The first boarding torpedo struck the Dawnshadow about 47 minutes after the shooting started. We had shot a number down before then, but we were not waiting to tell whether all of them were occupied—it was very possible some were sent as decoys on an automated flight path to draw our fire. The one that struck us, however, was very much filled with profane Iron Warriors. It breached our ENE octant, punching hundreds of meters into our hull before coming to a stop and unloading its cargo.
We gave them immediate resistance, but only to buy time. 47 minutes had not been long enough to achieve optimal readiness in securing our outer hull from boarding; we had siloed our defenses to prioritize inner mechanisms and command rooms first, which saw more immediate security be achieved by our most robust tactical teams. Our initial defenders, then, bought time for a drive-by bombing of our own design, Mirena among the fighters and bombers in question, as we shelled the Iron Warriors into the depths of space before the Dawnshadow’s anti-voidship guns, where they were promptly shredded. But that whole process had taken precious minutes to organize and execute. Loyal men and women had died staving off the threat of the traitor Astartes’s presence, and more still had died as we explosively jettisoned the section of the Dawnshadow in question into the void.
The second boarding torpedo struck us 1:33 into the battle, again in the Dawnshadow’s ENE octant. I was not going to wait for the third to do the same and overrun us. “Lycia!” I shouted to her. “East is taking too much fire! Have Engineering engage axial rotation, clockwise, three-eighths thrust!”
In evidence of everlasting Imperial bureaucracy, Lycia looked from my call of her name to Lord van der Skar, awaiting his approval. He gave it in a nod, and only then did Lycia make the call to the Engineering subsector. The plan was this: we were taking heavy sustained fire on our Eastern Quadrant—and, eventually, our Northern Quadrant—but our Southern and Western Quadrants were essentially untouched. If we were to rotate the Dawnshadow on its axis against an enemy fleet that needed to maintain its current position relative to us so as to not break its organizational structure, we would ease the Southern and Western Quadrants into the line of fire to ease the pressure on the Northern and Eastern.
This plan had risks, and did not come without drawbacks. The main risk was that our clockwise rotation would see to the weakened shields of the Northern Quadrant being faced against the Eastern, which was also under assault and being subjected to boarding torpedoes from the Soulcrusher. I thought this beat the alternative, however, of counterclockwise rotation, which would see weakened Eastern shields rotated into the line of fire of the heavier guns opposing our Northern Quadrant. The choice was risk greater boarding possibilities or risk being sliced to shreds by their Heavy Cruisers. The former was far from ideal, but it was also much better than the latter.
In terms of drawbacks, any rotation at all meant that we would not be able to return fire with the same degree of sustained power as we had been levying toward the enemy, as over a great distance even a small rotation would offset stationary lance batteries enough to make their sustained laserfire miss, at least in part. However, and I said a prayer to the Emperor that I was right in this regard, the lessening possibility of sustained assault might bait our opposition in nearer to us. If they were closer, their weapons would hit harder. But if they grouped up around their foe—us—that also meant they would serve as easier targets for the colossal surface-to-void weapons we had on Quintus.
Axial rotation engaged 1:41 into the battle, and just in time too, as a primary lance battery spun into and clubbed aside a third boarding torpedo that would have struck us while we were still addressing the second. The lance battery itself was undamaged, but the boarding torpedo flew awry, and struck our decks all the same, blowing apart and instantly vaporizing its crew along with a chunk of our outer hull. More sustained damage among a great heap of sustained damage, but a lesser addition than what another squad of traitor Astartes could pile on against us.
At 1:59, a boarding torpedo struck the Dawnfang, one of our allied Cruisers. It was not until 3:01 that the heretic Astartes aboard the Dawnfang were finally dispatched, and only just. Within that time, one more boarding torpedo struck the Dawnshadow and another two hit the Shatterwrath, van der Skar’s personal Cruiser. It would be inaccurate to lay the blame of such success of the enemy, in this regard, upon our defensive fighters, like Mirena. It would be inaccurate because they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, and all the same disabled or destroyed dozens more torpedoes that did not strike our craft. No, the situation was dire, but it could have been unthinkably worse if not for the heroic valor of all those who served in defense of Holy Terra and its Agents.
3:22 was the time at which our rotation finally saw the battered Northern shields be replaced by the intact Western. Unfortunately, our North became our East, which was the front from which further boarding torpedoes threatened us. Fortunately, by such a time, our internal defenses were at last coming to grips with priming our outer shells for such a heavy assault. The Red Hunters were deployed throughout the Dawnshadow, joined by Tempestus Scions, some of which were headed by Silas. Harakoni strike teams prepared for flanking maneuvers and to overwhelm the insertion of non-Astartes intruders, e.g., heretics of the Lost and the Damned.
It did not surprise me that the Lost and the Damned was here, and indeed I had anticipated it. But that fact was worrisome all the same, for it spoke to the fact that Valeran Mortoc, whoever he was, commanded an imposing presence in the galaxy indeed, that he was able to manifest an alliance with corrupted human traitors. It was these scum that likely piloted and owned, at least in part, the heretic vessels we now faced, save for the Battle Barge itself. We would need to better identify the companies and regiments from which these Lost came from, to better provide insight into the nature of an enemy we would undoubtedly face more of in the future.
“We must cut our losses,” Lord van der Skar declared at 3:33. He was faced with looks of confusion from many around him, myself included, not knowing what he was referring to. “My vessel. The Shatterwrath. I have not heard from them in some time, and what with two squads of the heretics aboard, we cannot afford to assume anything but the worst. Turn our weapons upon my ship, with the intent to cripple or destroy it before control of it is lost outright.”
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“The enemy will observe the fact that our weapons train above our heads, rather than into our fronts,” Lord Kanin noted. Indeed, were we to shoot down the Shatterwrath, we would have fewer weapons to use against confirmed enemy targets. But even then…
“I recognize that, Kanin,” van der Skar replied. “Do as I’ve instructed. If the enemy sees this action as an opening upon which to strike, they will be sorely mistaken. Do you concur, Blackgar?”
I was, frankly, surprised that van der Skar requested my opinion. But I should have been. Luring the foe in for a surface-to-void strike was my idea. And indeed, van der Skar’s theories about the status of his own ship and about the fact that turning our weapons over our heads leading to the overextension of our enemies seemed quite sound to me. All the same, in the moment, I hesitated to reply, not expecting the question at all.
My hesitation provided the room for another all-too-familiar declaration of enemy contact. “Two invasive hulls have breached lower decks,” Techsorcist Varnus reported. He had been mostly quiet within the room thus far, keeping to himself away from the other Inquisitors, though we had exchanged compulsory greetings with one another in private. “Trajectories suggest a targeting of Engineering subsectors. I will depart to assist in their defense.”
“Lucene, take your Sisters and aid him,” I ordered, and though I am sure she intended to protest, we did not have the time for such an argument. I turned back to van der Skar at once. “I do concur, Lord van der Skar, yes. It is not an ideal call to make, but I see no better.”
“Agreed,” van der Skar nodded. “Kanin, we must treat my vessel as compromised. Time is of the essence. And tell the Dawnfang, too, of our decision; Shatterwrath will have pilots still in the void that will need somewhere to dock. We must be ready to provide for them.”
“Cal, I—” Lucene hissed to me, attempting to keep her objection under her breath, but her power suit augmented her voice all the same.
+Go, Lucene. There is no time for debate. Stay safe. The Emperor protects.+
Her Sabbat-pattern helm stared at me in silence for a few moments, she likely having a million words of choice to use. But, after a time, she nodded and said only, “The Emperor Protects.” Then she departed, with haste, to catch up to Varnus, taking her Sisters with her. I was in Bliss’s hands alone, then, but was confident that would suffice for most threats I could realistically face; even so, the loss of three of the Adepta Sororitas was a notable decline in our defensive resources were the war room to come under direct assault. I also sent a command, via the monitron planted in my power armor’s right arm, to Silas to reinforce Engineering as well. He confirmed the order and that he was on his way.
It was 3:35 into our skirmish with the Iron Warriors and their Lost by then.
We opened fire on the Shatterwrath at 3:38.
For the first time in my life, I spied a moment of weakness for Lord van der Skar. A slight jitter in his legs, a tremble in interlocked, praying hands. I did not need to hear his silent prayer to know what was requested of the Throne as we consigned the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women he knew personally. And for what? The presence of less than thirty, perhaps less than twenty Iron Warriors? The numbers seemed not to justify our response, but the tactics and the context of the threat posed would need to suffice to quell his wary conscience.
It would not be enough, not immediately. I knew. Caliman likely knew too. It was not a thing one reckoned with overnight. Had I the time to, I would have pitied Lord van der Skar. But there was no time for anything beyond apathetic warfare.
A few minutes later, we saw our first glimmer of hope. The enemies on our Northern front coalesced into a pattern for an offensive approach, baited in by the opening created for them as we fired upon the Shatterwrath. I confirmed with Caliman that our surface weapons were ready. The ensuing seconds and minutes felt like hours or days, waiting, then, for the right opportunity to lash out at our foe. Waiting for the right moment to present itself while dozens of our allies died every minute. And then, at last…
“Do it. Give the order now, Caliman,” I told him four hours and four minutes into our battle with the enemy. “They are as primed as they’ll ever be,” I affirmed, and he agreed.
“This is Lord Inquisitor Caliman to active Agents on Quintus,” Caliman called to them. “Open fire on any and all enemy vessels in the vicinity of the Dawnshadow, even if they are danger close to operations command. Gloria in Excelsis Terra! The Emperor Protects.” The order given, there was further waiting to be done for it to be received, confirmed, and the weapons systems engaged by their ground crews. At least, we had observed, the boarding torpedoes had stopped being launched around the time that the Northern front began to descend upon us.
Finally, at 4:21, the might of Holy Terra revealed itself from the surface of Quintus in a dazzling display of overpowering crimson light, ramming into the undersides of our assailants and stressing their shields—and bulkheads—to their maximum. I knew we had survived at that point, though it had been close, even if our foes began to split their arsenal between us and the surface world. The only chance they had to conquer the Dawnshadow, then, would have been a suicide ramming, which Telgonus would not have allowed. Valeran Mortoc did not want that, he wanted three of us alive.
But their current situation, resistant though they were to accept their newfound reality, was unsustainable. Their vessels could not withstand the combined assault of a Ramilies Starfort, surfaceside lance batteries, and the myriad flotilla of fighters we still possessed. This was a point accentuated when both of the Heavy Cruisers Mirena had identified erupted into balls of flame against the void as they were focused down by Quintus. We had also already destroyed one of the Grand Cruisers from the North as well. And as the shields that began at our South finally rotated to the North, and our West to the East, it became clear as day that our defenses would hold to the dwindling armaments of our assailants.
Yet still they persisted, for a time, and by the time their fighters were recalled and their capital ships began to turn tail, we had suffered tremendous losses all the same. Shatterwrath succumbed to its near-proximity bombardment at 4:34, erupting into a fireball of its own, allowing us to train all of our weapons upon our fleeing foes by 4:40. And at last, nearly five hours into this engagement at 4:56, Warp tunnels opened to carry our cowardly assailants away. We had proven our defense could hold, once. The real test would be surviving the second battle still to come.
But the day was not yet over, despite initial celebrations from some of my fellow Inquisitors. Lords van der Skar and Caliman knew better and joined me in somber silence, but they were alone in that regard. Even Bliss and Emile seemed to celebrate, at first, until Caliman spoke up. “We’re not done here, you idiots,” he growled to the room. “A number of enemy fighters still remain before our guns and we cannot rest until every last boarding party is exterminated in full. Blackgar, I assume you wish to pursue our latest in Engineering.”
“All too keenly,” I confirmed, grim.
“Take it. Go,” Caliman nodded, clapping a hand on my shoulders in support but also shoving me toward the door. A fair assessment of our working relationship.
“Bliss, with me. Trantos, up to you,” I told them both as I left.
“I shall remain, Mr. Blackgar, to see things through.”
“Speaking of seeing things through, we must get our fleet before they get theirs,” van der Skar noted. “Kanin, Lycia, take the Dawnfang to rendezvous in that regard. Be quick about it.”