Sky Fortress (Horus heresy in english)

[Dalamar]

Tämä tulee varsinaisesti Imperial Literaturen Horus Heresy-jatkotarinaprojektiin, mutta postaan sen myös tänne, jos joku nyt jaksaa lukea.




"Give it full broadside!", Captain-master Barrion Cervant shouted at the command deck of Sky Fortress.

In front of Fortress floated an strike cruiser of chaos, Red terror. In the orbit of Terra, some scattered remains of once so great solar fleet were still doing stubborn resistance against the traitors. Great Sky Fortress of Imperial Fists had come to help, trying to halt tides of drop pods that hit constantly the face of holy planet. Barrion and admiral Navarren, third commander of fleet in one week, had succeeded destroying six of chaos ships in orbit. In Beginnig, Navarren had ten ships in command, now only seven remained, two so badly damaged that they would never be able to land anymore.
Barrion watched lasercannon fire hitting shields of enemy cruiser, and right behind them comed massive torpedos. Black space flashed around the enemy ships, meaning that massive barrage from Sky Fortress and two Imperial cruisers had finally overloaded reactors that kept the void shield operating. Ten seconds later an full broadside from Navarren's Flagship Shield of Terra took direct hit to chaos ship, and horrible series of explosions ripped traitor ship to pieces, setting space in fire around doomed enemy cruiser. Massive fireball devoured few escape shuttles, and in a matter of seconds there was nothing left from enemy ship. Captain-master smiled as he thought burning traitors aboard the destroyed ship. They had payed for their betrayal. Where are your false gods now? Barrion asked silently for damned souls of crewmen. Nobody hears your prayer in the void...

"Order Admiral fall back, before more chaos ship's will attack us" Captain-master said to the voxmaster Dawren, "We have too few ships to fight larger blocks of enemy fleet".

Barrion rised from Captain's chair, and walked towards the force fields of command deck, and looked through them, at the Holy Terra far below. Massive black clouds drifted acrosss the skies, and in darkness below he could see massive defencelasers desperately shooting at drop ships. Vid-machines gived him zoomed wiew about Terra's surface. Directly beneath he saw part of city in flames, result of large and furious firefigt beetween 2nd armoured division of imperial army and a group of enemy Titans and heavy vechiles. Greatest fight of mankind had now started with full force, and Barrion heard many reports of crazed attacks from vox-casters. Both space ports were under heavy assault, many major strategic points were under fierce fighting, hundreds of airplanes fought at the once so blue skies of Terra and massive Titan Legions warred each other at now scarred face of cityplanet. Imperial lines had held now for some time, but there were just too many drop troops. Soon something would break, and Barrion hoped more than anything, that it would not be either of space ports. Then it would be impossible to Navarren land his ships, and in space they could not fight for long time, there was simply too much traitor ships.

"Vox-casting from Shield of Terra, Captain-master!" Dawren shouted from comm-link table.

"Send it to my Headphone, voxmaster", Barrion ordered, setting his powerarmour clad hand to his microphone.

"Seven kills, not so bad, Captain-master. I'm afraid, that we cannot continue this for long. Soon enemy will send something to destroy us, and it comes for sure in such an force, that we will be destroyed", Navarren's tired voice come from headphone.

"True, Admiral. But we will retreat to the ports only when we are ordered. Don't be afraid still, lord Dorn and lord Sanguinus will give the order in right time, for they are master of stategy. They know, that it is stupid to sacrifice troops, especially ships for nothing", Barrion said. He wasn't so sure as he sounded, for he knowed that ships would be sacrificed wey eagerly, if needed. Sky Fortress was safe, it would be needed later at surface to keep enemy airpower at bay, and their massive weaponry were enough to turn ten Titans to ash in few minutes.

"I trust sons of Emperor more than anything save Emperor itself. We will fight in space as long as if needed to fight. Now, let us keep harrying flanks of enemy fleet".

"End of transmission, Captain-master" Dawren said, hands dancing at keyboard ahead, receiving and sending messages.

Fortress continued it's journey through space, looking some little groups of chaos ships. It looked like giant floating city, perfectly round, smaller and smaller levels spiralling up to the highest peak, were command deck was positioned. Fortress's diameter was one kilometer at largest level, the very bottom of fortress. There massive motors moved giant battle station, in atmoshpere and space. everywhere in walls massive gunbatteries stood ready to challenge even batle barge of traitor marines, even if battle barges were much larger, they still did not have more weaponry. Because usually fortress did not need to carry much troops across galaxy, it could have horrible amounts of firepower instead of troops. Round shape meaned that where ever the attacker would come, it still needed to face half of the fearsome Mega-lasercannon batteries and torpedos. Beneath the giant behemoth were assault cannons against all fast airplanes that could attack motors, and beside them large bomb-hatches were closed for now. Behind them rested horrible amounts of explosives, enough to turn large hive to dust. At there, only great motors were now active, pushing this doomsdaymachine against enemies.
Inside fortress, in fact at the very core of this behemoth of steel were plasma reactors, and machineroom around them. Hier six Tech-priests worked with their servitors, constantly maintaining ancient engines and machinery. Head of machineroom was Harran, oldest tech-priest of whole legion.

Back in the command deck, radar had spotted group of enemy ships not so far away. They were bombarding hab-areas, surely trying to drive White Scars away from their hiding, from where they launched unbelievably fast and furious assaults against new enemy troops, before they could join main forces of traitors. Barrion and Navarren had decided to stop that, and then request orders to retreat from Terra.

"Attack stations, all crew! Marines of Imperial Fists, now we will sen fiery revenge against our former brothers, those filthy traitors!" Barrion Bellowed in mighty roar.

Chaos ships had apparently realised approaching enemies, and were trying hastily form an attack formation. Three cruisers were still hopelessly overpowered, and would be purged in the name of emperor. Or so Barrion thought, before an alarming shout from crew of radar.

"Captain-master, two new ships behind us! they appeared from nowhere! Other is battle barge of Night Lords! It just released salvo of missiles against us!", marine shouted from hologrammtable.

"Harran, shields up immediatly! Check radarmachinery, and brace for impact!" Barrion shouted to his headphone. How was this possible?

[The Captain]

Sirottelepas muutama epämääräinen ja määräinen artikkeli tuonne tarinaasi. Muuten sinänsä ansiokas englantisi oli lähinnä noita vailla.