A blue seam opened beyond the drifting wreckage off the Chaos fleet's flank. It widened into a dimensional aperture, and a fresh squadron of Talon battleships emerged with their prows already aligned toward the fighting.
The aperture closed behind them. New targeting signals appeared on the Vengeful Spirit's displays as the arrivals joined the ships already exchanging fire with Abaddon's battered formation.
Abaddon was no longer surprised by such appearances.
He watched the newcomers spread into firing positions. Their arrival narrowed his remaining choices, but another problem demanded attention first. Neither boarding party had established a reliable teleport homer, and his own warriors had stopped transmitting. Before abandoning the attempt, he needed to know whether Typhus's men had achieved anything more useful.
"Your boarding party's gone dark?" Abaddon asked.
Typhus did not answer immediately. His hololithic image showed him standing beside the ruined center of the Terminus Est's bridge, listening to an engineering report through a secondary vox-channel. Somewhere below him, repair crews were securing temporary plates across an exposed passage. A metallic hammering carried through the transmission.
"Brace the patch before you restore pressure," Typhus ordered. "If it tears loose, I will send the overseer down to hold it himself."
He silenced the engineering channel and turned toward Abaddon.
"Signals was monitoring them."
"Then ask signals."
Typhus's expression tightened. He had been directing repairs and restoring fire control while his lieutenant led the boarding action. Reports from the assault should have reached him through the surviving communications station. In the confusion aboard his wounded ship, they had not.
He issued a summons on the boarding frequency. Then another, using his lieutenant's command cipher.
No answer came.
A replacement vox-operator searched the transmission log. The final entry predated Typhus's last damage-control update. He had been giving orders to repair crews while his chosen warriors were already beyond his reach.
Typhus read the message aloud.
"We are attempting to breach the primary gate."
"Nothing afterward?" Abaddon asked.
"No acknowledgment. No return lock." Typhus dismissed the log with a sharp movement of his gauntlet. "What did yours report?"
Abaddon called up the last fragment received from the Black Legion lieutenant. A strained voice emerged through interference.
"We are engaged in combat with steel—"
A burst of weapons fire followed. The recording ended before the speaker could explain.
"What in the Warp does that even mean?" Typhus growled.
Abaddon replayed the fragment once, then stopped it.
Steel could mean armored constructs, automated weapons, or the start of a description the lieutenant had never finished. With no image, enemy count, or confirmed position, Abaddon had nothing to guide a second assault.
They had confirmed that teleportation could put warriors inside the Talon vessel. Neither party had remained in contact long enough to identify a vulnerable system, establish a secure arrival point, or send back a usable account of the resistance. Another wave would use the same unreliable coordinates, with no better idea of what awaited it.
Abaddon closed the recording.
"Withdraw," he said as he glanced through the observation port at the newly arrived enemy ships. "We need to consolidate what little intel we have. Charging in again would be foolish."
Typhus looked toward the repair estimates waiting beside his tactical display. His ship could still fight, but every additional exchange risked reopening compartments his crews had barely managed to seal.
He gave a reluctant nod.
"My surviving ships will turn together. I will not leave them scattered for those bastards to pick apart."
"Transmit your withdrawal vector. Keep clear of the fortress."
"But before we leave," Abaddon added, rising from the command throne, "there's something I must do to ensure the Vengeful Spirit makes it out."
He selected an adjutant waiting below the command dais and sent a coded authorization directly to the officer's armor.
The adjutant read it, looked briefly toward the weapons station, and left without asking a question. He headed for the surviving starboard torpedo launch deck.
Emergency bulkheads had divided the route into short, sealed sections. At one junction, crewmen were dragging replacement power cables past a line of wounded waiting for transport. The adjutant stepped over the cables and continued toward the arsenal.
The launch deck's ordnance chief met him beside the loading controls. Several tubes remained operational, though their crews now worked from reserve stations after the main control network had suffered damage.
The adjutant presented Abaddon's authorization.
The chief checked the cipher twice. Then he cleared the personnel working beside a reinforced magazine partition and unlocked a cradle kept separate from the ordinary torpedo racks.
"Forward starboard tube," the adjutant said. "Containment remains engaged until the breech is sealed. Launch only on the Warmaster's signal."
The chief's fingers paused over the controls.
"Understood."
Warning lamps illuminated the restricted handling lane. The loading machinery drew the sealed weapon from its cradle while the remaining deck crew withdrew behind armored screens. No one argued about the interruption to their firing schedule.
….
The Chaos fleet began turning toward the nearest usable Mandeville Point. Navigators confirmed withdrawal routes while captains disentangled their ships from the firing line and brought their remaining drives to sustained output.
Cruisers that could still maneuver independently moved ahead. The battleships followed, firing from whatever batteries could bear on their pursuers. Behind them, the damaged Blackstone Fortress withdrew with its main weapon still unavailable.
The Vengeful Spirit fell back toward the rear.
It had not been assigned to the rearguard. The two cruisers assisting its withdrawal were pulling a hull whose surviving engines could contribute only limited thrust. Demanding more acceleration triggered warnings from the cruisers' field projectors; raising the flagship's engine output threatened its damaged plasma feeds.
Abaddon could order his officers to accept greater risk. He could not make the destroyed drive units answer him.
Aboard Talon's Wrath, the withdrawal appeared in Adam's neural feed as a coordinated change in enemy acceleration and weapons alignment. The Chaos ships were breaking off the engagement, their heavy guns covering the retreat.
Adam remained reclined in his command cradle, eyes closed beneath the interface. His augmented cortex compared the retreat vectors with engine signatures, hull damage, and the positions of the newly arrived Talon battleships.
The Vengeful Spirit stood out immediately. Its escorts were constrained by the tow, its damaged stern limited its acceleration, and the rest of the Chaos formation was drawing ahead of it.
The resulting estimate was clear: an eighty-five percent probability of destroying the flagship before it reached a viable translation position, provided the pursuit began at once.
His own damaged compartments remained isolated. The battleship's weapons and shields were operational, and the reinforcements gave him enough strength to press the attack without sending one vessel ahead alone.
"All ships, pursue," he ordered. "Maintain separation and keep the firing lanes clear. Concentrate on the enemy flagship."
Acknowledgments reached him through the fleet network. Engine output climbed across the formation as Talon's battleships advanced, cruisers adjusting their positions to fire past the heavier vessels. Frigates moved ahead and outward, extending the point-defense screen through the wreckage.
The distance to the Vengeful Spirit began to close.
Adam assigned successive firing solutions against its stern and the exposed sections around its damaged broadside. Breaking the tow would leave the flagship with too little thrust to escape. Crippling another drive compartment might achieve the same result.
Then a launch signature appeared on the enemy ship.
"Single torpedo," a sensor officer reported. "Forward starboard launcher."
Adam enlarged the feed.
The projectile curved away from the Vengeful Spirit's flank and turned across the Talon formation's approach. Its casing was black, interrupted by narrow seams that leaked violet light. As the glow spread, it began to show through the plating itself.
Recognition systems compared the image with the Navy's munition archive. No stored design matched the weapon closely enough for a reliable identification.
The sensor officer opened a second feed.
"Warp anomaly detected!"
Magenta warnings appeared across Adam's command display. They belonged to the highest category of empyric hazard, distinct from the routine alerts generated by enemy teleportation or the distant influence of the Eye.
Two independent sensor arrays confirmed the anomaly. The readings were coming from the torpedo itself.
On the fleet's calibrated hazard display, the local signature climbed to nearly a tenth of the peak reading recorded near the Cadian Rift. It was still increasing.
"Intercept that torpedo," Adam ordered.
The nearest frigates redirected their lasers. Talon's Wrath brought its forward defensive batteries onto the same track, passing targeting data to the ships beside it.
Before the interception could be confirmed, another voice cut across the bridge.
"Sir! Our dimensional engine is initiating a charge sequence!"
Adam received the engine data at the same instant as the propulsion officer. Reserve power was flowing into the engine through dedicated feeds. The navigation system had begun calculating an emergency displacement, and the transition sheath was preparing to deploy.
No command from his cradle had authorized any of it.
A notification appeared beside the engine status.
["Extreme Warp signature detected. Automated defensive protocol engaged."]
Adam searched the command record. He had studied thousands of engagement protocols before taking command, including disengagement procedures, damaged-engine contingencies, and emergency fleet extraction orders. This activation matched none of them.
The Maintenance Officer's avatar appeared beside the engine display.
"The instruction originates in the ship's core logic," he said. "There is no operator input."
Adam requested the underlying instruction.
The torpedo crossed the forward quarter of Talon's Wrath.
Point-defense beams converged on it. Its engine flare disappeared, but the violet light continued to expand. The targeting return broke into overlapping echoes, each reporting a different boundary.
Then the warhead opened.
A purple vortex spread across the external feed. Stars disappeared behind its widening edge. Nearby fragments of wreckage vanished from the sensors as the rupture reached them.
It had detonated outside the battleship's defensive barrier. There was no impact for the shield to arrest; the opening into the Immaterium was spreading through the surrounding space.
The same extreme-hazard alarm passed through the Talon formation. Allied dimensional engines began reporting emergency activation one after another.
Adam saw the violet boundary advancing toward his ship. Blue light from Talon's Wrath's own transition sheath crossed the image.
Then the external feed went blank.
Talon's Wrath and the surrounding Talon ships were pulled out of realspace by their dimensional engines, leaving the expanding vortex behind.
A heartbeat later, the battleship's internal systems reappeared in Adam's command feed. The engine reported a completed emergency transition. The firing solutions against the Vengeful Spirit had been discarded.
Across the bridge, weapons-status indicators changed from engagement to standby. With the alarms silent, the cooling systems' steady hum became audible beneath the bridge crew's raised voices.
"What the hell just happened?"
The question came from the sensor station. Its officer was comparing the last external image with the navigation log, trying to pinpoint what had triggered the jump.
"We were about to destroy the enemy's flagship!"
The gunnery officer still had the discarded firing solution open. His hands remained braced against the console as though he could force the target back into range.
"Who authorized the emergency dimensional jump? We had no order to disengage!"
The operations officer directed the demand toward propulsion control.
"No one at this station initiated it," the propulsion officer answered. "The controls were taken over by an automatic sequence."
Several voices began speaking at once. Adam opened his eyes.
"Enough. Ship status first."
The argument stopped.
"Hull condition unchanged," the Maintenance Officer reported. "Existing compartment seals remain secure. No new damage detected."
"Fleet acknowledgments are arriving," communications added. "The other ships report the same automatic activation."
Adam looked toward the propulsion station. Its officer had brought up the complete input log without being asked. The record showed no manual jump command or unauthorized navigation entry.
He had never believed his crew would abandon the pursuit on their own authority. The records confirmed it.
"Show me the defensive protocol," he commanded.
The event log supplied a linked datafile. Its authorization requirements appeared before the contents.
[Clearance Level 4]. Captain's Eyes Only.
Adam opened it through his command interface.
[Upon detection of extreme Warp energy readings, the ship will auto-engage its dimensional engine. This protocol is hard-coded into the ship's core command logic and has the highest execution priority.]
He read the instruction again.
The sequence had run exactly as installed. Once the hazard threshold was crossed, the ship's core logic had placed departure above his engagement orders.
That instruction had never appeared in his command training. He would require an explanation for the omission. It would come from Navy Command, not from the officers whose controls had been overridden.
Adam closed the file.
"Core-authorized activation," he said. "Preserve the input records and every sensor trace from the torpedo. Include the corresponding logs from the other ships."
The operations officer lowered his gaze to his station.
"Understood, Admiral."
At gunnery control, the discarded target solution disappeared. The officer who had protested the lost opportunity remained tense, but he turned to compiling the weapon record.
Adam shared his frustration. The Vengeful Spirit had been within reach, with the Warmaster aboard it. His fleet had escaped the advancing rupture intact, and the enemy had been prevented from completing its attack on Anuari. He would not let disappointment turn that result into an accusation against his own crew.
"The defense of the Anuari System was a success. Good work, all of you." He straightened. "Upon return, I'll file a report with Navy Command regarding the engine's automatic activation. No one on this crew is to be held responsible."
…
Meanwhile, within the Immaterium...
"You had a vortex torpedo on board?" Typhus demanded. His voice rasped through the corroded grille of his Cataphractii armor. "And you waited until now to use it?!"
The Terminus Est had translated before the Vengeful Spirit. Typhus had received fragments of the flagship's final weapons traffic while his own bridge crew struggled to establish communications through the Warp. Once Abaddon's ship joined the retreating formation, the surviving records confirmed what those fragments suggested.
The Warmaster had deployed a vortex warhead.
Ten thousand years of war had taught Typhus to distinguish a powerful weapon from one whose presence aboard a ship was itself a danger.
Vortex torpedoes were relics of ancient human technology, preserved in closely guarded arsenals or recovered from rare caches. Even fleets that possessed one generally lacked the means to replace it.
Their warheads opened temporary breaches into the Immaterium. Armor offered no protection when a breach swallowed a compartment; crew, machinery, and hull vanished together. A well-placed vortex could cripple or destroy even a great capital ship.
The danger did not end at the intended target. An unstable rupture could spread or shift through nearby vessels, including those that had launched the weapon. A hit to the magazine holding the torpedo might release the same destruction inside the ship carrying it.
Those risks made Abaddon's silence about the weapon even more infuriating. Typhus had committed warriors and risked his damaged flagship without knowing what the Warmaster still held in reserve.
"Do you think I can throw vortex torpedoes around whenever I please?" Abaddon replied. "It's a weapon of last resort."
"My bridge is open to the lower decks," Typhus said. "Your ship is being towed. What were you waiting for?"
"For the rest of the fleet to clear my firing lane," Abaddon said evenly. "While we were engaged, our own ships were too close to the targets. I used it when the alternative was losing the Vengeful Spirit before she could translate."
Typhus's gauntlet tightened against the edge of his surviving command station. He could dispute the Warmaster's priorities. He could not pretend that releasing a vortex into the middle of their own formation would have been a safe answer to Talon's attack.
Nor would another argument repair the Terminus Est.
He loosened his grip.
"How many more do you have?"
"None," Abaddon replied flatly.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Typhus looked at the fleet disposition. The Blackstone Fortress could still maneuver, but its cannon required repairs. Their conventional ships had failed to stop one Talon response force, and fresh battleships had arrived before the engagement was over. At another target, the same sequence could begin again.
He had remained with the crusade to secure support for his own wars. Continuing to spend the Plague Fleet merely to keep Abaddon's flagship alive would leave him with nothing worth taking east.
"Then this offensive is finished," Typhus said.
He switched to the Plague Fleet's command channel and recorded a withdrawal order, his thumb poised above the transmission control.
"Disengage from the fleet. Return to base."
Abaddon paused, then said quietly, "There's one more. I'm giving it to you. You'll be the one to use it."
Typhus's hand hovered over the vox.
His helm turned slowly back toward Abaddon's transmission. The Warmaster offered no explanation for the torpedo he had apparently forgotten a moment earlier.
Typhus looked once at the unsent withdrawal order, then erased it.
He reopened the fleet channel.
"All ships, continue following the Warmaster… until victory is ours."
.....
If you'd like to support me and read a bit ahead, feel free to check out my Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/c/Hemont).
Do you like this Novel? Then pls consider supporting me by Commenting or Rating it.
.....