I accept the comm request, audio only.

“Monkeigh! How dare you fire upon my glorious vessels!”

Ardent Bane matches the voice of the xenos for me, identifying him from previous conversations as Yhunon Urach.

I use my implants to imitate Konrad and say, “Fuck off you sanctimonious twat. You launched your assault craft at my vessel without warning. We are not your beaten chattel to be consumed at your whim! You’ve broken our cover and got us involved with the Imperial Navy!

“Already the messages will be streaming out across the stars. Our trade is cut, our worlds will burn, and with our population in tatters, you won’t get another single fucking slave from us. I’d ask what you were thinking, but clearly you're so high on your own shit that you can’t see beyond your own nose!”

Yhunon’s laugh is long and cruel, “There are always more Monkeigh. More worlds to sup upon. Your little agreement means nothing to us and your woes are a feast for us to harvest as we will.”

“Is that so? You’re already down three escorts and the rest of your vessels are taking a beating. Then again, you always learned the whip from beneath your superiors. What does it feel like to lose all your power? No, don’t answer that. I’m not interested in how you get off. Just tell me why you contacted me.”

Yhunon mutters several curses in Aeldari then says, “Return the mistress to us or face the consequences.”

I smirk, it sounds like Sciéno was a high ranking Succubus, or maybe even an Archon. Not only that, but she has enough blackmail on her second in command to have him attempt a rescue. Now I just need to get him to commit so we can swab their bodies off the decks.

“I’m not the one who's losing void ships. Can you imagine what might happen to Commorragh if your haemonculus respawns her in the depths of their laboratories? I bet it took a few samples when it gave her a Monkeigh makeover so she could ape her betters. You know those Haemonculi aren’t right in the head. The chance to play with a Drukhari psyker would be far too great a temptation.”

“They would never.”

“You don’t believe that. Won’t you respawn there too? I should put a bullet in your precious mistress for all the trouble she’s caused. She’s holed up in the banquet hall after failing to capture Trader Modren’s guests. The doors won’t hold forever. The Magos’s troops are on the way and I can’t hold them off with your dumb mercenaries wrecking Ardent Bane.

“If you want her back before her soul gets sent back to a cloning vat, you’ll have to be quick. Even if she respawns somewhere other than Commorragh, I doubt she’ll be pleased if you don’t even attempt a proper rescue. Not the dregs you threw at my vessel.”

None of them are going to respawn with me nearby, but they don’t know that.

“You know far too much of our ways, slave. I think I’d best take your head myself.”

“You can certainly try,” I say.

I don’t think he’s going to do too well after failing that wisdom check though.

Yhunon cuts the connection and the Drukhari cruisers start accelerating hard, trying to get away from all the Imperial vessels firing at them. Their assault craft detach from my hull and return. I take care not to destroy too many of them as they escape as I don’t know how many assault craft they have left, but I think I eliminate enough of them to make it convincing.

I order all my vessels to focus on the engines of the enemy vessels, but they’ve done something to their holofields that removes the exploit my own vessels were using to target them. To the sensors on Iron Crane, which is the most distant vessel to the Drukhari, it even looks like they have nine vessels instead of three.

For my closer vessels, the feedback their auspex receives is just fuzzed enough that my gunners can’t quite be sure where the enemy vessels are. It doesn’t take much to miss in a space battle, forcing my void ships to focus their fire on a single vessel at a time, saturating all possible options to get their hits in.

The clouds of debris from successful hits help us refine our targeting, but even after exchanging six rounds of fire, we never manage better than a thirty percent hit rate.

Soon, the Drukhari are only in range of the lance weapons as they try and swing round the planet several times to avoid us entirely, then escape out into the system. Their larger arc means that they can’t get away completely though, as the defence platforms and Imperial Fleet are close enough to Cobalt that they can manoeuvre to keep the Drukhari under their guns for two more broadsides. The Stellar Fleet also gets three more strikes, one for each complete orbit of Cobalt by the Drukhari.

One of the Drukhari light cruisers starts to fall behind on their last orbit, and all three vessels launch more torpedoes and a cloud of strike craft. Some strike craft head for Cobalt, but most are coming right for Ardent Bane. The crippled escorts also start shedding strike craft, though many, I suspect, are life pods as they’re all heading to Cobalt.

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With the Meritech raiders out of position after attempting to chase down the escorts, most of the Drukhari fleeing from their vessels only have to contend with the defence platforms, who are desperately trying to shoot down the incoming torpedoes. The Imperial navy is mostly preoccupied with shooting down the fleeing cruisers and isn’t close enough for their defensive fire to assist the defence platforms.

I am reluctantly impressed with how well the Drukhari have timed their escape and hunting them down is going to be an absolute pain. Being out manoeuvred so easily is rather insulting, but they have the vessels for it and for most of my captains, this is their first real space battle, and only my third. Simulations help, but humans programming in xenos fleet tactics is, at best, guess work.

An hour later, once they’re well out of range of our guns, the Drukahari use their odd manoeuvring abilities to flip round and launch another salvo of torpedoes. The torpedoes gradually sync up with their incoming strike craft from their cruisers, potentially forcing any defensive fire and manoeuvres on my part to focus on the torpedoes, rather than the incoming boarding force.

The cruiser and undamaged light cruiser maintain their new course, slipping in and out of our range and taking potshots at my escorts, despite my best efforts to keep them secure behind my larger vessels. My Adder-Class frigates take some light damage, but the Field Bracing, Castellan Shields, and Overload Shield Capacitors let them shrug more fire than a standard Imperial Navy cruiser. Iron Crane is even more ridiculous and entirely impenetrable to the stray shots they send towards it.

They ignore my own cruisers entirely, having noticed where most of my strike craft come from the Adder-Class and don’t want the Stellar Fleet to launch anymore and intercept their incoming assault. My escorts are also the only vessels that I have which can, with their Sunsear Laser batteries, actually hit the Drukari.

The Titan Forge lances on my cruisers just don’t have the range, despite their greater power, nor do my macro-batteries. I wish I had a Godsbane Lance, as that has an even greater range than a Sunsear, but only Iron Crane has enough power for a Godsbane and I don’t have the STC for it.

A Nova Cannon would also solve my range issue against every known threat, but I don’t know how to build those either. The Navy usually prefers torpedoes as they are less temperamental than Nova cannons and the ammunition is easier to acquire, but the Mechanicus love sticking Nova Cannons on their vessels, seeing the challenge of maintaining such a magnificent weapon as an act of worship.

The damaged Drukhari light cruiser continues its retreat and eventually manages to cloak itself entirely.

The Drukhari strike craft and torpedoes are pretty far out now and I have three hours to work out how I want to respond and the Stellar Corps is already on its second trip to fill the Ardent Bane with my own troops, troops who are doing a far better job of dealing with the Drukhari mercenaries and monsters that Ardent Bane’s own crew.

For a moment, I am confused as to why Trader Modren doesn’t have a force of Imperial Guard or similar on board, then I remember that he is a treacherous xenophile and would likely have been shot by a commisar, or had his vessel seized, if he requisitioned an Imperial force to assist him in his endeavours.

While we wait, I engage in some furious dialogue with the captains in charge of the two Carraks and Modren’s escorts, persuading them to join up, not just with Ardent Bane, but also the Stellar Fleet, by tempting them to blame Trader Modren and bluff their way out of censure, even though they launched an attack on Imperial vessels. It won’t help them, but it should make it much easier to secure their vessels later.

We all regroup behind Cobalt’s moon and suppress our emissions as best we can, hopefully fooling the torpedoes enough that they can’t track us around the moon.

It works a bit too well and the salvo of torpedoes travelling with the Drukhari strike craft and assault boats divert to the defensive platforms, overwhelming their defences. All three platforms take catastrophic hits, despite the Imperial Navy, who are now closer enough to assist, trying to defend them. Reviewing the footage, I realise that the Drukhari had holofields on their last salvo, making them near impossible to intercept without strike craft support to fly close and pin down the torpedoes’ exact position.

Despite the disaster, I remain optimistic. With the Drukhari cruisers having launched one assault on Ardent Bane and with a second one incoming, I think their own vessels should be sufficiently depleted for a teleport strike to have a chance of success.

It is with some glee, I unleash my plan. The Hecatonchire Missile Launchers on Distant Sun, Yonder Moon, and Iron Crane fire their payloads at the Drukhari cruisers. They’re much faster than the torpedoes; twenty minutes into their flight, and just outside the range of the Drukhari defensive fire, the missiles split. Each missile turns into twenty smaller missiles, all of which make their best guess and home in on the Drukhari vessels and constantly report their position back to the Stellar Fleet.

The Drukhari vessels open fire, destroying most of the missiles, but between their destruction and a small handful of hits that do no meaningful damage, the Stellar Fleet is able to pinpoint the Drukhari vessels and get a momentary teleportation lock.

Thirty Warforged and one Vanguard Armour teleport onto each of the two vessels. The Vanguard Armours power up a teleport beacon, giving me a permanent lock on the enemy vessels, so long as they aren’t destroyed. I’ll be able to reinforce them every thirty minutes, no matter where they flee within the system, and the Warforged have orders to find engineering and disable the vessels’ propulsion as best they can.

I chose the Warforged over the Space Marines as they’re not only in power armour, but almost entirely cybernetic, and thus mostly immune to the poisoned weapons of the Eldar.

It’s incredibly nerve wracking using my most elite infantry like this. They’ve all been issued suicide protocols in case of capture, but with Haemonculi about, that might not be enough. On paper, my Warforged are halfway between Tactical Marines and Terminators, but they’ve never been tested like this. I know Space Marines can disable enemy vessels with moderate teleport strikes, but I’ve no idea if my Stellar Corps can do the same.

I just can’t shake the feeling that I’ve made a horrible mistake.