Disclaimer: Mirror, mirror on the wall, do I own Code Geass or Warhammer 40k?...Well, the mirror's not answering, but my magic 8-ball tells me that I don't own either of those.
Chapter Thirteen: The Arrival
Imperial Battleship Emperor's Vengeance, Orbit of Mars
Fifty Hours After the Ikaruga's Appearance
Ever since the logic engines had downloaded and installed the data packet sent from the Pendragon, a deathly silence reigned over the battleship's cavernous bridge. Not even the Lord Admiral, jaded from a hundred battles against the innumerable forces of Chaos, dared speak as the hololith slowly counted down to the arrival. So ingrained was the sense of impending doom that nobody needed to specify that the term referred to the Chaos fleet: it was simply "the arrival."
A beeping sound echoed throughout the chamber as the countdown reached zero. Though the sound itself was no more unpleasant than an alarm clock, it may as well have announced to the bridge crew the return of Horus. The next moment, the hololith display was nearly overwhelmed as thousands of reports streamed in at once.
Black Knights Dreadnought Pendragon
Edge of the Terra System
With even the Mechanicum shipyards around Mars taxed to the limit just replacing combat losses, Battle Fleet Solar was forced to look elsewhere for reinforcements. Any Imperial warship, regardless of previous assignment, was absorbed into Battle Fleet Solar at the first possible opportunity. What few civilian vessels that managed the long and perilous journey to the Terra system was immediately pressed into service upon arrival, from the garbage scows commandeered as minelayers to racing yachts converted into forward scouts. Irrespective of originating chapter, warships of the Adeptus Astartes were hastily organized into battle groups under the leadership of the Grey Knights chapter fleet.
In preparation for the arrival, Battle Fleet Solar had dispersed to form a loose perimeter around the projected jump-point. Many hundreds of thousands of kilometers sometimes separated the ships, and the line was a paltry two ships deep at points. The capital ships—the battleships, the grand cruisers, the Battle Barges, the strike cruisers—stayed back as the smaller vessels formed skirmish squadrons. Next to the massive slab-sided Imperial warships, the Pendragon was nearly invisible. Even the comparatively-tiny Imperial escort ships swarming around the capital ships dwarfed the dreadnought and its sister ships.
The Pendragon had tapped into the Imperial fleet's communications channels, its computers and communications officers working overtime to filter out all but the most important messages.
"The Glorious and its battle group just reported in: weapons charged and ready for saturation bombardment."
"Message from a Space Marine strike cruiser…looks like Grey Knights…designated Unshakeable Faith…their Navigator just passed out. The Warp shadow is practically on top of us."
"Contact: readings consistent with a Chaos Murder-class cruiser, two Slaughter-class cruisers, and escorts," announced one of the communications officers, "Twenty-three distinct signatures identified."
"Incoming transmission from the Chaos fleet!"
"Jam it!"
Imperial Battleship Glorious
Edge of the Terra System
As the crew of the Pendragon rushed to analyze the Chaos transmission and broadcast the appropriate counter-frequency, the booming voice of a Word Bearers Dark Apostle filled the bridge of the Glorious. Many of the crew fell from their seats, clutching their ears as the blasphemous verses and litanies assaulted their senses. One of the Navy Security troopers on the bridge, his sanity stripped away, raised his shotgun and began shooting. One of the bridge crew who ran forward to stop him flew back, a large chunk of his torso missing. A shotgun blast for a neighboring trooper who resisted the whispers of Chaos pulped his face.
"Omnissiah forgive me," muttered one of the Tech-Priests as she smashed the hololith speaker with a well-aimed mechadendrite.
Several additional Navy Security troopers with medicae in tow rushed onto the bridge, weapons at the ready. Several percussive booms echoed throughout the chamber as the officers who were driven insane by the Word Bearer's chantings were swiftly put out of their misery. Several officers had dashed their own skulls against their consoles rather than turn heretic, leaving an unpleasant cleanup task for the newly-arrived personnel. Even those who lived and resisted the call of Chaos didn't emerge unscathed, many of them having thrashed around and collided with consoles and walls as they tried to block out the blasphemous litanies.
Captain Matyas Ekis groaned in pain as he shakily stood up while clutching the edge of a nearby console for support. One of the Security troopers rushed to his side, and the Imperial captain gratefully accepted the proffered hand.
"Sir, are you injured?" the trooper inquired while flagging down a passing medicae.
"I'm fine," Matyas dismissed the medicae with a wave of his hand before turning to one of the remaining communications officers, "Battle group status?"
"A minor outbreak of heresy on the Indomitable's main gun deck," the officer, slumped over her console as a medicae tended to a gash on her forehead, replied moments later, "Navy Security teams are putting it down at the time of the report. Other ships report multiple administrations of the Emperor's Mercy."
"What's the status on the weapons decks?"
The sole surviving gunnery officer spent several moments speaking on the internal vox network before answering.
"Deck officers report that the first salvo is away. Main batteries are fifteen percent reloaded."
Fortunately, the Oberon-class battleship's cavernous gun batteries possessed no direct communication line to other ships. While the bridge crew endured the sanity-blasting litanies of Chaos, the innumerable deckhands dutifully loaded torpedoes and shells through chain and pulley, unaware of the events several decks above. Even if the Dark Apostle's voice had reached them, the deafening roar of hundreds of weapons batteries firing in rapid succession would have drowned out his words.
Black Knights Frigate Courageous
Twenty Minutes Later
"FLEIJA tubes one through four are empty!"
"Overall hadron field density down to eighty percent!"
Though not as powerful as the heavier warheads found its larger cousins, the FLEIJA missiles of the Courageous still represented a significant threat to the Chaos fleet. One of the torpedoes, despite its attempts to compensate, sailed straight through the gaps between the Chaos ships and detonated harmlessly in the distance. The other three locked on to an Idolator-class Raider. Busily carving up an Imperial light cruiser with its lances, the Chaos escort didn't spot the incoming warheads until too late. The resulting blast tore the ship apart and sucked in several nearby Chaos attack craft for good measure.
Vainly attempting to hit the nimble Black Knights vessel and its sister ships, the lumbering Chaos vessels blindly threw up an intense flak screen. Any hits they scored were due far more to luck than actual targeting. The Courageous wove in and out of the virtual minefield of shells and torpedoes, some almost as large as the frigate itself. Despite the massive incoming barrage of Imperial torpedoes and Black Knights FLEIJA warheads, several Swiftdeath fighters peeled away from the fighter screen to pursue the nimble frigate.
The Courageous' rear batteries blazed away at both the pursuing fighters and the incoming missiles. To the Chaos pilots' surprise, the frigate suddenly snapped into a barrel roll normally impossible for a ship of its size, causing its pursuers to overshoot. The Courageous gave them no time to recover, swooping down on them with its more substantial side and flank gun batteries. Swiftdeath fighters, their wings and control surfaces shredded, spun crazily out of control and collided with one another as they tried desperately to escape the withering hail of hadron bolts.
"Beam cannons charged and ready to fire!"
The tiny frigate inverted and dove towards one of the Slaughter-class cruisers, currently ganging up on an Imperial Luna-class with its companion. The Chaos gunners noticed the frigate, seemingly on a suicide run, moments later and desperately put up a barrage of point-defense fire. The nimble vessel evaded the shells, its bow glowing an ominous deep red. A fresh squadron of Swiftdeath fighters, supported by a flight of Doomfire bombers, pulled behind the attacking frigate and began unloading their weapons into its rear hadron field.
"Rear hadron field density down to sixty percent!"
"Maintain current course!"
The Slaughter's massive hull began to slowly swing around, the cruiser's state-of-the-art Scartix engine coil pushed to the limit to take it out of the frigate's firing arc.
"Cruiser at one thousand meters and closing! Nine hundred! Eight hundred! Seven hundred!"
"Rear hadron field density down to fifty-five percent!"
"Steady…steady…"
"Skimmer drive charged!"
"Fire! Engage skimmer drive!"
As the Doomfires launched a massive wave of armor-piercing missiles at the Courageous' rapidly-depleting rear hadron fields, the frigate's forward hadron batteries fired. A wave of red energy slammed into the cruiser's void shields. The energy fields crackled as they dissipated the enormous energy of the blast, straining but ultimately holding. The Courageous disappeared in a flash of green just as dozens of armor-piercing missiles intersected the area of space it once occupied. The warheads sailed past, slamming into the Chaos cruiser's void shields and punching through the weakened field.
Black Knights Attack Craft Callsign: Warhound Leader
Edge of the Terra System
"Warhound Leader to all units: the cruiser's shields are down! Form up and prepare for attack run!"
Warhound Leader slammed the brakes on his attack craft just as a trio of Chaos fighters swooped in from above. His hadron fields easily absorbed the brief burst of lasfire the enemy fighters managed to squeeze off before overshooting him. A few twitches of his Knightmare's limbs pivoted the Excalibur around to face the rapidly-retreating backs of the Swiftdeaths. Three long bursts of hadron fire reduced two of the fighters to scrap and sent the third veering away, uncontrollable following the loss of the majority of its control surfaces. The attack craft twisted around again, diving towards the now-vulnerable cruiser as its subordinates formed up behind it.
A squadron of Doomfire bombers, the same squadron whose missiles had lowered the cruiser's void shields, turned away in a desperate bid to escape. A storm of hadron bolts from an entire squadron of Black Knights attack craft reduced them to rapidly-expanding balls of gas and dust.
"Warhound Leader, bombs away!"
The Excalibur-class attack craft leveled out of their dive mere meters from the surface of the Slaughter-class cruiser and unleashed their anti-ship FLEIJA warheads. Unlike the smaller anti-starfighter variants, anti-ship FLEIJA missiles utilized a two-stage warhead: a one-use Needle Blazer to blast through the tough outer layers of a capital ship's armor followed by a FLEIJA warhead. Each ship of the Warhound squadron carried eight such missiles, and the pilots weren't shy with using them.
A squadron of Swiftdeath fighters, having escaped the destruction of the bomber wing they were escorted, pulled behind the Warhound squadron in a vain attempt to save the cruiser. Lacking the Excaliburs' agility, they tended to slam into the Chaos cruiser's numerous hull protrusions before they could lock onto the Black Knights craft. What few lascannon bursts the Chaos pilots managed to squeeze off were wild and off-target, either sailing past the Warhound craft or hitting the cruiser's already-weakened armor.
"Enemy cruiser breaking apart! Bug out!"
The image of the dozen Warhound attack craft peeling away from a successful attack run, silhouetted by the doomed cruiser's plasma reactor detonate, resembled something straight out of an entertainment holo.
Black Knights Dreadnought Pendragon
Forty Minutes Later
Thousands of triangles, from Black Knights blue to Imperial yellow to Chaos red, were jumbled together on the holographic display that now dominated the space overhead on the Pendragon's bridge. Almost every time somebody looked up, another dozen triangles blinked out of existence. Most of the disappearing triangles were red, but the steady stream of red triangles appearing at the same time kept their numbers growing.
"Report from the Courageous: confirmed kill on Infidel-class Raider."
"Report from Warhound Leader: ordnance expended, returning for rearming."
Even without the colors, it was fairly easy to see who was who on the three-dimensional projection of the battlespace. The Imperial skirmishers stood their ground at all costs, winking out of existence amidst swarms of red triangles or immediately after ramming into one. The Black Knights craft blinked in and out of existence amidst the Chaos formations, appearing only long enough to launch a brief attack before disappearing again. They tended to be the only ones breaking free of the confusing melee at the center of the display, most likely to meet the squadrons of Valkyries situated throughout the no man's land between the current battle and the capital ship line to repair and rearm. The Chaos red simply pushed relentlessly ahead, the horde growing larger and larger with each passing minute.
"Distress signal from the Baltia. Indefatigable en route to assist."
Very occasionally, the Pendragon and the Imperial and Black Knights ships around it would send a volley into the fleet battle. With allied and Chaos ships so close together, friendly fire became a very real possibility, and the required firing solution calculations were a challenge even for the Pendragon's computers, much less the Imperium's aging logic engines.
"Warp jump detected. Forty-three distinct signatures identified, including an Executor-class Grand Cruiser."
"Don't let that thing get within lance range! All ships, focus fire on the Executor!"
The relentless press of Chaos eventually won out even against the formidable power of the Imperium's Black Knights allies. The Imperial skirmishers all but destroyed and the remaining Black Knights on the retreat, the fleet battle turned into a clash of the titans. No longer restrained by fear of friendly fire, the line of Imperial and Black Knights capital ships had let loose with their substantial armaments. Hadron beams, lances, FLEIJA warheads, and plasma torpedoes alike tore through the initial waves of the Chaos advance, and many ships were crippled or destroyed outright trying to navigate the sudden debris field.
The Chaos vanguard's backbone was shattered with the rally of the Imperial skirmish fleet, its survivors suddenly turning around upon reaching the defense line and unleashing what ordnance they had left. In the chaos that followed, the Black Knights vessels stealthily flanked the enemy fleet and hammered it from all directions. Many ships were blown apart by FLEIJA warheads or sliced to pieces by hadron beams, and many more were lost to collisions as the panicking Chaos fleet tried to avoid the deadly weapons. When the Black Knights ships closed in once again, Chaos gun batteries rang out with little regard for firing solution, focusing only on destroying the nimble, hard-hitting enemy ships. Particularly daring captains waited until the enemy weapons fire nearly struck their hadron fields before engaging their skimmer drives. Friendly fire claimed far more casualties than hadron cannon or FLEIJA.
When yet another wave of Chaos ships, this one nearly five hundred strong, dropped out of the Warp, even the mighty Black Knights ships were forced to retreat and form back up with the Imperial line. A bloody and confusing melee followed.
Imperial Battleship Glorious
Three Hours Later
The decks of the mighty Oberon-class battleship shook as it absorbed yet another punishing volley from the surrounding Chaos ships. The sheer weight of Chaos numbers had forced apart many of the Imperial ships, who were picked off one by one at the enemy's leisure. The Black Knights ships had jumped with dizzying frequency, often only firing a single volley between jumps, but they could only be in so many places at once. Many an Imperial ship, completely cut off from help, chose to self-destruct rather than risk capture. As the fighting dragged on, morale plunged as reports of Black Knights losses began arriving.
Chaos ships assaulted the Glorious and its escorts again and again, every time coming closer to reaching the battleship. With each assault, the Imperial defenders grew increasingly desperate. One of the Endurance-class light cruisers, having fired its lance batteries to the point of burning out the emitters, escorting the Glorious had gone as far as ramming into a Chaos Devastation-class cruiser and self-destructing. Despite the efforts of that light cruiser's crew and many others, the Chaos ships soon broke through and began assaulting the Glorious itself. A Slaughter-class cruiser circled the lumbering battleship, unloading into its flanks as a Hades-class cruiser and a duo of Murder-class cruisers unleashed volley after volley of torpedoes and lances from afar.
"Fire on main gun deck! Estimated three hundred dead!"
"Main starboard batteries no longer responding!"
"Hangar Bay Three took a direct hit! It's venting into space!"
"Casualties?"
"We had a Starhawk squadron re-arming at the time! No survivors!"
"Lance strike to port bow! Torpedo Bay Three not responding!"
"Reports from security forces in Sector 17-A: boarding parties detected!"
Security Checkpoint Beta-17
Imperial Battleship Glorious
"Cover me! Reloading!" shouted Naval Security Sergeant Marco Pulnik over the deafening booms of dozens of shotguns.
Waves of cultists, some dressed in what appeared to be flak armor but the vast majority wearing rags, rushed the makeshift barrier only to be cut down by the security troops. They had already overrun seven checkpoints through sheer weight of numbers, but they had taken enough casualties that Pulnik's position gave them pause. With crates of shotgun shells stacked up behind the barricades, he and his squad had enough ammunition to hold out for days if necessary.
Marco's spine crawled as a wet gurgling sound assaulted his ears. A rank smell followed, and several troopers doubled over, emptying the contents of their stomachs onto the deck at the stench. The barrage of shotgun fire slackened as several troopers outright passed out. Another wave of cultists charged the barriers, and it took Marco only a second to realize that they were different from the previous ones. Rather than flak armor or rags, they were clad in what appeared to be Imperial bio-containment suits. Blasphemous and sanity-blasting symbols were scrawled all over them, and rents in the material revealed bodies swollen with contagion and festering wounds dripping pus. Worse than their appearance was the newly-arrived cultists' inhuman resistance to pain: even with several limbs reduced to pulp, they continued charging the checkpoint.
As the cultists began climbing over the barrier, Marco drew the power maul at his hip and thumbed the activation stud as he thrust it into the air.
"Death or glory! Charge!"
The Nurglite cultists would overrun the checkpoint minutes later.
Command Bridge, Imperial Battleship Glorious
One Hour Later
Captain Matyas Ekis coughed, staining the front of his uniform with yet more blood. Even breathing bought searing agony, and he didn't need a medicae to tell him he had at least a cracked rib. Through sheer willpower and luck, he managed to force himself off the floor and onto his hands and knees. The floor was slick with rapidly-congealing blood and gore, and even propping his shattered body up on all fours was a daunting chore. His efforts proved for naught as a cultist kicked him back down. Matyas gasped in agony as he felt a rib snap.
"Why do you continue resisting?" a booming voice mocked him, "The fleets of the Despoiler are infinite, his armies endless! Our allies are legion! Before the might of Chaos, your precious Imperium will crumble!"
Matyas choked on his own blood as the massive form of a Chaos Space Marine loomed over him.
"Do you want to live? Your corpse-Emperor cannot save you! Pledge your life and soul to the Lord of Blood, and then perhaps you shall be spared!"
"The Emperor is my savior," Matyas choked out, his voice barely a whisper, "He is my protector. With the Emperor at my side, I shall fear…"
The captain's prayer was cut off when the Space Marine, now clearly enraged, grabbed him around the throat and slammed him into the wall. His vision spinning, Matyas' lips continued moving in silent prayer.
"You dare invoke the name of the false Emperor before me? I offered you power! I offered you a place at my side! Yet, you continue to defy me! Your suffering shall be infinite!"Much to the fallen warrior's surprise, the captain smiled instead of breaking down and begging for mercy. Rage gave way to confusion, which gave way to horror as a warning klaxon rang.
"In nomini Imperatoris," Matyas gasped out as the enraged servant of Chaos dashed his skull against the bulkhead.
Alight and venting atmosphere, the Glorious was mercilessly pounded by salvo after salvo from the Chaos ships. Drop pods and shuttles crashed through its flanks, disgorging thousands of cultists and Traitor Astartes into its corridors. Its crew fought valiantly against the invaders, but they numbered too many. As the enemy crashed through checkpoint after checkpoint, the Glorious' officers set to burning code books and tactical maps, anything that could be used against the Imperium if captured. As torpedoes and lances carved huge holes in the proud battleship's exterior, the Aquila on its bow remained intact. Beaten and battered, the Glorious refused to surrender.
When the proud Oberon-class battleship's Warp drive began powering up, the surrounding Chaos ships were temporarily thrown into confusion. Attempting a Warp jump was madness, especially with a ship as damaged as the Glorious. Confusion gave way to fear when it became clear that escape was the last thing on the enemy's mind. Having moved in close for the kill, the four Chaos cruisers that had gutted the Imperial battleship were the first to be destroyed when the Glorious' reactor containment catastrophically failed. The enemy ships that had clustered around the stricken battleship in hopes of stealing some of the glory backed away in a vain attempt to avoid being swallowed up by the newborn star.
Black Knights Dreadnought Pendragon
Edge of the Terra System
When the triangle representing the Glorious and nearly two dozen of the red triangles clustered around it suddenly blinked out of existence, the bridge fell quiet for a brief moment. At least a million men and women, many of whom had been born in the ship's labyrinthine corridors and had known no other environment, were aboard the great battleship. The reactor explosion, visible even from the Pendragon's current position, precluded any chance of survivors. The tactical display marked the deaths of enough men and women to staff an entire Black Knights battle group with a tiny blip.
"Overall hadron field density down to eighty-five percent," announced on the bridge officers.
The uneasy silence broken, the flurried comm chatter of a ship in battle restarted.
"Gun Battery C reports direct hits on an Infidel-class Raider! It's breaking up!"
"Report from Helios Leader: fifteen confirmed hits on a Devastation-class cruiser. Target is mobile, but appears unable to launch or recover attack craft."
"Report from Arbiter Two: attack run aborted due to heavy flak. Three confirmed hits on Slaughter-class cruiser. Current status of target unknown. Arbiter Leader shot down but bailed out and rescued by Arbiter Seven. Arbiter Squadron returning to repair and rearm."
"Status of primary hadron batteries?"
"Batteries One through Nine fully recharged! Ten through Eighteen seventy-five percent charged!"
Captain Lamont Maciver glanced at the tactical map, searching for the biggest target within reasonable striking distance.
"Warp jump detected! One signature identified!"
Lamont could have sworn he heard the Pendragon's hull creak ominously as the helmsman slammed on the gravitric drive controls. Only the dreadnought's advanced inertial dampeners kept the crew from being flattened as the ship's bow abruptly swung upwards. Anyone in visual range would have been treated to the somewhat humorous sight of the kilometer-long warship roaring through space belly-first. The drives fired up again, just in time to accelerate the ship out of the path of a Retaliator-class Grand Cruiser dropping out of the Warp.
"Helm, bring us around! Fire the main batteries! Saturation FLEIJA bombardment, then jump!"
The dreadnought twisted around in space once again, a maneuver that would have torn any conventionally-propelled ship apart. The massive dorsal view of the grand cruiser swung into view just as the Pendragon's primary hadron batteries rang out. Its mighty void shields down as it emerged from the Warp, the grand cruiser stood little chance as dozens of deep red lances punched straight through it. Its keel broken, the warship snapped in half under its own mass. The massive wave of FLEIJA warheads that followed destroyed both the grand cruiser and several dozen ships clustered around it just as the Pendragon jumped away.
Black Knights Cruiser Hrimfaxi
Thirty Minutes Later
"Overall hadron field density down to fifteen percent! Enemy ordnance starting to bleed through!"
"Port hadron fields collapsing!"
"Dammit!" Captain Rudolf de Sneijer slammed his fist into the bulkhead, "What about the other two emitter arrays?"
"Emitter Array One burned out! Array Three charging, ninety seconds to go!"
"Direct hit to starboard bow! Fire on deck three!"
"Engineering, what's the status on the skimmer drive?" Rudolf practically yelled into his comm unit.
"Primary and secondary power feeds damaged!" a static-laden voice answered, "We're rigging a bypass, but it'll take time!"
"How long?" the Black Knight had a feeling he wouldn't like the answer.
"Maybe twenty minutes if we don't take any more hits like that last one!"
"I'm not going to have a ship in twenty minutes! You've got fifteen!" Rudolf shut off the line before the voice could object.
"What's the status on our primary batteries?"
"Batteries Four and Seven not responding! Batteries One through Three functioning at fifty percent capacity! Five, Six, and Seven through Ten fully charged and ready to fire!"
"Lock on to," Rudolf glanced at the tactical map, "the Executor-class. All batteries, focus fire on that grand cruiser! Uploading updated firing instructions!"
With a burst of power that dramatically shortened the remaining lifespan of its already-strained gravitric drives, the Hrimfaxi closed the distance between it and its target. The small armada of Chaos ships surrounding it ceased firing in fear of hitting the grand cruiser. The capital ship's massive batteries loosed only a small handful of shots before the much smaller Black Knights cruiser slipped between its heavy turrets' firing arcs. Smaller point-defense batteries blazed away, many of the shells either failing to penetrate the cruiser's thick armor or outright bouncing off.
Mere dozens of meters away from colliding with the titanic warship, the Hrimfaxi leveled out its dive and hugged the contours of the grand cruiser's hull. Every operational hadron battery on the Hrimfaxi's belly ventral surface opened fire, smashing turrets and carving great gashes in the Executor's hull. The nimble cruiser rolled as it flew along the hull of its much larger opponent, giving its other batteries their shot at the grand cruiser. FLEIJA warheads impacted in the cruiser's wake, destroying the enemy titan from the inside.
Its target venting atmosphere and debris through gaping wounds in its flank, the Hrimfaxi pulled sharply away. As the grand cruiser limped away to lick its wounds, its escort ships pounced on the Black Knights cruiser with renewed zeal. Though their target twisted and turned wildly, the Chaos warships compensated for their lack of accuracy with sheer volume of fire. Ordnance of all kinds slammed into the cruiser's replenished, but still weakened, forward hadron fields.
"Contact! At least a dozen distinct signatures directly above us! Identifying!"
"IFF signals decoded! They're," the sensor officer trailed off for a brief second, as if mentally reassessing the readouts in front of him, "Eldar."
A/N: Yep, our favorite space-elf Power Rangers show up. I mean that endearingly, Eldar fans, so if you could please put away your Mirror Swords and Shuriken Catapults...please?
Anyhow, another omake. Another info-dump on the Black Knights. To those who actually read these, I promise we'll eventually get back to the fun omakes, but considering the current plot arc, I'm just not sure how to make it funny. I've got one submitted to me that I'll bring out near the end of this arc, and I've got one lying around that would only work for the epilogue... Oh, and one more that'll only make sense when Abaddon...I've already said too much.
Omake: Encyclopedia of the Black Knights, Volume Five: Militia Organization and Doctrine
Though far from the largest, the Black Knights' military nonetheless remains one of the deadliest in the galaxy. Through extensive training and unlimited access to highly-advanced technology, they enjoy a considerable edge over most of their opponents. Through tenacity and courage, they have fought and won multiple conflicts against Orks, Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and Necrons, a distinction few others in the galaxy can truthfully lay claim to.
Militia: The entirety of the Black Knights militia consists of roughly two hundred eighty million men and women organized into seven Theater Groups, each commanded by a Field Marshal:
Theater Group A: Field Marshal Gulzar Javed Barros
Theater Group B: Field Marshal Nikola Liesel Schwer
Theater Group C: Field Marshal Ngai Yen Nguyen
Theater Group D: Field Marshal Sofija Valda Ozolins
Theater Group E: Field Marshal Waheeda Ramlah Zaman
Theater Group F: Field Marshal Thabo Mwenye Ihejirika
Theater Group G: Field Marshal Galen Amias Way
The entire organizational hierarchy is as follows:
Formation - Composition - Leader
Theater Group - Five Army Groups - Field Marshal
Army Group - Five Militia Groups - Army General
Militia Group - Five Corps - Colonel General
Corps - Four Divisions - Lieutenant General
Division - Two Brigades - Major General
Brigade - Five Regiments - Brigadier General
Regiment - Five Battalions - Colonel
Battalion - Two Companies - Lieutenant Colonel
Company - Five Platoons - Captain or Major
Platoon - Two Squads - First or Second Lieutenant
Squad - Five Fire and Maneuver Teams - Corporal or Sergeant
Fire and Maneuver Team - Two Militiamen - senior militman
Under a policy of universal compulsory military service, every Black Knight undergoes military training at the age of eighteen, barring extraordinary circumstances. They are assigned a unit soon afterwards, though Black Knights currently employed in or training for a job deemed vital to the fleet's continued survival may occasionally obtain a deferment of their first deployment.
Outside of wartime, between one quarter and one third of all militiamen are actively serving at any given time. Upon reaching the age of one hundred seventy, a militiaman is "deactivated." Though no longer part of the regular duty rotation, a deactivated militiaman may still be called up to fight during wartime.
The training is rigorous, as every Black Knight must be worth ten of any other soldier on the battlefield. To this end, all militiamen not currently on active duty, including deactivated militiamen, are obligated to report for training exercises a minimum of two weekends out of every standard Earth month.
As they are usually monumentally outnumbered, Black Knights militia forces prefer to avoid direct confrontations with the enemy army. Instead, militia commanders prefer to bypass enemy fortifications entirely and launch surgical strikes behind enemy lines. Utilizing Sleipnir-class drop-shuttles and heavily supported by aerial and orbital forces, militia teams appear suddenly and wreak enormous havoc before vanishing just as quickly. Supply depots, communications hubs, and production centers are their preferred targets.
When forced onto the defensive, militia forces will subject the enemy commander to a brutal meat-grinder of a war. Rather than draw a defensive line, the militia prefers a multi-tiered approach. On more than one occasion, a Chaos warband or Dark Eldar raiding force broke through a Black Knights defensive line only to find another layer of defenses, the militiamen laying traps and defensive ambushes as they fell back.
Space Fleet: Formally, the Black Knights space fleet falls under the Militia Division umbrella: its members pass through the same boot camps and a single agency oversees them. In practice, the fleet is an almost completely separate entity, sharing a command structure with the militia only at the very highest level: General Suzaku Kururugi himself. Every ship flying the Black Knights' colors, even "civilian" vessels such as Arcadia-class production ships and the vast majority of Valkyrie-class utility vessels in service, is listed on the space fleet's roster. This serves the dual purpose of streamlining administration and, in emergencies, removes most of the red tape in pressing a ship into military service.
The Black Knights fleet boasts an extremely fluid and flexible organizational hierarchy, with only the top rungs of the metaphorical ladder being of fixed composition. The warships of the Black Knights are organized into twenty-five enormous battle fleets, each under the overall leadership of a Fleet Admiral, of the following composition:
Twenty Yggdrasil-class Dreadnoughts
One Hundred Twenty Trundholm-class Cruisers
One Thousand, Two Hundred Valkyrie-class Utility Vessels
Six Hundred Avalon-class DestroyersThree Thousand Camelot-class Frigates
Four Thousand, Six Hundred Sleipnir-class Drop-Shuttles
Seventy Thousand Excalibur-class Attack Craft
In addition to the battle fleets, the Black Knights' space fleet also consists of ten gigantic production fleets. Centered on a number of titanic Arcadia-class production ships, such a fleet's output can potentially dwarf that of a small Imperial Forge World or Agri World. While battle fleets obey a strict military-style hierarchy, production fleets tend to be governed by a council of ship captains and their representatives. As the only requirement of a production fleet is that it be able to provide for both itself and a quota of outside ships, exact composition tends to vary slightly. As new ships are constantly produced and old ones salvaged, keeping an exact count often proves a daunting task. However, the "average" production fleet boasts the following roster:
Fifty Arcadia-class Production Ships
Forty-Three Thousand, Six Hundred Valkyrie-class Utility Vessels
Ten Thousand, Eight Hundred Excalibur-class Attack Craft
Besides a small defensive contingent of Excalibur-class attack craft, production fleets possess no warships of their own. Production fleets often cluster around the Ikaruga for mutual protection, and the task of protecting them from enemy attack falls primarily on the shoulders of the battle fleets.
The recruiting practices of the Black Knights fleet are largely identical to those of the militia. In fact, all recruits go through the same basic training and only express a preference for either the fleet or the militia just before more specialized training begins. Duty rotation practices are identical to those of the militia. Of the twenty-five battle fleets currently in service, anywhere from five to eight of them are in active service at any one time. The remainder lay in drydock undergoing repairs and refit, their crews discharged to their civilian jobs with the obligation to report for regular training exercises.
Though an entire Black Knights battle fleet can bring an awe-inspiring amount of firepower to bear, the number of such occasions can be counted on a Tau's fingers. Of these deployments, the vast majority have been against Necrons, though at least one Ork Waaagh! experienced the full fury of a Black Knights battle fleet prior to its near-total annihilation. The ability to operate in total secrecy is the Black Knights' greatest asset, and news of a sizable fleet steamrolling several star systems in rapid succession would quickly alert every major military in the galaxy. Only a threat on the scale of a major Tyranid Hive Fleet could merit the full deployment of several fleets.
The Black Knights military fleet maintains a fluid command structure, with battle groups and squadrons formed and disbanded as needed. A number of ship captains have been known to play favorites, requesting the same roster of vessels every time they are called to form a battle group. Far from censuring them, the Fleet Admirals often quietly encourage this practice, as such groups often yields results of a formation several times their size.
As Black Knights ships are often much smaller and more nimble than their opponents, as well as far less numerous, their fleet commanders heavily favor mobile hit-and-run tactics over direct slugging matches. The speed and precision of the Black Knights' skimmer drive allows for their ships to practice the somewhat unorthodox tactic of "tactical hops." Emerging from the Warp, a Black Knights vessel will empty its FLEIJA tubes into the opposition and—time permitting—several volleys from their main hadron batteries and re-enter the Warp before the enemy ships can obtain an effective firing solution. The vessel re-emerges moments later, its hadron fields refreshed and its FLEIJA tubes reloaded.
When called to defend a static target, the largest ships of a Black Knights task force will typically set up a defensive perimeter and designate a number of fallback positions. The smaller ships are sent out to conduct harassing strikes on the incoming enemy fleets, using tactical hops to continuously flank and harry the enemy ships. Attack craft and frigates weave in and out of the enemy formations, screening the larger ships from enemy fighters, harassing bombers, and striking and vulnerable points of the enemy formations.
A/N: You know, I think that, ironically, the Black Knights might have one of the larger remaining militaries in the galaxy by virtue of being able to replace their losses. Oh yeah, and they lack the whole "high casualties = loyalty" thing. Also, who had the bright idea of introducing an Abbadon and an Abaddon into the 40k canon? I've used the right one up until now, but it still gets confusing. Also, am I alone in thinking that Sabaton's "Carolus Rex" fits this story's incarnation of Lelouch?
Anyhow, some stuff to look forward to: more CC, some Kallen action, and maybe some Spinzaku. Remember, in the Black Knights, authority does indeed equal asskicking. Oh, yeah, and Titans! Can't forget those! But those probably won't show up until much later.