Deadlines

Segmentum Pacificus
Anastasia Sector
Vista System
612,144 kilometers outside the Heliosphere
Protector-class Starfort Columbine
7.050.058M40
Virtual Intelligence Interdictor 99186-Epsilon
{/div}

The defensive starforts Vista used had little in common with others used by the Imperium, be they Ramilies-class or the venerable Phalanx, other than their toughness and the amount of firepower they could project.

Rather than a square or other two-dimensional basic shapes with rising citadels, broad bases, great towers and bristling with macro-cannons and lances pointing in all directions, the Columbine and its sisters were five-stepped twelve-sided ziggurats, designed to focus fire in a single direction, their backs to whatever they were protecting.

The wide ‘bottom’ side had a great oval hole in its middle, making room to allow for the entrance of the frigate-sized tugs that made it startlingly maneuverable for its size, the passage not being quite as much of an Achilles-heel as most outside observers might expect.

These Protector-class starforts were also relatively small, having merely three times the internal volume of an Apocalypse-class battleship, the smallest known starship of its classification at a mere eight kilometers long.

Their larger lower side and sloping flanks might not be the focus of its offensive weaponry, but they were hardly devoid of such, and with the ability to quickly rotate, numerous turrets and the capability of fixed heavy weapons to adjust the angle of their fire via internal reconfiguration of crystals or magnetic and gravitic manipulation, fools rushing in might well find themselves transforming into a rapidly expanding cloud of energized particles.

At the distance of less than fifty-five thousand kilometers from the fleet-sized Webway gate, the primary armaments of its forward facing batteries, which included four Nova-cannons and eight enormous energy weapons, had no trouble stemming the ever-growing tide of Chaos raiders streaming through the gaping hole in reality leading to the hidden dimension most commonly used by the Eldar.

Raider-type ships were even smaller than destroyers, averaging a mere 1.16 kilometers in length and no more than 1.4, and were little threat to true ships of the line. Their standard crew stood at fifteen thousand, but these were packed with heretics and mutants, their hulls straining to contain over fifty thousand corrupted souls.

Destroyers generally ranged in length from 1.5-1.8 kilometers, frigates from 2-2.4, heavy frigates 2.6-2.8, light cruisers 3.2-3.8, cruisers 4.6-5.2, heavy cruisers 5.3-5.6, battle-cruisers 5.8-6.4, grand cruisers 7-7.6, with battleships rarely deviating from lengths of 8-10 kilometers.

Of course, these were arbitrary generalities, and length did not directly equate to the firepower and capability of a particular ship, unless you compared ships produced by the same yard from templates of the same generation, constructed in the same century. Armchair strategists were also prone to forget how important height and width were to a warship’s total volume, which ordinarily translated directly to power reserves, speed and maneuverability, armor thickness, void shield layers and weapon power.

Virtual Intelligence Interdictor 99186-Epsilon naturally had contingencies in place for a Chaos invasion, and all were activated as one. Twelve blanks, one thousand and twenty-four fire controllers and two Assassin-fleets were activated, all other resources held in reserve. Vox messages were sent, and its woken commander, Second-grade Tech-Adept Anastasia Tzarina, had already used the psy-comm network to provide Vista with advance warning.

Unfortunately, there were simply too many incoming hostiles, raiders streaming past the expanding volatile clouds of their fellows’ remains, ignoring the explosion of nova-mines and the relentless battering of lances and macro-cannons.

The Columbine retreated at full speed, not pausing its fire for an instant, as larger ships began to mix with the raiders. It could not, however, match the speed of small ships specializing in that department.

Shields flickered and the defensive turrets fired full bore as raiders died and torpedoes, boarding craft and the occasional dreadclaw slammed into its armored ramparts, chaos-starfighters and bombers appearing in ever increasing numbers alongside monstrous heldrakes, despite their mounting losses to the steady and nearly unerring fire of the battle station.

The tide seemed unstoppable, an endless swarm of rats set to consume an elephant. Ants at least worked together in an orderly fashion, as did most bug swarms, so squabbling rats was a better descriptor by far.

Stubbornly, the Protector-class starfort Columbine held to its steady retreat, the numerous and swiftly swelling boarding parties of pirate scum, mutants and traitors repulsed by a seemingly equally endless tide of murder machines without fear or qualm and turrets that could not run out of lasbolts or incendiary volkite murder-blasts, the thermal rays of the latter turning devolved flesh into ashes and jetting sparks.

Worse for the intruders were the force-fields, power shields and various shimmering cloaks of protective energy that kept their crude weapons from damaging the metal legions mustered against their boarding parties. Even the few individual or squads of traitor-marines and rare daemon-engines failed to stiffen their ranks, the killer-automata and the station’s static defenses holding back the rising number of invaders, at least for the nonce.

Attempted rituals by neophyte sorcerers failed disastrously as the blanks deep inside the most heavily defended sections exerted their power at just the wrong moment, supported and enhanced by complex weaves of psy-tech amplifier machinery, and the daemons meant-to-be summoned failed to materialize, the backlash frequently resolving itself in a fatal explosive or implosive manner.

Several great weapon batteries were silenced by the veritable rain of torpedoes, as raiders began slipping behind it, the rear weapon batteries removing the first three ranks before numbers overbore their rate of fire. Unnoticed, self-repair protocols went into silent, industrious action.

Nine hours of unending space-battle of never-flagging intensity, which rather only grew as more corrupted starships streamed into the void. Virtual Intelligence Interdictor 99186-Epsilon counted two hundred and ninety-six raiders destroyed, along with thirty-three heavier escorts, with the cluttered void and battle-effluvia preventing an accurate estimate of damaged enemy ships.

Thirty-two minutes later, three additional macro-batteries and nineteen point defense turrets were obliterated, and projections estimated ninety-three additional minutes until its destruction. The first cruisers of the Enemy were translating into real-space, so it was time.

The Assassin-class corvettes struck viciously and in great numbers, thirty flotillas of twelve small non-warp capable starships ripple-firing torpedoes and adding close-range barrages of weapons fire as they flickered into visibility at knife range. Combined with a third wave of nova-mines and the explosion of seven nova-cannon munitions, as well as the reveal of a second Protector-class starfort, and for ninety-seven whole minutes the Chaos-fleet was on the back foot.

At least until the capital ships began to present themselves in rising numbers, followed by the dreaded super-capitals. In less than six hours from the reveal of the first traitor-battleship, the Desolator-class Misericorde, the last of the Assassin-corvettes had self-destructed, damaging an Avenger-class grand cruiser and two battle-cruisers, and the second and only remaining starfort in the battle was under threat of being overwhelmed.

The theater commander timed it well, and the second wave of Assassin-corvettes struck deep and hard. Unfortunately, that was when the bulk of the battleships appeared in something approaching an actual fleet formation, and ninety-two of the corvettes were wiped out via long-range bombardment while dealing only superficial damage, their smaller escort-type torpedoes unable to make much of a mark past a heavy swarm of attack craft and the strong shields and thick armor of capital ships of the line.

Twenty-five hours and fourteen minutes after the emergence of its first vessel, the last surviving starfort self-destructed and Chaos gained full and undisputed possession of the field of battle before the Webway gate.

The loss count stood at eight hundred and twenty-four raiders, three hundred and ninety-one escorts, one hundred and eight light cruisers, forty-six cruisers, twenty-two heavy cruisers, three battle-cruisers, one grand cruiser and two battle-barges, with seventy-one cruisers, fifty-five heavy cruisers, eighteen battle-cruisers, thirteen grand cruisers and eight battleships having sustained significant damage, along with several hundred of the lighter warships. To this tally was added the massive loss of heldrakes, boarding craft and starfighters.

Kor Phaeron, in his command throne at the heart of the Abyss-class super-battleship Penance, was content to declare it a great victory, the first of many to come.

Magos Cassandra Nayelle Heptar-991 thought the results worth the sacrifice of a third of the gate’s watch-force, if only just barely. There were lessons to be learned, as Vista had a very limited amount of past experience in space battles against the forces of Chaos, having acquired most of its related data and doctrine from Cadian retirees, paid well in rejuvenation treatments and otherwise to pass on their skills, and the odd Agrippina magos.

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The numbers were properly frightening, but this trimmed-down fleet was far from sufficient to offer a significant threat to Vista, even without the reinforcements that had flocked to the protection of its STC database discovery.

Foremost among the Great Enemy, if only figuratively, was an Abyss-class mobile starfort of unknown designation, and the fallen Gloriana-class super-battleship Pride of the Emperor, though in practice they were positioned in the middle-rear, well covered by a host of super-capitals.

The cowardice and treachery of the Word Bearer leadership was infamous, even amongst chaos-abominations, and assuming that Fulgrim was there, the daemon-primarch could likely feel the constraints upon its power.

Those two vessels alone made it clear that this first assault fleet, or rather second after the luckless Dark Eldar, was a joint effort of the Word Bearers and the Emperor’s Children, two of the most reviled traitor-Legions.

In whole, the remaining threat consisted of eighty battleships, nearly a third of them battle-barges, thirty-nine grand cruisers, twenty-one battle-cruisers, one hundred and forty-two heavy cruisers, two hundred and forty-one cruisers, three hundred and eleven light cruisers of which over ninety were recognizable as strike cruisers, six hundred and nine escorts and four hundred sixty-one raiders, crowned with a pair of gigantic trimmed-down space-hulks, likely cut down somewhat and reshaped in order to fit within the arteries of the Webway, bearing the bulk of the assault forces.

They were bearing down directly on a path that would lead them into a head-on confrontation with the Imperial Navy, which was certainly an interesting tactical decision. Twenty minutes of review, a consultation with the prime strategos, and the list of additional available assets was passed on to the quadrant commander and the Warden of the Outer Reaches.

Notice was also given to the Astartes fleet backing the Imperial Navy heavy squadrons, and their reaction was a trifle too predictable.

It was going to get bloody, if the behavior of the Chaos fleet in front of the gateway was an indication of how they intended to carry the fight.

The Blood Abomination had no sway in Vista, so that was just fine with her.

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