The expeditionary fleet did not panic; after all, the Primarch had already warned them of the Rangdan's tactics before the battle began.
Within each ship's Simulus Chambers, officers rapidly calculated and recalculated, every duplicated ship reading was checked, again and again… until, after hundreds of iterations, all false echoes created by the enemy were identified and eliminated.
Then, the Imperial fleet counterattacked.
The Throne of Shadow's Sovereignity and dozens of surviving vessels opened fire on the Rangdan fleet.
Nareth quickly noticed that the Rangdans still held the upper hand through sheer numbers. Their superior firepower dominated the void, and because the realspace anchor points had already been seized, and the Warp vectors were being disrupted by the Rangdans' psychic interference, many Imperial ships were unable to reenter realspace or join the main battle.
Only a few captains dared to risk individual reentries into Advex-Mors.
Nareth did not order his Gloriana-class battleships to ram through the enemy formation, relying on their void shields to punch a gap, though that tactic had worked before.
Now, there was something far better.
The Ramilies-class Starfort revealed its true nature, a fleet-killer.
Its countless, monstrous batteries unleashed a storm of fire upon the Rangdan warships.
Broadside barrages poured out like a solid wall of molten death, covering dozens of enemy vessels.
The shells detonated like red-hot claws raking through the void, tearing and crushing entire warships in their grip.
The Starfort's first volley annihilated twelve enemy ships, five of them equivalent in power to Imperial capital ships.
The devastating barrage ripped open a hole in the Rangdan formation, drawing their enraged and terrified retaliation.
Over a hundred Rangdan warships locked onto the Ramilies, their Shadow Blasters shrieking as torrents of blinding white arcs slammed into the fortress's northern, western, and eastern shields.
But unlike the earlier prototypes on Mars or Lucius, this Ramilies-class, specifically the Vostroya Pattern, was vastly superior.
As large as a small moon, each quadrant of the Starfort was protected not merely by void shields, but by Fortress-Class shield STC, far stronger than any shipborne defense.
At its heart burned multiple Punisher-Class Reactors, feeding the fortress's near-limitless energy needs, enough to sustain even such a behemoth.
Though the white lightning crashed against its barriers in endless fury, the shields flickered but did not falter.
In response to the arrogant xenos who dared to challenge it, the Ramilies unleashed another storm of death.
Each salvo reduced more than ten alien warships to drifting wrecks.
Under the fortress's covering fire, the Imperial fleet advanced, opening paths for more black battleships to emerge into battle.
By the second day of the void war, the number of Imperial ships entering the system finally matched that of the surviving Rangdan fleet.
Confirming their absolute advantage, Nareth rose from his command throne.
"Prepare to board."
He intended to seize a Rangdan capital ship as a prize, to study their false signal generation and the dreaded Shadow Blasters.
The Gloriana-class battleship rammed headlong into the disorganized Rangdan line, targeting a capital ship that had suffered minimal damage. From its launch bays, volleys of Assault Pods fired out like bullets.
The pilots pushed their thrusters to maximum output, afterburners roaring as they streaked toward the Rangdan ship at impossible speed.
Compared to boarding torpedoes, the Pods had superior speed and armor, though at the cost of range.
Because of Nareth's presence, the pod that normally carried ten Astartes carried only six Shadows of Order.
Among them was Bolty, a Catachan-born member of the Seventh Chapter of the Shadows of Order. His exceptional performance during the Incaladion Campaign had earned him a place in the Honor Guard, though it had cost him every ration of fire lizard meat, devoured instead by his Catachan wolf companion.
His first battle alongside his gene-father filled him with excitement.
Held tight by retractable inertial clamps, Bolty waited for the moment of impact.
The pilot wrestled the controls as the black pod weaved through the blinding white lightning of the Shadow Blasters.
The distance counter on his display ticked down rapidly, 194 km… 85 km… 3 km…
A blinding bolt struck the cockpit. The shield flickered violently as the entire pod shuddered.
"Brace for impact!" the pilot shouted.
The assault pod's ram struck the Rangdan ship like a hammer-wrapped fist, tearing through the thorny armor and embedding itself in the hull.
Flames from the pod's melta charges burned through the outer plating, carving a glowing breach.
Missile launchers on its wings spewed a dense barrage of Ira-pattern rockets at nearby aliens.
Nareth leapt first, golden wings unfurled, descending through the breach.
From the air, he saw the enemy clearly, towering fox-headed humanoids driving enslaved humans into battle.
Each human wore a collar around the neck.
Nareth recognized them immediately: neural control collars, used by the Rangdans to enslave countless humans.
The Primarch's psychic consciousness spread outward like a web, tendrils of thought reaching into the minds of the human slaves.
From his studies of Osiris's Psybrids, Nareth had mastered more refined methods of psychic domination.
A tendril of will pierced the mind of a frail, yellow-armored human.
The collar around the man's neck was a metal ring implanted with a single steel spike that pierced into his spine.
Crafted by Rangdan psy-smiths, the spike's psychic field invaded the victim's thoughts. Whenever the xenos gave an order, a psychic pulse would trigger the collar, forcing obedience.
This was how the Rangdans enslaved so many species, replacing manpower with psychic control.
Nareth's will clashed with the psychic field of the collars, and instantly, he overpowered it.
His countless psychic tendrils struck the mental shackles one by one, shattering them.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
One by one, the freed humans collapsed to the ground.
Nareth drew the Dionysian Spear, channeling psychic energy through it.
The golden spear flew forward, striking a towering fox-headed Rangdan overlord's personal shield, shattering it in an instant.
With a motion of his palm, Nareth released globes of glowing amber liquid that enveloped several human slaves, stunning some and deliberately sparing others. He intended to keep several alive for study, to analyze their intact neural collars.
Bolty charged down the ramp, bolter in hand, and opened fire.
Explosions tore through the Rangdans as six Honor Guards concentrated their fire on one warrior, finally bringing it down, when suddenly a blur flashed.
A Rangdan swordsman lunged, his crystalline blade piercing the abdomen of a black-armored warrior. Bolty recognized him as a brother from the Tenth Chapter.
He and the others opened fire in retaliation, bolter shells hammering against the alien's glowing shield.
The energy field rippled under the bombardment, sparks flying.
Bolty watched in horror as another Honor Guard was beheaded by a single strike.
He slung his bolter aside and drew his weapon, a jagged, bird-headed power sword with half-serrated edges.
Activating its energy field, he engaged the alien with the Otsberg-Vaya Technique, Seventh Form, The Cleaving Path.
The Rangdan warrior countered with a serrated crystal greatsword, their weapons clashing in a storm of sparks and energy.
Bolty staggered backward under the brute's relentless assault, barely parrying each swing, his counterstrikes glancing harmlessly off the energy field.
Despite his disadvantage, he remained calm.
Back on Catachan, he had faced predators far stronger than himself; victory always came from patience and precision.
He studied the alien's movements, waiting for the flaw.
After dozens of exchanges, he narrowly dodged a vicious overhead strike, and then his eyes flashed with realization.
Bolty lunged low, slashing at the xenos' right leg.
His energized blade slipped through a weak point in the shield, slicing into flesh.
'I've awakened Father's ability, the Warp Insight.'
Following the Otsberg-Vaya Second Form, Bolty spun his sword like a coiling viper, avoiding the crystal blade and stabbing straight into the alien's abdomen.
The Rangdan warrior screamed and collapsed, lifeless.
Nareth led his warriors forward, gathering more Honor Guards.
At the same time, the Eighth Chapter's flagship, Razor, under Thierry Veira's command, launched boarding torpedoes at their marked target.
Pierre, grandson of Kasai's Grand Sword Master Mika Wright, was among the first of the Kasai-born Shadows of Order.
Gifted in the art of the blade since his training days, he led his assault squad in a boarding strike.
Fifty boarding torpedoes, hidden among the massed missile salvos, struck the Rangdan warship in unison.
.....
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