Berlin, Office
Andrea Hermanns was late to the office and she knew it. She had all the excuses she needed, but for herself. Yesterday had been long, too fucking long. In the old days the final printout the committee on budgets produced had been hundreds of pages long. Now it went into Excel lines with high five digits and she rued the day when she had introduced the "what-if" function to the senior members. It had given them another toy to play with and play they did, until the early hours of the morning while she had made that possible.
In the end it was in a good cause, she had been allowed to slip a few lines in that were dear to her. Still she had used a lot of coffee this morning and she did not relish the cleanup she had to do today.
Beate, her assistant, was damnably chipper this morning and only the smell of more coffee rescued her from Andrea's wrath.
"Good morning dear, you look like you could use a cup or two. I had the cantina send over a few bread rolls. You can eat them while you have a look at this mess."
Andrea nearly choked on the scalding liquid. Did she scramble the master file of yesterday's marathon? Oh f…, it would take days to unscramble that. But she had saved that file a dozen times over so..
"What bloody mess?"
"This Studivz thing you set in motion before you left to do honest work. I had a look at it and something seems off."
That could not be that bad, couldn't it? How bad could her attempt to scare up some help among the students have gone? If some far-left group had gotten into that they could have filled the group with nonsense and hate.
She logged into the social network that the Weltensprung had saved from obscurity and looked into the group page she had created yesterday.
And lo and behold, it was full of messages. Scrolling down she looked for what went wrong and needed a few moments to realize what the problem was.
The internet is full of causes that somebody thinks worthy. A great of them never gain more attention than a few people, mostly by the "friends" that person had in the network.
Some issues find a following, a very few go viral. The latter usually needs time and a lot of work. This one had not.
This page was full of offers to help, of support, of wisdom and terrible naiveté. But mostly it was full, with enough traffic that it resembled a DDOS attack. She would have to contact the admins soon or the page would be shut down.
And she needed help and lots of it. A few names in the mess stuck out, she knew them. Or had heard of them. Time to contact them and soon.
Something would happen that was for sure. If it was something grand or an embarrassment was yet to be seen.
Andrea Hermanns swallowed. This exceeded her experience considerably and could well have a fallout for the SPD.
And then she started typing as quickly as her caffeinated hands would allow. She had given her word and now she would have to see this through to the best of her abilities.
She did not have the time to wonder what had made her plea go viral like this. She should have given it a bit more thought, not that it would have made things better.
Trench, 500 meters from Neustadt's first wire belt
The Druchii's helmet had a coal-scuttle shape and covered with a net that held a bit of dried foliage and some white cloth strips. More cloth was wound around the telescope in order to break up its regular shape. The face behind it was slender as a rapier, hid an eye behind a patch, and was covered in mud and green paint.
The body below lacked nearly any armor but for a chest piece that held a Sea Dragon skin under some metal plates. The rest was gray and green cloth and a webbing that held various bits of kit. A rifle was on the soldier's back and a revolver was on the hip. There was a single blade and that looked more useful for trench work than for taking lives.
Kouran Darkhand would have dismissed the Druchii as a wimp when she avoided being exposed to the enemy as much as possible last month. Now he had learned a few costly lessons about the new face of war and restrained himself. He would use any and all means to fulfil Malekith's commands, and if that meant listening to this grunt he would. The Black Guard's commander knew that the elf before him would have been beneath his notice a few years before. Of low birth she had not excelled in the deadly power exchange that dominated Druchii life. Her one stroke of luck had been being attached to Lord Silverhawk's forces, who had been among the first to receive the new weapons.
She had fought for Silverhawk ever since the first Chaos invasion and the stumpies ever since. And when so many others had died, she had lived and learned. And Kouran Darkhand needed that knowledge very much. But not as much as the troops that would follow her advance party.
Racca Dawneyes had taken many notes with one of these newfangled pencils and made some sketches. Now she finally stepped from the parapet and dropped below the trench's lip into what went for safety here.
"That's a bitch and a half and no lies about that. Whoever gave the slaves that much time to dig in should spend the rest of his days on the rack. I would have given a tit for so much barbed wire the last year and there are trenches, support trenches and bunkers. Fuck, even the damned stumpies did not dig that well. We'll bleed like mad breaking these lines, that's for sure. Hope you are not in a hurry about that, otherwise we check if we have more bodies or they have more bullets."
Racca Daweneyes had been through a year of unaltered hell and she had no longer any shits to give. A year ago Kouran would have killed her as she stood, now he needed her and those like her, badly.
Close to Lager Nagenhof, Empire
The age-old Iltis off-road car wallowed through a road where the winter had frozen the deep ruts left by the iron-rimmed carts in autumn. None of the ruts would fit the car's wheels well and so it angled from one side to another quickly and unpredictably.
Andreas Hoppe planted his feet onto the firewall and pushed while holding on for dear life. As a pilot he was used to violent motion, so he still had a mind to admire the surroundings. They were picture perfect. Recently fallen snow covered the land, hills, copses of trees and small lakes vied for attention. There were nearly no fences to denote borders of the many small fields. All the buildings were small, picturesque from a distance and thatch-covered. Very few smoke trails showed up in the dry, brilliant air.
Hoppe's driver checked the map and the GPS several times before he managed to find the right hut. When the Colonel made his way from the car he saw the thatched roof, the badly shuttered windows and the curtain that served as a door. When he got from the car he shuddered at the thought of having to live inside such a hovel in the depths of an Ostmark winter.
An urchin's face was visible beside the curtain for the briefest of moments, it disappeared even faster. There were some voices inside and then a man stepped from the hut. He was about a head shorter than Hoppe, his hair and beard matted long. He was clad in an assortment of mismatched clothes, the cape that served as the outer layer looked suspiciously like being made from sacks.
Looking at Hoppe the man blinked twice before bowing and pulled at a lock. "Friedlieb Ost at yer Service Ser. And you might be?"
"I am Oberst Andreas Hoppe of the Imperial Air Force. We have received a complaint about damage done to your farm by one of the planes of my wing. I am here to check on that and pay for any damages if they occurred."
"Ah, that is it then. Did your flier take us for Greenskins or why did he drop a…a bombthing on us?"
"No, my pilot did not drop a bomb on you intentional or unintentional. His plane had a leak on one of the auxiliary tanks and had to drop it right away before it lit his plane. He assured me that he dropped it on empty fields a few kilometers from your home. We received your complaint from your major and so here I am."
"Much honored Ser, much honored. You see on that day my cow Thusnelda and my price sow Luise was on that field and both were killed by that …how did you call it…aussiliar…."
"Use drop tank if you prefer. Am I to believe that you left a cow and sow together on a field without someone looking after them? In the depth of winter, where if at all will be seeds for the next year.?"
"You see Ser, it is like this…"
"Moooooh"
"Gottlieb, is it possible that your cow made a miraculous recovery?"
"Err, yes Ser….."
Space Marine Battleship Nagelfar, Deep Space Warhammer 40.000 Universe
This is the Deep Void. There is no more inhospitable place to be had. There is nearly no matter, next to no energy, only the vast, cold emptiness with a view to countless beautiful, unblinking and uncaring stars. Nothing can live here right? Right?
The meagre light provided by the far off stars was mostly swallowed by the hulks that drifted through the void. Their presence could mostly be perceived when they shadowed the field of stars as they moved past. There was no movement to be seen, neither lighted viewports nor position markers spoke of any activity. Still a closer inspection would show the vast hulls giving off more heat than they received from their surroundings. They did not tumble, as things in the void were want to do. There was a formation to the things that drifted between the stars. Many great hulls floated around a perimeter, surrounding a smaller number of vast ones.
The hulls were uneven and lumpy, they were seamless and curved. Tentacles were coiled together, spore cysts at rest and mouths that could spew acid closed.
They were the Hive and they were on their way to another world that supported organic life, for now. When they would be closer many years hence they would leave their hibernations. Then the living ships would fire up and produce what crew and army they needed. The Tyranids would reform that world and its inhabitants into food sources before accelerating away in the search for more. So it had been for uncounted millennia and so it would be for many more.
Quite far away by human reckoning and quite close by cosmic standards another group of ships proceeded on a converging course. They were far more angular than the living fleet before them, prone to spires and their flanks dotted with heavy batteries. There were far fewer ships than the vast Hive before them and they seemed nearly as lifeless than the sleeping threat before them. What heat they produced they radiated behind and no active sensors probed the space around them. What communications between them were necessary were transmitted by carefully shaped laser beams. They wrapped the cold vastness of space and hid in its black embrace. They were not to warn the enemy of their presence before the time was right. The Space Wolves were on a hunt and it would not to disturb the prey before the time was right.
A ship in the middle of the Wolves' fleet rivalled even the greatest Hive ships in size. It looked off by the standards of the Space Marine and Mechanicum ships around it. It was huge and blocky all right, but it lacked many of the spires and crenelations so prevalent on its lesser siblings. Nagelfahr was the rarest of spaceships: Not only was she a brand-new ship and not centuries or even millennia old, she was a Gloriana-Class battleship. Its likes had not been seen for nearly 10,000 years, and its interior was even more strange to the crews then the outside. Resurrected from the STC templates the Space Wolves had given to the Adeptus Mechanicus it was a window into a bygone age. The many signs of retrofitted or replaced systems were missing, automation reduced the crew size markedly and the ship was missing the patina the long service to the Emperor would bring. The bridge was the epitome of all that was strange to the Emperor's space farers. It was clean and uncluttered. The arm-thick cables that had connected crewmembers to their stations, often for life, had been replaced by thin glass fibre connections. Screens worked without flickering and the layers upon layers of cables and conduits on every available surface were absent.
The bridge crew consisted of a wild mixture of servitors, humans augmented or not, and a few Space Marines. Leman Russ towered above them all and projected confidence, even when he suspected that a lot of arcane details flew right over his head. He was pretty sure that he was far more patient than before his time in the Warp bubble, but he still managed to annoy the crew with impatience. Just that now the waiting was over and things were about to become interesting. Nagelfar's captain had to look up to him like a child when he made his point.
"Our solution is about as good as we can make it with passive range finding. Any closer, and it becomes more likely that the bloody bugs spot the launch flares. I suggest we go with Alpha Three."
"Make it so Ulfgar. Loren, signal the fleet and start the countdown."
"Aye Leman."
The Space Wolf Patriarch stepped forward and gripped a hand rail while he watched the main screen. He might not be so deeply into the rituals to be observed when cold-launching torpedoes, but he was an astute judge of fighting humans. The voices that ran through the bridge were professional, crisp and unhurried. Things should be going as planned for now. He watched the symbols representing ships on the screen. They went hazy for a moment at the same time a shiver went through Nagelfar. Before long a huge cloud of small specks on the screen started moving for the spot the Tyranids would soon occupy. A couple of slightly bigger spots accelerated with them. The remains of the haze dropped behind the human fleet as it accelerated towards its rendezvous. The missiles had been launched from the external racks fastened to nearly all vessels, allowing a humungous salvo that now made its way towards the bugs. Now that the racks had served their purpose they were ejected into the void. While neither the missiles nor the Thunderhawks that would spot for them actively radiated anything from their fire control systems they were all producing copious heat. Sooner or later this was going to be noticed, even by the hibernating Tyranids and the big question was when that would happen, not if.
Leman Russ mainly watched the big plot, but glanced at two smaller monitors from time to time. One showed a infrared picture of several Hive Ships, the other a view into a room with several deranged looking individuals strapped onto gurneys. And while the Space Wolf Primarch hated waiting he was happy for every second when nothing changed on the two screens. The longer the bugs ignored their approaching doom, the chances that this plan would work increased. The great hands clutched around the guardrails before them while the missiles clawed ever closer to their targets. And then came the moment when red splotches started to appear on the infrared picture and the psykers went into seizures. The Primarch snarled and addressed the crew.
"I think we roused them from their beauty sleep captain. Send them our best greetings. Loren, signal to the fleet, we go active right now. Open fire once we have a solution."
All over the human fleet systems went from standby to active. Radio waves, laser pulses, and directed gravity waves propagated through space and their reflections told the humans very precisely where their enemies were. Even more importantly the info where they would be soon improved markedly. Unfortunately they announced the Imperial presence for anybody with the ability to perceive such signals.
The Hive Fleet
Inside the living ships of the Hive Fleet activities accelerated to a frenzy. Just a short time ago the swarm intelligence that guided the fleet had been dreaming of the feeding frenzy to come. The ships had not been completely dormant, but no conscious mind had guided their internal functions. There had been a low level alarm before and several minds had been roused from slumber to interpret the conflicting data about infrared emissions. They had barely been able to parse data when all hell broke loose and powerful emissions blasted the Tyranids sensors. As these were usually connected to fire control gear the minds pushed the fleet to full alert. Vein-like pipes pumped fluids through the ships and stoked the nuclear fires that burned in their heart. Fluid-filled sacks burst like so many pustules and birthed nightmarish creatures that often had very specialized functions. Most of them had neither the capabilities to reproduce nor to consume nutrients, their lifespans were too short for that to matter. Skin patches on the outer hull reconfigured themselves and sent their own pulses into the void. They came back quickly enough and brought alarming news. Massive swarms of ordnance was coming the fleet's way and would be there very soon. Cysts all over the ships opened and spewed huge clouds of acids, toxins, and pathogens into space. When they were thick enough they would stop the doom heading their way. With every second it became more certain that the spore clouds would be ready in time. The Hive would endure the oncoming storm, it would close with the prey and then it would feast on them.
Thunderhawk 036, between the fleets
Godvek Wyrdskull was still taken aback by his Thunderhawk's smell. When he first entered his new ride he could not place it and had been uneasy for quite a while. The brick-like ship smelled wrong somehow. It had taken a while to accept that this was the smell of a new ship, not one flown by countless generation of Space Wolves. Flying it the first time had been an eye-opener too. It showed a performance that its storied brethren could never match and the avionics were simply on another level.
The voice in his helmet was as crisp as if the caller sat beside him.
"All Thunderhawk elements, this is Jotun actual. Splash, observe effects. Over."
"Jotun actual, this is Thunderhawk actual. Copy splash, will observe. Out."
Even the enhanced eyes of a Space Marine could not spot the muzzle blasts that erupted from several ships in the human fleet. The Thunderhawk's sensors could, and painted lines on hololiths that indicated the assumed flight paths. The projectiles had been shot a lot later than the missile barrage, they had been accelerated to much higher speeds though. The lines depicted their path through the missile cloud, passed the Thunderbolts that preceded them and ended in the midst of the Hive Fleet.
Many sensors were blinded by what followed and the spacecraft's' viewports darkened to protect the eyes of those behind them. Every Nova Cannon shell contained close to a ton of antimatter, and a dozen of them had exploded inside the Hive Fleet's midst. For the briefest of moments the bombardment rivalled a small star in energy, it burned all in its wake. Smaller escorts broke apart or left burned-out husks. Some cruisers lost most of their armor and many appendages. The huge Hive Ships were clad in vast, resilient shells, they were grown to cope with anything Deep Space and organized warfare could throw at them. The wave of heat and radiation passed over them. It burned at the armor and blasted at external features. All of the (Hive ships held firm, with only minor breaches. The spore clouds that surrounded them were blasted into very, very small bits though.
When the sensors on the Thunderhawk cleared they showed this well enough. Godvek's beard parted to reveal long fangs and a predator's smile.
"Hauclirc, raise Nagelfar, tell them all shells initiated within limits. We will begin painting the targets."
And while his crew communicated Wyrdskull took control of the huge laser that was under the Thunderhawk's cockpit. It was strong enough to blast through the armor of a tank at several kilometres. At the distance to its current target it could not even provide the energy to light a match.
But it provided a clear datum that could be perceived by sensors, like the ones mounted on top of the many missiles that were on their trip towards the Tyranids. Like a shoal of Piranhas who have detected blood in the water they adjusted their course minutely and accelerated for all they were worth.
Close to Lager Nagenhof, Ostmark, Empire
The Iltis swayed marginally less when it entered Isselfurt's market place than it had on the frozen dirt road that led here. The place was encircled by somewhat more sturdy huts and a house that probably belonged to the major. There was a low-slung Temple of Sigmar and one belonging to Shallya on the other side.
The car drew something of a crowd, even in the cold, something that Andreas Hoppe would have expected a couple of years ago, but not more than a dozen years after the Weltensprung. He gave the major his respects, promised Sigmar's priest that the "stalwart knight of the sky" would indeed join a service anytime soon and then he came to the meat of his visit.
Both Bundeswehr and New Model Imperial units had quickly founded the tradition to visit Shallya's temples in their area of operations. Their medics and quartermasters looked for items "surplus to requirements", the officers and enlisted passed the hat around for donations. It really helped with the locals, gave the satisfaction of a good deed and was supposedly good for luck, especially when illness was concerned. There were two universities in Germany who still tried to disprove that notion, but their data did point in the other direction.
The Sister that ran Shallya's temple held herself erect and was slender as a rod. Her hair might be gray and there were more than a few wrinkles around her eyes, but her voice and hands were steady. The skin on her hands was red, dry and showed all other signs of cheap disinfectants used when disposable gloves were an unavailable luxury.
"Welcome to Shallya's Temple travellers. Are you in need of aid?"
"Thank you for the warm welcome Sister Betancourt. I am Colonel Andreas Hoppe of the Imperial Air Force and these are my men. We would like to offer a few supplies for your use."
"You have Shallya's thanks and certainly mine. Would you like some tea, Colonel?"
"I would be honored."
A bit later the men sat in the small refectory while Betancourt served a bitter tea in earthen mugs.
"Your aid is most welcome Colonel, we certainly can use it. Shallya will look favorably upon this deed."
"And it will not be the last time we visit. Sister, a question if I may?"
"Certainly."
"I am not a medical expert by any stretch of imagination. Still I think I saw children with rickets both in your ward and outside. And not all seem to be well fed. I am aware that this is not Germany, but I have seen enough of the Empire to say that this is no longer the norm."
"Ah, you would have made a healer if you had chosen that path Colonel Hoppe, I am sure of it. Yes you saw that right. Well, what can I say but that here Shallya's favour is direly needed."
"Why? I have been on and off Lager Nagenhof quite a few times and the villages and towns are very definitely better off than this. Even more importantly, there has been improvement during the last decade or so. Frankly speaking I see none of that here. So what gives?"
"Oh, there are bits and pieces of improvement, but mostly you are right. As Herr Donald from the GTZ said Isselfurth is on the "wrong side of the railroad". This marvel has mostly been built to support the army and your flying knights. Towns like ours played no role in that planning. So all these new things, these tractors, reapers and whatnot are not coming here. At the same time our wheat and flax is so much harder to transport to Nagenhof for sales. The few traders who come here at all pay little and ask for a lot as they have to make their way through the marches."
Incredulity mixed with some despair in Andreas Hoppe's voice.
"Uh, I have heard to similar cases, there are ways around it, like Trestle bridges…."
"Yes, there are and there is no lack of willing hands to improve things. Yet our Freiherr is not enamored with the new ways. He is even unhappy with commoners earning money with anything else but agriculture and wanting a say in how things are run. He even refused to apply for the Imperial grants available when he heard that he could not use the money as he liked, but they had to be spent on improvements. Given that he dislikes modern medicine as well this may resolve itself sooner rather than later, but till then Shallya's mercy be with the children, the expecting mothers and the frail."
"Looks like you need help, more than most."
"Yes, yes we do. Something that would keep the hope for improvement alive. It was not so bad when we not so much worse off: But now, now that we know we could do better….."
"Uh. I know just enough of Imperial politics to keep away from them. A question though, could we drop in for a small Christmas celebration, something for the kids."
"Most certainly."
The Hive Fleet, Warhammer 40K Universe
What escorts had been between the Hive Ships and the approaching doom had been blasted into oblivion by the Imperial Nova Cannon strike. The spore clouds that would have absorbed so much of it were reduced to ionized particles. All ships were painted with lasers, so weak that the living spacecraft hardly felt them. Still, they were a siren call for the torpedoes that homed on them. The fleet had seen such weapons before and respected them. If they hit they did serious damage, but most missed in the endless space around them. These were different. They had jettisoned stages, changed their course and accelerated faster than any human missile in the Hive Mind's memory.
The Hive Ships might be burned, their spore clouds depleted, defenceless they were not. Spines moved and released plasma streams in the direction of the weapons. Huge doors dilated and released smaller creatures which made for the torpedoes. It was both too little and far too late. A few glowing globes connected with the weapons, a few fighters hit targets that passed fantastically fast. The vast majority of the weapons made it past the last defenses. Quite a few still exploded dozens or even hundreds of kilometers from the Hive Ships' hulls. Most the fury of their short-lived miniature suns was channeled through an intricate filament of wires. And while a lot of the energy illuminated the Void, gamma-ray beams connected the expanding plasma of the warheads to their targets. Those which hit vaporized huge swaths of armor, incinerated newly born sensor clusters and burned weapon mounts to cinders.
Deeper inside the ships veins ruptured, spewing caustic fluids everywhere. Nerves and other conductors shorted, causing short-lived lightning that burned acres of living tissues. The great thrusters stopped or worked erratically, converting the unstoppable flight into a tumbling mess.
This was how the rest of the torpedoes found the Hive Ships: Unable to defend themselves and with flayed armor. Their warheads initiated so close to their targets that the fireballs tore deeply into the ships. Some even managed to make a direct impact, causing even greater devastation.
When the last weapon had expended itself it left ruin in its wake. Some ships were now burned out husks. Others existed only in many parts and some were expanding clouds of plasma. Only a few Hive Ships had any functions remaining and the swarm intelligence that had held the fleet together was frayed beyond easy repair. All around the devastation smaller ships became fully awake and realized the extent of the destruction. Rage flooded their minds and they charged the small fleet that had dared to murder their charges.
Space Marine Battleship Nagelfar, Deep Space Warhammer 40K Universe
The space on Nagelfar's deck was free of ornamentation, sensors and seemingly of weapons. It was huge, more than a hundred soccer fields would fit. Its expanse was only broken up by hatches the size of barn doors. A few moments ago many of them had opened and rotating red lights signaled the things to come. Nagelfar ceased its acceleration for a few seconds before cylinders the size of sky scrapers rose among quickly dissipating columns of fog. Dozens of the torpedoes rose from the ship and started to tilt into the same direction when they were far enough from each other. The glow of fusion lit the Void and they accelerated at a pace unheard of for human weapons for millennia.
They were joined by similar weapons shot from more conventional torpedo tubes and a few new cruisers. Compared to the initial salvo the cloud of weapons making for the Hive Fleet was puny, but they were aimed at very few targets. It was just that those targets were alert now and they marshalled their resources to impede their oncoming doom.
Thunderhawk 036, between the fleets
Godvek Wyrdskull watched the screens before him and the feed that was delivered directly into his optic nerve. The Hive Fleet had released a swarm of smaller beings that fulfilled the same role as fighters in more conventional fleets. They had been swarming with neither rhyme nor reason for a while, but now they burned hard for the human torpedoes. The Thunderhawk's computer and Wyrdskull's experience agreed in that they would likely make it and would reduce the salvo markedly.
Only that they would have to pass Godvek's flight to do so, and the Space Wolves would charge a fierce toll. Godvek's fangs seemed to grow when his features developed a predator's smile. His thumb pushed a button while his left hand typed numbers into a keyboard.
"Hrakness Flight, this is Hrakness actual. Burn for the coordinates transmitted and engage Link XVI, I want some bugs for dinner."
The growls which acknowledged the orders were compromise between "Copy" and canine growls.
The living spacecraft that tried to intercept the second missile attack were ugly, lumpy, and bred for the Void. No squishy humans inside, no need for adapting instincts honed in planetary environments, no life support, and very few regards to safety. They might look like cancerous growths, but they moved with the elegance of dolphins. Nobody with even a bit of sight and sense would compare the Thunderhawks to Dolphins, flying bricks were far more apt. And while their armor was quite formidable when compared to other fliers the power of the weapons used in the Void often made it as formidable as soggy cardboard. But there was time till it would be tested and Godvek would use every second of that.
The screen before him changed its mode, linking the feeds of his craft's sensors with those of his flight, the ones on the Thunderhawk Raven behind them, and the capital ships. Just looking at several icons marked them, a click of his controller confirmed his selection. Markers of a different color showed which fighters were targeted by other ships of his flight. And there were a lot of them.
There was a countdown on top of that screen and when that reached zero Wyrdskull's thumb mashed down on the trigger. Even the solid Thunderhawk shook when six missiles were released from their clamps. They dropped behind the accelerating spacecraft and Godvek made a small course change. Even clad behind a lot of armor and of superhuman flesh he did not even want to be in the missiles exhaust. When they received the new weapons from the Mechanicum they had been warned that these were only to be used in deep space or on Demon Worlds. Even their flight was a path of destruction.
They might be dangerous, they left a wake of intense radiation, but the missiles accelerated on fission flames at a rate rarely matched by the Emperor's arsenal. And they kept that acceleration for a long time, building up quite a bit of Delta-V to their targets. At the same time they radiated far less heat than one might suspect from such efforts and when they ceased their acceleration even Godvek's sensors had trouble showing them.
The missiles coasted for a minute before restarting their burns, and now their targets spotted them. Like a mosquito swarm at dusk the Tyranids accelerated in all directions, trying to outmaneuver the doom that came for them on radioactive wings. Some managed to avoid the missiles, some bathed in intense radiation and continued for a while. Many more found themselves inside the fireballs of nuclear detonations and ceased to exist.
Whatever formation the Tyranids had before was gone now that half of their numbers was missing. They had also maneuvered hard to avoid the missiles, so now they were out of place and had Delta-vs that went in the wrong direction. There were still quite a lot of them, just like the Space Wolves liked.
Godvek's howl joined those of his brothers, he managed to reign his elation in quickly enough.
"Hrakness Flight, this is Hrakness actual. Break and attack, repeat break and attack."
And while there was clamorous approval in his headphones Wyrdskull switched the Thunderhawk's main engines off. The rumbles and vibration ceased immediately and the RCS transmitted a hiss through the spacecraft's frame. Spinning the Thunderhawk like a top Godvek aimed the spacecraft nose to the point where the computer and his instinct agreed his prey would be soon enough. When he was aiming right he engaged the main engine again for seconds at a time, no need to give the enemy an easy target.
A glowing ball passed the Thunderhawk close enough to produce some haze on the monitors for a second, then the crosshairs merged with the predicted position. When Godvek pulled the trigger the Thunderhawk's lights dimmed for a moment and the temperature rose markedly. The huge laser under the cockpit emitted a series of high energy pulses that were invisible for most of their path. A few atoms in the way of so much coherent light spectacularly transformed, but even their deaths barely lit the Void. The Tyranid fighter was different. It managed to avoid a couple of the laser pulses, but not all of them. A trio managed to hit on its side. The first vaporized armor, the second and third found softer insides. The fluids and membranes that made the creature work were converted into plasma and superheated steam and needed far more space than before. They found no empty spaces to fill, so they made their own spaces and rents in the fighter's body. Spewing gasses and fluids that fighter died quickly enough.
Godvek barely registered the kill as he was hammered into his seat by the Thunderhawk's acceleration again. This time he used the RCS and the main thrusters at the same time, doing the same thing again and again when the enemy was looking was not conductive to continued respiration. Two more plasma bursts passed his ship before he could line up another shot. This time the laser converted the back end of a fighter into its component atoms. The rest cartwheeled through the sky, clearly out of it.
Wyrdskull looked at the screen before him, but failed to find any more targets. He also no longer saw two Thunderhawks. He would remember the crews, properly, but not now. Now he checked propellant and the remaining charges for his laser and found his flight might just intercept some torpedoes the Tyranids had fired at the Wolves fleet.
Space Marine Battleship Nagelfar, Deep Space Warhammer 40K Universe
Lemann Russ watched the torpedoes close with the Tyranids. That their fighters had not intercepted them did not mean the bugs were defenceless. Balls of plasma sped forward, trying to merge with the torpedoes, streams of Pyro-Acid tried to devour the oncoming doom. Escorts interposed themselves between the Imperials and their charges. Some missed the agile weapons, others exploded, performing their final duty, neither having the chance nor the capability to decide otherwise. The torpedoes that avoided these pitfalls encountered huge Spore Clouds, made up from every toxin and plague known to the Tyranids. They would have swallowed the missiles as if they had never existed, but for the first salvo, which exploded before it even reached them. The fusion fury and gamma rays pierced the clouds, clearing them as so much fog.
The second wave of torpedoes savaged armor, burned any external features away before eviscerating the few Hive Ships left in the huge fleet. The Primarch watched the symbols changing color, saw the formations shift, and the Psykers calming down. His fangs seemed to grow as a smile grew on his craggy features. Making sure that he was connected to the all-station net his voice could be heard all over the Imperial fleet.
"Well done lads, that was the last Hive Ship. That is good, now the bugs lack a brain. But they grow one again if we let them, so we won't. Quite a lot of ships out there, lots of glory to be reaped. And they are stupid now all rage and no reason. And we know how to deal with those beasties, don't we?"
The cheers ran through Nagelfahr's bridge and the rest of the fleet. Now to check if his plan was indeed as good as it seemed. A look at another monitor showed the plot and the possibilities updated by his staff and the cogitators. So far the bugs and fate had decided that his plans remained viable. It was just a question of when something would break, not if.
"Bete Squadron, we go with Muskran one. Go for it. All other elements, come to 030 by 025, full burn. Let's open the range a bit."
And with that several Cobra destroyers started acceleration that would take them closer to the swarm that wanted to devour the Imperial fleet, while the rest of the fleet showed their thrusters to the Tyranids and burned.
Ice Carrier Leviathan, 150 kilometers from Karond Kar
It was the calm before the storm, the last rest before battle was joined for real and the mercenaries and the ship's crew used it to celebrate. There were enough very different groups on board, ranging from German heavy equipment operators to Kislevite peasants, Cathayan soldiers, and Druchii mercenaries that it was hard to find a common thing to celebrate. The fact that the Germans were actually the smallest group on board, but had influenced events the most in many ways opened the way to a Christmas-themed party.
Given that most planes were maintained as well as they could be enough could be moved on deck to open enough space for rows upon rows of benches, of tables and open spaces. Even this great space would not hold everybody, several mess rooms held their own, but enough were present to make this feel like a joint effort. Jacub General's nose tried to identify some very different food handed out, from mulled wine, via moon cakes to dagger shish kebab that his head started to swim.
He had managed to find his seat and patiently waited for Valera to take hers before he plonked down beside her. He saw the multitude that sorted itself out through the huge hall, marveled at the fake Christmas tree in the middle of the hangar and mused on how many metal-foil emergency blankets had been sacrificed to make decorations.
Valera and he did not have to make for the many stands that dispensed food, his table was officers' country and they would be served.
It did not take too long for the opposite edge of the table to be occupied. Brigade Leader Areta Bane proved that she could sit down on a long bench a lot more gracefully than Jacub or any other human had managed. Valera was a lot more relaxed around her since she had realized that the beautiful Cathayan that accompanied her was more than just a servant. Instead of sliding on the bench she started to kneel beside her partner. A slender hand stopped that and guided her to the bench.
"Not today dove, today we are equals."
"Xie Xie Jiejie"
The Cathayan giggled and snuggled at the Druchii. Areta produced a chuckle and pulled her even closer.
""Older sister. Really? Hua, I think someone's behind is itching."
The answer to that was even more giggling. Jacub shook his head at something he had heard about, but could not wrap his head around when the first course arrived. There was a noodle soup with delicious dumplings and the engineer had to remind himself not to overdo, there were bigger and probably better things to come.
It was when the bowls were removed and the next course had not yet reached Jacub's table that the Brigade Leader pulled a bundle of silk from her tunic.
The Cathayan's eyes become far more round and she beamed at Areta.
"Oh, you shouldn't have. How can I make this up to you?"
"Just have a look dove, I think you'll find a way."
The silk revealed a short, silver chain. It was simple, but rather beautiful and ended in two lion heads. These were molded to Cathayan aesthetics, far more round than the European style Jacub was more familiar with. The heads looked strange somehow, but that riddle was quickly solved when Hua pressed on one of the heads and the jaws opened against a spring, revealing two rows of realistic-looking teeth.
"Oh wow, they are sooo beautiful love. We have to try them soonest."
Jacub was still trying to figure out what this was about when Valera's arm covered her breasts in reflex.
The Cathayan blinked a couple of times at that before beaming at the Ice Mage.
"Oh don't be like that, they are nice. You should really give them a try."
"What?"
