Chapter 95: Human Emperor VS Ork Warlord
The First Expedition Fleet plotted its course for the Sata system to rendezvous with the Fortieth and Fifty-second Fleets. Their mission: eradicate the xenos pirates plaguing the Yades Star Cluster.
A sudden warp storm disrupted their plans. The storm clawed at realspace itself.
The Emperor would normally quell such disturbances with his psychic might, but he worked in his laboratories, adapting Marvel Universe technology for Imperial use. Such innovations would serve the Great Crusade for millennia.
The First Fleet translated back into real space near an uncharted system and sailed directly into a greenskin WAAAGH! of massive scale.
The barbarous xenos detected the Imperial vessels. Their voices rose in thunderous chorus.
"WAAAAAGH!"
The greenskin escort fleet surged toward the First Fleet like a green tide. They came with raw, primal fury.
The fleet commanders recognized this region as a crucial nexus point for multiple warp currents. Should the greenskins claim this space, their presence would spread throughout the New Empire's sectors, bringing war to countless human worlds.
The First Fleet requested guidance from the Emperor. He gave His orders: engage the enemy and hold the line.
The Master of Mankind stood upon the command bridge of the Emperor's Grand Design alongside His gene-sons. He had emerged from His laboratories at the first reports of contact.
Data-streams flowed around them in hololithic displays. Runic symbols painted a grim picture of the enemy's numerical superiority.
Alien howls reverberated through the ship's vox-channels, the battle cries of a species that knew only war.
"Are they utterly mad?" Guilliman's features showed concern. The Lord of Ultramar had never encountered foes who embraced warfare as entertainment.
"It's the greenskins, the bloody orkish hordes!" The Raven's voice carried alarm as he identified their adversaries from their ramshackle vessels. "This is going to be one hell of a fight."
"Master Raven, you know these creatures?" Rogal Dorn turned toward their avian companion.
"I can read the information streams of any universe," the Raven replied. "Give me enough time, and I can know everything there is to know."
"Then speak, tell us of our enemies."
The Raven fixed his gaze upon the would-be Praetorian of Terra. Dorn returned the stare.
Man and bird regarded each other in uncomfortable silence.
"Stubborn as a rock?" the Raven ventured.
"Master Raven, why do you not share this intelligence?" Dorn asked.
The Raven remained silent. Dorn's legendary inflexibility lived up to its reputation. This Primarch had struggled with social relations in the original timeline.
"Lord Raven, please accept these amasec-spiced protein wafers from Macragge, with new flavour compounds developed by our best culinary artisans." Guilliman appeared at the Raven's side, producing the offering.
The Raven nodded with satisfaction. "Excellent, young Roboute has proper diplomatic instincts!"
Dorn remained silent, though anyone could see his disapproval.
'Extended contact with lesser civilisations had corrupted these two.'
After consuming several protein wafers, the Raven began his exposition.
"These Orkish xenos are living weapons. An ancient species called the Old Ones created them during the War in Heaven."
"They reproduce through spore division, not mating or gestation. Plant a single greenskin on a barren world, and seasons later you'll harvest a planet's worth of the brutes."
The Raven's humour painted a vivid picture for each Primarch.
"Could their reproductive capacity truly be so extreme?" Sanguinius inquired.
"More extreme than your worst projections," the Raven confirmed. "Even if you incinerate a world's atmosphere, surviving spores will resurge with greater numbers than before."
"Their genetic code contains pre-programmed technical knowledge and adaptive learning protocols. External stimuli trigger rapid advancement. If you possess industrial-age technology, you achieve industrial-age capabilities. When you reach void-faring status, they follow within a short timespan."
"But most critically, they possess the WAAAGH! field."
"This WAAAGH! field, what is this?" Guilliman leaned forward.
"The WAAAGH! field represents thought made manifest, reality bent by collective will. Unlike psykers who draw power from the warp, greenskins generate this effect through numbers and belief."
"When sufficient numbers gather, they create a powerful WAAAGH! field that allows them to unleash effects rivalling the most potent psychic manifestations, directly interfering with physical laws."
"Their crude technology need not conform to rational engineering principles. Gaps in logic and physics get compensated through the WAAAGH! Field's reality-warping effects."
"Greater numbers mean more potent fields, and more dramatic distortion of natural law. When greenskin populations reach critical mass, they produce Warlords of terrifying combat prowess, or even legendary Beast-class entities that can challenge Primarchs."
"These enemies are problematic," Dorn stated. "Do they possess exploitable weaknesses?"
The Raven's expression grew grim. "Beyond overwhelming force applied with absolute commitment, no viable alternative exists."
"They know neither fear of death nor concept of surrender. On the contrary, they devote themselves utterly to warfare. As long as they can fight, they experience joy."
The Raven's assessment cast silence over the assembled Primarchs. Even this brief description conveyed the magnitude of the threat they faced.
"Enemy contact imminent!"
The Information Supervisor's augmented voice cut through the bridge atmosphere. His form bristled with data-cables and neural interface ports.
Cogitation engines hummed around his station. Their machine-spirits processed vast streams of sensor data.
Hololithic displays throughout the command centre were refreshed, expanded, and refocused.
Military commanders studied the tactical projections. Their enhanced minds parsed runic markers and abstract data.
Tactical logic adjusters implanted within their craniums corrected and diverted their thought processes, allowing them to process information volumes that would overwhelm unaugmented humans.
"All vessels prepare to engage. Maintain maximum manoeuvrability and target the leading enemy formations," the Emperor commanded.
"Load all broadside batteries. Prepare synchronised volleys. Deploy void mines to establish kill-zones."
"Bow batteries stand ready for forward engagement. Maximise power to lance arrays. Nova Cannon batteries calculate firing solutions and await further orders."
The command deck erupted into controlled activity as the two fleets closed the distance.
Distant specks against the star-field gradually resolved into individual vessels. Their details became clearer as the range decreased.
Optical equipment revealed the true nature of the greenskin fleet, ramshackle warships that defied every principle of rational engineering.
Each vessel bore the scars of countless battles. Their hulls streaked with rust and pocked with impact craters. Smoke and flame belched from improvised engine systems, creating barely controlled chaos.
No two greenskin ships shared identical design philosophies. They were clearly not products of coordinated industrial effort.
Instead, their hulls bristled with salvaged equipment of wildly varying origins. Some components bore hallmarks of human engineering, while others clearly derived from alien technologies that the greenskins had conquered and corrupted.
The orkish forces had absorbed and bastardised the innovations of countless species, welding them together into technological abominations that should not have functioned.
The Adeptus Mechanicus's preliminary assessments declared these vessels fundamentally incapable of void-worthiness, yet through incomprehensible mechanical sorcery, the greenskins had somehow brought these scrap-metal nightmares to life.
At the heart of the greenskin armada loomed a War Moon of staggering proportions.
The artificial construct possessed the mass and gravitational presence of a small planet. Its surface is covered in overlapping layers of fused debris and interlocking armour plates.
It resembled a gigantic clockwork mechanism stripped of its housing. Its internal workings exposed like the dissected corpse of some mechanical god.
Massive steel mountains rose from its surface, bristling with orbital defence cannons of impossible scale, point-defence arrays, and dense fields of void mines.
Kilometre-wide engine nacelles anchored directly into the bedrock. Their fusion hearts burned with the light of captive stars.
The first casualty materialised within moments of engagement. A bloated greenskin cruiser fell victim to concentrated plasma bombardment. Macro cannon shells penetrated its crude armour to detonate the power core within.
The vessel disintegrated in an expanding sphere of superheated gas and twisted metal. Its death throes scattered debris across thousands of kilometres.
The ship's bow section tumbled away from the main wreckage. Atmosphere vented from ruptured bulkheads in crystalline streams that froze instantly in the void.
Fragments of hull plating spun through space like deadly confetti, while trapped pockets of oxygen ignited and extinguished in brilliant flashes.
"Enemy vessel destroyed," the detection servitor reported.
The Emperor stood before the primary hololithic display, silently observing the enemy's demise. He had donned His full war panoply. The golden armour bore the double-headed aquila that had become the symbol of human unity across the galaxy.
At His waist hung a master-crafted power sword and bolt pistol, weapons that had tasted the blood of countless enemies of mankind.
The void battlefield transformed into a realm of absolute carnage. Ship-mounted cannon batteries erupted in synchronised volleys, hurling container-sized shells across the darkness.
The vacuum became a deadly forest of intersecting laser beams and lance strikes. Each beam could vaporise lesser vessels in a single sustained burst.
When defensive void shields flickered from dim to blazing intensity, the raw energy of intercepted weapons fire created aurora displays that painted the surrounding space in impossible colours.
The electromagnetic aftermath of such intensive combat interfered with magnetic field generators, filling secondary systems and communication channels with cascading static.
The Emperor's Grand Design surged forward at the fleet's vanguard. Its wedge-shaped hull cut through the greenskin formations like a blade through flesh.
The flagship's broadside batteries unleashed torrents of destruction. Their synchronised fire converged into a barrage that seared the retinas of anyone who dared look directly upon it.
Multiple orkish vessels tumbled helplessly within this curtain of death. Their crude hulls could not withstand such overwhelming firepower.
Power cores detonated in sequence. Each explosion birthed miniature stars that briefly outshone the system's primary.
Countless greenskin corpses spilt from the ruptured hulls like spores from a burst pod.
The fleet's Nova Cannons added their voices to the symphony of destruction. These weapons fired shells of staggering proportions.
Each projectile exceeded fifty meters in diameter and stretched longer than many escort vessels. Accelerated to significant fractions of light speed, each payload carried sufficient destructive potential to annihilate even the largest warships.
As the Nova Cannons spoke, spheres of annihilation blossomed across the battlefield, pockets of space where matter itself screamed in protest against such concentrated violence.
Under the Emperor's command, the Imperial fleet moved with perfect coordination. Ships adjusted their positions with clockwork precision, advancing and withdrawing as a single organism.
Though the greenskin numbers far exceeded those of the First Fleet, the Master of Mankind maximised every advantage available to His forces.
He dissected the enemy formation with the precision of an artist, using superior positioning and concentrated firepower to isolate and eliminate individual targets.
Yet even as Imperial guns claimed victim after victim, the sheer scale of the greenskin horde remained staggering.
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