[hr][center][b][i][h3][color=00FFFF]The Ordo Astranoma[/color][/h3][color=FF0000]12th Macroclade Fleet[/color]
Praetor Alpha Primus Andron Axaltus[/i][/b][/center][hr]

[center][quote=The First Universal Law][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/742022d7-a37b-443f-a6ed-444f1c3ee815.png[/img][/quote][/center]

Life is Directed Motion.

The sheer volume of Human conceit that can be crammed into such a succinct phrase is so staggering that the no less than six thousand members of the Holy Synod of Mars have dedicated their entire careers to doing nothing other than writing treatises upon that single phrase. I have to permit that it is rather practically applied in a likely infinite number of allegories and parables. Such as this one:

In space, your motion is undirected and you are dead. On the ground, your motion is (usually) directed and you are alive. Inside a voidship in space, which has directed motion even though you do not, you exist in a paradoxical state of being both dead and alive at the same time, which is also true of the state of morale for most soldiers aboard voidships.

Voidship combat in particular has a way of canalizing the exact orientation of crew morale (dead versus alive) which explains how even entirely neurosynched crews can fall prey to schism and mutiny. Mutiny is, in fact, far more common amongst Mechanicum vessels than it is upon those of the Imperial Navy. Even Skitarii - as we are all adamantly loyal to our Tech Priest masters, as any of us will tell you - can fall prey to treason this way if we can but be persuaded by that single minder. So it falls to conductors of directed motion such as myself to [b]motivate[/b] the sentiments of the Skitarii Legions and the Tachmata against such eventualities. Ironically, one of the best ways of promoting shipboard morale is via pitched shipboard combat. It tends to distract away from the larger crisis of flying through space in a giant glorified coffin which may or may not be in the process of exploding violently.

With Orks, this prospect is pleasingly simple, as their so-called 'tellyporta' have more than three times the range of even the finest Mechanicum Teleportarium. Similarly, their long-range void-weapon of choice, the voltaic 'Zapp Kannon,' has only a faintly shorter range than the Macroclade Fleet's own Nova Cannons and nearly perfect accuracy - while being, thankfully, drastically less potent. Predictably, Archmagos Explorator Mephitor has arranged for a wall of vanguard ships hosting the finest war cohort of the fleet proximal to the approaching horde of Ork voidships. When the Orks unleash their first salvo against the those vessels , and when those vessels' void shields drop and the first Ork boarding parties begin to teleport over - the entire fleet's morale will supposedly benefit from the thorough thrashing the Orks will be delivered.

The first step to securing such a victory for that cohort is to direct their enthusiasm towards the advantages of fighting the Orks in our own halls without reminding them of the nature of the flying coffins they will be fighting in and their predilection to violently explode when fought in.

"...Those ships are all filled with Castallen Maniples, so we will be getting the sloppy seconds once the Orks are done with them. We are not going in to fight them, we are going in to purge them. A reminder that Orks are resilient, their heads can be reattached just like ours, only entirely unlike us the reason they can do it is because they're too frakking dumb to realize they should be dead. Destroy theirs, and if you feel the insatiable need to embarrass your flesh, make sure to bend over and shove your own head up your ass so they can't hit it." Praetor Alpha Primus Andron Axaltus relayed the address over voxcast to the entirety of the Skitarii War Cohort at his command and the handful of Tech Priests who would serve as their neurosync minders.

[hr]

The first wave of Ork boarding parties was completely overwhelming in number to the point that they started getting in their own way - they crammed the Cruisers they had targetted with so many Nobz and Gretchin they could scarcely move without picking fights with each other. A problem the utterly merciless and precise Castellen robots guarding the ships did not have. Armed with Flamers and Melta weapons, the robotic Maniples were perfectly equipped to deal with the thronging Ork hordes in close quarters - but even the mighty machines had their limits, and the Orks continually received reinforcements via tellyporta strikes while the few Gretchin who managed to evade the searing promethium volleys managed to work and work their way into every nook and cranny of the unfortunate vessels - including the voxhub. The War Cohort waited until the Ork Mekboys managed to plug into the systems to vox back to their own ships that the poor unprepared Hummies first ships had been taken.

And then the Skitarii appeared.

Silence scythed through the still air of the vessels as the Skitarii Vanguard calmly and orderly walked the halls of the ship, preceded by Sicarian infiltrators and Ruststalkers. The Ork Gretchin infesting the ships, even hiding in the ductwork and tiniest nooks and crannies, tended to simply die as the Sicarian killclades passed them by - the only symptom of their passage the abrupt loss of all sight and hearing as insidious neurostatic black noise thrummed through the ships' hulls, causing the smaller vermin to expire as their flesh bubbled and churned from the resonant dirge. The Orks themselves - made of sterner stuff - simply went blind and deaf. Even robbed of their senses however, they remained dangerous - and as the Sicarian Killclades began to butcher them, they retaliated in kind, their bodies able to endure being split open by transonic blades and turn wrath back onto their unseen attackers. This, too, had been anticipated - and as the Sicarian Killclades danced and spun with the Orks, one by one, the behemoths they could not cut down began to fall dead to the decks as a new and silent killer entered the fray.

The Skitarii Vanguard, emitting such immense radiation that not even Ork physiology could withstand it, walked calmly through the halls of the ship, subjecting any bodies they found to promethium and volkite rays. As more Orks reinforcements appeared via tellyporta, those too began to simply drop dead on arrival, the radiation levels in each ship having built too high for them to withstand.

Few plans withstand contact with the enemy however, especially an enemy as unpredictable and chaotic as Orks. There was exactly one kind of Ork the Skitarii and their Sicarian brethren could not cripple and slay with such contemptuous ease: The Mekboys who had established control over the ships. Their crude cybernetics let them detect and survive the initial bouts of the the rapidly building radiation - long enough to impossibly calibrate their shielding to protect them from the deadly energies. And though their bionic senses were no more protected from the dread song of the Sicarian Infiltrators than organic tissue, they were able to overcome the debilitating pain and register attack vectors through pain alone. Their likewise cybernetically augmented Gretchin assistants proved able to survive where others had choked on their own blood and died.

Fighting a handful of Ork Mekboys and their Gretchin would not normally have been an issue for a fighting force such as the Vanguard and the Sicarian Clades. But they were not fighting a handful. They were fighting untold thousands of them.

The only solace to be found in the situation was that as the remaining fleets of the Astartes legions joined the system, the focus of the Ork voidships broke apart and finally, at last, the never-ending torrent of Ork corpses materializing aboard the Mechanicum vanguard cruisers finally began to abate. What followed next was several days of dirty, treacherous fighting in the confines of the Cruiser as the Ordo Astranoma's armada began to disperse, its Macroclades heading for their own predetermined coordinates - leaving the Skitarii War Cohort to either live victoriously or die when the first Vanguard Cruiser's cogitators overloaded the engines in response to Orks seizing helm control. The explosion that followed would set off a cascade in all the other nearby cruisers, causing them to burst open like krak grenades.

"You had better not die or let them seize the bridge. That would be treasonous." Axaltus conveyed via voxcast at one point. "We are all due to arrive on Ullanor Tertius in a few days time to immediately fight the Ork Warbands there and being dead is no excuse for dereliction of duty to the Omnissiah."

As the days passed, punctuated in the void by ships performing line maneuvers to place additional shots with the Nova Cannons and in the ships by deadly pushes through narrow chokepoints by either the Skitarii or the Orks, Moral inevitably improved. Barring the unfortunates who were literally torn to pieces by swarms of Gretchin or had their heads stolen and whisked away to be eaten in a duct somewhere, true casualties amongst the Skitarii were few in number - as long as enough of their head remained to preserve in stasis, they could be given new flesh in the form of ceramite and battle steel to fight for the Glory of the Omnissiah once more. The Ork Mekboys were more interested in scavenging and repurposing the ships itself than destroying it, which was reflected in their tactics - and so the Skitarii Cohort slowly and surely ground away at them, purging and cleansing the Cruisers of Ork spore as they went. The battles were hardly one-sided, but victory was inevitable and in sight.

[hr]

[i]'Praetor, this is Magos Acquisitor Lictarii. We have an unexpected development. The Ork Technician omnispex readings showed as having set up in the rear anterior node relay junction access hall made a failed attempt to tap into the ship's power feed approximately two hours ago. Then are now moving directly for the reactor manifold. Their Gretchin are moving with them and many other swarms have abruptedly started to converge. We suspect an imminent, potentially hazardous act of interference with the functionality of the reactor by the Ork Technician.'[/i]

Andron Axaltus paused midswing to consider this. It was more of a figurative than literal pause, as he had overclocked by his sensory throughput and cognitive processing to such an extent that his perception of time in that moment had slowed to a crawl, in order to properly evaluate the situation along with his personal coterie, likewise overclocked and neurosynchronized with him. After a brief discussion about the placement of the nearest Maniples and a somewhat longer argument about the layout of the ship (due to a misconception by it not possessing a standardized template configuration), the edge of his power sword's energy field had finally crawled close enough to the surface of the 'Cybork' Gretchin's cranium to begin splitting it apart one atom at a time. Once they had all reached a decision, they all reset and recalibrated their feeds and processors and time screamed back to its normal breakneck pace, the screaming cybernetic Gretchin's entire body falling into a mix of organic and mechanical pieces as Andron's sword carved through it. As one, he and his entire Maniple turned on the spot and began hurriedly marching, single-file, through the corridors of the ship towards the reactor manifold, much to the confusion of the thronging Swarm of Gretchin they had been in the midst of disassembling. They continued to fight disgusting fungal xenos as they went, Mechdendrites mounted with laz and arc weapons blasting away at the diminutive creatures shooting from off the Skitarii's backs as they turned away.

It took the better part of an hour to fight all the way to the reactor manifold, with Gretchin and the occasional Ork Mekboy all seeming to suddenly conspire to abridge the Skitarii's progress. Gretchin could not fight the Skitarii head-to-head, but from ambush, sheer numbers, and ability to slip between the narrowest confines of the ship, they were able to wage a war of attrition. Skitarii would have their own weapons stolen and turned on them by them by mobs of snotlings erupting from ductwork or maintenance shafts. Sicarian infiltrators would have entire corridors collapsed on them with primitive, improvised explosives, while others would occasionally vanish through unsecured floor-hatches to be messily devoured in the dark. But as much as the Gretchin struggled, they could only inflict triffling losses on the advancing Maniple, who were relentless in their pace and broke for nothing.

Which was for the best, as when they arrived at the Manifold the Ork Mekboy had been halfway through the process of disengaging the reactor manual safety overrides by way of repeatedly smashing one of the control interfaces with a wrench while Grechin tore furiously through its mechanical innards in order to fulfill his incoherently screamed instructions. 

"You hummies cannit stop us! Wez gotz all da scuzzy bits we needz to make the new tellyporta work!" The Mekboy crowed triumphantly as he turned towards the door and layed down a hail of withering arc-lightning with his shock cannon, the deadly voltaic energies grounding into the frame of the doorway and preventing entrance without the intruder becoming a lightning rod.

"I'll be taking yuz glowy WAAAAAAAAGH power thing and uze it to BLOW DIS JUNK. Gonna tellyport out wit the poz and let you go BOOM." The Mekboy continued to taunt as he hefted up a combi-bolter and started sending slugs through the same passageway just as an auger-servitor floated in front of it to gather intel from beyond the safety of the threshold.

[i]'This one appears to be a Big Mek.'[/i] One of the Vanguard relayed over vox. [i]'Standard munitions will be ineffective, he has the equivalent of a voltagheist shield.'[/i]

[i]'Acknowledged. I have dispatched such an enemy before. I will need a tactical solution for my approach vector that does not involve being fatally electrocuted.'[/i] Axaltus relayed. [i]'I will need to get within family portrait distance of them.'[/i]

[i]'Devising a technical solution for their arc weapon now.'[/i] One of the Rangers answered as they retrieved their arc maul from their belt and began performing a number of hasty modifications to it on the spot with their one free hand and multiple mechadendrites.

[i]'We can lay down suppressing fire as soon as the arc weapon is eliminated.'[/i] One of the other Vanguard members indicated. [i]'We have three Plasma Calivers between us here, which ought to keep his focus nicely.'[/i]

[i]'Just so long as we can do this before this Ork sends us all to meet the Machine God.'[/i] Axaltus relayed back as he edged closer to the doorway and readied his power sword.

[i]'Executing solution now.'[/i]

The first Vanguard held out his arc maul beyond the threshold of the doorway, immediately causing the arcing lightning from the Ok's shock cannon to fixate upon it - and with a small galvanic thud, the small melee weapon overloaded and cause multiple tracers of powerful feedback to rebound on the Mekboy's caster and make it erupt in a shower of sparks. Axaltus took that as his cue to step through the doorway and begin running a roundabout path towards the Mekboy from the other end of the reactor room as three other members of the Maniple piled into the doorway and unleashed a barrage of plasma fire into the enemy. Even altogether, the Skitarii's plasma calivers could not penetrate through the Mekboy's shielding - powered by the mysterious WAAAAGH energies the Orks obsessed over, it would likely have stood up to anti-tank munitions. But the sheer volume of fire the Skitarii were able to pour into it was an ample distraction, forcing the Mekboy to turn his full attention on them and lay down return fire with his combi-bolter even as he dropped the overloading shock cannon from his other hand and began reaching towards a haphazard pile of Orkish equipment by his side. 

"Krak dat Hummie cybork!" The Mekboy howled even as he kept his focus on the doorway, and immediately a swarm of nearly two dozen heavily augmented Gretchin and Snotlings seemed to spring out of thin air and scrabble towards Andron, chittering vile Ork profanities all the way. Not stopping to engage them properly, a dozen or so small mechadendrites uncoiled from various points along each of his limbs and a small array of digital weapons mounted upon each began expending their charges to unleash inferno-blasts of energy upon the creatures, incinerating them so rapidly they did not even have time to blacken and turn to ashes - they simply stopped being there as the hellish energies tore through their bodies. Of course, the same weapons would now be unavailable for engaging the Mekboy due to having to be recharged with every use, but the Skitarii Praetor had not been planning on using them for that purpose in any case. Instead as he drew close, he threw himself into a full-body lunge with his power sword, stabbing directly into the field of Orkish WAAAAGH power surrounding the Mekboy, and then burying the weapon's blade into the deck plating - forcing the vicious power behind the shielding to ground itself into through the weapon as it penetrated.

The Mekboy was instantly blasted by a storm of Caliver fire, but with a roar he pulled on the alternate trigger for his combi-weapon and sent a contact grenade to explode in the doorway amidst the Skitarii clustered there, even as he hefted a crude but massive power claw in his other hand. The fire from the Plasma Calivers had torn entire chunks from his armor and cybernetics and, in a few places, had punched clear holes through his body - but such injuries were nothing to an Ork, and he barely noticed them as he turned his attention to the Skitarii Praetor.

Having buried his power sword into the floor, Axaltus barreled forward in a rollto come up beneath the Mekboy's aim and, with a chop from his bare bionic arm, sent the Ork's bolter to clatter across the flooor. He was then forced to throw himself fully back down onto the floor to evade a vicious swipe from the Mekboy's power claw. He then rolled out of the way of the Ork's follow-up strike, sprung back up to his feet, and swayed forward inside of the Mekboy's guard in order to get close enough for a shoulder-mounted mechadendrite tipped with a dataspike to lash out and bury itself in the Mekboy's head.

Roaring with unbelievable rage and completely ignoring what would have been a fatal head injury to any other species, the Mekboy grasped at the offending protrusion with his free hand and ripped it away, tearing it clear of the Praetor's shoulder and throwing it back in the Skitarii's face for good measure before hunching over and slamming forward to tackle him. Axaltus dived out of the way, landed in a roll, and came out of it with an overhead strike from the edge of his hand to spear into the Mekboy's back. Even as the Mekboy screamed in rage and turned to lash at the Skitarii with their power claw, Axaltus brought up their other hand and grappled onto the Mekboy's back, using their free hand to secure himself while his embedded extremity went burrowing through the Ork's body. After failing to dislodge their assailant after a number of bucks and desperate flailing towards their back with their over-sized arms, the Mekboy finally reoriented themselves and slammed themselves back-first into the nearest wall. Had he been fighting a member of the Imperial Guard, such a tactic might have been effective - but the Skitarii were more metal than flesh. Axaltus simply registered the damage to his chassis and its systems with cold analytical rationale and dismissed it as non-inhibiting. His hand then finished digging through the Ork's innards and, with a single deft motion, crushed the Ork's heart inside the creature's chest.

And then, since the Mekboy barely even seemed to notice and slammed him into the wall a second time, Axaltus resorted to his weapon of last resort when fighting Orks.

"Hey Ork Boy. I'm going to punch your heart out." He said aloud. He then shoved his embedded fist forward another foot to emerge straight from the Ork's chest as the stunned creature looked down. "You're dead?" Axaltus added, with an almost plaintive tone. After considering the proposition for a good three seconds, the Mekboy's limited intellect managed to overcome its own vigor and their eyes rolled back in their head as they fell forward onto the floor, having convinced themselves that they should in fact be dead.

"Orks are the [i]worst[/i]." Axaltus muttered darkly as he hauled his right arm out of the Mekboy's carcass. "Maniple, status report."

[i]'Heavy external damage to all members, Praetor.'[/i] Came the voxed response. [i]'No actual casualties but a few of us will require stasis. We should be able to hold our position for the moment though.'[/i]

[i]'I am arranging for two other Maniples to come relieve you and to cleanse the manifold of spores.'[/i] Axaltus cast back. [i]'It seems that you will all unfortunately have to miss the crusade on Ullanor Tertius until your new bodies are ready, Omnissiah forbid.'[/i]

[i]'Some of us should be able to atte-'[/i]

[i]'That was not a suggestion, Skitarii.'[/i] Axaltus interrupted. [i]'If you are seeking to endeavor in sacred service to the Omnissiah, those of you who still can may assist with the ongoing cleansing of this vessel and you will like it. The Ork Spore is resilient and who here could possibly not enjoy burning away fungal grime in service of the Omnissiah?'[/i]

[i]'Your meaning is received, Praetor.'[/i] Came the response. There was no real intonation over the Skitarii voxcasts, as they communicated in Lingua-Technis formulated by their internal cogitators rather than anything so crude as using their actual voices - and so nobody reviewing the vox logs would have been able to question the sincerity of Skitarii's words from their tone.

Axaltus began to mentally chart a path through the ship back towards the bridge, even while continuing to field vox-calls from other Maniple Alphas who continued to battle the remaining Ork Mekboys scattered throughout the ship. They would be arriving at Ullanor Tertius soon - it would be time to prepare for planetary insertion soon.