The Roar of Zhurmok
"His Majesty the Emperor has entrusted this to me. We have over ten trillions Urg'nok soldiers and dozens of anti-aircraft weapons at our disposal. We will annihilate the human air forces!"
General Drak'thar stood proudly on the scorched surface of Planet Zhurmok, swearing an oath of deathly loyalty to Mok'thar, the current Emperor of Bloodmaw. His eyes blazed with fervor as he continued, "With our forces, weapons, and abundant resources, we shall wipe out every last human. Zhurmok's mineral reserves can endlessly fuel our war machine."
"I trust that you won't fail me, Drak'thar," the emperor murmured.
On his obsidian throne, Mok'thar the Black Urg'nok slouched deep into his seat, his clawed hand twitching with restrained fury.
"Why... why do the humans rise again?"
He muttered to himself, still unable to comprehend. In his mind, humanity had long been broken. Nearly all humans had been enslaved across the stars, with only a few scattered remnants fighting back in weak, guerrilla uprisings. How could they possibly stand toe-to-toe with full-scale military forces now?
He turned to one of his ministers, voice low and cold.
"How long will our shipyards take to forge the next fleet?"
The minister stepped forward, bowing slightly.
"Your Majesty, we can launch a new armada within a month."
"Good. Very good," Mok'thar growled with a cruel grin.
"We must snuff out the flame of human resistance before it spreads any further."
But what the Bloodmaw Empire failed to understand was this:
They were not fighting ordinary humans.
They were fighting the most fanatical warriors mankind had ever produced—the Space Marines and more.
And they would not stop until the stars were free again.
Exterminatus
A term used within the Imperium Caelestis to refer to a last-resort military operation aimed at the complete destruction of a planet's biosphere and all life upon it.
This order is only issued when the cost of defending or reclaiming a world is deemed too high, or when the threat of mutation, plague, or chaos spreading across the Imperium becomes too great to contain through conventional means.
Aboard the warship Hyperion, the voice of the comms officer rang out clearly in the command deck.
> Comms Officer: "Admiral, we've received an encrypted message from the Liberty Fleet. General Jim Raynor reports that the civilian population has been fully evacuated. The Ghost units have completed their extraction, and Liberty is preparing to withdraw from orbit."
Speyer nodded without turning.
> Speyer: "Good. Send a reply. Ask where they're headed next. Inform them we're about to commence Exterminatus on this planet."
Beneath the divine emblem of the Imperium, Speyer sat calmly in the command seat. Around him, officers worked in precise silence, focused and resolute.
There are three primary methods used to carry out an Exterminatus order:
1. Orbital Bombardment:
The most straightforward and immediate method. Imperial warships rain fire from orbit using conventional weaponry. The destructive force can be scaled from precision strikes to thermonuclear-level devastation.
2. Cyclonic Torpedoes:
These weapons penetrate the planet's crust and disrupt its core stability, triggering catastrophic tectonic reactions—massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and eventual planetary collapse.
3. Virus Bombing:
The most horrifying method. Virus bombs release a specially-engineered biogenic plague designed to spread rapidly and break down all organic matter. Lifeforms—animals, plants, humans—are reduced to undifferentiated organic slurry. The resulting gases ignite, setting the atmosphere ablaze in a planetary firestorm that ensures nothing survives.
Any of these would be enough to erase a world from existence.
Speyer chose the first method—efficient, clean, and most importantly, immediate.
> Speyer (softly): "For the Emperor."
> Crew (in unison): "For the Emperor!"