Chapter 11
Declaration of War
Through weeks of scouting the Yuuzhan Vong had decoded many locations and thoroughly searched this sector of space, so far they found several major threats within this area of space, the Tau Empire, the Imperium of Man, several Eldar Craftworlds, a half dozen Ork empires, and Tyranid Hive-Fleets thankfully none of these threats were near Tricksters Blessing.
Supreme Commander Hurkk watched as the mesmerising display of millions of fireflies swarmed in the centre of his command chamber, converging together to create a perfectly detailed map of the Tau Empire, the scouting vessels had done well, the information they had required on the positions was as usual very accurate.
The Supreme Commander scowled when he saw the mapping of the empire, it was mainly a large group of densely packed star systems, a large scale invasion would probably be repelled because of the short distance of space between the neighbouring systems, their fleets could probably get to the attacked area very quickly, even without faster-than-light travel.
Thousands of spare fireflies converged showing the ship movements from merchants to warships, there was an invasion taking place in the southern quadrant of the Empire, yellow fireflies indicated the Imperium of Man had launched another crusade fleet. He watched as the neighbouring Tau fleets, coloured blue began to converge to the location and was impressed by how coordinated they were.
"A full invasion won't work" Hurkk finally said.
"Agreed" Supreme Commander Carr said with a nod "The continual failures of the human Imperium and the Tyranid swarms have proved that such an invasion would be too costly and fruitless"
"We also do not have the ships to mount such an invasion yet" Hurkk said flatly "Supreme Commanders Shai, Orrai and Yim report that they will be ready to proceed through the wormhole in a few weeks with the last of our forces…two thousand warships, transports and worldships"
"Good" Carr replied "For the time being we should start staging raids and surgical strikes in these points" he pointed to the western quadrant which the fireflies separated and reformed zooming into the area, the Supreme Commander pointed to several outlying star systems "Here and here, we will draw their fleets to these positions, make it look like an invasion will be staged and then hit them in a weakened spot"
"I will lead the first strike personally" Hurkk hissed as he pointed to one of the indicated positions, a small colony world that's defence fleet was weakened to deal with the latest Imperium assault.
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Commander Shas'O Juliss scanned the flood of battle reports from the southern quadrant, the Imperium crusade had just meet the first defensive line of the Tau air-caste and was taking heavy casualties but thankfully holding their ground, the more time they bought the more ships could reinforce their positions.
The Commander sighed tiredly as he read the reports, over half of his fleet was moved to the southern quadrant to help in the defence leaving him with a taskforce made of his flagship, an Explorer-class Starship named the Great Truth with an escort of three Merchant-class Cruisers and twenty Defender-class Escorts, the planet they were tasked to defend was also defended by a massive space station and a dozen weapon platforms all bristling with weapons, formidable…but not enough to stop a major attack.
His head comm. Beeped and with a sigh he answered it "Yes?"
"Commander we have a fleet of ships jumping into our system"
The commander felt a chill run down his spine "Imperium?"
"Unidentified sir, the vessels are registering as alive to our sensors but don't match any Tyranid signatures"
The commander rose from his chair and rushed through the doors from his quarters towards the bridge, when he entered he saw that his crew were at their stations moving his force into defensive positions and warning the orbital defences "What have you got?"
"Two hundred vessels of unknown design have just jumped into the system, closer than what should be possible with warp travel"
"Open a channel" Juliss ordered briskly as he sat down on his command chair "Attention unidentified vessels you are approaching a planet under the protection of the Tau Empire, in the name of the Greater Good you will slow down and, identify yourselves!"
There was no answer, if anything the unknown group of warships increased speed coming in faster and faster.
"I repeat, you are approaching a Tau protected planet, if you will not slow you will be fired upon"
Fifty of the ships vanished in a bright flash and half a second later they reappeared right in front of Juliss' taskforce, a few seconds passed before they opened fire, thousands of plasma streams smashed into the shields of his ships causing the area around his Explorer-class to flash green as the super hot plasma collided with the shields.
"Return fire, return fire!!!" the Commander shouted over the near deafening thuds of plasma against shielding and hull armour. One of the Defenders was blasted in half by the opening barrage throwing debris in every direction.
The weapon batteries of the defence platforms refrained from firing because of how close the enemy ships were to their own and there was a great chance that their weapons could hit they're own ships as well as the enemies.
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Supreme Commander Hurkk grinned viciously as his advanced guard micro-jumped through darkspace and reappeared right in front of the main cluster of Tau vessels, catching them by surprise and blasting them with their plasma cannons and magma launchers, another of their escorts was blown apart and the orbital defences, as predicted were holding their fire for fear of hitting their own.
The micro-jump had been first used by the Yuuzhan Vong during the opening battles of what was know known as the Yuuzhan Vong Wars with great effect against the New Republic and her allies, although they learned how to copy the manoeuvre it had served them well.
"Another micro-jump" he ordered "The entire fleet, just outside of the planets gravity well"
The other hundred and fifty warships flashed out of existence and reappeared a few moments later among the defence platforms and opened fire the second they were able but the platforms were faster, the Yuuzhan Vong warships were known to be completely vulnerable for a few moments after a darkspace jump. Long lances of plasma darted from the cannons of the platforms and blasted into the unprotected armour of the closest ships, two Cruisers and five escorts were vaporised before his fleet could return fire but when they did they blasted half of the orbital defence platforms, turning them into blooms of fire and metal, the few remaining platforms continued firing taking out another Cruiser and three escorts before they were finally all destroyed.
With the platforms gone the fleet turned their attention to the towering space station which was firing continuously with its dozens of weapon batteries and missile launchers catching the lead escort and tearing it apart, the Yuuzhan Vong converged all of their fire on the space station and after a few minutes turned it into burning wreckage.
Hurkk could only smile as the space station started to drift away from them and gave an order to his main communicator "Let's finish the space forces, cripple their flagship and send in warriors to collect slaves for sacrifices, have ten ships bombard the capital cities of the planet, leave nothing but craters"
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Shas'O Juliss managed a tight smile as the Cruiser sized ship he was duelling started to drift away, leaving a trail of wreckage behind it; the rest of the battle was lost. His fleet was gone, nothing but burning husks remained of his taskforce.
A massive explosion rocked the entire superstructure of the Great Truth sending Juliss and several of his crew falling to the decking.
"What happened!?" Juliss shouted as he picked himself up from the deck.
"We have lost our engines sir, we've been crippled…the lead ship is launching…" the ensign went silent, watching what was approaching the Explorer-class in shocked silence.
"What?" the Commander said.
The ensign didn't answer, instead he put the images of them up on the main screen, the entire crew watched the small vessels that approached, they looked like globs of flesh with gaping maws that smashed into the hull of the Starship and ate their way into the hull of the vessel.
"We have hull breaches in decks three, four, six and nine" another ensign, an insectoid Vespid informed "We've been boarded"
"Dispatch Fire Teams to those locations" the Commander ordered "Prepare to repel boarders"
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Fire Warrior Kiess checked his plasma rifle before following his commanding officer through the well lit corridors of the Great Truth, he didn't know who these people were but he was not nervous, he had fought the Tyranids and the fanatical Imperium and thinks he could handle a force that he has never heard of.
His fellow fire warrior, Jamar rounded a corridor and was hit by a flurry of the enemies projectile weapons, Kiess growled, he had known Jamar for nearly four years and rounding the corridor with two of his fellow warriors. What he saw almost terrified him.
Humanoid creatures that stood nearly two metres tall, their exposed skin were covered with nasty scars and tattoos, they wore heavy armour with spike like protrusions sticking out of the back and they held intimidating staffs in their clawed hands.
Kiess shouldered his plasma rifle and fired downing the first charging warrior but the second jumped over his dead comrade and impaled the fire warrior with the long blade of his staff, as the Tau soldier looked down at the staff he saw a pair of beady black eyes starring up mercilessly at him, to his shock the eyes blinked and the dragon like mouth opened hissing at him before the darkness finally took him.
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Commander Juliss prepped his rifle before aiming it at the closed doors, the nightmarish creatures had taken the entire ship except for the bridge and at this rate they'll soon have that.
He heard the sounds of plasma fire from the fire warrior teams outside of the bridge, followed by blood curdling screams and then after a few minutes there was only silence, then the doors exploded, the few crew members closest to the door were impaled by flying shrapnel before the nightmarish monsters charged through the molten wreckage of the door, screaming deadly war cries.
The bridge crew fired their weapons downing a half dozen of the warriors before they were on them, using their living weapons to hack of limps and heads.
The Tau Commander fired his rifle hitting another warrior straight in the face before another one swept in and swung his staff, severing the Commanders left leg sending him tumbling to the ground, the pain was almost unbearable but before he blacked out he looked up at one of the nightmarish faces of the creatures that had attacked his people and slaughtered thousands of innocents.
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Hurkk looked down at the landscape of the planet, where the cities once stood was know smoking craters and rubble, the warriors had successfully returned from their battle, he smiled before one of his warriors called out.
"A large force is entering the system my lord, big enough to be a threat to us"
The Supreme Commander nodded before turning to the captain "Recall all warriors and prisoners, lets get out of here"
What ya think? In the next chapter we go back to Halos fleet as Gabriel begins Alana's training, also a new hybrid weapon is about to be revealed, I need ideas and reviews!!...The Emperor protects.