Saeva Abyssi Chapter 6

Under the jade light of Astu a battle raged between swarming darts of glossy killers and a single lumbering brute, all alone in the night. The bright flares of Phantom lances whipped out over and over, while contrails of missiles, flashes of Las and the dark silhouettes of shells spat back in return. The Thunderchild had size and firepower on its side, in theory a solid hit from its guns should shatter any Dark Eldar craft, but actually hitting any of them was proving difficult.

On the Thunderchild's bridge all was noise and bedlam, men shouting and yelling orders back and forth while alarms blared and Servitors chattered mindlessly to themselves. Standing upon the command dais Captain Toran was trying to claw back some order from this madness, to find some way, any way to fight back. He held onto the rail as the ship shook beneath him and he called, "Status report!"

From the engineerium station Bylan called, "+Shields are collapsing sir, every time we restore one zone the enemy knocks down another+"

Toran ordered, "Do whatever you have to keep them up, we don't have the kind of armour to take a pounding without them."

Toran then looked over at the gunnery pews and shouted, "Gunners, by the Throne why aren't we hitting anything?!"

Jediah looked up and called, "We're firing everything but the enemy are disrupting our targeting auspexs, we can't get a solid lock."

From the Sensorium Persion shouted, "They're using some form of holographic camouflage, its baffling our Machine Spirits!"

Toran looked up at the Hololith and indeed saw harsh squalls of static obscuring everything. Icons appeared at random and then disappeared; making it hard to even know how many foes they were fighting. At times it seemed to be only a handful, at other times scores of false images appeared all around them. Toran reminded himself of the brief moment the enemy had been exposed and he had seen three slim cruisers and four escorts. He had to believe that was the sum total of the force attacking them, the alternative was to lash out at shadows.

Toran declared, "We can't fight them like this, they will pick us apart one piece at a time. We need to focus our guns on one enemy, find me a target!"

Persion bent over a console and shouted, "Port-side high, I think there's one of the bigger ones lurking up there."

Toran called back, "You think?!"

Persion replied, "That's the best I can give you."

"I'll take it," growled Toran gritting his teeth, "Furion roll us hard to starboard. Jediah hold the port side guns until I give the order, set for a wide-dispersion spread, I want that whole area saturated."

The crew hastened to make his order a reality and the ship lurched as the gravity generators fought to compensate for the sudden manoeuvre. Long seconds passed as the Thunderchild rolled over and the planet Astu circled in the Hololith, then they were in alignment and Toran yelled, "Fire!" A wave of eruptions sprang into being, wreathing the whole side of the ship in incandescent plumes. Stacked tiers of weapon batteries unleashed their power, hurling a devastating broadside into space in one massive barrage. The wave of destruction flew straight into space, crisscrossing a small area and turning it into a kill box. Las, plasma, shells and missiles inundated the region, filling it with deadly power and ensuring that nothing could escape without damage. Toran watched this play out in the Hololith and then called, "Did we hit anything?"

"Stand-by," called Persion peering at his readings then he declared, "Detecting debris, we definitely hit something. The distortion is moving away but much slower than before, I think we crippled it."

"Ha!" roared Chaplain Wrethan from among the frantic crew, "That will teach the Xeno scum not to build their ships out of glass!"

Toran was about to respond but then there was a commotion at the bridge hatch and he glanced back to see a red-robed figure floating past the protesting guards. It was Magos Castabore and she was shouting, "Captain, I demand to know what is going on!"

Toran barked, "Magos, we have no time for this, we are under attack!"

Castabore sounded outraged as she called, "That is unacceptable, this ship hasn't even finished its shakedown."

"Don't tell me," Toran shouted, "Tell that to the Eldar!"

Suddenly there was a shout as Persion cried, "New contacts, we have new contacts, sharp and clear. The enemy is launching Strike Craft!"

Toran yelled, "Do we have Thunderhawks yet?!"

Novak called back, "Not a chance, the whole launch bay is clogged with debris!"

That pronouncement sent stirs of panic throughout the serfs and even the Space Marines recognised the immense danger they were in. With no strike craft of their own, the ship was helpless; their turrets would never stop a whole strike wing of bombers. Toran was lost for words as his mind spun through possible responses, creating and discarding strategies at Transhuman speeds. From the helm Furion called, "We could divert all power to the drives, run in a straight line and attempt to break away."

Wrethan growled, "Outrun the Eldar in space, you must be joking."

Castabore interjected, "Actually these emissions do not match standard Eldar patterns, I believe we are dealing with the piratical breed known colloquially as Dark Eldar."

"Magos," growled Wrethan, "Either shut up or get off the bridge."

Suddenly Toran hit upon a desperate idea and he shouted, "Helm swing us hard to port, point us straight at them. Ordnance, ready a spread of Torpedoes."

The crew responded but Novak called from the Ordnance pulpit, "Sir, Torpedoes won't stop bombers."

"Trust me," called Toran, "Link fire control for remote detonation and wait for my word to launch."

Ponderously the Thunderchild swung over, pushing itself hard to bring its prow around to face the incoming strike craft. Lights flickered and servitors wailed as Bylan called, "+Captain, reactors are pushed to the limit. We have power fluctuations across the ship and shields are weakening+"

Toran was firm and relentless as he ordered, "Steady men, steady. It's time to see what this ship can really do."

Slowly the great prow came about and the seconds dragged by, and then the ship was finally in alignment and Toran ordered, "Launch torpedoes."

The Thunderchild shuddered as six colossal cylinders spat from her bow, racing forth on contrails of plasma wash. They tore through the void at terrific speed, while the incoming Strike Craft bore down upon them. Their relative velocities were staggering and it was mere moments until they closed the distance, flying into each other's formations. Toran watched them cross and then he yelled, "Detonate the warheads on my mark…. MARK!"

Six brilliant balls of fire were birthed in the void, huge eruptions of light and radiation springing into being, right at the heart of the dark winged bomber formation. The torpedoes were ship-killers, designed to burn through metres thick armour rather than spread devastation across a wide area, but they were terrifyingly powerful nonetheless. None of the tiny Strike Craft were actually destroyed but the sheer power of the blasts erupted in front of the crews, searing incandescent light into their eyes. The bomber crews panicked, thinking that they were in genuine danger and they pulled away in all directions, scattering their formation to the nine vectors. On the Thunderchild's bridge the crew erupted into cheers and jubilant celebration as the Space Marines rattled their fists upon their chestplates and Bylan cried, "+He did it, he did it! The Captain scared them out of the void!+"

Toran however was already issuing new orders, "Helm bring us to course 115 by 034 maximum acceleration."

Furion called, "Sir that will take us perilously close to the gas giant."

Toran replied, "It can't be helped, we must break out of this kill box."

The Thunderchild rumbled as the drives built-in power and the great ship surged forward on a comet tail of plasma. She dove closer to Astu, using the gravity well to increase her velocity and accelerated just over the curve of the atmosphere. She had the tiniest window of opportunity to escape, to rush out in one direction before the trap closed once more. It was her one hope of surviving this day, yet unfortunately the Dark Eldar knew that too. Even as Toran watched the shimmering distortions in the Hololith closed in, signalling that the hunters were right on their tails. Toran gritted his teeth and called, "I need better tactical information, Magos Castabore, can you clear up the Sensorium?"

Castabore floated over to the station and replied, "There may be some esoteric equations I could utilise, but the Fabricator General has decreed these are for the exclusive use of the Mechanicus' Basilikon Astra."

Persion practically yelled at her, "We won't tell him if you don't!"

Castabore went to work on the Sensorium and after a moment the feed cleared somewhat, the image was still hazy and jumping but Toran could just about make out their foes. Right behind them were four escort frigates, closing hard and nipping at their tail. Meanwhile ahead of them dashed three Cruisers, running out in front to cut off any possible route of escape. If the Thunderchild kept on going she would run straight into them but if she slowed or turned the escorts would catch her exposed rear.

The Thunderchild was caught between two fires, unable to run and unable to stop. Yet the worst threat was the bombers, which were reforming their ranks for another run. No matter where the Thunderchild went they would find her and tear her apart. Toran ran vectors in his head and saw that they were trapped, every avenue of escape was closed to them: except for one. Before he could reconsider Toran called, "Helm, lower the bow until we touch the atmosphere, we can try to skip off it and increase speed."

"This again?" Furion replied, "Captain these aren't Orks, these are Dark Eldar, it may not work this time."

Toran called, "We have to try."

Slowly the Thunderchild lowered its prow and it sank lower and lower until its hull grazed the atmosphere. Her shields flared in protest as they absorbed the terrific heat of re-entry but even then the hull began to glow cherry red from the inferno broiling all around. The Thunderchild became a shooting star, trailing a path of smoke and fire in her wake as she tore across the surface of Astu in a desperate bid to escape. Toran was holding onto the juddering rail as the bridge convulsed around him. Serfs cried out terror while servitors wailed as feedback ripped into their systems and the whole ship screeched from the friction. Terrible rocking motions buffeted the Thunderchild from side to side, throwing men off their feet and even the Space Marines had to hold on to stand upright.

Toran called, "Persion, can you see the enemy?"

Persion reported, "It would be hard to miss them, they're leaving a re-entry trail a blind man could follow. They're right on our arse Captain, matching our manoeuvre perfectly. Better in fact, they almost seem to be designed for this sort of thing."

Toran snarled, "Damnation, we won't shake them this way."

From the Engineerium Bylan reported, "+Captain, we can't take much more of this, the stress rivals Warp-Storm ferocity. We are actually experiencing pressure on the hull+"

"Pressure," breathed Toran as a mad, crazy idea hit him and he called, "Castabore, how much pressure can our hull take?"

Castabore bobbed up and replied, "I have no available data, we never even considered simulating it."

Toran growled, "It has to be more than the Xeno's glass-hulls can take, if we go deep enough into the gas giant they will have to break off pursuit or be crushed."

Silence fell as the insane proposal shocked everybody dumb, and they stared in disbelief. A sea of wide eyes met Toran until Furion coughed and said, "Captain, if we go any deeper I am not sure the engines can produce enough thrust to arrest our fall, let alone claw us back up again. We could be the ones crushed."

Toran's face was grim as he declared, "If we do nothing we die anyway, this way we have a chance."

It was a completely mad idea but before anybody else could protest Persion cried, "Warp Hells, they're closing, weapons range in ten seconds!"

"That's it we're out of options, take us down," Toran declared, "Dive, dive, dive!"