A Squelch of Empires (crossover)

[Vehrec]

Hmmm. One must wonder who will be boarding which ships, and when. Also how quickly can Mirannon piss off the Adeptus Mechanicus when he starts messing with their systems? Smart money says 20-30 seconds after entering their domain.

[Darth Raptor]

Lennart: "Guns, keep firing until my headache goes away."

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of xenos.

[Singular Quartet]

Hmmm. One must wonder who will be boarding which ships, and when. Also how quickly can Mirannon piss off the Adeptus Mechanicus when he starts messing with their systems? Smart money says 20-30 seconds after entering their domain.

Well, I'd hate to be the legionarries who tried to board an Imperium ship, is all I have to say. Espcially an Astartes one..

Mirannon... I don't think it's a matter of how quickly he can piss of the Adeptus, I think its a matter of how quickly they'll be discussing whether they want to lynch him or kidnap him for their side.

[LadyTevar]

I finally got online to read this

That was just great... and seeing it from the Imperium side of the fight was probably scarier and more impressive.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I was actually hoping someone would decide that I had gone too far, given far too much credit to the Palpatinian side, in that exchange. It would be fun to be accused of Tyranid abuse

That and I was taking some pretty far off the wall guesses about how they actually manoeuvre. I assume most of the people here have read Arthur C Clarke's short "A Meeting with Medusa"- ballooning in the Jovian atmosphere, encountering naturally radio sensitive life forms?

I was trying to work out how the 'nids actually functioned, thinking that to do interplanetary at all, they had to be nuclear, and how the hell were they supposed to manage that with only flesh, chitin and blood, when it clicked. Medusae, add a huge dollop of evolution and tinkering- bussard ramjet. I may be wrong, but it's an interesting mental picture.

Not that it really helped, very much; 'nids in the fluff come in huge slathering hordes, but game mechanic 'nids are a fair points match at numerical odds of two to one. If they really were as good as Gothic says they are, and as numerous as the fluff indicates, Hive Fleet Behemoth would have eaten the Imperium already. These were relatively fluffy Tyranids, well more sort of powdery and vapour towards the end.

Worth noting that Mirannon actually got it wrong about one thing, warship design and evolution; he was initially assuming (and showing my own prejudices) that the Imperium has it backwards, and the flying cathedrals preceded the stacked-wedges. I generally play Imperial, but give me half a chance to dig a Chaos ship out of reserve and add it to the fleet, I'll take it- as units, I think they're better.

As far as annoying the AdMech goes, well, that is likely to be a two way process. Although twenty seconds may be optimistic- the first time one of them tries to swing an incense burner in his engine room might do it. The Titan Legion, strangely enough, are likely the least abrasive point of contact. As Divisio Militaris, I think they're a little more blunt and pragmatic about a lot of the rites and rituals.

Boarding IoM ships is likely to be easier than it sounds; DH includes a crew estimate for an Emperor class battleship at twenty thousand- not including servitors, but even so, assuming five times as many servitors as live crew, that's very small for a ship that size. Further down the scale, Sgiamh, which is admittedly a home brew design albeit slightly larger than a standard Gladius, carried maybe sixty Marines all told, ten crew plus their slice of the company troops, vehicle and dropship crew and specialists, and another five hundred chapter serfs.

The legion on board this particular destroyer is actually an Atrisian outfit, surface combat heavy armour, light on infantry, not the best configuration to go boarding with, but they do have the numbers to make an even fight against anything up to grand cruiser class.

What makes the Astartes truly dangerous, IMO, is not their size or their strength or their augmented senses, it's the fact that the veterans among them have been soldiering for a damned long time and know most of the tricks there are to know. It's not so much their ability to pull a trigger, it's their ability to read a battlefield that is likely to matter.

[Academia Nut]

Despite believing that 40k is outclassed by SW, I think its only a narrow margin. I'm not sure but I get the feeling you lowballed the acceleration figures for 40k by about an order of magnitude. I think Connor has some acceleration figures for an incident during the Horus Heresy about the Iron Fists entering the Solar System to report on the outbreak of fighting and how the ship basically went from relative standstill to 0.75c to orbit about Earth fairly quickly. I can't remember the incident and the calcs surrounding it very well though.

The stardestroyer firepower... maybe a little high, but I think Connor figured out that full SD broadside ~= nova cannon.

[Xon]

Despite believing that 40k is outclassed by SW,

SW is utterly fucking screwed by how the Force acts in 40K in this fic. Utterly screwed.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I personally believe that given the heights of technology from the Dark Age, the depths of the numerous ruined and feral worlds across the galaxy, the half- plundered and poorly shared xenos artifacts along the way, that Imperium technology ought to- at least, has the potential to- vary much more than it actually does.

Those acceleration figures- in 'g' rather than metres per second- are derived from trying to do speed-and-distance calculations, over the usually quoted journey times for insystem transit, working from one to two billion kilometres and journey times from five to twenty days.

I make it 252 minutes for an Imperator, starting at zero velocity, to cover two billion kilometres and decelerate at the far end. Four hours and a bit. The best that the Imperium can do may be equal or higher than this, but that's no more relevant to the standard that the bulk of the fleet can maintain than a one off incident like Dooku's solar sailer is to the Imperial Starfleet. Also, this incident is at the other end of ten thousand years of theft, ignorance and bad filing.

The Munitorum and the AdMech do make some effort to standardise, and the AdMech to hoard, which may help raise the valleys but probably depresses the peaks. Also, consider that the Imperator class are known planet killers; I'm running with the standard 1E25 Watt estimate. Sustained 2.2 petatons/second. The time required to deliver an everything-is-dead-Dave planetary bombardment, to the 1E27 joule level- one hundred seconds.

Gun pointing time, and flying round to hit the other side of the planet, may take longer than the actual use of weapons. Consider that kind of power being channelled through the engines of something smaller than a Cobra. The power to weight is hundreds of times better than most IoM ships. Although I have to shoot my own theory here by admitting I don't believe an Imperator needs all, or even any large fraction, of it's power to make full acceleration.

The fleet that jumped in to engage the nids- anybody notice one of Sandy Mitchell's running gags? The admiral Lord-General Zyvan usually works with, Benjamin, Ben, Bowe. well, I have Admiral Bartholomew Lake, and Admiral Kief Stone- who was ridiculed as a cadet for his rather Eldar- like appearance, and picked up the nickname "elfin" as a young officer. (He has since acquired an augmetic voicebox.) I'l have to see if I can manage to work Nelson, Rodney, Cunningham, Somerville, Jellicoe and Beatty in there somewhere.

Anyway, there were two Dictator class nova cannon carriers in that force, and there's a fascinating hint in the description of how it fires- sod the warhead, it's the propulsion mechanism that's revolutionary. 'Electrogravitic' is the shorthand I'm using for something that works according to Heim-Droscher theory. The overwhelming majority of the Imperial Navy runs on plasma drive, but the possibilities that just opened up...

Xon, I think you might just be being a tiny little bit overly pessimistic there. Just a fraction of a shade into the negative.
(No, I am not going to attempt to translate Oddball from Kelly's Heroes into a Marine and give him a Baneblade to play with. "Stop hitting me with them negative waves"- well, actually, he might make a good Chaplain, I'll have to think about that. And the Lions of Caledon refit theirs with laser weapons and call them Brightblades anyway. No, they're not supposed to.)

Grant the personnel involved their usual ability to comprehend and to cope with the situation. They have a job to do, they don't want to take casualties but it won't stop them doing it, and part of that job is to go and to chart in full detail exactly how bad the situation is. Some of their suppositions have been wrong, but most right, and they are not blundering blindly into the maw of doom.

Consider how much what you, the reader, know of the situation has come through observing the characters thinking and theorising about it. Potential for disaster, through taking a calculated risk too far? Of course- wouldn't be 40K otherwise. Blundering along with mind full of rituals and eyes shut, no.

[Academia Nut]

It should be reminded that SW has thousands of years of dealing with psychic powers in a rational manner. Sure, they've never had anything as bad as Chaos, but they also aren't going into the situation blind and they do have the technology and social control mechanisms to deal with it given a bit of time. Besides, with the differences in the strength of the Force/Warp, it seems like 40k ships might have trouble with their FTL drives.

Oh, and for extra freakiness for the Imperials watching the err... Imperials... destroy the 'Nids, it should be noted that a stardestroyer is dagger shaped and thus could be construed as a pyramidal shape from some angles. Combined with the green lasers and ruthless efficiency in cutting down the 'Nids, I'm sure a few of those who have seen the 'Crons in action were just a tad scared, to put it mildly.

[Darth Hoth]

Depends; a weaker, calmer Warp might also be good news (less interference and destruction).

[Andras]

Question about Ruaridh backed me up. ‘I clocked that wee thing at puttin’ out better than five hundred million megatons a second.

That's 'only' 500 teratons per second right? So they weren't even at max rate which, with the extra turrets by now, has got to be pushing 4,000tt/s, is that right?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Sorry about the wait, I was busy juggling job hunting and a rewrite to the actually-in-continuity bit, trying to get Thrawn right.

Anyway, embarrasingly, yes.
I'm not a minimalist, at least I don't think so, but I am definitely a Murphyist. Something always goes wrong. It's late, and over budget. Crew training is a paper exercise, quality control doesn't control effectively, nothing ever lives up to the manufacturer's spec- et cetera.

Four petatons a second would be a respectable figure for a Tector, a dedicated gun platform without operational flexibility on broadly the same hull, or a slightly larger general purpose platform like the mid-tower, swallowtail Proelium (Anon SD III) class, but over the odds, I thought, for a heavily- upgraded Imperator I, which retains significant troop and fighter complements. Then I did the wattage to yield conversion for what I expected the additional secondaries to bring the total up to, and, oops, 1.75E25 W= 4.17 petatons/second. Damn, that's a lot.

I'm assuming the secondary reactors deliver 1E24, roughly, the main reactor the full 1E25, but the power grid on a standard ship isn't built for all at once; Black Prince has her forward prime secondary swapped out for a Venator main dome and four standard secondaries, but more importantly the power grid uprated to handle it. There are drawbacks- one of them being that the deep storage is gone, the garrison base is gone, the standard drop ships are gone, a lot of the manoeuvring volume in the bay is gone.

That, and the maintenance requirements of the ship just went up. A normal crew would flounder trying to keep everything working properly. Fuel economy, the second most worrying factor, goes down- the ship is definitely heavier, and while the power is there to put through the engines, that means burning more hypermatter to do it, reducing operational endurance and increasing the cost of deployment. Swings and roundabouts.

Anyway,

A Squelch of Empires ch 6

Palpatinian forces;

‘Well, that was unexpectedly easy.’ Wathavrah said. In truth, it had been almost a farce- the horrors, whatever they were and whatever they were called, had altered course slightly to meet them, intending to come straight down the throat. Which was not a good phrase to have in the head when looking at them, because it was too easy to start wondering- whose throat?
They had intended to engage, they had expected to win. They hadn’t expected to need to react so far away- Wathavrah had no clear idea of what the range of a biological, improvised free electron laser was, but didn’t think it was that much. He decided they had been too dumbstruck to manoeuvre much.

Grief, pain and shock were the commanding officer’s estimate of the reason. ‘Speak for yourself, you couldn’t feel the psychic overspill of that, billions of tons worth of pain crying out to the missing parts of itself as we killed it.’ Lennart said, shakily standing up from his command chair.
‘A hive mind?’ Another voice commented- Surgeon-Commander Blei-Korberkk.
‘Ah, surgeon-commander, how do you feel?’ Lennart asked. If she had tried to eat anybody-

‘Comfortably numb.’ She replied. ‘Once I was in the cage, my mind cleared and I recalled that we had a few other items in storage.’
‘Do they make brain sharpening pills? I might need one.’ Lennart said. ‘I’m sorry, I should have remembered that, I of all people, but commissioning during the purges, a chaotic time, and I had something of an aversion to hospitals at the time. What’s still there?’
Of course. Black Prince had been laid down towards the closing stages of the Clone Wars, completed as the purges were under way. She had been given what would have been the usual share of anti- Jedi equipment, which had gone straight into storage in a supply closet down in medical and not been looked at in twenty years.

‘The suppressant drugs are years out of usability, but most of the hardware is all right, as far as anything this obviously designed by a sadistic mind could be said to be right. There are three force suppressor hoods functional and four collars, plus mine.’ She said, adding the last but with a little teasing note in her voice.
‘Mm.’ Mirannon sort of said, and had the sense not to add anything.

‘Indeed.’ Lennart said, just to wind Mirannon up by letting him know that he had picked up on it. Gethrim and the CMO were not exactly an item, not definitely, not yet. It was fun watching them spiral around each other, and while it might seem unfit matter for a time like this, Lennart had been letting his subconscious run on the subject of attention, fixations, the flow of the mind, and thought that he had an idea. ‘As I remember it, most of those devices are one way. They don’t prevent the force being used on you, just mean you’re no longer a danger to others- setting yourself up as a lab animal?’

‘Growr.’ She agreed, trying to set Mirannon off again. More sensibly ‘I was one of the first and most easily affected, I don’t know how much of my proper duty I can do, but at least I can do this.’
‘I’m sure there are better uses for you than as an early warning system.’ Lennart said, before his chief engineer could say the same.
‘Would you want someone who thought she was a kraken’s kid sister operating on you? No?’ she put forward. ‘This really is all I can trust myself to do.’

‘Right, well, tell me what’s nibbling at your psyche now.’ Lennart said. He did not like the idea, but forbidding it outright would have gained what? She was right. There was little else someone that vulnerable could be safely given to do. She would have to be stopped before she put herself at too much risk.

‘Actually, take a moment to think about it; com-scan, isn’t there something you should be telling me?’ Lennart said, glaring at the main sensor board. The elements of Task Force Quaestio Obscura.
‘Well, I can tell you definitely that they don’t use an FTL drive that we can track.’ Rythanor reported. ‘They’re half a light hour lagged, they won’t be aware of us for another twenty-five minutes, the planet for seventy-two minutes, not by non-psionic means. Watching the time difference between the two is going to be interesting.’

He brought up and highlighted the collection of blips, sharpening sensor focus on them, aware of them from the tachyonic perspective. ‘I count three large, eight kilometres and twenty billion tons plus; ten medium, five to eight kilometres and six to fourteen billion tons; six medium-small, three kilometres and three to four billion tons; twenty-five small, one to two kilometre, point six to one billion tons.’ Rythanor enumerated, highlighting as he went.

‘Enough deadweight to be getting on with.’ Wathavrah said. ‘Is it just me, or were the deep scan images, the decline, actually just the comings and goings of ships from a naval base?’
‘Possible.’ Lennart said. ‘Question is, why wasn’t there a home defence squadron? Were they all deployed, dealing with the bioships, or were they Battle Group Wormhole?’ He wondered. As if there was actually a way to tell- but the speed and coherence of these people’s response to a major incident like that was a fact they needed to know. And if they had blundered into a major base, then it was going to become important sooner than they would have liked.

‘Their position indicates they were hunting for the biologicals.’ Rythanor said.
‘With a nonlocal stardrive, picking a precise exit point has to be a challenge.’ Mirannon disagreed.
‘One they can cope with, they’re in formation.’ Rythanor pointed out.
‘Ah- now, Scan, assume they’re formed up for mutual support as we would be under similar circumstances, and see what sort of estimate of their gun range you can give me.’ Lennart said.

While he was doing that, the surgeon- commander came back on the line. ‘Commodore, I think the hardware does make a difference- it cuts out the feedback loops. I can feel minds out there, but I can’t use the force, I can only perceive, I can’t reply to them and they can’t get anything meaningful out of me.
Them, I can feel minds around me, a rumble of pressure from the planet and a few individual brighter, shriller presences. Oh, for a competent psychiatrist, it’s not my specialty and half these people seem to need one…Commodore, I think most of their long range work, their deep scan and holonet, are conducted by psionics.’

‘Are any of them aware of us, that you can tell?’ Lennart asked, wondering how it was possible at all. Or, for that matter, if there was even a sensible answer to the question of how it was possible. She was also repeating herself- babbling slightly? Trying to keep her thoughts in a coherent stream?
‘Mm- I read up on the language samples, expecting to have to treat some of them sooner or later, but that and understanding what the feel of a mind that has grown up around that language means, I can’t be confident- I can read tone, I think. Like listening to Hutt opera.’ She said, with a painful note clear in her own voice.

‘More like not being able to stop listening to Hutt opera- how much of this can you stand?’ Mirannon asked.
‘If I start babbling about termites in the walls of reality and madness spiders weaving webs across the doors of perception, I can always go back under the needle or into the cage- on the other hand, considering the biothings, I suppose I might be right.’ She said, putting on a brighter, more confident tone for the chief engineer.
‘I have a glimmer of what you’re seeing, but not enough to make me dangerous to my colleagues, I think.’ Lennart pointed out. ‘The question at hand?’

‘I would say that some of them are aware.’ She reported. ‘The communicators, the astral range telepaths, surprised at being able to talk at all, they’re exchanging call signs. I think the massed mind of the swarm must have blanked them out.’
‘Of course.’ Lennart realised. ‘Remove them, we cause a change that would be instantly obvious, light cones be damned…but they haven’t reacted yet. What kind of command latency, how long a decision cycle does that make? We can’t possibly think that much faster- they have to be taking time to consider the problem. What else?’

‘They repeat themselves over and over again, opera may be too grand a comparison, more like psychic yodelling. They would be doing that anyway but I get the undertone that this is standard practise. There is one peculiar thing, a sort of beacon or security blanket, a warm, wordless patriarchal glow in the far distance. With a faint undertone of screams.
The unfixedness, though, it’s not like a com signal; once a message has been sent the echoes of it- there could be decades, centuries worth of footprints of message, dreams and nightmares-‘

There was an air-hypo’s hiss, and a faint rumpling sound, someone being lowered on to a stretcher.
‘Bridge, this is Karrish. The surgeon commander was starting to zone out again, she’s back under sedation.’ The senior lieutenant said, apologetically. What was his specialty? Lennart tried to place him. General medical, subsection head of psych.
Lennart considered his options. ‘Do you think she would agree to being laid out in the tomograph and kept under observation? We know the force cage is effective, but do you think the extra information we would get from watching the local Force work on her brain would be worth the risk?’

Long, awkward silence from the far end. Mirannon knew what she would likely say, and hated it, wasn’t going to say it for her. Lennart thought he knew too but didn’t want it on his conscience. ‘It would be her judgement anyway, so lay her out in the force cage for now and ask her, when she recovers consciousness.
All known force sensitives, except you Gethrim, I want in briefing room one in ten minutes.’ He turned to his com scan chief officer. ‘Any estimate on gun range?’

‘One of the large and two of the medium targets-‘ he said that with a faint hint of question in his voice, as if to mean, are we going on to them next?- ‘have modules angled out of the sides with large square holes, I don’t see the sense of them unless they’re launch bays, so that’s small craft or standoff missiles with systemic or better range.
Apart from that, purely by formation, there are a million reasons why this could be wildly wrong, but I’d give a provisional estimate in the low light seconds. One to two most likely.’

‘We outreach them.’ Mirannon said.
‘Not officially.’ Lennart pointed out. ‘Formations are set up by the book, and our book calls for hundred to five hundred thousand kilometre spacings depending on circumstances, not that far off theirs.
We just engaged at well beyond our theoretical tactical range, care to bet our lives that they can’t do the same? From what we know of their ground units- and ones attached to a quango, at that- they probably see more war than we do. The bulk of the Imperial Starfleet, I mean, not this ship.’

‘Commodore,’ Rythanor chose to report formally, ‘the battle group is manoeuvring- long, thin ships, they turn slowly, and their acceleration is not high. Calculating now.’
‘Gethrim,’ Lennart said, ‘what do you make of this?’ Lennart said, knowing engineering were well aware of what was going on.
‘Hm.’ The chief engineer said, studying the image and trying to do the numbers in his head. ‘From engine flare and particle flow- this doesn’t even deserve the dignity of being a wild ass guess, but I’d call that full military power from the largest, the rest with more in hand.

The flare is relatively stable, you see- there are all kinds of mechanical rhythms that show up in the behaviour of the drive flare, on our drives as well as theirs, and the proportions change by fraction of drive power.
From the flare, call it a low- mass, high velocity magnetoplasmadynamic, and apply, hm, there’s about five to the twenty-fourth going into that drive plume. Not as good as an Imperator, better than a Venator, and they have somewhere from a half to a third of their reactor power still in hand. I think.
Brute force solution, efficient like a house fire; and baffling. Why would anyone who can do that, be daft enough to do that?’

‘So they have comparable power, despite, if I’m reading this correctly, a much larger hull and a larger fraction of it taken up by powerplant.’ Lennart said himself, looking over Rythanor’s shoulder.
‘For tactical purposes, I am assuming that we have a very marked manoeuvrability edge, but in terms of weight of fire they can put up a fair fight individually, and collectively badly outgun us. They have more than enough raw power between them for that.’

‘Question is,’ Wathavrah commented, ‘are we looking at the equivalent of Azure Hammer, or District Patrol Group number 19582911a?’
‘Good point.’ Lennart said ‘And if you can think of a method of answering it, I’ll put you in for a pay raise. Where do you think we ought to go, head for the planet or head for the fleet?’ He left it open to discussion.

‘Consider the com situation.’ Brenn said. ‘If psi is as reliable as the holonet or reasonably so, then the shore station is likely to be the authority. If it is undependable, then the man- the entity- on the spot has to exercise their own judgement, and we should start trying to open communications with the fleet.’
‘In my experience,’ Lennart, the reluctant force user, said, ‘psionics have never been dependable, and the people who have them least of all. I have to admit to being envious at the thought of being officially allowed to make it up as you go along- but in this case, I think responsibility probably lives on the planet.

Naval base, as far as we can tell, which means shore based staff and command. Which means we are in deeper, and beginning by talking to them at a higher level, than I would have liked.’ Lennart said.
‘Time limit, skipper.’ Mirannon pointed out. ‘The force is going to keep picking us off, sooner or later someone’s going to flip out badly enough to endanger their comrades. I recommend starting with whoever can give us anti-force shielding.’
‘Probably the ships in the fleet, then- we can hide within their shield bubbles if nothing else.’ Lennart decided. ‘Wait here for the rest of the task force, then move to distant rendesvous. Brenn, you have the conn.’


He was headed for briefing chamber one. Another bad joke, already; a gunner, a TIE pilot, and a stormtrooper walk into a bar. What was the dead dark jedi Adannan’s comment? It was no surprise at all that those who could call on the force had risen far and fast. Some of the ship’s most notable personalities turning out to be those with most force potential lent weight to his theory, and although normally the three in the chamber would feature high on a list of problem children as well, perhaps there was something to it.

Aleph-3, Squadron Leader Jandras, Lieutenant Aldrem.
‘Sit down. I presume you all have your ears to the scuttlebutt, you have a rough idea what’s been going on, you know our situation with respect to the force.’ Lennart began.
‘Stang’ undignified position, skipper, but it does explain the trout I found behind my ear this morning.’ Aldrem began, but it was just living up to what was expected of him, his heart wasn’t in the mockery; he looked thin, drained- he had taken to the rank more easily than he had to the removal of the trigger from his own hands, but that wasn’t it.

‘If you could convince me that ‘bloop, bloop’ wasn’t the only voice in your head, I might be more comfortable.’ Lennart fired back.
‘Power will come relatively cheaply.’ Aleph-3 pointed out. She was used to juggling multiple versions of her own personality; that made her extremely resilient to possession, or hopelessly vulnerable, Lennart hadn’t quite worked out which yet. ‘Well before the personality it attaches itself to will be ready for it, or has time to learn dexterity. Commodore,’ she said, formally and cool- faced, ‘recommend that the legion remains on internal security and goes on to fifty percent stand to.’

‘You reckon this is going to be an ongoing problem, a string of amateur jedi popping up over hours to days, you reckon the legion needs to go on to watch and watch? Recommendation noted, as long as you aren’t needed for your proper jobs. What about the light side and the dark side?’ he asked directly.
‘Commodore, the classification-‘
‘We’re in a different universe, different laws of physics apply, oh look a speeding greeblion just implosively decayed in the middle of the security regs. You know what I’m worried about, and how kriffing little use there’s going to be keeping it a secret.’

She looked deeply unhappy about that, as well she might. The theology of the force was a closed, classified, and if the inquisitorius had their way landmined, subject.
‘The force has an effect on the minds of it’s users.’ She stated bluntly- if the secret couldn’t be kept then she was going to hit them over the head with it. ‘There are as many individual opinions on the force as there are individuals, but those with the force find their minds and personalities pulled towards one or other of the two polar opposite positions, the so called light and dark sides.’

‘Do we have a choice of sides?’ Jandras asked. He was intending to screw this up in order to be returned to unit, but was no longer sure how much of a margin there was between that and ‘waste him’.
‘No.’ Aleph-3 said.
‘The light side believes in working with and for the force, the dark side believes in using the force to work for them. The light in tranquillity, the dark in wrath. The light believes life is sacred, the dark that life is what it can make of itself, no more, no less. The light in stability and tranquillity, the dark in turmoil and struggle.’ Lennart said.

‘You should have let me explain.’ Aleph- 3 said, looking distinctly doubtful.
‘So, the force starts to turn you into a non-event mass of a monk or a frothing madman?’ Aldrem said.
‘That had to come from a command officer,’ Lennart said to her, and to Aldrem ‘see, you managed to grasp it.’
‘You have no respect for the Force.’ Aleph-3 said, still hostile.
‘Anything that intends to eat my brain obviously has no respect for me, and is due none in return.’ Lennart bounced back.

‘So…the jedi were the dark side, right?’ Jandras- the youngest by a long way, who had nothing but Imperial propaganda to go on, said.
‘No.’ Lennart said, deadpan.
‘Well, if it has to be one or the other, I’d say frothing madman, although it would be nice to sit back and chill out once in a while… which side were those biothings on?’ Aldrem asked, while Jandras was still reeling.
‘Neither, which is the problem. The terrible simplicity of light and darkness is something else that doesn’t seem to apply here.’ Lennart said, confusing them all still further.

‘Have you considered that you may be suffering from wishful thinking?’ Aleph-3 said. ‘You were looking for a third side to the force.’
‘I think I’ve found one. And a fourth, fifth, and possibly sixteenth.’ Lennart said. ‘Consider the power available.’
‘You’re suggesting that lesser psychological entities, such as the individual emotions, could be sides of their own rather than parts of each opposing whole? There is no theoretical basis for that.’ Aleph-3 pointed out, but thinking- what if it were true?
‘At home, no.’ Lennart admitted. ‘With one hundred times the base prerequisite for the Force? It would seem to be absurd- impossible- for things to stay the same. Besides which, I’ve felt them already.’

‘What do you mean?’ Aleph-3 accepted the necessity and uttered the cliched words.
‘Shadows in the mind, thoughts that are recognisably not my own. Flashes of crimson and brass out of the corner of my eye. The absurd sense that there is a half man sized polychromatic chicken standing behind me. The feelings radiating off that thing, the hive mind of the swarm, as we killed it bit by bit.’ Lennart said, trying not to relive it and failing. ‘No, theory be damned, let it wait to catch up with the practise. The practise being, how do we protect ourselves against them?’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t think until I get this straight in my head.’ Jandras interrupted. ‘We are the forces of evil?’
Lennart looked at the young fighter jock. This was his third tour, and he was on upwards of fifty kills. How to explain without destroying his usefulness?
‘We are the forces of activity; the dark side chooses to make a difference, to flow, to mould itself to the human emotions. I have no love for either monolithic point of view, but the dark side covers a far larger share of what it usually means to be human than the cold, distant, thou-shalt-not ridden Light.’ He admitted.

Aleph-3 tried not to beam at him; this was the first time she had heard him be remotely positive about the dark side of the force.
‘Seems a damned stupid way to organise a universe, now that you spell it out like that. Any idea what these many sides of the local force are?’ Aldrem said.
‘Not yet, and I don’t want to be introduced to them. I asked you here because you, the chief, and the CMO, have the highest midi counts- the greatest sensitivity to the force. Ideas?’ Lennart asked.

‘Can the EW fit achieve anything?’ Aldrem asked. ‘Run static for us?’
‘Not in the Force.’ Aleph-3 said, as if he was daft.
‘So what can?’ Lennart asked her. ‘How do we disrupt the flow of the force, how do we resist possession?’
‘Generally, you don’t.’ Aleph-3 pointed out. ‘Not because corrupting someone’s mind is easy- it isn’t- but because once you start to lose the battle for your soul, if I can use the populist term, the strength you need to fight back is eroded too, and you generally keep losing. No competent force user is going to stop after having done half a job.’

‘So any damage done here will not be undone by going back through the wormhole. I thought not, that would have been far too good to be true. Brings us back to prevention being better than cure, though.’ Lennart pointed out.
‘Skipper, I have a couple of ideas, you’re going to hate one of them.’ Aldrem said.
‘If it’s the idea I think you’ve just had, I hate it already, but make your case.’ Lennart said, lugubriously.
‘Um, what? If you’ve already thought of it anyway, why not just make it happen? The now-confused battery commander asked.

‘If someone else could come up with it independently, it’s not that far off the wall and there might be something to it. The fact that it was you does cast that in doubt…’ Lennart teased him.
‘Well, there’s the obvious; tighten up. Enforce all the regs the branch can remember, go into full parade ground mode.’ Aldrem said, trying not to show too much how he hated the idea.
‘How many of the crew are going to snap under that treatment? Or at least be made more, not less, vulnerable, by being made more miserable and more likely to look to alternatives?’ Lennart said, rhetorically.

‘Not many, but more than enough to endanger the rest.’ He answered his own question. ‘We’re on wartime cruising stations anyway, which may be as far as we have to go in that direction. I’ve also sent the go code to the rest of the group- putting them at psychic hazard, but I think we need the firepower. Your less obvious idea?’
‘Well- obviously they’re not the same thing, but one of the warning signs of possession is obsession, isn’t it? As soon as someone starts to feel their thoughts run in a rut, they go and do something different. Change their minds. Keep moving, stop thinking about one thing and move on to another.’ Aldrem said, with less than usual confidence.

‘How do I prevent that from being interpreted as essentially a license to goof off?’ Lennart asked, again rhetorically. ‘How do I maintain the ship at readiness- and we’re going to need to- with people wandering on and off their stations?’
‘I told you you were going to hate it.’ Aldrem said. ‘Is it worth just concentrating on who we are? Are there any meditation methods, crap like that, centring exercises, that could help keep the demons away?’
‘No.’ Aleph-3 said, shooting down another idea. ‘That sort of mental exercise magnifies existing problems also; someone who is already vulnerable would be made more vulnerable.’

‘You’ve broken your optimism bone, haven’t you?’ Aldrem grumbled at her. ‘Do you have any positive ideas?’
‘I presume that we are here in order to speak frankly? Perseverance and determination. The miracle you’re looking for isn’t there. We simply have to endure.’ She replied, obviously in no doubt about her own ability to do so.
‘I have a few, and one, you’re going to hate it.’ Lennart said, looking at Aleph-3. ‘Everyone without their head in a bucket already knows that we are in a place where the force is extraordinarily powerful. Security classification be damned. I’m going to tell the crew exactly what I think is going on.’

Aleph-3’s face hardly changed- to an observer who didn’t know her. To Lennart, she went an interesting shade of puce. ‘Commodore, I cannot recommend letting them know more than the bare minimum- they are already aware of too much. Enough to endanger them when they return home.’
‘That doesn’t even make the podium in terms of things that might kill us.’ Lennart said. ‘Well, not everything because there are some fairly wild guesses in there, but enough to know what’s at stake.

Then we are going to attempt all of the above, in varying degrees. Greater vigilance on the part of divisional officers and regulators, greater self policing, more frequent relief, diversionary activities, and for those that can grasp them psychic exercises, and I will expect you to lead those, you’re the only one of us with enough formal knowledge of the force to know any shielding techniques.’ Lennart said to the increasingly horrified looking Aleph-3.
She swallowed, forced herself to appear calm, and said ‘If that is your order, Sir.’

‘It is. I’ll draft a formal version as soon as I’ve thought the proportions through. In the mean time, look positive. That is an order- gloom’s contagious. We are going to endure, we are going to survive, and we are going to carry out the mission. For the advancement and the greater glory of the forces of evil.’ He said wryly, looking at Jandras.
‘Yes, Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.’ Aron said.

‘Of course you did, but you’ll learn.’ Lennart said. ‘Hopefully without having to experience how navel-gazingly obtuse and divorced from reality the supposed good guys actually were- I doubt they have that problem here. Dismiss.’
‘Skipper, one question.’ Aldrem said. ‘Where can I get a greeblion gun? I can think of lots of uses for it.’



Emperor- class battleship Tantadem, IoM Navy, approaching the wormhole

Admiral Bartholomew Lake was a middle aged man, slightly past his first century, and at this point trying hard not to look like a worried one.
He and his people had been beyond the bounds of the Astronomican, forced to resort to explorators’ and free traders’ methods, many times before- in fact, it was having the god-Emperor’s beacon that was the novelty. Enjoy it while you can, he thought.
Actually, he was far from certain about the wisdom of sending a task group at all.

Maybe that mad Commissar had a point. A tactical reconnaissance in force would be very like a provocation- all well and good against a known enemy or someone the Imperium had no interest in not having as an enemy, but here, unwise.
It was standard procedure, that was all, and as such it carried the dreadful dead weight of ten millennia behind it. To deviate from the usual procedure would require explaining why, and that would involve a lot of thought as to what they were doing there- a conference he was trying to postpone as long as possible.

Is this the sum total of my strategy? He thought, looking at the dataslate he had been sweating over. Temporise and dissemble, do everything possible to avoid being given a direct order from his political superiors in the Inquisition. Specifically, the direct order that would turn this into a full blown Crusade.
Not one blessed word, or one eternally damned word either, about the actual tactics. Nothing about what they expected to meet. Nothing about what to do when they met it.

Assume this operation was mine and mine alone, he thought, how would I do it?
Well, bringing the bulk of the force through the wormhole was pointless. It had been drilled from the other side; they knew where it was, could reinforce at will. To deploy to the other side- that could be a blockade, or a beach-head. Neither were diplomatic acts. At best, they were hoping to negociate from a position of strength; at worst, war from the start.
The leadership had deprived him of time. Time to probe and scan, time to measure and plan.


By the leadership, he thought, I mean the inquisition. The back eight pages on his dataslate were full of little outlines; a little figure with a stylised ‘I’, surrounded by a web diagram. What he knew of each of his eight plagues’ contacts, access, and more importantly their beliefs. Seven, now, one of the pages having a red ‘x’ slashed through it.
He wasn’t supposed to know any of it, and absolutely forbidden from trying to collate it into a coherent picture and draw conclusions. It wouldn’t even be possible without highly classified access- and a blur of spaceport rumour, crew maunderings and half- mentioned reports from naval intelligence.

He was the only person who had access to all those sources, and so if this was ever found it would be his neck. To be caught inquiring into the inquirers was generally not a survivable experience- they would cheerfully sacrifice anyone who knew too much, for the good of the Imperium.
Well, they would say that was what it was for. And that it was a sacrifice for the greater good- instead of a murder committed in cold blood to protect their scam.

That was jaundiced, wasn’t it? Brother-Captain McCrimmon must have been getting to him- either that, or he was still suffering from culture shock at returning and readapting to life within the Imperium.
It sat very ill, the knowledge that he was expendable- no, not even that; disposable. That he and everyone else in the combined naval, guard, Astartes, and mechanicus task force were effectively under suspended sentence of death that could be enacted at the lightest whim of one of seven unaccountable tyrants.

Or is that just jealousy talking? He asked himself, sardonically. He was in a similar position himself with respect to the naval contingent- holding the power of life and death over them. Power, as it always did, corrupted. There was only one difference, and he hoped it was enough- the traditions of the navy.
There was a common code to live through and live up to, and almost all the officers and crew had either sworn to it or been brought up with it as part of their bloodstream- twelve thousand years going back to the beginning of the Great Crusade. There was a mutual loyalty there, a purpose, and a sense of right and wrong embedded in the code, that the inquisition had no place in.

So what was to do? To serve and protect an Imperium whose greater servants could eliminate him with a wish- I wonder what life is like on the other side, he thought. If they serve a power who can murder them for fun- perhaps our best chance is if they do, he thought. If they have to work with an Inquisition too.


Seven. Vail of the Xenos, a puritan and according to his sources an Amalathian, who at least had the grace to hitch a lift with a rogue trader and not inflict herself on him. Tamborini of the Hereticus, which was probably the best place for someone who seemed to believe in wholesale revolution, he had been palmed off on the Gloria Draconis.
Hernan-Gellmann, their remaining Malleus, not at all discomfited by the death of his colleague and taking passage on the recommissioned Carnage class cruiser Buccaneer, and apparently hoping something would go wrong so that he would get a chance to swing his blade a little. A radical, extreme to the point of being suspected as tainted.

Shuvalov, a heretic- hunter, who held views that the admiral had never heard espoused by the ecclesiarchy- an extremely literal take on embodying the divine will. He was on the Remuneration, drinking in everything he could about the incident so far.
Chiang, the taxidermist- an absolute believer in the primacy of man. He only wore the eldarskin cloak for show, said he would need to get rid of it soon and substitute it for a nice little off the shoulder number made out of human collaborators.

Kuroda, another Amalathian- a Polyanna who believed things weren’t too bad after all. Suspected by his colleagues of being excessively merciful, not necessarily a good thing in a member of the Hereticus. He was on the flag.
Iaeialeia’a, a catastrophist, a mobile vortex of small ‘c’ chaos, he was on the Avenger class grand cruiser Sebastocrator, and Lake was not at all happy about letting him near that much firepower. Actually he didn’t think the inquisitor could be trusted with a sharp stick- he would, inevitably, poke someone with it. Probably his supposed allies.


‘Beginning sweep fourteen now.’ The voxcast announced; the admiral closed, sealed, locked and pocketed his dataslate, and watched the progress of their fourteenth attempt to find the wormhole.
One thing the Remuneration simply hadn’t mentioned was how small the damned thing was. A few kilometres across, and looking just like any other few kilometres of space. Not visible to the naked eye or to most auspexes, active or passive. He intended to find it, mark it, and as it looked very possible they could only fit a ship at a time, arrange the fleet so that they would be able to remake formation as quickly as possible at the far end. If they had to do this damned silly thing, they might at least be professional about it.

‘Contact-Missile! Missile approaching fast from astern.’ One of the techpriests down in the sensorium pit reported.
‘Point defence active, warn the fleet, show me.’ Lake snapped out. The right sequence, but utterly insufficient unto the task- the image that came up was one of a small egg, no more than two metres across and ten long, and manoeuvring with absurd, inhuman speed. Simply by watching it move against the background, Lake- any of the naval officers with a shred of sense- could tell that it was not one of theirs, nor any of their known enemies’.

‘Ten thousand times the force of gravity!’ the techpriest cried out. ‘All praise to you, o bountiful Omnissiah, for having revealed your mysteries to mere function groups.’ He rambled on a little more, but Lake wasn’t listening.
‘Countermand- point defence hold fire.’ Lake ordered; his flag captain, Dure, looked at him blankly. ‘Track it, it’s one of theirs.’
The communications drone was a converted Ubiqtorate courier droid; designed to outrun missiles, it was entirely smart enough to take evasive action as it plummeted towards the wormhole.

The few ships that managed to get a bead in time ignored the hold order and sprayed fire at it- one of the Deathwatch strike cruisers putting a melta blast through it’s drive plume and the Sebastocrator’s lasers getting a straddle, extraordinary luck in getting even that close but no solid hit. It vanished in mid space.
‘At least now we know where the mouth of the wormhole is.’ Dure said, whistling in the dark.
‘And that there is one of their ships, whoever they are, on our side of it that just found something it chose to write home about.’ Lake pointed out. ‘Which we shot at.’

Two options. No, four. Fight it out on home territory, this side of the wormhole- form a gauntlet around the mouth and blast whatever came through. War, without doubt or recourse.
Fall back from the mouth and observe. See what it was that they had and what they chose to do. Someone should have done that already, it was a mission far beneath the threshold of a battle group like this. That choice would probably cost him his head.

Go through and take the fight to them, with their ten thousand gravity message pods and who knew what else, fight in their territory on their terms; considering what the crew of the Remuneration had reported about that space and the psychic shock plunging into it entailed, his crews would be at a real disadvantage.
Four- the evasive, strategic offensive option, break past the blockade and dive deep into enemy territory. Force them to lift the blockade and chase him, get them on the defensive, probe their worlds, learn about them- they would find more and risk less in a sequence of running fights than one big set piece.

If they were going to go through at all, that was how it would have to be. ‘Manoeuvre order to all ships of the fleet,’ Lake said, quickly, before someone with a mandate could override him, ‘proceed slowest first through the wormhole in line astern, once through immediately go to warp drive.
I believe there is a blockade squadron on the other side, I want to scatter and then regroup beyond them. Fleet rendezvous point is twenty parsecs, two zero, to rimward of the mouth of the wormhole. Take full auspex readings at all times, return fire if fired upon.’

[LadyTevar]

Yeah..... these guys aren't going to meet up again. Either the Warp Drives won't work, or they'll work TOO well.

[Vehrec]

Aha, there is that red and brass again. Khorne orbiting the mind of someone with a couple mega-deaths on his hands? Tzentch also seems to have an interest in things at the moment, or a feathered claw. And at least one crewmember is an open antennae to these forces. That's going to be trouble down the line, unless they can scatter their minds more than they already have. Maybe switch up jobs, port departments for starboard and hope that confusion daemons don't have much strength.

Our Imperial Admiral seems to have his head screwed on straight-he picks the same tactic I would use, spreads uncertainty among the enemy, and breaks up the inquisitors so they don't kill each other and take their ships with them.

Loved the poor kid trying to wrap his head around the force, with the realization that 'we're the bad guys? The dark side? Who the hell is responsible for our PR?' Also enjoyed the Greeblion gun, the discussion of 'have they seen us yet?' and the not!relationship of the surgical and engineering departments. I am a shameless shipper and romantic, deep down in my blackened heart.

[fractalsponge1]

Ah, another enjoyable, if somewhat delightfully off the wall piece. Keep up the updates.

Wonder what actually is waiting on the other side of the wormhole? Single file to be met by a star cruiser line is likely to be interesting.

[Master_Baerne]

I'm predicting weapon platforms and a full battle group. The Imperials from the 40K galaxy are likely to be...surprised.

[Thanas]

I'm predicting weapon platforms and a full battle group. The Imperials from the 40K galaxy are likely to be...surprised.

Yeah, I agree. When they send an ISD as a scout ship, then it makes sense that there is at least a squadron of ISDs waiting on the other side.

[Vianca]

Could explain were the Iron Fist has been for all that time, guarding that hull between realities.
Now that would be a shock, nea?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Not an update yet, but it is under way. I'm still trying to work to the plan of bouncing backwards and forwards between the two, and this is the Order of Battle for the IoM forces- Navy, Mechanicus and Astartes- defending Port Alcaris and trying to force the wormhole. There are a lot of them; this is well above usual Sector Fleet standards, which would normally be a cause for confidence- but compared to the size of the job they have to do, no.

Also, considering the size of target they make coming out of the known and fixed position of the wormhole, eep. A Starfleet Cruiser Squadron, properly controlled, would be able to pick off one target at a time.
Lake is trusting to disorder and confusion in the enemy ranks, sending the largest ships that can withstand the most fire through first, and following up with the weaker ships which should meet a much less efficient and more disorganised response. The only detailed reports he has about the performance of warpdrive in these conditions are from Remuneration, and are covered in confusion and disorientation. That is what biases him against fighting a battle there and then.

Flee into the hinterland, and actually there is one, the research station with the wormhole drill is waytohellandgone out in the Rishi Maze after all- and acclimatise, then come back and fight for the wormhole. If any of the inquisitors are still listening.

It isn't the highest priority project in the galaxy, so the wormhole defence team isn't as large as should be expected, but there will be enough there to make an interesting fight of it. Putting an Executor in their way would just be sadistic. Although perhaps, a ship with an equivocal, debatable military record would be distinctly kinder on them than an "old, well practised ship" like, oh, Cosmonaut Ijon Tichy and his escort squadron.

IoM Navy Base defence squadron;
“3 large”;
Emperor- class battleship Lord Ravensburg (flag)
Avenger grand cruiser Moaelen
Vengeance grand cruiser Sinus Iridium

“10 medium”;
Mechanicus carrier (Devastation class) Miles Cinereus
Mechanicus modified Dominator cruiser Custos Sempiternus
Calliope, Cittern (Dictator class cruiser carriers)
Gothic cruiser- Short Serpent
Dominator cruiser Monsarrat
Lunar cruisers Irigaray, Schopenhauer
Tyrant cruisers- Rectitude, Incontrovertible

“6 medium-small”;
Dauntless light cruisers- Venom, Bastion
Endeavour light cruisers- Bondarchuk, Leifur Heppni
Deathwatch strike cruisers Exclusion Principle, Immovable Footprint

“25 small”;
3 Deathwatch Gladius frigates,
1 squadron of 4 Falchion escorts,
2 squadrons of 4 Sword frigates,
1 squadrons of 5 Cobra destroyers
XIV coy Lions of Caledon (2 Glaive bombard frigates, 3 Beacon pursuit frigates)


Wormhole transit;

Emperor- class battleship Tantadem (senior flag) [Kuroda; Hereticus, Amalathian]
Retribution class battleship Gloria Draconis (flag)[Tamborini; Hereticus, Istvaanian]
Exorcist grand cruiser Kastaghan [Chiang; Xenos, Monodominant]
Reserve fleet Vengeance grand cruiser Sinus Iridium
Avenger grand cruiser Sebastocrator [Iaeialeia’a; Xenos, Istvaanian]
Deathwatch battle barge Limitanei
Fire Eagles battle barge Pilgrim Militant
Ark Mechanicus Coruscani Praeteritans
Inquisition black ship Destined Necessity

Overlord battlecruisers Von Karajan, Kilmister
Armageddon battlecruisers Adaam, Kuovalik
Mechanicus Mars class battlecruiser Mangala Vallis

Lunar cruiser Aquinas,
3 Dominator cruisers- Woodman, Callison, Forester
3 Tyrant cruisers- Lord Mornington, Plesiosaur, Castellan
2 Dictator cruisers- Lute, Clavichord
Gothic cruiser Dotanuki
Reserve fleet Carnage cruiser Buccaneer [Hernan-Gellmann; Malleus, Xanthite]
Reserve fleet Murder cruiser Volcanic Fury
Mechanicus mod Lunar cruiser Articulus Caelestis
Rogue Trader (Lunar hull) Remuneration [Shuvalov; Hereticus, Horusian]
Rogue trader (Lunar hull) Hostile Takeover

2 Dauntless light cruisers- Awantibo, Krait
2 Endeavour light cruisers- Demaratus, Corbel
Rogue Trader Lucre Foedus (Heavy merchant w/military weapons)[Vail; Xenos, Amalathian]
Rogue Trader Zinphar Shuffle (Defiant CL modified off the stocks for cargo)
Rogue Trader Deregulation (heavy merchant with military weapons)
Deathwatch strike cruisers Greenfoot, Milecastle, High Sierra
Fire Eagles strike cruisers Pyrotollus, Pyroiaculum
Claws of the Emperor strike cruisers Indifundibulum, The Evisceration of the Unrighteous
Stormriders strike cruiser Detrimental
Iron Fists strike cruiser Reductionist

Lions of Caledon VIII coy, two Spatha heavy frigates, three Stalker destroyer leaders
Deathwatch escorts; 4 Hunter destroyers, 2 squadrons of 3 Gladius frigates, 3 squadrons of 3 Nova frigates
Fire Eagles; 3 Hunter destroyers, 2 Gladius frigates, 1 Nova frigate
Claws of the Emperor; 3 Nova frigates, 1 Gladius frigate
Stormriders; 2 Hunter destroyers, 2 Nova frigates
Iron Fists; 3 Gladius frigates
3 squadrons of 4 Sword frigates
5 squadrons of 5 Cobra destroyers
2 squadrons of 4 Firestorm frigate
2 squadrons of 4 Falchion escort

[fractalsponge1]

Well you could always put a Bellator line there

[Raesene]

I was sceptical at first, but this story has grown on me. Nevertheless, don't neglect your other story.

Overord-class cruiser Von Karajan ? Let them play Beethoven's Fifth as battle march

and I'll ask for a Bellator-class too

[Thanas]

I was sceptical at first, but this story has grown on me. Nevertheless, don't neglect your other story.

Overord-class cruiser Von Karajan ? Let them play Beethoven's Fifth as battle march

If so,it should be called Furtwängler.

[Raesene]

I was sceptical at first, but this story has grown on me. Nevertheless, don't neglect your other story.

Overord-class cruiser Von Karajan ? Let them play Beethoven's Fifth as battle march

If so,it should be called Furtwängler.

"We are doomed - they sent a Conductor-class Star Cruiser..."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The root of Conductor is, if I read my latin-english dictionary aright, Conduco; lead together, assemble, hire, contract for.
Which is the term I've used to apply to SWTC's http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#battleship3, which the picture of is too big to inline, but can be found at http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/kdy/bigwarship.jpg

For a heavy battlecruiser/carrier, marshalling a huge payload of landers and starfighters, it just seemed appropriate.
Rough performance numbers, fast but not extremely so- somewhere around the 3,000 'g' mark- throw weight somewhere around 80 petatons/second predominantly from mass twin 70's, survivability under fire mediocre, but carriage at least an Army Group and 80 fighter wings. Doom, you say? Beethoven's Fifth? At this point I think we're moving closer to Verdi's Requiem.

Of course, it's the fact that Von Karajan is in squadron with the sister-ship Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister that should be really worrying. I wonder how many Ecclesiarchy heads you could explode with a performance of "Don't Need Religion"?
That, and who does the Destined Necessity belong to? Eight of the devious bastards, and none of them on board it, it officially assigned to none of them?

Expect the actual chapter sometime around late Sunday if all goes well and real life throws no unpleasant surprises, Monday or Tuesday if it does.

[fractalsponge1]

That is a curious ship; very hard to scale. But 80 wings should make for a very amusing scrap