I head back up the stairs. Aruna appears on a nearby screen as a cartoon cat, “Accelerating to six gravities. Artificial gravity systems online and compensating. Time to maximum acceleration, four hours.”

“That sounds slow to me,” I say, “though I suspect it’s the opposite.”

“The vessel is immensely heavy. That it moves at all should impress you, Magos.”

“Oh, it does. However, when I watch films, or play games, all this happens instantly to keep it interesting, the contrast is weird. I can’t say that clenching my arse in terror for days while we dance through the warp fills me with joy. I’d rather get it over with.”

“You will be grateful for this time later.”

“Oh, definitely. What manoeuvres do you recommend?”

“Accelerate in a spiral, keeping the enemy ships at forty-five degrees to us so that the turret can remain on target without exposing our engines too much. Also, the bio-ships can only sprint in a straight line, as long as you maintain an angle, they will miss if they try to ram us unless they get really, really close.”

“OK, please plot an example course for me.”

Numbers and lines appear within a 3D sphere on a screen above me, with the Distant Sun in the centre and depicting a spiral that looks like a seashell on a slight downward pitch.

A simulation of the enemy ships is added to it, then an animation plays, showing me how the manoeuvre should work.

“Thank you, Aruna, please execute the course you showed me.”

“You have to enter the data yourself.”

“Right, manual mode.”

After entering the data, I watch the screens, gripping the throne’s armrests until my hands ache, then I stand and pace.

Over thirty minutes, the enemy ships bring themselves round and start the chase. Giving plenty of time for the Distant Sun to power up. The ork rock is the first one to fire, unloading four batteries, hurling massive explosive shells at the Distant Sun.

One shot hits, and the void shield drops from 67% to 64%. By the time they reload forty minutes later, the void shield has discharged the impact and recovered. They’re just as inaccurate the second time too.

“That wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.”

“As long as the rok can’t get close, or get a lucky shot, they aren’t much of a threat, even if it is unlikely we can destroy them.”

Nine minutes later, the krakens fire too, sending three tear-drop shaped blasts of hot, violent acid. They too, are absorbed by the void shield, but unlike the orks, all three hit, taking us down to 52%

With the reactors now at full power, I rush down the stairs every six minutes, fire the lance, then return to my command throne. Two hours into the battle, we’ve reached three gravities. The closest kraken is now the slowest one, hobbling along at one point seven gravities. The other two are catching up at three point seven gravities. The rok is languishing around two gravities and the iconoclast is trying to keep the krakens between me and them, while the orks have started firing at everyone at random.

I was able to get the Distant Sun moving before the other ships, so we do have a lead, but the two krakens are only four point six thousand kilometres from me. My weapons’ effective ranges are rated in ten thousand kilometre chunks, meaning under five thousand is really, really close. The Rok is languishing at sixty thousand kilometres and the iconoclast at twenty thousand. I’m waiting for the krakens to charge me, but so far, our constantly increasing velocity and the variable nature of the warp is hobbling their advance.

The good thing is, their proximity makes it easy to hit the bio-ships, the problem is the reverse is also true. Fortunately, I have void shields, and the krakens do not. With my first target efficiently crippled, I retarget to the new closest kraken and fire.

Its acceleration cuts, dropping to 1.2gs. I smile. We got lucky.

The final kraken takes its chances and rushes forward. It rams into the side of the Distant Sun. The noise is horrendous and I fall to the floor. My teeth rattle and metal screams through my arms and up into my ears.

I pull myself up and get back onto the command throne. Damage warnings are highlighted on a diagram of the ship, colouring sections in yellow and red, a few are even black, meaning they’ve been torn from the ship entirely.

Both orks and chaos take advantage of our shaken trajectory and fire. The orks have dialled in their aim, and this time, they don’t miss. Six shells slam into the Distant Sun, and the shields plummet to 37%, and two more pulp the kraken, knocking it loose before it can latch on.

The iconoclast’s weapon hits, punching through the weakened shield, though the shield does stay up. At first, I think it was enough, then a cascading power failure rips through the ship. Most of the ship wasn’t being used, negating much of the effective damage; one of the engines, however, cuts out.

“Damn. We’re in a pickle. Thank the Emperor the tyranids are out of the running at least.”

Then I notice the void shield is no longer charging.

“That iconoclast’s energy disruption weapon needs to go. I don’t think we can get through their shield with just one lance battery though.”

“Ram them,” says Aruna.

“What?”

“Ram them. We have over three times their mass and have field bracing active. The hull will endure.”

“This is a void ship battle, not some crash derby competition or roman galleys battling on the mediterranean sea!”

Aruna puts up another animation and more numbers.

My eyes widen, “A head on collision will be at the equivalent of over sixty five metres per second, per second. The Distant Sun might survive that, but I’ll be paste.”

“Artificial gravity will compensate. It managed fine against the Kraken, even if you did get thrown about. This will be no different. Besides, it won’t be that fast, we need to hit their flank, not their bow. It has a ram, afterall, and we do not.”

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“Oh yeah, good point. I still think it’s ridiculous.”

“The other option is to transition to real space with no idea of our location and hope they do not risk following us.”

I groan, “That’s fine for the orks, but the iconoclast is faster and more manoeuvrable than us.” I shake my head, “No, no ramming. When the Distant Sun hit the federation station it crippled the gellar field and that effectively killed the crew. We were lucky the same didn’t happen when we lost part of our hull to the kraken ramming us as our prime gellar field is integrated with the hull and the secondary gellar field is broken. Take enough damage to the hull and we will be unmade like the space station was when it lost power.”

“Then Aruna will prepare to drop to realspace. The orks might take out the iconoclast once we disappear.”

“I sure hope so! Go ahead and prepare to drop to realspace. Once we’re out, please align us for an orbit with the closest massive object we can gather resources from, then go silent and let the ship drift.”

“Aruna concedes.”

“How long until transition?”

“Two hours.”

“Will the void shield hold out for four more rounds?”

“No, it needs to be reset before it will charge again.”

“It’s a manual job, isn’t it.”

“Until you give Aruna control, yes.”

Glancing at the armrest of the command throne, I grimace, “Not today, Aruna.”

“Aruna understands.”

“We’ll stop firing the lance. Put everything into the engines and a faster transition. Keep up the spiral. I’m going to help Sergeant Odhran clear the ship.”

“Aruna confirms.”

Hell pistol in one hand and pipe in the other, I vox Odhran and head to the guardpost he’s refitted. The armoured bulkhead is a vast slab of metals and ceramite, twenty metres thick, that bisects the ship between Q2 and Q3. The door is less oppressive, at four metres thick, but it has a lot more adamantium in the alloy mix, and there are two of them, creating an airlock fifteen metres wide, sixteen metres deep and twenty metres tall.

Both sides of the airlock are covered by a bastion of ferrocrete bunkers, backed with ceramite and plasteel plates. Armourglass covers the openings in the bunkers and the hum of void shields fills the stagnant air.

An automated turret lies slumped in its cradle, covered in greasy dust and flaking paint. The other eleven turrets are blackened, mangled scrap. Following E-SIM’s directions, I enter the portside bunker.

Odhran is fiddling with a heavy bolter, a massive machine gun with a long handle on the top, no stock and an off centre ammo feed; it fires twenty five point four millimetre, explosive microrockets. The heavy bolter is mounted to a frame that runs along a toothed track; the barrel pokes through a thin slit in the cracked and pitted armourglass.

“Magos, it is good you could spare the time. The cultists are prying open the other side of the bulkhead. You will stay here, I shall take my bike down the corridor. Once they pass you, I shall open fire. Once my guns run dry, shoot the remaining cultists from behind while I retreat. When you cease, I shall return and mop them up. Aim for the sides of the corridor so you do not hit me as I speed down the centre. Remain hidden and do not touch the gun until it is time to fire. Questions?”

“Please show me how to operate the gun, I don’t want to pull the trigger and find it stuck on safety.”

“Very well,” Odhran nods. His explanation is short, only covering what I need to know for the next encounter as he points out the different parts and what to expect when I pull the trigger. Finally he lays his gauntlet upon my shoulder, making me sag slightly. “May the Emperor watch over you, Magos.”

I smile. I do not understand his faith, but his sentiment is clear, “You too, Sergeant Odhran.”

Odhran leaves, the door hissing and clunking behind him. I go over his instructions, muttering to myself and going through the actions twice and practice moving the heavy gun from side to side.

Aruna pops up on the end of the barrel, “The void shields are down. The cultists are in the airlock.”

“Thank you, Aruna.”

Aruna nods, then disappears. I leave the heavy bolter and retreat, hiding behind the Y-shaped wall that separates the bunker.

With a horrible screech, the big door slides open, the remaining one hundred and eighteen cultists as they storm through, the moment the gap is big enough. They do not shout or bash at the walls, but move with quiet purpose, their clothing rustling slightly as metal clasps clink and their feet stomp the deck in a disordered jog.

The moment stretches and I tense, their footsteps fade, and for a moment, I think something has gone wrong, then Odhran fires, the twin linked bolters on his scout bike hurtling four hundred, nineteen point zero five millimetre explosive rounds in a relentless sixteen second barrage.

Bringing up the sensor footage, I watch the cultists melt, as the bolter rounds sweep back and forth across the corridor, their bodies exploding into fleshy mist. Chunks of bone are hurled with such force, several cultists are slain by the shards of their allies.

With a final roar, Odhran’s bike speeds away and the nineteen remaining cultists, having dived for the floor, shake off the attack and fire down the corridor. Filling the air with an anaemic mew of stubbers and lasguns.

Their shooting peters out and I swing the heavy bolter towards them. As the fury settles and silence blankets the heated air and swirling smoke, I rack back the heavy bolter. There is a single shout from a punk-haired cultist as he looks back, then I pull the trigger.

The frame keeps the gun steady and I sweep my shots along each side of the corridor in two short bursts. Blood sprays, bodies shatter, and the cultists die to vile laughter creeping in from the warp.

Despite the violence I have endured, nausea creeps into my stomach and my hand shakes slightly as I crank the safety back on, but for the first time, I have made it through a fight without being injured or pumped full of combat drugs.

It’s been good to have someone watch my back.

Odhran returns and dismounts. He paces amid the corpses, bolt pistol in hand, kicking weapons away from severed fingers and twitching corpses. As he pokes an almost whole body with his chainsword, I abandon the heavy bolter and open the bunker door only to have my eyes seared by bright, blue-white light.

Six tall beings, in slim armour with conical, bone-like helms, flash into existence around Odhran. Before they can even raise their wrist mounted guns, Odhran places his bolt pistol to the chest of one and fires three rounds while his chainsword sweeps up and tears through another, but that’s as far as he gets.

Their weapons snap up and shoot shrieking rounds of tiny filaments that unravel and flay Odhran’s poorly repaired armour. It holds for a moment as the repeated rounds strip his protection, then burst into his chest and shred him.

I freeze. Eldar. Their ship wasn’t as empty as I hoped. E-SIM zaps me and I draw my hell pistol, but I’m too slow. An eldar teleports beside me and lashes out twice, his power blade severs my wrist and the power cable connecting to the powerpack on my back.

He kicks me in the back of the knee and I fall. The eldar steps behind me, grabs my arms and forces them behind my back as my blood sprays over the floor, then rapidly slows to a trickle as my mesh suit and implants seal the wound.

The three other eldar saunter towards me, gliding between the gore, without a drop of blood touching their black and white armour. Two of them are a step behind the central eldar, who has small amounts of red trim on his armour and a plume on his helmet.

As I struggle, the eldar officer thrusts his blade into my chest and out my back. E-SIM keeps me conscious, but I kinda wish he wasn’t. This is horrible.

He reaches into my armour and rips the lanyard from my neck then crushes it in his hand. He leans forward and hisses in my ear, “You don’t deserve this, monkeigh.”

I cough, “It’s chimpanzee,” then sneer, “though you're more of an ape than I’ll ever be.”

The eldar officer backhands me, the blow ripping his blade sideways through my chest. As I collapse, the eldar steps back, points his gun at me and fires.

My mind collapses and the last thing I see is their searing light as they teleport away.

I should not have doubted who to blame for my situation.

It was not the Emperor.

Nor the gods of chaos.

I should have known better.

You always blame the eldar.