Vessels of the Protectorate United Navies part 11: Grey Daggers among the stars
"How long until we reach Mollawak?"
"About five hours, my Lord!"
A wide grin spread across the face of Pardwen Grisof. While still sitting upon his command throne he drew his blade to inspect it, letting the reflections dance on the gleaming metal.
"Good! There is tribute to be collected!"
"HOI!"
The bridge crew shouted in unison to voice their agreement. They were the best men and women of their Lord's armada, their positions gained through merit and their loyalty assured through the increased share of the loot they earned. Many of them were hard-bitten survivors back from the earliest days of Grisof's career as a 'mercenary captain' flying under the banner of a rogue trader.
When that relationship had eventually turned out to be unprofitable, he and his crew decided that their fortunes were their own to choose. Hunting pirates and collecting protection tribute was a very lucrative business among the distant stars of the Damocles Gulf. Over the decades rival captains either met their demise, submitted to Grisof's authority or took their ships and left the region of space that the 'mercenary lord' had claimed for himself.
He had certainly heard of the Cainite heresy originating from Slawkenberg, but he had not yet made contact with the Protectorate. This was about to change.
-
Warp transitions are an unpleasant thing, something you can not truly get used to. In fact it can be a sign of corruption if exiting or entering the warp no longer causes a stress reaction in a human. Grisof's flagship, an Overlord class Battle cruiser named the Profitable Enterprise, was one of the first vessels to emerge from its portal. As the materium and immaterium collided with each other they produced blinding arcs of eldritch lightning along the hull. The discharges sent a shrieking noise through the ship, rattling the less experienced crew members. All around their flagship, the rest of the fleet followed swiftly, transitioning to realspace.
"My Lord, the fleet has successfully entered realspace. Shall we sent the signal to form up and-"
An alert cut the man off, the sensor officer called out.
"Unidentified contacts, bearing 3-4-0! Distance is beyond engagement range!"
"Give me the augur feed! On the big screen!"
"Yes my Lord!"
At first it was hard to tell if there were actually any ships to be seen, yet as the augur operators adjusted their sensors, several dark grey shapes began to stick out from the darkness of the void. Details became clearer, the shapes were in fact ships. They were clearly well armed, the amount of turret based weapons and lack of giant golden statues had Pradwen thinking that a chaos raider fleet had waited in ambush, a combination of light cruisers and cruisers.
Yet the hulls in their general shape looked very much like Imperial designs, many of them had the characteristic armoured prow.
"Pick one of the larger ships and give me a closer look!"
"Yes my Lord!"
There was no visible battle damage or patched up sections and the turret armaments clearly weren't salvaged guns in improvised mounts. Somebody had taken Imperial macro cannons and lances, joined them together in the triple and twin turret configurations often found on Chaos warships and then mounted them on Imperial hulls. And then they had removed the broadside weapons in favour of launch bays? Like an Imperial version of the Styx class heavy cruiser, yet undecorated and painted in a dull grey?
"What kind of warp-damned vessels are those? Who are they?"
"My Lord, I think we have spotted their flag!"
The augurs focused on the upper end of the prow. There, on a black background sat a silver four-pointed star at the centre of a multi-coloured ring of blue, red, purple and metal grey. To either side of the flag was another symbol, a fist holding up a broken chain, underlined by the words:
PNS Offered Hand
Mors Tyrannorum Poena Est
The vox officer spoke up.
"My Lord, we picked up an open broadcast! We are being hailed!"
"Answer the hail. We need to know who exactly we are dealing with."
"Unidentified fleet, you have entered the sovereign territory of the Cainite Protectorate. You will identify yourself and declare your reasons for coming to the Mollawak system."
Some of the bridge crew got nervous when they saw Pradwen's frown.
"This is Lord Pradwen Grisof speaking, I am the leader of the Wayward Fleet. I have been responsible for keeping this system and many others clean of pirates and I have arrived to collect the next payment for my services as it is written in the contract signed by Mollawak's governor, Mestok Sevan. I will take my fleet into the system and receive my due payment."
"This is Lord Commodore Zeitkahn of the Protectorate Navy's Patrol Force. You will do no such thing. The former governor Sevan has been relieved of his position and judged for the crimes he has committed against the citizens of Mollawak. The 'contract' you are speaking of was reviewed by a court of law and has been declared to be non-binding, for it is a farcical attempt of giving legitimacy to coercion and robbery at gunpoint. Nor are your services any longer required, the Protectorate ensures the safety of all its citizens. You have two options then, you can leave, empty handed but alive and with your fleet intact. Or, you can try your luck and attack. If you choose the latter, I will offer my prayers to your crew, regardless of what higher power they may believe in."
In his rage at being denied and against all (not so) common sense, Grisof chose violence.
-
The Protectorate ships needed only a few seconds to react as the mercenary fleet charged forward with raised shields and loaded weapons. Turning away as one until they had the enemy on their 4 o'clock, they accelerated to stay at a comfortable battle range as they targeted the fastest ships of the mercenary fleet and gave the enemy a hard time trying to get his broadside weapons on target. Both fleets launched their fighters and the disparity quickly became obvious, at first in quantity as they formed up to meet each other and then in quality as the Cain Wings tore through their opponents with relatively minor losses using their missiles and laser cannons. Holding their position between the two fleets they waited as the second wave of heavily loaded fighter bombers met up with them. A salvo of guided No.9 and No.5 torpedoes followed right behind them.
Furious and Courageous light cruisers pushed out from the main formation as the Protectorate forces led the mercenaries on a chase, taking up flanking positions to harass the enemy fleet from all angles with macros, lances and torpedoes.
-
The mercenaries' bombers had tried to use the opportunity of the great dog-fight to make bombing runs at the Protectorate's main formation. They were slaughtered by the fleet's combat interceptor patrols and the Investigator with its Vigil Laser arrays.
"They are encircling us!"
"Our escorts are getting slaughtered!"
Frigates and destroyers tried to respond to the Protectorate's light cruisers flanking their formation. They were torpedoed, bombed and blasted apart for their troubles as they exposed themselves and focused fire quickly disabled or outright destroyed them.
"Torpedo alert! The weapons are tracking us!"
"We have lost our fighter cover! Enemy bombers are approaching!"
Both interceptor and fighter bomber Cain Wings were running amok amidst the mercenary fleet while scores of guided torpedoes disrupted their formation. The No.9 high yield plasma warheads carved deep gouges out of their prey, while No.5 E-WAR weapons disabled enemy ship systems, readily contributing to the panic and disarray.
"Rudder to port, all ahead! The cruiser before us is going to explode!"
"They hit our reactor, we-"
It was carnage.
-
"Impossible…"
Grisof was in shock. His fleet had been mauled, flagship was disabled and now he watched as several all-black painted assault boats docked on the Profitable Enterprise and disgorged their troops onboard. Teams of power armoured soldiers were swiftly working their way through the endless corridors, easily overcoming all resistance offered by the crew. One reason for that was the very liberal use of grenades of all types. As he tracked the soldiers clad in red making their way towards the bridge there was a thought on his mind.
Decades had led up to this moment. Decades of growing his influence, accumulating wealth and power. And just like this, it was all gone.
He could hear the melta charges burning through the armoured bulkhead as he drew his sword.
-
What do you think? Suitably scary? I listened to the OST of War on the Sea during writing.