One after another, the Ork Space Hulks vanished from the system, giving the defenders a bit more hope.
But it was already a bit late, as numerous Ork Roks were plunging towards Deliverance and Kiavahr , with many eager Orks already jumping off-board as to more rapidly engage the Raven Guard and their successor chapters in melee.
Some of the Orks actually survived the fall, and just scratched their empty heads at the craters left behind, before howling for Waaaagh! and running ahead for glorious melee.
I still had to deal with the more dangerous Ork Battleships and Kill-Kroozers, especially a dozen Hammer-class Battlekroozers that had grown even larger than Imperial Battleships, by adding more engines, guns and even more armor.
Spreading several Nova Mines, I blinded anyone looking too close at the space combat, and stole the ships away, for later use.
The smaller Ork escorts and Roks were instead engaged directly, and left holed and burning in the void by our Crusade Fleet, more like a prize for the Forge Temples on Kiavahr, who may also need metal and such to rebuild.
I even left 16 Kill-Kroozers mostly intact, by emptying them of crew and splashing frag grenades inside, before transporting a thousand Auxilia troops on each, for bragging rights.
While the Lancefire Knights and Titans protected the more important factories and installations on the ground, I deployed the rest of the Auxilia for a defensive training operation, along with their tanks, Sentinels and Tarantula turrets.
I also wanted to test the new Ragnarok Anti-Air vehicle, that combined both the Hyperios missile launcher and the new twin-Burst Lances, which tripled the damage output compared to regular multi-lasers.
Sadly, while I had worked on a classic triple-barrel Burst Lance as a larger brother of the multi-laser, the smaller Ragnarok chassis couldn't afford the energy needs, unlike Baneblades or Astareus models.
Even so, the new Cobra Tanks proved very effective at shooting down Ork copters, Ork riding missiles and various other types of unlikely aerial targets.
An hour later, M emerged from the tesseract bruised and bleeding, his new Invictus Warsuit hanging in strips of useless metal on his body.
Canis grinned at me with Ork blood around his teeth, although he was also limping.
Menelau missed his left hand, for whatever reason, but he smiled happily. While Valeyne was holding most of her insides still inside with one hand, and dragged a meter-wide Ork head behind her.
"Guys! What took you so long?" I asked curious.
"I knew it! I missed the fleet combat..." M grunted and simply sat on his ass, looking a bit tired.
"Wof!" Canis exclaimed and fell on his side as well, sounding content.
"Dear wife...you need a bandage?" I continued in a more serious tone. Valeyne just grunted and vanished with her Nexus, appearing in the medical section and crashing on a bed. The Sisters rushed to help her, so I just glanced at Menelau who was stoically enduring the pain of a lost hand. I still remembered when it happened to me.
"I'm feeling fine, my Lord. But I'm thinking I will become a Primaris soon. I'm just not good enough." Menelau muttered in a low voice.
I sighed inward. I didn't have almost none of the Astartes gene-glands, and those that I did seemed mostly inert. Except the glowing heart.
"Ask Anzion, maybe he can install a heart furnace or whatever. Mine does great work." I offered with a kind voice.
Menelau just looked at me weirdly and walked away, likely to tend to his injury or lament at his loss. Maybe both.
"Woooouuu?" Canis mewled while still laying down. Fine.
I moved Canis near Anzion so that our medical genius could fix his broken leg or whatever the sound meant.
"I can go and try the Ravenspire, Lancefire. Corax should keep an eye out for his homeworld, with the big invasion and all." M said in a tired voice, although his flesh was already healing rapidly. Bullshit Primarch stuff, even if cloned.
"We'll both go. Once things settle down a bit. Fix yourself another Warsuit, you look a bit disheveled." I demanded in a level voice and sent him near the STC Constructor, deep inside the Fortress. The ancient machine already had his special measurements and specs, so the next Warsuit would only take an hour or less.
The defense of Kiavahr continued, and still took a whole day to clean up the disorganized Orks, or hunt down fleeting ones.
The Auxilia made me proud, as they blunted the Ork charges heroically, while the snipers scored hundreds of kills each. Far better for a sniper to spend 300 Bolt rounds to kill 100-200 Orks, than to fire 300 rounds at high rate from a heavy bolter for a dozen kills or less. The ammo was expensive after all.
The Thunder Exo Frames proved their worth, as constant Ion Beams burst the silly Orks into vegetable soup.
Sadly we only had some 40000 suits for now, as they were quite work-intensive to armor up.
Luckily, there was a not-Forge World here, almost like my own Forge Retribution, building weapons only for the Raven Guard.
During the Ork attack, a number of precious date-slates and library cogitators were somehow infiltrated and downloaded, with thousands of dead Ork Meks scattered in pieces all over. Some of them had indeed fallen from the sky and splattered themselves in brutal litho-breaking. Others were sown by my own left hand, with a krak grenade primed inside their pants.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I wasn't the first time I used an Ork invasion to obtain nice stuff, but this was not even fake!
Hidden inside a vault I found a strange artifact called the Uncreator_Gauntlet , which would have been very useful a century ago. I mean, repairing or deconstructing any machine was rather useful even now, especially as it also worked on xenos devices.
No wonder the Raven Guard had so many 'dedicated' artifacts that nobody else had, including stealth tech and many others.
Days later, I met with both the Fabricator of Kiavahr and the leaders of the Raven Guard, who were rather surprised and happy with my presence.
"Can you really bend shadows?" Kayvaan_Shrike their Chapter Master wondered with a wary look at my White Scar bodyguard, and a rather curious look towards Canis.
Well, if you have to ask...I closed my fist and gathered shadows around me, then vanished in the tesseract and appeared behind him. Poke!
I tapped his backside with the back of my gauntlet, then as he whirled around I lit up my Phase Claws, making the brave Primaris jump backwards. "I can do many things, Master Shrike. For example, I often find lost STCs and trade them away to various Forge Worlds, and they gift me some ships as a Favor. Other times, I find Astartes Chapters that need help, and I help them. From my knowledge, your gene-seed is just as flawed as the Blood Angels, but not so bad as the Space Wolves."
Covering my left hand in shadows, I took out a stack of STC data-slates and offered them to the Fabricator. A good chunk of newer STCs, including Ionic Flare shields and Ion Beamers as well as many of my older STCs like Armed Sentinels and Ragnarok tanks. If they integrated my new tech for their units, they could easily gain an order of magnitude in firepower.
"This...it is too much, Lord Lancefire. If I haven't seen your troops already use them in the field, I would have wondered if they are fakes." the Fabricator admitted with an astonished voice.
I snapped my fingers, and the Grand Hall of the Ravenspire became filled with 2000 young war-clones and 100 of my Blank sons, barely out of puberty.
"The Blank ones will also be able to bend shadows, after some training. A single Company, to test how your gene-seed reacts to my own genome. The rest are a Mechanicus experiment for combat troops, including genetic enhancements and various mental hardening stuff. Should be able to endure Primaris induction without much trouble." I explained as the Chapter Master examined the new recruits with keen eyes.
"Woooogh Waaa!" Canis howled, and rushed among the clone kids like a hungry predator, making them jump and scatter with impossible agility, even though his ferocious howl should have frozen them on the spot. Anzion did a good job with the war-clones, using genes from the strongest Catachan operators in the Special Operation Group, then upgrading them higher than the Demiurg had with their Kin.
Using natural Blanks was still deadly even for clones, so it wasn't an option, while my own special genes still resisted cloning with the same horrible results. Sometimes we were lucky to collect enough neurons and nerve tissue to build a new Blank Machine Spirit, but often it was just a soup of blood and melted organs. The blood soup still worked for psyk-out grenades and phase-iron bolters, so it wasn't fully wasted.
"They appear rather...different. Even faster than a Firstborn Neophyte." Master Shrike observed as Canis chased after the kids.
"My Lamenters and our successors only use Blanks, but these new war-clones show promise as well." I said with a smile, then glanced up towards the special room of the Raven Spire, the Eyrie.
Master Shrike followed my eyes and grit his teeth, obviously uncomfortable with the thought.
"I was already there, Master Lancefire. If the Primarch was to return, I believe it would have been for his own sons, not a distant cousin." he spoke with a grieving voice.
"Still, there are things you don't know. My bodyguard was sent by Primarch Khan himself, as a reward for finding him. My own gene-seed was implanted by Sanguinius himself. And there are more strange stories with the other two Primarchs..." I added in a soft voice. I did have a big stick as well, but because of the Ork invasion it would not be needed.
"...I've heard some stories too. Maybe you are indeed the left hand of the Emperor, like some tech-priests claim." the Raven Guard mused to himself, barely glancing at his loyal Fabricator.
"Come, Canis! I will need your nose for this." I asked the brave wolf who was now giving pony-rides to a bunch of my young sons, even climbing walls as the kids cheered.
Quite the show-wolf, my loyal friend.
"I will disable the stasis fields..." the Chapter Master promised and then ran towards a wall, then vanished into a shadow. Hey! I wanted that Shadow-walk skill too!
"I think it is a trait form their gene-seed, Lord Lancefire. Not that you need more cheats..." Brother Joghaten spoke with a wise voice.
I pouted and sighed audibly. My gene-seed made me want to eat people! How was it fair?
A minute later, the Chapter Master jumped down from another shadow, and just nodded towards me, while a bird skull nodded as well from his belt. Click.