A quick note from the auhor: I've located the old files for the dark age fleet after missing them for many years. I've been busy with another project since 2011 and have had no time to work on DAF but I still think of it occasionally. When I found it and realised how little had been uploaded to I decided to give it a quick once over and post the remainder I had written.
My style has changed quite a bit since those days so if I were to ever return to work on it it might seem like someone else were writing it. The only edits I've made to these are either for spelling or if it's incomprehensible garbage.
There were many things I would have done differently with the series had I to start over, even only a year after writing it. Especially in regards to the Space Marine, I probably would have made him a Black Templar. And I certainly would have re-written the opening section of this chapter.
The story resumes...
"I'm going to take the command ship and attempt to make contact with one of the Eldar Trade Ships." The Admiral finished up. "Objections?"
Parek raised a hand.
"Sir, it's about some of the scouting missions. The Imperium of Man seems to be holding back the Chaos forces around the area known as the 'Eye of Terror' by themselves. If what Brother Atar says is any indication I think we should stay as far away from it as possible. Or learn more about these Psykers first."
"Brother Atar is a religiously fanatical lunatic. It's possible he only believes these claims about corruptive magic because of indoctrination. Or they could even have some other form of advanced technology that gives the right appearance."
" 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' " Parek quoted dutifully.
"But sir the navigators-"
"That's enough captain." The Admiral looked down and sighed. "If we didn't need what little Brother Atar knows I would have had him dropped off on the nearest inhabited planet by now. I do however want him off my ship."
"Sir I still have to protest over sending ships in-"
"Captain. Since you seem so adamant about it then we're just going to have to delay sending a scout ship out to this Eye of Terror until after I've talked to the Eldar. I just hope this delay won't result in us not having intelligence of a rather large area when the time comes."
Lavidean woke again in the medbay aboard Sinite, restrained as he had been before.
"The restraints are for your own protection." came the doctor's voice from the other side of the room. "I wanted to speak to you to make sure you wouldn't try to kill yourself."
"And if I were to do so?" asked Brother Atar in his most powerful sounding voice. He immediately regretted doing so however as the sound brought on a terrible headache.
"Well... I would probably have to create a clone of you using the DNA samples and brain Engram scan patterns I've already taken. Not something I'm particularly fond of. I'm against full body cloning myself."
Instead of responding the Marine quietly began he usual chants to the Emperor.
The Doctor chose not to notice however and continued to ramble on. "I know you must feel like you need to protect your honour and the name of the Emperor and all of that... but pulling that stunt was not a good idea. The Admiral isn't the most superstitious person to begin with and doesn't want to believe anything like these Chaos Gods can exist." Montoya stopped in front of the restrained Marine. "Your trying to attack him has him even more convinced that he's right."
Lavidean stopped his prayers and looked up at the Doctor. "Then he should go to the Eye of Terror himself. And go prepared to die in ways unimaginable."
"Captain Serth welcome aboard!" Shouted Elgar Dorst, captain of the transport ship Megara. The man walked over and gave Parek a brusk handshake before he could even respond. "I can't wait to show you around Captain, I've got lots of toys for ground work. I just can't wait to try them out!"
"Just call me Parek, please." he insisted. "I wanted to have a look at what sort of equipment you have aboard before we move out."
"Right this way!" the over enthusiastic man half shouted as he lead the way towards the main hanger.
The Megara was essentially a double hulled version of their standard Frigate but with a large troop landing bay slung between. They were more heavily shielded and armoured than most ships but were poorly armed for space combat. The vast majority of the external weapons systems were for point defense and ground suppression duties. The most useful thing about ships of this class was the large and well protected STC processing module at the aft end of the central hull.
"Is your STC module fully updated?" asked Parek.
"You bet! We can start knocking out a fire base within the hour after landing."
The two men stepped through an little used airlock into the cavernous central hold. This entire side was filled with racks two high, each containing powered armour. Elgar led him to one of the aisles that cut across the bay between the military hardware. Small anti-grav tanks and personnel carriers filled the center rows. Each vehicle was covered in bright, almost shimmering metal and had projectors for holographic and energy shields built into small recesses.
After walking around inspecting vehicles and equipment for awhile Parek said. "Don't take this the wrong way but do we have any larger vehicles?"
Elgar nodded and smiled knowingly. "I know what you're after. Up at the front."
After passing through a line of self propelled plasma mortars they came upon the two largest combat vehicles in the bay. Fourteen meters long and almost as wide the huge tank literally bristled with weapons.
Elgar patted the side of the behemoth. "BaneStar Mark Twenty. The main turret has both a negative and a positive Disintegrator, but we can switch those out for a Cutter Beam."
Parek walked around to the front of the tank.
"I imagine being able to dig a tunnel straight through a mountain range would definitely be handy."
Brother Atar stood at one end of a small cargo bay leading a group of volunteers in learning various prayers to the Emperor. Few acted as if they believed them, but then as long as one man or woman in the room believed the words they spoke then he had likely improved the stance of the Imperium. The old doctor stood in one corner watching closely. He had underestimated that one Lavidean knew. Never again.
"Perseverance and silence are the highest virtues." He said, voicing his feeling aloud through the choice of prayer. The twenty others in the room repeated after him.
"Prayer cleanses the soul, but pain cleanses the body." The pain endured when first implanted with the gene-seed was something he hoped to again feel if he could someday escape.
"Purity is not your best defence; it is your only defence." If only these fools knew how defenceless they were against the Chaos powers.
"There is only the Emperor and he is our shield and protector."
Protect me through these times of doubt and trial, he thought to himself.
"The Emperor knows, the Emperor is watching."
Captain's Parek and Elgar wandered out of the main bay and back into the ship's corridors.
"So how many troops do you have aboard?" asked Parek.
"I've got about two thousand kids in stasis on board that have gone through basic combat training and four full simulated deployments. They know how to maintain gear in the field."
"What does that give us?"
"Well... Meg can you give me a rough count?"
The ship's AI activated the nearest intercom and spoke up. "We have nine hundred and sixty modular power armour, forty eight light tanks, and equal numbers of self propelled mortars and APC's. In addition there are the two BaneStar's, and light powered infantry equipment for fifteen hundred."
"Thanks Meg."
Parek looked uncertain. "That's not a whole lot of people to take a planet let alone start a campaign with."
"We're just one ship. Once the STC is running on planet we can bring in people still in stasis from the rest of the fleet."
After several days of organisation and personnel transfers Alpha fleet began to head out toward their respective destinations. The Admiral aboard Horatio would accompany the Refinery fleet as they headed into what the Imperium called Segmentum Tempestus. The remainder of the fleet set off toward a group of known Ork worlds on the border between Segmentum Pacificus and Segmentum Solar.
Some of the ships would be remaining with this group only until spies had been trained in the ways of Imperial culture by Brother Atar. Once that was complete they would attempt to land the spies on as many human worlds as possible.
Parek watched through the forward viewports as the warp swirled past them. It would only be a few days to their destination if the Warp currents remained steady.
Commander Addison walked up with a data slate in hand. "Sir, I was talking to the Doctor and he mentioned that Brother Atar has very little knowledge about the area we're heading into."
"We'll perform a full scan through of the area Commander. If there's such a thing as a weakly held Ork world we'll find it."
Thirty five ships came out of the Warp some fifty light years inside of the Segmentum Pacificus. The Alpha fleet ships formed up around the two largest ships in the group, the transport Megara
and an eight hundred meter long light carrier. Sinite moved to the head of the formation.
"Sir we have Ork contacts in the surrounding dozen systems." reported sensors.
"How many of them have habitable worlds?" asked Parek.
"Only two of them sir, the others are outside the range of human habitation."
"Are we close enough for rough population readings?"
"Not yet sir, warp probes should be arriving within the next few minutes."
"That gives us some time... Commander?"
"Sir?" asked Addison.
"Start waking up any crew we have left in stasis. Send similar orders to the rest of the fleet."
Addison started looking somewhat nervous. "With the exception of those on the troop ship None of the crew remaining in stasis have training specific to any mission sir. What should I tell them?"
"Tell them to prepare for war."
"Warp probe telemetry coming in sir. We have two habitable range planets, one at point eight gravitational mass and the other at One point two. Both planets have multiple centers of Ork settlement."
Parek nodded. "We'll set course for the larger planet. If we end up mining it's mantle enough that it effects the gravity it'll only make the planet more habitable for us."
"The planet is Forwaethe Two in the old archives." Announced the sensor officer. "Distance Twelve point nine light years."
"Close enough for an IT jump." Mused the Captain. "Commander is our IT drive operational again?"
"Yes sir."
"Helm, transmit coordinates for a full fleet jump, just outside of the planetary gravity well."
"Aye sir!" The helmsman lifted a panel in the control console and flipped a switch re-enabling access to the drive. A safety precaution insisted upon by the ship's engineer after their jump out of the Sol system.
Commander Addison picked up an intercom voice receiver and held it up before him. "Bridge to all hands, prepare for IT jump. Begin shut down of all unprotected components. Brace for EMP and distortion effects."
Sinite popped back into reality in high orbit above Forwaethe Two, soon followed by the other ships in the fleet. Commander Addison lost his balance from the jump shock and grabbed a nearby hand hold to keep from falling. Parek shook his hands in an attempt to get the tingling sensation out and other crew members did much the same. Display screens came back online and within a minute all computers were back up, including Sinite's AI core. The old AI never complained about having to shut down for IT jumps, understanding their tactical use.
"No orbital's detected, or signs of mobilisation on the ground... I think."
"Could you clarify that Lieutenant?" asked the captain.
"There's too much movement groundside to be sure our arrival caused any changes."
Parek called up and began studying the tactical display screen, checking each of the Ork settlements.
"Weapons, lay out a bombardment scheme to hit each Ork settlement on the planet. I want the one on the southern continent glassed, we'll make landfall there. And send a message to Captain Dorst that I want that STC on the ground and setting up a base perimeter as soon as possible. We don't have any of the anti-Ork bio agents listed in the Archives so we'll have to manufacture them on planet."
Most of the cruisers in the fleet accelerated into lower orbit and charged weapons. As they passed over each Ork settlement they unleashed a barrage of plasma and beam weapon fire. Plasma weapons could boil their way through atmosphere until they struck the ground. Cutting beams with enough time could pierce rock down to the planetary mantle, causing molten rock to geyser up in places.
When striking at one settlement several ships fired negative disintegrators at the east side and positive disintegrators at the west. Where once had been solid ground a moment before was replaced by lightning bolt wider than any human ship in orbit. The forward viewport dimmed from the light of the explosion, momentarily outshining the system's star.
"Does anyone else think we might be doing a little too well at bombardment?" commented the Commander. "At this rate we won't even be able to test our groundside weapons."
"Continue bombardment as planned." Ordered Parek and soon the fleet was raining destruction down on the settlement on the southern continent.
When there was little left in the Southern Continent's interior regions Parek called for the fleet to cease fire. "Are we picking up any life signs?"
"Some in the northern hemisphere sir but none in the southern."
"Good. Launch fighter patrols and tell Megara to begin landing operations. Helm take us down into the atmosphere. Our frigates are replaceable, that transport ships isn't. If something is left to fire down there I'd rather it hits us."
Half of the fleet descended into the atmosphere following a spiral pattern with the landing site at the center. The rest of the fleet was sent back up into a medium orbit to assist the Light Carrier in blockade operations.
Megara descended at a quick pace and cleared the broken ground using her point defense weapons before landing. Heavy landing gear extended as anti grav engines slowly lowered the ship to the ground. The large main ramp hit the ground at the same moment the landing gear did and the two BaneStar's at the front of the bay shot out on anti grav engines. A steady stream of vehicles followed, moving away from the ship as quickly as they could. Last out of the bay were the APC's, each loaded up both with light troops and those wearing the heavier powered armour.
