First, Best Destiny (Battle Fleet Gothic)

[Ford Prefect]

Brilliant as always.

[Imperial Overlord]

Skotos Theta was not a pleasant system. Life could be found cold, barely habitable world circled close to the feeble red dwarf star, but not native life. The mineral deposits made the barren rock worth mining, but an unpopular assignment. Still, it supplied raw materials to systems voracious hive worlds and so a space station and a navy presence could be found here.

The Lord Vonrilyental had coasted into dock with the station. High Watch station's repair facilities were limited, but so was the battlecruiser's damage. His ensigns lead press gang teams made up of ships security and gun deck crews. Casualties had to be replaced.

Ensign Corrington looked over at Jakk Overstal. Four troopers from the ship's security compliment and ten scarred and scary members of its gunnery crew formed this particular press detachment. "Heard your section got it bad," said Corrington.

"Nah," replied Overstal, "now the poor bastards in next to us, they got hit hard. Didn't lose a man from my crew."

"Good," replied Corrington. "Any word about the butcher's bill?"

"All told?" asked Overstal.

"Yeah."

"Four hundred odd dead. Two cruisers, seven escorts to name and we lost four hundred out of ten thousand."

"Damn," said Corrington, "lots a ships lose that many guys in a year without seeing battle."

"Yep."

"Well," said Corrington, "its clear our captain can sure as hell fight." The ensign pushed the flimsy plastic swing door in. The dimly lit bar was half full of spacers and cargo haulers. "All right you lot. You have the priviledge of joining His Imperial Majesty's glorious navy, an action of devotion and piety greater than you have ever committed previously in your wretched lives!"

He was greated with less than complete enthusiasm. Batons started to swing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Captain Severa Valin, Commander Lord Vonrilyental
From: Admiral Lena Novadlorian, Commander Exactius Fleet

Orders as Follows:

You are to take charge of Task Force Retribution, assembling at Skotos Theta. Task Force Retribution to consist of the Lord Vonrilyental, Merciless, Resurgent Wrath, Glaive, Scimitar, Viper Squadron, and Hawk Squadron. Task Force Retribution will proceed back to Selon Minor and exterminate the Ork menace.

Severa put the orders down on her desk. A cruiser squadron with full escort support. A commodore's command and it was hers, even if only temporarily. She touched the control of her vox speaker. "Send him in."

Zar Hadin stepped inside. The scarred man's uniform was immaculate. "You wished to see me captain?"

"Yes. Sit down and make yourself comfortable." She leaned back into her own contour adjusting chair. She slid the flimsy containing the astropathic message across the mirror finish of her desk.

Her XO picked it up and read it. "Congradulations captain." His voice was wooden.

"Mister Hadin, an officer in his Divine Majesty's needs pride. It is entirely proper. It is even acceptable to believe that you can do your superiors job better than he or she can. It is not acceptable to show it."

"Have you ever wondered why you've never gotten a command of your own? You're a lousy XO, despite all of your other stellar qualities. Nearly every officer you've served under has felt your contempt and known that your were gunning for their job. They don't feel they can trust you despite your rather exemplarary performance."

Hadin interjected. "With respect ma'am, I have never acted against my superiors."

"Mister Hadin that isn't good enough. They have to trust you to act for them and you don't inspire that kind of trust. If you want to sit on the captain's throne, you're going to have to earn the captain's trust. You never have and even your connections can't overcome that. Now's your chance."

Hadin's eyes narrowed. "I'll be commanding the squadron so I'll need you more than ever. There's more than enough glory to go around. Backstab me and you'll prove every officer who ever doubted you right and you will never get a command of your own. Back me up and show the Navy what you can do and you will leave this ship covered in glory and in line to get a command of your own. What do you say?"

He smiled. "I'm your man captain."

[Imperial Overlord]

The Captains of Task Force Retribution gathered in the Lord Vonrilyental's confrence room. Aids stood behind their superiors, who reclined in contour conforming chairs around a long table inset with a stacked crystal control systems for its inbuilt cogitator and holo display system.

"Gentlemen," she said and they were all men, except for two of the aids, "we have a mission to discuss which will tax all of our abilities. You have before you the results of our surveyor readings and the conclusions of our logic engines. The ork presence in the Far Breakers is strong. With belt mining, gas skimming, and plundering the cometary clouds for resources, the orks have all the material they need to build a war fleet. With fleet assets being reassigned to foreign sectors to fight the Tyranids, it is crucial we defeat the orks before they become too powerful and do it without removing too much strength from our patrol forces.

"I trust you have all read the reports of our initial engagement. It is my considered opinion that based on the orks methods of concealment, their actual presence is twice as strong as long range surveyor scans suggest. We have a big job ahead of us. Thoughts and opinions?"

Captain Randulf Messer of the Merciless spoke. The grey haired scarecrow was one of the most famous and feared men in the fleet. An excellent ship handler, although his acerbic manner did not make him popular with his fellows or his superiors. "That's a damn lot of orks captain. How do you intend to handle them?" Contempt oozed from his voice. Messer wasn't even a closet misogynist, but a full blown public one. He had once joked that there was nothing wrong with women that a lobotomy wouldn't improve. Some people believed he was serious when he said that. And he was senior here, even if Severa was in command.

"I intend to kill them all," was Severa's reply. "Come in above the elliptic and down on top of them. Full torpedo spread to soften them up and drive them out of hiding. Cruisers hold the center, light cruisers guard the flanks, carriers the rear and Cobras flank. We force them forward with the Resurgent Wrath's nova cannon. They can either go straight into our torpedo volleys, in which case the they take hits and the Cobras take the flanks, or they can break in which case we take out one of the more manigable pieces and then finish off the rest. What were you thinking of, captain?"

Messer said nothing but glared. He was going to be a pain in the ass, but he would do his job. Admiral Novadlorian had managed to handle him and so would she. Besides, the skill of his gunners was legendary in the fleet and the lances on a Gothic class cruiser were fearsome weapons. "Any other questions or comments?"

None were immediately forthcoming. Captain Adrian Pellare was looking quite pleased and so he should be. The Resurgent Wrath was the first large ship to come out of Cyrus Gamma's devestated ship yards. It was Lunar class, a famously easy to build design that was a cousin to the famous Gothic class. Its broadside arnament was split between lances and massed weapon batteries, but the Wrath differed from many Lunar class vessels in its prow arnament. Instead of the standard torpedo tubes, they ship's architects had pushed the envelope and called for the installation of the fearsome nova cannon. Pellare was eager to take his ship into battle and prove its worth and the Resurgent Wrath would play an important part in the battle to come.

"If that is all gentleman, I suggest you see to your ships." The captains nodded and began to file out. Pellare, who's blonde hair and unlined face made him look shockingly young to her eyes, smiled as he went past. Captain Lian Szery stayed behind. He smiled, his glorious white teeth standing out against his midnight black skin. "Nice to see you again captain."

"A pleasure Lian," she replied to her former XO. "How fairs Glaive? I heard she would be laid up for longer."

"She would have been, if our Adraxian tech priests hadn't resurrected an old trick. I don't know the details, but it worked. They were very pleased with themselves, especially with how awed their dockside counterparts were."

"Good," she answered. "How's the crew?"

"Happy that they have their new captain in charge of the ship and their old captain in charge of the task force. They're already laying bets on how badly we're going to beat the greenskins."

Severa smiled. "I'm glad to have you along as well Lian. Glaive deserves a good master and in you they have one of the best. And I'm sure as hell glad to have you guarding my flank. One less thing to worry about."

[Imperial Overlord]

With a flash of blinding colours, Task Force Retribution emerged from the warp. Surveyors on passive mode sucked in data and fed ito to banks of logic engines maintained by the Adeptus Mechanicus. On the cavernous bridge of the Lord Vonrilyental, Severa Valin watched as her ship assembled a picture of its environs and the task force's location.

She called up course data and warbook data on ork surveyors. The course was corrected and then inputed into the machine-minds of the Task Force's ships. Maneuvering thrusters fired and reorientated them. A quick, low powered burn sent them on their way, systems powered down and dark.

The warships of the Master of Mankind coasted through the dark, above the elliptic plane of the star system. The Lord Vonrilyental, Merciless, and Resurgent Wrath were at the center. The cruisers were nearly identical in basic shape to that of the battlecruiser, just slightly smaller and lacking the built up dorsal area and weapon mounts.

The sleek light cruisers that guarded the cruisers' port flank were two and a quarter kilometers long compared to the cruisers' three. They were had only a modest cluster of command domes and spires marring their otherwise lean construction. They were the Endeavor class Scimitar and the Endurance class Glaive, variants on the same design.

Both ships had a small battery of dorsal macro cannons and two prow torpedo tubes. The Scimitar's flanks were lined with plasma casters and turbo laser batteries while Glaive's flanks each mounted two heavy lance turrets the equal to those found on the Gothic class Merciless. The light cruiser's were more agile than their more fearsome brethren and would be able to swiftly exploit any sign of weakness or shore up a failing position.

On the starboard side were the sleek and deadly Cobra class destroyers, barely a kilometer long. A single turret of turbo lasers was mounted in a dorsal turret. The real danger was in the prow were each ship carried two torpedo tubes. The Cobras were fast and immensely maneuverable. Silencer, Assassin, Murderer, and Mayhem composed Viper squadron.

Trailing behind them were the escort carriers of Hawk Squadron. They were Harbringer class, Vengeance, Pain, and Suffering. They were not pretty or sleek ships, but bulky with their cargo of attack craft. They others would be the shield behind which they would launch waves of fighters and bombers to deliver death and destruction to the Xenos scum.

The ships coasted on minimum power for four days. Orks sensors and discipline were notoriously unreliable, but the Navy would not win by being as sloppy as the xenos. Severa walked on to the bridge of her ship as the timer neared zero hour. Zar Hadin saluted her.

"Continue as you were Mister Hadin," she said as she headed for the strategarium. The armoured doors slid open and the officers inside saluted her. They would handle communications and sensor data. More than the fate of the ten thousand souls within the Lord Vonrilyental's hull rested on her decisions. Twelve ships full of loyal servants of the Emperor were entrusted to her care.

She sat down in the command thrown. Compared to the spacious bridge, the strategarium was clausterphobic. Pic screens and cogitator stations lined the walls and encirlced the command throne and the central display. Severa watched the timer count down to zero.

"Tight beam," she ordered. "All ships, begin." Maneuvering thrusters fired and retros burned as the Imperial ships altered their orientation and corrected vectors. The roks were dead ahead as the Imperial ships were now point "down" towards the elliptic. "Cruiser surveyors to active mode." On the display in front of her she could see eight ork roks happily drifting in the void, dumping heat and energy into space. Raw material was tractored or barged in. Factory facilities from which endless waves of war machines and brutal alien slavers would descend on the worlds of men. Not this day, not any day if she could help it. She checked on the status of her ships. "All ships, fire torpedoes. Resurgent Wrath, fire when ready."

Twenty four torpedoes flew from the tubes of the Imperial ships, flung by magnetic accelerators. Plasma reactors inside the torpedoes switched on and drive flares spiked out their thrusters. "All cruisers, void shields on."

Down in the belt, ork and gretchin sensor operators got the first indications that something was very wrong. Their eyes were trained on the elliptic, the area where ships usually travelled, especially if they wanted cover. Their limited brains also had a problem coping with three dimensional travel and warfare. Unknown and powerful scanners were sweeping over them. They had just reported this to their irritable and violent bosses and nobs when torpedo clusters appeared on their scopes. Then the rok designated number six by Imperial logic engines was enveloped in a titanic explosion.

All the facilities on the side facing the Imperial Fleet were obliterated by the detonation of the nova cannon projectile. Every barge, shuttle, and cobbled together space vehicle within five thousand kilometers was annhilated. Roks seven and three got away with merely minor damage only because of their forcefields and that they were literally hollowed out asteroids and were armoured by the countless tons of nickel iron.

Gretchin ran around screaming in panic. Orks barked orders and shot anything that annoyed them. Power fields went active as did numerous sensor systems. Boyz flocked to gun mounts and torpedo tubes, eager to "break sum headz." A surprise attack did not dissuade orks. They were bred for war.

Further away, several more roks came to life. Power fields went from low to full power and surface mounted thruster modules kicked in. Ork ships, hiding cold and dark, had their power levels raised. Stealth and cunning were respected by orks, but they loved nothing so much as a straight ahead scrap.

Attack craft were readied on five roks. They were typical of their kind, armour plated, jury rigged monstrosities with huge, inefficient engines that allowed them to lumber through space. Cannons of questionable reliability were attached to the wings and nose and chemically propelled missles with atomic warhead were slung from wing mounts and beneath the fuselage. Eager pilots of questionable sanity barked demands to get their flying death traps ready to fly.

Ork battery fire managed to shoot down nine torpedoes. Three passed through the combat zone without hitting a target for one reason or another. Another four impacted on comparitively solid and underdeveloped areas of roks and detonated for comparitively minor damage. One hit a kilometer and a half long Ork gunship racing into the fight and destroyed it utterly.

The remaining five hit two roks solidly. One rok took a single direct hit which blew open its refinery complex and smashed the local power field generators. Everyone in the refinery was instantly incinerated, but the size of the breach and the failure of the powerfields meant it was not sealed off immediately. Atmosphere rushed out the enormous breach, dragging orks and gretchin with it. Half the rok's population was lost in under a minute.

The other rok was hit by four torpedoes and blow apart in an intense flash. Large chunks of lifeless rubble drifted away. "All ships, reload ordinance," Severa ordered. "Surveyor status?"

"Multiple energy signatures ma'am. It looks like the Ork fleet is powering up. Energy levels on some signals still rising. Ma'am, there's-"

"I see it." There was a lot of them, and at least four of them were cruiser class or larger. More lights. She flicked on the interfleet com. "All ships, this is it. The orks are rising to fight. Let us show them why this galaxy is a human galaxy, now and forever. Orks are born for war, but they are ignorant children compared to the greatness of Man. We shall show them how war is fought."

[Imperial Overlord]

Rocket engines fired, althering the courses of the roks and rotating them into combat positions. Breaking and stabilizing thrusters fired to counter the spin and reorientate the asteroid bases as the orks clumsily maneuvered into position. Even the Vonrilyental's guns couldn't score a hit at this range, but there were weapons that could. The orks lacked nova cannons, but they did possess torpedoes of their own. Five surviving roks sent huge missles into the void.

"Torpedo swarm incoming," announced Dosza. Zar Hadin took the news calmly.

"Engage with lance batteries when they come into range," he ordered.

Severa's words were piped through to the bridge. "All ships, stand by for enemy torpedo swarm. Viper squadron, conduct evasive maneuvers and target all torpedoes aimed at the cruiser squadrons with weapon batteries. Glaive and Scimitar are to do the same. Hawk Squadron, launch fighters and evade. All cruisers, keep our prows forward to the enemy."

On the Harbringers, the squadrons of Fury class fighters that were already loaded into launch bays and ready to fly were fired into the void. The ponderous escort carriers began to painfully turn as their fighters sped forward to guard the cruisers.

Meanwhile on the Imperial warships, mechanical loaders of varying quality and and brute human muscle power moved sixty meter long torpedoes towards firing tubes and a titanic nova cannon slug into its breach. Petty officers barked orders at ratings as massive weapons crept towards readiness.

Lances and weapon batteries lashed out at the central cluster of ork torpedoes. Fourteen Ork torpedoes were on courses that threatened the Imperial cruisers. Seven of them survived the Imperial anti-ordinance barrage. As they passed neared the Imperial cruisers, the Fury interceptors raced passed the prows of the Imperial ships and sped toward the ork torpedoes.

The Fury's engaged the giant missles with lascannons and missles. Three of the torpedoes were blown to pieces by the Fury's fire as the fighters passed. The remaining four torpedoes closed on the Imperial ships.

One was struck by a last minute shot from Lord Vonrilyental's lance batteries. One missed the Vonrilyental by less than ten kilometers. A third penetrated the Resurgent Wrath's void shields and was destroyed lascannon cluster. The fourth penetrated Merciless's void shields and slammed into the Gothic classes's dorsal surface. No major systems were damaged by the blast which penetrated three decks and killed over three hundred men.

In the strategarium Ensign Corrington touched a button on his panel. "Logic engines have completed their analysis of the ork ships. Updating display now."

Severa turned her attention away from the glyphs that displayed ork attack craft streaming from the surviving roks. A host of small, comparatively easy to construct raiders. Three Onslaughts, Three Savage gunships with their batteries of close range guns, and a pair of torpedo armed Ravager attack ships. A formidable raiding force to be sure and a threat to her ships that could not be ignored, but no where as bad as the large signatures. Two Terror Ships with their gun batteries and cargo of attack craft, three Kill Kroozas with their massive arnaments, and one even larger ship. "Confirm the last," she ordered.

"Confirmed," said Corrington. "Hammer Battlekroozer, constructed from the hulk of an Imperial cruiser. Surveyors confirm configuration, including the presence of dual capacity torpedo luanchers/bombardment cannons." A ship of near battleship size, first constructed during the famous Armagedon campaign, the basic idea had spread through the ork population like wildfire.

"Viper squadron, move to flank the ork ships on the port flank. Fury squadrons engage ork attack craft. All cruisers, prepare to launch torpedoes at the surviving roks. Resurgent Wrath, status on nova cannon."

"Ready to fire in approximately one minute-thirty seconds."

"Target enemy attack craft squadrons. All torpedoes launch."

[Imperial Overlord]

Intolerable brightness blossomed in front of the Imperial line of battle. Ork fighters, loaded with anti-ship atomics, were blasted out of existence by the explosion of the nova cannon's projectile. A full third of the ork attack craft had been annhilated, with a dozen more seriously damaged.

The Furies blazed ahead of the Imperial torpedoes, the vanguard of the Imperial strick. Lascannons and missle pods opened fire on the ragged Ork survivors. The ork fighters were were crude machines, armoured with heavy slabs of steel. Tank killing lasers blazed through and blew their fuel and oxygen supplies. Missles tore their crafts open and spilled their contents into the unforgiving void.

A ragged hail of shells met the Imperials. Most of the Furies were missed or jinked out of the way before taking too many hits. Four weren't so lucky and were blown apart by ork guns. As the Furies hunted and killed the last ork ships, torpedoes cruised through the debris strewn space towards their targets.

Counter battery fire killed five out of the sixteen. Two missed completely. The remaining nine blew two roks to pieces and shattered the half-hazardly arranged complex on a third. A short lived jet of flame rose from the stricken rok and its tragectory altered.

"Have the Furies pull back," ordered Severa. "Form a CAP around the our cruisers, reload, and refuel."

"Will do ma'am," said Ensign Jenna Taldien. She spent half a minute on the vox with the captains of the Harbringers. "Ma'am, Commander Hawk Squadron reports that he won't be able to launch bombers if he's retrieving fighters."

"Tell them to stand by to launch bombers. We'll have suitable targets for them momentarily." She consulted the auspex display. The battlekroozer was forming up with the other capital ships, Kill Kroozas in the front, Terror Ships behind. The small ork ships darted around the cruiser's flanks the same way a little dog trails a big one. "Viper Squadron, launch torpedoes on massing ork fleet. Encourage them to split up. Maintain your distance at all costs. No flashy heroics."

Commander Dominic Hays signaled back. "No worry on that account. Will give them something to think about and encourage them to break formation."

"Good hunting captain," Severa replied. "All ships, turn to engage the ork fleet. Status on Starhawk bomber squadrons?"

Taldien hesitated. "All captains report ready to launch ma'am."

"Launch and engage surviving roks. Have any fighter from the CAP which can make the trip guard them." Taldien conveyed the order. Severa studdied the display. It was a fairly safe gamble, but a gamble nonetheless.

"All cruisers are to prepare for additional torpedo and nova cannon volleys. I want those ork ships to bleed before they feel our guns."

The Imperial cruisers fired the spear-like retrothrusters, bleeding off velocity for a minute, before their maneuvering thrusters fired and reorientated the monstrous ships to the swarming mass of orks ships. Five full cruisers, a battlecruiser, and eight escort class vessels as well as the surviving roks. A three to two advantage for the orks. It was Severa's job to see prevail over the odds and bring her people through as whole as possible. A Valin did not shirk from her duty.

"Scimitar and Glaive, move close on main cruiser group's starboard flank. Feed the ork scum torpedoes and guard our flanks from the roks."

"Will do captain," replied Lian Szery over a static filled channel. "Let's give these ork scum another taste of hell." On the screen, indicators flashed showing that Viper Squadron had launched torpedoes. Against an ork battle group so far away, merely eight of the huge missles wouldn't be enough. But it would occupy their attention and influence their movements and that was what Severa really needed from them at this moment.

"Status on torpedoes?" she asked.

"Merciless and Vonrilyental ready. Glaive still loading, estimates less than two minutes. Machinery failure in Scimitar. Rating and ordinance crew loading manually." Moving a sixty meter long missle with chains and muscle powered pulleys and gears was far from an easy or swift task.

"Torpedo launch in two minutes thirty seconds," Severa ordered.

[Imperial Overlord]

"Torpedoes firing," said Ensign Taldien in a steady voice. "Fourteen away. Scimitar estimates it will be a half hour before she is ready to fire torpedoes."

"Acknowledge," said Severa crisply. "Starhawk status?"

"Ready to launch," said Taldien.

"Tell them to finish those roks." She examined the holo-images that represented the ork fleet. Smaller glyphs jumped into existence.

"Surveyors detect attack craft launch," Corrington said loudly.

"All Cruisers, hard to port," Severa ordered crisply. She knew what was following in the fighter-bombers' wake. Corrington gave her confirmation a moment latter.

"Ork torpedo launch!" he cried.

"Continue evasive action," she said calmly. It was a good plan and well within the low cunning that orks frequently demonstrated. Hide a torpedo launch behind a wave of attack craft. By the time it was detected, if the plan worked, her ships would have to scramble out of the way and disrupt their battle line or weather the storm. The advanced surveyors aboard the Lord Vonrilyental and Severa's skill had overcome to orks scheme, but there were still unpleasant consequences. The Imperial line of battle would have to move and reform itself, robbing them of maneuvering room and time. Severa was willing to play that price.

As the Vonrilyental ponderously turned Severa's eyes were on the surveyor screens. The fighter-bombers were not moving to shield the ork torpedoes. They were breaking away towards Viper squadron. Severa signaled for a vox link.

As the captains of the Imperial Fleet maneuvered their warships through the void and the ork attack craft closed on their targets, the deck crews on the Harbringers finished their last minute checks. Massive Starhawk bombers were flung by magnetic launchers into the void. This version of the Starhawk had a crew of eleven men and three servitors, one of the men being a tech priest. Short range plasma missles were carried on the bomber's wings and belly. Lascannons and heavy plasma guns were arranged in paired turrets to defend the ship from other small craft.

They flew cold and silent into the void, internal compensators countering the acceleration of the magnetic launchers. Once clear of the ship, the main drive was turned on a new cluster of blue-white stars seemed to flare into existence. Six squadrons of Imperial attack ships were loose in the void and were hungry for blood. Before them, clumsily firing thrusters to adjust their courses, were the ork roks. The Imperials drove forward, cold light glinting in their pilot's eyes.

As the Starhawks flew forward, nearly half of the surviving Fury fighters joined them as a vanguard. They still had enough ammunition and fuel to make the return trip. Their comrades were now on approach to their motherships, their bays yawning open and their decks cleared to recieve them.

"Captain Hays," Severa said, "ork attack craft are closing on your position. No heroics captain. Get your squadron back under cover of our guns. Surveyors indicate nearly ten squadrons of enemy fighter-bombers. They will kill you if they reach you."

"We see them captain," replied Hays. "We're already maneuvering for an evasive burn. Those ork rattle-traps are slow. We should be able to make it just fine. I don't think our torpedoes are going to do much though. Pity."

"Nonsense," replied Severa. "They've helped make up the ork commander's mind. He's going to link up with the roks. He's already setting his course."

"Glad to be of service. Hays out."

"This is Valin," she said on the all ships channel. "Viper squadron will be returning to us, with some greenskin scum in pursuit. Burn the xenos out of the sky."

Her eyes flicked to range indicators. "All ships, fire on the roks as the enter range. Keep our starboard broadside to them." None of her ships were in range, with only one exception.

In the nearby bridge, Zar Hadin smiled gruesomely as he recieved the order from his captain. "Mister Chaing, you heard the captain. Target the nearest rok and kill it."

"Aye commander," came the Master Gunner's reply. The massive lance turrets on the Lord Vonrilyental's dorsal superstructure swung to starboard as row upon row of guns and missle launchers tracked their intended target. The battlecruiser was still in the process of reorientating itself after moving out of the torpedo's path and not all of its broadside arnament could be brought to bear.

What was unleashed was enough. Plasma beams and nuclear explosions overloaded the ork powerfields in seconds. Lances cruely cratered the surface of the converted asteroid, burning through its thick nickel-iron crust and into its hollowed out core. Jets of fire and gas were clearly visible on the surveyors. Plasma missles worried the wounds, blasting open already shattered structures, tearing open the exposed innards. The rok came apart as its power plants failed in a spectacular exlposion.

A chear rocked the bridge. "Enough of this!" Hadin shouted. "We have more orks to kill. Master Gunner! Find me another target!" As the guns of the Lord Vonrilyental followed the dictates of its cogitators and logic engines, the maneuvering thrusters performed their final corrective burns. Power and calculation resources were routed back to weapons.

The surviving roks did not intend to die meekly. Their long range batteries lashed out, those that still functioned after being on the recieving end of an Imperial attack and ork maintenance. The legendarily bad ork gunnery combined with the long range, ork targetting mechanisms (which to be fair were somewhat functional), and the angle that the Imperial ships was moving at meant that few hits were scored. Scimitar and Glaive rocked with the hits and then the orks began to mass firepower on Scimitar.

The Scimitar's captain responded by channelling more power to void shields, slamming shut every non-essential compartment door and having all available crew assigned to damage control. As the Endeavour class light cruiser's shields pushed to overload in a storm of lightning, her crew was braced for the worst. Several rounds burst near the cruiser, flaying armour. Three impacted on her hull, two inflicting minor breaches, the third serious. Then the Starhawk's struck.

The Furies preceeded the bombers to the targets. The agile fighters dived on two roks, lascannons and missle launchers blazing. Their targets were the half hazard array gun batteries and turrets that made up the close defence systems of the ork asteroids. Seven Furies were torn apart as they made their attack runs, but they did their jobs. Gun turrets were cracked and gutted, magazines breeched, cannon arrays blasted apart. The few surviving guns were well marked for the Starhawks.

The bombers flew in fast and low. Their defence turrets poured out counter fire as bombadiers who were literally wired into their targeting cogitators calculated release points for maximum effect. Synchronized volleys of short burning plasma missles were unleashed as each squadron unleashed their deadly cargo and then blasted away from the ork structure.

Main hab structures were blasted open to space. An atmosphere generator was blasted apart and flames roared through tunnels as oxygen burned. Reactors were smashed and power fields failed. One went critical and exploded. Magazines full of ordinance detonated and tanks full of reaction mass were ignited. The roks ceased to maneuver and ceased to fire. Somewhere on their surface or in their interiors orks probably still lived, but as weapons of war they were finished.

A third rok entered the range of the Scimitar and the Glaive. Macro cannons and plasma batteries pounded it mercilessly, overloading the power fields and cratering the rok's surface in less than a minute. Lord Vonrilyental's weapons added their fury to the barrage. The surface of the rok was bathed in hellish fire and then came Glaive's lance turrets to deliver the coup de grace. The beams bored through the broken surface and split the rok clean in half.

As the ork roks died off starboard, the main ork fleet began the ponderous business of turning to face the Imperials head on. It had succeeded in driving away the flanking Cobras and roks still survived to make up the port flank of a head on thrust. Deep in the armoured bridge of the battlekroozer Skullstompa, Warboss Arzagash watched as his fleet came about. "Order da puniz to go to starboard and go huntin' for da hummie small fry. Smash dem carriers and torpedoz shipz."

[Ford Prefect]

Mmm, tasty space combat. Again, a wonderful chapter.

[Imperial Overlord]

Commander Zar Hadin watched the bridge displays. "Master Gunner, have port batteries fire on ork attack craft as they enter range."

"Aye commander," replied Jhain Chaing. "Batteries charged and logic engines are generating firing solutions. Firing will begin in . . . fifty-six seconds."

The Lord Vonrilyental's executive officer considered the display. The main ork fleet was forming a ling roughly ninety thousand kilometers ahead and just off starboard while the fighter-bombers were circling off port. The surviving roks were closing off starboard and the surveyors were registering thruster spikes from the escort gunships. They were up to something.

In the strategarium Severa Valin watched the orks maneuver. Viper squadron had made it back under the cover of the Vonrilyental's guns. The port missle launchers had already begun firing at the mass of fighter-bombers. The ork gunships were accelerating on a vector that would put them on the same course as the attack craft.

It was a good plan. The fighter-bombers would act as a screen, allowing the gunships to attack the cruisers on the flanks while engaged with the ork cruisers or chase down the carriers. Without a fighter screen, the huge number of ork attack craft would be able to inflict punishing damage on her ships.

Missles began to burst around the ork formation, creating huge clouds of seething plasma that vaporized ork fighta-bombas. Plasma beams and high yield nuclear blasts from macro-cannon shells. The orks forced their way through the gauntlet with most of the number intact, although most ships bore the mark of a near miss.

Off starboard the guns of the Resurgent Wrath and Scimitar combined to flay the powerfields off of a rok with combined volley of macro cannon and plasma fire. Structures on the surfaces were vaporized or blown apart before the Lunar Class Cruiser's lances burned their way into the rok's core.

Glaive and Lord Vonrilyental vented their fury on another rock. Power fields failed in a series of brilliant flashes and plasma explosions finished structures already damaged by hard radiation from atomic flash or half melted from plasma strikes. Their combined lances punched deep into the rok, sending plumes of gas into the void from the breached interior.

Glaive and Scimitar did not emerge untouched. Ork gunnery and targeting was awful and their guns unreliable but there was no shortage of them. Explosions errupted around the two light cruisers and void shields failed in cascading sheets of lightning. Overloaded generators discharged and then rebuilt their shield strength, but this left windows of vulnerability.

Glaive took several minor hits and a large hull breach amidships. Scimitar took a wound just aft of their torpedo launchers which wrecked her reloaders, damaged half of her torpedoes in storage, and killed over four hundred of her crew. Another direct hit, this time on her generarium, forced the shut down of her number two plasma reactor.

"Signal Merciless to maneuver to port and engage ork escort class vessels," Severa ordered. "Viper Squadron is to reverse course and stand by to engage enemy escorts with torpedoes. Status on Hawk squadron's fighters?"

"Another ten minutes ma'am," answered Taldien. Severa didn't flinch as she recieved the death sentence of too many of her people. The roks had been the target of the ambush and had been caught been subjected to torpedo volleys, massed bomber waves, nova cannon blasts, and cruiser broadsides. They were finished now, the most combat worthy ones shattered or badly damaged and were no longer a significant threat to her forces. The roks had inflicted wounds before they had beaten and Severa had spent her advantage laying the hammer on them. With the ork cruiser's ahead of her and fighter-bombers closing on her ships, she wasn't sure if it had been enough.

"Acknowledge. Tell Hawk squadron every minute is paid for in human blood and to get those birds in the void now."

Aboard the Merciless, Captain Messer was unhindered by the doubts that Severa would not show to her crew. He was sure that she had fucked it up. He recieved her order to change course with a scowl. "Navigation," he growled, "plan burn to match command's course in four minutes. Helm, steady as she goes. Prepare for maneuvers in four minutes."

His executive officer, a lean dark skinned man who massed nearly half again as much as his rail thin captain, murmured, "this is disobediance under fire."

"Who is master of this ship?" was Randulf Messer's response. Anyone other than Zarentyne Mulved would have been taking his life in his hands to question Messer, but the cruel autocrat had his favorites and his executive was his most treasured as well as stabilizing force that gentled Messer's intolerable cruelty into domineering harshness.

"You are," was Mulved's muttered reply, "but this is-"

"Not subject to discussion," growled Messer. Louder he ordered. "All maneuvering power and reserves to port lances. Lock on ork attack craft and wipe them out." The bitch might have a few tricks, but he had been winning battles since before she was born.

The beam generators on the Gothic's turrets ceased to target a single point, instead each beam sought its own target. The beams fired on low power, sweeping the void with its full array of beams. The Merciless raked its beams through the space occupied by the ork craft again and again. A single touch by these weakened beams would have difficulty burning through the hull armour of a warship, but was more than enough to vaporize a fighta-bomba.

Most of the beams missed, by the profusion of beams and the repeated sweeps through the orks squadrons bore fruit. By the time the Merciless's beams ceased to fire and the ship began firing it's maneuvering thrusters one in five of ork ships that had survived the Lord Vonrilyental's batteries was annhilated.

Severa watched as Messer defied her and the Merciless plunged ahead towards the surviving fighters. Vonrilyental's guns still killed ork fighter-bombers and Viper squadron had come forward, deploying their own guns against the ork craft. In moments the battered squadrons would pass over the Merciless and unleash their cargo of death while behind them ork gunships closed to attack range.

[Imperial Overlord]

Twenty eight ork fighta-bombas past through Merciless's void shields. The sleeting energy storm caused critical system failures in two of the craft, one who's jury rigged systems froze and the other which suffered a fire in its cockpit wiring, condemning one crew to a horible death drifting in the void and the other a horrible death by being burned alive.

The survivors were greated by waves of fire from the Merciless's clusters of defence turrets. Within ten seconds rapid fire laser bursts, streams of autocannon shells, and bursts of hyper velocity flechettes reduced three fighta-bombas to wrecks and turned two into blossoms of flame and steel fragments. The gunners of the Merciless were famed as the best in the fleet for good reason.

The surviving orks closed and died. Seven lived long enough to launch the bulky chemical rockets attached to their fighta-bombas. Seven missles survived to strike Merciless's hull and five detonated in blinding flashes. Meters thick armour vaporized under the hammer of the atomic blasts, but only near the impact points. Nearly eight hundred men died and as many again recieved serious burns or radiation poisoning. Air and fire streamed from the wounds, but the streams of gas were soon blocked off as blast doors sealed off the damaged sections. Merciless lived and was still able to fight.

As the ragged ork survivors flew back to the their mother ships, the ork gunships closed on Merciless and Viper squadron. The pair of Ravager's launched a volley of torpedoes at the Imperial craft while the Onslaughts opened up on Merciless with their guns. The cruiser's void shields repelled the incoming fire. The Imperial ships shook as their own torpedoes launched.

The range was too close for evasion to be possible. The huge missles drove towards their targets, leaving trails of blaziing plasma behind them. Defence turrets engaged and made kills as the armoured missles closed on their targets.

The Imperials were relatively lucky. Two of the ten ork torpedoes malfunctioned almost as immediately and burned past the Imperial line without attempting to acquire targets. Two narrowly missed Merciless and another two were killed by Merciless's guns. One torpedo grazed Assassin's prow and glanced off to detonated two hundred meters away. Two died to Viper squadron's guns. And one stuck Mayhem in the prow.

The explosion gutted the entire front third of the ship. The hull was ruptured in innumerable places and fire blazed as air poured out of the ship. Her void shield's down, her frame compromised, and her crew dying; Mayhem drifted through the void.

The orks faired worse. Fourteen Imperial torpedoes were launched and twelve acquired targets. The orks shot down three and the rest closed on their targets. Two missed by mere tens of meters, one missed by almost two kilometers. Three glanced off or detonated with minor damage on the heavy ork prow armour. Three hit.

One of the Ravager torpedo boats was gutted by flames fueled its own torpedo stores that spread to its fuel lines. An Onslaught burst apart as a torpedo impacted on its ventral armour, punched through, and blew the ship in half. The last torpedo impacted on one of the Savage gunships, which had its front third comletely obliterated when the torpedo smashed through one of its main guns and detonated.

As the torpedo duel errupted off to port, the cruiser squadrons closed with each other. In the strategarium of the Lord Vonrilyental Severa Valin consulted the data stream holographically projected in front of her. Off to port her ships were fighting the ork escort-raiders in a viscious battle.

"Torpedo launch in thirty seconds," Severa ordered. "Glaive and Scimitar are to break and flank the orks on the starboard side following torpedo launch." Her crew transmitted her orders. There was no way around the blood bath that was going to follow, but if she did her job she could just end up handing the orks the lion's share of the butcher's bill.

"Resurgent Wrath is to target ork Kill Cruiser that is beginning to maneuver towards Merciless with her nova cannon. Our lance batteries to follow up nova cannon strike." And hopefully inflict serious damage on a ship with with downed shields.

"Firing torpedoes," came Taldien's voice. A meager eight fish flew through the void. The two light cruisers alter course forty five degrees to starboard and burned away from the cruiser group. "Resurgent Wrath reports ready with nova cannon. Maneuvering to target designated cruiser."

"Ork torpedo launch!" shouted Corrington.

"Steady," Severa said. She watched the torpedo glyphs. "Confirm surveyor readings and torpedo courses," she said urgently.

"Confirmed," replied Corrington with a grin. "They fired half of them at Glaive and Scimitar, based on their old course. High probability of misses."

"Good."

"Resurgent Wrath firing," came Corrington's voice. The ork Kill Krooza was engulfed by a flash so intense that it was visible to the naked eye if any were looking out Vonrilyental's armoured portholes. The dazzle of collapsing powerfields was completely lost in the brilliance of the detonating nova cannon shell, which had gone off a mere ten klicks in front of the ork vessel. Armour crumpled, liquified, and vaporized. Guns, powerfield generators, surveyor clusters, and maneuvering thrusters were reduced to mangled wreckage. Two thousand orks and gretchin were killed by being blown into space or cooked by the awesome heat.

Then Vonrilyental drove the blow home. The Overlord class cruiser's lances sliced into the ship's ravaged prow, turning it into blazing wreckage as they detonated capacitors, ignited fuel lines, and set oxygen generators ablaze. It took merely thirty seconds for the flank power fields compensated for the damage and expand their protection to include the ship's prow, but by that time the damage had been done. The Kill Krooza was burning towards Merciless prow first with almost no functional forward weapons.

As the Harbringer's launched their refuelled fighters into the void, the torpedoes closed on their targets. Only four came close enought to target Glaive and Scimitar. Two were slain by their guns, one missed Scimitar by all of five meters and another missed by over three kilometers. A half dozen more passed by, twelve hundred kilometers seperating them from their targets.

Lord Vonrilyental and the Resurgent Wrath also faired well. The few torpedoes that came their way mostly missed, were shot down by their ferocious defence turrets, or in one case, glanced off the admantium armoured prow of the Lord Vonrilyental. One torpedo struck home, punching through the Resurgent Wrath's hull on the starboard side, just aft and above the nova cannon assembly. There were nearly six hundred casualties and five heavy plasma cannons were knocked out of commission.

The orks faired about as badly. A mere eight torpedoes wasn't much compared to the amount of firepower of the ork fleet and the thickness of their front armour. Six were shot down and one missed due to its surveyor's being temporarily blinded by a near miss by a nuke. One did manage to hit, penetrating the nose armour of one to the Terror ships and turning its torpedo room into an inferno.

"Turn to port," Severa ordered as damage control reports were relayed from the Resurgent Wrath. "Let's show them our broadsides and see if we can't convince them to expose their afts to our light cruiser's guns."

[Imperial Overlord]

As the Imperial battle line began to turn, so did one of the Kill Kroozas. The ork warship fired its maneuvering thrusters and shut down its main engine, swinging the massive ship's prow towards Scimitar and Glaive. The light cruiser's recognized the move and turned inwards as their great velocity pushed them forewards, maneuvering to broadside to broadside with the ork behemoth.

Macro cannons and plasma accelerators opened up on the Kill Krooza. Some missed, some explosions burst near the cruiser, but a good many connected. Power fields flared and pushed into overload. The momentary field failure allowed two plasma beams to burn holes in the Kill Krooza's side. And then Glaive fired her lances.

One of the massive turrets was slighty misaligned. Across nearly twenty eight thousand kilometers, that meant the beam slashed harmless below the ork ship. The other slashed open a deep wound in its side, slagging a gun, igniting fuel, and opening seven compartments to space.

Scimitar shuddered through the retalitory volley. Enough of the inaccurate ork guns scored hits to shroud in the ship in the sleet lightning of venting void shields. But they held. For now.

On the other side the battle, Merciless plowed straight ahead through the mass of ork gunboats. Lance batteries on either side found targets and fired as the long ranged guns on the Hammer's starboard side scored a few hits on Merciless's shields.

Off to port the surviving Ravager torpedo boat had its power fields sheared away by a direct lance strike and then was opened from stem to stern by another battery. A reactor was breached, most of its engines were slagged, and nearly half the ship was exposed to vacuum. An explosion blew out much of what survived aft. The hulk twisted and tumbled through space.

One of the surviving Savage's was also maneuvering off port, coming in close and bringing its forward battery of heavy guns to bear on the weaker shields and armour of the Gothic's sides. The Merciless's gunners brought their weapons to bear first. The heavier powerfields and armour in the gunship's prow might as well be non-existent for the protection they provided from Merciless's lances. Two direct hits overloaded the powerfields in a flash and bored through the ship to a reactor. The Savage vanished in a flash. The other surviving Savage made it through the gauntlet and turned toward's Merciless, getting outside the angle of the cruiser's guns.

The Merciless's orgy of carnage was not confined to its portside batteries. Off starboard they target and killed a Onslaught trying to dart past for a run at the carriers. Lance beam converged on the ship and it vanished in a huge flash. The other Onslaught, sped past Merciless before her guns could be brought to bear on the craft. The vulnerable carriers were dead ahead.

As the Lord Vonrilyental turned, it's starboard batteries and dorsal lances engaged the remaining Kill Krooza. The Resurgent Wrath turned with it, its lance turrets and batteries of macro cannons and plasma accelerators targeting the same ship. Proximity detonating macro cannons shells and plasma beams wreathed the Kill Krooza's bow with light. The blasts of incoming missles pushed the fields past overload.

One of the battlecruiser's lances missed high. The other burned a deep wound in the cruiser's bow. The Resurgent Wrath's plasma beams and macro cannon shells caused two minor hull breaches and vaporized huge amounts of armour of the ship's nose. The Wrath's lance turrets burned through the cloud of hot gas and energy discharges in inflict a pair of ferocious wounds on the ork ship.

The Imperials handn't finished. The Vonrilyental's port batteries lined up with the aft of the surviving Onslaught. The weaker aft shields and armour failed under the hammer of the plasma beams. Macro cannon shells punched through the devestated engineering section and detonated. The plasma missles never got to finish the job as the ship disappeared in a flash.

The orks had punishment of their own to dish out. The Hammer class's torpedo tubes weren't empty, although there were no torpedoes in them. Instead the dual purpose tubes had been loaded with titanic shells that dwarfed even those of a macro cannon. Still, they were much smaller than a torpedo and so could be fired at a much higher velocity.

The shells from the improvised bombardment cannons burst around the Lord Vonrilyental. Terrible ork gunnery meant only there was only one direct hit. The void shields were wrapped in sheet lightining as they bled off the energy of the improvised bombardment cannon. The main guns of the Kill Krooza and the Hammer followed up, but energy storm surrounding the Vonrilyental made precision gunnery harder. Shells fell around the ship, but more than a few struck.

An ordinary cruiser's shields would have collapsed under the bombardment, but the extra shield generators that the battlecruiser possessed and the high quality of Adraxian manufacturing allowed the Lord Vonrilyental to weather the storm. Barely.

In the battlecruiser's strategarium, Severa watched her screens. The fighters were moving up to shield her cruisers from the next launch of fighter-bombers and the Orks were splitting up. If her people could just weather this storm they would have shots at the lightly protected aft sections of the ork cruisers. Victory was close at hand, if they could survive this hell ride in good enough shape to fight.

[Imperial Overlord]

As the Resurgent Wrath and the Lord Vonrilyental crossed the T of the ork cruisers, Merciless past alongside the burning Kill Krooza with barely ten thousand kilometers seperating the two warships. The flank batteries of the Kill Krooza were much weaker than the forward ones, but at this distance the short ranged heavy guns could be brought to bear.

The space between the two capital ships became a hell of flying shells and cutting beams. Merciless sliced through the ork ship's powerfields in a brilliant flash. Her lances sliced deep in the ship, severing power cables and fuel lines while opening up much of the ship to vacuum. The crippled ship drifted forward

Merciless didn't fair much better. Her void shields were stronger than the ork power fields, but they failed under under a barrage of explosive shells. Atomic shells pounded her flanks, slagging her armour, and breaching her hull in a half dozen places along her flank before her shields came back up.

"Status!" Messer barked.

"Shield's at fifty eight percent capacity, turrets two knocked out, five major hull breaches, fire is burning in four compartments, and power levels at sixty three percent," came the mechanical voice of Magos Fredricks. He had attended to Merciless since before Messer was born. Fredricks knew her machine spirit the best. "Main fire control is destroyed." A terrible wound. Merciless had one of the best fire control systems in the fleet. Adraxis might be able to restore her. If she lived.

Messer looked at his surveyor displays. His wounded and bloodied ship was going to pass within gun range of the ork cruiser group. With more than a third of his void shields inoperative, breached armour, and two thirds normal power.

He watched the Cobra squadron burn forward at maximum speed, moving to get an attack run on the ork's flanks. "All available power to the void shields," her ordered. "All junior officers and senior chiefs to the life boats. Commissar Welks."

The brutal, white haired man who had enforced his captain's tyrannical will upon the crew. "Yes captain."

"You'll be needed to keep order in the time we have left."

"My people will not fail you captain."

"See that they don't. Turn seven degrees starboard, plus two degrees. Accelerate, maximum available speed."

On board the Lord Vonrilyental Zar Hadin was looking at a similar catastrophe. The Ork cruisiers were closing and it was looking like most of them were going to concentrate their fire on the Lord Vonrilyental. At this range, his shield's would most certainly fail. "Brace for impact," he ordered. "All available power to void shields, all available crew to damage control stations. Seal all non-essential areas!"

The hammer fell. Long range fire from the Terror Ship's exploded around the Lord Vonrilyental, but most of it missed or was deflected by her void shields. The Kill Krooza fired its surviving guns at the Lord Vonrilyental, but the closer range did little to make up for the damage it had sustained. Brilliant explosions flared, but Vonrilyental's shields held. Then the Hammer Battlekroozer fired.

The bombardment cannons were much more accurate this time. For a moment it looked as is new sons were being born around the battlecruiser as the huge shells detonated. Vonrilyental's enchanced void shield's fell in a storm of energy as the Hammer's ordinary guns pounded the Imperial ship's hull. The thickness of the Vonrilyental's armour saved it from the worst that lack luster ork gunnery could deliver as explosions blossomed on her hull. More than six hundred men died as the hull was serious breached in three places.

Zar Hadin was not prepared to meekly accept this pounding. Even with reduced power and several guns down due to battle damage, the Lord Vonrilyental's arsenal was a thing of terrible power. His starboard broadside stripped the half regenerated powerfields off the Kill Kroozer. A lance turret cut a long slice along the top of the ork ship's hull. With her port guns she zeroed in on the aft section of the surviving Savage gunship. The nuclear blasts of Vonrilyental's macro cannon shells collapsed her scanty aft powerfields. Long range missles unleashed plasma blasts into thin rear armour. The gunship vanished in a soundless flash, reduced to glowing fragments flying through the void.

The Resurgent Wrath was untouched by the ork volley. As the Lord Vonrilyental endured the battering of the ork warships, all available power and cogitator resources on the Lunar class cruiser were shifted to gunnery. Plasma beams and nuclear detonation ate through the weakened prow armour of the Kill Krooza, slagging the bow of the ship. The Wrath drove its lance beams through the cloud of incandesent gas that once had been armour.

The ship killing lasers bit deep, almost to the core. Short lived fires, bodies and streams of gas jetted out from deep wounds. Main power failed on everything forward of the ork equivalent of the enginarium. Shieldless, blind, and toothless; the ork ship drifted forward.

As the cruiser's crossed the T, another wave of fighta-bombas was launched from the Terror Ships and the Skullstompa. The crude ork craft barely left their launch bays before the Imperial fighters fell on them. The Furies were greatly outnumbered, but they were faster, better made, and their pilots were far more skilled. Lascannons and missles flashed through the void. Crude, but immensly durable, ork craft were punctured or blasted open. A hail of gunfire was launched in retaliation. A few hits were scored. The Imperials dodged and struck again. And again. But they were burning fuel that they needed to get back to their carrier's with and emptying launchers that only held so many missles.

As the small craft danced, so did the light cruisers. Glaive and Scimitar had survived their broadside with the Kill Krooza and turned hard to port as the past by. The agile light cruisers were moving to cross the T on the opposite end. The lumbering Kill Krooza began to maneuver for a corrective burn to catch up with its prey, but the ork ship was not designed to execute rapid course changes and its own velocity committed it. The light cruiser's escaped it's reach and maneuvered toward the rear of the first Terror Ship.

They recieved a light sprinkling of broadside fire, but the distance, comparatively weak broadsides, and terrible ork gunnery enabled their shields to withstand the hits until the past beyond the reach of the ork guns. Scimitar's macro cannons and plasma beams tore through the rear powerfield's and armour. Glaive added her macro cannons and lances to the volley.

The damage was brutal. They wrecked the ork ship's portside launch bays and shredded her main powerfield generators. The blew open the aft of the ship, heavily damaging her engines, and punctured a generator. For once ork safety mechanisms worked, which meant that 'only' everyone around the breached reactor was instantly incinerated, all the equipment was slagged, and everything nearby recieved a hellish dose of radiation.

In her strategarium Severa snarled. I have you now you greenskinned monsters. Now you are going to burn!

[Imperial Overlord]

"Turn cruiser group hard to starboard," Severa ordered. "Give those ork scum a taste of our broadsides."

As the orders were relayed to the command decks of her ships, her eyes flickered to where the mess of glyphs that represented the life and death struggle of attack craft. Her Furies were dealing heavy blows, but there was just so many damn orks. A flashing warning rune indicated that fuel and ammunition expenditures were nearing the break off point. Soon the fighters would have to return to their carriers.

"Hawk Squadron, you better get your Starhawks into the void pretty soon," she said over the coms. "Merciless's sparing partner is heading your way, somewhat worse for wear."

"We see him captain," came Captain Renald Tigran's dry voice. "We'll give him a warm enough welcome."

"Very good," she replied. On the screen a mob of ork fighter-bombers broke away from the scrum and headed back the way they came. Did they need to rearm? No, their vector was wrong for that. They were heading for Scimitar.

Her eyes narrowed as her gaze fell on Merciless. The Gothic class cruiser was ahead of them and off to port and was aimed at the flank of the trailing Terror ship, as if it was going for a close range torpedo volley . . . . or a ramming attempt. "Get Messer on the vox," she ordered.

On the Merciless's bridge, a skeleton crew of aging officers manned critical posts and oversaw the efforts of servitor operators. "We are accelerating at seventy-two percent of maximum speed captain," Magos Fredricks said impassively. His gold masked face was impassive. "Structural damage had compromised the maximum rate of acceleration Merciless can withstand."

"Understood," said Messer. "Continue with the evacuation. Comms, inform that bitch Valin of our intention to ram that ork abomination."

"Captain," said Magos Fredricks, "I must inform you giving the typical nature of ork construction, the ship's undamaged status, and our own limitations, we are unlikely to inflict crippling damage to the ork vessel. Merciless will be severly damaged, perhaps beyond the point of repair by the collision.'

"I am aware of that magos," Messer replied. "If I thought we had a chance, I wouldn't have ordered the men essential for a successful boarding action off my ship. No, the orks will storm across and seize this ship. No greenskin will be permitted to defile this vessel. Have the enginarium adepts set the plasma reactors for overload. We'll send them to hell and ourselves to the Throne. Then abandon ship. She no longer needs you. The Imperium does."

"Understood captain," replied Magos Fredricks, "but I will stay. The Enginarium adepts can relay direct control to me and then abandon ship. They will live on to serve their Emperor and the Machine God. I have tended to the Merciless's body and soothed her spirit for more than one hundred years. I will accompany her in death."

"Very well then," said Messer with a wintery smile on his lips. "Nice to have company on this hell ride."

As Merciless plowed ahead, the Lord Vonrilyental and the Resurgent Wrath turned hard. The Skullstompa cruised forward and the capital ships' broadsides were brought to bear. The ork ship had the lion's share of its guns consentrated forward, but its broadsides were more than respectable.

On the Imperial ships deck after cyclopean deck sported a huge number of vast galliers. Each gallery housed a single mammoth weapon. Each weapon came to bear on the ork battlecruiser, firing as it was aligned, firing as fast as it could be reloaded or recharged.

Beams of blazing plasma smashed into the Skullstompa. Shells and missles burst around the Lord Vonrilyental and the ork battlcruiser. The Imperial warship was wreathed in the lightning of overloading voids shields while flashes around the Skullstompa indicated failing powerfields.

Lance beams from the Imperial warships ripped into the massive ork ship, wounding it, but not seriously enough. Plasma beams scarred the hull and opened minor breaches while armour was blasted away by fearsome macro cannon detonations. The Vonrilyental shuddered as several ork shells impacted on naked hull, but the battlecruiser's thick armour prevented any serious damage. A mere a hundred odd men and women were killed in the brutal exchange.

The the great ships unleashed their arsenals against each other at close range, the attack craft swooped in for the kill. Two score ork fighta-bombas burned their way towards Scimitar. Radiation bursts and shrapnel blasts thinned their numbers to a mere three dozen. The survivors closed on the light cruiser and passed through its void shields.

Rapid firing laser turrets and multibarrelled autocannons on defensive turret clusters tore ork craft to pieces. Two dozen survived to make their attack runs. Bulky, short ranged missles were launched from under their wings or fuselage. Las beams and autocannons continued to shred both rockets and ork attack craft, but twenty five rockets hit the wounded ship and twenty-two missles detonated.

The blasts tore open Scimitar's already battered hull are ripped deep into the ship. The reactors in the generanium were breached and a huge tongue of plasma shot back into the void. Air and crew streamed through the huge rents in the ship's hull. Power failed. The Scimitar drifted, dead in space.

Her sister ship Glaive struck back. The light cruiser had turned forty five degrees and fired her main engines to reduce the rate of seperation between her and the ork fleet. Her macro cannons overloaded the wounded Terror ship's already weakened power fields and her lances sliced deep wounds in the hull. Badly bloodied as she was, the ork ship would not die.

The orks were not the only pilots lining up ships to kill. The carriers of Hawk Squadron had launched their Starhawk bombers back into the void. As the battered Kill Krooza which had recieved Merciless's unkind attentions closed on Hawk Squadron, so did they close on it.

The wounded ork ship had lost the use of more than a few guns. The massive explosions caused by the detonations of its shells inflicted a few casualties on the Imperial bombers, but not many. Five squadrons closed on the ork cruiser. They swept through the ork powerfields towards the rear of the vessel where the armour was thinner. Ork defence batteries turned two Starhawks to wreckage and wounded a third badly enough that it couldn't complete its attack run. The remained launched their plasma missles and accelerated away from the ork ship.

The thin rear armour and the partially exposed machinery in the aft section was a juicy target. The blinding flares of plasma blasts burned their way deep into the wounded ship's guts. Two thousand orks and gretchin were incinerated almost instantly and the unstable ork plasma reactors were shattered. Hellfire blazed through the ship and jetted out through the wounds in its hull. Then it exploded. Four Starhawks were caught in the blast.

Randulf Messer watched the Kill Krooza die as the Terror Ship grew on the auger screens. Power had been channelled to engines and void shields and so far the weakened void shields had withstood the few shots that had come her way. The Terror Ship sacrificed broadside arnament for launch bays. Only now did the orks realize his intent. With only the Terror Ship throwing any substantial part of its arsenal at the Merciless, she could endure. Her bow shields and armoured prow were the toughest part of the ship.

"Communication from Lord Vonrilyental," said Zarentyne Mulved as he stood over a bank of servitors. "It's from Valin."

"Put her on the speakers," said Messer.

"Captain Messer," came Severa Valin's voice, "we may not like each other much, but you have my respect. Your victory will be commemerated."

"Captain Valin," said Randulf Messer, "you can fight, I give you that. You still need to learn how to command. Now, watch how an Imperial officer dies."

"I was taught a long time ago never to give an order you knew would be disobeyed," she replied. Well, that was true. The only man who would decide Merciless's fate was Randulf Messer. Ship's Commissar Welks had "gone native" a long time ago and was Messer's creature now, not the Navy. Well, the bitch wasn't stupid. "And I am a Valin. I know how to die. May the Throne accept you and your crew with open arms, Captain Messer."

The Terror ship loomed ahead. A crudely made cylander extending from a jumble of thrusters with guns slapped on it and huge hanger decks cut in its side. The auger screens were displaying a very good view now. It was firing too few guns and attempting emergency evasive actions that were too little, too late.

"May the Emperor welcome all the souls on this ship," Messer said softly. "May He embrace the faithful with warmth and recieve the penitent with mercy, as they have washed themselves clean of their crimes with their service to Him. God-Emperor of Mankind, we consign ourselves to you." Impact.

The armoured spearhead of the Gothic punched deep in the the side of the ork ship, tearing through tons of steel like tissue as it thrust toward the rear of the ship. The rules governing momentum and velocity came into play and the ships tumbled through space, locked together. Then both ships were consumed and a new star shone brightly and briefly in their place.

[Ford Prefect]

Now that's how an Imperial Captain dies.

A minor nitpick - shouldn't you be referring to the Lord Vonrilyental as a 'he' rather than a 'she', like Severa said in the first chapter?

[Imperial Overlord]

A minor nitpick - shouldn't you be referring to the Lord Vonrilyental as a 'he' rather than a 'she', like Severa said in the first chapter?

I do. Where did I fuck up and not refer to the ship as a "he'?

[Ford Prefect]

Zar Hadin was not prepared to meekly accept this pounding. Even with reduced power and several guns down due to battle damage, the Lord Vonrilyental's arsenal was a thing of terrible power. Her starboard broadside stripped the half regenerated powerfields off the Kill Kroozer. A lance turret cut a long slice along the top of the ork ship's hull. With her port guns she zeroed in on the aft section of the surviving Savage gunship.

Just here, I believe. I haven't noticed it elsewhere.

[Imperial Overlord]

Thanks for catching that.

[Imperial Overlord]

Severa watched Merciless die. "God-Emperor, receive your servants into your embrace," she whispered. Another display showed the the Skullstompa turning starboard to circle back into the fight. Another one showed the sole surviving Kill Krooza part way through the maneuvers that would bring it back towards Glaive.

"Commander Hadin," she ordered. "Turn us to port." That would continue the broadside duel with the Hammer class, albeit at longer range. That would suit the Lord Vonrilyental just fine. She switched off the vox and turned back the officers manning coms. "Signal the Resurgent Wrath to turn to starboard. Broadsides are to engage the Hammer class if possible."

"Yes captain," replied Ensign Taldien. It was a strange order. Why not turn with Vonrilyental? But it was the captain's order.

As the Kill Krooza began to maneuver back toward Glaive, the Imperial cruiser was doing some hunting of its own. Lian Szery's crewed hungered for vengeance against the orks that had killed their sister ship. "Helm," he ordered, "pursuit course on that Terror Ship. Master of Ordinance, prepare to fire torpedoes."

Two of the great missles shot forth from the tubes in Glaive's nose and burned through the void towards their target, the aft section of the retreating Terror ship. The drive flare of their own engines and the damage to their sensors hid the torpedoes until they were on the last leg of their attack run. Only a few turrets were brought to bear on them. None of them scored and disabling hits. Both of them struck the ork cruiser in its lightly armoured rear, tearing through steel armour and smashing deep into the ship before detonating.

White light flashed as the plasma reactors blew. Where there had once been a ship there was now expanding clouds of hot gas and an intense heat flash. The Terror Ship was gone.

As the Skullstompa turned to resume its broadside duel with the Imperial cruisers, the great warship rolled on its axis to turn its undamaged port side towards the Imperial guns. Its power field generators were already recovering, but it had not lost any generators on that side and they were the ones under the least amount of strain. That its portside armour and guns hadn't been ravaged didn't hurt either.

Plasma beams and macro cannon shells from the Resurgent Wrath flashed through space. Ravenning beams tore at the powerfields and nuclear death exploded around the massive ork warship. The Lunar's deadly lance turrets sliced through the void a few meters beyond the Skullstompa's power fields. A miss.

Master Gunner Jhain Chaing's crews did better. The Vonrilyental hammered the ork battlecruisers with vollies of macro cannons shells, plasma beams, and plasma missles. The energy hell overloaded the powerfields and the the Overlord's deadly dorsal turrets ripped open huge, glowing gashes in the Skullstompa's side. Atmosphere, debris, and bodies bled out into space.

Now the teeth of Severa's trap closed. Viper squadron closed for their attack run. A few shots from the Skullstompa's guns hit Assassin, but the Cobra's void shields held. Their guns were still out of effective range, but they were perfectly lined up to use their main weapons. Six torpedoes shot out into the void and closed on the wounded ork craft.

The ravaged gun batteries and defensive turrets on the Skullstompa shifted to target the fast moving torpedoes. Two of them were blow apart before they hit. One missed by twelve meters. One detonated before penetrating the outer hull, causing comparitively minor damage and merely obliterating two guns and their crews.

The others were far more devestating. One blew through the engineering section, killing hundreds, igniting fuel, and crippling the main engines. The other blasted deep into the battlecruiser's hull, destroying oxygen generators, igniting fuel lines, blowing capacitors, and severing power leads. The ork ship drifted on, ravaged and crippled.

On the bridge of the Lord Vonrilyental, Zar Hadin examined the surveyor results on the auger screens. The ork ship was badly hurt, but not so much that it couldn't recover. Given enough time. Time that he would not give it. "Stay on them," he ordered. "Ride them until they're dead. Master Gunner, make that soon."

"With pleasure," was Jhain Chaing's reply. The Lord Vonrilyental's guns were recharging and reloading. New missles were taking their place in the launchers. The targeting matrix was issueing corrections to the various gun crews. In a few seconds, another volley would issue forth and tear open the ork ship.

As the Lord Vonrilyental finished the Skullstompa, the Resurgent Wrath came to bear on the last surviving ork capital ship. The Kill Krooza that was beginning to close the distance with Glaive. Station keeping thrusters fired, correcting the attitude of the Lunar class vessel. For a moment, powered flowed away from all systems.

Light engulfed the Kill Krooza. The ork vessel cracked in half as its damaged keel failed under the strain of its own acceleration as the blast from the nova cannon overloaded powerfields and vaporized huge chunks of the ork ship. More than a thousand orks and gretchin were entombed alive as emergency doors and force fields acted to close breaches in the doomed sections.

Severa evaluated the situation displayed to her in the strategarium. A holo display showed the Skullstompa breaking apart under the Lord Vonrilyental's guns. "All ships are to begin rescue and sweep and kill operations. Save as many of our people as you can and send any surviving greenskin to hell. May the Emperor look favorably over the fallen."

[Imperial Overlord]

Severa stepped out of the strategarium and back onto her bridge. Her crew saluted her. She returned the gesture. "Welcome back ma'am," said Zar Hadin.

She smiled. "It's good to be back. I see you've managed to keep the ship mostly intact."

"Yes ma'am."

"Good job." She turned to face her people. "Good job. All of you. You did you duty under tremendous strain and hazard and you did not fail yourself, the ship, the Navy, or our Emperor. I am proud to serve with you. Now, we need to find and rescue all of our people that we can, and wipe out every single surviving ork. Our job isn't finished yet."

Her crew went back to work. "The butcher's bill?" she said quietly.

"We got off lucky. It looks like we'll loose less than four hundred. I've let that circulate. People are already saying the Lord V is a lucky ship."

"Good," she said. "Merciless?"

"We've recovered nearly five hundred men and women. We're still looking. Messer died well."

"Yes, he did. Let's finish this mess. Save as many as we can and hunt down every last ork. The butcher's bill was high enough. Let's make sure we get the best value for what we spent."

"Yes ma'am."

She turned toward the side of bridge and walked forward. The ship's astropaths sheltered here, removed from the crowding and psychic static of the minds of the bridge crew. They bowed to her. Chief Astropath Symen took a step forward. His face was hidden within the cowl of his robe. "How may we be of service captain?"

"Signal Fleet Command in Adraxus. We won."