The weapons carried by the Ork garbage scow were a motley assortment, haphazardly piled on by Mek Boyz and Big Meks. Only under the effect of the Waaagh! field could these ramshackle weapons truly fire. However, precisely because of the Waaagh! field, these weapons often unleashed extraordinary firepower.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The Orks' Gunz, mostly modified from salvaged Imperium of Man macro-cannons, fired absurdly large solid projectiles. As the Ork operators fired, over a dozen cannons unleashed their fury. "Waaagh!!!" Accompanied by the roar generated by the firing projectiles, all the Orks became highly excited. Dense Waaagh! energy impossibly covered the projectiles.
"I fink dem shells can hit dem humie ships." With the assistance of Waaagh! energy, the projectiles, which had clearly already been fired, began to spontaneously adjust their deflection angles, heading straight for the Ishimura.
"Launch interceptor missiles!" Dozens of smart missiles launched from the Ishimura, charging head-on towards the incoming projectiles. Under ultra-high intelligent guidance, these missiles easily collided with the massive projectiles. Then, bright flashes exploded. "All targets successfully intercepted." The Ishimura's bridge immediately erupted in cheers.
"Maintain vigilance, more Ork counterattacks will arrive soon," Marcus stated, his voice a calm counterpoint to the celebration. True to his word, with Ork Boyz and giant Squigs moving them, new projectiles were loaded into the macro-cannons, ready to fire again.
"Missile cluster approaching target." Everyone on the Ishimura focused their gaze on the garbage scow. "Initiating deceleration procedure." More than half of the missiles continued at nearly Mach 100, slamming into the void shield and then exploding in dazzling flashes. The remaining missiles, along with the three missiles carrying nuclear warheads, immediately began to decelerate. Under the cover of the flashes, they passed through the void shield.
"Waaagh! Stop those 'umie things!" Ufthrak Ironclaw's roar resounded throughout the garbage scow. "Waaagh!!!" Immediately, Ork Boyz began to operate smaller caliber cannons, attacking the missile cluster that had just passed through the void shield and was re-accelerating. Instantly, dozens of missiles were directly destroyed. However, taking advantage of the Orks reloading their cannons, the remaining missiles successfully approached the garbage scow.
"Boom boom boom boom boom!" A large number of missiles impacted the garbage scow's thick armor, then exploded. The resulting shockwave even caused the massive garbage scow to shake slightly. "Target hit successfully, assessing target damage." The Ishimura's high-definition cameras immediately zoomed in on the garbage scow's image.
Only then did everyone see that the impact of dozens of missiles had not achieved the expected damage. It had only blown a few large holes in the garbage scow's side. Countless Ork Boyz and Gretchin fell into the void through the openings, then died.
"Amazing material science," Marcus couldn't help but lament. Not just Orks, the material science of various races in the Warhammer world far surpassed that of ordinary worlds, so it was normal for the missiles not to achieve the expected damage. However, these conventional missiles were merely smoke screens to distract the Orks; the true killing blow was the three nuclear missiles that followed closely behind. Under the cover of the flashes generated by the explosion of dozens of missiles, three nuclear missiles rushed into the garbage scow through three different openings.
Then, according to the pre-programmed sequence, they exploded with a roar. The fusion of atomic nuclei instantly produced an unparalleled gigantic explosion. The yield of each of the three tactical nuclear missiles was around one hundred thousand tons of TNT equivalent. Interacting with each other, in just an instant, the most direct explosion and shockwave destroyed most of the Ork garbage scow's internal structure from the inside out. And it simply and directly blew it into two halves from the middle. Even the most robust materials clearly could not withstand a nuclear missile attack at close range. Even the powerful void shield that had been continuously resisting the Ishimura's attack flickered and temporarily went offline.
"Nuclear missiles successfully hit! Target destroyed!" The Ishimura's bridge immediately erupted in even more intense cheers.
"Don't let your guard down," Marcus's voice was like a tranquilizer, immediately quieting the cheering crew members. "The Orks' tenacity will exceed your imagination." Sure enough, no sooner had he spoken. The Ork garbage scow, which had clearly been torn into two halves, was still stubbornly firing its remaining side cannons. At the same time, dozens of small Ork boarding craft were released, fearlessly charging towards the Ishimura.
"Continue to maintain suppressive fire." Immediately, the ADS railgun began calculating the trajectories of those Ork boarding craft, then opened fire. In the cold, silent void, these dilapidated Ork boarding craft all turned into brilliant flashes. The Ork Boyz and Bosses within them were naturally all blown to pieces.
While using the ADS cannon to attack the Ork boarding craft, the Ishimura's laser cannon array and missile launching arrays continued to fire. Under such high-intensity saturation bombardment, the Ork garbage scow, having lost its void shield protection, was quickly blown into even more pieces, completely turning into a pile of debris floating in the void.
However, although the Ishimura's first battle was victorious, Marcus knew that a large part of the reason was that the Ishimura had ambushed them beforehand, gaining the first-strike advantage. And part of the Ork garbage scow was still in the Warp, only able to attack the Ishimura with a weak portion of its side firepower.
"Continue to remain vigilant, more Ork warships will break out soon." Everyone knew that this first garbage scow was merely the Orks' vanguard. The scale of the Orks was far more than this. Indeed, after only a few minutes, three more garbage scows slowly sailed out of the Warp simultaneously. Just looking at the size of their bows, these garbage scows were significantly larger than the previous one, already reaching the scale of battlecruisers.
"Full power! Concentrate fire and sink the one on the left first! Have the boarding assault craft redirect to board the middle one!" Marcus immediately ordered. The Ishimura's firepower could not attack three garbage scows simultaneously. It could only, as before, concentrate fire to sink one first. Then, let the Tyrants responsible for boarding cause enough chaos on another garbage scow, buying the Ishimura more time. The Ishimura's crew members looked solemn, and once again carried out their respective duties.
"Tyrant boarding party has approached the target, beginning to provide cover for them." While taking the opportunity to bombard the left garbage scow, the Ishimura diverted a portion of its firepower to attack the massive "Dreadhammer-class battlecruiser" in the middle.