined. The fate of Port Maw hung in the balance, bravely the Ash Scorpions advanced into heavy fire, rushing from cover to cover as fast as they could as they tried to find a way through the tangle of consoles and companionways to the heart of the generatora. Soon the cavernous vault was filled with a hurricane of shrieking energy blasts and roaring bolt shells. Machinery exploded, companionways buckled, acrid smoke filled the air. Men and automata were cut down alike, steel claws found flesh and bit deep, Flamers gouted their hot breath, grenades clattered and thundered, shredding bodies and sundering metal. Amid the storm, the wall of Castellax automata stood unbreached, their armour scorched and smoking as blasts and shell washed over them like hail across stone until a trio of tracked Rapier batteries emerged from the smoke, the shearing beams of their Laser Destroyers converging on the lead Castellax and sending it to burning oblivion.Sensing that their moment had come, the Veletaris storm sections broke from cover, screaming the ancient blood-cries of their Feral World, and charged the breach in the lethal barricade of Battle-automata. Dozens died before they reached it, torn to pieces by the fury of the Mauler Bolt Cannon of the surviving Castellax, while others were pulverised by the heavy blows of their servo-claws, but like a pack of raptors they swarmed the armoured behemoths, Volkites spitting hellish rays at point blank range into joints and tears in the Battle-automatas' armour. Another of the Castellax fell, thrashing in blind rage as its legs were cut from beneath it, and the Veletaris surged through, crashing into the Tech-priests with a strength born of desperation and sacrifice that could not be allowed to be in vain.Only a single Veletarii Prime, whose name has gone unrecorded, managed to force his way through the tumult and slaughter to the dais of the control pulpit, his Void Armour blood-splattered and aflame. With no time for thought or plan of action, he plunged his Power Sabre directly into the heart of the machine, even as vast steel claws were fastening themselves around his pressure helm. The pulpit dais exploded in a blazing white fireball, murderous arcs of lightning shot from the great plasma reactor cores, ravaging the vault as their emergency protocols engaged, and the misdirected power was vented into the capacitors which lined the wall, burning men and machines caught between them into clouds of cinders.Outside, the interference signal blanketing Port Maw first faltered and then failed.