40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 33: Serpent

I open the system map and examine all the potential weak points among the Chaos warbands and fleets.

Then I begin simply marking them for the Canticle, by priority and difficulty. Isolated units with no capital ships, minor fleets with a cruiser or two, isolated battleships...and then a few bigger problems.

On the ground, there was a whole other mess, because psykers and demons made augury scans very unreliable. But again, I try to do the same, marking down isolated bands and separated traitor regiments, then armor groups and bigger demon engines converted from heavy tanks, Knights or Titans.

"Estaban, this is Pef Lancefire. I'm in position to help. Permission to do so?" I sent via the Vox channel provided for the Canticle.

"Praise the Omnissiah! Please, Lord Lancefire do anything to stop these traitors and heretics!" a familiar voice replied after a minute. The Fabricator himself.

Things must be really bad down there.

Well, this was going to hurt.

"Lancefire ships, form up in pattern Delta, I will relay vectors for group deployment." I command out loud on the clan's vox channel, while the implant burns at full power to keep up with a myriad of orders and direction shifts.

Like a school of fish, the corvettes assemble into a triangular formation with the Canticle in the front, while the Litany is sent in close orbit with Estaban with different orders, like orbital support and landing our armor and gunships.

The destroyers escort the corvette's shuttles filled with weapons for the PDF regiments, and they keep doing this for a week. Quite a few weapons to deliver, for a quarter million soldiers.

My fleet is very fast now, because corvettes have a small mass and are easy to accelerate, and the Overlord is fast by design.

I aim the fleet to intersect a lone Chaos battleship, and just wait for the fools to react.

A few different destroyers and frigates speed up to intercept, and even a cruiser with its own escort feels brave. An hour later, the Chaos finds out why the Overlord-class is so wanted by nearly every Captain.

Our torpedo salvo minces the fragile cruiser and a frigate, while the corvettes main batteries focus fire and obliterate a dozen destroyers with impunity. About 30 corvettes get damaged or they void shields fail, and thus I replace them with the second wave behind.

Then I turn the fleet away and send a wing of fighters toward that huge Chaos battleship, which had turned to receive my fleet with a full broadside.

But I never intended to massacre my own ships. Teresa, my other Blank pilot, is speeding towards the battleship, among 30 other space fighters. The enemy launches its own demon fighters for cover, but it won't help.

As the fighters begin to duel and unleash hunter-killer missiles, Teresa fires her own payload, and runs away like she was trained.

A minute later, the warp rift hits the battleship straight above the reactor, and shields, armor or psyker sigils are powerless to stop a micron-wide tear through the fabric of reality. The containment is ruptured and the reactor explodes in a huge ball of plasma, blood and corrupted flesh.

Of course, this Battleship is a dozen kilometers long and very sturdy, so it doesn't break up into pieces or something, not from a tiny warp vortex.

A section about one kilometer long is gone and flames engulf the ship, but without a reactor, the battleship cannot change course or even slow down.

Farewell, on your long and slow voyage towards the edge of the galaxy and beyond! The Battleship is overrun with demons anyway, so it would be impossible to board and capture it.

A counter ticks down on the Canticle's Machine Spirit. 98 vortex missiles remaining, 7 vortex torpedoes, 6 incinerator torpedoes, 1 cyclonic torpedo.

I turn and raise an eyebrow at my Rose, who smiles at me sweetly. "So you found my surprise. I didn't know if you'd return in time, so I had to make sure the enemy will not win."

"Teleport attempt detected. Failsafe engaged, teleport diverted into our plasma wake." the tech-priest on the bridge reports in a smug voice.

I glance up at the holoscreen to see a dozen things with spiked power armors melt into the fiery exhaust of our plasma engines.

That was a nice trick, Ryza priest! Perhaps they were useful after all.

"Good job, Magos. Do update all my clan' ships with this protocol." I tell him with a wide grin. My Astartes escorts seem a bit deflated because they didn't get to fight anything.

The Magos wrings a few tentacles in concern. "Such procedure needs a thousand hours of machine canticles, holy ointments and recitations, Captain. It cannot be done over vox transmissions."

I frown a little, but such is the way of the Mechanicus. Slow, tedious work and too many prayers.

"The Litany as fast as possible and then the destroyers." I answer after a few seconds.

He nods and accepts my orders, which is a good start. Chaos boarders would ruin my ships even faster than lasers or torpedoes.

Then I turn back my full focus on the next target and the next.

The trick keeps working, and by the third day we have cleared a tenth of the Chaos ships by ourselves. Running out of isolated morons though.

The remaining Chaos fleets are mostly engaged with Estaban's immense orbital forts and the defense fleet, but they seem focused on winning the ground war, for some reason.

It seems against logic to me, because controlling the orbitals is the most important part of any space war, but whatever. I did my job and didn't lose any ships yet.

Even on the ground, the newly deployed Fellblades and Leman Russ tanks are making a dent into the Chaos forces, and Finona has focused down three Chaos Titans already and massacred a dozen traitor regiments with the Litany's lance batteries.

Our gunships and Chimeras are deployed to support the PDF regiments while they re-arm and get trained how to fire the lasguns, but it's not yet time for an offensive.

I go to sleep for a few hours, because my flesh may be young again but I still get tired.

Then a Rose and her Rosette wake me up, and the Inquisitor seems rather worried. "Pef, wake up!"

I blink myself awake and hold my hand out. Ludvaius fills it with a cup of caf, and everything is better in a minute.

"What happened now?" I blurt between gulps of miraculous healing.

"I sensed someone...a Primarch." she reveals with a hidden glance at my Astartes friend, who had gone deathly still.

I hum deep in thought, going over possible candidates. "Iron Hands Astartes are here. And they have a vendetta with..."

"Fulgrim. The serpent." Ludvaius mutters as his good eye starts turning red.

Watch those emotions big guy. I know you hate the traitor, but don't splatter me by accident.

I sigh audibly and close my eyes to think, the savant implant running at full strength. A daemon prince wasn't something that mortal weapons could harm. Even if I could target him from orbit, he would just respawn.

"That thing is not Fulgrim. Only a demon with his partial memories. But we don't have a Pariah to break his powers. And Justine would evaporate before she could restrain the thing." I answer with a dismissive wave.

Ludvaius and Rose focus on me like laser pointers. "Is that true?" they both ask in a hopeful voice.

"Some Necron Lord has Fulgrim in stasis. Trazyn or something like that. We'll go get him back, one day. Just need to find something worthy to trade." I explain and stare into my empty cup.

I really didn't have anything that could kill a demon prince. Except...

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Ludvaius asks and draws back.

"What can the Blood Angel do, Pef?" my Rose wonders with a curious voice.

Glad you asked, my dear Inquisitor.

"We will bombard and isolate the serpent from his followers, while Ludvaius calls his boss for help. And when Sanguinius arrives, Justine can get close and weaken the beast a little. It's a long shot, but it should work." I proclaim in a confident voice.

The Inquisitor blinks in surprise, then holds out her Rosette. "Sealed by my order, Astartes. What we're about to try is not quite...canonical."

The powerful engram in the Rosette burns in the Warp, and Ludvaius starts bleeding from both eyes, human and bionic. "I understand, Inquisitor. And I do trust Lord Pef. Let's hope we will see another miracle today."

Well, that revelation didn't end in blood and tears...even if it technically did

Thus, we soon arrive in the Canticle's vault, where the stasis box with the Sounding Board rests now.

"This is an empathic amplifier, my friend. Kneel and pray, and ask Sanguinius to help. Tell him about Estaban and Fulgrim." I explain while Rose turns off the blue temporal barrier.

"The Emperor protects!" the crying Astartes shouts in devotion.

"And have him heal the burned soldiers as well, if he feels like it." I add in a half-joking voice. Pretty sure such a feat is really easy for the Sanguinor, but mortals aren't usually of notice to such entities.

Ludvaius just nods and keeps muttering his prayers.

Meanwhile, the Canticle and our escorts speed towards Estaban's orbit, firing all batteries as we pass through the Chaos blockade.

Here, I lose 11 corvettes because we couldn't avoid all the incoming fire in our rush to get in position.

Luckily, I can coordinate with Finona via the ancient console, and we start a barrage to separate the serpent from his closest allies. 6 more corvettes are lost to ground fire, because Titans can fire into orbit, but we manage to create a perimeter devoid of Chaos followers.

Then we keep pounding the demon prince with our medium batteries to keep him still, as the ground melts and burns around him. Magma and lasercannon fire don't seem to bother Fulgrim much, but it does slow him down.

And then, a golden glow forms around the Canticle, because Ludvaius has indeed been heard.

A beam of light descends and an Angel appears, with golden wings and even a sword.

In a blink, the Sanguinor teleports on the surface and begins to battle the serpent with mountain shattering blows.

I wish they had popcorn in the future. It made a glorious sight anyway.