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 ss, because psykers and demons made augury scans very unreliable. But again, I try to do the sa, marking down isolated bands and separated traitor regints, 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 deploynt." 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 regints, 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 containnt is ruptured and the reactor explodes in a huge ball of plasma, blood and corrupted flesh.
Of course, this Battleship is a dozen kiloters long and very sturdy, so it doesn't break up into pieces or sothing, not from a tiny warp vortex.
A section about one kiloter long is gone and flas 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 sweetly. "So you found my surprise. I didn't know if you'd return in ti, 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 lt 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 ointnts and recitations, Captain. It cannot be done over vox transmissions."
I frown a little, but such is the way of the chanicus. 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 imnse orbital forts and the defense fleet, but they seem focused on winning the ground war, for so reason.
It seems against logic to , 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 regints with the Litany's lance batteries.
Our gunships and Chiras are deployed to support the PDF regints while they re-arm and get trained how to fire the lasguns, but it's not yet ti 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 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 soone...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..."
" 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.
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