Most of the mop up actions to clear the remaining Orks from the ships were considerably less spectacular than the clash between Atar and the MegaNob. It was still a messy bloody business.
The crews from some of the ships lost in the battle had managed to teleport to safety, either to the surface or other ships. The one struck by nova cannon fire unfortunately had been lost with all hands.
Surviving Orks ships were landing on the planet and while few had made their way towards the human stronghold it was only a matter of time until they massed to attack it.
Captain Dorst had some ideas for the ground situation.
"They're called the Castigator-class autonomous bipedal weapons platform. Atar called them Titans. We don't have much information on them, either those built by Humanity before the fall or their current designs. The Castigator in our database isn't in the original STC. Its pattern was reconstructed based on what the first generation of colonists could remember about them. Mostly the Admiral. That means we don't have any of their original weapons."
"Then how is this going to help us?" asked Addison.
"We'll fit it with the modified disintegrators we use for mining. It can strip raw materials from any surface, including enemies, and use it for construction. My team is also looking at a similarly equipped eight limbed vehicle with beams in each leg. It looks a bit like a spider. I wouldn't recommend it for combat. The Castigator on the other hand will have plenty of room for weaponry on it's carapace mounts and can construct its own ammunition in the field."
"Build them." ordered Serth. "And get set to mass produce them once we've worked out the bugs in the designs. The next pressing issue is to send the data from this battle to the rest of the fleet and stress that we'll need stronger ships than we currently have. Our casualties this time were terrible and these were just Orks. We should ask Atar if he's seen any fleet engagements and to compare our performance to that of the Imperium. They've been fighting them for thousands of years, we may learn something."
"I've already thought of something you could learn from this."
A nurse pushed a medical support chair with the wounded Marine through the doors to the briefing room. While still not fully recovered he was certainly wide awake.
"You've defeated an Ork fleet that might have cost the Imperium the loss of a cruiser and perhaps six sword class Frigates to accomplish. IF and only if everything had gone well that is. This is a great victory and you lot treat it like the deaths of five hundred of your comrades are so much worse than the loss of a quarter million."
Lavidian leaned back as best as he could and gestured to everyone present.
"Don't you people understand yet? If you can't take a bloody nose maybe you ought to go back where you came from and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here.
The time for searching out wonders of the void, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, has long since passed.
This is not a world for the timid."
The others largely frowned in response, many looking among themselves then to Parek Serth who replied.
"We don't have access to the Imperium's unlimited manpower. Not yet. Until then we will try to learn as much as we can to limit future losses.
As you've pointed out our ships took much less losses than an imperial force would have. The current frigates will act as our fast response vessels. Now we need heavier warship that can survive a straight up fight."
The engineers suggest building a few based on ship classes from the Imperium as a trial run. Cobra class Destroyers and a Battle Barge or two. All heavily upgraded of course.
"Let's hope the engineering team with the rest of the fleet have as much success setting up their manufacturing world."
The Engineers.
Captain Jeza Dyer had spent more than two weeks arguing with Admiral Saacronal about the importance of setting up manufacturing centers. STC tech or not it was going to take time for their factories to ramp up, time they may not have if the Tyranid were as deadly as the reports seemed to indicate.
They'd all seen the sort of devastation that could be wrought by them. A galaxy stripped of life that their forefathers, those from the Admiral's generation, had striven to colonise.
"The Eldar could still take months to locate."
The old admiral had tried to stress that they didn't know what sort of weapons, ships and vehicles would be needed yet. That didn't matter, Dyer wanted to build generic STC manufactories that could be quickly reconfigured once finished. They already knew the size of the largest ships the Imperium of Man could maintain and could set up the basic dockpits that would later be filled.
After fruitless searching for Eldar trade ships or even scouts the Admiral relented. The fleet changed course, heading into a section of space that had been stripped clean by the passage of the most recent hive fleet attack. Within a few short hours void augurs located a suitable world and the fleet's engineering detachment was split off.
"The Imperium may still keep watch over these worlds, be on your guard captain. Be prepared to defend yourself at all times and maintain quarantine if conducting manned surface landings. We know they leave spores and other surprises behind on occasion, no reason for your fleet to be wiped out by an infection."
"Aye sir."
The fleet's engineering ship settled into orbit and the teams began to plan out how best to proceed. They'd selected a higher gravity world, one that had probably been colonised by specially adapted strains of humanity thousands of years before the fall.
"By the time we strip what's needed for a few fleets and rebuild the atmosphere it should be a bit closer to what normal humans can live on." Most seemed to agree on that point.
Mass swarming the planet with nanites seemed the best answer but they would need to be mass produced first. There was also the worry of a few paranoids that the shipyards might be lost if the nanites went out of control. This was a hostile galaxy. Looking at the tasks ahead orbital infrastructure was starting to seem like the best solution. Compartmentalized.
Stage 1. They needed material for the Standard Template Constructors aboard the ships. The existing materials reserves would do for now and energy reserves would last a few more months even at full production.
Small unmanned drilling platforms were deployed to the surface of the dead world by cargo shuttle. Each one would drill down into the mantle then extract materials in as close to their base state as possible. Magma worked well enough for that, and the STC's could sap the heat energy to charge the batteries if necessary.
The materials would be teleported to the way stations being set up in orbit and then to manufacturing.
Within a few days the mining platforms were up and enough matter was reaching orbit for stage 2 to begin.
Stage 2. Nanites were being mass produced and loaded into sealed cargo crates. As a security precaution they wouldn't be able to activate until the crates broke open. The cargo shuttles were being loaded with hundreds of such crates. When they began flights a line of shuttles was present at any given time flying a pattern above the surface, dropping crates the whole time.
It was all carefully calculated with the help of the AI's to cover the surface of the planet within... well it was going to take some time no doubt. Planets were big.
As enough material became available the drilling platforms were fitted with special shields that should protect them should the nanite usage inadvertently result in a grey goo scenario. They were going to be aiming for somewhat similar numbers of nanites after all.
Once enough of the surface was covered nanite production by the orbital installations would be reduced and shifted towards the shipyards. Setting up the yards, attached production and materials storage was going to be Stage 3.
They would build a few ships during stage 3, mostly for defense or testing.
Stage 4 wouldn't start until the nanite coverage of the planet had reached a suitable level. Nearly the entire crust of the plant would be rapidly mined and put to use. Maybe more of the mantle as well. There was still some debate over using teleporters or good old fashioned mass drivers to put the material into orbit, or to mass produce the demanded vehicles and equipment on the ground then transport them.
That decision was still a year or more away at best and there was the possibility that they could be delayed by having to send resources to start up other production sites.
Stage 5 was what everyone dreamed of. Something that had only been done a few times before the Return fleets set out. Using the nanites to completely Terraform the planet, rebuild the atmosphere, and seed it with life.
Things rarely went as planned with projects like the proposed stage 5. It still gave the crews hope of something to work towards.
"These Tyranids think they can do exponential growth better than us? They haven't seen anything yet."
"Possible sensor contact. It may be an Eldar ship sir."
Admiral Thorin Saacronal snapped upright at the report.
"At last."
He took a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief knowing that the difficult prospect of simply locating the Eldar may be nearing its end. He was getting to old for this. Really. If it had looked like the search was going to take much longer he was considering spending a month in medical stasis.
"Hail them on the pre-established contact frequency using the recorded message."
It didn't take long for the message to reach them or to see their response.
"The Eldar ship has disappeared. It may have gone to warp."
"Damn. Did they cloak?" Eldar holographic technology was known to be quite advanced. Enough to make targeting difficult in a battle situation, or possibly even hide them from view entirely.
"We're not seeing traces consistent with an invisible ship in the area."
"Move the fleet to an intercept point ahead of their last known course assuming they're moving as seventy to ninety percent of light speed."
The fleet spread out and quickly engaged a short warp jump, barely lasting long enough as to be counted as such.
"Begin scans for tachyon emissions."
"Contact. We can't establish visual but we're detecting emissions similar to Eldar light sails."
"Hail them. Let them know we can detect them but mean no harm. We need to speak to one of their Farseers."
It took another minute but the Eldar starship eventually responded to the hails.
"Identify yourselves Human. These communications protocols haven't been used since before the founding of your Imperium. Few even among the Inquisition would use them."
Having finally established communications Saacronal was quick to explain the situation they found themselves in. He'd been rehearsing how to quickly get their point across for weeks with the help of several senior officers.
The Eldar identified themselves as belonging to one of the larger groups that survived the destruction of their homeworlds. A Craftworld by the name of Biel-Tan.
"They're a highly militant Craftworld. Probably the most powerful in the galaxy according to our reports."
"Perfect." Saacronal whispered under is breath.
It was going to take several days to reach a webway gate or access point from which the ship could communicate with their craftworld, but this would ultimately save everyone months of travel time. One way or another the old Admiral knew, they would forge an alliance or at least a means of bartering information and assistance.
"Status of the surface?"
"Orbital bombardments are damaging Ork forces and manufacturing sites but they keep building more shields in response."
"Can we use a heavier bombardment?"
"Not without hurting the planet's habitability for years or decades."
"Start getting weapons in place to cover that eventuality. Ones that could wipe out all life on the planet if needed."
"We're building a pair of Cyclonic Torpedoes in the secure weapons construction facility."
The new sensors and intel officer who had replace the bridge crewman killed in the boarding spoke up to get the Captain's attention.
"Sir, it looks like some of the new Ork arrivals are mercenaries. A few have tried to contact units offering their services in return for pay in teeth or gear."
Or in their case Teef, Loot and Dakka.
"What do we know about the Warboss?"
Sinite was quick to respond. "We know the Warboss survived and is rebuilding."
"One of our people talked with the Orks or grots long enough to learn that their Warboss is from a Blood Axes Clan and used to be a mercenary himself."
"We might be able to use that."
Parek drew up a quick sketch of a vehicle modification. A children's scribble really but it got the point across.
"I want one of these made when we can spare production."
"Sir?"
"Just send it."
The first Titan walked out of the bay and into the increasingly scorched jungle of the South Island.
Strip-mining was destroying large areas of the local jungle ecosystem but to be fair much of it had been replaced by the invasive Orkoid plant life over the years of its occupation.
Testing the mining and construction systems on the Titan was the highest priority. The behemoth strode north out of the base compound and its weapons sprung to life, atomizing the ground ahead of it and drawing it into particle collectors.
Once it was far enough from the base the crew carried out a test firing of the carapace mounted weapons.
Rather than equipping turbolasers as was standard with many of the Imperium's war machines they had been fitted with artillery. STC fabricators on board could build any shell type they needed, with a few minor exceptions like vortex warheads.
For those unfamiliar with Titans it might have been easy to mistake the newly built Castigator for a Warlord. The four quake cannons mounted in their two turrets could be easily mistaken for Turbo-Laser Destructors from range when pointed forwards.
The recoil of the weapons was so great that even a Titan equipped with archeotech needed to lean forward before firing to help dampen the blow.
Engineers scrambled to find ways to improve the efficiency of such a system before the second Titan could be completed. Ultimately there were enough delays that a second Titan was deployed with only a few additional upgrades, and production momentarily switched over to producing a spider walker.
Elgar Dorst was ecstatic. The additional mining and construction output from the enormous walkers was rapidly speeding up the starship construction projects.
"We might actually have a solid defense ready when the Orks reach the peninsula!"
Now if only the other engineers would stop arguing over classical versus Imperium equipment naming conventions they could get some real work done this month.
