The Claws of Lorek, not content with their victories on Quim, moved to consolidate their hold upon the planet by dispatching substantial raiding fleets to secure the resource rich planets in the inner system. A battlegroup of seven cruisers led by the Acheron class Messiah of Pain was deployed to clear the meager planetary defenses under the cover of a particularly violent solar storm. Able to approach undetected they unexpectedly stumbled upon the Adeptus Mechanicus battleship Magos Vaspasian and her attendant cruiser escort, dispatched to the sector to test a newly found STC archeotech flare shield. The Chaos fleet rushed the Mechanicus, trying to capitalize on their surprise appearance, but were unprepared for the ferocity of the solar storm.
Radiation waves wracked the Chaos fleet, and tentacles of photospheric matter grasped the heavily ionized hulls of cruisers, disrupting communications and torturing the corrupted machine spirits. The Claw’s battlegroup was thrown into disarray and flew into a salvo of nova cannon fire, immediately losing a significant portion of their carrier strength, as the carriers Defiler and Fury of Chaos were crippled. Unable to communicate with his fleet, and prevented from ordering a general disengage, the Warmaster proceeded with the assault forcing his fleet forward into the waiting Mechanicus battlecruisers. The Mechanicus capitalized on this disarray and swept into the chaos formation. The Magos Vaspasian led the wedge into the center of the chaos fleet, magazines and lances blazing as her augmented weapons found their mark on chaos cruisers at her broadsides. Assault craft bays, engines and power relays were shattered in the initial assault before the chaos crews had properly braced them for battle. Following the lead of the battleship, the Mechanicus cruisers Esto Perpetua and Scienta drove straight into the crippled chaos cruisers expending ordnance, lance energy and batteries at a prodigious rate and taking full advantage of the enemy’s inability to react to the rapidly deteriorating tactical situation.
Haloed by the titanic solar emmissions from the Querros Star, the chaos fleet was unable to disengage and was rapidly dismantled by the radiation hardened Mechanicus cruisers. The Heavy cruiser Messiah of Pain managed to effect her escape using the rapidly expanding debris cloud left of her sister ships, but left the rest of the chaos fleet hulked and waiting for the Mechanicus ships, eager to explore the lost archeotech bounty left for them. The Chaos fleet faced a painful butcher’s bill as the cruisers Iron Juggernaut, The Defiler, Fury of Chaos, Prince of Murder, Harbinger of Pain, Black Wolf were lost to the Mechanicus salvage teams and towed for refit, for little battle damage on the part of the Mechanicus fleet.
The planet Quim was soon to be assaulted again however, as the Catechism fleet engaged the Adeptus Mechanicus on what was to be a far fairer field of battle. The Chaos Fleet was led by a Desolator class Battleship and was much better gunned than the previous raider fleet the Adeptus had faced. Two Acheron class heavy cruisers were escorted by two carnage class, whilst two devastation class carriers provided strike craft support to the battlegroup.
The body of the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet concealed their advance under the cover of a dense asteroid field whilst the cruisers Valente Deo and Gothic class Potentia drew the attention of the chaos fleet with Nova cannon fire at a stand off range, scoring a lucky hit on a devestation class and nearly crippling the chaos cruiser. The chaos warmaster was forced to close quickly with the cruisers to negate their range advantage, but left his fleet strung out with an opening for the Magos Vaspasian, Esto Perpetua and Scienta to drive through his center, unloading both broadsides into the staggered elements of the fleet. The Desolator launched a crippling salvo of torpedoes into the armoured prow of the dictator class Valente Deo, whose uprated turrets were unable to cope with the onslaught, collapsing her shields and forcing the cruiser to hide in the center of the Mechanicus Formation, where she managed to cripple another Catechism heavy cruiser with a lucky Nova Cannon shot before disengaging.
The Gothic class Potentia fared no better as a tentative shot from the devastation class vessel crippled the cruiser and inactivated her nova cannon. Potentia was forced to disengage as were three Chaos vessels, a devastation, acheron and carnage class, whilst the remaining chaos vessels focused fire on the Scienta and crippled her drives.
The Magos Vaspasian used her monstrous broadsides to cripple the leading desolator and another Acheron class vessel resulting in both the Acheron and the Scienta disengaging; leaving the Catechism fleet with an undamaged carrier, crippled battleship and a carnage limping its way around the system. The engagement devolved into a slugfest as the Esto Perpetua disengaged undamaged and left the heavier armoured and gunned Retribution class Magos Vaspasian to chase off the remnants of the chaos fleet.
No comments:
Post a Comment