Chapter 18: The Space Battle

Chapter 18: The Space Battle

Kilimann, clad in deep blue power armor, arrived at the command deck, followed closely by the Honor Guard wearing their imposing Iron Cavalry Terminator armor.

Their massive steel frames exuded an overwhelming sense of pressure, causing everyone present on the command deck to feel as if their hearts were gripped tightly by fear, making it difficult to breathe.

The Honor Guard were elite veterans among the ultimate warriors—each with astonishing battle records. Their Terminator armor was bulkier and heavier than standard Space Marine power suits, and standing there, their presence alone maximized the oppressive atmosphere.

For an ordinary person to stand before members of the Honor Guard and speak was already an act of immense courage.

“How are things looking, Brech?” Kilimann turned towards the captain seated at the command chair and inquired.

“They’re gathering on the second planet of the Sarah system. Based on the warship insignias and other characteristics, the intelligence we received is accurate—the enemy indeed belongs to the Death Guard. Their fleet is deployed across the system. Comparing our strengths, victory should come easily to us.”

The Death Guard—plague spreaders, cursed traitors, eternal enemies of the Imperium, unforgivable.

Once part of the XIV Legion of the Imperium, led by Primarch Mortarion, the Death Guard made indelible contributions to the Great Crusade and the unification of humanity.

However, near the Crusade’s end, Mortarion led the Death Guard in the Horus Heresy, openly betraying the Loyalists in the Itar system. Alongside other traitor legions, they slaughtered the loyalists indiscriminately, committing unforgivable atrocities.

Later, while navigating the warp, Mortarion’s fleet was betrayed by Typhon, who killed their navigator and damaged the ship’s Gellar fields, trapping the fleet in the warp and subjecting them to brutal training by the Chaos gods.

Nurgle, the Plague God, with his supreme cunning, forcibly tamed Mortarion—who despised sorcery and loathed Chaos—making him his obedient servant.

Originally, Mortarion was vehemently opposed to both sorcery and Chaos.

But trapped in the warp, tormented by plagues, he was forced to submit to Nurgle, the Chaos god of pestilence, death, and rebirth, becoming one of the daemon primarchs.

He was a template of a once-hated old grump turned docile servant.

Subsequently, this fleet took part in the Siege of Terra, using plagues to break the Imperial Palace’s defenses and cause massive casualties. After Horus’s defeat, the legion fractured into warbands that fled to the Eye of Terror and the Imperium’s fringes.

Kilimann arranged the information about the Death Guard in his mind before turning back to Captain Brech.

“I don’t doubt our victory, but what about the surface situation?”

“No feedback whatsoever. All our transmissions have been intercepted—whether electromagnetic or in star-language signals, none have been recovered. I suspect the enemy has taken control of communications. If things are worse, the planetary star-linguists are either corrupted or already dead.”

Brech’s tone was heavy, his one remaining flesh-and-blood eye burning with anger.

Another planetary-level slaughter—hundreds of billions of human lives harvested by the gods of chaos.

Only the Holy Emperor’s mercy could be hoped for, to welcome those poor souls into His embrace.

“Perhaps there’s still hope; otherwise, these chaos remnants wouldn’t still be here.” Kilimann looked toward the control console. Amidst the mechanical hum, the Strategium—the carefully maintained strategic device of the Adeptus Mechanicus—was operational. A series of data symbols and beams formed a tactical projection, clearly showing the state of the Sarah system and the plague fleet’s strength.

At this moment, all the plague ships lingered near the orbit of the second planet in the Sarah system.

“Let’s hope so,” Brech nodded.

“Launch the attack. No matter what, they must be destroyed. If there are survivors, we save them; if not, we avenge them.”

“Understood, my lord.”

The fleet, led by the Battleship Radiance of Macragge, sped forward, the second planet of Sarah growing larger in their view.

A verdant world with glacial poles,

mostly grasslands and forests, dotted sparsely with deserts—an ideal planet for human habitation and colonization.

The planet hosted six massive hive cities, one of which was astonishing in scale, covering an estimated area of over 26 million square kilometers.

The estimated population was at least 50 billion, making it of immense value to the Imperium.

Upon detecting the Imperial fleet’s arrival, the plague fleet responded by spreading their lines to intercept.

Kilimann observed the battlefield’s shifts—the enemy had three fleets, but they suffered from severe lack of coordination.

Distrust was the weakness of the Chaos forces; they fought in warband sizes, resisted unified command, and distrusted other warbands.

When the distance closed to less than three million kilometers, the tentative phase ended, giving way to intense close-quarters combat.

Imperial ships launched volleys of torpedoes and missiles in a fan-shaped wide distribution, creating interlaced attack lines. Simultaneously, they fired tons of anti-ship shells designed to cut off enemy maneuvering space.

Space combat was complex and ever-changing; battles spanning millions of kilometers meant torpedoes, missiles, and shells had inherent lag, making it difficult to strike moving targets.

Commanding such a battle required massive computational power to predict enemy movements and battlefield variables.

Kilimann studied the battlefield gravely, vigilant for any minor changes.

Before crossing over, he had thought torpedoes and missiles useless in future space warfare, believing energy weapons like phospikes would suffice.

Witnessing fleet combat firsthand, he realized how foolish that idea was.

Each weapon had its merits: missiles could auto-track and strike any part of an enemy vessel at will.

Phospikes were fast but traveled in straight lines, powerful but easy to intercept.

Physical weapons like torpedoes and shells boasted tremendous destructive power. Their slower speed, often mocked, sometimes became an advantage—forcing enemies to expend computational resources and hesitate in maneuvers, fearful of collision.

Stationary torpedoes and mines often went undetected by void shields; a direct hit meant catastrophic consequences.

A million kilometers was close combat in space terms. Phospikes and massive shells flew continuously, turning the space between the fleets into a deadly thicket of energy and metal.

The void shields of the Radiance of Macragge pulsed frequently, rippling under powerful energy beams.

Energy weapon scatter caused the ship’s shield generator to emit feedback noise, occasionally sparking with crackling electricity.

The plague warriors knew their greatest threat and, despite poor coordination, prioritized attacking the Radiance of Macragge.

Facing concentrated fire, the Radiance did not retreat. It struck back fiercely, unleashing barrages capable of leveling cities.

One plague ship’s void shield overloaded after a torpedo hit its prow, causing it to spin uncontrollably, followed by a relentless series of attacks.

The massive hull was pierced by torpedoes, missiles, and phospikes. A hit plasma energy core exploded violently, engulfing the ship in flames. It disintegrated slowly in the silent explosion, burning fiercely in space.

Fragments of the shattered warship flew off like debris from a skyscraper, accidentally striking a nearby warband vessel, overloading its void shield. The Imperial cruiser then blasted it into wreckage with a single broadside.

With the firepower of the Radiance of Macragge, the Imperial fleet was like a sharp sword piercing the enemy’s heart.

Their advantage swiftly expanded, tipping the scales of victory rapidly toward humanity.

“They’re behaving abnormally; they should be retreating,” Fikris shook his head from nearby. “In the past, when realizing defeat was inevitable, traitors usually fled.”

“Maybe these fools are just scared out of their wits,” Brech sneered. His greatest joy was personally destroying enemy ships one by one, leaving the bodies of chaotic traitors floating in space like ice sculptures.

A dead traitor was a traitor confirmed.

Kilimann withdrew his gaze from the strategic projection, shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s that simple. Find a way to get surface intel from Sarah II. Maybe the problem lies on the planet’s surface. With that information, we might understand what’s really going on.”

Though a traveler from another world, he had inherited his predecessor’s power and memories—more of a fusion, in a sense.

His primarch-level strategy and wisdom told him it was odd for the plague warriors to be so recklessly fearless.

They didn’t serve Tzeentch; Nurgle never supported senseless suicide.

Mindless charging just to kill was something only the brash Khorne followers would do.

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(End of Chapter)