T42 Pt. 24 | "Battle of the Volta"

Tales of the 42nd: Battle of the Volta

+++ALBIAN II, ALBIAN SYSTEM+++

+++VLIEND+++

+++756.000.M42 / 0704, 2 OCT 41000+++

Cecilia slowly swings her legs out of bed with a small yawn with the morning light starting to come in the window of the quarters she was assigned. She quickly gets dressed into her uniform, let her jacket hang open as the only other people quartered in the building were Kiera and Rayna, along with their aides. She steps out into the hallway, looking to the side of the door to where she expects to see her new aide.

She lets out a small sigh while she motions for her aide to stand while moving into the kitchen, putting the kettle on before she turns to look at her aide.

"Julia, I told you that you don't need to be waiting for me at my door," Cecilia says, clearly already knowing how this conversation is going to go.

"I wait at your door because you told me to not wait in your room," Julia says, keeping her eyes pointed at the floor.

Cecilia rubs the bridge of her nose before looking at Julia again, "The only thing I expect of my aide in the morning if they do wake up before when I plan to, is putting on the kettle and organising my morning reports. I am not 100% on what the Xailvian lord was expecting from you before, but I have enough of an idea. That is not how we do things here," Cecilia says.

Julia looks up at Cecilia, showing her young age with tears starting to form in the corner of her eyes, "I...I am sorry..."

Cecilia sighs softly before she lightly places her hand on Julia's shoulder, "It is ok, it is not your fault. How about you shadow Kiera's aide for a bit to see how she does things."

Julia nods slightly before she about leaps at Cecilia and hugs her while she cries softly. Cecilia looks up when she hears Kiera enter, the look of surprise and not knowing what to do in this situation clear, while she places her arm around Julia to try and remember what her mum or more often her maid would do.

+++ALBIAN SYSTEM+++

+++ALBIAN II ORBIT+++

+++OVERLORD CLASS BATTLECRUISER - MACALPINE+++

+++777.000.M42 / 0937, 7 OCT 41000+++

High in orbit above Albian II, Commodore Luna Orso sits in the captain's chair while going over the night shift reports when she is interrupted by one of her bridge officers.

"Captain! Auspex reports multiple ships exiting warp space, no IFF," the Lieutenant says.

Orso nods while she stands, looking over at the Lt, "Ok, status report of the picket squadrons?"

"Not engaged, Captain. The ships did not arrive at the Mandeville point. They exited in the system," the Lieutenant says.

Orso pauses for a moment before she quickly jumps into action, "I want an Auspex probe launched towards their exit point. Bring the battle squadron into formation, send a report to the battlegroup."

"What should I tell them, Captain?" the Lieutenant asks.

"Tell them; we have engaged the archenemy," Orso says, and with those words, the spell over the bridge is broken, and people jump to work with the alert siren blaring throughout the ship. "How long do we have until in engagement range?"

"At least two hours, Captain. Will be able to give better estimates once they have accelerated fully," the Lieutenant responds.

"Keep me up to date, and get the supply ships to get as many supplies planetside as possible. They are going to try and get reinforcements planetside, and we will not let that happen," Orso says while she retakes her seat and beginning the preparation for battle.

+++ALBIAN SYSTEM+++

+++ALBIAN II ORBIT+++

+++OVERLORD CLASS BATTLECRUISER - MACALPINE+++

+++777.000.M42 / 1205, 7 OCT 41000+++

Luna stands in front of the hololith table with the 11 markers for her battle squadron deployed in defence of the planet and the Imperial transport ships. While the Chaos fleet is approaching max weapons range, a large red cloud of markers, though Luna knows from the auspex probe that the majority of them are transports with light armament if any. And their combat line is mainly made up of small hit and run ships.

Luna looks over at Lieutenant Clement McBeth, the ops officer that detected their arrival to start with, "Lt, raise the void shields to full. Alert weapon crews to stand by for battle."

McBeth quickly passes out the orders, and the MacAlpines void shields start to fully charge with their multiple layers, the rest of the squadron doing the same once they detect the MA doing it. Luna looks at her squadrons arrangement. The escort squadrons that had been protecting the transports were going to deal with the transports heading for the planet. While the MacAlpine dealt with the battle force

Luna looks over at Lord-Lieutenant Latashia Freire, her XO once they both have looked up from the display. The share a slight nod before Luna moves back up to take her seat, looking out across the bridge where she gives the order, "All ships. Full ahead, make ready for battle, weapons free."

With the order given, the engines of the MacAlpine rumble and roar to life before they start accelerating towards the approaching Chaos ships.

The Chaos ships open fire first with their lance weapons hitting the void shields of the Perilous, the Imperial ships return fire with their forward-facing lances while they continue to close the distance to bring their broadside cannons to bear. With the vanguard of the Chaos ships driving towards the centre of the Imperial line, it splits to either flank of it to draw them into broadside crossfire.

Once the Imperial ships have begun their broadside, the battle has started in full with the heavier Chaos ships also becoming engaged and the battle turning into a slugging match that the Imperials have the advantage. Luna watches the battle unfolding giving orders as needed to the battle squadron while Freire commands the MacAlpine. The entire ship shakes when a barrage of macrocannon rounds crash into the void shield and collapses it with a violent backwash of electromagnetic energy.

"Lord-Lieutenant! Commodore! We just lost the void shields! Port batteries are reporting damage," McBeth shouts.

"Deploy damage control teams, helm, bring us about to starboard," Freire orders.

Luna nods while she watches one of the Sword class frigates getting caught by the large Chaos cruiser in a broadside quickly punching holes through it, causing the warp drive to overlord and rip the ship apart in a massive explosion, sending 26,000 crew into the void. The entire ship shakes when a flight of torpedoes impact with the side of the ship before the alarm for boarders starts sounding.

With the alarm blaring, Luna looks to Friera, "Lord-Lieutenant, see to the defence of the ship with the security battalion."

Friera nods before she draws her laspistol and exits the bridge to repel the boarders while Luna takes direct command of the bridge with comm traffic getting bounced up to her comm bead.

"This is the Perilous. My ship is infested, chaos troops are one every deck! The techpriests are overloading the warp engines, we will destroy the ship and take the enemy with us! It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for your self!" The Captain of the Perilous declares before their engines roar to full ahead speed and bear down on a Chaos cruiser.

Luna watches the Auger array images while the Perilous rams and detonates into a Chaos cruiser, destroying both of them in the resulting explosion.

The Chaos fleet has been made sort work off by the Battle squadron with only two cruisers left, including what appeared to be their command ship. With the non-command ship falling under the combined broadside of two cruisers and the bombing runs from the Starhawk bomber squadrons launched from the Purity Fang. However, as the Chaos cruiser is about to be destroyed, it gets off a volley of torpedoes that hit the Gallimimus and cripple a number of its core systems, including weapon batteries.

"This is the Gallimimus, ship crippled, Commodore. Disengaging from battle, the Emperor protects." The Gallimimus transmits before it makes an in system warp jump to the transports to repair.

Luna looks down at her console, taking note of the losses so far; a Dauntless, a Sword and a Falchion. With a slight frown, she looks up at the remaining Chaos ship passing in front of the MacAlpine.

"Helm, full ahead, ramming speed. Ops, brace for impact," Luna says calmly while she straps herself into the Captain's chair while she can feel the MacAlpine accelerating with the Chaos ship drawing closer.

Explosions go off against the hull of the Chaos ship when the short-range burst of torpedoes from the MacAlpine hit it, before the prow of the MacAlpine rams into its weakened hull armour and punches through it with a broadside volley while they do so.

With the last Chaos ship destroyed and the squadron reforming, Luna lets out a small sigh before she looks at her bridge crew, "I want damage reports asap, same from the other ships. Get repair crews working whatever they have to fix as much of the damage as they can. Someone get me a line to the transports and to the 33rd, do we know if any transports made it past?" Luna says while she moves over to the hololith to look at the projected image of the battle sensors before she focuses on the planet.

+++ALBIAN II, ALBIAN SYSTEM+++

+++VLIEND+++

+++768.000.M42 / 1324, 7 OCT 41000+++

Cecilia is inspecting the front lines of her company, set up in the east of the town, looking towards Point 166 and the MSR.

She nods to 3rd Platoons officer commanding, 2nd Lieutenant Elena Nelson, while she approaches the small command post for the platoon.

"How we looking, Nelson?" Cecilia asks.

"All good, Major. We are all set up and ready, got kill zones set up and ranged for the heavy weapons and mortars," Nelson says, while gesturing to the map they have laid out.

Cecilia nods slightly at this, "Good work, Nelson. Stay calm, remember your training and most of all, listen to your senior non-com's, they know what they are about."

Nelson smiles slightly, the tension in her shoulders relaxing slightly, "Thank you, Major. I will."

Cecilia shares in the smile before she starts to head back to her chimera to move to the next platoon when Hastings dashes over to her.

"Major! Auger stations report we have incoming drop pods!" Hastings shouts when Cecilia sees her.

Cecilia's hands immediately go to her weapons at the mention of drop pods, "Alert the company, do we have an ETA?"

Cecilia has just finished asking when the roar of something descending rapidly can be heard before it is replaced by the impact of the drop pod into a building the side of the line. Sending out a shockwave of air and rubble that catches Cecilia and sends her flying to land in a small shell hole, coughing and splurting when she forces her head out of the water.

Cecilia slowly pulls herself out of the shell hole, still trying to shake the ringing out of her ears while drawing her weapons, her eyes land on the 5 Chaos Space Marines hacking and blasting their way through 3rd platoon with Bolt pistol and chainsword. She takes in the dark crimson armour and the flaming demonic skull on their shoulder pauldron that marked them as part of the Word Bearers legion. Just when she is getting back to her feet, Hastings is running towards her, when one of the Chaos space marines, lunges at her and forces his chainsword straight through the vox caster and out Hasting's stomach.

Cecilia can do nothing but watch while the Chaos space marine, draws the chainsword back with a guttural laugh while Hasting's gurgles for breath before she collapses to the floor, the life fleeing from her eyes. With a roar of furry, Cecilia opens fire with her bolt pistol at the Chaos space marine before she charges towards him with her power axe at the ready. The Chaos space marine turns to face her, swinging his chainsword at her, she manages to deflect it, but even a glancing strike staggers her with how much force was behind it. She is bringing her axe back up to strike at him when he suddenly punches her in the chest, she is sent flying backwards into a wall.

Cecilia manages to only just stay on her feet, coughing blood as she can feel a number of her ribs have broken, she goes to bring her left arm up to shoot at the Chaos space marine. At the same time, he walks towards her laughing, but she is unable to move her arm, as turns to look down at it, she sees a significant metal spike coming out of the wall and through her arm. The Chaos space marine grabs Cecilia by the front of her armour and hauls her up, ripping her off the wall while he does so.

"Renounce the corpse Emperor, and your suffering will be over, we will even spare your people," The Chaos warrior says.

Cecilia looks into the eyes of the helmet, fighting through the pain to give her response, "Cadia stands."

The Chaos warrior lets out a roar before it grabs Cecilia's left arm and with one swift movement rips it out of its socket, causing Cecilia to scream out in agony. The Chaos warrior is about to toss her away before the sounds of reinforcements arriving can be heard, along with the sounds of Plasma and Melta guns firing, two of the main infantry portable anti-armour weapons used by the Imperial guard, also very good at killing Chaos Space Marines. Cecilia feels a small burst of strength coming back at the sounds of help arriving and when she can make out Kiera's voice over the sounds of the battle.

"Caledonia holds," Cecilia manages to shout out, though she is not sure if anyone else heard her over the sounds of the battle.

With the last of her strength, she draws her power axe up and swings it up into the weak spot of the power armour, under the shoulder where she feels it dig in deep and rend the armour. Before she is promptly tossed at the arriving 2nd platoon, she feels the blackness creeping into her vision just when she hears Kiera's voice.

"Major! We need a medic here now! Lieutenant, keep your platoon moving! 3rd platoon need the help!" Kiera shouts while ducking down under the line of fire.

Those are the final things she hears before her body goes limp and she slips into the blackness.