Herald of the Stars: Chapter Sixty-Eight (Patreon)

Thank you, Steindór Tryggvason, Filip Hejný, Frardowin, Janko Uehlinger, Jack, and Midjji for spending your personal funds on my story. I really, really appreciate it.

Drive master Rian O’Luinin acknowledges my command. Our power draw spikes seven percent and Aruna switches non-essential systems to their battery back ups so that we don’t have to redline the reactors or ignite any of the auxiliary reactors: a lengthy and resource intensive action.

The manufactory is gradually being shut down as well, which will free even more power, but you can’t just turn everything off instantly without bricking it, especially the solar forge which distils pure elements from plasma.

Officer Tuathal Ualas finishes rotating the vessel and we fire again at less than a thousand kilometres, bludgeoning the rok and knocking out another gun. One of the lances hits something important and a secondary explosion takes out a two hundred metre sphere on their port side, but compared to the size of the vessel, the damage is minimal, judging from their vox spew and focused trajectory, are undeterred.

Eighty two seconds later, the orks return fire. This time they fail to penetrate our void shield and reduce the Q2 starboard shields to a measly twelve percent while the rest of the starboard shields hover around twenty-five percent.

Tuathal requests another rotation and I delay the manoeuvre, unwilling to risk overwhelming the manoeuvring thrusters when we hit max burn.

Two minutes later the main thrusters ramp up and some of the crew sway slightly. Such is the power of their thrust it sends a stream of plasma three times longer than the vessel out into the void. Canteen cutlery spills onto the floor and stray recaf all over the ship is lost to the unforgiving plasteel floors. With the aid of my armour, I can even hear the thruster’s roar from the bridge.

Over the next thirty minutes our acceleration picks up drastically by approximately one gravity every fifteen minutes rather than the forty or so it usually takes.

Both the Distant Sun and the ork rok exchange another round of fire. Repeatedly losing sight of each other as we hurtle around the planet makes aiming a challenge and neither side scores any debilitating hits. Fortunately none of the orks’ stray shells hit Marwolv and officer Ó Ceallaigh didn’t fire any of our guns while the orks were between us and Marwolv.

The orks are taken by surprise by our increased speed and fail to correct their own velocity in time, letting us scrape past them when our orbits next intersect with less than a hundred kilometres between us.

It doesn’t sound like much, but at this point we’re going so fast we’re on our fourth lap around Marwolv as we try to get into position to avoid the orks and line up with the shipyard. At our new speed, we lap Marwolv every thirteen minutes and a hundred kilometres takes three seconds to traverse.

We’re going to have to disable the orks before we can save the Iron Crane.

At the thirty minute mark the main thrusters start dialling back to prevent excessive wearing or overheating. We now have sufficient velocity that the orks can no longer ram us.

That doesn’t stop the orks, who are clearly determined to crash into something, from steering their crude ship into the rear half of the shipyard. They tear right through it and out the other side.

Fuck! Emperor forbid that these destructive twits ever discover what pinball or bowling is or the galaxy will turn to dust and ruin.

The shipyard is twenty kilometres long, so the orks miss the Iron Crane completely but utterly obliterate much of the yard’s machinery and vaporise thousands of people.

It will take a minute before I will know how that has affected the shipyard’s decaying orbit.

My hands tighten around the arms of the command throne and I hold back a yell.

The crew are less restrained and there is an explosion of vox traffic over the bridge. Many hands tremble as they tap away at their screens and my own light up with half a dozen priority messages from my more important officers.

I listen to all six messages simultaneously.

Commander Maeve Muire, “Heralds replenished and ready to redeploy for void operations, Magos.”

“Captain, Master of Ordinance, Kiera Ó Ceallaigh reporting. Seven orks cut their way out of the damaged macro-cannon barrels and one managed to lob strike craft grade explosives into one of the munitions lifts on the port side before we could neutralise them. After the next volley, reload times will increase to thirty-five minutes, up from twenty-seven. The damage is minor and will take between two and four hours to fix. We’ll need to issue weapons to all crew if we want to stop this happening again. The heralds can’t be everywhere at once.”

Drive Master Rian O’Luinin, “Engines reduced to ninety-three percent, Captain. Restoration to maximum capacity estimated at thirty-eight minutes.”

Engineseer Prime Róisín Paorach, “Magos, there is significant stress in our power conduits. Deploying the shield boost overwhelmed some old cabling that was not up to specification and has revealed some faults in our testing methodology. Primary systems have absorbed the extra load without trouble but further damage to our power distribution may knock out more vital systems while redundant systems take over. It shouldn’t happen, our systems are designed to overcome these failures without interruption, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

“Magos, this is Dimpsy Fortress commander, Dougal MacCrane. We have endured the orbital impact shockwave with minimal harm. Heralds and Gael Democracy forces are mobilising. Auspex is clearing up and showing possible incoming ork raids via air. We haven’t been able to contact any of the other countries.”

Master-At-Arms Thorfinn Ursus, “Heralds are ready to repel boarders, Aldrich. Discipline among the crew is holding fast and they are following their training but the crew are getting nervous, what with this being our first engagement. It might be best to drag this on for a few days if we can get away with it; let them learn there is nothing they cannot face.”

Well, nothing is on fire yet, so it could be worse. I acknowledge five of the messages with brief statements then address Commander MacCrane.

“Dimpsy Fortress, this is Magos Aldrich Issengrund. Hold fast and prepare for war. We shall clear the orbit then bombard the orks before they can really dig in. Gather what intelligence you can and plan retaliatory strikes.

“Be ready for refugees, gather all the supplies you can, and expect evacuation of as many civilians and personnel over the coming months as we can manage. We will support you with everything we have, but the environment will deteriorate rapidly and Marwolv does not have the infrastructure or supplies to wait out the weather. Please alert the Gael Democracy and Prime Minister Callen Gunn to steel themselves for mass casualties.”

MacCrane’s gruff voice crackles over the vox, “Message acknowledged, Magos. I might even spare a prayer for that Omnissiah of yours. We need all the help we can get.”

I don’t bother to respond and refocus on the orbital battle.

The shipyard has begun to spin and its orbit is even more tenuous. Enough mass has been shaved off that the Iron Crane might be able to stabilise it, but we haven’t tested the engines yet and I can’t take the risk. We will still have to tug the yard away and now we have to match their spin too.

The first rok that collided with the shipyard is properly lodged in the front half of the Iron Crane. They ploughed into the yard back end first, which destroyed their main thrusters, but they can still fire their weapons and maybe launch their strike craft.

The second rok to collide with the yard has slowed massively, but their thrusters are still firing and their speed is slowly edging back up. They’re down to one battery of their macro-cannon equivalent: gunz or ‘eavy gunz, depending on their size. Unlike the Imperium, there is no such thing as ‘light’ gunz.

Officer Pádraig reports that their CWIS have been ripped from the hull by collision and the front three hundred and twenty metres of the vessel was left behind inside the shipyard. A trail of dead, both human and ork, are scattered along the path of their destruction. A rare few, however, are still moving.

I can pick out the orks because they are all jetting to the yard, occasionally firing their arms. The humans are more focused on grouping up. The few humans that have weapons take potshots at the orks as the greenskins sail by.

Using my accelerated relative time and Aruna’s assistance I run dozens of simulations through the noosphere, testing different plans. A minute later I am ready. I take a calming breath and issue the next round of orders.

“Weapons: Officer Ó Ceallaigh, I want all our primary weapons to blow apart the rok lodged in the Iron Crane’s hull, now designated Green Tick. Target their primary weapons. Hold your fire until we are close and almost at a stop. We can’t afford to miss our shots. While we decelerate, coordinate with Helm to shoot the other rok, now designated Solid Slug. Aim for their hangar bay. I don’t want them launching another flight.

“Helm: Officer Ualas, begin deceleration and match our spin to the shipyard and get us close. Keep us out of the ark of Green Tick’s weapons as much as possible. Matching the yard as quickly is more important than avoiding fire.

“Flight Control: I want all available D-POTs to begin patrols around the Distant Sun. Stay below the shields at all times. Once all flights are assembled, head for Solid Slug and take out their engines.

I fold my arms and hold myself back from tapping my fingers or foot as I watch my orders unfold. While the crew rush to perform my orders, nothing in space seems to happen fast.

Distant Sun fires on Solid Slug. Solid Slug’s shield recovers just in time to absorb most of the hits from the macro-cannons and its erratic spin ensures we miss the hangar bay with the lances.

On our next orbit, we take fire from Green Tick. Only their ‘eavy gunz hit us but they’d put a special round in the barrel that slips right past our shield through unknown means and hits our keel. Fortunately the round isn’t too destructive and the armour holds, though it won’t take a second in that location.

Finally the D-POT’s are ready. Four flights depart, each fifteen strong. Three are from the Distant Sun and an unexpected extra that launches from the shipyard just as the first three flights depart. The fourth joins them, trailing behind by seven thousand kilometres and I order the flights to adjust their speeds so they can meet up during their attack run on the Solid Slug.

As the D-POTs close in on Solid Slug, the orks get their spin under control and direct their thruster plume in a wide circle. The flights split, two going port, and two starboard as they avoid the fallout from the thrusters; the orks have added atomic blasts to their thrust profile to improve their acceleration and it is making it hard to close in on them.

Thousands of orks pour from Solid Slug in leaky space suits, armed with heavy weapons. A good third of them don’t secure themselves properly and are flung from the Solid Slug like lice. The rest of them anchor themselves to the hull and start firing their weapons at the D-POTs.

I didn’t think any would hit, yet such is the absurd volume of fire, the D-POTs start to take hits on their shields and have to break off their first attack run. Unable to quite believe what I’ve just witnessed, all ten of my thought streams freeze and I try to figure out what to do.

Fortunately the wing commander is more on the ball than I am and sends the class ones to break up the improvised CWIS while the twelve class twos group up and make a second run.

They’re armed shuttles, so they don’t have the plasma bombs to cut through the ork armour like a starhawk bomber would. The missiles, a mix of melta and atomics, are the same though and tiny explosions sparkle across Solid Slug’s engines.

Two of Solid Slug’s six thrusters cut out and a third starts spewing uncontrolled fire and debris. As the class twos go in for a third run with their lascannons Solid Slug launches its remaining strike craft.

All D-POTs break off their attacks and retreat in good order, returning to their original flights. Of the sixty craft that departed, seven are missing. I pray we can recover them later.

The ork strike craft, a mix of eighty, boxy fightas and fighta-bommerz with stubby wings and more dakka than you can shake a gretchin at, chase the D-POTs with more speed than is reasonable for such kit-bashed vehicles.

The D-POT’s use their rear, port and starboard hull turrets to deter their advance with streams of heavy bolter fire. The ork vehicles mostly shrug off the secondary weapons, losing nine craft during the eight minutes it takes them to catch up.

Once the orks get close, the class ones break off and circle around the ork flanks. Unlike the class twos, they still have their missiles and pound the ork formations with a mix of flak and haywire missiles while flashing their lascannons.

Fightas and fighta-bommerz break their formation and jink erratically. With lower manoeuvrability than the ork strike craft, the class ones struggle to get kill shots with their lascannons and only terminate fourteen enemy vehicles.

Imperial missiles, however, are less easily dealt with and no matter how much junk the orks shed into space, they can’t distract the logis-engines from locking on and guiding their payloads to target.

Once the volley is over, nineteen ork strike craft remain and all but two flee. These two recklessly charge through the debris of their fellows and target the class two D-POTs with a few, comically large missiles that are quickly shot down by the dedicated multi-laser turrets assigned to the missile defence systems.

The two fighta-bommerz follow immediately after, shattering like ice and filling the void with spinning metallic shards.

I exhale slowly, not realising that I’d been holding my breath, then ready myself for our next engagement.