[i][sub]Collab between myself and the beautiful [@Culluket].[/sub][/i] [i]Early M31 Adrift in the Ullanor system[/i] Caught in one of his sorrowful moods, Gorseval stared at the large holo-map suspended in front of his wrought-iron captain's chair with disinterest. The bridge of the [i]Eclipse[/i] was quiet. Most of the personnel was asleep and only a skeleton crew remained, and all of the Void Masters were aboard their own ships. Gorseval had dimmed the lights and idly flicked through various pict-screens, holo-maps and vox-channels.The entire fleet of the Void Stalkers drifted lazily through space, like a hibernating bear, waiting for their Primarch's command. Gorseval's advisors, the Black Guard, had learned long ago not to bother their master while he was thinking... and yet, the hours ticked by slowly. They could be fighting somewhere right now. A massive war was being waged on Ullanor Prime, several skirmishes were taking place in the rest of the system, and even more battles were being fought in other, nearby systems. All of it meant more surface fighting. Gorseval hated fighting Orks. The green runts seemed incapable of producing a large, meaningful fleet of space ships. Gorseval despised the Eldar too, but at least they proved interesting opponents, out here in the eternal darkness. He'd vaguely caught wind of a few of his brothers tackling an Eldar Craftworld, but that was in another segmentus of the galaxy. Before the assault on the shipyards, Gorseval had received a telepathic communication from Lydia Magaera, the Lady of Victory, and Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion, the Kindly Ones. This wasn't unusual -- Gorseval and Lydia frequently communicated that way, being two of the few psychic Primarchs. It had been an image of a planet, Harkonnen IV, with some strategic information attached to it. Large planetary assault, three different Ork forces, collaboration with the Fifteenth -- it had looked like a good scrap. Brooding, Gorseval sent Lydia a few mental images of the shipyard battle and Farrah, the Shield of the Imperium, smashing an Ork Weirdboy with her enormous war-mace, along with a general mood of dissatisfaction. It was a moment before there was any response. But then, slowly, gradually, it was as though Gorseval could see the old balcony in the back of his mind's eye, a great edifice of white, pillared marble jutting out over a vast, grey ocean which lapped against its cliffs beneath a canopy of stars. A thousand miles distant and yet as clear as if it had been within his arm's reach. Warm firelight flickered from within, a beacon he could always find when he chose to. Frequently Magaera would come to meet him there, on that phantom ledge, but now he felt her presence beckoning from within. As he had done so often before, Gorseval stepped out of the dark, technology-ridden bridge of the [i]Eclipse[/i] and into the beautiful, marble scene of the mind-temple. Back on the ship, Gorseval's eyes closed and he seemed to fall asleep in his chair. Lights winked softly in the bridge and servos whirred, but nothing would disturb him there. The temple was wide, open and radiant, set with flickering braziers and opulent decoration. The impression lingered of warm summer air, fresh with the scent of salt and the cry of sea-birds echoing distantly through the colonnades from without. Against one wall hung the lifeless head of Habdab Swiftfingerz, with two further hooks to either side awaiting their trophies. The stone nearby was adorned with a red-figure painting depicting Fu Xia's conquest of the beast. There was yet plenty of room to spare. Lydia herself in her white chiton and golden clasps stood pacing slowly around the circular mosaic that had dominated the center of her temple. But where once had been an elaborate map of her homeworld now showed the surface of forge world Harkonnen, bristling with miniature tokens and figurines, attack vectors drawn out with strings of red twine. The southern end of the battlefield had apparently been claimed as a successful beachhead, and the game-pieces of the Kindly Ones and the Sons of the Storm now flowed upstream in a two-pronged invasion. With the butt of her fabled spear, Lydia pushed two of the tokens to an altered course and at last turned to her brother, lifting her chin high in her old aspect of pride, but smiling in silent welcome. She tilted her head in a mild expression of sympathy, raised a questioning eyebrow and gestured back the way he had come. In here, Gorseval was dressed in long, featureless robes of black. They were what he had worn as the Silent King of the Reach, before the Emperor found him, and even after thirty years his mind would dress him as such. He took a few seconds to take in the appearance of his sister before him, resplendent in white, her eyes like blue fire. Gorseval had always fostered a quiet appreciation for her hard beauty, and an even more quiet envy of her expressive eyes. Gorseval's bare feet moved soundlessly over the marble floor and he walked closer to the mosaic, hands clasped behind his back, and he looked down at the map. Harkonnen IV. He met her gaze when she raised an eyebrow, and Gorseval shrugged. "Too easy. The shipyards were... ah, I wouldn't say [i]poorly[/i] defended, but Farrah is very good at what she does. Ullanor Secundus had a few Ork kroozers defending it, but nothing spectacular," Gorseval explained. His long black hair fell like curtains around his face as he looked down again, his eyes studying the pieces and the mosaic. "Looks like your tactic worked." The Lady's head tilted back again, her expression thoughtful. There was a feeling of acknowledgement, of understanding, but then the image of a half-finished tapestry, of a bowl slowly filled to overflowing, of a pair of scales, one side weighed heavily with golden coins, the other lightly with crude stones. Slowly, more stones began to fall, then more, and gradually, inexorably, the scales began to tip until they were almost even. She lifted her spear and thumped the floor of the temple with its shaft, once. Abruptly the tiles around the mosaic were cluttered with a second host of figures and statuettes -- the beautifully-carved shapes of Imperial battleships, twisted barbarian vessels in crude copper, and an unusually great number of large stones, all connected to points on the map by hundreds of long red threads. No. Not stones. Rocks. She shared the tactical data, opening herself, the detections and predictions of her augurs and her own prognostications spanning out in his mind's eye. The assault [i]would[/i] succeed. She would not accept anything less. But the incoming rok-ships alone were too great in number to be stopped entirely by the 13th and 15th fleets, and their landings, and the reinforcements they would bring with them, had a narrow predictablility. There would be prices to pay for victory. Lydia's gift for visualization made it easy for Gorseval to understand what he was looking at. The Orks hadn't actually finished gathering on Harkonnen IV and a great stream of reinforcements was still pouring in. Gorseval fell silent for a minute while he compared his own precognitions and estimations with Lydia's and found them to mostly overlap -- should nobody intervene, the switft and decisive strike of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth would turn into a long, drawn-out war of attrition. Like the movements of a dream, the map and the figures were gone, and the Lady of Victory now sat sidesaddle at one end of a great wooden banquet table, set with a lavish feast. She radiated invitation, welcome, a tantalizing glimpse of challenge, the filling of an empty belly accustomed to better meals than the ones so recently taken. Lydia smiled, warmly, and held a wide carving-knife by its tip over the top of a huge shank of cooked meat, offering the handle to Gorseval. Amused, Gorseval accepted the blade. The wooden banquet table vanished and Gorseval and Lydia found themselves standing on opposite sides of a large, three-dimensional representation of the space around Harkonnen IV. Lydia was a master of terrestrial war, and it showed in her two-dimensional mosaic. Now it was Gorseval's turn to show her something, and that required a Z-axis. Harkonnen IV hung between them like the projection from a holo-map, translucent and softly flickering. Gorseval's mind placed the red dots of the incoming Ork fleet with swift strokes -- no beautiful carvings or marble figurines, but abstract markings. He was a starfleet commander, not an artisan. Lydia's own fleet was represented by white dots and Fu Xia's in navy blue. While his mind worked to finish the projection, Gorseval changed the angle of the view a few times, rotating Harkonnen IV this way and that, and moving the dots until it satisfied him. The Roks and kroozers were coming in like a stream from above, towards the Astartes fleets that covered Harkonnen IV like a shroud. With a wave of his left hand, Gorseval changed the positioning of Lydia's and Fu Xia's fleets to form a bowl instead, its edges curving away from Harkonnen IV and towards the incoming Ork fleet. With another wave from his right hand, Gorseval painted a purple streak through the air that ended just behind the influx of red dots. Little pixelated portals opened and purple dots streamed out, trapping the Ork fleet inside a tri-color trap. Lydia watched the display with cool attentiveness, and nodded once, firmly. There was a distant sound, like the chiming of a bronze bell, soon followed by the low thrum of distant engines. Ghost-images appeared between the luminous icons of the Imperial ships, charting the vectors and progress of the new positions. There was a sense of rightness, correctness, and a flood of images: Some base substance being ground in a mortar and pestle; distant ships drawing nearer over an endless blue sea; the two of them drinking from the same wide goblet; a sword through the neck of a great, dead serpent. Anticipation, respect and satisfaction. The war goddess smiled, gently, and was gone. When Lydia left, Gorseval found himself alone with his thoughts. The balcony overlooking the sea faded away and the Dark Star was surrounded by the void that suffused his very being. Gorseval steeled himself and looked into the darkness, staring down the two bright points of eternal screamlight that always seemed to be there waiting for him. "Soon," he whispered, and forced his eyes open. --- [i]One week later Early M31 640,500km above the surface of Harkonnen IV[/i] The calculations and predictions of Gorseval and his Void Masters had been perfect. The fleet of the Void Stalkers exited the Warp right behind the advancing Ork procession -- and just in time, too. The relatively slow-moving Roks were mere hours from hurling themselves into the blockade of Imperial spaceships that now hung in front of Harkonnen IV like a large net. Hundreds upon hundreds of black battleships, cruisers and frigates flung themselves out of the monstrous Warp portals. Chief among them was the [i]Eclipse[/i], unparalleled in size, its Lance batteries already powering up for the first salvo. Gorseval sent a short telepathic ping to Lydia to let her know that they'd arrived. At once he felt her response, like a blinding white radiance from the Furies' capital ship. From the vantage point of his captain's chair, looking through the enormous void-windows, Gorseval could see the entire Ork fleet spread out before him. It stretched out seemingly forever, growing ever smaller into the distance. Forming the backdrop was the planet, still so far away that it was barely any bigger than a volleyball, and a whole host of small lights blinking in the darkness -- the Astartes ships he had come to support. "No time to waste," Gorseval spoke into his vox-mic. "Cataclysm-pattern formation. Proceed to target-marking." Immediately, his display lit up with Void Masters and other captains designating which enemy ship (or Rok) they were going to open fire at. The biggest priority during a void ambush was to ensure that not a single shot was wasted. Efficiency was key. Once every ship had marked their target, a process that didn't take more than thirty seconds, Gorseval spoke again. His voice was flat and emotionless, little more than a whisper, completely indifferent to the fact that he was consigning hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of Orks to their deaths. [i]"Death."[/i] As one, the Void Masters repeated the hushed word over the vox-link. It was the closest thing to a battlecry that the Void Stalkers had. The barrage was tremendous. Every single ship in the Legion's fleet lit up, unleashing a veritable hailstorm of tornadoes, blinding flashes of light and heat, pulsing salvos of plasma and a myriad other weaponries. The whole affair was certainly bright enough to be seen from the surface of Harkonnen IV with the naked eye. The [i]Eclipse[/i] had its targeting-vectors trained on a particularly massive Ork Battlekroozer that was hastily trying to turn around. [i]Too late,[/i] Gorseval thought. "Redirect all energy to the Lance batteries," he commanded. Until the Ork ships had turned around there was no return fire to protect themselves from, so why bother? The forward-facing Lance batteries lining the broadsides of the [i]Eclipse[/i] all opened fire simultaneously. The unbearably bright deathray blotted out Gorseval's view of the battle and he had to rely on his instruments and his powers to tell him how his other ships were faring. After ten seconds, the Lance batteries stopped abruptly. The Ork Battlekroozer had been rend open along the spine of the vessel and its mechanical guts were spilling out into the hard vacuum. By now, more of the Ork vessels had managed to face their sudden attackers and Gorseval had power redirected to the [i]Eclipse's[/i] shields. He watched in satisfaction as the [i]Event Horizon[/i] spearheaded the charge a few hundred miles in front of him, ramming an Ork kroozer while simultaneously angling its broadsides towards a Rok -- a single salvo was enough to reduce the asteroid to a thousand thousand pieces of space rubble. Void Master Balthasith was once again proving his unparallelled bravado. The [i]Phantom[/i], utilizing its experimental cloaking field, suddenly appeared inside a formation of Ork ships and fired out in all directions, and the [i]Void Maw[/i] took advantage of the situation by firing its devastating Nova cannon. Two of the Ork ships were disemboweled by the high-speed projectile and almost turned inside-out. In order to stop the Orks from fleeing, Gorseval had the faster cruisers and escorts of the fleet advance down the length of the battle to link up with the edges of the 'bowl' that the fleet of the Kindly Ones and the Sons of the Storm formed, like an enormous double-sided Lotus-pattern formation that Fu Xia was so fond of. Caught between two centralized pits of firepower and kept in place by the agile cruisers, the Orks had nowhere left to run. Gorseval sent another short telepathic message to Lydia, conveying a sense of satisfaction and pride. [i]This[/i] was beautiful.