‘I do think they might be worried, sir,’ Saul said. ‘They’re trying to scare us off!’
‘You might be right, Mister Shaffenbeck,’ said Kulik.
They were only a few thousand miles from optimum range when the crackling field of gravitic energy plumed outwards from the pylons again.
‘Emperor’s arse,’ muttered Shaffenbeck as a green tendril of fire filled the vid-display, seeming to head directly for the Colossus.
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ said Kulik. He winced as the display was filled with the static of the energy surge.
The gravity lash hit Agamemnon and Crusading Ire, tearing apart both ships like the shoddily-made toys of some enraged infant. Debris was scattered across the void, clouds of gases and rupturing corpses sprayed over the heavens as if by the hand of an uncaring alien god. Colossus’ void shields flared from the backwash but the battleship plunged through the expanding debris field unscathed.
‘Launch all wings!’ bellowed Kulik. ‘Signal to flotilla, all attack wings to launch now! Let’s get our pilots away before that thing is ready to fire again.’
The batteries and laser cannons were starting to find their mark as a dozen warships spewed wave after wave of aircraft from their launch bays. Glittering like ice, the attack craft sped across the void towards the ork star fort. Those ships capable of launching torpedoes added such ordnance to the mass of objects flying towards the attack moon. Turning broadside on to their target, the carrier craft formed a standard line of battle, their turrets and gun decks responding to the fire coming from the greenskins. Void shields burned bright and power fields protecting the attack moon flared with spits of orange and red.
Lansung and the main battle line were committed to the attack. There was no time to wait to see if the bomber wings were successful, so dozens of Imperial ships forged ahead, engines trailing plasma across the blackness of space. The Autocephalax Eternal led the charge, the bright gold of her eagle-headed prow gleaming in the light of the system’s star. Vessel after vessel followed the massive flagship, the schematic of the strategic display so crowded with identifier runes that it was a mass of incomprehensible blue.
The gravity whips powered up again before the first wings had reached their target. Kulik realised that Colossus was now the closest ship. He watched with morbid fascination as coils of energy coruscated up the pylons, building in intensity. The captain turned to his second-in-command and spoke quietly.
‘This is very likely going to destroy us, Saul,’ said Kulik. It took every effort to sound conversational. No stranger to battle, Kulik was nevertheless convinced for the first time ever that this was the end. The attack moon was too powerful. The orks were too powerful.
‘Very likely, Rafal,’ replied the lieutenant.
‘If I am to die I would like to go to the Emperor knowing one thing.’
‘What is that?’
‘Why did you never take your captain’s exam?’
Saul laughed, long and hard; so long that Kulik feared the attack moon would rip them to pieces before he had his answer. After what seemed like an age, the first lieutenant composed himself enough to reply.
‘I can’t stand to take another exam, sir. Captain Astersom, he terrified me at my lieutenant’s exam. I mean, actually terrified me. I wanted to kill myself. The thought of going through that again, the fear of failure, the scorn, the worry… I’d rather face a hundred attack moons than another board of examination.’
‘That’s it?’ Kulik was not sure if he was relieved or disappointed. He turned his attention back to the alien base filling the screen. The energy flow was almost at the tips of the pylons and sparks were starting to fly between the jagged metal spires. He looked back at Shaffenbeck. ‘Really, that’s it?’
Saul shrugged.
Kulik almost cried out in surprise when the first torpedo hit the surface of the attack moon. A cluster of warheads tore apart one of the pylons, causing green energy to flare outwards in an uncontrolled burst that spat uselessly past the approaching bomber wings.
More torpedoes hit home, though most impacted harmlessly onto the rocky surface of the base, creating fresh craters but doing little else. Close-range defence weapons opened fire with bolts of laser and streams of tracer shells as the Imperial Navy aircraft dived down towards the attack moon’s exposed gun batteries and turrets. Blossoms of incendiary and high-explosive fire raked across bunker-like extrusions and detonated inside yawning caves that scarred the base’s outer crust. More wicked green fire spewed in all directions, slapping aside a squadron of Cobra destroyers like a man swatting flies, four ships turned into slag and plasma in a few seconds by the writhing energy plume.
The Colossus poured out what fire it could with the rest of the carrier flotilla, until the flagship and the rest of Lansung’s fleet arrived. Nova cannons and mass drivers, cyclonic and atomic torpedoes, plasma blasts and melta-missiles ravaged the attack moon as ship after ship closed in, unleashed its fury and then turned away, broadsides thundering as the line passed through the manoeuvre.
Kulik did not think it was going to be enough, even the combined firepower of half the segmentum fleet. Void shields overloaded under the barrage of shells and torrent of energy bolts disgorged by the attack moon’s fury. Half a dozen cruisers were broken in half by sporadic flails of the gravity whip while huge rockets and crackling particle accelerators tore apart the battleships Restitution and Almighty Deliverance, their void shield detonations sending out shockwaves that batted attack craft across the ether.
Kulik saw something in the depths of the attack moon. A green glow was brightening from within, starting to gleam out of launch bays and vision ports. He saw the flit of fighters and bombers silhouetted against the light, inside the ork base. The pilots were guiding their craft into the heart of the star fort, no doubt sacrificing themselves to launch their attacks against the unprotected innards of the gravitic generators.
‘That’s going to overload, sir,’ said Shaffenbeck.
Kulik didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They were going to destroy an attack moon! Whether they would survive or not, he was not sure. Lansung must have felt the same.
‘General order to fleet, withdraw with all speed, captain,’ announced the comms officer.
‘Helm, you heard the command,’ snapped Kulik.
‘What about our pilots, sir?’ Shaffenbeck asked quietly. Kulik suppressed a swallow of regret and silently shook his head. ‘Understood, sir.’
The last ships of the fleet were still making their attack runs when the star fort exploded. Its detonation tore a rent through space-time, engulfing half a dozen more capital ships with fronds of lethal energy, swallowing escorts, bombers and fighters whole. For a moment Kulik thought he heard a roar of pain, an outburst of primal anguish that clawed into the back of his head and twisted like a fist around his thoughts.
Then the outer edge of the shockwave caught up with the Colossus.
Twenty
Fanfare did not begin to describe the conditions that greeted Admiral Lansung’s arrival. Pomp, ceremony, spectacle. Even these words would not convey the massive grandeur, the overbearing ostentation and carnival that engulfed the chambers of the Senatorum Imperialis as the minutes counted down to the arrival of the Lord High Admiral’s gun cutter.
The Praetorian Way, which curved gently along the shoulder of a mountain from the Eastgate landing hall to a grandiose gatehouse, was lined by a thousand Lucifer Blacks in full armour on one side, and a thousand Naval armsmen on the other. Every tenth man bore a banner of title, naming a battle victory of the Imperial Navy. Behind both lines were trumpeters, drummers, hornsmen, chanters and chantresses. The instruments broke out into heady anthemic life, the voices of the choristers raised against the wind that blew across the Praetorian Way and snapped the flags atop the towers that reared above the proceedings.