15-16

Chapter Fifteen


	Lord Ranult Arden glowered at the data on the cogitator screen before him.  “I knew it,” he muttered bitterly. “I bloody knew it.”  He turned to the Librarian at his side and gestured angrily at the screen.  “Behold, brother, as Cloudburst crumbles.”

	Chief Librarian Covum, the eldest living Blue Dagger outside the Dreadnoughts, sighed unhappily.  “Be calm, my brother.  The loss is a serious one, but it is not insurmountable.  Feudal Worlds are notoriously hard to hold against space invasions.  You know this.”

	“Yes.”  Arden crossed his arms over his chest and glared holes in the holo display.  “Yes.  Damnation.  Damnation!  Gorum’s Folly is nothing but ashes now!”

	The two Marines stared at the report coming in.  A team of Astropaths was feverishly transcribing their apocalyptic vision.  The Chief Astropath had come to Arden sobbing, reporting that a world had fallen into the void.  Moments later, messages had streamed in from the system, telling tales of catastrophic defeat for the Imperium, and for the Blue Daggers.

	“A hundred brothers dead or missing, which means dead,” Arden snarled.  “Gone.  One twelfth of my Chapter, dead in two minutes.  Damn the xenos to the deepest pits of the Warp.”

	“I know, Ranult.”  Covum bowed his head in silent prayer for a moment.  “We can but regroup.”

	Arden looked over the final tally of losses for another few moments, fuming in silent rage, then turned away with a growl.  He all but threw his helm into a nearby seat and stomped over to the briefing chamber’s holomap.

	Covum’s heart was no lighter, but he kept his cool.  The Chapter’s senior members on dispatch to Dawn-Break had assembled in the chamber.  The room’s lights darkened as Arden approached the table.  Covum’s bitter frown softened as he felt Arden’s heart gird with flames.

	The low murmur of voices filled most of the room as the final senior Chapter members entered and surrounded the huge rectangular holotank.  Many of the Council of Masters were present, and fully a quarter of the Apothecarion and Chaplaincy.  The vaulted room had the Imperial Aquila embossed on nearly every surface, with censers on the walls, burning flickering incense.

	Paper scrolls with oaths of moment discharged by past Daggers hung from the edges of the holotable.  Arden stomped right up to the rim of the table and slammed his hands down.  “Silence!” he barked.  The room instantly fell quiet.  Some of the younger Brothers looked at each other askance.  They had never heard Arden speak like that.

	“Battle Brothers!  The enemy strikes at our hearts,” Arden said.  He was grinding his words.  He had to unclench his teeth.  “Even now, Solstice’s forces drag the carcass of their Cylinder from the doorstep  of our Chapter.”  Arden leaned over the edge of the table.  His face lit up from the thousand lights of the holotank and cast sharp shadows on his face.

	“And now we have grave news from Gorum’s Folly,” Arden said darkly.  “The line broke.  The Glasians have killed the world with their great Traverse Cores.”  He glowered into the room, though he was careful not to let his eyes linger on any one Brother.  “Only a few dozen of the hundred thirty Blue Daggers on the planet escaped.”

	Silence.  Dead silence.  Arden slammed one fist against his breastplate.  “I know that the weariness is clawing at us all,” he said curtly.  “The hate, the shock, the indignation.  It stings to hear of the death of our brothers.  Especially since Gorum’s Folly had half of our Scouts on it.  There is now so much to rebuild.  The war is not yet over now, either.  Orks and Glasians run riot over our Sector.  Our numbers thin.  And now we hear of Guilliman, awake.  Lord Guilliman, our gene-sire and Progenitor, awakens, but we may not live to see him.  The sky darkens.  Terra is lost to us.”  He leaned forward, and his face was cold ice.  “But we?  We are unbroken.  We are the Blue Daggers!  By the Throne, we shall not let ourselves turn aside from the course He set!”  He slammed one balled fist on the edge of the tank, and the image jumped.  “We are not the bestial Glasians.  We remember our dead.  Santoru.  Xaviel.  Coulden.  They join the ranks of our heroes, the fallen greatest.  Mourn them, and let your desire for vengeance burn brighter.”  He met each Daggers’ eyes in turn.  “We have always been out here in the cold, my Brothers.  We stand farthest from the light, at the very edge of Imperial Space, at the fringe of Terra’s glow.”

	Covum slowly walked up to the table as Arden’s voice rose.  “We have stood triumphant over every single Throne-Damned obstacle!  When the Hellwound opened on AJH345, we sewed it shut with blood and faith!  When the Orks assaulted Hangonne, we crushed them!  When the Glasians hit us and then hit us again, and again, and again, we BROKE them!”  The fury of his passion brought confidence back to the eyes of some of the Marines who had taken the news hardest.  He was animated by more than rage, and it suited him better.  “A SPECIES cowers when we raise our blades!” he roared.  “Heretics and daemons slit their own throats when they see us coming!  Shall we allow the darkness to keep us from our duties?  From our responsibilities?  From our appointed tasks?  Of course not!”

	He stood straight and bared his teeth as he spoke.  “I know that not one soul in my Chapter will turn from the Emperor’s will because of these wounds.  I need not even say it.  But neither shall we do our duty weighed down by solemnity and mourning!  We shall remember our fallen brothers, and we shall rebuild, but first we shall unleash our rage and our hate, and we shall scour Dawn-Break of the foul abominations that clog its surface!”

	The other Blue Daggers slapped their breastplates.  The noise was cacophonous, drowning out Arden’s words.  “We shall strike down the Glasian trash as they lash out at their betters!  We shall shield Dawn-Break from the beasts, and we shall not yielf!  Not one more world!”

	“Not one more,” Covum echoed from behind him.

	“Not one more!” the room shouted back.

	Arden raised his fists.  “We have drawn the line here!  There shall be no faltering, no hesitation, no more defeats!”  He took in the room with one last shout.  “Not!  One!  More!”

	The room broke into hails and Blue Dagger battlecries.  As the sound died down, Covum set a hand on Arden’s shoulder briefly.  His friend sensed the gesture and nodded.  “Now, Brothers, we shall speak of strategy,” he said in a normal tone.  “This map is of our current deployment in the Starlight Hollow,” he added, naming the system in which the planet Dawn-Break hung.  “Our ships have taken a cordon, reinforcing the Basilikon Astra in orbit and protecting the civilian populations while the Mechanicus secures the dig site.  Our forces are already engaging here, but they started late.  The Cylinder came in at the wrong angle to the star to fly directly to the planet, so they attacked only days ago.”  Arden scowled.  “The Warp is tumultuous enough that getting to Dawn-Break will be… unpredictable.  This and other ships in the flotilla may arrive separately, they may arrive with no formation, and they may not arrive at the Mandeville Point.  However, the Basilikon Astra has battleships here from the Mechanicus’ Cognomen fleet, as well as Titans.  It is also possible, from what we have seen, that Knights from worlds beyond Cognomen may be on the way.”

	He tapped the screen, and it zoomed in on the icy planet until individual continents resolved.  “The Glasians could attack anywhere, so we shall remain mobile.  Our brothers back home are holding the Space Hulk at bay for now, but it shall not remain immobile forever, so we must be done with this place quickly.”

	One of the other Daggers leaned forward.  “Master Arden, what shall the Brothers we sent to reinforce Gorum’s Folly do now that it no longer exists?”

	“Fly to Oglith, as per their orders,” Arden said.

	The Dagger nodded.  “Forgive me, but how then shall we destroy the Cylinder at Dawn-Break?  We have only four Terminators in the system, and that number will not rise when we arrive.”

	“Not true,” Covum pointed out.  “There are two Terminator Techmarines present.  Still, it is not enough to destroy a Cylinder.  The Mechanicus has that task.”

	“This Strike Cruiser, the Azure Death, is more than enough to get us there, and the Navigator from the Sharp Edge is present here in case the strain of flying with no vision of the Astronomican proves to be too much for the normal Navigator,” Arden said.  “Our fleets shall reinforce the security cordon around the planet, not supplant Magos duPree in his role of taking down the Cylinder.”

	“Are we sure duPree isn’t going to try to take the blasted thing intact?” one of the other Marines asked disgustedly.  “He’s a technophile among technophiles.”

	“He knows better.  If he didn’t try when one attacked Cognomen, he won’t do it now,” Arden scoffed.  “No.  We must press on.  Let the Navy and the Basilikon handle it.”  He straightened up.  “Once we arrive, we will have a few days to progress from the Mandeville Point to the planet.  We can use that time to create the correct troop deployments.  For now, take your individual tactical reviews and read them.  We shall reconvene once the Navigator gives us the arrival warning.”  He slapped his breastplate, at a normal volume this time.  “You are dismissed, my Battle Brothers.”


	When the Blue Daggers were filing out, Arden stood at the table in silence.  As the door hissed shut, he sighed.  “A bit of theater, perhaps.”

	“It worked.”  Covum walked out of the shadows to rejoin his old friend.  “The Space Marines here are no feeble mortals, nor over-enthused Scouts.  They are the veterans, the best.  They knew the second you turned around that we lost a hundred souls.  The ones who didn’t hear you say it saw it on your face.”

	“I know.”  Arden closed his eyes.

	Covum looked at the sealed doors beyond.  “They still needed to be reminded who leads them.  They know you meant every word.  That means as much as the words you were actually saying.”

	Arden snorted.  “How reassuring.”  He reached down to turn off the tac map.  The Strike Cruiser rocked in aetheric turbulence as they fought their way through the un-lit Warp.  The Azure Death was one of the best ships in the Sector, and even then it was a struggle to stay on course.  Arden sighed.  “My friend, when we founded this Chapter, when Augustus was still with us, we always had a sense it could be a line in the sand.  Us, a new Chapter, securing the future.  We had contingencies for everything.  Waaaghs, Thousand Sons, traitors.”  He glared at the unfair universe.  “We never planned for losing Terra.  How could we?”

	Covum ruefully shook his head.  “It seems like a worst-case scenario, to the extent that we never contemplated it.”

	“Were we deficient?”

	“Yes.  We should have planned for this.  Even if we had, though, this is something beyond.”  Covum listed the problems on his hands.  “A Glasian Migration, an Ork Space Hulk, and now this Warp Storm.  Plus, Lord Guilliman returning, Cadia’s loss.  We prepared for change, we didn’t prepare for everything changing at once.”

	“I suppose that’s my fault more than anybody else’s,” Arden said heavily.  “Poor Augustus.”

	“He is with the Emperor now, Brother.”  Covum leaned back against the table and set his psi-stave down beside him.  “We all failed to foresee such a thing.  Don’t blame yourself overmuch.”

	“Just enough to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Arden said.  He rubbed his eyes.  It was no small feat in Power Armor.  “Well.  We should take the time to establish proper protocols for the loss of connection to Terra after all this over, then.  Implement them on the fly.  We have a line of succession seventy positions long, but clearly that can’t be enough by itself.”

	Covum peered at him.  “What do you think Quintus and Lerica will do?”  The Lord Sector and the Lady High Inquisitrix of the Sector Conclave were far more familiar with Arden than they were with Covum.

	Arden scoffed.  “Quintus will probably crawl to Lerica for aid.”  He hesitated.  “No, that’s not fair.  He’ll do his level best to keep order.  He just doesn’t have the experience to handle this catastrophe.  Lerica, I do not know.  She’ll probably empty the halls of the Palace at Maskos, trying to send all of her people out to handle things.  The wild card is Kimihira.  She’s a force of nature, but this will test the very limits of her power.”

	“No jest, brother,” Covum said.  “My psychic powers pale beside hers.”  He sighed.  “But enough.  We can speculate forever.  When we arrive, it will be time to act.  What should our next step be?”

	“Secure Dawn-Break against the Glasians, then move as many assets as possible to where they’re needed most,” Arden said firmly.  “And I will need your aid, Tolleair.  Can you still peer at the skeins of fate from our vantage beyond the light of Terra?”

	“Not comfortably, but yes,” Covum said.  “I can perform divinations to determine where to go next.  We shall simply need to focus on eliminating the Glasians as fast as we possibly can.”

	“As ever.  At least that’s something at which we excel,” Arden observed.  He turned to the exit.  “I may as well speak to the Navigator, see if she can estimate how much time we have.  See to your Acolytes, Master Covum.  We shall need their skills soon.”


Chapter Sixteen


	The war on Oglith ground to a smoking halt as Guilliman’s arrival turned things around for the Imperium.  Where before the Orks and Glasians had been at the very walls of the cities, or inside the walls in several cases, the arrival of the thousands of Space Marines and Imperial Guard elites shifted the balance.  Within a week, the Glasian menace had shrunk from two hundred thousand foul aliens to a mere thousand, and every suface Ork was dead or running for its life.

	The orbital battle was all over save the cleanup.  The Glasian flotilla had evaporated under the concentrated fire of a Gloriana superbattleship, and the Ork ships had either fled to deep space or followed the Glasians into oblivion.

	Guilliman had not spent one moment idle in his time in the Palace of Oglith.  From the second he had finished absorbing the strategic overlay, he had worked.  Officers had flowed in and out as he moved troop dispositions, reassigned forces to their optimal locales, and dispatched specialists to do the most good.  Not content to simply leave Oglith better defended, he also sent dispatch instructions to manufacturers, construction teams, and Techpriests across the globe, ordering them to rebuild what had been lost, usually better than it had been before.  The Planetary Governor had been less than pleased at first that Guilliman had been taking the time to plot new zoning regulations and factory orders in the middle of a war, but within a day had been left in awe of the changes, and the efficiency it would bring.

	By the time the Primarch was done, Oglith had gone from a collapsing Frontier World and Subsector Capital to the foundation of a new Civilized World, one that could serve as the outermost edge of Imperial Space in deed as well as in name.

	At the end of the week, Lord Primarch Guilliman stood on the lip of a broad concrete platform attached to the Imperial Palace, overlooking the central square of the capital, and thrust one fist into the air.  The one point two million Guardsmen watching in person, and the five hundred thousand watching on broadcasts, echoed the gesture with an overjoyed scream of triumph and affirmation.  The war for Oglith was over.

	Guilliman was so used to giving these speeches that it came naturally to his lips.  He spoke into a vox he had clipped to his gorget, and speakers broadcast his voice over the whole city in a thunderous echo.  “Warriors of the Emperor, lend me your ears!” he called, and the square fell quiet.  “The planet Oglith was in dire straits,” he said.  “The system had fallen under predation from wicked xenos, tainted beasts, and the brutal thuggery of the Ork!  But when the Emperor called for defenders, you, and the million of your comrades besides, did not hesitate!”  In truth, some of the Imperial Guard regiments present were conscripts or penal legions, but that mattered little.  “You answered the call,you flew across the void, and here you drew the line!”  He pumped his fist once more.  “Oglith stands!”

	The response cry shook glass in the windows of office buildings around the square.  Guildhalls around the square had thrown their doors open so the laborers inside could hear Guilliman speak, for fear of worker riots if they had been denied the opportunity.

	When the crowd died down a bit, the Primarch pointed out over them.  The city was a drab grey today, under laden clouds dropping sizzling rain on the void shields.  They would be formally lowered as soon as the last known Ork aerospace units had been hunted down.  From his vantage, Guilliman could see the colossal pile of scrap metal from wrecked Ork materiel outside the wall, which Techpriests were delightedly scurrying over.  The Glasian matierel sat unattended farther from the wall, awaiting a psychic Inquisitor or Adeptus Astra Telepathica specialist to assist in securing it to be flung into the sun.

	Guilliman looked over the crowd, taking the time to meet hundreds of sets of eyes.  “The war for the Sector is not yet over, my fellow Imperial citizens.  The Cylinders here, at Hapster, and at Septiim are gone, but three yet remain.  I must leave you now, to collect allies in my Indomitus Crusade to reunite the Imperium Nihilo with Terra.  I know some of you have already volunteered to join my Crusade, which warms my heart,” he said, which was an exaggeration but not much of one, “and I say this to you courageous volunteers: speak with your Brigade Command staff to see if your regiment may depart.  Others of you shall go now to battle against xenos at Foraldshold, at Forender, Dawn-Break, or elsewhere, and think no less of your efforts there.  Every single one of you who shall again wield a blade in the Emperor’s service are acting in His name, to secure the galaxy for us all.  Take heart, weary warriors, for you have bettered the Sector, and soon, we shall bring the xenos to heel once more!”

	Out of the corner of his eye, Guilliman saw an aide nervously fidgeting with a dataslate.  He decided to cut short his current speech, in case the aide was bringing him something that contradicted what he had just said.  “I know that this time of darkness and loss is pressing on us all today, but today is a day of triumph, warriors of the Imperium.  Take heart and look to the stars, for victory in the Rampart System is in reach!  Thank you.”  He slapped his breastplate in salute, and the entire crowd did the same as the square erupted in cheers.  He waved and smiled politely, then stepped back and turned off his microphone.

	He turned and met the eye of his aide, then tilted his head toward the back of the stage.  As soon as the Primarch rounded the corner into the Palace, however, the aide quickly raised the slate and showed the screen.

	Guillman’s jaw tightened.  He knew there was a good chance that the audience was still close enough for them to overhear his superhumanly loud voice, so he simply typed his reply.  The screen said ‘Second Glasian Cylinder appears at Maneville Point with several Escorts.  Honor moving to intercept, requesting all available backup.’  Guilliman typed ‘Approved.  Dispatch all Ultramarine ships.’  He gave the aide a grave nod, and the aide took off at a run.  The Space Marines who had stood behind Guilliman on the stage looked uncomfortably at each other.

	The silence was heavy.  They all knew what it meant.  An Imperial world had been destroyed.  They had received no Astropathic communication to that effect – had it not been sent, or just not sent to them?


	Once inside the secured strategarium of the Palace, Guilliman nearly slammed his hand down on the holo-table.  “Talk to me, Admiral Rendon,” he ground out.  “What is going on up there?”

	“Lord Guilliman, sir, this Cylinder is damaged,” the crackling audio feed related a moment later.  Transmission lag meant that the signal wasn’t instantaneous, which was not doing anybody’s nerves a favor.  “Its starboard Ruin Gun has had half of its power feed blown away, and it is visibly listing to starboard thanks to several torpedo penetration hits in its right-rear maneuvering engine.  Four of its point defense blisters have been destroyed by plasma, sir, Imperial plasma.  It is also short a few Escorts.”

	“How can you tell if it’s short on ships that aren’t present?” Guilliman asked.

	Static.  Eventually, the Admiral replied.  “Lord, this is the Cylinder from Gorum’ Folly, sir, I would stake my commission on it.  Its profile is the same as the one that the courier reported when they left to beg aid from Sector Command and the Rogue Traders.  I also see a crashed Blue Daggers interceptor on the hull, and there are no Cylinders the Daggers have engaged that they have failed to destroy yet known, but the Gorum’s Folly Cylinder had the weakest opposition.”

	Guilliman sighed shortly.  “Acknowledged.  Shipmaster Chelaron, are you there?”

	“I am, my Lord,” came the reply from much closer.  The Macragge’s Honor was forming up the Indomitus ships to follow the Navy into battle at Guilliman’s own order, but had not left high orbit.  “I concur with the Admiral’s assessment.  I also observe what appear to be macrocannon shots lodged in the hull on the port ventral sensor blister, but not deep enough to blind it.”

	“Very well.  Gather every ship you don’t need for orbital security and kill that thing at once, before it can land chalk on the surface,” Guilliman ordered.  “A second Cylinder attacking immediately after I tell two million Guardsmen that they survived the Migration will cripple morale for months.”

	“Thank you, my Lord,” Chelaron’s metallic voice replied.  “Vox, get me the Tetrarch Dolor and the Pax Ultramar on the flank.  Lord Guilliman, have you any final order before I move to engage?”

	“Negative, Chelaron, you know the business,” Guilliman sighed.  “In Ultramar’s name, and Terra’s glory.”

	“For their name and glory, Lord.”  Chelaron turned away from his panel and felt the faint vibration in the deck from the massive engines of the Macragge’s Honor thrumming to life.  “Once more, gentlemen,” he called out.  “For the Primarch!”


	Guilliman cut off the vox lines and turned to face the room.  “Keep the shields up, for now, and prepare all anti-air defenses, as well as all operational combat aircraft,” he said.  “I had been intending to depart for Dawn-Break, but that is clearly not going to happen now.  Not until this second xenos contraption is shot down and done.”

	“Thank you, Lord Guilliman,” the Governor said in relief.  “Shall we make the news public?”

	Guilliman sighed.  “Only if they get past our fleet defenses.  In the meantime, the purge of the Ork tunnels shall proceed.  I will leave behind three hundred Primaris Marines from the Unnumbered Sons and a team of Librarians from the Blood Angels to direct them, alongside the force of Scions and Stormtroopers from Lord General Halwart’s troops.”

	“Tunnel fighting, then, my Lord?  The Brontian Long Knives and the Catachans would excel,” one General said.

	“I leave that to Lord General Halwart.”  Guilliman looked around, clearly wondering where he was.  Another General quickly spoke up.

	“Lord General Halwart is directing the Scions to marshal for entering the tunnels, Lord Commander,” he said eagerly.

	“Very well.”  Guilliman spread his hands out on the map and zoomed in to the capital.  The wrecks and tunnels of failed Ork assaults lay dotted about, or pierced the wall with blue underscores in places.  “The Cylinder, fate willing, shall be dead in two days.  Until then, I shall oversee our efforts to secure the world after all.”


	Ranult Arden stood beside the Shipmaster’s chair on the bridge of the Azure Death and watched the sensorium displays intently.  “Lord Arden, we shall exit the Warp in twelve seconds,” the Shipmaster reported.  On his other side stood a woman in an elegant uniform with a military cut.  She had custom boots with slots on the back to accommodate her mutant spurs, which would have been enough to mark her death on some worlds had she not also had a third eye.  Navigatrix Amandaer MacCraccen was the most experienced Navigator in the Blue Daggers’ fleet, and normally served Arden directly as the Naviagtor-of-Station for the Sharp Edge.  That ship was wrecked beyond any hope of speedy repair, however, thanks to an exploding Glasian Grand Cruiser, but she was determined to be useful in her own haughty way.

	“Hmph.  We’ll be there soon, as you say,” she sniffed.  She ahd made no show of hiding her contempt for Navigators of lesser skill than her, which by her standard was most of them.

	Arden ignored her and glared at the readout.  Trying to look into the Warp was death for a non-psyker, of course, but the sensors would begin displaying readouts the moment they transitioned.

	An alarm sounded on the ship as the transition crept closer.  The Shipmaster gripped the armrests of his chair and tensed.  When it happened, the transition was abrupt enough to lurch MacCraccen out of her pose and tug crew back against their restraints.

	“Something followed us through!” a sensor technician shouted.  The ship suddenly shook as something heavy slammed against the engine block.

	“Max power, forward thrust!” the Shipmaster backed.  “All guns, fire at will as soon as you have targets!”

	Arden grabbed his intercom cup.  “All crew, stand by to repel daemons!”

	The ship’s rear sensors came alive as the ship ripped out of the Warp and into realspace.  The vessel’s bridge crew desperstely overrode the viewpoer shutter and Gellar Field shutdown protocols, keeping the vessel in Warp travel mode.  A general quarters alarm sounded and the ship’s internal lights dimmed.  Faint colors appeared on the faces of bridge crewers as their console lights projected on them.

	“Lord Arden!  The thing that followed us through is trying to knaw at the rear of the ship!” a Techmarine called from the Operations console.  “It is not getting through.”

	“Where is my fleet?” Arden snapped.  “Did we translocate alone?”

	“Sir!  IFFs lighting up around us!  The formation broke in the Warp, sir, but I am detecting no losses yet,” one of the sensorium terminal crew reported.  An Ensign beside him caught Arden’s eyes.

	“My Lord Arden, we have a visual report coming in from the Cloudburst Triumph!” he said, naming an Escort Hunter destroyer that had followed them in the Warp.  An image appeared on the main viewscreen.

	The Shipmaster gagged.  It was a grotesque thing, all tentacles and teeth and flapping meat, outgassing a horrid yellow substance in the vacuum of deep space.  It had two huge fangs on meaty hooks, which it was using to tear at the hull.  It hadn’t broken through yet, but it was still trying.

	“Sir, it’s under the shields and unable to penetrate the Realspace effect of both our natural dimension and the Gellar Field,” the Shipmaster said after he had regained his breath.  “It may be able to batter its way in through sheer force, however.”

	“Slowly, but yes, I concur,” the Techmarine said.  Irritation hung on his mechanical tone.  “I recommend the Triumphant shoot it off.”

	Arden grimaced.  “I agree.  Get me its Shipmaster.”

	The comm officer ran over with a vox cup.  Arden grabbed it.  Cloudburst Triumphant, this is Lord Arden,” he said angrily.  “Can you get a clean shot on that… thing?”

	“Affirmative, Lord Arden!” came the immediate reply.  “Our Weapons Battery has a line on it!  In forty seconds, so shall the Nova Frigate Mailed Hand.”

	“Shoot it, Triumphant,” Arden commanded.  “Buy us some time.”

	“Aye, Lord!  Guns free!  Fire with precision!”  The line went dead.

	Arden watched the blurry camera feed for a moment, then a wave of dark blots appeared in space between the two ships.  The macrocannon shells disappeared into the messy creature ripping at the Daggers Cruiser, and it wriggled disgustingly.

	“Oh, Throne, that’s ugly,” MacCraccen said queasily.  “I’ve never seen an image of it before.  They’re usually just blurs in my Empyrrean Eye…”

	The monster’s roar of pain was silent in the video, but Arden heard a faint noise in the superstructure of his ship as it writhed in pain and lashed out with its fanged tentacles.  More blobs appeared on the viewscreen as the little destroyer fired its turreted guns.  Luckily, Arden did not have to demand that the Triumphant not use its torpedoes – against an unshielded Cruiser engine, the result could have been catastrophic.

	“Die, damn you,” Arden growled.

	A brilliant beam of light appeared between the edge of the camera view and the engine of the Cruiser.  The monster reeled and lost its grip, floating away in the vacuum, thrashing in rage and agony.  Two salvoes of bright blue light, chased by six thick beams of laser energy, penetrated the beast, and it disappeared in a blast of Warp energies.

	The vox cup in Arden’s hand crackled.  “This is the Mailed Fist contacting the Azure Death.  We have shot the thing with our Lances, followed by a barrage of mixed laser and macrocannon shells.  It seems to have disappeared.  Cloudburst Triumphant, please confirm kill.”

	A pause.  “That’s… a confirmation, Fist.  Our Navigator reports total loss of Warp signature.  Lord Arden, are you and your ship well?”

	Arden turned and cocked an eye at the Techmarine, who gave a silent thumbs-up with one hand and thumbs down with the other – functional, but damaged.

	“Well enough for now, Triumphant, thank you,” Arden said darkly.  “Good shooting, Mailed Fist.  I must consult with my Techmarines.  Please reconvene the fleet in defensive formation and secure the Mandeville Point for stragglers.  Arden out.”

	He dropped the vox cup in the cradle and sighed.  “Well, that’s blessedly rare,” he grunted.

	“How revolting,” the Shipmaster muttered.  Louder, he said “Lord Arden, it will take me over an hour to ascertain damage and shut down the Warp protections.”

	“I know.  Be about it, Shipmaster.  I must consult with my brothers,” Arden said, and he stomped off in a barely-concealed fury.  One delay after another.