//------------------------------//
// Fight Or Flight 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
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At the Lord-Admiral's command, fury was unleashed upon the foe. Dozens of torpedo tubes, loaded and ready aboard the escorts, let rip with a vicious salvo of heavy plasma and nuclear warheads. The lances of the capital ships roared into life, and the Nova Cannon of the Indefatigable thundered with rage, its mighty report echoing along the companionways and shaking the entire length of the battlecruiser. 

Perhaps through overeagerness, or through an inexperienced commander, the Chaos fleet fell into the trap, though they were not unprotected. Their ships began to turn as soon as they picked up the Auspex contacts of the Imperial fleet, and their shields were raised, but they had still been caught by surprise. The long-range weaponry of the Imperial ships had been targeted, at Marcos's orders, on the Chaos capital ships. Fired at the relatively close range of planetary orbital combat, they did not give the enemy any time to react before they struck. 

The Nova Cannon shell detonated first, travelling at near light-speed. The titanic energies unleashed buckled void shields and shorted out emitters. Lances played over the shields and hulls of the enemy ships as torpedoes punched right through the energy screens to detonate against the vessels themselves. Flames blossomed from the side of several enemy ships as the torpedoes tore through their armoured outer plating. Thousands of traitor crewmen died in moments, and none of the Imperial gunners would lose any sleep over that fact. Their aim had been true, a hammer blow delivered to a cocky enemy who thought they could intrude with impunity on this place, this planet that was to become part of the Imperium. The fate of Kuda Prime was to be down to the Lord-Admiral, not any warfleet of Chaos, to decide.

As soon as the tubes were loaded, each escort fired again at the same targets. The lances of the two capital ships glowed white hot, hurling more death and destruction through low orbit toward the enemy, striking home with each shot. Attack craft swarmed out into space ahead of the Imperial fleet, with orders not to attack, but rather to defend, protecting the capital ships against enemy torpedoes which would inevitably follow as soon as the Chaos escorts managed to turn their bows on target. As the range closed, the rest of the ship's weapons could be brought into play, provided the angle was right, but to bring the broadside guns on target would require turning and exposing the flanks of the fleet to the enemy, a juicy target indeed for their torpedoes and lances. It was much easier to hit a target that was several miles long than it was to hit one which was presenting a head-on profile of a fraction of the size. 

No Chaos ship was destroyed in the opening volley, but one of the Grand Cruisers and one of the Despoiler-Class battleships were hit especially hard, pounded by a dozen or more torpedoes each, their flanks ripped open, crippling entire gun decks and knocking out sensor arrays. The ships were still in the fight, however, and along with the rest of the warfleet, they turned toward their foe, ready to fight, lances already flashing, able to engage at any angle thanks to being mounted in turrets. 

The Imperial ships were ready for them, lobbing more torpedoes at the enemy capital craft. The same Repulsive-Class Grand Cruiser that had already been damaged took several more strong hits to its flank before it could turn, and a series of internal explosions rapidly ripped through it, some ammunition store or secondary reactor having been hit and spreading to others nearby. Within moments, the ship was dead in space, slowly rotating thanks to the inertia imparted by its maneuvering jets. The rest of the Grand Cruisers came on target, along with the battleships they preceded in the line. Marcos ordered some of his cruisers to bring their broadsides to bear, and suddenly space was alive with flashing las-rounds, plasma bolts, missiles, shells and railgun projectiles, a huge amount of firepower being hurled at the enemy.

Chaos escorts lined up their torpedo tubes and engaged. Imperial attack craft rapidly sprang into action, targeting the incoming projectiles. The torpedoes were well over a hundred feet in length, minuscule in the context of space combat, but larger than the craft tasked with intercepting them. If they made it through the fighter screen, point defences aboard the ships of the fleet would strike out at them. If they made it through that final layer of defence, then they would punch through hull armour, powerful melta warheads detonating inside the decks, consuming all the oxygen in a string of compartments in a firestorm, or plasma charges ripping great gouges in the plating. A terrible toll could be taken by even a single volley of those deadly weapons, which ignored void shields, simply sailing right through if they were not stopped.

Another Nova Cannon shot from the Indefatigable ripped through the lightly armoured prow of one of the Chaos escort cruisers. It detonated in a mighty fireball that was rapidly snuffed out by the vacuum, tearing the front third of the ship into a ragged ruin, puffs of oxygen venting from exposed compartments. Battle was well and truly joined, as the Chaos ships swung into action. Several of the other cruisers came in at an angle, enough to still bring their broadsides into play against the Crusade fleet, who were stubbornly holding their ground.

Marcos ordered the transports to pull back. The fleet was forming a line of steel between them and the enemy, but there was no guarantee that the Chaos fleet would stop once they reached the battle line. They could well continue on, and with the transports lying just a couple of hundred thousand miles to the rear, they would be sitting ducks. The transports, tankers and freighters powered up their engines, throwing all available power to their aft shields for protection as they headed out into deep system, clear of the planet. It was the only, tiny, sliver of hope Marcos could offer them. If the line held and the fleet somehow fought off the aggressors, then it would not matter. But if the enemy broke through and the transports were still there, it would be a massacre. At least fleeing now gave them the option of going to warp and leaving the system entirely if circumstances necessitated it. The warships would be lucky to be extended the same courtesy. They had to fight. This was the Archenemy, no mere pirate or even Xenos. They were the anathema, and whatever one thought of this planet or its strange inhabitants, almost all would agree that it would be better for the place to be left alone under Xenos dominion than to let it fall to Chaos. That sentiment was echoed especially by those who knew something of the true psychic nature of some of its population, especially the Princesses and the Changeling Queen, who were all mighty minds inside vastly powerful bodies. To let the forces of darkness get hold of such beings would potentially be a threat to the Imperium in itself, if the Archenemy could somehow sway their minds and lure them to the service of the Ruinous Powers, however unlikely that seemed to actually occur. It was something which had to be guarded against.

Perhaps the best course of action would be, ultimately, Exterminatus. If they could not keep the enemy at bay, was it better to destroy the planet and all life upon it? Most likely, however, it was already too late for such a thing. The process of Exterminatus was not instantaneous. It took time, time that the Chaos fleet would not give them to carry out their task. They could still attempt it if it came down to it, lobbing a few virus bombs into the atmosphere as they turned to flee or as the last ship began to break up under heavy fire, but it would be a futile efforts, almost certainly. 

In any case, such thoughts were jumping the gun rather a lot. The fleet was not dead, nor was it fleeing. It was fighting, and that was what it was designed to do, what it did best. The cruisers formed a shield line in front of the two capital ships, while the escorts remained on both flanks so as to hurl torpedoes at the enemy without getting in the line of fire of any heavier ordnance. They were not needed to form a torpedo screen; the attack craft and fighters were doing that. The Chaos escorts, however, were being employed for just such a purpose, and several off their frigates disappeared in blossoms of fire as they were struck by Imperial fire. Weapons designed to crack the hull of a capital ship made short work of the much lighter armour of an escort craft, shredding it and, at the very least, igniting dozens of internal fires while opening scores of compartments to vacuum, killing thousands. A single strike was enough to cripple a frigate, two would finish off a destroyer. But under Chaos doctrine, as well as Imperial, the escorts were expendable, designed for similar purposes; absorbing enemy fire, distraction runs, and an occasional lucky punch with their own torpedo armament. Being assigned to an escort was not a death sentence, for many plied their trade in system patrol duties or low-hazard convoy escorts, but a frigate or destroyer that was exposed to the rigours of combat often did not last very long, and nor did their crew. That was why they were churned out in their thousands by the mighty Imperial shipyards, all across the galaxy, part of the tried and tested philosophy employed by both the Navy and the Guard; might makes right, and if you can't have might, have numbers.

This day, however, the numbers belonged to the enemy. The Chaos fleet heavily outgunned their Imperial foes, and despite the brief early setback from the surprise attack, they were recovering rapidly and getting into good battle order, their ships adopting a spearhead formation. At the tip of the spear were the three undamaged Grand Cruisers, their fearsome firepower ideal for ripping through an enemy battle line, as had been clearly demonstrated during the initial arrival of the previous Chaos warfleet. Their captains hoped to perform the same function again and cut through the defensive wall that separated them from the transports, or perhaps merely to get in position above the main continent in order to start landing operations or perform their own version of Exterminatus. Nobody could say for certain.

Marcos surveyed the scene both through the viewscreen, the bridge viewports, and on the tactical displays that gave an indication of the course of the battle. The torpedo strikes had been effective, and more were on their way, being delivered by the Imperial escorts. Bombers were ranging out ahead of the fleet in an attempt to fire off strings of missiles at the enemy Grand Cruisers leading the charge and hopefully slow them down, but the bombers were horrendously vulnerable, especially without their fighter escorts, as those craft were being used to hunt down and destroy incoming torpedoes.

It was a deadly dance, a confusing swirl of red and blue icons and sigils on the holo-map and the tac displays that only a trained eye could decipher at all. It took years of training to become a successful naval officer, and decades of experience to be a good admiral. Marcos had all the experience and training one could desire, and that meant he could see that their situation was most likely futile. The enemy had the numbers and the firepower. They had the speed advantage, and the maneuverability edge; the Imperial fleet would be essentially rooted in place, either to protect the planet or to protect the lumbering transports as they slowly hauled themselves free of the planet's gravity well. That meant they could scarcely use the speed of their escorts to any kind of advantage, nor could they hope to outfly the enemy. Marcos briefly considered a counter-charge, driving at full speed through the enemy fleet. Against a weaker force, it would have been effective, but the lances and secondary batteries of four battleships and four Grand Cruisers would have overwhelmed their defences and ripped his ships apart within minutes.

Nor could they maintain standoff range. Retreating slowly while keeping their bows to the enemy would be tantamount to surrendering the planet without a fight, as the Chaos fleet need not pursue if that was their goal. Simply clearing the space around the planet and taking up residence in orbit would be enough, if they intended to make landings as the previous warfleet had done. With options disappearing left and right, Marcos was left with a hard choice. Cut and run, or fight to the last?

The Lord-Admiral ordered a destroyer section and two cruisers, the Polaris Maxima and the Astra Gloria, to take advantage of the linear nature of the Chaos fleet's approach. The enemy were, as predicted, all operating on essentially a level plane, as if they were driving down a road in space, rather than hanging in the void. Their engines allowed them to overcome the gravitational pull of the planet and cut through space easily, rather than following a single orbit as a satellite would. They could move to higher or lower orbits essentially at will with a quick burn of the thrusters or the main drives, or, as they were currently doing, to cut across the plane without actually entering an orbit at all. 

The Imperial ships had the same advantages, and Marcos intended to make use of them. The two cruisers and their accompanying escorts drove out ahead of the fleet and then cut their drives, engaging their dorsal thrusters, driving them down into a lower orbit, beneath the plane of the approaching Chaos ships. Rotational thrusters fired as well, rolling the huge craft onto their side, relative to both the planet and the Chaos fleet. While still exposed to fire from the more distant enemy ships at the rear of the formation, the Imperial cruisers were now protected from the deadly, massed broadside weapons arrays of the three undamaged Grand Cruisers, unless the enemy vessels performed a similar roll maneuver, but with the rest of the Imperial fleet dead ahead and expected to pass through the sights of their broadside guns any moment, why would they do that?

Except that the rest of the fleet did not remain directly ahead. With another command, Marcos ordered the rest of his ships to fire their main drives in a brief burst of power, enough to push them up into a higher orbit. Suddenly they found themselves above the enemy fleet, which was still driving forward. The Chaos commanders had been expecting to drive into a wall of steel, not to have the Imperial ships part before them like a curtain. Evidently whoever was in command of the fleet was not an experienced admiral, perhaps some warlord or upstart sorcerer with grand ideas about his ability to coordinate a fleet operation. Even when the Imperial fleet split in two, the enemy ships failed to react swiftly, so intent were they on driving right through their opponent. Dorsal lances were able to rotate far enough to engage, but the heavy broadside armament, not just of the Grand Cruisers but the enemy battleships as well, were nullified in one fell swoop. 

Marcos had hoped, and his hope had borne fruit. When the enemy fleet appeared around the planet, seemingly unprepared for an immediate engagement, he had hoped that its commander was either inexperienced or simply rash. If the enemy could be lured into one trap, why not two? The remainder of the Imperial fleet, now above the enemy, performed a similar roll maneuver to the other cruisers below, bringing their broadsides to bear. The escorts, lacking the heavy flank armaments of their capital ship charges, instead fired their dorsal and ventral thrusters, bringing their bows to bear from both above and below.  

They had to be careful, and precise with their aiming, for any stray shots could slam into friendly vessels in a lower orbit, or into the planet below, causing devastation if they struck a populated area. Fortunately the only weapon apart from those reserved for Exterminatus that was capable of causing major planet-wide damage, the Nova Cannon, was oriented away from the planet and could not be used. The prow-mounted weapon on the Indefatigable accelerated a projectile to near light speed. Even if the potent plasma charge fitted to the projectile did not detonate, if the proximity fuse failed, entirely possible in a weapon designed to operate at far beyond orbital combat ranges, and the projectile sailed onward, the sheer energy of it simply striking the earth would result in a blast many times larger than the one which had recently devastated Baltimare. 

The Nova cannon may not have been in the fight, but almost every other weapon in the fleet was. If there had been any atmosphere worthy of the name at such high altitudes in the planet's exosphere, then the noise created would have been among the loudest sounds ever recorded by mankind. Lances blazed, plasma and las-fire flashed and danced, macrocannons hurled hefty shells across the void. Rocket and missile packs let fly like celebratory fireworks for a victory not yet earned. The skies above Equestria lit up with brilliantly strobing gunfire, as the Imperial fleet pounded the passing Chaos ships from above and below.

The three Grand Cruisers had their shields set for maximum possible reinforcement forward. Their dorsal and ventral shields were weak, and under a heavy pounding, they collapsed. A few lance shots in reply struck Imperial shields, but were not enough to break through, although one destroyer tore itself apart thanks to a reactor overload caused by several lance strikes from oncoming enemy cruisers farther back in the formation. Individual Chaos ship commanders dared not break formation to move into a better position, for the punishments for disobeying one's leaders were even more brutal and draconian in the service of the Dark Powers than they were in Imperial fleets. All they could do was reinforce their dorsal and ventral shields and bring what few guns they could to bear.

The Grand Cruisers were peppered with fire. Torpedoes detonated against their hull plating, gouging chunks from it and ripping open compartments. One of the ships managed to redirect all possible power into its dorsal and ventral shields just in time, before the emitters burned out, and weathered the storm relatively unscathed. The other two ships, however, were not so lucky. Lances played across their hulls, tearing sensors and ornamental protuberances away, broken metal and ceramite spiralling away into the void, along with the bodies of those unlucky men to be in damaged compartments. Several of the dorsal lance turrets of the cruisers were ripped away and shattered by the blasts of their counterparts. The huge vessels were wracked by explosions deep within them, torn by hundreds of shots from outside, their hulls smashed and pulverised. The Imperial ships managed to inflict severe damage, blowing holes in the hulls of both Grand Cruisers. The third vessel with its intact shields managed to power through the gauntlet of fire, retaliating as best it could with its lances, striking a blow against one of the cruisers above it and knocking out several of its broadside weapons banks. 

Following on behind the Grand Cruisers came the Chaos battleships. They had watched their vanguard torn up by the volleys of fire from the Imperials. One of the battleships had begun a rotation burn to bring its broadsides to bear on the Imperial ships above and below it, but the others continued on course, either awaiting orders or simply unaware of the change in dynamic, which seemed unlikely. Their sensors would pick up the movements of Marcos's ships, and so would their eyes, if they happened to look out of a viewport.

Farther back in the enemy line, some of the cruisers and escorts were now branching out from the single line of attack and moving up into higher orbit themselves to engage directly with the Imperials. However, the bow armament of the Imperial capital ships was still pointing in their direction, and they were engaged with heavy lance fire from forward-facing batteries, as well as a shot from the Nova Cannon of the Indefatigable, which blew apart an entire section of frigates in a heartbeat, with its projectile's time-delay fuse set for the shortest possible safe interval. Any closer would have risked damage to friendly vessels, or to the Indefatigable herself.

Chaos cruisers engaged with their heavy lances, striking the first serious blows of the enemy assault against the Crusade fleet. The single battleship that was turning was now joined by the others, which had finally seen, or been alerted to, their mistake, and the danger they were in. They moved to bring their main broadside guns to bear, but the Imperial ships were still able to pour down fire upon them. The battleships' potent shields took a heavy pounding, while torpedoes fired from the escort ships were able to inflict major hull damage to one of the giants. 

With the enemy capital ships now caught in the pincer from above and below, but reacting to the threat, Marcos ordered all ships to apply full power, driving astern of the battleships, striking out at the enemy escorts as they passed by. A few well-aimed torpedoes struck the Emperor's Judgement in return, fired at ranges so close that they scarcely had time to arm themselves and leaving no chance for the point defences to identify, track, lock onto and fire at the signals of incoming warheads. The destroyers that had fired on the Imperial flagship took a heavy battering as a result of getting so close to the powerful broadsides of a battleship, and together the Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable accounted for half a dozen of the smaller craft as they passed by. The enemy cruisers offered a stiffer fight, but they had not expected the Imperials to charge them. They too were pounded, but inflicted damage in return with their lance batteries, almost crippling one of the Imperial cruisers.

Meanwhile, below the enemy fleet, the Polaris Maxima and the Astra Glora were performing a similar move, but they were untroubled by enemy escorts or cruisers, the bulk of the enemy force having been lured away topside to intercept the Imperial capital ships. That gave the two cruisers and their modest but potent lance armament a chance to rake the unprotected underbellies of the Chaos battleships as they tried to rotate their lumbering frames around to combat threats from both above and below at the same time. It was not enough to bring down their shields, but it was enough to weaken them significantly, in coordination with the major bombardment they were receiving to their dorsal shielding. The Chaos battleships, in conjunction with the majority of warships, mounted almost no defences on their undersides, save for point defence turrets to protect against torpedoes. Ships of the line were not meant to get into rolling knife fights with enemy fleets; they were supposed to stand at a distance and pummel their targets with massed broadsides or powerful lance batteries.

Once the Imperial ships were clear of the Chaos rearguard, Marcos ordered them into a swift turn, braking jets flaring and thrusters burning hard to bring the ships about and get their broadsides on target. While the enemy were still in disarray at the sudden and aggressive actions of the Imperial fleet, Marcos hoped to strike them from behind. But the enemy commander was finally waking up, and his ships were already turning as well, intent on getting their guns on target before those of the Imperium. It was a deadly race, first to the post might not win, but would certainly do a hell of a lot of damage before they lost.

Round came the bows of both fleets, and as each gun battery saw a target in their scopes, they fired. An almighty barrage of shells, las-fire, plasma and missiles filled the void, aimed squarely at the aft sections of the Chaos ships. Marcos's ploy had worked, and his ships had been first on target, giving them at least a momentary advantage over their adversaries. The rear end of a warship was not unprotected, but it contained some of the most vulnerable points of any vessel. There were reaction-control nozzles and exhausts from the main drives, launching bays, and buried deep within, the main reactors, the beating heart of any craft, but also its most critical system. Hit the reactor, and one of two things would happen. At best, the ship would be dead in space, with all primary systems offline; gunnery, navigation, propulsion, sensors. At worst, if the reactor casing were to crack or a plasma manifold split, then the ship would disappear in a cataclysmic flash of searing light as the entire thing tore itself apart from within.

That was exactly what happened to one of the Chaos cruisers, struck by concentrated fire from the Emperor's Judgement as part of the first volley. A second sun appeared for a moment in the skies above Equestria's eastern horizon. A wave of torpedoes managed to cripple another cruiser, while massed broadside lance fire from the Indefatigable, the Polaris Maxima, and the Brigand's Folly poured into the aft section of the single Desolator-Class battleship, smashing engine nozzles and inflicting heavy superficial damage, though not being able to punch through the heavy ceramite and adamantium armour of the mighty war vessel. Its reactors remained safely ensconced within, though several frigates were not so lucky, and were ripped apart by internal detonations, fragments of their hulls and compartments spinning away wildly.

The lances of the Chaos battleships swung round to engage the ships behind them, scorching the surface of the shields of the Emperor's Judgement. The Imperial flagship responded with its broadsides, but lances were not the only threat facing her. The Despoiler-Class battleship in the Chaos fleet was outfitted for a similar role to that of the Emperor's Judgement, being a heavy support craft and carrier platform, carrying many more squadrons of fighters and bombers than other battleships would. They had joined the battle early on, but unlike their carrier, they were a lot faster and more maneuverable, and reacted much quicker to the changing battle situation. Now they were homing in on their target, and the Imperial fighters, out of position due to being focused on challenging the torpedo threat from the enemy escorts, had to rush to counter them, but not before many of them came into weapons range.

Hundreds of powerful missiles leaped from the rotary racks and underwing pylons of the Chaos attack boats and heavy bombers, slicing through the ether toward the Emperor's Judgement. Point defence turrets swung round in response. Assault cannons and mega-bolter mounts spun up with deafening whirs inside their crew compartments before unleashing a tsunami of bullets and shells that went streaming through space like the heaviest rains. Lascannons flashed, trying to get the range and bring down either the missiles or those that had launched them. Dozens were knocked out, warheads detonating prematurely and missiles spiraling off into the atmosphere or into deep space as their motors or guidance systems were damaged. But even the mighty defences of the Emperor's Judgement could only do so much against such numbers, and the feelings of success among her crew were rapidly brought back down to earth with a rippling series of explosions that shook the huge craft from stem to stern. Men were sucked out into space as compartments vented violently. Deck plating buckled under the blast from heavy plasma warheads. While the missiles were not as powerful as the torpedoes fired from escort craft, there were a lot more of them, and they had struck all along the port side of the battleship. 

Marcos called for a damage report. Firefighting parties hurried to battle the spreading blazes in several compartments, those which had suffered damaged plasma conduits or fuel lines without being vented to space. Bulkheads and secure doors had held the blasts in check, but a number of guns had been knocked out, including some of the vital point defence weaponry. That mattered, because the Chaos bombers were still coming. Like their Imperial counterparts, they also had payloads of bombs to deliver.

Imperial Fury interceptors rushed to head them off, their lascannons blazing from thousands of miles out. There were several hundred bombers, and they were already getting close. The Emperor's Judgement drove forward with the rest of the fleet, turning and thrusting into a higher orbit once more to try and get back above the enemy ships. Her shields were still up, protecting them from fire, but the enemy bombers were already inside the protective barrier. It came down to a straight race between the Fury interceptors and the enemy bombers. The point defences blazed away, even knocking out a few of their own fighters in the process, a price worth paying if it kept the battleship in the fight.

The bombers closed in, losing dozens to the pinpoint fire from fighter aces and experienced pilots behind, and the mass firepower of the close-in defences, but there were too many of them to stop. They pulled up at the last moment, releasing their bombs in a toss-bombing maneuver. The bombers roared up and over the top of the battleship, entire squadrons vanishing in the blink of an eye under the heavy defensive fire, but their bombs continued on, not having time to be affected by the gravitational pull of the planet. They kept sailing on in the direction they had been released, which took them straight into the side of the flagship.

Purple and blue fireballs of plasma burst from the flank of the Emperor's Judgement as hundreds of bombs detonated all along the huge craft's hull. Old wounds were reopened from previous battles, and new ones created, torn into the skin of the ship. Ornamental facades and arches, designed to give the ship's exterior the look of a typical Imperial cathedral, crumbled into ruin. Faith was the ultimate armour against Chaos, but ceramite and adamantium ran it a close second, and neither could withstand the fury of superheated plasma in a surface detonation. It was like having the sun itself striking the hull.

On the bridge, Marcos stumbled and staggered against his command lectern as the ship rocked and swayed with the punches. He felt an overwhelming desire to curse the enemy, but did not want to show his anger in case the crew mistook it for fear. Blood-red emergency lighting bathed his face. The bridge itself was undamaged, but clearly his ship had taken a battering from the enemy bombers. Damage reports started to filter in from the lower decks. The news was not encouraging.

It would get worse very shortly. There were other craft launching from the Despoiler-Class battleship, though the sensor grids of the Emperor's Judgement, shaken by the many explosions aboard, would have trouble picking them up at first. It was only after they had cleared the Auspex shadow of their carrier vessel that they appeared on the tactical screens at all.

The Auspex officer who spotted them first quickly shouted out, relaying his discovery to Lord-Admiral Marcos, who even spared a futile glance out of one of the bridge viewports, though there was no way he could see anything so small or so distant. He stood tall at the command lectern and activated the internal vox, giving a simple order.

'All hands, this is your Admiral. Stand by to repel boarders.'