Seraphs of the Emperor’s Judgment

Chapter 179: Battle of Vorenus (1)

The Mother of Tears was the first to tear its way out of the Warp.

It plunged into the silent void of realspace like a stone striking black ice.

Retro-thrusters flared along its prow and the crenellated gun-towers of its dorsal ridge. Surging energies, born from the furious friction between the immaterial and the material realms, crackled across its pitted armor plating, arcing from bow to stern. It formed a blazing halo around the gargantuan statue dominating the cathedral cresting its dorsal ridge—a towering effigy of Sanguinius with wings unfurled and sword held high.

In the span of a few heartbeats, the remainder of the fleet followed.

The fabric of the Materium erupted in gouts of warp-fire as rifts tore open, disgorging pitch-black warships kilometers in length.

Ghostly flames danced across their scarred hulls, leaping from the translated vessels before the crushing pressure of realspace finally snuffed them out.

Amidst the profound silence of the void, it was as precise and beautiful as a perfectly choreographed ballet.

The bridge of the Mother of Tears resembled a massive auditorium.

Malakim kept his jaw tight as he surveilled the incoming streams of data.

He knew this was the most perilous moment of any void jump: the scant few seconds between the collapse of the Gellar Field and the ship's complete emergence from the Warp.The stressed hull shuddered and groaned. The massive transverse bracing frames spanning the bridge shrieked against the tearing torsional pressures and the roaring ignition of the main engines. Uniformed crew members loudly shouted status reports of all primary systems over the din.

"All vessels have successfully translated into realspace."

The Tech-Priest presiding over the bridge announced in a flat, mechanical voice.

"A flawless transition."

"Give me a visual."

Malakim ordered, his voice a low rumble.

Instantly, the massive oculus screen flickered to life. Simultaneously, the heavy plasteel blast shutters sealing the forward viewports slowly rolled upward.

A blast of yellow light from the nearby star scoured away the crimson streaks of the emergency lumens. The rest of the bridge crew groaned in discomfort, throwing hands over their faces or looking away until their eyes could adjust to the sudden glare.

"Are we at the designated coordinates?"

Malakim sat upon a throne forged of obsidian and heavy metals, situated on a raised dais overlooking the primary command deck, affording the seated Commander an unparalleled view of the entire bridge.

"Margin of error is within 5% of calculated coordinates."

The Tech-Priest hissed, never once lifting his gaze from his glowing displays.

"Confirmed."

Malakim analyzed the preliminary telemetry. His gene-enhanced neurology processed the incoming data feeds far faster than either his mortal crew or the cogitator banks.

The Watcher in the Deep leaned forward on his throne.

He saw the shattered, dispersing wreckage of the patrol flotilla. While this exact catastrophe hadn't been explicitly planned, every patrol vessel dispatched knew exactly what their duty entailed. Even though they could estimate the enemy's general vector of approach, the area of space was simply too vast. They needed sentinels—sentinels who were entirely expendable—to provide early warning and stall the enemy's advance.

Because the main battlefleet had to remain submerged within the tidal currents of the Warp, waiting patiently for the cunning beasts to step fully into the snare.

Even though the sacrifice of these men undeniably held immense strategic value, the stark reality of it still twisted like a jagged blade in his heart, agonizing his weary conscience.

"Go. Slaughter them all."

Malakim squeezed the words through clenched teeth.

"Leave none alive."

As the Mother of Tears led over thirty warships of various classes straight toward the entirely surprised greenskin armada, the Warp simultaneously tore open from two other vectors on the battlefield.

Moments later, the pitch-black Endless Night erupted into the void directly behind the Ork fleet.

Then came an entire battlefleet, spearheaded by the naval flagship of the Expeditionary Army, an Apocalypse-class Battleship christened the Fire of Punishment. It was a true behemoth, possessing staggering broadside weight, designed to hurl millions of metric tons of ordnance at targets over extreme distances. It also boasted ridiculously thick hull plating and overlapping void shields capable of absorbing the vast majority of incoming enemy fire.

Anchoring the fleet's left flank was an Exorcist-class Grand Cruiser named the Mourning-Bringer. Operating as a dedicated fleet carrier, it was heavily escorted by Cobra-class destroyers and Firestorm-class Frigates.

As expected, it immediately slowed to maintain maximum range at the far edge of the battle line, preparing to unleash the deadly payload resting within its flight decks. Swarms of strike fighters and heavy bombers were already fueled and armed, fully prepared to hurl themselves into the chaotic meat grinder of void combat to annihilate the Emperor's foes.

"Enemy ships are altering course."

The bridge of the Endless Night was a hive of controlled activity. The officer manning the primary augur arrays was the first to speak, his voice sharp and clear.

"Pay it no mind. Maintain current velocity."

Seated upon the command throne, Lord Malakim spoke in a deep rumble, his eyes studying a hololithic display floating in mid-air. It synthesized raw augur readings into easily digestible, color-coded data packets, displaying the tonnage, armament, energy output, and armor thickness of the enemy vessels.

"Order the Mourning-Bringer

to break formation and come about to starboard. Escort frigates are to reduce speed to one-tenth and ready torpedo tubes."Dozens of light-runes scattered across the two-dimensional plane of the hololith. A moment later, the frigates and cruisers unleashed their first devastating torpedo salvos.

Dense clusters of exhaust trails carved through the void, looking like a flight of countless blazing spears.

"Engine output at 75%!"

"Void shield arrays fully charged!"

"Point-defense turrets tracking!"

"Outer hull sections sealed for combat!"

"We are entering effective lance range, my lord."

A Tech-Priest, furiously working a control console, shouted over his shoulder.

"Ready to engage on your command."

"Adjust heading for intercept."

Lord Malakim stood up.

"The enemy has no choice but to turn and face us, or we'll gut them from behind."

Exactly as Lord Malakim had predicted, the massive Ork armada had already begun to wheel around. The vast majority of their heavy capital ships were clumsily turning to meet the threat appearing at their rear, their disjointed formation rapidly shifting.

It was glaringly obvious that these greenskins possessed far greater discipline and tactical execution than the vast majority of their kin.

The bloated, crimson prows of the greenskin warships gleamed as the raging fires of their plasma reactors illuminated the surrounding debris through crude viewports. Their blister-cannons and broadside macro-batteries had already opened fire with reckless abandon.

Weapons of every conceivable caliber spewed a torrential storm of chaotic munitions. Amidst the ceaseless strobing flashes of uncoordinated fire, rolling spheres of detonation bloomed violently across the Materium.

Meanwhile, the Ork fighta-bommer squadrons swarmed across the battlespace in massive, chaotic formations.

They weaved and danced nimbly through the void, the crude cannons underslung beneath their fuselages continuously spitting fire. They recklessly hurled massive payloads of bombs against the void shields and armor of the Imperial warships, unleashing rippling shockwaves upon impact.

Every so often, a greenskin craft would be clipped by point-defense fire. Some detonated instantly, blossoming into brief, spectacular fireworks; others, trailing thick plumes of oily smoke, stubbornly adjusted their trajectories to suicidally ram straight into the human warships before them.

To counter the relentless mechanical harassment of the greenskin fighters, swarms of Imperial Fury Interceptors erupted from the flight decks of multiple carriers like angry hornets. They immediately plunged into vicious, brutally close-range dogfights with the Ork fighters, engaging in desperate, swirling furballs of spiraling tracer fire and fiery collisions.

The battle escalated to a fever pitch almost instantly.

Crisscrossing lattices of las-fire wove deadly nets across the void, while the blossoming flowers of catastrophic explosions raged unchecked. Broken, burning macro-turrets occasionally sheared off their mountings, tumbling into the abyss. It seemed as though every cubic meter of this particular sector of the galaxy was packed tight with the smoke, debris, and brutal chaos of total war.