Imperial Reserve fleet defends orbital dock works at Mordecai Tersius

The call to arms by Admiral Stark at Mordecai continued to bear fruit, as in early 04.020M42 several more groups of vessels arrived in the system. To cope with the increasing numbers, Stark ordered the construction of a set of space docks around Mordecai Tersius, in order to refit his ships more rapidly. Following that, the Imperium would start construction of defences for the orbital docks. Until then, the imperial admiral assigned his oldest ships, including a grand cruiser and a hades class vessel, to the defence of the docks. His remaining ships, including Admiral Hughes' powerful battlegroup, were organised into battlegroups led by Hughes, Stark and Gorshkov.

 

The imperial fleet were taken by surprise on 0204.020M42 when a chaos battlegroup managed to evade imperial patrols and launch an attack on the construction efforts around Mordecai Tersius. Covered by a radiation burst from the mercurial Mordecai star, the Emerald Serpent fleet was made up of vessels carrying a great number of attack craft, as the traitor fleet intended to see off any defending imperial vessels before launching close in bombing strikes against the installation as it was under construction, thus bypassing any large scale shielding the Imperium may have set up.

 

However, the chaos attack was undone by Stark's protection, and the elements themselves. The older imperial vessels may have been the least battle ready of the Imperial fleet, but they were handled well by their experienced crews in the ensuing battle. Worse still for the Emerald Serpent, the chaos fleets struggled to organise their attack craft waves as radiation bursts played havoc with communications, and the bomber waves did not have the desired effect. Three capital class vessels were put out of action, including two devastation class and a Styx class heavy cruiser. The chaos fleet was driven off for the loss of one imperial light cruiser, and the Imperium began to wonder just how many vessels the Emerald Serpent had, and how quickly they were managing to repair them at Mordecai Docks.

 

Although this was a decisive victory for Stark's fleet, there were acrimonious exchanges between the admirals on who was to blame for allowing such a powerful battlegroup to get so close to the orbital docks around Mordecai Tersius. Gorshkov and Stark blamed each other, but since the outcome had been a victory for the Imperial navy, the matter as quickly dropped when sector commander Bova Magnus sent his congratulations.