STAR WARFARE

	The silent void over Oglith flashed with the energy of weapon discharges.  The arrowhead of Ultramarine ships ripped through the cold vacuum.  The massive Gloriana superbattleship at the heart of the incoming formation raced flat-out for the Glasian Cylinder.  The tactical display still read that the huge ship was well out of range, but it was closing fast.  Shipmaster Chalonry saw the vessel complete an X-axis turn and rotate its main guns to bring them to bear on the Macragge’s Honor.  “All shields to maximum.  Lateral maneuvering engines, prime and prepare to engage.  Vox, inform the formation of an imminent break to port, twenty degrees and held,” he said.  “Guns, prepare to recalculate forward and starboard weapon firing solutions.”

	There was a chorus of ‘aye’ from across the bridge.  Chelaron’s vox buzzed as the communication panel directed a message to him.  Chelaron lifted the vox cup from a cradle on the pane at the corner of the platform sized for humans.  “Go ahead.”

	“Shipmaster, this is Lord Guilliman.  I have arrived safely.  The Ork assault on the capital is failing on the surface, but the tunnelers were able to break through.  How they bypassed the seismographs has not yet been ascertained.  How goes the space battle?”

	Chelaron gave the tactical display a quick look.  “The Glasian ships have not yet entered range, sir.  However, the Cylinder has entered a ramming course.”

	“Time of arrival?”

	“One hour.  They’re burning their engines at maximum.  We should be able to fire safely in twenty minutes.”

	“Acknowledged.”

	Chelaron caught a thumbs-up from the helm station.  “We are about to break to port and break their chase, sir.  The enemy has aligned their capital ship to position itself between us and the planet while ramming us, such that we can’t try to fire and hull them without risking missed shots striking the planet.”

	“Clever.  I trust my ship to you as always, Shipmaster.  I am taking command here on the ground until the situation stabilizes.  Lord Guilliman out.”


	Guilliman stepped back from the vox unit in the basement of the Imperial Palace and turned to face the room.  It was a barren, stark affair that could have been the strategarium of any one of a hundred million like it across all of the galaxy and humanity’s long history.  Charcoal-colored walls, soundproof foam sheets sandwiched between sheets of lead, sonorizers and sound sponges under that, then a layer of wood, then more colored paint.  Guards at every door, on the outside.  A circle of grim-faced men and women with a few glowering Commissars behind them.  A Priest for some reason.

	And Guilliman.  He was unique, at least.  He stepped up to the table.  He had powered down his Iron Halo and much of his hardware, and he was still projecting across the room when he spoke.  “The Glasian ship shall cease to be an active player here soon.  How did the seismographs miss the Orks?” he asked curtly.

	One of the PDF officers genuflected nervously.  “Lord, they didn’t miss them.  We just had no way of stopping them.  They were coming from so far underground that we had no means of intercepting them, I swear!”

	Guilliman sighed shortly.  “Very well.  What’s next.”

	One of the Guard Generals hesitantly spoke up.  “Lord, now that Squiggothrider is dead, standard protocol would be to execute surgical strikes against as many of the surviving Nobs and Sub-Bosses as possible to prevent a clear leader from taking their place.”

	“I am aware of the standard Imperial Ork suppression protocols, General, I helped write them,” Guilliman said patiently.  “I refer specifically to Oglith.  Surely you have adapted your strategy to the unique circumstances of the world on which you intend to execute it?”

	The Planetary Governor spoke up.  “Why yes, my holy Lord, we have, sir,” he said.  “We have used a dozen regiments from the Sector’s other worlds to prepare an expurgation force against the Feral Orks.  They have made great progress.”

	Guilliman looked him over.  He was an ill-looking fellow, dusky and laden with complex robes of office.  “Does this planet have any surface-to-space weapons?”

	“Only the oldest cities, your Holiness, those built before the Orks were accepted to exist,” oen of the PDF officers spoke up.

	Guilliman felt his patience eroding and tried to shore it up.  That had been the most galling thing Domack had told him: the Oglith government had know about the Orks for millennia.  They had done nothing but bury their heads in the sand.  “How surprising,” he growled.  Half the room cowered.  He forced the rancor from his voice.  “What… steps are you taking to ensure the killing of the leaders of the surface Orks now?” he asked, turning his voice level once more.

	“My Holy Lord, we are dispatching every artillery unit and sniper force we have to fire as deep into the containment zone as we can,” a General spoke up from the other side of the room.  “For the glory of the Emperor, we shall break up their clusters to keep factions from forming around the largest of them.”

	“And how do you plan to counter those who throw themselves at our lines to prove their worth as Orks?” Guilliman asked.

	“Lord General Halwart has chosen to lead our mobile forces to contain them, my Holy Lord,” the General said eagerly.

	More obsequiousness.  Not Guilliman’s favorite tone.  Better than wounded pride or haughtiness, like the Senators, at least.  Guilliman focused on the talkative General.  “What of the Navy?  Are you getting adequate air support?”

	The General coughed.  “Er, we are getting some support, your Holiness.  I would hesitate to call it ‘adequate,’” he said, to general awkward grumbling.  “The Navy is busy fighting the Ork ships in orbit, it would seem.”

	“Very well.  Do stop calling me ‘Holy,’ please,” Guilliman said.  “I am not holy.  I am the Emperor’s gene-son, not a… a demi-god.”

	“But you are, my Lord!  You are the carrier of the mantle of the Regent, the one who shall rebuild His Majesty’s Holy Realm!” the Priest protested.

	Guilliman ignored him.  “Now.  Halwart is busy at the walls.  Somebody with command over the Astra Militarum Scions and other special operations forces, dispatch a unit to assist the incoming Watch Commander of the Deathwatch,” Guilliman ordered.  “Men who can move quickly, and are able to dust off just as fast.”

	The eldest present Commissar nodded.  “At once, my Lord Primarch!  How many men?”

	“We shall say… twenty,” Guilliman said.  “And send a medic, a Battle Surgeon if you can spare them.”

	The Commissar shook his head.  “Oglith does benefit from an orbital Imperial Combat Medicine School, my Lord, the best in the Sector, but I fear its graduates are no more suited for the treatment of transhuman wounds than any other.  A Space Marine medic is needed to treat Space Marine wounds.”

	Guilliman had suspected as much.  “So be it.  Send one regardless, for the sake of the Scions.”

	“As you wish, my Lord.  To where shall they travel?” the Commissar asked.

	“Watch Commander Domack should be in touch shortly.”  Guilliman glanced at the incongruously fancy clocks on one wall.  There was one showing the exact times in each major city on the planet.  “Now, let us see how the orbital battle progresses.”  He gestured to the staticky map, and it flickered, then resolved to a picture of the orbital view.


	Shipmaster Chelaron watched as the Glasian ship changed its course.  The huge Cylinders were surprisingly maneuverable and fast for their size, but that was still a relative thing.  A massive metal tube in space, made to go very fast in a straight line and outrun Tyranids, was not at home trying to align heavy weapons against an Imperial flagship moving at five hundred times the speed of sound.  The engines of the ship flared bright blue as it tried to adjust its course in time to continue ramming.

	“Historitors, please calculate how long it will take that ship to resume a ramming course with us if it misses at our present speeds relative to each other,” he ordered.

	The position of Ship’s Historitor was a new one, instituted by Guilliman.  It was as much a knee-jerk reflex reaction to the anti-intellectual worldview of the Imperium as it was a means of providing him with relevant historical and tactical data.  There was a single Historitor Primus who oversaw a dozen more, quartered on the same deck as Guilliman himself, and armed with the highest clearance the Primarch had been able to wrest from the Inquisition for them to have.  They scrambled to search archives of previous Glasian Migrations while the ship’s hull groaned under the pressure of a powered turn at such velocity.  Inertia carried them on a long, slow parabolic arc that melted into a looser bank as engines the size of Hive arcologies strained and flared Imperial red.

	Chelaron heard a series of metallic twitters in his cranial implants and nodded slowly – the forward guns had calculated the optimal firing solutions.  Those were the long guns, the heavy shell cannons, which benefitted from being fitted to the longest axis of the ship.  The flanks had the array of macrocannons and plasma the ship had carried since the Rangda Xenocides eleven hundred centuries before.  The dorsal and ventral turrets were a mixture of the ship’s original weapons and those that Belisarius Cawl and the Ultramarine Techpriests had managed to retrofit over Mars’ objections, mostly Lances and obscenely potent plasma turrets.  Of course, it was a Gloriana, it had plenty of laser weapons, too.  Those just needed shorter barrels.

	The Cylinder’s flanks blowed ugly, actinic blue as plasma energy pulsed through power conduits.  What looked like steam clouds, but what sensor banks told him were actually lithium mist sprayers, sent sparkling clouds out from the glowing conduits.  “Shields max, front, repel plasma!” Chelaron barked.  The ship’s lights darkened for a moment as the Macragge’s Honor pulsed its Void Shields to maximum.

	“Sir, it will take them about twenty minutes, thanks to their bizarre maneuvering system,” a Historitor called.  Chelaron nodded, then narrowed his eyes.  The sensors showed a buildup of energy on the Cylinder’s flanks.

	Blue Ruin Gun beams leaped from the Cylinder to the Gloriana superbattleshp.  They slammed into the Void Shields at maximum range.

	“Damage report!” Chelaron snapped.

	A Techpriest looked up from his terminal.  “Praise Mars, there is no damage!  The plasma does not penetrate!”

	“That will change,” a Historitor said from his chair.  “The beams step up in power sequentially every few hundred meters.  If we close to a shiplength or closer, those things could pop our barriers with ease.”

	“Then we shall snipe them,” Chelaron growled.  “For Ultramar!  Prepare our retaliation shots!  Lances first!  Acquire, prepare to fire on my mark!”

	The cranial implants twittered a moment later, a negative code.  The lances were not yet locked.  After a few more awkward seconds, they twittered in the affirmative.  “Time to optimal firing distance, guns?” Chelaron demanded.

	“Forty five seconds, sir!” an operator called.

	“Time to recharge the lances for a second barrage?”

	A short pause.  “Two minutes!”

	“We hold fire, then.  All lances, we fire in thirty seconds!” Chelaron called.
	He watched as a countdown timer appeared in the corner of the screen to his left.  He memorized it and returned to listening to the twittering in his head from the implants.  Gun after gun reported optimal firing solutions.  Lances, torpedos, weapons batteries of laser, plasma, and macro-shell…

	“Lances, fire if you have lock on my mark… mark!” Chelaron suddenly barked.

	A hundred beams of flickering, oily yellow and blue erupted from the hull of the Macragge’s Honor.  Most impacted on the Cylinder.  Its Void shields buckled, but did not fail.

	“Sir, time to optimal torpedo firing point is ninety seconds!  Lances will rearm in one hundred ten seconds!” the arms station operator called.  “Optimal laser and macrocannon shots in two minutes!”

	“Relative velocities?” Chelaron demanded.

	“Sir, both vessels decelerating has dropped their relative speeds to one million kph and slowing!” the helm station called.

	Insane speeds, enough to render the planet sterile with a collision.  “All guns, commence firing and fire at will, recalculate firing solutions on the fly,” Chelaron snapped.  “Shields, maximum front.  Helm, maintain course, decelerate to forty thousand kph relative to Oglith’s surface!”

	The ship’s superstructure groaned as the colossal ship started to undergo the immense shift in energy and momentum needed to slow from a measurable fraction of lightspeed to barely enough to maintain an orbit.  The superbattleship’s escort vessels shot out ahead, and the second wave of Ruin Gun shots passed between them.  Already, the Cylinder’s hull was glowing from its attempt to power up for another.  “Broadsides, arm starboard, prepare for rapid calculation of trajectories,” Chelaron called.  “All guns aft, maintain for arc shots.  Macrocannons, begin targetter blessings.”

	The Cylinder slammed on its engines in reverse, still struggling to match the trajectory of the Gloriana.  Its flanks pulsed, sending another pair of intense plasma beams into the Void Shields of Macragge’s Honor.  Chelaraon eyed his screens.  “Did that penetrate?”

	“Negative, but we’re down eight percent shields.  Enemy plasma weapons have twenty five percent of the area spread that we do,” the gunnery officer said.  “They will be able to fire again soon.”

	The ship shook.  Wireframe streaks erupted from its forward guns towards the Cylinder.  A few Glasian Escorts had peeled out behind the Cylinder now, left in its wake but catching up fast.  At the ranges of the two huge capital ships shrank, the Imperial macrocannon shells struck their targets or soared past into the blackness of space.  Waves of laser fire sank into its shields, making them flicker.  Another wave of blue plasma fire erupted from its flank energy channels, and this time, the Macragge’s Honor trembled.

	Chelaron’s eyes darted to his miniature ops screen.  “Damage report.”

	“Our shields have taken thirty percent damage in the front arc, Shipmaster.”  A Techpriest from the ops station held up one mechadendrite.  “Recharging is slow while our engines are under such strain.”

	“What are the enemy’s shields doing?” Chelaron demanded.

	“Buckling.  They’re feeling it now,” a sensor operator called.

	The huge Gloriana was in range of all guns now, and the ship trembled faintly as it fired off a full spread of torpedos.  At those speeds, they could hardly miss.  The Cylinder’s wireframe shook on the sensor displays as it took six solid hits from the missiles the size of bombers.

	“Clean hits across the bow, we have penetration on torpedo six,” the gunnery officer reported.  “We will not be able to reload before the enemy is past us!”

	“Reload anyway.”  Chelaron winced as the Cylinder discharged another wave of blue plasma into their shields.  That time, the entire ship lurched.  “Damage report!”

	“Our shields are down to four percent on the bow, Shipmaster!” a Techpriest called.  It held its symbol of the Imnissiah aloft and waved it about.  “Bless our circuits and Mars, they are holding for now!”

	“Lower starboard shields to twenty percent, divert all available energy to forward and port barriers!” Chelaron snapped.  “Inertial compensators to emergency maxiumum!  Helm, hard to starboard, all broadsides fire as soon as you have solutions!”

	As the ship swung ponderously right, the Cylinder braked again, still determinatedly trying to ram the Macragge’s Honor.  Now, however, it was facing the full broadside might of the largest operation warship outside the clutches of Nurgle.  Its massive flank guns blared as it slowly twisted along a Y-axis, sending flare after flare of macrocannon and plasma blasts into the on-rushing Cylinder.  Its front shields ripped open under their barrage of shells.  Chelaron waited unil the last moment and gave the next order.  “Roll the ship, four degrees lateral, port!  All engines to maximum forward thrust!”

	The ship lurched and shuddered at the latest series of maneuvers, then shuddered again as the Cylinder’s main Ruin Guns fired again.  Chelaron gripped the rail to keep his balance.  He heard something break at the back of the bridge.  “Damage report!”

	“Shields are completely gone, Shipmaster!  Our port has no shields!” the Techpriest called.

	“Be calm.  Maintain roll, engage maneuvering engines, bring aft section around to face the enemy!  Escorts, do it now!” Chelaron barked.

	The collection of Ultramarine and Navy ships escorting the Macragge’s Honor fired their own weapons into the unprotected center of the Cylinder.  The massive ship flared internally as a spread of torpedos detonated inside the crater the Honor had bored inside it.  The guns of the Honor were firing madly, still pouring macrocannon and laser blasts into the vessel.  Its flank power conduits started charging again, then the vessel’s entire portside went dark.

	“Sir, the enemy’s lost power on the port flank,” the sensor officer called.

	“Excellent.  Maintain roll, fire as fast as the guns recharge,” Chelaron ordered.

	The Gloriana’s huge engines slowly pushed the vessel back up to its full speed.  The Cylinder’s starboard engine fired, sending the vessel listing to port.  The colossal vessels missed collision by a shiplength.  As the Cylinder floated past the aft of Macragge’s Honor, the Gloriana emptied its rear torpedo tubes.

	“Five hits, one miss, Shipmaster!  The Cylinder is losing power on both flanks!” the sensor officer reported.

	The scarred old Shipmaster nodded with satisfaction.  “Superb.  Thank you, guns.  Flight decks, all Escorts, engage and destroy the enemy’s surviving Escort ships.  All guns, acquire the engines of the Glasian Escort vessels and fire at will.  Helm, bring us around behind the Cylinder at a safe distance.  Get me my shields, please, ops,” Chelaron ordered.  “All Marines aboard shall report to ready posts in case the crew of the Cylinder attempt to abandon their ship to board ours.  Comms, get me Lord Guilliman at once.”

	There was a general scramble to implement the order.  The vox cup on the panel to Chelaron’s side buzzed gently in the cradle.  Chelaron grabbed it.  “Lord Guilliman, this is Macragge’s Honor.  Do you have our status?”

	Guilliman looked at the holographic table and half-smiled.  “If you have the Cylinder unarmed and trailing more debris than a Mek on fire, then yes.  Exceptionally well done, Shipmaster Chelaron.  Once the Cylinder’s FTL system is destroyed, return to orbit; the Mechanicus has special quarantine protocols in place to secure the wreck.”

	“By your command, my Lord.  I do caution that orbital space is not yet secure,” Chelaron said.  “The Orks may well take advantage of this to deliver more boyz.”

	“In fact, Chelaron, quite the oppoisite is happening,” Guilliman said, looking over the holographic representations of the Ork ships on his screen.  “They appear to be collecting boyz from the surface and making a break for deep space.  I suppose with the death of Squiggothrider, there’s little reason for them to linger.”

	“I see.  One momen, my Lord,” Chelaron said.  He muted the vox and raised his voice.  “Belay all launch orders, Flight decks.  All fighters, scramble to assist the Navy and SDF in orbit.  The enemy is evacuating some of their surface units, and I want to see dead Ork transports on my scanners on the double.”

	“Tally ho, Shipmaster, good hunting against the Glasians,” the flight boss said over the intercom.