[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

“Yes. The vessel that destroyed our sister ship Contagion, if the propaganda lies of the enemy are to be believed,” confirmed his second-in-command, taking care not to tread on any of the litter of pet Nurgle-spawn that swarmed in his captain’s wake.

  Sirl studied the magnified image of the loyalist craft, seeing its launch bays open to disgorge a swarm of gull-winged bomber craft; seeing the cruiser move forward in battle formation along with the rest of the loyalist fleet. For four days the Chaos fleet had advanced through the Helia system, finding little evidence of the presence of the forces of the hated false Emperor other than a few brief but bloody skirmishes with lone scout vessels and marauding attack craft squadrons. In those four days, most of the system had been ruthlessly subdued.

  The defence monitor station at the system’s outer edge had been the first to fall, overwhelmed and destroyed as the first of the Chaos warships emerged out of the warp jump point that the station was supposed to be guarding. Mining and industrial colonies on the system’s two gas giant planets were next to succumb, bombarded into submission as the Chaos fleet swept onwards past them, heading into the system’s core. Their target was Helia IV, an Imperium resource world with a population of more than three billion. Perhaps those three billion supposed that their world merely was to be plundered, mused Sirl, the survivors emerging from hiding afterwards and praying to their weakling emperor in thanks as they watched the Chaos reaver fleet leave orbit and head out of system towards its next target destination. If that is what they thought, he smiled to himself, then how much anguished despair must they have felt as their astropath psykers and long range surveyors detected the warp burst signatures of many more Chaos vessels—troop transports and their protecting escorts—emerging out of the warp and following in the wake of the main warfleet? It was only then that the Despoiler’s intentions for Helia became clear to its terrified inhabitants.

  Invasion. The ruthless subjugation of their world by the powers of Chaos.

  Inside the transports were the Legions of Chaos: Chaos Marines and daemon-things, confined for centuries within the Eye of Terror and now impatient to be unleashed upon the servants of the false Emperor. There were savage beastmen and degenerate human followers of the Dark Gods, eager only for the slaughter of their masters’ enemies; slave-troops and monstrous mutant spawn creatures, fit only to be used as cannon-fodder in the armies of Chaos. Any who resisted would be mercilessly put to the sword, while the remainder of the world’s population would be enslaved, put to work constructing fleets of more warships and troop transports for the Despoiler’s battlefleets. The strongest amongst them—those who could actually survive the brutal realities of life on what would soon be one of the Despoiler’s prison-factory worlds—would be formed into slave-troop regiments and herded aboard the newly-constructed transports, ready to be taken on to the next doomed world to lie in the path of the Chaos reaver fleets, leaving behind them the bone-scattered ruins of their dead world.

  Fear, thought Sirl. Fear was the Despoiler’s main weapon in this war, and its tendrils spread deep into the minds of the inhabitants of very Imperium world within the Gothic sector; fear that their world would be next to fall under the gaze of the Despoiler, and fear of what fate the Chaos Warmaster had already decreed for them when he sent his fleets to darken the skies above their world.

  Helia IV was the third such world to fall before this warfleet—the holds of many of the transports were crammed with the slave-troop remnants of the populations of the two preceding conquests—but this was the first time that the Imperial Navy had appeared in any force to oppose them. Sirl and his fellow captains had resigned themselves to another simple but unsatisfying slaughter of the local in-system defence forces—its orbital defence platforms and slow, poorly-armed system vessel gunship squadrons—and so it was with a thrill of anticipation that they greeted the sight of the Imperial Navy battlegroup that emerged from the warp to challenge the Chaos fleet as it made its final approach on the otherwise defenceless world.

  Despite his four centuries of service to the God of Decay, there was enough of the Imperium fleet officer still remaining in Sirl to recognise the feeling now growing within him. It was an old, familiar feeling, one that the bosun-instructors of the fleet naval academies tried hard to instil in the officer cadets in their charge. It was the thrill of anticipation, the relish of the challenge to come that every navy officer feels before battle.

  And also, sometimes, the satisfying knowledge that old scores and debts of honour were about to be settled, he thought, still studying the image of the Macharius.

  “Morrau was a fine captain, and a loyal servant of Grandfather Nurgle,” slurred Sirl, mucus-bile bubbling in his pustule-swollen throat.

  “His death and the destruction of one of the Grandfather’s vessels shall not go unavenged.”

  “Anomaly detected within the enemy torpedo wave,” came the urgent warning from one of the tech-priest surveyor seers, calling Sirl’s attention back to the immediate realities of battle. “There are additional ordnance-class targets masked within the torpedo wave energy reading!”

  Amic Kaether powered his Fury Interceptor forward, residue plasma energy splashing against his forward shields as he piloted the fighter craft through the kilometre-long backwash of the torpedo missile. Around him, the rest of Storm squadron followed him into the attack, emerging out of the energy wake of the torpedo wave that had so successfully concealed their approach from the enemy. Kaether’s command flight—Zane, Vale, Altomare and Cipolla—took up position around their leader, the squadron’s other two flights completing the three-pronged attack formation.

  Fifteen fighter craft—a full strength squadron—and, nearby, another fifteen belonging to Hornet squadron. Thirty Imperial interceptors, attacking in overwhelming force against an unprepared enemy.

  Kaether locked onto the first enemy target, his fingers closing on the firing triggers of his Fury’s formidable armament array. A stream of super-charged energy instantly spat out from the nose-mounted lascannons. The battle of Helia IV had begun in earnest.

  Kroll’s wingman exploded, transformed in the blink of an eye into an incandescent fireball that flickered briefly in the void and then was gone forever.

  Too late, Kroll’s craft-joined senses saw the swarm of enemy fighters emerging out of cover from amongst the torpedo wave; too late, he tried to evade the sharp daggers of las-energy stabbing at him from out of the darkness. They struck against his fighter’s armour, smashing it into broken shards and ripping through his starboard engine, one stray shot blinding him as it burnt through his forward surveyor systems.

  Unseeing and out of control, Kroll’s crippled Swiftdeath tumbled through space and into the path of the oncoming torpedo wave. His soundless scream of rage was lost as, seconds later, both he and his fighter were obliterated, smashed apart against the thick armoured nosecone of one of the juggernaut missiles.

  “Semper watched as the enemy fighter formation icon faded off the surface of the surveyor screen. The Imperial attack wave closed on the Chaos fleet, and now nothing lay between it and its target. Semper’s attention was caught by the urgent flashing of the torpedo wave marker. He looked to his Master of Ordnance.

  “Targets acquired on all missiles,” confirmed Nyder. “Impact imminent.”

  Tens of thousands of kilometres ahead of the Macharius, the wave of torpedo missiles entered their final lifecycle stage, logic engines reaching out to find their targets. Crude but effective guidance systems engaged, short-life manoeuvring jets firing as the missiles’ machine-minds made any necessary course changes towards their selected targets. The main drives flared into fiery life for the last time, expending all remaining energy as they boosted the missile warheads towards their targets at increased velocity.

  Fear and panic spread like wildfire through the Chaos fleet as they witnessed their fighter screen’s failure to intercept and destroy the torpedo wave. Parked in closely-ranked and stationary orbit above Helia, the invasion fleet
was the very model of the Imperial Navy tacticians’ definition of a target-rich environment. For every target a torpedo’s logic engines failed to lock onto, there were another half-dozen to choose from. On the Chaos warships, gunnery officers who had already been zeroing their weapons batteries in on the approaching Imperial fleet frantically redialled new target co-ordinates into their gunnery cogitators, knowing that it was already too late to retrain their lumbering gunsights on targets as small and fast-moving as torpedo missiles, especially at such close range.

  Turret gun crews fared better; already alerted and manning weapons systems designed to fend off ordnance attacks, they stood ready to project a curtain of defensive fire into space around their vessels. Of the thirty torpedoes launched by the Imperium ships, twelve were to be destroyed by the Chaos vessels’ anti-ordnance defences before they could strike their targets. Most fortunate of all was the Murder class cruiser Violator, whose turret crews destroyed all three of the torpedoes that had targeted their vessel.

  There was particular panic aboard the Chaos fleet’s carrier vessels. Bomber and fighter squadrons already committed to supporting the drop-ship assault on Helia were being hurriedly recalled back to the defence of the orbiting fleet, while the few squadrons still aboard the carrier ships were being rushed into action, many of them launching without being fully prepared for combat. There was a special note of urgency aboard the Styx class heavy cruiser Lord Seth which had been targeted by five torpedoes, the missiles’ surveyor systems homing in on the strong energy and comm-net signals emanating from the Chaos fleet flagship. Scramble-launched into action and given only a hurried pre-launch maintenance check, two of its Doomfire bombers collided in the launch tubes, the explosion from their full payloads roaring back into the flight decks and sweeping over the attack craft still lined up there and awaiting rearming and refuelling. Promethium fuel reserves and ammunition stacks lying on the flight deck detonated in a growing chain reaction, destroying the ship’s entire wing of starboard launch bays and dealing the Chaos flagship a crippling blow even before battle proper had been joined. Seeing their flagship stricken, many aboard the surrounding Chaos vessels mistakenly assumed that it had been the target of a close-range torpedo attack from an undetected Imperium ship, and panic spread further into the Chaos ranks at the thought that small but deadly torpedo ships such as the Cobra class destroyer might already have infiltrated the fleet defences and be hunting, undetected, amongst them.

  The first actual torpedo strike occurred on the outer fringes of the fleet perimeter, two of the Macharius’s torpedoes streaking towards a Chaos ship that had foolishly or bravely moved forward away from the main body of the fleet group, instantly singling itself out as a target for the missiles’ questing surveyor senses. Whether it was trying to escape or sacrificing itself to protect the troop transports behind it was something those intently watching from aboard the Macharius’s command deck would never know.

  “Target is an enemy escort vessel, probably one of their Iconoclast class of destroyers,” Nyder told his captain, reading the information from the complex array of machine-code icons flashing across the surveyor screens. “They’re opening fire with their defence turrets. A hit! One torpedo gone. The other torpedo still closing. Its warhead has just achieved critical mass…” A bright energy flare blossomed on Semper’s lectern screen, temporarily overwhelming and dispelling the other data scrolling across the vid-display. Semper looked up, looking through the command deck’s viewing bays to see a matching explosion burst light up the vacuum of space ahead of them as the torpedo warhead smashed through the Chaos ship’s hull and detonated amongst its engine systems, breaching the walls of the generarium plasma reactors and setting off a chain reaction explosion that completely vaporised the enemy vessel. The explosion and expanding cloud of super-heated burning plasma energy briefly flared like a second sun against the blackness of space, but all around Semper saw glittering constellations of other explosions and energy bursts, evidence of the fleet-sized space battle now taking place all around them. In rapid succession, the rest of the torpedoes lashed into the ranks of the Chaos fleet, with devastating results.

  The anti-ordnance gunners aboard the Lord Seth succeeded in destroying the warhead of one of the torpedoes targeted at it. However, their success was to be short-lived. Driven onwards by its powerful thrust engines, the intact main body of the torpedo still struck the ship, shearing away one of the massive lance turrets that studded the heavy cruiser’s spine. The power conduits to the turret’s weapons systems failed to close, and a fountain of burning plasma pumped up direct from the ship’s generarium core erupted geyser-like from the ship’s upper hull, diverting vital energy away from other weapons systems. The anti-ordnance turrets suddenly fell silent, and their gunnery crews were helpless to stop two more torpedoes slamming into the Lord Seth seconds later. On the remaining port side launch decks, frantic pilots and ground crews raced against time to ready their Swiftdeaths and Doomfires for launch as a series of explosions ripped through the stricken ship’s interior.

  Three of the troop transports, crudely constructed by unskilled slave labour and little more than glorified cattle trucks fitted with warp engines, took a torpedo hit apiece and were vaporised, killing the thousands of Chaos troops still aboard them. Down on the surface of Helia, the odds shifted that much slightly back in favour of the hard-pressed Helia defence forces as they grimly fought against the seemingly never-ending tide of Chaos troops now dropping out of the skies to attack their world.

  The Iconoclast escort destroyer Foresworn was struck aft by a torpedo, the explosion destroying its air recycling plant and igniting an oxygen fire that swept through the ship’s interior compartments. Those that survived the fire were doomed to a slow death by asphyxiation, sealed inside airtight compartments and praying for a rescue that would never come.

  The Murder class cruiser Pagan Voyager suffered a direct hit to its command tower, the blast ripping upwards through deck after deck within the armoured blockhouse and killing everyone present on the bridge, including the captain and flag-lieutenant. Suddenly robbed of almost its entire senior officer cadre and with its internal comm-net also disabled by the loss of the command deck, the Pagan Voyager would take little further part in the Battle of Helia IV as its junior officers strove to bring order to the various out-of-contact sections of the ship, eventually choosing discretion over valour and retreating from the conflict altogether.

  Throughout the Chaos armada, wounded ships burned and bled their atmosphere and energy lifeblood out into the cold vacuum, but, despite the damage caused by the Imperial torpedo attack, the battle’s final outcome was by no means assured. Chaos warships manoeuvred for position, swinging round to bring lance turrets and weapons batteries to bear on the oncoming Imperium fleet. The Imperial ships were closing rapidly, but the enemy fleet was still out of range of their own forward-firing batteries. Knowing that the enemy’s firepower had a longer reach than their own guns, the Imperial line braced itself for the Chaos fleet’s reply.

  The void between the two fleets was filled with bright rainbow displays of las-fire, roaring plasma comet trails and the thick, iridescent streams of lance-beam energy. An Imperial Cobra destroyer escort, caught too far out of position ahead of the main body of the fleet, exploded apart as an arcing beam of lance fire passed over it, cutting through it in one lethal sweep. Las-beams, energy blasts and missile volleys impacted against overloading void shields, penetrating through to strike at the pitted and dented skins of ancient and battle-scarred armoured hulls. The prow of the Torment burst apart as probing las-beams found a weak spot in its adamantium shell, drilling through it to find and detonate a newly-loaded torpedo missile sitting in its launch silo. The back-blast blew the sealed, seventeen tonne silo door off its mountings, a wave of fire sweeping out into the eight-deck-high loading chamber and back further along the wide rail-tracked tunnel from where the torpedo missiles were brought up from the ship’s magazine.

  St
ricken, the Lunar class cruiser fell out of line, its sister ships leaving it behind to fend for itself as its officers and crew desperately fought to contain the conflagration burning through the ship and prevent a catastrophic magazine explosion.

  On the bridge of the Macharius, Semper stood his ground, feeling the ship sway under him as it was buffeted by the blasts impacting against its void shields and armour. The Macharius was equipped as standard with heavy blast shields which closed over its viewing bays during combat, but Semper had ordered his vessel into battle with blast shields open, reasoning that a few extra feet of titanium steel armour would make little difference to their chances of survival if the command deck took a direct hit, preferring instead to see something of the enemy and the current disposition of the battle with his own eyes rather than merely as an array of icons and symbols on a surveyor screen. Looking out, he saw a vision of hellish beauty: explosions and fire-bursts blooming against the black void; warships, vast and powerful, moving forward with ponderous majesty. Over the open, fleet-wide comm-net came the voices from those ships, sounding weak and insignificant in comparison to the grand scale of events happening around them.

  “The Lord Seth… Its defence turrets are dead. Vandire’s oath, if you’ve got any torpedoes loaded, use them now!”

  “Nemesis Leader to Macharius. We’re through the enemy’s forward picket line, or what’s left of it. Commencing attack run on the troop transports. Enemy fighter activity disorganised but still fairly intense… Be good to see some friendly Furies up here with us, Macharius.”

  “Vanguard destroyer squadron to main group. That Murder class protecting their far flank is drifting out of position, looks like it’s taken a hit to the command tower. There’s a path opened up for us clear through to those damned transports. Requesting supporting fire from any available capital ships.”