The Great Git Hunt Part III: The Prophet and the Angel
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The Mistress was restless.
Every sane, and insane, soul aboard the Conqueror could feel it. Those withdrawn in the depths of the ancient vessel could feel it with every vibration and groan, the gunners manning the countless weapon systems could tell by the constant hum of charging weaponry, but for those foolish or brave enough to be stationed on the vessel’s bridge could see it first hand with only the slightest of glances at their mistress.
Fused to the command throne of the Conqueror sat the once proud Lotara Sarrin, now known simply as the Mistress. Countless cables running beneath a torn uniform stained with millennia of blood, she had not left her post since the end of the Horus Hersey and their retreat into the great eye. She had long since lost the need to rise from her throne as the Conqueror itself was now her body.
The armor plating her skin, the engines and weapons her limbs, the powerful auger arrays her eyes and ears as she sailed throughout the stars seeking to quench a thirst that will never cease.
Countless fools had tried to claim her as their own; striding through her corridors and demanding subservience to whatever petty little war they wished to wage. They were nothing to the Mistress. The Conqueror was hers and hers alone, and if the mighty red angel himself could not deprive her of that command then hope could his pathetic mongrel dregs of his legion possibly hope to? Had it not been for the return of Angron himself who had finally clawed his way out of the immaterium to wage war against the false emperor once more she would be adrift in the stars hunting for slaughter once more.
Now she was the spear tip of a great chaos host, burning and massacring their way through the underbelly of the Imperium collecting an ever growing tally of skulls for Khorne’s throne. Their latest conquest however was the source of the Mistress’s restlessness as it had barely put up a fight before falling to their blades.
Little more than a farming world, it held no legions of guard or loyalist space marines to cull, or great fleet to protect it. What little of the orbital defenses were swept away with ease in the first opening salvos of the battle before her fleet unleashed the swarm of dreadclaws and landing craft to the surface below.
Even from orbit one could see the tides of flame steadily creeping across the entire world as one by one the few hive cities fell to the marauding tide of Berserkers.
She was about to fire an orbital barrage on the last remaining untouched continent for amusement when a throbbing spear of pain cut across her mind.
“Fleet transmission…” the Mistress spoke softly. “Prepare…for battle!!”
Those on the bridge turned to the words of their mistress yet did not understand them.
“My Mistress,” one of the recently anointed crew spoke up, “wwwe do not detect-“
They never finished their sentence as a piece of hot metal shot from the decking like a tentacle and eviscerated them in an instance. Their broken corpse fell to the ground with a loud thud while more tentacles emerged tipped with feeding mouths and feasted on the corpse as it still twitched. Such was the punishment for questioning the Mistress’s orders.
Taking only a moment to witness the rapidly degrading body of their former crewmate, the remaining bridge crew began relaying their orders fleet wide. Many of the chaos fleet vessels had not succumbed to the gifts of the Blood God and were able to use what was left of their tactical brain to begin reorganizing their fleet disposition.
Before the Mistress could speak again, a great gash in realspace appeared in the heart of the chaos fleet. She had seen many of its kind before and knew it was the prelude to a vessel exiting a warp jump, but she had never witnessed one so close to a world’s gravity well. The forces would rip apart all but the most heavily reinforced ships making it standard practice to exit warp jumps at the edges of a system.
From the glowing rift a lone collection of metal and asteroid emerged. It appeared as nothing more than an imperial merchant vessel fused with a collection of asteroids. Regardless, every weapon aboard the Conqueror was trained on it even before it had fully emerged from the rift as the Mistress scanned the seemingly derelict craft. She was about to declare it harmless, as it had no visible armament nor igns of being under power, when the vessel slowly spun and she caught sight of a crudely drawn glyph running the entire side of the ship.
“FIRE!” the Mistress screamed as every gun on the Conqueror let loose.
No sooner had the munitions left the barrels of her weapons did the rest of the oncoming storm emerge from the gash.
Dozens of ork killkoozers poured from the gash as if insects swarming from a hive. Many of them brokeupon exiting their warp jump or crashed into the ever growing debris field around the exit point as they collided with each other, yet still many more continued to stream out.
The rest of the chaos fleet was slow to turn about and face this new threat from within their lines. Engines roared to life as the massive vessels spun around and added their own firepower to the Conqueror’s while others were slammed head on by near suicidal ork captains seeking to close in for the kill.
It didn’t take long for the first ork ships to exit the jump safely and begin returning fire. The Mistress felt her ships void shields flicker from the crude return fire as they struck home, but other ships were not as lucky as the ever increasing mass of ork fire began to take its toll.
She watched as the Olympian, a captured and repurposed Iron Warriors vessel, took three direct ramming actions before her engine block was breached setting off a chain explosion. The resulting explosion vaporized the Olympian and the previously victorious orks who had rammed her. This left a hole in their line which allowed the orks to begin spilling out in even greater numbers reeking untold havoc amongst the chaos war fleet.
Despite this Mistress was still confident that she could turn the tide of this space battle. That was until she felt another scything burst of head pain and saw the warp gash begin to expand as something even larger forced it way through. -----------
“Status Mr. Nailbrain?”
“Cap’n, we’z back in normmie space.” The lopsided ork replied as it scratched the massive nail lodged into its skull.
“Excellent.” The ork captain said as they looked out over the chaotic battle unfolding before his space hulk.
“Keep an eye on the grav’y bits, we’z don’t want to get pulled down like last time.” They tapped a crude set of dials showing the colors Red, Yellow, and Green. Currently they were all flashing yellow but the closer they moved to the planet out of the warp point.
“I thot’s we’z wer shot down las time.” One of the surrounding orks spoke up sheepishly.
This line of questioning angered the ork captain who expressed his displeasure by ripping one of the command chairs out of the decking and throwing it at disruptive ork with a satisfying crash.
“I’z don’t care if we’z bump dda grot loving planet,” the captain growled, “I don’t want a single scratch wi’th me new shinny spacy hulk! Old Bluddflag got’z a reputation to uphold.”
With the challenge handled the ork freebooter returned to the unfolding battle. Normally he would’ve enjoyed bringing death to the hummies, yet they had been given very specific instructions not to harm the one called “Angaron” for it was who they were after and the green prophet would make anyone who got in their way to finding the red git wish they were still a lowly grot. Their task was to eliminate every ship and trap their prey on the planet below. The real fight'n would be down there when the rest of the boi's arrived; and judging from the ever growing throbbing in Old Bluddflag the big boss wasn't that far behind.
