[M] War in the Void - Imperials IC

[dakkagor]

"Signal that we are commencing, and wish the Omnissiahs blessings upon them" Chao ordered.

"Signal sent!"

"Fire! Then all power to drives!"

The bombardment cannon thundered, a hundred decks below. The super-massive shells shot through the void as the lumbering Shepherd accelerated after them. The shells, traveling at near light speed, reached their target zone and exploded in a wave of light and electromagnetic fury.

"Reload for close fire!"

She watched the plot table. While the enemy cruiser was blind, she was as well for a few crucial minutes, her target obscured by the blast wave. The seconds slid by like glaciers, piling up into minutes that felt like eons as data was collated, passed to the bridge, plotted, and interpreted. For a mechanicus captain, augmented with split second decision making processes, time seemed to stretch even further, and deadly overthinking could crowd out logic and good decision making.

Chao was only lightly augmented herself. Just enough to interact with and process her ships noospheric environment, and even then, she preferred the somewhat more sedate experience of meatspace thinking.

They punched through the blast wave, the ship radiation alarms trilling, and they came upon their target. She had hauled away and upwards relative to the orbital plane, but Chao had expected some evasive maneuvers, and cut speed to give them a better, broader window of fire.

"Target for effect and then have us cross their T from the rear aspect."

A hard target lock alarm sounded.

"Torpedo on our six!" Sensori called out. "They have us cold!"

"Cut power to drives, all power to weapons. We can't evade at this range."

The radiation field that had obscured the Shepard's charge had, at the last minute, disrupted their own sensors abilities to see the approaching torpedoes. Meanwhile, the simple cogitator brains of the torpedoes had cut through the radiation and then locked onto the closest, hottest thing they could find, her ships drive plume. Even with the drives cut, her ship was still the logical target.

The bombardment cannon opened fire, at naval terms, knife-fight range. Even as the batteries of the target Chalice, Scintillating Wrath hastily retracked and hammered Chao's shields, the Wrath's own were knocked down by a massive blast of plasma and hard radiation.

"Fire portside battery as we cross." Chao grimaced. "And pray to the Omnissiah that our turrets are up to the job."

[Jarms48]

If the cruisers were the lions, growling and circling as they tested each other’s defences, then the frigates were the jackals darting around their feet. On the right flank Pillar of Intent and Audax were maneuvering to ward the Patriot destroyers away from the flagship, while around them the Patriot’s surprise fighter element had unfolded like a steel claw to rake through the Imperials’ own attack wave. On the left, the cross-hatching volleys of capital grade weaponry were mirrored on a smaller scale as the two frigate screens crossed.

It was beautiful in a way.

Murderous, hateful, world ending, but beautiful. The flashes of bright blue pulses and bursts of plasma ions, the flares of macro tracer darting across the void, the refractions of light as the entangled fleets void shielding flickered to life with every impact. There was chaos across the bridge, yelling, runes and alarm klaxons blaring with alerts. Lt Marie was head down at her desk, tapping her pencil against the hard metal. Occasionally jotting down notes with furious speed, before dropping it to work her terminal to the correct frequencies. Every second was vital, she relayed the orders and external communications. Effectively controlling every move Pillar made.

Captain Aeneas watched her. Before his eyes moved back to the exchange unfolding over the vid-screens. He turned his head away and paced across the bridge, a hand rubbing his chin. He was stuck in thought, trying to find solutions that wouldn't come. This was a matter of life and death, the countless lives of his crew rest in his hands and untold millions on the planets below should he fail in his part, and by extent his peers if they did the same.

He took a deep breath, now wasn't the time.

"Helmsmen Bernd, keep us in range of defensive turret range of Audax. We'll need to concentrate our defensive firepower if those attack craft decide to harass us. Those additional batteries may finally come in handy." Aeneas ordered.

"Aye, Captain."

"Lieutenant Struss, prepare torpedo spread for launch. Hold fire until the forward sections are totally clear, we don't want friendlies passing over our path."

"One building sized bad day, already primed and ready to fire. Waiting for opportunity to lay the spread." Struss chimed back.

"Comms, get Audax on the horn. Find out who they're targeting for their bombardment and coordinate with gunnery officer Struss. I want all firepower on nearest destroyer. We take them out and then make a straight shot for those Chalices. Put a plasma torpedo flush into their traitorous hulls."

"Aye, Captain. I'll send word to them immediately."

[PaintSerf]

Hold for Retaliator POV.

Ramming. Speed.

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: HDMS Retaliator, HDMS Resurgent, Shepherd of Light - Coseflame 

Shepherd of Light

Chao watched the red kill-cone of the Shepherd’s portside battery creep towards the pulsing target rune. The Wrath had seen the danger and was rearing backward, twisting as it pitched in an attempt to pull its stern out of harm’s way and bring its own flank batteries to bear.

Down armoured or not, the battlecruiser was a massive beast with momentum to match, and had only half completed the maneuver by the time Shepherd’s guns spoke.

Instead of gutting her, the volley broke her back, pounding shield bastions and fire control towers into molten ruin. One of the dorsal plasma turrets was hit, the metre-thick ceremite roof torn off to send a plume of fire spitting and clawing into space.

“Salvo effective!” a sensori officer shouted as ripples of feedback bloomed across the tacticae screens. A few moments later, the proximity sirens began to wail.

Long ribbons of tracer spooled out behind the Shepherd, sweeping from gun towers on the wings and superstructure. Short-range missiles fanned behind. The tracer lines scissored and converged, raking craters along the closing torpedo. A missile struck it a glancing blow and tore off a strip of the nose-cone, jolting it to one side. Not enough. Off course but too close now to miss, the torpedo gained a sheath of fire as it ploughed through Shepherd’s engine wake and went into a terminal dive.

Even braced, the impact astern was enough to nearly rock the bridge crew off their feet. A servitor in the ops pit was slammed sideways and gashed its head, thin fingers scrabbling to stay pressed to its rune console. A tech adept leaned close and translated the bursts of static stuttering from its bloody vox grille.

“Impact on the port quarter, captain. Most of the portside thrusters are inoperable.” The priesthood were not known for their strong emoting, but from the way the woman sighed and forcefully scored the Martian cog across the front of her robe Chao got the impression that it could have been a lot worse.

A stormcoat-clad AAT handler slid a sheet of paper away from the glazed astropath who had barely reacted to the impact, and slid another leaf under their scrawling pen-hand. “Message from Impiger, captain.”

As the Shepherd arced away, trailing plasma and misaligned thrust plumes, an equally battered warship took its place. Impiger loomed into position above the damaged Wrath, its own portside glowing and ablaze from plasma impacts, its ventral castles projecting ghosts of light as they snared the Chalice and turned it, reeling it in. Assault boats began to rain, piercing the command towers astern, the plasma turrets amidships.

“Message reads, Excellent maneuver, captain - we’ll take it from here.”

+ + + + + +

HDMS Retaliator

Bracing for impact was one thing. Throwing one kilometre-long vessel into another at astronomical speeds was something else entirely. The more seasoned bridge crew clung onto grav-harnesses or curled up beneath their consoles. The less cautious were thrown by the impact, yanked forward and slammed through glass screens and into gunmetal pillars.

Retaliator smashed into the enemy Cobra and almost broke it in half, sending a ripple of bulges and craters heaving across its outer hull as bulkheads collapsed. Retaliator’s own prow buckled as it scraped upward, ripping gashes in its own underside like clawing lines of morse code.

Atmosphere spurted from wounds in both vessels. Lights and instruments died in flash-bursts. Emergency doors, running on failsafe hydraulics, slammed tight. Crewmen gasped and choked in the dark, spinning helplessly through the air as gravity failed. Void-suited engineers and armsmen crews survived, only to suddenly find themselves spilling into the decks of an enemy ship as sections warped, separated and mashed together again in crazed configurations. Desperate, murderous fighting soon began to erupt on the horn-locked sections of both escorts.

+ + + + + +

HDMS Pillar of Intent

A halo of fire surrounded Aeneas’ ship, its shields blowing back the explosions of a full broadside. It drove clear and returned fire. Commander Harwood’s Audax joined in with its own las batteries, sending the targeted Cobra reeling. One of the Patriot’s spar-mounted thruster manifolds crumpled, spraying drive plasma in all directions and sending the destroyer tumbling away.

And then they were clear, the void ahead of them open towards the enemy Chalice, which was arcing around and down as it sought to swat away Accusator’s bomber wave. Atomic explosions were already blooming around its drive section.

It was what every frigate captain dreamed of: a clear run, straight at an enemy capital ship.

“Captain,” Struss reported, “The Cobra we hit is breaking off. Other two are making straight for Resurgent.”

“Harwood requests any order update, sir.” Marie chimed in from her vox booth.

+ + + + + +

HDMS Vehemens

The imperial flagship was back in the fight, a clenched iron fist trailing streamers of fire. Ahead of them Accusator had taken a battering from the second Chalice, but its tormentor was heeling away as the bombers hit, like a man flinching away from a swarm of vengeful wasps.

“Get the starboard batteries re-lit and engage.” Tehrani ordered, aiming a las-wand towards the hololith globe and causing a targeting reticule to snap in around the enemy battlecruiser. “Shepherd and Accusator to break through towards the planet.”

[dakkagor]

"Hail the Deus and the gunnery crews both." Chao breathed. "Shut down the affected thrusters and despatch the servitor clades, we can execute a roll if we need a turn to starboard."

As the crew recovered from the impact and her orders filtered through the ships taxed systems, fresh orders from the flagship were handed to her.

"Restore power to main drives and cycle our shields. Sensori, give me a sweep of Coseflames upper orbital tracks. All hands, prepare for orbital operations." She turned to Mistress of Archives Dehl Koudrakis again, who had remained on the deck, recording the combat on sheaths of parchment. "Find me everything you can about the target planet. With only two ships and a brawl at our backs, we can afford to leave nothing to chance."

The Mistress of Archives offered her a formal bow before she trundled away on her tank-like treads. She watched her officers go about their duties with the efficency she was accustomed too, and brought up a hololith display of Coseflame.

If only I was dropping Titans on that world.

It didn't feel right to not have their titan charges aboard and be heading towards a planet to support a landing. There was honour in putting the first boots down on a planet, and the bridges rear bulkhead was covered in 10 thousand years of such battlehonours from xenocides, insurrection suppressions and smashed blockades where naval action had been followed by the glory of Titan coffin ships delivering the Legio to break a world, each one stamped on a silver or gold seal, holding a parchment in place listing the engines and skitarii units that had dropped and fought in the Deus name. This action, no matter how glorious and vital it might be to the Imperiums efforts, wasn't what this ship was built for. She'd have felt better about it even if they were deploying Astra Militarum via bulk lander.

She shook her head and patted the solid hololith table, listening to the grumble of engines out of alignment and the dull growl of void shields being rotated, allowed to shut down and cool before being relight in preparation of ground attack. Chao imagined it like a prize fighter snapping her nose back into position, wiping the blood out of their eyes, and cracking their knuckles ready for another fight.

She partitioned the output of the hololith table, and moved the layout of Coseflames orbits to one side. She instead brought up the current status of the Chalice class they had smashed through. She felt a pang of remorse as boarders swarmed its hull and fires burned through its upper decks.

A loyal machine of the Deus brought low in treachery, and injured by my hand.

What would have been better? An instant death, an ammunition bunker or plasma reactor going up and consigning the ship and its compliment to oblivion? At least this way, there was a chance the ship would be recovered and pressed back into loyal service.

But still, it was sad to watch. She dismissed the data and refocused on the battle ahead.

Lets see what other surprises the seperatists have set up for us.

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Shepherd of Light, HDMS Tiamat’s Claw - Coseflame 

HDMS Vehemens

The Scintillating Wrath, formerly the Exitus Est, was drifting away from the fight, held fast by Impiger. Twenty thousand kilometres distant, Retaliator had locked horns with a Patriot destroyer in a smaller but no less brutal boarding action.

Pillar and Audax peeled off starward, giving up the torpedo shot on Corrino to head off the two Cobras bearing down on Resurgent. The second Patriot battlecruiser flared to maximum acceleration and hauled away, pulling clear of Accusator’s bombers who reluctantly banked aside and buzzed back towards their homeship. At full burn, Corrino also began to outpace the pursuing Vehemens. Zeroing in on blooms of flame and plasma leaks left by the bomber strikes, the imperial flagship sent streaks of fire flickering through the void after its opponent. They hissed and scattered from the Chalice’s shields, the megaton impacts shunted sideways into the warp.

The Patriot captain pulled away to a distance more optimal for his long-range plasma batteries and began to flare thrusters, hull and gun turrets both turning to bear. Magnet-sheathed plasma bolts spat forth, arcing back through the Chalice’s wake towards the Vehemens. This was where the down-armoured battlecruisers were most deadly - with the guns to outrange their imperial counterparts, and the speed advantage to dictate the distance of the engagement. Soon waves of flame were washing over Vehemens’ bow like a relentless flood-tide, and the cruiser's void shields began to flicker and glow in protest.

On the flagship’s bridge, tech-adepts clutched at talismans and traced the holy Cog as they watched heat-sink temperature gauges flicker steadily round from amber to red. One Martian tore down his hood to call up to the raised command dais. “Warp shunt capacitors are fully bottlenecked, commodore. Estimate failure of forward voids within the next three salvoes.”

Nasim Tehrani nodded sharply as the ship’s bulkheads groaned under another wave of transferred force, her hands gripping the mahogany guard rail for balance. “Dirigarium, keep us head on.” The ship’s adamantium prow should be able to deflect the battering they were receiving, at least for a while. “Dietrich, where are my torpedoes?”

“Tube Unus reloaded and primed, commodore.” the young officer replied without taking his eyes of the circuit-board scatter of red and green lights on his console. “Estimating three more minutes on Duo.”

Tehrani chewed her tongue. “We need both. Tell the ordnance magi to program for a bracketing spread. If we can force them to change course we’ll have a chance to close range.”

“Commodore! Warp flare at bearing three five zero, elevation minus twenty! Range sixty thousand!”

Tehrani’s eyes were drawn to the spinning globe of the auger hololith as it rippled with sudden energy spikes. Far ahead, past the flashing guns of the enemy battlecruiser, space tore open with equal violence, bleeding electric arcs and screaming light. A black, dagger-shaped shadow loomed within, as the ancient battleship Tiamat’s Claw dragged itself back into realspace.

+ + + + + +

Shepherd of Light

Chao studied the hololith with a practiced eye. Two cruisers of the Enforcer class and a dozen transports loomed in close orbit, casting dark shadows across the bright disc of the planet. The transports were beginning to turn inward, initiating the process of slingshotting away in a scatter of different directions to remove themselves from the impending engagement. The two cruisers began the more laborious process of turning outward, to face the incoming Shepherd and Accusator.

They were Adrantean home fleet ships, hornet-striped in dark grey and gold, porcupined with towers which blurred and swam as they ramped their void shields to full. The Enforcer was a specialised, odd-looking class of ship. Most of its independently-targeting lance turrets were dorsally mounted, and its flanks were studded with the long slits of fighter hangers, rather than gun batteries. It was designed for planetary lockdown and ground support foremost, void combat a distant second. Nevertheless, both enforcers were hauling into a higher orbit as attack craft began to spray and spread from their hangers, striking a balance between freeing the smaller voidships from Coseflame’s dragging gravity and wanting to use the planet as a guard against Shepherd’s amply-demonstrated bombardment cannon. A careless shot could strike the planet like the fist of an angry god, with no way to discriminate at this range between Imperial and Patriot ground sectors.

“Accusator is launching fighters.” the sensori reported, and there was a clicking whir as her augmetic eyes approximated a frown. “Three squadrons. That is unlikely to be sufficient screen against the mustering attack wave.”

[Atrum Daemon]

The black void of space rippled and churned like a man wracked with intestinal pain. A soundless ripping tore reality asunder, leaving a gaping wound releasing tendrils of eldritch power. A massive shape pulled itself free from the roiling hole in the void; a black spearhead shape bristling with weapon ports and bedecked with gilded statues and icons. An ancient ship of war and faith directed to the battlefield by backroom politicking rather than to the dry dock.

“Realspace transition complete, Commodore.” A tall, handsome deck officer turned to look at the bulky figure sitting on the command throne.

Commodore Balthazar Grantz had always been a man of imposing stature and now with the exo-frame he had an added intimidation to his silhouette. The Commodore was less than pleased with the redirection of his vessel even moreso realizing there were no escorts awaiting their arrival.

“And right back into the shit,” grumbled the Commodore. “Weapon status?”

“All green, Commodore,” came a prompt answer.

“Sensors?”

“Primary running optimally. Secondary…”

“As expected,” Grantz grumbled again. “Bring us about and towards the ongoing engagement. Once targets are identified, prepare for broadsides at maximum range.”

“Aye!”

Tiamat’s Claw may have been left partially blind and with a damaged engine from her last engagement but there was little Grantz could do about that now. The tech-adepts down in engineering were a talented bunch and could keep her running just fine and the Commodore trusted his bridge crew with his life. They would be able to compensate for the damaged sensors as they had when transitioning to the Claw and discovering her lack of advanced sensors most of them were used to.

Emperor willing, of course…

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: HDMS Tiamat’s Claw - Coseflame 

Crewman Candless exhaled a breath, settled her eye to the infrascope, and tried to ignore the fact that her specula tower was one of the few spires extending precariously outside the Tiamat’s shield bubble. Junior magos Velikov had assured her that the tower was built to withstand the shrapnel of shield blowback, and that the chances of enemy ordnance directly hitting the tower were laughably low, but it was easy to laugh when you were a hundred metres below, safely cocooned behind void-shields and armoured bulkheads. Candless could picture him now, happily waving his hands and muttering whatever spells the tech-priests used to turn sensor data into firing solutions for the gun decks. Warp sensors would have given him the same data without her having to hang outside the shield bubble like a tiny Kick me! sign, but the warp vanes were on the fritz, as always, and so here she was.

Candless glanced up at the thin chains hanging above the windows, aquila talismans jangling against mechanicus cogs, sun discs bearing saints’ names, and other charms she didn’t recognise. She appreciated the wards, if not the fabricators who had thoughtfully covered the dome where she now sat in transparent armourglass. Anyone who claimed that the speculae towers had the most beautiful views on the ship clearly hadn’t stood watch during combat, when you could see chains of enemy ordnance blooming their way along the void shield towards you.

“Train augurs three degrees to starboard, please.” Velikov’s voice echoed through the old-fashioned brass speaking tube that ran the length of the tower.

“Three degrees starboard, aye.” Candless acknowledged, leaning over to her own speaking tube before putting her hands on the giant crank that controlled the infrascope’s turntable. She put her eye back to the scope to manually confirm the vector. Two bright stars, many thousands of kilometres apart, denoted the two cruisers in their current combat sphere. Velikov had helpfully overlaid his own screen atop her scope, such that one of the stars was tagged with green runes that read “Vehemens”. The other was scarlet and read “Corrino”. Red meant enemy. Corrino was glowing steadily, though the range numbers printed alongside it were slowly ticking down.

“Corrino still closing.” Candless reported into the brass tube. It was an unnecessary statement, but she was nervous. The long minutes before opening fire were, if anything, more nerve-wracking than the pyrotechnic storm itself.

“Correct.” Velikov’s disembodied voice answered her. “And they are accelerating. I believe they intend to fly over our heads so as to get behind us, though that is for better minds than me to interpret.”

Over our heads was probably not the technical term, but unlike the snobby tech-adepts who would lecture her when she used words like “up”, “down” and “speed” in the wrong context, Velikov seemed happy to dumb things down for her. He still flatly refused to answer her questions about how any of the stuff in the specula tower worked, though.

As Candless thumbed dials to try and tune out some of the background interference, two smaller stars detached themselves from the Vehemens and began to crawl across the magnified scope.

“Two new blooms from Vehemens.” she dutifully reported. “Looks like torpedoes.”

“Correct.” Velikov said once again. “Keep the focus on them for a moment please while I calculate the vectors.”

Long seconds ticked painfully by.

“Where are they aiming?” Candless asked. Another unnecessary statement, but she had nothing to look at except the infrascope lens and the craggy cliff of Tiamat’s dorsal side stretching below the windows. The rows of slab-fronted lance turrets had traversed slowly round and now sat poised with their quadruple barrels raised as if in salute, but they didn’t fire. Just shoot, damn you, before the other side does!

“I am predicting that the first torpedo will pass behind the Corrino without the enemy ship entering its detection cone.” Velikov might as well have been discussing end-of-shift rations. “The second torpedo will pass high.”

Candless cursed both the torpedoes and her unconcerned colleague sitting pretty in his armoured, shielded, warded cogitator room. “So much for our frakking allies if they can’t shoot straight.”

“I would hypothesise that the vectors were intentional. Two degrees port and one degree elevation, please.”

“Two port, one up, aye.” Candless answered as she made the adjustments. “So what are they playing at, then?”

“Firing ahead of the Corrino would increase the chances of a hit, but there would also be a small chance of the torpedoes acquiring the Tiamat instead.”

“So why not just hold the shot rather than waste two torps?”

A rasping sound carried down the tube as Velikov cleared his throat. “Again this is for better minds than mine, but I believe that the stern shot is to prevent the Corrino from turning round, while the over shot forces them to move closer to our guns.”

Candless considered that for a moment. As she put her eye back to the lens, the bright red star of the Corrino suddenly began to wink and sputter, throwing out streams of light and heat for the infrascope to catch. “Corrino firing again.”

“Correct, and this time they are aiming at us. Please brace yourself.”

“Wait, wha-?” Candless shouted, just as the landscape of crenelated towers and jutting gun turrets out the window vanished behind a flurry of explosions that swirled and burned across the invisible dome of the void shields. The barrage seemed to go on forever, blindingly bright and terrifyingly silent save for the occasional plink of micro-debris glancing off the tower. At last, the storm subsided.

“Are you alright, crewman?” Velikov’s voice echoed from the speaker pipe, as Candless slowly uncurled from behind the operator station. She appreciated that, at least. Most tech-adepts would have asked after the delicate infrascopes first.

Candless swallowed, and licked her dry lips as she leaned over the pipe. “Fine.” she replied. “Thank you. Can you please ask the captain to start shooting back now?”

[dakkagor]

"Execute a turn to port, get me side on and give them the guns. Focus fire on the incoming fighter screen. Change our approach to Coseflame to oblique, rising over the system plane at 20 degrees."

Chao was gripping the holotank hard as the two Enforcer Class cruisers turned and rose to meet her. She felt the gun deck vibrate as the massed broadsides thundered into the void in an attempt to scatter the incoming bomber wave.

Based on the Dauntless hull, the Enforcer was a formidable opponent and in many ways similar to the Shepherd in being a specialised ship designed to support ground operations. Putting their back to a gravity well was a smart move in this situation, making every missed shot with her big guns a potential disaster.

She tapped her boot on the deck, squaring the problem away. No way she could fight through that escort screen and the heavy lance batteries. Could she take one of those factors out of the equation and do some good? Or was now the time to show discretion and hold off, maybe even return to the brawl at her back and assist the Imperial navy?

She watched the transports hug the atmosphere and begin the process of slingshotting away. These were awkward civilian cogs mostly, pressganged from the various merchant familia into supporting the war effort. Big, fat, soft targets that if she could kill, would seriously reduce the patriots ability to resupply and reinforce other worlds.

Even better, they would be easy to board as well. . .with luck, she could kill or disable four of them, maybe more.

"Give me full acceleration towards Coseflame, insertion vector 22-54. All power to shields, engines and point defence. Tell our fighter screen to hug as close as they dare. Give me a chaff spread along our course from the bombardment cannon now!"

She stepped away from the holoith for a second, and addressed the bridge crew directly.

"I intend to have us enter a high, fast, planetary orbit and end up amongst the transports scrambling to escape. The more of them we overhaul and destroy or disable, the better this war will go in the future. I expect us to take a beating from the lances on our way in, but once the orbit is completed we should have reversed the situation; we'll have the planet to our backs and be at liberty to use the bombardment cannon to drive off those damn Enforcers. If anyone sees a flaw in the logic of this plan, speak up now."

There was a silence on the bridge, broken only by the click of cogitators and the monotones of servitors monotasked to their bridge roles. Chao did not give speeches, but her crew knew that when she addressed them like this, the risks were higher than usual. But this was also not an Imperial warship, this was a temple of the Omnissiah, and each priest and officer had an equal say in its future when she opened up the floor like this.

"Very well then. Gunnery, have the gunners lively. No ammo stacking, ensure all safety rituals are adhered too, we will be under heavy fire. Artisan, focus on our voids. Once we clear the planets horizon, you'll have a limited window to cycle and repair our emitters. Make it count."

She felt the ships engines strain under her to push them through the void. She stared at Coseflame as it grew in the occulus, daring it to throw another challenge at her.

"Incoming!" The Sensori augmitted. The first lance bolts, brilliant neon shards of light that blistered the voids, came in. The bridge lights flickered and died, then came up again, and Chao's hearing picked up the distinct whine of void shield generators overloading.

The next salvo slapped the shields all the way down. Chao barely had time to yell before the third and fourth salvo cut deep into the Shepherds ten millenia old hull, venting compartments, incinerating crew and systems, and scoring glowing lines down her flanks that wept metal tears. Subsystems blew out along the starboard flank and oxygen fires swept along decks as bulkheads slammed down.

Then the lightside of Coseflame slid past their starboard side, and the lances couldn't reach them anymore.

"Artisan, cycle shields, gunnery, free targets! Highest cycle rate and hammer them to scrap!"

The merchant cogs, fat and soft and running, scattered before the Shepherd. One, painted in a gaudy stripped pattern of blue and red, was dead ahead, until the bombardment cannon thundered. The ship simply disintegrated, shards of wreckage falling back into Coseflames atmosphere as a storm of meteors.

"Let them have it!" Chao yelled as the guns thundered.

"Incoming bombers!"

The bombers fell on them like wolves on the fold. Their own interceptors, hugging the port side hard, rolled out to meet them and became engaged with the fighters escorts. Hydra and basilisk emplacements along the Shepherds flank thundered into the void alongside the larger turbo laser anti-bomber emplacements. Chao turned to watch the damage reports as the bombers focused on the holes already clawed in her hull. Damage icons spread across the Shepherd as bombs and missiles found their mark and tore into weakened armour.

"Forward gunnery bridge disabled!"

"Dorsal drop bays damaged!"

"Fires on multiple decks!"

"Reactor 3 shutdown! Reactors 1 and 8 failing!"

"Starboard gunnery decks at 45% operation!"

"Voids not cycling on Starboard side! Voids dead starboard!"

The bridge shook and people were thrown to the deck. The lights died again, then the emergencies came back up.

"What the FRAG was that?" Chao yelled as she hauled herself to her feet. She paused to haul the mistress of archives upright as the artisan station applied percussive maintenance to a failed readout.

"Big debris chunk, possibly a disabled enemy bomber with a full or near full load, slammed into the bridge tower at its base. Armour took most of it but the transitways are completely shot, its open to vacuum across two decks, and power was cut to bridge systems. We are running on local batteries. Working on a redirect now, Shipmistress."

"We've been decapitated. . ." Chao groaned. "Do we have noosphere? Hardline may be down, but can we chain a noosphere link to the secondary bridge?"

The more heavily modified priestesses and adepts scuttled around, working on the problem as Chao ignored the suddenly still air and the tightening sensation in her throat. It had only been minutes, but she knew the aircyclers were not powered by the back up batteries now keeping the lights and basic noosphere support active. Grav was also out, with everyone now clamping to the metallic deck.

"I have reconnected with the secondary bridge!" One of the adepts shouted. Chao pushed over to her.
"Ship Secundi Dorlia is currently coordinating repairs, and managing gunnery. We have several confirmed kills amongst the merchantmen and she has despatched some skitarii boarders to two we crippled."

"The enemy attack craft?"

"Unknown, Shipmistress."

"How long on the hardline repair?"

"Unknown, Shipmistress. The spirit is willing, but the metal is weakened."

"Tell Dorlia to cut speed and keep us behind Coseflame for as long as possible. The longer we have to repair and get the shields back up the better we will be."

She turned to the crew and raised her voice again.

"Void hardened adepts are to remain at their posts and continue efforts to restore prime bridge functionality. Everyone else, suit up and relocate to the secondary bridge."

[Atrum Daemon]

“Firing solution locked.”

“Fire torpedo barrage.”

“Torpedo barrage, aye!”

The front of the massive warship belched out a payload of void-ready torpedoes before beginning her seemingly laborious turn to starboard. Despite her size the “Claw” was nimble in a fight with a crew that knew how to handle her. In moments the traitorous ship was faced with the broadside of the Retribution-class ship and the lion's share of that sides massive array of deadly guns. From the command throne, Balthazar drummed his fingers on one of the armrests and studied the displays. “Reduce it to splinters.”

The void between the two ships lit up in a grand display of force few other ships could manage. The enemy ship's void shields flared to life under the impressive barrage. After the first barrage of powerful canons, the lance batteries along the dorsal hull had in their targeting sequences. Brilliant crimson light shot forth seeking to gouge the “Corrino” to her core. The bold choice to face the “Claw” one-on-one was commendable of the traitors, the Commodore thought and perhaps indicative that they had not wholly abandoned their courage. But a fool's errand was a fool's errand.
Some might be surprised at the extreme show of offense from the “Claw” but the Commodore was making adjustments to their usual tactics to make up for their current lack of escort craft which only magnified the need to keep their damaged sensors at the front of his mind. He made a note to remember the name of the crewman up in that specula and see they were rewarded accordingly.