Chapter One Hundred And Forty-Nine

Batarian Dreadnought. Imir System.

Admiral Dhosvin Graknawen was a member of the ruling caste of the Batarian Hegemony. As such he'd been born into a life of wealth and privilege as was due someone his station, and today he would show the rest of his class and those beneath him why he was worthy of his high position within the hierarchy. Years of education and generations of breeding had gone into making Dhosvin the man he was today.

The admiral command one of the Hegemony's few dreadnoughts and from his chair he could look at those who served and worked beneath him. The warship operated smoothly due to the high level of skill and discipline among the crew, and the ship itself was the result of the Hegemony's best technology. More than a match for even a Turian dreadnought even if it didn't quite measure up to the pride of the Asari fleet.

There was no idle talk in his command centre. Even if there had been this would not have been time for such things as they had entered the Imir System some time ago and the enemy was here. A holoprojection appeared before Admiral Dhosvin Graknawen and he liked what he saw.

The three Imperial vessels were out of formation, by the looks of things the two smaller ships, which were both massive by the standards of this galaxy were in still in orbit of the second planet while the slower moving super-dreadnought seemed to be heading out.

Perhaps the smaller vessels were meant to catch up. Not that it really mattered to Admiral Dhosvin Graknawen, as he knew that his own fleet was much faster than these Imperials even if the humans who weren't part of the Systems Alliance had a lot more firepower than anyone should be allowed to possess. That was why the admiral had brought such a large fleet with him and why he focus its entire might on a single vessel.

To the humans of this galaxy the Batarian Hegemony seemed to be something called a paper tiger in that it looked fierce but in reality was something fragile. True the military was mostly focused inwardly to keep the rigid caste system enforced, as such the Hegemony had gotten into the habit of spreading its influence by funding slavers and other criminals groups out of their own space, rather than through military might.

Today that perspective would be changed. The people's of this galaxy would soon see that the Batarian Hegemony was not a paper tiger but a deadly predator if it needed to be. The Batarians would act when the rest of the galaxy was too afraid to take action.

Dhosvin Graknawen was under orders to destroy these Imperials, they had insulted the Hegemony and illegal seized on of their cruisers when that vessel had been on a peaceful mission, and to make matters worse these Imperials were interfering with the Terminus Systems which the Batarian people had been taking control over little by little over many years.

These Imperials would learn their place, and if possible Admiral Dhosvin Graknawen was to capture some of them and their technology. This should be simply enough even if the Imperials here fought the last solider as once their ships were gone as then he could take the fleet to one of the human colonies under the protection of the Imperials and simple seize the colony. Sure those worlds had defences but the high ranking Batarian was sure that he could overwhelm them.

Once he return home with plenty of slaves, new technologies and any other spoils he could gather Admiral Dhosvin Graknawen would be praised as a hero of his race, his name would go down in history and all would praise his name. He might even get of his current wife and find a new, younger female to replace her.

That pleasant daydream of glory came to an end when one of his officers informed him that they would soon be entering weapons range. So far the Imperial superdreadnought was doing nothing other than to slowly move into a better position for a battle. The other Imperial vessels seemed in no hurry to support their leader.

"The enemy superdreadnought is moving to present its port side" reported one of the officers.

Dhosvin Graknawen found this action to be odd as all this did was give his fleet an easier time aiming their weapons.

"Open fire as soon as we are in effective range" he ordered.

They did so, and as far as the dreadnought's sensors could tell the first volley had no effect on the strange barriers of the Imperial ship and the enemy did not return fire until after several more volleys were fired by the entire fleet to no noticeable effect. The enemy vessel didn't use kinetic barriers ad their shields did something to odd to projectiles fire from the Batarian vessels.

Then the huge cannons mounted on the Imperial vessels, which Batarian intelligence believed were meant to be intimidating in size since they couldn't be more powerful than standard ship's weaponry, opened fire and then part of the fleet simply exploded as whatever the Imperials had fired proved to be highly effective.

"What just happened?" Dhosvin Graknawen demanded to know "Someone give me a report".

The sensor readings made no sense. According to them the superdreadnought had fired projectiles at a speed that ship's computers hadn't been able to calculate and they utter demolished their targets. The Admiral had no way of knowing that a battery of Macrocannons can fire a lethal broadside meant to bring down the shields of vessels equal to that of the Super-dreadnought. The barriers and armour of the Batarian warships were as next to nothing when compared the thick armour plating and void shields of Imperial made space going craft.

Thinking fast the admiral ordered his fleet to scatter so that they would be harder to hit and to move out of the firing arch of the Imperials big guns. Sadly for the Batarians serving on those ships the Lunar-class cruiser, as the Imperials called it, was hardly lacking for firepower. Lord Thrax had paid well for extra point defence weapons that were normally only be useful against fighters and bombers, however these laser proved to be effective against the Batarian made vessels.

By now the enemy had been able to launch their own fighters, having kept one of their two hanger bays clear by presenting their port side to the incoming fleet. These Imperial fighters were slower and less agile than those faced which were crewed by Batarians, but had superior fire power and much better shields, so the xenos had no advantage there.

In all the confusion the admiral barely heard someone mention about an incoming torpedo that contained life signs. Such a thing was madness to hear as who would ride in a torpedo? He soon found out when he began to get reports of boarders. Who boarded a dreadnought? And how had they managed it during a battle?

You'd have to be insane to try or as it turned out you needed to be a genetically-engineered super solider in power armour who was willing to ride in boarding torpedo they had to slow down enough to pass through the enemy dreadnought's barriers. It nearly hadn't worked and wouldn't have if the alien admiral hadn't been in such a frantic state.

The blacked armoured humans were easily overwhelming the security forces stationed on the dreadnought who didn't have the kind of fire power required to take down a space marine because no sane Batarian would fire such a weapon inside one of their own ships. They might have been able to bring down the space marines with sheer numbers had they been able to organise a defence, but the whole crew was in a state of near panic.

Had the attackers been anything less than a squad of Death Watch who were backed up Imperial Stormtroopers, whose hellguns proved to be effective against the armour and barriers that should have protected the crew, then the Imperials never would have so easily made it to the bridge. Alas the Batarians had simply never thought to defend their ship from this sort of hostile action.

"Close the blast doors!" ordered Dhosvin Graknawen "Seal the bridge".

He needed to focus on the battle and bring his captains into line, the rigid command structure of Batarian society was enforced even more strongly in the military and without his commands the fleet would not be able to take any organised actions. He managed to calm himself some what until he realised just how many ships he'd already lost.

Dhosvin Graknawen would have been safe on his bridge if not for the fact that one of the Imperials carried a power sword of very fine make which had been passed form marine to marine since the dawn of the Great Crusade. When its power cell was activated the massive blade became sheathed in a lethal corona of disruptive energy. This energy field allowed the blade to carve through flesh, bone and most forms of armour plate, making a power sword a highly effective close combat weapon, it also allowed the member of the Death Watch to cut through the blast doors even if this took some time.

No one other than a space marine could have used the power sword in such a way and even then it only worked because when compared to the materials used by factions in the 40k galaxy the blast doors had been rather weak in its construction, but again no Batarian had ever imagined needing to defend the bridge of a dreadnought from transhuman warriors.

The bridge crew had very little time to complain about that as when the marines entered the bridge they spared no one and cared not at all to preserve the technology. They opened fire with their bolters as the few crew members with weapons tried to defend themselves, not that this helped, and very soon the bridge got rather messy.

This display of horrific violence did not sit well with the admiral, who'd already been a little unstable due to watching his command crumble around him. Although to be fair blown apart bodies don't make for a calm work environment.

"You will come with us xenos" said the leader of the Death Watch "The Inquisitor will wish to know what you know".

Batarians like humans posses a bladder which Dhosvin Graknawen demonstrated when the marine reached for him by pissing himself ruining his expensive uniform.

With no effective leadership and the dreadnought no longer responding the urgent hails of the other ships the Batarian captains had no orders and soon each decided on their own best course of action. Most tried to run, a few kept fighting, and only a few of the frigates, the fastest and most agile ships in the fleet were able to avoid the guns of the Imperials as they turned to run. Some crews even abandoned ship and were left to flee as best they could.