02.465.M39

The slaughter raged on for years. When it came time to take out the battleships they fell rather quickly. They did quite a good job of covering their blind spots even without escorts but we came in packs focusing them down.

We went after the ones that couldn’t match our range first. With them down it opened up more attack vectors on the other battleships.

The others tried to keep jockeying position to stay behind the battleships with longer range or the space hulk. We weren’t under any real time constraints and could cover too many angles for it to be effective.

When it finally came time to take on the battleships that had long range weapons we used the information gathered from our focused auguries to optimize our plan of attack.

A single dorsal lance battery? I don’t know of a lance battery with the ability to punch through a quad shield on its own. Our void shields repeatedly shrugged off their lance fire while we bathed them in laser fire.

Once the last battleship fell I had Nathaniel’s escorts focus on the remaining roks, policing hulks (make sure to double tap) and generally staying away from the Space Hulk.

I also requested my father to send word to Accatran. He was terse yet pleased. His butthole had slowly unpuckered over the years as he watched his Dynasty methodically pick apart the ork fleet.

It was mildly entertaining to see his demeanor change over the years. When we started he was damn near sweating bullets and shitting bricks.

We repeatedly scanned the space hulk trying to identify as much of it as possible. Particularly any areas with a firing arc on functioning engines. There wasn’t a whole lot we could do except make the effort.

A few of the captains from our Star-Class frigates were voluntold. Once they were within range and able to start taking shots with ineffectual retaliation we had the rest split into groups of 2-3 and repeat the process across other engines. They were of course to prioritize their own safety.

It took quite a while. We even had to cautiously approach some angles outside of the larger weapon’s firing arcs. Then carefully destroying those weapon systems before moving onto other engines.

It was another 6 weeks before the first Accatran fleet arrived. I say first because barely 4 weeks later another even larger fleet arrived.

Some of the larger ships (battleships, battlecruisers) weren’t entirely hulked. They were down for the count and if we noticed any suspicious activity we’d give them a few more salvoes in the sensitive areas to make sure they stayed down. It did mean that orks were still alive because of course they are.

Maybe someone will deem it worth boarding them and clearing them of orks. It won’t be us though. I hear skitarii like to kill things. The Ultramarines are relatively close by. Maybe they’ll want a ride on the space hulk?

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Accatran did indeed plan to board some of the vessels because our kill list on the holo was updated. Some were marked for ‘hulking’ while others were marked to leave as is for recovery. Fun times for the skitarii.

Our crews had performed admirably. There had been quite a bit of nervous energy in the fleet for the first few months. The captains and moderati did an exceptional job leading their crews.

Once things had settled in and the crews were receiving reports of our progress things settled down. By the end of the engagement I like to think the majority of the crews saw it as just another day.

It’s heartening to see that level of trust and commitment between all ranks on a ship. Then further across the fleet.

*yawn* the boring part of policing all the hulks, preliminary appraisals, arranging them to be tugged back to Accatran, so on and so on. I’m glad father is here for this part because it drives me nuts. I can do the work, it's just drudgery.

Father on the other hand is in his element. This is his chosen battlefield and he’s fantastic at it. He’s even mentioned trying to get a battleship or two for the dynasty.

I’m not so sure. It might draw the wrong kind of attention within the Imperium if we try to do that too early. An established rogue trader dynasty getting battlecruisers or grand cruisers is not that uncommon.

Rogue trader dynasties getting a battleship is a lot of attention. Especially if we don’t have the additional fleet to justify having one and supporting it.

I’d also need to talk to the Magi shipwrights and see how fast we could get them to go. I remember a ‘Fast Battleship’ class so I know fast is possible but how fast? What are the trade offs? Weapon layout? Specifics matter.

Also battleships are giant show pieces. Cost to Performance ratio combat wise is questionable. How many Accatran-Class Battlecruisers or Starr-Class Heavy Frigates could we afford for the same price?

If we can get it to speed match our Battlecruisers I’ll be more onboard with it. I would like to keep that as our new minimum speed across the fleet.

I’m all for getting more big ships in the fleet assuming they can meet the minimum speed requirements. Working them in would greatly increase our overall fleet endurance. As well as the ease with which we can crack open harder opponents.

I’d love to press on and keep burning more systems yet it’s more practical to get some yard time and wait for another build cycle. We may not have lost any ships but that doesn’t mean we didn’t take any damage. Explosions happen, debris thrown, lances sometimes sneak through.

Watching the Mechanicus work is at least mildly entertaining. If they deemed a ship to be worth exploring for possible recovery of technology and knowledge their skitarii boarding parties get a work out. Otherwise the ships are thoroughly slagged. No point in leaving orks alive.

Theta (our shipwright) has been about as ecstatic as a Magos can be without inciting fear in those around him. Sure he was happy with the data from our little skirmishes before but those weren’t in his words ‘proper battles’. This one has had him leaking machine oil and making all kinds of happy noises.

Seeing as how Theta was in such a good mood I brought up the battleship idea. He mentioned with much reluctance an “Invincible Class Fast Battleship”.

It was made very clear that no one liked it and that it had a bad reputation. However the more I heard about it the more I think someone just used it wrong. When further pressed if something like that would work better with our fleet doctrine he couldn’t help but reluctantly agree that there was some merit to the idea.

We would need to tread very carefully with trying to get a fast battleship variant whipped up. It will need to be presented in such a way that it would be able to avoid the fate of the Invincible-Class.

Who am I kidding? I’m sure people will hear how effective our new frigates are then use them in the most horrible of ways. Then complain that the kite machine is a horrible brawler making it a flawed design.

Anyway, this is all speculation at this point. We need to return back to Accatran now that the system has mostly been policed and tallied. It’s a short ride ~3 weeks.

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