Chapter Twenty-Eight: Death in Calixis (Part VII)
Location: The Dyatlov-Rho System.
Date: 893.M30 (Shortly after Chapter Master Fenj gave his orders)
The Vindication and its fellows in the first Battlegroup charged the War-Moon. Accelerating their ships to their maximum and Void-Flicking as they moved. A strange strategy the II, VIII and XIX Legions had each indivudally developed. Of rapidly shifting Void shields between normal and inverted during the lead up to an attack. Risky and potentially disastrous if mistimed, but capable of befuddling scanners and disorienting the enemy. Never was the full force of Night Lords visible, and they never kept a consistent course. Masking the Imperial's numbers and position. The Rangda expected trickery and more secrets from the Night Lords, it was best the VIII Legion did not disappoint them.
The War-barque screen expanded forward. Thinning itself to cover more territory and better control the Void around the War-Moon. The Xeno megastructure had been unnervingly quiet. It's only activity, the movement of ships too and from its various bays. Aside from its disturbing method of propulsion. Auger probes and overlapping scans gave new insight into that. Powerful gravitic generators dotted the War-Moon's surface. Each at the center of a polyp form that stretched out from the surface and increased its own gravity, while its siblings decreased theirs. Using the War-Moons own mass and space/time's curvature to wriggle through the void.
Stretched out and bristling for an attack the Rangda forces moved towards the remaining Resupply ships. Auspex readings were imprecise but it seemed the Xeno fleet was dividing itself into a great crescent shape. The War-Moon at the center and mixed groups of Barques and Parasites forming AU sized wings on either side. Encirclement tactics are less useful in void warfare, with three dimensions being considered instead of two. That was not to say they were not dangerous. A fleet funneled in any direction by enveloping enemies would find itself easy prey. Something the Night Lords would not let happen. The secondary Battlegroup would deal with the Rangda wings if they got too close, but Fenj doubted that would happen. Guard duty was actually their secondary purpose in hanging back, they would be the Imperials reserves.
Pushing forward and void-flicking as they did the Night Lords ignored multiple feints by the Rangda wings. Attempts to pull them away from their charge and divide their force. The first battle group juked and twisted at every opportunity but did not deviate the course. Burning at full thrust directly at the War-Moon. Realizing this intent, elements of the Rangda fleet moved to intercept. The inner segments of the wings and some of the orbital guards around the Megastructure taking up new positions. The Rangda abandoned any attempts to intimidate or manipulate. The aggression shown by the much smaller and already unpredictable Night Lord fleet could not be ignored or underestimated.
From his Command throne aboard the Vindication, Fenj absorbed the ongoing battle and watched the War-barques move closer and closer. The skeletal, agile things moved with impressive coordination and speed. Yet occasionally Fenj caught glimpses of what he wanted to see. Slight delays in responding to fleet movements, and formations more compact than necessary. The signs of uncertainty and worry. Recognizable across the void and between species by the trained eye of Konrad Cruze's sons. Fenj did not know how the Xenos crewed their ships. Maybe strange alien forms operated a bridge much like his own. Or perhaps the ships were more grown than constructed, its crew akin to organs and symbiotes. No matter, whatever alien intelligence guided the ship wished to live. It could feel fear or something close to it, a weakness to be exploited.
Soon the first Battle group would be within firing distance. Imperial void weapons have better range than Rangda weapons. The unstable nature of radiation cannons forcing the Xenos to medium engagement distance at a minimum. Normally the Night Lords would keep their distance and flay bits off the Rangda fleet. An option limited by the Xeno's superior numbers and the enigmatic War-Moon. So the Imperials pressed forward, but did not neglect the present advantage. Night Lord ships flickered in and out of visibility as some maneuvered to aim their guns as the coming Rangda. Going from a parallel course with the Xenos to perpendicular, without virtually any loss of momentum or direction. Sliding across the void with all guns blazing. A tricky maneuver, one that could easily over tax a ship's gravitational compensators, but if done correctly allowed the full might on an Imperial broadside to strike with the ship still in motion.
Volleys of Macro Shells and Lance strikes filled the void, slamming into the Rangda's shields. The Gel Shields slowed down the Shells, turning ship rending munitions into sluggish hunks of metal. Something the Night Lords now expected, and compensated for. Two-stage detonation Macro Shells are specialized and typically not very cost effective. The piercing power of a normal Macro Cannon combined with the dangers of Space make the bolter-like secondary explosion typically unneeded. That is not to say an enterprising Tech-Priest or few thousand might not be able to convert the standard shells to the two-stage variant with a bit of effort. Something the Rangda learned as the slowed Macro shells exploded in a hail of ultra-dense shrapnel.
The results were not as spectacular as the Imperials had hoped. Resulting mainly in slow motion explosions or otherwise stunted blasts. Some rounds did have the desired effect. Taxing the Gel Shields and even breaking past the strange slowing field. Tearing holes in the Rangda ships and even breaking a few particularly unlucky ones into pieces. Long distant scans showed the still intact but wounded alien ships start to "heal." The plastic flesh oozing over the damage with disturbingly organic movement. Deceive strikes would be needed to ensure the damn Aliens actually died.
The bombardment continued with more Lance strikes and Macrocannon fire hitting true. Cutting holes in the Rangda line of battle. This sweet spot where the Xeno's could not return fire effectively was coming to an end, they would soon be in range of the Rangda's gamma weaponry. Now came time to commit, the void flicking must end and they would dive into the breach. The moment of truth came fare too quickly as the fleet's shields sparked and glowed with impact. Concentrated beams of Gamma radiation punched into the overlapping defenses of each ship. While not much more powerful than a traditional Lance weapon the Gamma Bursts lingered. Each volley leaving trails of radioactive contamination in the void. Turning the space between the fleets into a rad-soaked waste. So far the Night Lords shields held and they pushed forward. The heavy armor and shielding of Astartes vessels protected from the worst of the radioactive storm the ships flew through.
Shadow Blasters and more concentrated Gamma fire started to change that. Unlucky Imperial vessels died as their mechanisms and crew burned with invisible flames. The Rangda were starting to slow, preparing to move into an optimal engagement range. The Imperials did not, pushing forward with seemingly careless abandon. Lance strikes, Gamma Bursts and other weapons streaked through the void as the fleets clashed head on. It would not be long before the Night Lords entered close quarter void battle. Fenj and his fellow officers could see confusion start to sow among the Xeno ships. This was not how humans fought they must have been thinking. Sacrificing the ranged advantage for up close pugilism, this was Orkish and illogical. Distinct from what the Aliens had fought before.
This was the Night Lords presenting their bellies and their claws. Equal parts sign of weakness and threat. The homing rad munitions of the Rangda were soon in use and started to strike Imperial ships. They seemed a cross between torpedo and macro shell, but soaked in radiation like most Rangda weapons. Now came the moment of truth, it would be minutes before the two lines of battle smashed into each other. As far as the Rangda knew this was an attempt at ramming. If they didn't move the Night Lords would literally smash through them, if they did then this brazen assault would get that much closer to the War-Moon. The inevitable problem of super-weapons and megastructures is they can win a battle by their presence but lose a war in their destruction. It was unlikely the Imperials had anything that could truly harm the War-Moon, but battles have been lost because of smaller assumptions.
The Rangda made their decision as the Vindication and its kin came close. Barely moving out of the way, literally scraping by each other in a few cases. The Xeno ships deployed their boarding tentacles, latching onto passing Night Lords with long fleshy tubes. At this distance the Xeno's might have noticed the unusual power consumption and additional shield wrapping around the Night Lord ships. If they had been looking for it, and had not been focused on the lunatic assault of the VIII Legion. Once they had gotten close the Night Lord vessels had taken a risk and diverting power to the Gellar Fields. Virtually pointless in real space, but critical for a Warp Jump, a Micro Warp Jump in fact.
A hundred tiny tears in the fabric of reality ripped open as the Night Lord offensive Battlegroup dived into hell. Dragging Rangda ships in with them. Such a brazen and unplanned micro jump was incredibly dangerous and required the knowledge of countless variables. Or at least the ability to see into the future. One moment the Night Lord fleet was charging past the Rangda line of battle, the next it reappeared in the outer orbit of the War-Moon. Many Imperial ships trailing the severed and twisted remnants of boarding tubes. The Dark Gods do not take kindly to any species that deny them, be that Mankind or Rangda.
Now the Night Lords were where they wanted to be. Within striking distance of the War-Moon, and with the full attention of the Rangda fleet upon them. Torpedoes and munitions rained down from above. Bombarding the War-Moon with Imperial wrath. Forests of nozzular cannons spat globs of off-white fluid into the heavens in an alien equivalent of Flak. Overlapping shields and waves of radiation halted directed energy and confounded cogitators. The scant elements of the attack that made it through the defense struck hard and twisted biomechanical landscapes that quickly healed, but they did strike.