‘Yes, lord Chapter Master,’ replied Bohemond’s bondsmen.
The Abhorrence’s engines opened up, pushing it with indomitable power towards the moon.
The sky around Terra was thick with debris. Shattered orbital fortresses and defence platforms floated in shoals of wreckage, making sailing hazardous for both sides. Ork fighters, keen to engage with the approaching ships, impacted with them in flashes of boiling fire. The Space Marine pilots, more cautious, better skilled, were taxed to the limit streaking through the metal-choked vacuum. The bigger ships could not avoid the debris, and all across the Last Wall void shields flashed and curled with impact flux.
‘Gravity lash arming,’ droned Kant.
‘Firing solution agreed, all fleets report readiness.’ The bondsmen manning the gunnery station looked to Koorland.
A number of impact points flashed up on the hololith of the ork moon. Koorland nodded.
‘All ships, open fire,’ he ordered.
Cyclonic torpedoes, each larger than a space fighter, slipped free of the launch tubes of twenty battle-barges and strike cruisers. Their engines flared, and they powered towards the moon with building speed, passing the emissions of the gravity lash coming the other way.
Now they were closer, the lash struck with redoubled violence. The tip of it took the battle-barge of one of the Black Templars’ subsidiary crusades in the centre. The lash writhed and coiled about it like a python, collapsing the ship’s midsection so comprehensively that the remains of the prow and stern drifted free of each other. The stern detonated with the sunburst of reactor death, engulfing its escort vessels in nuclear fire. The lash had not done: it twitched through the crusade’s ships, smashing two more of them into nothing before finally dissipating. When it shut off, a single vessel remained, heavily damaged. It was targeted by a flight of ork destroyers. Fire sped between the crippled Imperial ship and its predators, but there could be only one outcome. The ship disappeared, replaced by a perfect circle of brilliant light that winked out as quickly as it bloomed.
Bohemond roared at the oculus, slamming his fist into his palm. ‘They will pay all the more dearly for that!’ he yelled. ‘Prepare to fire a second volley of torpedoes.’
The first launch had reached the moon, slamming all over the surface. Explosions lit up tits face with domes of fire and light. The moon shook under the impact. Tall plumes of ejecta reared up, gnarled fingers reaching for the Space Marine ships.
‘Ready to fire again!’ reported gunnery command.
‘Hold!’ ordered Koorland as Bohemond raised his hand. ‘Wait for the others.’
‘Koorland,’ said Bohemond.
‘Wait!’ commanded the Imperial Fist. ‘We are most effective working in concert. You will wait!’
Shorter-ranged grav-weapons began their assault on the fleet. Clouds of energy bubbles projected at the ships crushed all those they touched. Long-ranged reverse tractor beams tore pieces from hulls or pushed vessels off course. For all the havoc wreaked on the moon’s surface, there were hundreds of thousands of weapons still, of all types, unleashing their full power on the approaching vessels. Void shields throbbed, and across the fleets they failed with oily pyrotechnic displays. Battle-barges shook under the barrage. Several of the smaller vessels were destroyed.
By now the fleets were close to the moon, deep in the debris field. Here were thousands of captured Imperial vessels, many undergoing crude refits. The broadsides of the capital ships boomed constantly, blasting ork craft and pirated Imperial ships to pieces. Destroyers duelled with fast ork attack craft, and everywhere tracers of anti-interdiction fire streaked the sky.
Icons flashed across Koorland’s station. Vox-confirmation came in from the rest of the fleet.
‘Now. Now open fire, High Marshal,’ said Koorland.
‘Do as he commands, open fire!’ roared Bohemond, but his men had already responded.
More torpedoes raced towards the moon, pounding into the surface. The weight of fire issuing from the moon lessened.
‘Brother Kant, is the gravity lash disabled?’
‘Negative,’ said Kant. ‘They are charging to fire again.’
‘My lords! We have reports of multiple boarders across the fleets,’ reported the vox-master. ‘Teleport attack.’
‘They will have taken these craft the same way. They will not find us so easy to overpower,’ said Bohemond. ‘Seal the bulkheads! Weapons free. Activate corridor defences.’
‘It is done, my lord.’
Koorland pressed his knuckles into his command station. ‘Bring the fleet around, get us between Terra and the face. The pylons have to be brought down.’
‘Too late!’ shouted Kant.
The gravity lash arced directly towards the Abhorrence. The bondsman at the helm shouted, ‘Evasive action!’ and the ship plunged as quickly as it was able. The ribbon of gravitic energy raced over the command tower as it slipped down, shearing into the engine stacks of the battle-barge as they presented themselves.
The ship lurched madly as the gravity wave perturbed its course, throwing men everywhere, an effect that worsened enormously when the beam cut into the stern. Koorland slammed against his command post and fell over it, the effects of the ork weapon making a mockery of the Abhorrence’s grav-plating. He fell down a deck that was suddenly vertical, skidding along the metal towards the back of the ship. Somehow, he got his feet under him and activated his maglocks. He lurched upright painfully, standing perpendicularly to the upended gravity. Men flew past him, dragged towards the artificial gravity well of the lash.
The ship rolled violently to port. Through the oculus, Koorland saw the Bona Fide burning engines hard to clear the stricken vessel’s path. With a further mighty wrench to portside, the beam shut off. Gravity returned suddenly to the correct vector. Bondsmen slid down the back wall. Unsecured articles fell from the ceiling. Alarms blared, tocsins sang. The lights had gone out, replaced by the murky red of emergency lumens. Men groaned in pain. A dozen of them did not get up, but lay still.
Throughout it all, Kant had remained stoically anchored in place by his master augur array. ‘We have lost our port engine assembly, my liege. There is heavy damage across all decks in the aft section. Several of our tower superstructures are no more. Multiple casualties among our bondsmen and servitors.’
Bohemond picked himself up from the floor. Bondsmen medicae teams hurried in to help their stricken comrades.
‘Get us back on heading. Continue attack run.’
‘Gravity weapon charging again.’
‘My lords!’ called a bondsman at the auspex centre. ‘My lords, we have the energy signature of a large fleet approaching from Terra’s nightside.’
‘It cannot be the Imperial Navy. The Autocephalax Eternal stands off, and there are no other Naval vessels in the system,’ said Bohemond.
‘There was no warning of orks on the far side of the throneworld,’ said Koorland.
‘Gravity weapon is close to full charge,’ warned Kant.
‘Brace!’ shouted Clermont. The lightning discharge built, and Koorland prepared for the worst.
The attack never came. The face side of the ork moon appeared to change shape, redrawn by a swift painter working in blinding light. The oculus dimmed itself at the sudden fire, and the Space Marines saw the moon’s face deformed by a dozen atomic blasts.
From out of the maelstrom a fresh fleet came sailing, jet-black silhouettes set against the destruction they had unleashed.
Adeptus Astartes vessels.
A powerful, sonorous voice burst over the vox.
‘This is Chapter Master Malfons. The Iron Knights respond to the call of the Last Wall. We apologise for our tardiness, but we are here. The sons of Dorn stand together. Awaiting orders.’
‘The gravity lash is disabled,’ said Kant. ‘Auspex indicates eighty per cent of all ork surface weaponry non-functional.’