Herald of the Stars: Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty

Captain Leith Madara is the next person to pull off a trick. At one light minute out, half its maximum practical range, Torchbearer fires its Nova Cannon.

A fifty metre wide fusion bomb is accelerated to near relativistic speeds along a 700 metre barrel via gravity manipulation. There are other options, like singularity or vortex shells, but I don’t have any of the fancy stuff.

The particles spread throughout space impact on the shell, eroding the surface of the nova shell just enough to form a thin layer of plasma that wicks away, leaving a streak of light across the heavens.

A minute later, the timer on the shell triggers among the Wolfpack and, for a moment so brief that you could miss it even if you didn’t blink, a new, Terra sized star is born and dies, leaving a growing cloud of electromagnetic radiation, x-rays, and energetic particles. It takes a minute or so for the glow to fade enough for our sensors to see if we hit or not.

The Wolfpack is well spread out over 200,000 kilometres and our first shot from the notoriously inaccurate Nova Cannon is a moderate success. The shell detonated approximately 15,000 kilometres of the port side of Optimus Nemesis. Much of the ship is white hot, shedding megatonnes of radioactive material as the vessel drifts, its thrusters offline.

Its port side was already wrecked by the teleport strike, so it would have been better if we’d struck nearer the starboard side and wiped out the last of its macrocannons. Still, the damaged Murder-Class cruiser was already near crippled and without its void shields, this near miss was enough to knock it offline.

As Optimus Nemesis continues to bleed, Reina queries the Machine-Spirits at my request and I am disappointed to discover our final shell will remain in storage until we can get a specialist magos to look at the Nova Cannon. Despite our best efforts to cleanse and repair the god-like weapon, the decades of neglect and our theoretical understanding of it was not enough to give the Nova Cannon the resilience it required to fire a near light speed projectile without damaging the complex weapon.

Multiple casualty reports filter through my connection with Reina and I wince at the numbers. The sudden deceleration caused by the weapon was not properly synced with our engineered gravity and hundreds of people were tossed about within Torchbearer. Anything improperly secured or maintained within the vessel has been thrown about, and there are several ruptured conduits of plasma, water, and other resources.

Even then, I still wish I could put a Nova Cannon on every vessel. Nominally, a cruiser is the smallest vessel you can put one on as you need the mass and thrusters to counter the projectile. I am not convinced though, because if the Imperium can scale a Nova Cannon down to put it on a Leman Russ, there’s no reason I can’t do the same for a light cruiser or a frigate!

My dreams of firing a full volley of Nova Cannons are cut off when the damage done to Optimus Nemesis reaches critical and the void ship detonates. The explosion carries all the hallmarks of a runaway fusion reactor. Given that fusion reactors are designed to be near impossible to explode, the only way that could have happened is if the enginarium was re-engineered to do so.

As if to emphasise the obvious, a series of secondary explosions, that look like macro-shells cooking off, shatter the melted hulk, spraying hot, liquid spheres of glowing metals through space.

I am not surprised that The Wolfpack turned its most damaged vessel into a fire ship. Leith must have thought it was worth the gamble too as he targeted Optimus Nemesis rather than the flagship, Excrucian, with the Nova Cannon.

Out of immediate tricks to damage the Stellar Fleet further, and keen to avoid another shell it doesn’t know we can’t fire, Excrucian triggers its Graviton Flare, overwhelming the area of space around The Wolfpack with interference, blinding themselves and hiding them from our long range augurs.

Reina, I, and the other Navigators hold Disrupting the Empyrean over the affected area of space, whipping up a Warp storm over a million kilometres wide. Such is the strength of so many Navigators focusing on a single power that the effect creeps into realspace, causing streaks of lightning to crackle across the void and golden flames to burst from the Warp in great plumes. Ghostly comets and ephemeral asteroids pop in and out of the Materium. 

These secondary effects strike nothing, as far as we can tell, and I fear that the enemy has gone dark, choosing a new heading, cutting their engines, and hoping that their vessels will cool enough to be hidden by the vastness of space before the flare ends.

Leith sends our strike craft ahead before the Graviton Flare has even faded and, sure enough, when it does, all three remaining cruisers are missing.

Reina sends, “My Lord, we have been ordered to drop the interference with the Warp and attempt to locate the enemy through Void Watcher. Do you have any suggestions for optimal search patterns?”

After accelerating for seven days, The Wolfpack only has so many directions it can flee. Their irradiated hulls don’t help them either. I don’t even need to do the calculations myself. Torchbearer has already completed them at the direction of the bridge crew and I point Reina towards the correct data, showing her how to call up what she needs through her MIU.

“Here. You see these projected cones of possible locations? We need to search these areas. The longer it takes to spot them, the harder it will become. You need to keep the Coven Link active while dividing up the area between all of us, starting with the narrowest point of the cones. Call in all off duty Navigators, including the kids, and have them help.”

I point out a second stream of data and continue, “Use your multi-tasking implant to keep an eye on the augur data for anomalies, especially anomalies that are fed into the noosphere from multiple vessels. Another instance should watch for communications from the bridge. 

“If a Navigator also detects the presence of a hidden object, confirm it with the bridge and upload the coordinates to Aeronautica Marshal’s, Igraine Yorath’s, personal noosphere address as well as the Aeronautica with a work order. Use the codes of the Navigator who confirmed the data in case it's important for the After Action Review. Igraine will see to the rest. 

“You wouldn’t normally pester Igraine directly, as it's a bit insulting to her command staff, but this is important enough we can’t risk a lapse in communications.

“The same goes if a Navigator detects something, but the augur hasn’t. Send directions to the bridge to rescan an area and propagate the order through the fleet so that they all check the suspicious space. They’re looking for momentarily occluded stars, areas of space with higher radiation, and so on. None of which was helped by the Nova Cannon or the Graviton Flare. 

“We’re looking for concentrations of souls. They don’t have any Gellar Fields left, which is good. We also churned up a pretty good Warp storm that’s going to take hours, if not days to settle. That’s bad for both us detecting them and The Wolfpack for fleeing. Their own navigators and warp witches will also try to hide them. Still, even if they have the capability, I really doubt they’ll risk a micro-jump, let alone a full jump like Spear of Commerce did, but we can’t keep churning the Warp to keep them here if we don’t know where they are. Any questions?”

“No, my Lord. You were quite thorough.”

“I am sure you knew most of this already, Reina. You don’t need to keep fretting. I have faith in you!”

“Your reassurance is appreciated, my Lord. I am finding the Coven Link rather overwhelming and having a list of instructions eases my burdens. I do not think it was meant for lesser breeds such as myself.”

“We can unpack that can of Ambull later. For now, we must go about our labours.”

“Yes, my Lord. I obey.”

I work with my people, scanning the void with my third eye and directing the Imperial Fleets to assist.

Gift of Despair is spotted six hours into the search, fleeing at a thirty degree angle below the ecliptic plane. Another three hours later, Vitrum Class bombers catch up to Gift of Despair and cripple its thrusters while Sagitta and Macross shoot down fleeing shuttles. The strike craft back off, wary of another explosion. They patrol in a sphere around the vessel, unwilling to let it slip away again.

Mortis Ex Astra is detected shortly after, heading right for us. It too, is crippled by torpedoes and monitored.

Excrucian is far more tricky and I am beginning to wonder if that Chaos Sorcerer, Evenus, somehow slipped back aboard Excrucian or some other sorcerer is hiding the vessel from three dozen Navigators.

The Stellar Fleet passes the point where we should have engaged The Wolfpack and turns around, decelerating further with their main thrusters as they slide backwards through space.

Sure enough, Excrucian makes itself known with a broadside of Macro-Cannons 0.5 AU from the Stellar Fleet. Six shells strike Petitor Veritas, one gets through the void shields and smashes into a hangar, obliterating its armoured doors, preventing further operations for one hangar on the port side. The crew and void craft within survive the hit mostly unharmed.

Excrucian’s thrusters remain silent, or perhaps hidden by unknown means, and we have no way of detecting the vessel’s heading or speed. From the speed of the shells, we know their location as of 46 hours ago, which makes their shot all the more outrageous.

From there, it turns into a series of annoying manoeuvres as we hunt down Excrucian for over a week. My own, smaller vessels also go dark. The Stellar Fleet vessels take advantage of their Empyrean Mantles and high speed to wait in ambush near suspected locations of Excrucian. This reduces our scanning capabilities, but the cruisers have more than enough sensors to make up for it and pass on their data to my Adder Class vessels and Distant Sun. 

Meanwhile, Lyre and Calligos’s smaller vessels get pounded from repeated, near impossible shots. Unable to contribute, they are forced to withdraw four days into the chase when it becomes clear they aren’t going to achieve much, especially when Leith is unwilling to task Navigators to hide them from enemy divination. They are tasked with shooting Gift of Despair and Mortis Ex Astra until no signs of activity remain, then disperse murderbots inside the wrecked hulls, just to be sure.

My lighter vessels don’t get spotted and repeated shots against my combined fleet’s three cruisers achieves little. Three days after the vulnerable vessels withdraw, Excrucian ceases its hit and run tactics and we don’t see it for five days as we chase it towards the Mandeville point.

On the twelfth day, the Machine-God blesses us and whatever mechanisms and sorcery they were using to hide from us fails as Excrucian charges its Warp drives. Distant Sun is near enough to chase it down unleashing everything in its arsenal from missiles, plasma, and lances, to all of its 186 remaining strike craft. 

Unfortunately, Distant Sun doesn’t carry any Vitrum Class bombers and the captain of the vessel resorts to filling a squadron of Macross Class strike craft with the remaining atomics and having the Machine-Spirits ram unpiloted strike craft into the heavy cruiser’s thrusters and bridge.

With nothing left to defend themselves, ten strike craft are able to land in a perfect ring around the outside edge of Excrucian’s main thrusters. Another five land on the Cathedral, right next to the bridge. The atomics detonate simultaneously in a single, bright flash, occluding the many thousands of sensors turned upon the heavy cruiser. A moment later, the image clears and Distant Sun’s Navigator sends a series of picts over the coven link.

A big grin blooms across my face and a wave of joy echoes through the Warp. The back quarter of Excrucian is a twisted wreck of glowing metals and stuttering plumes of spiralling plasma that alter Excrucian’s calculated heading into an uncontrolled spin, hindering its Warp jump.

Distant Sun and its strike craft pound the heavy cruiser for over an hour before Excrucian’s gyroscopes and over stressed manoeuvring thrusters get the vessel back under control, unable to return fire the whole time. 

With no shields and many, many rangefinders turned upon its hull, Excrucian is stripped of its remaining weaponry in six, precise broadsides. Distant Sun’s lance does its best to core Excrucian’s Warp Drive too. Alas, the euclidean geometry of the heavy cruiser seemingly shifts as if the vessel is more demon than metal, hiding vital internal components from external scrutiny. Meanwhile, Excrucian continues to charge its Warp Drive.

Much to my frustration, a black orb appears before Excrucian, then bursts open, splitting the Materium asunder and opening it to the Warp. A torrent of gold flames wash over Excrucian, pitting its surface like acid. Wails of pain and terror resonate through the Warp as the Emperor’s judgement falls upon the broken wards and burning minds of the vessel’s Warp witches and bound daemons.

I lament at my shattered Warp Tap and remote presence, unable to feed on the ruins of Chaos as the enemy sheds lost souls like a shoal of swirling anchovies.

Excrucian endures the perils of the Warp, its hull melting like wax as its momentum carries it forward into the breach. The portal snaps shut with a blast of frost and flame.

Reina casts Tracks in the Stars bringing up a lingering trail of fury and despair that slowly disperses through the Warp as Excrucian drifts along the surface of the Warp, lost to time and the hideous laughter of their hungering gods.