Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Air And Space

All across Griffonstone, men, pony and Griffon alike had gazed skyward, being startled and dazzled by the sudden and vast display of auroral activity overhead, and though it continued to rage on, so did the battle for the city. A strong push of traitor marines and infantry had managed to force a hole in the western perimeter and push in, only being halted by the fire of the half-dozen tanks dug in around the palace itself. Behind them lay the glowing blue shield being held up by Luna that covered the building and sheltered it. The massed cannon and las-fire pushed the enemy back and the line stablised again, but only temporarily. The enemy reinforcements were making planetfall, several dozen dropships supported by a few gunship escorts, along with four more of the larger shuttles accompanied by a trio of jet fighters. Imperial air defences were thin on the ground after the first wave of attacks, but one of the surviving Hydras bravely opened up, blazing away and bringing down one of the dropships in a fireball before being knocked out of action by missiles from one of the gunship escorts. The pony airships fared better, catching several dropships on final approach and causing enough damage to make them smash into the snowfield in crumpled heaps. One of them, engines still flaring, bounced and went spinning off uncontrolled in a wild flat spin before colliding with a rocky spur and exploding, roasting its passengers. The airships in turn drew the attention of the fighter escort.

The Starswirl and Canterlot hovered to the southwest of the city, from where they could engage enemy positions as they swept through the southern districts. The Vanhoover held station to the north, having moved to support the action against the enemy's attempted landing there earlier in the day. As the nearest target, the Vanhoover became the focus of the fighter escort, which ran in guns blazing. Their bullets bounced harmlessly from the airship's shield, but each craft was outfitted with a lascannon in the nose as well as the assault cannons and rockets slung from their wings. A second pass brought them into action, and their beams punched through the defensive shield. Ponies went down, chunks of deck planking being thrown up as the shots struck home. One of the anti-air cannons was shattered and partially melted by a lucky strike, but the others opened up in reply, accompanied by the quick-fire repeating guns and the machine-cannon, putting up a wall of fire. The fighters jinked and banked to throw off the gunners, bursting through the flak, their wingtips creating swirling vortices in the smoke as they passed. Bursts of magic were flung from the Vanhoover's deck, but missed astern of the fast jets.

Aboard the Starswirl, Captain Lance watched through his binoculars, observing the flickering exchange of fire several miles to their north. His eyes narrowed as he saw his fellow airship struck by the red beams, having drawn the ire of the enemy fighter craft. Even as he watched they ran in again, opening fire at close range and causing more damage to the gondola. He also saw a steady flash of white light from the quarterdeck, directed towards him. One long flash, two short flashes, one long flash. It was the standardised signal for 'Need Assistance,' used both by the military and civilian ships and dirigibles alike, either as a mayday call or, in this case, a request for immediate reinforcement.

'We have to support the Vanhoover!' Lance shouted. 'Signal the Canterlot to follow our lead. Helm, set course to rendezvous with the Vanhoover. All ahead flank. All gun crews are to ignore the landing barges and target those enemy aircraft!'

The practised hooves of his crew moved swiftly, as did the airship herself, driving hard to support her comrades, propellers whirring. The Canterlot fell into line astern and followed. The broadside gunners of the Starswirl prepared their weapons to fire if the possibility presented itself of engaging the aircraft at their guns' maximum elevation. The anti-air cannon on deck were loaded and swung round as the airship approached, passing over the north of the city where strobing gunfire and explosions could be seen below. A blue dome marked the location of the Griffon palace, a shield evidently protecting it from harm.

Up ahead the Vanhoover's shield protected it from most things, but not from the enemy beams. The fighters came in again, several shots striking the armoured gasbag and melting the protective covering into slag. Any more direct hits on the same location could prove fatal to the airship and its crew. But even as they were hit again, they retaliated, accurate fire from the 40mm rapid-fire guns puncturing the thin armour of one of the fighter's wings. A trail of vapour began to pour from it as one of its fuel tanks began to leak, the craft wobbling unsteadily as it climbed away. Its two fellows swung round once more, but this time they ran into trouble. The guns of the Canterlot were in range, and added their significant weight to the battle. A cloud of black smokey puffs appeared in the sky, like raindrops falling on a window, as the combined barrage riddled the air with deadly shrapnel. One particularly lucky shot detonated mere inches in front of the jet's air intake. A spray of metal was sucked straight in, dealing fatal damage to the jet's turbine. Smashed and bent fan blades burst free from the engine cowling as a plume of fire erupted from the exhaust. The aircraft raced through the gap between the Starswirl and the Vanhoover like a comet, losing height rapidly. A futile attempt was made to pull up, but with the engine no longer providing thrust it merely altered the angle of attack and could not save the stricken craft. It bounced on the pristine snows, then bounced again, before on the third contact the nose dug into the powder, flipping the aircraft end-over-end before it ripped itself apart in a blossoming fireball.

The undamaged jet continued its run and loosed off a few shots at the Vanhoover's gondola, striking home and killing two of the shield unicorns. The protective dome flickered, but held firm against the cannon fire also unleashed by the attacker, the two rotary six-barreled guns letting loose with a noise like a buzzsaw as hundreds of rounds were unleashed in a matter of a few seconds, letting the anti-air gunners know the true meaning of 'rapid fire.'

The other damaged fighter swooped back in from on high, blasting shots into the top of the Vanhoover's gasbag. Her own gunners unable to fire at such an angle, the Vanhoover relied on the other airships to counter, which they tried their best to do, barrels raised high and glowing red as they fired again and again, running low on ammunition. But their efforts were not in vain, as the diving aircraft ran into an iron curtain being thrown up. An undetonated shell smashed into the cockpit glass, shattering it as the round exploded, shredding the pilot within. With no one at the controls, the jet continued its dive, engine shrieking as its speed built up. Everypony on the other airships held their breath- it was plummeting straight towards the Vanhoover. Even the human spotters, Atter and Mons, on the Starswirl willed it to miss, but it didn't. The pilotless jet crashed onto the top of the shield with a tremendous explosion. The shield held, but only for a moment. Weakened by the loss of two of the unicorns, it flickered and died, but it had held long enough to protect the airship's gasbag from the impact of the Chaos jet. It did not, however, protect it from the wrath of the final enemy fighter.

'Target, two o'clock!' one of the Starswirl's Pegasus spotters cried out. Every available gun on all three airships swung about as the jet streaked in, but it was too late. A burst of rockets leaped from their pods, cannons pumped out masses of rounds, the lascannon flashed.

And the Vanhoover turned to flame.

The contents of the forward cells of the gasbag ignited all at once, the armour burned through by the lascannon and the self-sealing skin defeated by the array of firepower. A horizontal pillar of fire began to form in the skies over Griffonstone as the Vanhoover began to burn rapidly, like a candle, the flames advancing steadily down the gasbag. Pegasi grabbed crewmates and flung themselves over the rails to escape as the inferno rained down on the deck, setting it ablaze.

'All back full, all back full!' Captain Lance roared, as the Starswirl was still advancing toward the hellscape unfolding before them. The giant airship's motors were flung into full reverse, slowing her. 'Switch to directional shields! Away the rescue party!' Lance ordered. The unicorns responded, changing from a spherical shield around the airship to a semi-circular one aimed in the direction the surviving jet had been heading. This configuration allowed ponies to board or leave the craft, for firefighting, message carrying or rescue purposes. The rescue team, half a dozen Pegasi, jumped over the side and swooped towards the Vanhoover in an effort to save those trapped aboard. But those below decks would have had little knowledge of the calamity unfolding above them until it was too late, and the ponies on deck had fled, at least the Pegasi and all those who could be carried by them. A few wounded ponies lay on the burning deck, fire dripping down on them from above, unable to move, unable to flee. The rescuers strained their wings to reach them, but the fire was gripping the gondola, long strings of flaming canvas falling from the melting gasbag, the deck planking igniting everywhere, small explosions from detonating ammunition sending sprays of burning material flying. The heat was too intense, and the would-be rescuers had to turn back, their wing feathers already starting to smoulder. A few Pegasi managed to crawl out of the below-deck gunports, hastily grabbing at their fellow unicorns and earth ponies who clawed desperately at the openings as choking smoke filled the gun decks. Here and there, some crewponies crawled out onto the lip of the gunport and flung themselves into the void, preferring death by falling to choking or burning. The rescue team swooped into action, saving the first half-dozen to try it. But with every available pair of hooves full, there was nopony to save those that came next, and they could only watch as several ponies leaped, tumbling as they fell, the last agonising seconds of their lives filled with nothing but the sight of the looming snowfield below, consuming their vision until they lay broken and twisted upon it.

The Vanhoover was dead, and with all lift lost it began to settle, the skeleton of the gasbag slumping at both ends, as if accepting its fate reluctantly. The Vanhoover went down just north of the city with a loud groan, as if the ship itself were crying out in distress. The survivors were rapidly ferried to the Starswirl, even as the enemy jet came in again.

The Canterlot was ready for it, and a full barrage greeted the attacker. It was enough to throw off its aim, and its lascannon shots went wide of the mark, missing the Starswirl. Captain Lance kept a close eye on his rescue team and the other survivors, and as soon as they were aboard he shouted out his orders.

'Raise full shields! Helm, hard to starboard, all ahead one third, get us out of the Canterlot's line of fire.' He made sure to keep barking orders, however inconsequential, as a method of distracting himself from the blazing end of one of his fellow airship crews. Seeing the Griffon craft going down had been bad enough, but this was one of their own. He dared not spare a glance at the survivors for fear he would see good friends disfigured- or worse, not see them at all. Several of the rescued crewponies were badly burned, their fur and skin roasted away. The lucky one had their nerve endings destroyed and thus felt little pain from their hideous injuries, but others screamed and moaned in agony. The Starswirl's medics rushed to the deck to aid as best they could, but severe burns needed specialist treatment that they were simply not equipped or trained to provide.

The enemy jet came around again as the Starswirl rotated ponderously about its axis in an effort to clear a corridor of fire for the Canterlot. They succeeded. The anti-air airship opened up with everything it had, loading the last of its ammunition in an effort to bring down the enemy fighter. It came in again, engine roaring, guns blazing. The lascannon fire burst through the Starswirl'sforward shields, tearing several gashes in the thickly armoured prow, though missing the bombardment cannon. The Canterlot's aim was true, and the 20mm machine-cannon, 40mm rapid-fire guns, and the 75mm main guns combined to produce a blizzard. The jet flew straight into it, and though no particular gun crew could claim it, the Canterlot chalked up another kill, as the enemy aircraft exploded in midair, a fireball hurtling forward for several hundred feet before starting its long drop to the earth below. A cheer went up from the Canterlot's crew, echoed by those aboard the Starswirl who had not been shocked into silence by the sight of their grievously wounded comrades being helped aboard.

With the enemy fighters gone, the attention of the pony airships could turn back to the troop transports, although the Canterlot was almost out of ammunition. The Starswirl, however, was still in possession of a considerable number of shells for her bombardment cannon and main guns. While they couldn't engage airborne enemies, they could certainly target the passengers of the dropships once they had landed. Lance issued the orders, and the prow of the Starswirl erupted with flame as the bombardment cannon lobbed a hefty shell earthward. A fountain of dirt killed a dozen Chaos infantry as they streamed toward the city, reinforcements for their comrades besieging the palace. The airships could fight, but they could only do so much. Their crews were tired, and so were the defenders on the ground, and fresh enemies hungry for battle were landing in their hundreds. It looked like a last stand, and that was precisely what it was. Surrounded, with no prospect of relief, the fragile alliance between three races could only hope to acquit themselves well in their final battle.

Science told them one thing, but reality told them another. Despite thousands of previously recorded incidents of solar flares and coronal mass ejections having zero impact on warp phenomena, somehow this one solar storm was breaking through, seemingly countermanding physics and reality itself. As Arch-Magos Darius had suggested, it appeared that the unknown readings, the unknown particles contained within the ejecta, were having the effects that Lord-Admiral Marcos had desired them to have, but scarcely considered as a serious possibility. A ragged, roughly oval-shaped hole tens of thousands of miles long was being torn in the warp cover around the planet, a gash of reality cutting through the mists of the Immaterium.

As soon as the stability of the opening could be confirmed, the Crusade Fleet drove hard toward it, their engines throbbing as the Lord-Admiral ordered flank speed and standard attack formation, the bulk transports and fleet fuelling tankers hanging well back as the battleships and cruisers pushed on, the Emperor's Judgement in the lead. The hole in the warp storm was big enough to get a moon through, meaning there was plenty of room for the fleet to spread out into formation, though they could not put too much distance between vessels as they would be fighting in the very upper reaches of the atmosphere, sandwiched between the planet and the still-swirling mass of the rest of the warp storm.

In the days since the last battle, the Crusade fleet had been patching itself up. While destroyer pickets patrolled the edges of the storm and the outer system, the bulk of the fleet's ships were sealing bulkheads, welding breaches, repairing wiring and piping, replacing damaged gun barrels, burying the dead.

Space burial was very common among the Imperial Navy, both for sentimental reasons and because it was hard to find the space on board an interstellar craft that might be undertaking a six-month tour to spare on cryogenic body storage. As a result, thousands of bodies had been jettisoned from airlocks or fired from torpedo tubes, either towards the system's star or aimed into deep space according to each man's wishes expressed in his Commissariat-approved will and testament, signed when joining up. Normal conditions for space burial would have seen each body sealed in a specially-designed casket, but there were too many dead and not enough caskets, and so most of those killed in the fighting floated on, unprotected from the uncaring void, direct exposure to which had been the end of so many of them, towards their final resting place. Turned to ash by the heat of the star, or to burn up in the atmosphere of some other distant world, or, perhaps, to sail unhindered through the vacuum for all eternity. Lord-Admiral Marcos did not want to condemn any more of his sailors to such a fate, but he knew many would have to die to ensure the success of the Crusade. The fleet of the Archenemy must be finished off for good, lest it inflict further suffering on civilians, for it would undoubtedly be human civilians next time, either colonists on one of the new worlds conquered by the Crusade or on some other poorly-defended system on the fringe of mankind. But they could, no, they would, be stopped here.

'My Lord, one hundred thousand miles to the breach,' the helmsman reported.

'Very good. Steady as she goes,' Marcos replied. 'Take us in, all ahead two thirds.'

'All ahead two thirds, aye.'

'My Lord, vox signal from the Ferrus Terra.'

'Put them through.' The vox-link crackled into life.

'Lord-Admiral, this is Grand Magos Darius,' came the digital voice from the other ship. 'You should be advised that there is a possibility that the warp storm will regrow, so to speak, and seal the breach after the fleet has entered. Our calculations cannot be specific as we do not know the nature of the forces that have caused the rift to occur, but we continue to study the particles. As the ejecta leaves the area and is no longer in contact with the warp energy, the storm could return to its full potency.'

'Thank you, Magos. I'll take that into consideration,' Marcos replied. 'But that warp storm originated around the enemy flagship Soul Harvest, correct? Therefore it seems most likely that something, or more probably someone, aboard that vessel is responsible for its creation. Would your determination support mine in that destroying that ship, and whatever is causing the storm, would cause it to cease?' he asked.

'That would seem logical, Lord-Admiral, yes,' Darius replied. 'Though we have no proof of this, of course. However, records of other localised warp events created by individuals or groups of individuals affiliated with the Dark Powers, as opposed to those that formed naturally, suggests that the death or incapacitation of those responsible will lead to a shutting down of the entire storm system.'

'Thank you, Magos. That's what I wanted to hear.' Marcos clasped his hands firmly in the small of his back. 'We have a target. Signal the fleet. Priority target one is the Soul Harvest. Priority target two is enemy landing ships and transports. All ships are to hold fire until I give the order.'

The message went out among the escorts and ships of the line. The Imperial fleet had taken heavy losses in the battle, but unless the Sorcerer Lord had somehow been able to conjour up more vessels out of nowhere under cover of the storm, the Crusade had the advantage in numbers, as well as the advantage of surprise. The Emperor's Judgement led the line, accompanied by the Malleo Mortis, its lance batteries fully repaired and ready to kill. Each battleship had one of the surviving frigate squadrons accompanying it, while out on the flanks came the destroyers, their torpedo tubes standing by. The Mars-Class Battlecruiser Indefatigable followed on, its Nova Cannon ready to unleash hell, while a total of nine cruisers and the remnants of several more escort squadrons brought up the rear. The transports and landers remained in high orbit some distance from the planet. The vox-crews aboard each ship were instructed to monitor for any signals from the planet and attempt to raise friendly forces if possible.

None of the ships were at one hundred percent capacity, as although the repair teams had been working day and night there had simply been too much damage for them to fix within the last two and a half days. But this might be their only chance to push through the storm, to eliminate the traitors, to rescue their men trapped on the planet below, if any were still alive. Their fellow Guardsmen waited eagerly in high orbit for a chance to relieve or avenge them. But before any second invasion attempt could be made, they would have to break through the enemy fleet.

Any man in a compartment with a porthole could see the storm, mere hundreds of miles off of the port bow of the advancing fleet. Getting much closer to the roiling maleficent clouds would risk damage, destruction, or worse. The storm sat at around ten thousand miles from the planet, meaning they would be fighting very close to the outer reaches of the planet's atmosphere and at absolute minimum ranges, a confusing melee that was rare in space combat due, usually, to the incredible distances between planets or other points of interest. Fleet combat usually occurred considerably farther from such obstacles, and the Lord-Admiral had issued orders for all gunners to be especially mindful of their targeting. Stray shots that missed their targets would continue on towards the planet, and any projectiles that were not burned up or dissipated by the atmosphere would have the potential to cause massive damage below, perhaps killing friendly ground forces or disrupting the ecosystem that made the planet such a valuable garden world. Though the storm itself continued to frustrate their instruments, as the Crusade fleet crested the 'horizon' of the stormfront and were able to observe down through it, they came face to face with their enemy.

'My Lord, we have a contact on the Auspex!' came the cry. 'Below the storm wall, just came into view. Destroyer, Iconoclast-Class, range twenty thousand.'

'No doubt he will already be raising the alarm,' Marcos grunted. 'Signal the fleet. All ships, attack speed.'

Across the array of Imperial warships, engines surged, main drives pulsing as they accelerated towards the planet. The Chaos escort, perhaps sent to investigate the hole in the storm cover, turned toward the unexpected intruders trying to slip into their domain.

'New contact, bearing three-three-zero relative. Cruiser, Hecate-Class,' the Auspex officer sang out. 'Range nine thousand...new contact, bearing three-zero-two relative. Destroyer, Iconoclast-Class, mark as Beta, range twenty two thousand. New contact, bearing three-zero-one relative. Destroyer, Iconoclast-Class, mark as Gamma...' As the fleet powered forwards, the officer rattled off a string of new contacts as the bulk of the Chaos ships hove into view, already turning towards the threat.

'Signal all ships, mark and lock targets, standby to fire on my command,' Marcos ordered. Across the fleet, gun barrels swiveled, tiny movements of mere inches resulting in a shift in the point being targeted of hundreds of miles due to the distances involved. Torpedo tube doors slid open, bomber crews suited up and prepared for launch. The fleet was ready for the word. And the word came.

'Fire.'

Comments

[Sunny Starscout]

Yikes. That update schedule

[Coranth]

KILL THE CHAOS BASTARDS!

[sykko]

KILL THE MUTANT! BURN THE HERETIC PURGE THE UNCLEAN!