40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 146: Pandorax

We arrived at Pythos right on time, finding the Black Legion and an Ork Waagh struggling to push through a Tyranid splinter fleet of over a million bioships, covering the entire star system with their Silence.

Perfect cover for my ships, as psykers would be unlikely to detect us.

For some reason, the Orks seemed willing to obey the Chaos Champion hurling their Roks and Kroozers in close melee with the Tyranids, giving Abaddon a clear path towards the planet.

"Launch the corvettes and starfighters! Battlecruisers target the Orks only. Battleships engage the Chaos fleet from maximum range, and pick off the escorts first!" I ordered in a second, while sending engagements vectors for our Heavy Cruisers to fire their Nova Cannons at the largest blobs of Tyranid bioships.

Our fleet gently separated into three elements engaging different targets.

Soon enough, the Orks abandoned their march towards the planet and began turning, to engage the swift battlecruisers attacking them from behind.

I tried not to use the tesseract yet, not until I learned what the Chaos fleet would do.

Every minute, a couple of Chaos frigates or destroyers exploded under the barrage of lance batteries, while a couple of Chaos cruisers received a Vortex missile each, splitting their engines apart.

However, Abaddon had brought six battleships and 38 cruisers, plus over 500 escorts, which made his fleet the most dangerous enemy. Tyranid flyers and bioships trying to attack the Chaos forces were brutally repelled and demolished, swarms of Hell fighters and bombers unleashing hell on the poor bugs and scoring thousands of kills with ease.

With a new order, our cruisers changed target and primed the Nova Cannons for volume saturation.

"I hope you won't miss..." I whispered as 30 Nova shells detonated right in the midst of the Chaos fighter swarms, obliterating thousands of Demon engines and their Tyranid enemies as well.

"Vox message from Chaos Fleet, Captain." the vox officer said in surprise.

Heh, it wasn't time to exchange stories, was it?

"Teleportarium rooms, target any open vox channels with melta warheads." I demanded on a whim.

Soon enough, a dozen capital ships had their bridges explode and burn, including a Chaos battleship.

"We let our weapons speak, right?" I asked rhetorically as the Tyranids began turning to engage us as well.

Now it was time to run. New vectors were sent to my fleet, and we switched course for a clearer path, while laying plasma and Nova mines in our wake.

The Ork fleet conveniently intersected the Tyranid swarms chasing us, while Abaddon decided to ignore revenge for now and head towards Pythos, the jungle planet.

Our course will take us there as well, on a tangential vector. Couldn't simply stay in place and duke it out with the Tyranids after all.

Nor could I allow Abaddon to reach his objectives.

Behind us, a series of apocalyptic explosions began as the Tyranids and Orks stumbled into our Nova Mine field, although I did cheat a bit to thin out the pursuit with a hundred extra Nova mines places expertly among the largest bio-blobs.

"Stand and give us a gud fight!" the Ork Warboss demanded from his damaged Kill Kroozer.

"Ork coward boss, you did not fight the spiky hummies, so you only get spiky bugs." I replied in a teasing voice.

Always a pleasure, talking to Orks.

"We not cowards...see? We're going to fight them right now. And then we come for you too, funny hummie!" the Warboss proclaimed in anger, turning his fleet around once more and gunning for Abaddon.

"...That was...did we just gained a thousand more ships to our side?" Velayne murmured in surprise.

I just smirked inward while the crew of the Serenity grinned at the inside joke. It wasn't the first time I had turned Orks against another enemy.

Furthermore, if Abaddon had any big surprise, I wanted the Orks to spring the trap.

Soon enough they did, as another Chaos fleet arrived in the system though a Warp Rift, with a motherfucking Glorianna-class battleship and 30 more cruisers and 500 more escorts.

"That's the Harbinger_of_Doom...and it holds a traitor Titan Legion too." Rose explained with a cold voice, leaning on her Null Bone Staff for extra power.

Well, the Orks were kinda fucked now, caught between the two Chaos fleets and every retreat route blocked by Tyranids.

"Let's help the Orks, I think. I see a hundred Kroozers there worth salvaging." I mused to myself, while directing the battleships to engage the Harbringer, while the corvettes split up in four groups, three as defense escorts and one as a torpedo dive force.

Now the Harbringer was caught between us and the Orks, and my battleships proved themselves, focus-firing the Chaos-infested Glorianna battleship which was three times their size.

Among the hundred of torpedoes were a couple of Vortex warheads, and those won us the battle, splitting the ancient warship in three burning fragments infested with demons.

The corvettes fired their own torpedo barrage at the cruisers, and then ran away like any Lancefire ship was supposed to.

"Spiky hummie tricked us! They never intended to give us free ships! Let's take theirs!" The Warboss deduced and began sending his own ships to board the remaining Chaos escorts in the second fleet, resulting in a glorious melee that emptied their Kroozers of most boarding craft and troops.

I only had to wait, and wait.

"Brother Semnai, prepare for boarding operations. We'll steal the Ork Kroozers soon." I ordered on the tactical Manifold.

Abaddon seemed content to wait as well, no doubt worried about my fleet, as he only had five battleships left operational, with one being left behind and engulfed in Tyranids right now.

He shouldn't have waited.

As soon as the Chaos destroyers started being boarded by a gigantic Ork assault, lead by the Warboss himself, our own troops began teleporting onto the Ork Kroozers and taking them over.

This time, my Lamenters did not let me down, not when clad in mighty power armor and wielding powerful guns, most of them archotech relics or combi-weapons.

Second waves of techpriests and servitors followed to restore those ships into our control, and one by one the Ork Kroozers turned away and left the Ork fleet, forming yet another fleet on my side.

In a couple of hours, my forces doubled in size, which wasn't a bad result at all. The Ork ships were crappy right now, but they could be upgraded in a few decades.

"I don't even have words...no wonder you have such a big fleet, Lord Pef." Velayne said with an admiring voice, promising a lot of pleasure in the future.

"Hey! Not fair! You stole my Kroozers which I stole from other hummies!" The Ork Warboss protested after his own conquest run was over.

"There is still the spiky hummie, boss. He has big spiky battleships, and you want them, right?" I asked in a curious tone.

"All right! But no backstaby again! We fight fair after we kill the spiky git." The Ork pleaded as his new fleet gathered around the remaining Roks and Ork escorts.

"I bet I can board them first!" I teased the silly Ork.

"Oh no! Meks! Make us move even faster! Bring the red button here!" The Ork yelled, forgetting the vox channel open.

Was I being unfair? Eh, who cares!

I was still wary of another trap from Abaddon, and thus only two Drop-cruisers entered low orbit to drop Tarantula turrets in defense of the Atika Hive City.

That still meant 80 thousand autonomous turrets, which would stop any minor incursion from both Orks or Chaos, and even small Tyranid armies.

Almost immediately, Abaddon moved his own fleet in place and began dropping his own pods, no doubt containing invasion armies of his own.

And then our own attack began, Nova Cannons and squadrons of torpedo corvettes decimating the Chaos fleet while Orks assaulted from the other side with cheerful savagery and horrible losses.

My battleships and battle barges took the brunt, each facing a Chaos battleship and unleashing our potent lance batteries and torpedoes.

"Captain, the defenders are being overrun." my X.O. whispered pointing at a different holoscreen with pict images from our turrets.

I sighed and admitted defeat. I would have to use the tesseract after all.

A flick of my fingers dispersed a handful of Nova mines on top of the Chaos battleships, while the Titan Legion and the Knights appeared among the defenders in a flash-less teleport.

"Three more Drop-cruisers, support the defenders!" I commanded as six techmarines and their Guardian walker turrets were teleported to the flank of the attacking Bloodthirsters and Forgefiends.

Immediately the tides turned, as the Chaos ground forces began receiving fiery judgment from the Knights and Titans.

A single shot from the Emperor-class Titan obliterated the lead Khorne Beserkers, while our Warhound-class_Titans murdered entire packs of Forgefiends with their Mega Vulcan cannons, firing thousands of superheavy bolter rounds per minute.

The Forgefiends fired back with their Ectoplasma_Cannons, pushing our lines back again.

"Watch out! There are hundreds of Chaos Sorcerers on that Cruiser!" Rose shouted and pointed at a descending Chaos ship, heading directly for Atika at terminal velocity.

Sadly, there was little that I could do, except teleport munitions in its path. Damn ship was enveloped in a potent Warp field that prevented my tesseract from grabbing onto it.

A Vortex missile managed to deviate the ship and burn out its armored prow, making it crash some 50 kilometers off into the deep jungles.

I let out a deep breath I forgot I was holding, that was too close and almost obliterated my Titans.

Meanwhile, the Drop-cruisers continued launching drop-pods as did the Chaos fleet. Nobody was willing to back down from this fight.

Then Ork Roks began crushing through the Chaos escorts and landed on the Death World as well, disgorging millions of heavily armed Boyz and Meks, while the Ork Escorts fought desperately, or maybe joyously with the Chaos escorts.

Overall, it was kind of what I expected from this fight, and I only needed to let Abaddon make any mistake. Even a tiny one.

Which is when just above the big fight, more ships began to appear. And then even more.

Everyone was ignoring the damn Silence I worked so hard to produce.