Chapter 20: Space War
Over seven hundred voidships materialized from the Warp in coordinated formation. Veteran craft and newly commissioned vessels alike emerged into a system consumed by war.
From the outer rim planets to the gas giants, and inward to the rocky inner worlds, thousands of warships clashed across the Basiank system.
Millions of strike craft swarmed through the void, their engines flickering like distant stars. In the distance loomed an alien space fortress, a Rangdan mega-structure tens of kilometers across.
Aboard the heavy cruiser flagship, Omega watched three-dimensional hololith data manifest before him. The fleet captured spatial intelligence and modeled it in real-time.
Enemy warships and strike craft projections appeared across the display.
Omega manipulated the data streams with both hands. Within moments, he'd calculated the Rangdan forces at nearly one hundred million combatants.
He drew a sharp breath.
This didn't account for enemy forces garrisoned on other worlds within the system. Another grind awaited them, but the worst battles still lay ahead.
According to Alpharius's intelligence, tens of billions of Rangdan xenos remained on their throneworld of Whirlwind-Mols, including countless slave armies.
At the enemy's stronghold, they might encounter super-capital weapons like planetary battleships. The Rangdan star sector now held only a few sectors, each containing tens of thousands of systems.
The Legiones Astartes compressed the xenos' territory from all sides.
From the galactic perspective, the Imperium of Man was winning.
But Omega knew better than to mistake strategic success for tactical ease.
He summoned additional data streams and issued orders: "Execute Plan Alpha. Penetrate the engagement zone, then disperse formation to isolate enemy battlegroups. Consume them piecemeal."
Plan Alpha, a strategic framework he and Alpharius had derived from brutal engagements, was integrated into the cogitator arrays.
The fleet coordinated more efficiently.
The Alpha Legion split into two battlegroups and plunged into the warzone.
Xenos strike craft approached to intercept.
Lance batteries, electromagnetic accelerators, and ion cannons opened fire.
Approaching strike craft vanished in brilliant flashes while Imperial fighters engaged the remainder. The xenos failed to establish effective interception.
Capital ships surged forward, forming coordinated formations and engaging enemy voidcraft. Then they began isolating smaller enemy battlegroups to destroy them methodically.
In the void space of Basiank, Alpha Legion warships scattered across the battlefield, seemingly engaged in chaotic melee with enemy vessels.
Their formations appeared impossible to distinguish.
But the chaos was deliberate. Omega commanded from the flagship, filling tactical gaps as they emerged. Julius Virtus stood on the bridge, watching the tactical display with growing alarm.
The disorganized fighting made no sense until he examined the three-dimensional hololith more carefully.
Under Omega's coordination, the chaotic situation was gradually resolved in real-time. Enemy forces were being consumed systematically.
The Adeptus Magos observed Omega's calm composure. His movements were practiced and precise as he utilized the cogitator arrays.
Over the past decade, the Russel had witnessed both Primarchs develop into exceptional Dual-Commanders. The casualties they took achieving victory were no longer as severe as in previous years.
The Rangdan Kindred encountered this tactical doctrine for the first time.
Initially, they assumed the newly arrived Imperial fleet was disorganized, that its formation had collapsed from shock.
As time passed, Rnagdan watched in horror as they realized how big a mistake they had made.
Carrier groups fell, surrounded, and eliminated. Frigates shattered. Light cruisers succumbed to boarding actions.
Lance beams crisscrossed the void. Under sustained bombardment, the battlefield became saturated with fire. Wrecks and derelict hulls drifted everywhere.
In less than a month, the Alpha Legion destroyed three to four hundred xenos warships, eliminated hundreds of thousands of strike craft, and annihilated over four million enemy combatants.
And they, in return, lost just over one hundred of their own voidcraft.
The extraordinary exchange ratio resulted from the enemy's initial miscalculation. They'd thought Omega inexperienced and fallen directly into his trap.
The outer planetary space was secured. Alpha Legion Space Marines deployed for planetary assault, alongside Imperial Army landing forces, to eliminate remaining enemy forces on the surface.
Omega's battlegroup rendezvoused with Alpharius's fleet. Both Primarchs expressed satisfaction over the decisive victory.
While the enemy withdrew to analyze Imperial strategies, the two Primarchs exploited the xenos' confusion.
They penetrated the enemy formations again, dividing and surrounding them for systematic destruction.
Two hundred additional xenos warships fell within a month.
Then the enemy adapted. They dispatched fleet reinforcements and adopted tight defensive formations to prevent exploitation.
Omega and Alpharius responded with direct frontal engagement using their primary forces.
They detached multiple battlegroups commanded by Company Commanders to engage scattered strike craft and minor enemy flotillas throughout the theater.
The Alpha Legion's intervention reduced pressure on the Dark Angels substantially. At the system's core, the First Legion unleashed even more devastating combat power.
Nearly three thousand warships from both Imperial and xenos forces clashed throughout the Basiank system. All eight worlds were affected by the void war. Even within the atmospheres of gas giants, dogfights raged between opposing strike craft.
Another month passed in the outer void of the seventh world, a planet shrouded in ice and frozen mountain ranges.
The Rangdan forces, wary of Omega and Alpharius's division and encirclement doctrine, consolidated their dispersed heavy elements into concentrated formations. They adopted defensive postures.
This proved partially effective, yet it allowed the Imperials to breach the void space around the seventh world within that month.
The Company Commanders coordinated with the primary Primarch fleet in a frontal assault, attacking from multiple vectors.
The clustered xenos fleet found itself encircled on three sides.
By the time the Rangdan Kindred recognized their predicament, they were in disarray. Some gradually withdrew, fearing complete annihilation.
Others chose to fight to the death against the frontal Imperial battle line.
The fragmenting xenos fleets were immediately identified as vulnerable. Omega and Alpharius launched rapid strikes to isolate them, then surrounded and destroyed them methodically.
The doctrine was hydra-like in nature.
Alpha Legion battlegroups surged from all directions to strike the enemy, each attack coordinated yet seemingly independent, chaos that concealed perfect order beneath.
[End of Chapter]