Lance blasts flashed out across the void, playing across shields on both sides of the struggle with equal intensity, forming crazy, psychedelic patterns. The guns of the Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable poured relentless fire upon their foes, who were maneuvering to bring their own broadsides to bear. Torpedoes slashed out through space and struck deadly blows upon Chaos capital ships. For some of the Imperial escorts, they were the last ones in the magazine, having expended so many during the fighting that they had run out, with no possibility of resupply with the flight of the transports and support ships.
Unlike the first such maneuver, the enemy was ready for this one, expecting a final stand at some point, and they responded in kind, their formation fracturing as their ships broke away from each other, some taking position with broadsides on display, and others presenting a narrower profile with their bows toward the Imperials.
The Emperor's Judgement's bombers and interceptors were launched, as were the more limited supply of attack craft supplied to other vessels. They would act as a screen against incoming torpedoes and their Chaos equivalents, at least in theory. Their numbers had been depleted, however, by the previous engagement in orbit around the planet, and the squadrons were not operating at peak efficiency. They were keen, however, and pious, qualities that mattered in any Imperial servant, whether they be the highest Lord Militant or the lowliest labourer. They all served the Emperor, and they would al die for Him in the same way as any other man or woman.
The death rate among attack craft crews was often spectacularly high due to the innumerable hazards to such small craft, flitting about the giants around them like minnows around some kind of Void Whale, those humongous creatures that were perhaps the largest living beings in all of creation. Before launch, as before any flight, a ritual prayer had been performed by each squadron's Confessor or deck Priest, to absolve the men and prepare them for what may be their final mission in service to the Emperor. It was a solemn ceremony, but a very necessary one, given that the attrition rate meant that at least one attack craft would be lost on each sortie, even if no enemy were to be sighted. Launch or recovery accidents, mechanical failure, space weather or other hazards could cripple or destroy a fighter or bomber and kill its crew with ease, and such fates often befell entire flights of attack craft on long deployments.
With the fate of the fleet in the balance, every available attack craft had been manned and made ready for battle, including the Lightning and Thunderbolt fighters and Marauder bombers. Though they were primarily intended for atmospheric operations, like most aircraft operated by the Navy there was some degree of interoperability. Starhawk bombers could be used for ground attack in a pinch, and the trio of different aircraft intended to operate planetside could likewise be used as exo-atmospheric craft in an emergency situation. Their crews wore fully sealed flight suits with oxygen provided since they were often launched from ships in orbit when conducting an attack on an enemy position down below. The orbital injection engine and maneuvering thrusters could be used for operational control within the vacuum of space, and while a Lightning or Thunderbolt would not be as effective as a Fury, the dedicated void fighter of the Imperial Navy, they could add a tiny edge that might just make the difference between survival and certain death, between victory and defeat.
Captain Eliss Muran had found himself unexpectedly thrust back into action as a result. Despite being part of the attack runs on the Daemon down on the planet just a short while ago, he and the rest of Hammer Flight had been pulled from their squadron quarters by the sound of the general alarm. Muran had time to take a shower and grab a snack before the alarm had sounded, but that was all. No time to rest, nor to debrief from the last mission, either the attack on the Daemon or the strafing runs against the enemy trenches. The whole day so far had turned into a complete blur in his mind. Even at the height of a major engagement it was unusual for a pilot to be called to fly so many sorties in one day, because concentrating for so long on flying was too tiring and would lead to almost inevitable mistakes, any one of which could cost the pilot's life when travelling at high speed.
Nevertheless, in times when it was needed, pilots would fly two or three times the number of sorties that was considered to be optimum, either in support of ground forces or in defence of the carrier ship upon which they were based. The latter was very much the current situation, and so Muran had found himself heading down to the hangar bay once more. There had barely been time for the squadron's engineers and technicians to give his aircraft the once-over after the last mission, but it was to be called into service once again. The weapons racks had been hastily reloaded with anti-aircraft missiles, replacing the incendiary Hellfuries that had been used for ground attack. The autocannon's magazine tub had been refilled and the lascannon power packs replaced, perhaps in record time, as the process had been underway when the alarm sounded and had been rushed through. Each aircraft of the squadron had been quickly reprovisioned in just such a way, servitors and personnel working in unison to get them turned around and ready for battle once more.
Then, there had been a long wait, so typical of military life. Rapid, scrambled preparations followed by sitting and doing nothing, yet on edge all the while, adrenaline still flowing through the veins in anticipation. Would they be called into action? Surely the fleet could handle whatever was being thrown at them. The pilots sat in their cockpits, waiting, wondering. They knew little of the battle going on outside, other than the few rumours spread by the deck crews. The call to repel boarders had concerned them, but still they were not called to fight. Then there was something of a lull. The shaking and creaking of the ship under heavy fire diminished, died away. Had they won? Had the enemy retreated?
Muran and his fellow pilots had no idea of the true nature of the situation. It was not the enemy which had retreated, but their own fleet, and once they reached the outer system and the ships came about, the order came down from the bridge. Launch all craft. Every last one.
And so Muran and the rest of Hammer Flight found themselves hurtling through space. Combat in the void was something they all trained for, as their aircraft were more than capable of it, but it was not something that the average Lightning pilot ever expected to have to deal with in reality. The ship had its own Furies for that role, and it was only because of the emergency nature of the situation that faced them now that the atmospheric craft were being called into action as well.
Flying through space was like flying through a vid-pict screen. Everywhere there were flashes and bursts of light of all kinds of colours and intensities as weapons fire blazed out across the void. Any single shot being exchanged could destroy Muran's Lightning in a heartbeat, as a relatively fragile aircraft could not withstand the punishment that any of the main batteries could dish out. In atmosphere, enemy anti-aircraft fire often used tracer rounds in every few shells to help with visual tracking and aiming, and along with las and plasma fire it could be sometimes glimpsed passing through the sky, but out here against the blackness of space, every single round could be seen, thanks to the light from the system's sun shining upon the ordnance. Even shells and kinetic impactors that had no motive power of their own, nor any chemical or physical reaction that would cause light to be emitted, could be seen as glinting metal slivers, like flying through a shattering mirror.
Muran realised with sudden horror exactly how far they were from the planet. It was still visible, just about, as a tiny blue dot. At least, he assumed that was what he could see; given the distances involved it frankly could have been some other galaxy or an impossibly distant star, but it definitely had that bluish tinge to it that suggested water, atmosphere, life. It had to be the planet, and it showed exactly how small it was compared to the vastness of space. Yet here they were. Here he was, out in the middle of absolutely nothing in a tiny metal box, hurtling onward.
The Lightning was more difficult to control in the vacuum than it was in atmosphere. There was no air to manipulate the control surfaces, meaning that the craft was far less maneuverable than it should be, having to rely on the relatively brute force methods of short bursts of the main injection rocket motor for propulsion, and puffs of the thrusters, normally used for fine-tuning an approach to a docking bay, in order to rotate the craft. It was tricky, and realistically only the best pilots of atmospheric craft would be likely to survive even the smallest space engagement due to it requiring a totally different mindset and different control inputs. Yes, they might practise use of the space controls when launching and recovering to the carrier ship, but that was very different to attempting to engage the enemy using the same methods.
'Hammer Flight, ops room.' The vox buzzed in his ear, a message from the combat commanders aboard the Emperor's Judgement who were in control of attack craft operations. 'Steer heading two-one-zero relative, azimuth plus twenty. Engage hostile bomber squadron, identified as contacts sixty-nine through eighty.'
Muran took a quick glance at his tactical readouts, switched to void operations mode in order to reflect the realities of the situation around him. The orders meant they were to turn to a heading of two-one-zero degrees relative to the galactic centre, and twenty degrees above the galactic plane. With careful manipulation of the Lightning's rocket motor, Muran responded to the command, replying over the vox.
'Hammer Leader, steering heading two-one-zero relative, azimuth plus twenty. Hammer Flight is engaging hostile bomber targets.'
Rall, his wingman, was alongside him and turning also, while the rest of the flight followed on behind. The other half of the squadron was astern of them, following a similar turn toward the targets, which were invisible against the blackness except for glints of sunlight from canopies and metal fuselages. They were indistinguishable from dozens of other similar craft coming in, meaning Muran would have to rely on his tactical display to pick out the correctly assigned targets that the ops room had given him.
A few seconds of powerful thrust was enough to set his Lightning on a fast run toward the enemy bombers, showing up as numbered targets on his display. Each target was given a number, and he noted with dismay that the numbers were running into the thousands. Waves of fighters and bombers were heading their way, but a similar number of Imperial attack craft were responding to the defence of their fleet, having been rapidly scrambled as soon as the ships made the turn to stand and fight. Every available atmospheric aircraft had been sent out as well, to help replenish the diminished reserves of the dedicated void-capable Furies and Starhawks. Several battles had occurred since there had last been any opportunity to take aboard fresh pilots or new attack craft, and each fight had seen heavy losses among their number. The atmospheric aircraft had taken much smaller losses, and were available in their hundreds to join the fight.
Muran adjusted his tactical display to only show the area ahead of him where lay the specific targets his flight had been assigned to strike. He checked over his weapons loadout. Missiles, lascannon and autocannon were all ready. No doubt they would be very much needed in the very near future.
'Hammer Flight, Hammer Leader. Tally ho. Bandits in sight,' Muran informed his pilots. 'Range ten thousand miles. Go for target lock and standby to fire on my mark.'
A chorus of replies acknowledged his order. Ten thousand miles was almost infinity when applied to atmospheric operations, yet in the emptiness of space it was a hair's breadth only. Their targets were still essentially invisible to them even as they continued to close in rapidly, both sets of attack craft traveling at extremely high speeds, one to defend and the other to attack. Captain Muran flicked the master arm switch to on, readying his weapons for firing and activating the targeting computer of the jet. Last time he had used it, he was targeting individual Chaos infantrymen, who would perhaps have killed a couple of Imperial Guardsmen with their personal weapon. This time he was targeting void bombers which could, at least in theory, strike the killing blow that resulted in the destruction of a capital ship and the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men and women. That was what he had to prevent. That was why he and the rest of his flight had been deployed to support the fleet. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and throwing Lightnings into the void line was indeed evidence of desperation.
The targeting computer of Muran's Lightning achieved a lock on one of the bombers as they drew closer and closer. He fired two missiles, one from under each wing, their rocket motors carrying them through the void. They were not the same anti-aircraft missiles that would be used in atmospheric combat, but rather more specialised versions fitted with attitude adjustment thrusters for pinpoint corrections in their course. Other members of his squadron fired as well as they achieved a lock, and a wave of missiles threw themselves at the enemy bombers, which were still well beyond visual identification range. The missiles were in range, however, and several of the craft disappeared in bright explosions which were very much visible to the Lightning pilots.
Muran felt a grim satisfaction at getting his first void kill. That would have to be designated by a slightly different symbol painted on the nose of his aircraft- although, of course, his original aircraft had already been destroyed, going down over Manehattan when he had ejected. Ever since then he had been flying a series of replacements, either strike fighters or copies of his own interceptor variant. A new, dedicated aircraft had not been assigned to him yet, due to shortages. Perhaps now he would never be assigned one at all. This may well be his last fight, and his last flight.
The Lightnings were in the middle of the gulf between the Imperial ships and their pursuers, far enough away from the enemy vessels to not have to worry about their point defences, as they were beyond their range. Fire from the main batteries of both sides, however, remained a threat. The Chaos warships were beginning to turn, to bring their own broadsides into action, filling the void with projectiles and flashing energy beams, forming a deadly gauntlet through which each attack craft would have to fly. No doubt friendly fire would claim lives on both sides; there was always one unlikely crew who ended up flying straight into a lance blast that could shatter a mountain, and simply vanishing into the ether as a result.
That was not how Muran wanted his career to end. If he had to die in a void fight, then let it be from an enemy fighter. There was honour in that, at least, rather than dying to something that he could do nothing about. It was a fight between two equals, no matter what the enemy pilot was- traitor human, Tau, Eldar, even an Ork in his incredibly crude flying contraptions that seemed ready to fall apart at any moment. They were all fellow pilots, and they were pursuing the same calling as he was. Something about flight gave them the same sense of freedom- but for Muran, being out in the void was rather different. There was no sign of the comforting sight of ground below that meant there was always somewhere to return to. If the Emperor's Judgement and all other Imperial ships were to be destroyed or go to warp without recovering their attack craft, he would find himself stranded, and with the planet the only possible source of survival in such a situation, it seemed extremely unlikely that his injection engine's rocket motor could provide enough thrust to get him moving toward it fast enough to reach safety before the relatively limited oxygen supply on board ran out. If that happened, then his pilotless Lightning would continued on course even with the rocket out of fuel. If his navigation system was accurate enough, then the aircraft would enter a terminal dive and burn up in the atmosphere, but if it was off by even a fraction of a degree from such a distance, then the Lightning would sail on past the planet and continue for all eternity out into the impossible emptiness between this galaxy and the next.
That was not a situation to relish, or to let one's thoughts dwell upon, and Muran tried to focus on the job still at hand. The threat screen was lighting up with enemy Auspex contacts. Fighters, coming in fast, breaking off from their escort of the bombers to move and intercept the Lightning force that had been launched from the Imperial flagship. They were no second-rate void fighters, but dedicated Swiftdeaths, designed exclusively for combat in space, unlike the Lightnings they were now homing in on. That did not, however, necessarily make them superior. The caliber of the pilot was just as important as his steed, and Muran, while not an expert on space combat as such, was a master of his craft, in every sense of the word.
'Tally ho, bandits inbound, break, break, break!' he ordered. The other Lightnings of the flight engaged their maneuvering thrusters to turn out of formation. It was tough to move effectively in a vacuum, as most Lightning pilots were accustomed to using the flight control surfaces that were only effective in atmosphere; the elevators, ailerons and rudder. Having to rely entirely on the thrusters and occasional bursts of the main rocket motor was a large step up from simply using them for general orientation toward the carrier ship and then for fine tuning their approach into a docking bay.
Many of the Lightnings rotated to face the oncoming enemy fighters, tracking them on Auspex. The Lightnings were now traveling sideways through space, having rotated about their axis but still moving in the same direction their last use of their rocket motor had propelled them in. This allowed them to fire at targets that were located off of their axis of movement, which helped confuse enemies who might imagine a fighter moving one way on their tactical screen to be defenceless if they approached from behind, only to find a nasty sting in what they thought would be their opponents' tail.
The Lightnings were far from defenceless, even if they were not optimized for space combat. More missiles left the racks, their rocket motors powering them onward to counter the Swiftdeath fighters that were coming in from several sides. Being able to orient parts of the formation in different directions meant the Lightnings could engage both threats at the same time with missiles, and Hammer Flight scored several easy kills against surprised enemy pilots who had perhaps underestimated their primarily atmosphere-based foes.
Missiles blasted off in return, heading for the Lightnings. Rapid evasive maneuvers of the kind that would have been second nature to their pilots were almost impossible in a vacuum, as the Lightnings could not take advantage of their turning circle or rapid climb rate in the same way. They lacked the dedicated combat thrusters and vectored plasma drives of those attack craft designed specifically for void combat, meaning outmaneuvering enemy missiles was all but impossible for them. Instead, chaff and flares were the order of the day, and they were just as effective in a vacuum as they were in atmosphere. The flares drew away any heat-seeking missiles, although with the Chaos forces firing against the backdrop of the system's star, that was hardly necessary anyway. The chaff, simple but effective strips of metallic foil that deceived enemy Auspexes, either by obscuring the real target or by acting as a decoy and appearing to be the target itself, still found their place also; if anything, the fact that the clouds of chaff were not dispersed by the wind or gravity as it would be on a planet meant they were even more effective, as they continued along on the same trajectory as the Lightning was moving when it released them, almost as a moving shield against targeting from behind.
Incoming missiles detonated astern of the Lightnings, mostly missing them entirely and sparing them even superficial damage. Hammer Eight, however, at the rear of the line, was not so fortunate, and disappeared in a cloud of flame and smoke as he was struck by a plasma missile that tore his jet apart. Not even a final scream came over the vox, and his death made no sound- dying in a vacuum was as silent as the grave.
There had been a casualty, but the Lightnings were giving better than they were getting. Several enemy bombers and at least two fighters had been knocked out, but in the titanic struggle raging around them, that was a mere pinprick against the mighty Chaos fleet now besieging the remnants of the Crusade. Where half a dozen had fallen, there were hundreds, or thousands, more scattered out across the abyss, and there was no way the Lightnings could hope to face off against them. Fortunately, they were not alone, as there were also a similar, though depleted, number of friendly Furies, as well as other Lightnings, and Thunderbolts, that were also heavily engaged in the fighting.
They were still outnumbered, however, and even as the Swiftdeaths swept by overhead and astern, more targets continued to appear on the periphery of the threat display screen as their Auspexes detected more and more of the enemy attack craft as they came into range. The enemy capital ships were many thousands of miles distant, but still appeared as vast, imposing hulks, silhouetted by weapons fire and illuminated by the blazing sun which, fortunately, appeared to be interfering with their sensors at least to a small degree. With such a potent source of heat and radiation lying directly in line with their attempts to target the Imperial ships, picking out the actual vessels against the backdrop of noise and clutter on an Auspex display was difficult, even for those with senses preternaturally sharpened by the grants and gifts of Chaos.
Imperial gunners were having an easier time of it, it seemed, for as Muran happened to glance around for threats he could see huge blooms of leaking plasma erupting from at least two of the Chaos capital ships. Lances continued to blaze on both sides, with flickering shields and explosions adding to the confusion of such a battle, on such a grand scale and across such vast distances as to be all but incomprehensible to those who had not grown up around such things.
It was still remarkable how anyone could have a full understanding of what was going on. Captains might command squadrons or companies, Generals would command Regiments. But each one of the ships Muran could see had a crew at least of the same size as most Guard Regiments, and the battleships had crews that were probably larger than entire Army Groups which might be assembled to conquer a whole planet. It truly was warfare on a mind-numbing scale, one that could test the strength and faith of any man.
But Muran and his fellow pilots were pious individuals, who paid fealty to the Emperor as any man or woman of the Imperium should. They were defenders of the faith, sent out to fight in the Emperor's name, with His word on their lips and His courage in their hearts.
All they could do was pray it would be enough.