Editing Battle of Zhuko V (section)

==Invasion==

Issitoq organized the fleet into position while giving pleasantries to Chief Manager of Manufactorums. Even as they spoke, his fleet began the bombardment with the Chief none the wiser until the first salvos struck. The Battle for Zhuko V began in silence, no one suspecting the attack. The northern polar orbital defence station vanished in a blaze of harsh blue light. Curtains of an aurora danced across the south polar defense grid as the graviton detonation warred with Zhuko’s magnetic fields.

The global defense network began to wake. Auspex scans cut into space, looking for targets. They did not have to look hard. Hundreds of ships enclosed Zhuko V in a shrinking sphere. It was a surprise to see that these ships were coloured in a cold blue of polar ice, trimmed with ivory. They had known that Legion in better times, had supplied them with war materials for the Emperor’s crusade. But they were no longer the Emperor’s warriors. They had come on some unknown mission of malice, driven by the greed, the lust of Zhuko's stocks of tanks.

The planet's defenses began to respond in kind. Torpedoes slid from launch tubes. Turbo-lasers fired, running their capacitors dry as they drew networks of light across the darkness. But they were too late. Two more nova shells fired from the Mastodontii fleet, destroying utterly the equatorial stations. Squadrons of destroyers slipped into high orbit and launched spreads of torpedoes at the remaining weapon platforms. New constellations blinked into existence in the skies over Zhuko V as they died, one by one. The only batteries left for protecting the planet lay on its surface, all those in the heavens blasted apart.

Within the Hives the Zhukons had no way of knowing what was bearing down on them. The bombardment had stripped them of nearly everything. All they were able to understand was the enemy was here to take the world. That had to be the only reason all of Zhuko V wasn't reduced to ashes by the superior force invading them. Magos Telesnius II, chosen ward of the Arch-Magos and given the responsibility of watching the promising planet, moved into action. 

A full scale mobilization was ordered, tens of thousands were mustered to hold the walls and crew the tanks. Rows and rows of the indomitable machines lined up in columns, Gaudins and Malcadors, Baneblades and Shadowswords. All were hastily crewed and sent out to fight, some without even paint upon their armoured hides. It was in this frenzied air of desperation that the Mastodontii attacked.