The bridge of the Emperor's Judgement swayed once more as something else struck home, another shot from any one of a dozen sources that seemed to be concentrating all of their available firepower on the Imperial flagship. It was, after all, a wise move, and if Marcos knew which of the enemy battleships held their own fleet commanders, he would have ordered his ships to do the same.
As it was, there appeared to be no way of telling. The ships had no identifying signature that recorded them as being the ship of any particularly noteworthy Chaos admiral or Lord. Nor had their sensors detected any particular discrepancy in the number or length of encrypted vox signals either being transmitted or received by each battleship that might identify a command and control vessel. The Emperor's Judgement, on the other hand, was almost certain to be listed in Chaos records as Marcos's flagship, perhaps even as the flagship of the Western Fringe Crusade itself, depending on how up to date their information was. The Dark Powers had spies everywhere, and unlike most Xenos infiltrators, it was very hard to detect someone who was as human as those he spied upon, with a suitable cover story and no obvious affiliation to Chaos, such as the ritual tattoos many practitioners had applied to their bodies.
Even if the enemy did not know for certain of the identity of his flagship when they arrived, it would have been a simple task to establish contact with Chaos survivors on the ground, or perhaps with the Daemon through some psychic link, and be informed of the facts. The previous Chaos fleet learned the hard way of the identity of the Emperor's Judgement; they learned of the name Lord-Admiral Arlen Marcos, too.
Whatever his reputation may or may not have been among the enemy, the battle was not going well for the Lord-Admiral. His ships were taking a heavy pounding under the relentless fire of the enemy, who had been dogged in their pursuit and were now vicious in their attempts to destroy the remains of the Crusade. They were closing the gap and showing little interest in pursuing the transports. No doubt they could be dealt with later, or perhaps they did not care if the Guardsmen and equipment got away. Perhaps they simply wanted pure revenge for their fellows who had died in their millions when their ships had been destroyed, their lives snuffed out in the void of space. Perhaps that was why they were so intent on the destruction of the warships and not the transports and their precious human cargo.
If they could buy time for the transports to get away, then that would be something, at least. They had been forced to flee, or they would have died in orbit around the planet, which meant they had caught up to the slower cargo vessels, which were now able to pull away once more. It was far safer to make the jump to or from warp in the outer system, despite the antics of the original Chaos warfleet which had dropped from warp almost on top of the planet, a reckless but effective move which had allowed them to get a drop on the Imperials. Once the transports were far enough out for a safe jump, Marcos would give them the order- assuming he was still alive.
The Emperor's Judgement was taking powerful hits from several Chaos cruisers and Grand Cruisers, as well as the two battleships, which were all focusing fire. Imperial escorts were attempting to maneuver in order to protect their flagship and also unleash their own torpedoes. They were running low, having expended the majority of their supply already. Their numbers were also dwindling, as the escorts were usually the first to die in any engagement, being far less well armoured than the capital ships they were charged with protecting. The same applied in reverse, however, and a dozen or more Chaos escorts had been pummeled into mere hulks by Imperial attacks. Starhawk bombers rode the tidal wave of defensive fire to try and get in close to the Chaos battleships and inflict killing blows with their missiles and bombs, dipping inside their fluctuating shields and unleashing their payloads. They died in droves, bodies tumbling out into the inky blackness, but they got in a good hit, like a staggered pugilist bouncing off the ropes with a mighty uppercut.
A hail of plasma bombs rained down on the lead Chaos battleship, inflicting mortal wounds to its dorsal lances and crippling most of its main Auspex arrays. Thousands died, a fair price for the loss of so many pilots, shattering the battleship's primary armament and gutting several upper decks, opening them up to the void. Though the battleship had taken heavy damage, it had taken the majority of the Imperial bomber force to achieve such a goal, and it had not destroyed the ship entirely, merely inflicting a good pounding. The other battleship, and the cruisers, were in good fighting shape, despite the attentions of the Indefatigable's lances and a number of accurate torpedo strikes from Imperial destroyers.
Their numbers were starting to tell. The Brigand's Folly took a powerful hit, a volley of lance blasts to its port side shields, dropping them, and carving through the thick hull with the next barrage. A desperate call came in over the vox from the cruiser's captain. They were on fire, flames spreading rapidly through the internal web of plasma conduits. Fire suppression had failed, automatic sprinkler and deluge systems failing to check the progress of the blaze, and halon gas purge systems having similar trouble due to the intense nature of a plasma fire when compared to regular combustible materials. Even though they were designed specifically for the job, too much damage had been inflicted to the ship's midsection by the lance strikes, knocking out fire detectors and killing firefighting teams. The plasma conduits led back, eventually, to the main reactor chambers, which was very much the one place on board that fire was the most unwelcome visitor of all.
With the fire suppression system shattered, heavy damage to the port side, most weapons batteries out of action due to the failure of the plasma conduit grid, and the potential for a reactor explosion, the captain of the Brigand's Folly announced with a heavy heart over the vox that he was giving the order to abandon ship. It was yet another blow to the Crusade fleet, now down to three cruisers. There was little possibility of any of the other ships being able to rescue survivors from the Brigand's Folly. They were still heavily engaged in combat and could not be distracted with recovery operations. Lifeboats, escape pods and shuttles began to launch from the dying cruiser, men running for safety before it was too late. The fire was spreading to the reactor chamber, and there was going to be one hell of a bang if it spread to the reactors themselves. They had to flee, but might well find themselves adrift in a tiny, cramped capsule shared with half a dozen others, floating amidst a deadly barrage of gunfire as mighty ships dueled for supremacy and survival around them. Forgotten among the drama, they would likely either be caught by a stray shot and destroyed, or simply abandoned in the heat of battle, left to die as their oxygen ran out, their escape pods having extremely limited mobility, and with the planet many millions of miles distant, the odds would not be in their favour.
Lord-Admiral Marcos accepted the message from the stricken cruiser, but could do little to help. He could not switch even a single craft over to search and rescue mode, lest they all be destroyed as a result. The fight had to continue, for they had no choice, no choice at all. All hands were needed to keep manning the barricades and throw everything they had left at the enemy, because it was the only way any of them would survive the fight. Outnumbered and outgunned, suffering losses and casualties and damage, the Crusade fleet was in a bad way, and it was only getting worse.
If they turned to flee, they would die running. If they stayed to fight, they would die struggling, but at least the transports might make it to safety; that would be some small sliver of comfort, at least.
The Brigand's Folly erupted with a titanic blast, ripping the huge ship apart from the inside as the reactors touched off, the fire having reached and consumed them, with nothing left to fight its spread. Debris from the explosion tore into scores of escape pods and lifeboats, killing many of the crew who had fled in the vague hope of survival, but for them it was not to be. For the rest of the fleet, survival looked equally unlikely.
Another destroyer exploded right in the centre of the viewscreen, and Marcos knew it was time to supplicate himself, to take the ultimate step he had been pondering since the Chaos fleet arrived. The only way his ships and his men would live to see another day was if he called for help. But there were no Imperial forces within a sector of his location. No battlefleet could rush to his aid, no Astartes task force or probing Explorator fleet or even so much as a single Planetary Defence Force corvette. It was time to explain what was happening, why his fleet had pulled out of orbit. It was time to tell the truth to the ponies and to their Princess, before it was too late.
'Vox!' Marcos called. 'Open a channel to Canterlot.'
The telescope in the Lunar Tower had proven a useful device for observing exactly what seemed to be going on up above in the heavens. At the best of times it was hard to figure out, as neither the Princesses nor Twilight were au fait with the intricacies of space combat. Nor were the human liaison team able to provide much insight, as they were only knowledgable when it came to ground operations and ordering orbital strikes, and not with actual battle procedures for combat between such behemoths as those which could be observed in the void.
To the ponies, each craft looked pretty much the same, and as they swirled and swarmed about each other any concept of which side might have the upper hand was completely lost. Nevertheless it was an enthralling spectacle, seeing such titanic machines of war doing battle, though there was of course grave concern also as to the potential result of the fighting. If the Chaos forces were to emerge victorious, what then? Would death rain down upon them from above? Would there be another invasion? Perhaps one, and then the other?
The danger was clear and obvious, and Twilight spent much of the time she was not looking through the telescope simply pacing nervously, wearing down the stone floor of the observation chamber with her hooves as she moved back and forth again and again. She knew that there was nothing she could do to help in such an event, other than protect those immediately around her as best she could with her magic. There were plenty of Imperial forces on the ground, scattered al across Equestria where they had helped to take back many towns and cities. No doubt they would fight hard against any invasion, not for the ponies, but simply to try and save their own skins in the hope of buying enough time for rescue. Rescue, however, was surely an extremely unlikely prospect in the event of a Chaos victory; they would besiege the planet, surround it as they had done before, and if the Imperial fleet were destroyed or had fled entirely, then there would be no ships and no reinforcements available to attempt to launch such a mission to the planet.
Some ships certainly seemed to be pulling out of orbit, but whose they were was hard to say. Each Princess studied the battle through the telescope in turn, and tried their best to plan against any potential invasion. No pony knew if the human Archenemy would bother with landing ground troops or not, because nopony knew what their ultimate objective was, but given the presence of the Daemon before the fleet's arrival, and some of the things it had said, Celestia and Luna both deemed it likely that the new fleet was working in conjunction with the creature, rather than opposing it. That made it likely, they surmised, that more forces would be landed if possible, to support the Daemonic creature's plans, whatever they may be. The Equestrian forces could not hope to stand against another attack for more than a few hours, if that. Only with Imperial assistance could any semblance of society be saved in such an eventuality.
The fighting above seemed to intensify, and then apparently die down, with far fewer flashes of weapons fire. Many of the ships were on the move, heading toward the sun and out of sight, as the glare prevented any kind of viewing through the telescope. It seemed that some of the ships were running away- but which side?
At Celestia's instruction, vox messages were tried by the liaison team, but they received no reply. An ominous sign, perhaps, but Celestia was certain that she could still recognise the ship which she had been transported to, and which she presumed was still the Lord-Admiral's command craft. It too was heading away from the planet, though whether it was in pursuit or whether Marcos was the one fleeing, she could not be so sure. If his ship was still intact, then perhaps there was some other reason for the silence- a communications blackout, maybe. Perhaps weapons fire interfered with the transmissions, or, as Atter suggested, perhaps the enemy were jamming the signal. Celestia had asked to be kept abreast of the situation whenever possible, and until now Marcos had been perfectly willing to comply with that request, suggesting that things might not be going as relatively smoothly as they had been even a day earlier.
While the silence was worrying, Celestia was not unduly concerned just yet. The crews of the Imperial ships had far more important things to worry about if they were still fighting. Communication with the ground could come later; would come later, she had assured the others. Twilight, at least, remained unconvinced. She did not know the Lord-Admiral, had not spoken to him and certainly not met him in person. Nor had she seen his ship up close, as Celestia had done. Deferring to Celestia was usually a prudent course of action, but Twilight still could not quite convince herself that the Princess was necessarily correct this time- after all, if the Imperial fleet was destroyed, there was certainly no way the Admiral would be getting in contact with them.
In the absence of any evidence, and with the ships fading away from view as they pulled away from the planet, the attentions of the ponies had to turn instead to those few craft that remained in orbit. There were some still visible, perhaps a dozen or so in total. Why were they staying behind when the others seemed to all be leaving? Were they Imperial vessels, intending to protect the planet in case another wave of enemies should appear?
Twilight peered through the telescope again. She didn't think so. They looked to her more like the ships she had seen arriving, not the ones which had already been up there. If that was the case, then it meant the Chaos forces were now in control of the orbital approaches to the planet, and that was very, very bad news indeed.
Celestia agreed with Twilight's assessment. It seemed the ships were hostile, which meant they had to be prepared for any eventuality. They could not be one hundred percent sure of their identities, but it was prudent to act as if they were Chaos. The Royal Guard sounded the general alarm for Canterlot, which saw ponies rushing to the now-cleansed walltop defence positions. The fallout had been removed or reduced to acceptable levels of radiation across the entire city by now, which included the landing grounds, allowing the airships to return from their temporary exile. They were scrambled as well, their crews prepping for liftoff in record time, getting their craft into the air, the drone of their engines throbbing across the valley. Cannons were manned and loaded, defensive sniping spots and emplacements filled with guardsponies in full combat armour. Most likely it was a pointless exercise; either the Imperials were still in control of the skies, or the Chaos forces would hit the city from orbit, or land troops directly within the walls as they had during the initial invasion. But if nothing else it made the ponies feel better. Finally they were doing something useful again, instead of simply cowering in the catacombs or cleaning up the city as best they could. They were out there defending it, and it helped the civilians, too. It was not humans defending their battlements. It was ponies.
With the battle seeming to be either concluded or merely having moved out of sight, the Princesses and Twilight headed back down to the throne room. There was nothing else to see through the telescope that would help them. Celestia tried her scanning spell again. It showed that there were no more than twenty ships in orbit around the planet, and while there had been one hell of a fight above, there was no way that many ships could have been destroyed without it being evident even to the ponies- the few massive explosions they had seen seemed to show that. Widening the radius of her spell showed that there were a lot more ships farther out from the planet. That was where the rest of them had gone, no longer in orbit but heading off elsewhere. Why? Were they running, or moving to intercept some other incoming threat?
In the throne room, they could plan more effectively for the defence of Canterlot. The rest of Equestria would have to mostly fend for itself, as it had done since the first invasion. Communication was still too slow for effective coordination of efforts across such a large area, and the humans had continued to refuse efforts to obtain some of their vox sets for pony use; keeping their technology to themselves, either out of mistrust or a desire to limit its spread to less technologically advanced civilizations.
The human spotter team, however, still had theirs, and shortly after, while the Princesses were in the midst of planning and poring over a map of the city in conjunction with Shining Armour, a messenger pony hurried to them.
'Your Highness!' he addressed Celestia. 'The humans say they have made contact with the Lord-Admiral!'
Celestia immediately left the planning table. That could be left to Shining Armour, and might not even be necessary. It depended on what she could learn from the Lord-Admiral. What exactly was happening up there- and could the Imperial fleet help her?
Captain Muran expended his final missile with a silent puff of exhaust from its motor. It streaked across the blackness toward an enemy bomber and tore into its fuselage before detonating inside, ripping the crew to shreds. All of his flak and plasma missiles had been used up, leaving his Lightning reliant on its lascannons and single autocannon to engage any more targets that might present themselves. There were still plenty around; hundreds of enemy fighters, bombers, attack boats and perhaps even more boarding torpedoes. The boarding teams that had forced entry into the Emperor's Judgement had been, so far as he knew, kept well in check by the armsmen and the rest of the ship's crew. Muran had not picked up any boarding craft on his Auspex, however; any further attempt would seem pointless unless the enemy desired to capture the Lord-Admiral for propaganda purposes. They already had the firepower advantage to simply keep pounding the fleet until it was nothing but wreckage. Boarding no longer held any significant tactical advantage. Instead, wave after wave of attack craft were being thrown at the Imperial line, and the line was faltering.
The numbers of blue sigils on the tactical screen was dropping steadily. Furies and Starhawks were taking heavy losses from enemy fire; the attack run on the Chaos battleship had cost the bomber force at least half their remaining number. Hundreds of Starhawks, gone in mere minutes, with a few thousands crewmen on board. That was to say nothing of the losses aboard the capital ships and escorts, which were sure to be catastrophic, running into the low hundreds of thousands judging by the devastation Muran could see from the outside.
There were gashes and gouges torn in even the thickest hulls, plasma and oxygen venting freely from many spots. The Brigand's Folly lay nearby. All pilots had been warned to stay clear of the crippled ship, as its main reactors threatened to overload at any time. Muran noticed that the cruiser was moving again; heading toward the enemy line, in a last ditch effort to inflict damage. Some enterprising fool or fools were at the controls, heroes steering the doomed ship into range of the enemy so that they might be caught in the blast from the reactors. it was a noble thing to watch, knowing that men or women were preparing to die in such a way. Perhaps it was the captain himself, going down with the ship, or maybe some junior officer had volunteered for the task. In truth it did not much matter either way. The important thing was that it was being done, and done in the name of the Emperor.
But would He save them? Could He? Could anything?
They were a long, long way from His radiance, basking in the glow of some foreign, far distant sun. All around, Muran could see evidence that their final stand was faltering, failing. There was heavy damage, turrets missing, entire shoals of attack craft lying dead in space, slowly rotating in whatever manner they had been when their last control input was made. There went the Brigand's Folly, all available power from the threatened reactors diverted to the forward shields. An absolute torrent of fire was flung against it by the enemy; perhaps they were aware of its plan, or perhaps they simply feared a potential torpedo attack or boarding action. Either way, the shields flickered and died, and lances, las-blasts and plasma began to smash into the thickly armoured prow of the Imperial cruiser. In a parallel of the earlier Daemonfate incident, the armour managed to hold long enough for the cruiser to get in close, trying to maneuver between the two battleships. But the Emperor called his servants home a little too early, and the Brigand's Folly disappeared in an actinic flash as the reactors overloaded and tore the ship apart several thousand miles away from the nearest Chaos ship. Apart from some minor damage, mostly superficial, the pair of battleships were unharmed by the gallant act of the brave men and women of the Brigand's Folly's stay behind crew. Brave, yes, but ultimately futile.
Just like the resistance of the entire fleet. They were being ripped to shreds by the enemy, the gambit of the Brigand's Folly had failed, the Astra Gloria was little more than a husk with a few small gun batteries still firing. The Polaris Maxima was hanging back somewhat, moderate damage visible to its port side. The Barnham's Pride was still fighting with all guns blazing, but both the Indefatigable and the Emperor's judgement were visibly stricken, not out of the fight and certainly not dead, but surely suffering massive casualties and severe damage. Clouds of debris surrounded both ships, parts of the hull shot away or ablated under the heat of a lance blast. Shattered attack craft. Bodies.
That was the only thing that would be left of them all, soon enough. Muran was sure. This had to be the end, unless Marcos ordered the ships to go to warp immediately. Even then, chances were they would not survive the attempt, since it would require the lowering of the void shields and the raising of the Gellar field, and while many shields were already down, those that remained were probably preventing the total destruction of at least half a dozen of the Imperial vessels.
The target lock alarm sounded in Muran's ear. Something, somewhere, was picking him up and painting him as a target. His rocket motor was running low on fuel; the Lightning was not designed for particularly extended space operations, and certainly not for violent combat maneuvers while being powered by the orbital injection engine. It was meant for a single, smooth burn to lift the craft into orbit, followed by a short secondary burn to get it on track with the carrier ship. Too much movement would drink through the liquid fuel in a hurry, which was exactly what had happened.
Nevertheless, Muran had to use up more precious lifeblood in order to dodge the incoming missile which had been fired at him, perhaps by a fighter or perhaps by the point defences of one of the Chaos destroyers he was veering a little close to. He had run out of chaff and flares. With so many threats around, they had to be expended liberally, as something seemed to lock onto his craft every minute or two. The scale of the battle threw every other air engagement he had ever been part of into the shade; there were thousands of attack craft whirling silently through space, both friend and foe, and against the backdrop of black it was hard to determine who was who. Looking toward the blinding light of the sun made it even harder, though the photoreactive cockpit canopy and helmet visor both tried their best to keep glare to a minimum and help Muran see what he was looking at. Again, here was an area where the Lightning suffered compared to the more specialised Fury and Swiftdeath fighters, which had much stronger anti-glare features. The Lightning was never meant to get this close to something as bright as the sun, a ball of swirling energy and a maelstrom of heat.
The missile detonated harmlessly astern of Muran's Lightning, and Rall, his wingman, managed to catch up and rejoin formation. He too was running low on fuel both for the main motor and the maneuvering thrusters. A return to the Emperor's Judgement would seem prudent, to refuel and rearm, but there was no guarantee their squadron's hangar bay was in any fit state to receive them. There was heavy damage to the battleship's flank, and to prove the point, even as Muran spared it another glance he could see explosions rippling along its hull amidships, right where the hangar bay he had flown from was located. Perhaps it was the end of the flagship. Maybe he was seeing the destruction of the last of the Crusade, the death of its commander. He turned his head and rotated his Lightning to face the Chaos ships.
With a sudden, blinding flash, he began to witness their destruction instead.