Vrosh tattersoul's Story

As the commotion aboard the Punisher settled into talks, ship sensors would pick up a disturbance out in space, five void units or fifty thousand kilometres. A multicoloured tear would seem to open as the warp opened up. lightning lashing out at anything and everything within a void unit of the widening tear and from it three ships would exit.

leaving a cataclysmic shock-wave to ripple out into the surrounding space, nothing to stop the wave of force from

Rocking

the Punisher the first of these three ships was much larger than its escort frigates. The Retaliator class grand cruiser reaching six kilometres long and its assortment of macrocannon batteries, Prow lance and its launch bays capable of supporting upto four squadrons almost made the escort frigates redundant.

Although, they weren't gunboats, they were troop transports filled with slavering maddened psychopaths which wanted nothing more than to: maim, slaughter and burn, all that opposed them. Moreover, the grand cruiser would attempt to open communication with the Punisher "this is the Bloody Reaper and I am the Chaos Champion Vrosh Tattersoul, for now, we will not bring our weapons to bare, but one slight will change that, i wish to speak to your commanding officer" the Comms go dead as the the Bloody Reaper await a response, staying only at the range of their Lance cannons.

The woman raised a hand upwards, palm out to signify a stopping motion as she then reached out a hand forward to the one who spoke "You must be the captain. Right on time..." The woman smiled at him, taking a few steps forward towards the captain. She knew full well that there was very little they could do with their weapons to damage her, not to mention it would make her men look rather silly to try and blow her to pieces on the deck of the ship. After a few steps, she stopped.

"Recognized and understood. I apologies if my boarding was a bit impromptu but I was not able to materialize enough of my Unimatter to form a communications array. I decided to come alone on behalf of the VARIAtech Consulate. I am CEO Cally Tallymedge, President of the VARIAtech Consulate. It is a pleasure to meet you"

The Spartan soon bowed her head in respect while still having her hand out.

"I am here to make a business proposition to you in your quest for..." She stopped as she looked to her arm, the top of her forearm turning into a jet black crystal for a second then became a data screen with which she began to read from

"Intergalactic conquest and subsequent subjugation of the Mulitverse. Not uncommon but I feel our goals would accomplished through a mutual beneficial relationship. Permission to come aboard?"

The sounds coming from the new arrivals brought a beaming smile to Cally's face as she snapped the fingers on her left hand "Ahh right on time! Looks like its all going as scheduled! We shouldn't delay, perhaps we should best speak on the bridge of your vessel if you are willing!"

Listening to the words of the being in the female form, Ackyas placed his hands behind his back and gave a small nod. "Granted. Men! At ease." He stood tall, ready to turn to lead the woman up to the bridge of the ship however the shaking from the shock-wave that tore through space. 'Surely the pilots of the training ships were in for a treat with that one', he thought as he let out a grumble. The comms would indeed be open for them, the technicians set it to broadcast the message to the Admiral's own personal commlink for convenience sake.

Opening up his commlink as he turned to lead Cally to the bridge. "This is Grand Admiral Ackyas Rishon, overseer of The 6th Order's Training Corps. We will be opening our ship for your men to board, meet me at the bridge. We shall talk more in-depth once you're there."

Once he arrived to the bridge he opened the door leading inwards, stepping inside and overlooking the space beyond the hardened glass of the command deck. With his hands behind his back once more, Ackyas turned to glance at Cally with a raised eyebrow. His wrinkled face was giving a look of confusion at her, trying to figure her out and her motives...at least, any beyond those outwardly said. "Well, Cally Tallymadge of VARIAtech. I'm sure you heard from the comm broadcast I am Grand Admiral Ackyas Rishon. This is my ship you've happened upon." With a turn to fully face her, he held his head up and kept his eyes focused on her in case of any potentially threatening moves she may take. "You understand our goals, our interests, and who we are...that is interesting. If you wish to work with us, we won't deny such an alliance. However, I'm sure there is something more to this that I'm not hearing quite yet, and I do wish you'd go on. I wish to know and understand the full details of your operation, your purpose for coming to us and aiding our goals, and what you seek to gain from working with us." With that, he grinned, awaiting a response.

Cally followed along behind the Admiral, hands behind her back as she walked along to show non hostile action. As he talked, she pulled her right arm forward and skimmed over the datapad that was displaying information at an alarming rate. The scrawl moved so fast the eye could barely catch it yet she just read through it with ease.

"To put those in order, of course. My company is interested in the acquisition of lost and forgotten information, technology and possible life forms to add to our Consulate. We seek out the betterment of our own knowledge base and we desire to learn more about the Multiverse as a whole. With so many infinite worlds, we simply cannot see them all from within the Nucleus. My purpose for coming to you is your very nature. You seek to subjugate the alien races and lead a purge of all non human life. I dont care about that in the slightest. What I am after is my previously stated goals. I came to you because your interests align with ours. You take scraps and pieces of technology and make your equipment. Lastly I seek to gain knowledge, technology and to offer those denizens captured a chance to join the Consulate. Simple as that"

She spoke in a flat speech, as if reciting from a script of some sort in the back of her mind "What I am here to offer you is something you lack. Firepower. I have been watching you since you arrived in the Nebula and I seen the actions of your forces through the galaxy. I believe you can be of use to us and we can be of use to you"

there is no response as the the bloody reaper's engines power to life, the two transports following the much larger ship, it would take almost an hour before the ships were within 'visual range' and all across the hull of the bloody reaper lay in wait, the drake like constructs hang onto the hull in the shadows, counting them would be nearly impossible, on estimates there are upwards of one hundred of these daemon engine machinations, Helldrakes. From one of the landing bays a thunderhawk gunship would exit the bloody reaper's starboard side, two of the helldrakes take off, escorting the thunderhawk to the open hanger, the helldrakes break off once the thunderhawk has landed, Circling the Punisher as if birds of prey or vultures.

Vrosh would be stood just behind the assault ramp as it lowered, even before the ramp lowered fuel canisters, pipes and even electrical cabling would ooze blood or begin to levitate figments of ghostly visages fading in and out around the thunderhawk.
Looking inside, any service crew would see Vrosh and stood behind him a 'Hellbrute' a sick perversion of the honourable space marine dreadnought, the hull of the hellbrute looking more like flesh or skin and further behind this monstrosity was twenty four chaos space marines, each wielding boltguns and chainswords, clad in the dark red and gold armour that is of the crimson Slaughter renegades.

Vrosh would step forward down the ramp, none of his retinue following, they would all wait within the thunderhawk, a miasma of fear forming. from the mere presence of these haunted marines, Vrosh's power axe mag clamped to his belt and his combat knife on the opposite side. Chained over the powerpack of his armour was his combi-melta and anyone looking on at the eight foot eight armoured titan from behind would see a skinned face, nailed to the powerpack, this face once belonged to an inquisitor, Vrosh doesn't remember who it was or where he killed the zealous fool, nor did he care.

Arriving upon the bridge Vrosh would look about at the mortal men about him, the voices a cacophony in his head

slaughter them, kill them all

he curls his dominant hand into a fist and moves further in looking about for the so called commander "you are unbearably trusting human..." Vrosh's presence on the bridge further caused Abnormalities , consoles becoming unresponsive and drinks tainting with blood.

Ackyas crossed his arms as he listened to the being speak to him, his eyes narrowing as she spoke. The proposal was interesting to say the least, he would have to bring it up with the other leaders of The 6th Order to see what they thought. Sharing information, knowledge, and firepower was beneficial. Furthermore, it was what they wanted. Subjugation, eradication, and then...silence. Once they were done with their work, The 6th Order would dissolve itself as it had no other purpose. Humanity would reign supreme, and for once they'd be able to rule rather than be 'the race that is numerous among the galaxy, like ants'.

"Assuming the higher ups agree with me, this proposal seems doable. More firepower for us, more knowledge for you." He spoke,
then turning his head to look towards the door to the bridge and having one of his men open it so the new arrival Vrosh could find his way to the meeting room. "As for our new arrival, I'm curious as to what they have to say."

Cally listened to the Admiral's words before her head turned to look upon the Crimson Slaughter leader and slowly nodded her head "I was wondering if you were going to show up on time" The two had never met but there was something about the Spartan that didnt sit right with the man. Yet the female soldier moved out of the way to lean up against one of the chairs on the bridge. She was far enough away from the two so they could have a dialogue. Her proposal had been given and now they were going to see what brought the Crimson Slaughter this far out for a simple meeting.

The spartan's right arm was brought up and she began to type onto the data pad so she could record and document the exchange between the two. Something told her this was going to be rather fascinating "I am also intrigued as to the purpose of a Chaos Marine's ship in this sector. Id have thought you would be in the middle of an engagement with the forces of the Imperium in this galaxy rather then all the way out here in the middle of nowhere"

"i need not deal with pleasantries" Vrosh didn't remove his helmet, the design in the helmet a perpetual malice filled scowl, the larger being looked between the spartan and then the admiral "many a rumour has said that this so called 6th order, fights against the forces of the Imperium" Vrosh looks about the room as of looking for something "where are your trophies?" he laughs sadisticly shaking his head.

"so what say you?

Admiral

would you join the Crimson Slaughter in bringing carnage and destruction upon the imperium?" Vrosh returned to his neutral position, in the windows looking out into space the figment ghosts formed again speaking out to the room, the warp wraiths voices twisted and ranging from that of children women and men whispering

kill them,
slaughter, destroy them

Vrosh again curls his hand into a fist, he was ordered not to kill, for now.

*Retconn*

It wasn't long before the two strange alien vessels began to show up as anomalous readings on long-range scanners, through the carefully watched regions of the Aurora Nebula. Since the Avaeon attack against the Aschen in Isiria, the entire region of space has always been relatively carefully monitored, though not as extensively as the Imperial Core.

It was through these circumstances that this exchange hadn't gone unnoticed, but it had taken some time for the Imperial authorities on Arastel to determine a course of action, which task force to divert and scout out the area.

The Hastati Class Cruiser 'Mercurial Strike', commanded by Commander Dion Costas was the one to draw the short straw that day, along with her escorts, the Athena Class Cruisers 'Fairway' and 'Pelops." These Athena class cruisers were supported by a single Astras class robotics cruiser, and a quintet of Picon class frigates, along with their support vessels their support ships, making for roughly fifteen vessels in total, warships and their support craft, these fifteen ships made up the Cruiser Strike Group 10 of the Classis IX Provincia Arastel, out of Arastel, Isiria.

The Strike Group had just completed it's jump, roughly 800,000 Kilometers abaft from the meeting ships, settling into a staggered claw formation, with the larger ships holding center position, specifically the Astras and the Mercurial Strike

The Mercurial Strike, at two and a half kilometers in length was the largest of the vessels, and the Astras was second, though the Mercurial Strike sported heavy firepower, the Astras was far more dangerous, feeding precise targeting information to the pair of Athena class missile cruisers, as well as providing potent Electronic Warfare suites which were capable of taking down a planet's internet and communications should the need arise.

With the jump completed, Costas had prepared his men, and the ships were all battle ready. The Mercurial Strike's massive deck mounted Turbo-disruptors, armored missile tubes, and spinal mounted frag cannon, she was a fairly capable vessel, with heavy stormbringer pulse laser batteries to provide point defense.

Once they were in position shields were raised on all vessels, and the claw formation quickly turned into a staggered frigate line defensive formation, while the Astras began working quickly to decipher the ship's communications and perform intensive point-scans to analyze metallurgical composition, power plant, and weapons capabilities while feeding this information in real time to the rest of the Strike group.

Aside from these defensive actions in anticipation of a coming attack, the Aschen flotilla did not move, or engage the ships before them.

The Grand Admiral held his head high to his other guest, Vrosh of the Crimson Slaughter. Ackyas listened, intrigued by him. He watched the way he moved, the way he acted...he was more of a warrior than a diplomat for sure. Not that the Grand Admiral would mind, they were all cogs in one great machine and they needed folks of all sorts to make that dream true. "Trophies? Unless our men have been taking them without my knowledge, we have none. However, our goals upon success do include salvaging all technology we can and applying it in new ways...experimenting. Making newer and better weapons."

Ackyas met Vrosh with a wide grin as he heard the offer, and taking note of the clenching fist...something was certainly off about this man, but that's alright for now. He wasn't causing any trouble quite yet. "Carnage and destruction upon the Imperium? I see no reason not to." With a slight chuckle, he placed his hands behind his back.

The beeping of one of the consoles sparked to life, causing him to turn his head with a perked eyebrow. The technician stationed at the console spoke up as he cleared his throat. "Sir. Unknowns have made themselves visible. They're not approaching...and they're most certainly not any of these people's ships." As they began doing their scans, the same technician piped up. "Aschen, sir!"

Those working at their stations became very tense, wondering what this meant for them. Were they about to get into an engagement? The Grand Admiral had lost his grin, yet he kept his composure about him. "Men, get yourselves ready. Prepare the pilots, make sure our men are able to fight." His eyes shifted around the room before meeting Cally and Vrosh. "I doubt this will be pretty, however if you wish to see some action then this is the time to do so."

In the midst of the Astras trying to decipher the ships' communication frequency as well as the safety measures they've taken in order to encrypt it, The Punisher sent out its own comm broadcast under orders of Grand Admiral Ackyas who now took the position at the command deck, seeing if the vessel would take their transmission to speak before the inevitable happened.

Cally began to document Vrosh's words into her datapad, noting some form of interest in the man. Of all of her studies of Chaos and Warp, his warband was by far one of the most fearsome in the order of the Unaligned. She found it fascinating how primitive he was yet he took great pride to show his strength. Admirable, if undesirable. They would not make great candidates for the Consulate. However her thoughts soon turned towards the viewports and the reports of a small fleet of ships that just transported into the area. Her eyes looked out towards them and nodded twice

"Fascinating...who knew the arrogance of the Aschen would go so far as to interrupt a negotiation such as this. Typical"

Cally's head turned towards the Admiral and offered him a small smile "If we did not offer our allies some assistance on the eve of battle, what sort of allies would we be at all?" She asked then turned her head towards Vrosh.

"Ill see you on the field" She said and levitated off of the deck and phased through the hull of the ship. A bright light appeared before their port as Cally herself disappeared.

After several seconds, another larger, brighter light erupted in space. Nearly twice as large as the 6th Order's ship, the portal soon grew a long, thick piece of black crystal. The same kind of crystal that Cally appeared to be made of that soon broke off into two smaller halves. The portal soon shut and the "ships" moved into an attack formation towards the Aschen fleet. These crystals measured at a length of 6 kilometers long and nearly 5 kilometers wide, these ships soon began to twist and contort their image to that of a diamond tip with a point that could barely be seen. Cally's ships soon moved to prepare for battle.

“Aschen?.” In all of Vrosh’s forays from the

Lost Hope

he had never come across these Aschen. either way he watched as the grand admiral of the 6th order began his command.A twisted grin of joy hidden by his helmet “To war, is it?, now that’s just too enticing” the menacing almost animalistic growl that rolled with his voice said it all.

Vrosh wanted nothing less than a blood bath. He’d subvocally order his thunderhawk gunship back to the

Bloody Reaper

but he’d dematerialise himself in a bright flash of light as the retaliator class grand cruiser’s, power draw spiked.

Redundant system after redundant system made it near impossible to get any exact reading on its weapons capability or what auxiliary systems the ship had. Any and all attempts to scan resulted in nothing short of software and hardware failures, this all due to the

Tech Sorcery

of the warpsmiths, it wasn’t so much magic. More their mastery over the

Machine Spirits

or Artificial intelligence. And their knowledge of technology being second to none.

Returned aboard his ship via the Teleportarium, Vrosh returned to the bridge and stood before his command crew aboard his grand cruiser and let out a hellish war cry “WARRIORS OF THE CRIMSON SLAUGHTER, IT IS TIME FOR THE KILLING TO BEGIN ANEW!” he watched from the command view deck. The thunderhawk he used to get aboard

the Punisher

fly by and dock in one of the rear landing bays, the plasma drive engines roared into life and

the Bloody Reaper

pulled away from the 6th order ship into clear open space with a clear line of sight of the Aschen fleet, looking out across to the two crystal spears?, ships? now fully forming a this point.

“Ready the warp engines, prepare for a short range jump” Vrosh turned to the Fallen imperial navy commander “Raven, i leave the ship in your hands” the man bows to his chaos lord and Vrosh hasn’t even taken note of the bow, already turned to leave the command deck and prepare to lead his brothers in bloody carnage.

The two smaller ships in the three ship Vanguard of the crimson Slaughter, fell into the flanks beside the much larger ship doing much the same preparing to short jump.

Vrosh made his way down the winding tunnels of the ship’s passageways, his fellow battle brothers chanting out Take from them Everything, leave only corpses in our wake.

Soon coming to arrive at a secluded sanctum within the ship. He’d open up the bulkhead and enter the shrine, sorcery took place here, in the name of the chaos god Tzeentch. Where twenty Rubric marines stand as still as statues watching over their charge “you are required on the bridge Psyker” there are no further words said. Vrosh leaves the door open and heads for the teleportarium with the rest of his boarding party.

Sorcery was in fact, a generous term for what was going on in the sanctum. Those poor Rubric marines had to suffer the presence of the eccentric sorcerer king that is Aren Markblac. The sanctum was for the most part, completely alight with colorful warp flames. The ground was just a little bit on fire while man flames just drifted around aimlessly. Occasionally one of the marines would have to make a routine sidestep because Tzeentch knows they don't want to get touched by that. Aren was at the moment as shirtless as always and about 15ft in the air, dancing on a floating disc while shouting a really distorted voice into the pommel of his favorite force dagger/daemon weapon. He even had a few pink horrors just standing around singing with him and dancing around.

Once Vrosh entered however everything just suddenly stopped. The horrors went quiet, the flames died down and Aren slowly descended to the ground. His expression went from joyous to a thousand yard stare with his one good eye shot in Vrosh's direction. That one eye shining all the colors of the warp and themsome. "I have a name, bruv." He eventually managed to grumble in a oddly sing-songy tune. Sheathing his dagger on his belt he began to walk out the sanctum while two marines frantically moved to get the sorcerer-king donned in his gear while he walked after Vrosh.

"Sir, the Alien vessels are assuming an attack formation, I've got several unidentified contacts on DRADIS, Three four five carom two nine six." The Tactical officer reported, while alarms began to klaxon throughout the cruiser.

Costas silently grit his teeth, it seemed they had walked into somewhere they weren't welcome.

"We have our procedures, open up a wide band channel to the alien vessels, I want all hands combat ready right now." Costas ordered, shifting his weight in his command chair, as holographic screens flickered to life all around him.

"Channel open, sir." The Comms lieutenant spoke, keying up a wide-band outgoing hail.

"This is Commander Costas, of the Mercurial Strike, we have no intentions of engaging your vessels in battle, as we were investigating anomalous activity in this sector. However if attacked we will be forced to defend ourselves."

Terminating the communication, Costas turned to his XO.

"All hands Action stations! Spool up the FTL Drives, we're going to get the frak out of here if things get nasty."

The bridge crew of the Mercurial Strike worked swiftly, like that of a well oiled machine, commands were entered, readouts were taken, and the tactical situation was considered.

They maintained real-time communications with the other Aschen ships, whom slowly began to spread out into a more defensible position. The two Athena class missile cruisers winked out first, flickering away to a position several light years away, beyond sensor ranges. Once positioned, they calibrated the guidance system on their long range Thunderbolt missiles. Each missile carrying a Quantum plasmid warhead, which was capable of unleashing an explosion not unlike that of a star going supernova.

The Astras, a relatively new vessel in the Aschen family of warships was fairly closely related to it's Coalition cousin, the Royarks class Robotics cruiser. And while it's scans on the Chaos vessel returned little in the way of results, their electronics, and computer systems did not suffer the intended faults and errors, thanks to a yawning gap in compatibility, and while the Technomancers may have been second to none in their own world, Aschen technology, and especially Aschen technology derived from Scatterran architecture was simply too alien. Eventually the attempts to scan had stopped, the Astras shifting to more of an Defensive ECW Stance, throwing up an odd jamming field, which acted upon quantum mechanics to make it difficult for the enemy weapons batteries to garner a firing solution, aiming to throw their accuracy just off enough to confuse their targeting systems, like a drunk man trying to fire a gun at his target, the Aschen ships seemed to shift, bob, and weave about, without actually physically moving.

The small cruiser task force was prepared for battle, having moved to a defensible position, their FTL Drives hot in the event they needed to flee. Their FTL Computers were locked to the Gaelian system, a highly defensible position and capital of Isiria.

Grand Admiral Ackyas watched the others leaving his ship with a satisfied smirk, his hands placed behind his back and head held high. His grandeur was interrupted however as the Aschen opened their comms and began to speak. He listened, intrigued, and found their statement of defending themselves upon being attacked to be rather amusing. Could they hold against his cruiser and the two factions that were fresh off the block and ready to fight once more?

The thought made him want to laugh.

Just as the Aschen were finished delivering their message, Ackyas opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by one of his technicians interrupting. "They've terminated the link, Grand Admiral!" His grin fell once more being replaced with an irritated scowl. "Should I attempt to re-open communication requests, sir?"

Letting out a disappointed and heavy sigh, he raised a hand in the air and waving it as if to say 'no'. "Don't bother. They've stated their terms, and I understand them clearly." Turning back to look at his men his grin returned as the prospect of entering battle swam about in his head. "Record this event and broadcast it to command. Or better yet...make sure you broadcast it to the Terran News. I'm going to ensure victory against these dogs, and I want everyone to know it was The 6th Order and their allies who did this." Clenching his white glove into a fist, he took in a deep breath savoring this moment before returning to his position.

Of course, the technicians would oblige by starting up a recording and trying to transmit that frequency out to News sectors out there. It wouldn't be hard to receive or trace back to The Aurora, but stopping it was another matter in and of itself. While the recording began to run, displaying the battle from many different security cameras inside and outside of the ship the weapons systems sprung to immediate life as well as the rest of the excess power being directed to the shields. If there was anything The 6th Order had to be proud of, it was their shields. It protected the ship and by product the men within, and it was damn good at it too. Otherwise all of their floating chunks of cobbled together metal would be destroyed within an instant. The only ships without good shields were the suicide bombers, and that was because where they were going they didn't need one...

The Punisher's engines roared to life as well, staying behind their allies as a multi-connected comm was sent to open between the other two allied command ships. This was going to be a show of power, patrol or not. They were the unfortunate ones tasked with this mission, and Ackyas was going to be sure to see them to their grave.

The large chunks of crystal began to move towards the enemy fleet at a slow rate of velocity. Within them, Cally would watch the events that transpired outside. When the transmission went out, she picked it up and listened while the Aschen made their presence known. However, the chance to pass up Aschen technology was too good to possibly pass up. The crystals began to move faster towards the fleet, only to be shocked when the two ships jumped away. Something about that seemed amiss and she turned her head to look towards where they jumped to and nodded to herself.

'Move to their position. Gaze through the Eye and behold' The conciousnesses within the Unimatter turned to gaze into the Nucleus to gaze upon the two jumped ships.

'Position verified. Commence jump'

While this was being discussed, the ships were now moving into the territory of ramming speed towards the lead capital ship. Alarms would be blaring as the Aschen could see the tip of the crystals moving ever faster towards their command bridge. A few hundred kilometers from impact, a bright white light erupted onto their bridge as the two hunks of crystal jumped away into an entirely different dimension and disappeared from the battle.

Meanwhile while the two missile cruisers were commencing with their launch preparations, their DRADIS would ping two contacts directly behind them, very very close to their hulls.

With a great amount of speed and force, the crystals would attempt to impact the hull and lodge themselves into the rears of the ships. This attack had enough force behind it to render his shields useless to try and deflect them away given their size and mass. The tips of the crystal penetrated their shields with ease and soon impaled themselves deep into the ships themselves. Unimatter crystals would embed themselves deep into the enemy ships, breaking through their engine cores and thus knocked out their entire propulsion network as the engines themselves would be torn away from the resulting impact. Nearly a third of the Unimatter would be firmly locked into the ships and they began to drift together in space.

'Locking procedures complete. Board'

From within the crystal, masses began to detatch from the main unimatter hunk and formed into featureless crystaline aliens, each equipped with strange looking rifles and formed blades from their other hands. Beginning with what remained of their engines, they began to strip the area of parts, equipment and technology, seemingly ignoring any life that may be present with in.

Arriving at the Teleportarium, Vrosh looked across his retinue, there were eight Khorne berserkers, each of these bloodthirsty homicidal monsters armed with a chain-axe a barbaric weapon that would rend flesh from bone and rip anything short of power armour apart in a single swing. But there was also one of the warpsmiths, the heavily augmented and more machine than flesh being had his mechadendrites swirling about his person, each scanning around the master of technology.

Raven however taken command of the bloody reaper continued with Vrosh’s standing orders, the warp drives shifted into action and a tear would open up. Blocking any sight for the Aschen fleet. Lightning and warp energies bursting out and lashing at the gellar fields protecting the small chaos vanguard, and then the three ships would plow into the warp and the warp tear would slam shut.

Less than two seconds later amongst the aschen fleet, a much larger, more unstable, vicious warp tear would open, and not only did the three ships from before plow out from the immaterium. What followed them was a true fleet of chaos, fifteen ships added to the numbers, each one no smaller than three Kilometres long and each bristling with lance weaponry and macro cannons and far worse armaments. These ships slingshotting out from the warp and ramming into the smaller frigate line, the five metre thick adamantium rams on most of these previously loyal ships decimating and cracking open shields for the Titan Lance batteries to fire cutting anything less than a cruiser in half with a single salvo. Thanks to the less than sophisticated nature of the weapons from their own reality, the weapons from the chaos ships were based off the firer’s sight, no computer numerical crap to block them.

This was only the beginning, though. The warp tear, grew, its energies lashing out and striking at the unprotected Gellar fieldless ships of the Aschen fleet, the proximity to such a warp tear, would block any form of communication, wireless or psychic; and even quantum entanglement. And only cause rampant mutations and possessions of unprotected ships.
From the hulls of many of the larger ships in the fleet, beasts of machine and flesh, Daemon engines, roared into life, hundreds upon hundreds, countless amounts of these Heldrakes engaged the Aschen fleet, striking fighters and bombers from out the void with their blade like wings and burning out the cockpits with balefire or Reaper autocannon fire, spitting death upon the aschen support fighters.


The Bloody Reaper however passed by ignoring the frigate line it’s torpedo tubes firing, Vortex torpedoes… these hellish creations of war, rip open tears into the screaming warp, however, the torpedoes were aimed to miss flying wide but exploding in the open void. Cutting off any chance for escape as more tears to the warp are opened up, these ones drawing in and trying to consume anything within the pull of these tears.

The Reaper then powers its engines to full and attempts to ram the Mercurial Strike in this same attack, the teleportarium power’s to life drawing energy from the reserves and forcing the reaper to avoid full ramming speed.
The ten chaos marines are then dragged from the ship’s teleportarium chambers and launched through the warp and with what sounds like lightning appear aboard the bridge of the Mercurial Strike, before he is even fully materialised Vrosh charges, Attempting a wide swing for the XO, cleaving the man entwine with his power axe. Spraying blood across the commanding officer of the fleet, Vrosh’s power armoured gauntlet of his ambidextrous off hand, swings out and he grabs Costas by the throat and lifts him up off the floor to eye level, Vrosh being large for even space marines at eight foot eight inches...behind him the warpsmith waited with patience as the entire bridge staff and crew are mercilessly put to the blade by the Khorne berserkers, cries of BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

Music to Vrosh’s ears, the consoles weep blood and figment ghosts visible to all, whispered in strange languages from the windows of the ship. “So you’re the commander to this ship or was it that waste of air lying dead there?”

The warpsmith reached out a mechadendrite to one of the computer consoles and pressed the extra mechanical limb to the machine cables and electrical wiring would strip away and attach to the mechadendrite, whatever AI the ship had would be screaming in agony as the Warpsmith rewrote its every being, absorbing every bit of information and killing the AI in the process, with a dismissive wave of the hand the Warpsmith locks the bridge off from the rest of the ship. “I have full control, my lord Vrosh” the warpsmith says monotone, no emotion “well done Warpsmith.” Vrosh’s attention Solely on the man in his grasp, the voices ever clambering in his mind to kill him.

It wasn't but a few scant moments that the first Athena cruiser, the Trebuchet settled in that it detected the approaching crystal shard, likewise the 'Shrike' picked up their approach as well.

The crew of the first ship reacted first, with the Crystal shard mere meters from the hull of the Trebuchet, it made another emergency jump. The spatial shock-wave rippled through real-space, and would likely shatter the crystal to pieces from the proximity of the FTL jump.

This Athena jumped directly to Arastel, the heart of the Aschen holdings in the Aurora.

The Shrike did not fare so fortunate, the crystal shard plunged into it's hull, but the desired action was not achieved. The Cruiser banked hard to port as the crystal closed in, causing the Unimatter crystal to impact the Kanvium plating of the rear quarter of the ship.

The Kanvium reacted at the molecular level, dispersing the energy of the point across the entire surface, rippling at the molecular level and distributing the energy throughout the entire plate, this manifested as the Crystal being unable to penetrate the hull, and forcing the Athena class cruiser on a wide port yaw axis.

Two heavy disruptor batteries swiveled to life, discharging brilliant green streaks of energy at the black crystal shard, discharging one after another, millions of degrees of heat contained in a bolt the size of a large tree. Two Ajax missiles were also loosed from an opened silo, they banked hard around the Athena cruiser, and the Unimatter shard pushing into it.

Coming back around, the two Ajax missiles broke apart into dozens of smaller warheads, each containing a 200 kiloton nuclear warhead, all of them were poised to impact all along the crystalline shard.

Engines still intact, the attack having failed, the Athena cruiser gunned forward, and the split second before the missiles would impact, should they impact, the Shrike jumped.

Much like the Shard that attempted to impale the Trebuchet, the spatial shock-wave went out in all directions, but the Athena cruisers were gone, nestled safely within a defensive formation on Arastel. Safe to relay everything they had witnessed, and call for reinforcements.

The rest of the Patrol group wasn't so lucky.

----

The daemons of Chaos, something that the Aschen Empire had no previous experience in dealing with, were wholly unprepared for the events about to unfold.

When the Warp tear obscured the fleet before them, Costas opted to raise shields, engaging the powerful shields that the Aschen had been known for, a milky white sphere enveloped the Mercurial Strike from bow to stern.

Then the warp opened up dangerously close, and resulted in absolute chaos aboard the vessels closest to the warp energies. Mutations and Possessions consumed the crews closest, and self destruct erupted across several frigates closest to the tears, the vessels exploding in brilliant flashes of white, as the maddened crews, and whatever Daemons that had boarded were consumed.

Strike craft had barely a chance to exit their hangars, the Raptor Talons jettisoning into the void, and conducting dizzying acrobatics, a handful of Raptor talons managed to land a few kills on the Helldrakes, one lucky pilot perforated his target with 25mm armor piercing slugs, from his Ship's autocannons, and then bobbing and weaving for another kill, dodging incoming fire by scant seconds.

A second squadron of Raptor Talons opted for a different approach, engaging their Chromatique stealth arrays, they simply vanished from visual sight and sensor alike, striking from the void unseen.

A well placed Tactical nuke detonated among a formation of incoming Helldrakes, enveloping them in nuclear inferno, the hidden Raptor Talon that launched it veered off, kicking on it's engines and emerging from stealth.

As The Bloody Reaper gunned for the Mercurial Strike, a young Raptor Talon pilot clenched his teeth, barrel rolling to miss incoming autocannon fire, managed to loose two 200 Megaton Anti-ship missiles from the hard-points under the wings of his fighter, the missiles boiling towards the Bloody Reaper, a split second later, autocannon fire perforated the Raptor Talon, and the nukes would detonate in brilliant flashes should they meet their target.

The Bridge of the Mercurial Strike were also unprepared for boarding action, considering they were up against unfamiliar tactics, the XO was swiftly cut down, as was the rest of the bridge crew, but Costas said nothing as he was grabbed by the throat, and lifted into the air.

He stared directly at Vrosh before him, and struggled his reply. "I am Commander Dion Costas, Of the United Aschen Empire."

The split second the Warpsmith began tearing at the Shipboard AI, failsafes engaged, physically separating themselves from the main network, Navigational data, computer data, and several servers were physically isolated the moment the AI was compromised, this meant the Warpsmith would have to locate, and interface with these systems individually.

The next thing to happen was the AI was disconnected from the main bus by another failsafe, this was evidenced by the lights in the ship shutting off, the consoles losing power, but only for a moment as the analog backup systems engaged, lights returning but consoles all offline.

The Aschen ship was also drifting.

---

The Events on the bridge did not go unnoticed by the rest of the crew, the Security contingent, headed by a young Imperial sergeant was hard at work, assembling a small contingent of soldiers inside one of the Barracks common rooms.

"Anders, set the self destruct, Rydel, Jalen, head to the main bus and ensure the computron systems have been disconnected." He said, turning to a small monitor, playing back surveillance footage from before the ship's systems went offline. "We need to get into the Armory, these guys have some kind of power armor, so we'll need pulse grenades and Tesla rifles." He said, pulling out a paper schematic of the ship.

"Cale, Ramos, Mikel, you're going to be with me, we'll go to the Armory, suit up, and then try to retake the CIC." The Sergeant said, but Cale spoke up in protest.

"We're surrounded by hostile ships, the Patrol group is getting torn to shreds!" He said, while the Sergeant nodded. "We need to all stay alive until the Zelbinion arrives with her fleet, whatever these things are, they use some sort of Spatial tearing to their advantage, the Zelbinion's Planck packs should prevent that, and her Frag Cannons--" Wincing, a brilliant white light filled the barracks, another Raptor Talon's nuke had gone off, consuming whatever it could in some final desperate strike.

"Her frag cannons will make short work of these capital ships."

Laying down their plans, everyone agreed, and said a short prayer to their gods before grabbing their weapons, the MC-1 Carbine and moving through the corridors.

Perhaps the Sergeant should have been driven mad, everyone around him seemed to be, as a maddened technician lunged at him with a wrench, the report of his MC-1 signaled the man had been gunned down.

The Sergeant kissed his pendant, bearing the Sigil of Athena, and moved through the hall. The Lords of Kobol would protect and guide him through the madness that was taking over this ship.

The nuclear explosions struck void shields to no effect, the barriers being engulfed in nuclear fire, resulting in the dropping of only multiple void shields each of the chaos ships had at minimum four each, heldrakes however were obliterated anytime they were caught in the shockwave or epicentre of the explosions, however the daemon engines flew more like beasts than any organised force.

The raptor talon squad that had activated their Chromatique stealth arrays were targeted just as much as those that had not, the daemon engines seeking them out through the very souls and life essence of the pilots, reaper autocannon fire, shredding the fighters and those daemon engines armed with bale-flamers would catch onto and burn out the cockpits with warp fire, banishing the victims to the warp to be the food for daemons.

Daemons that had possessed Aschen troops had no care, they were only slightly annoyed as they reformed in the warp, their chance for destruction in the material plane taken from them. The chaos fleet Advanced, heavy macro-cannons firing, the shells bringing down the shields of the aschen fleet, so that the titan lance batteries can begin their devastating assaults onto the ships.

The Bloody Reaper’s void shields hold, engulfed in nuclear fire, the defence turrets rotating to fill the void with flak fire, keeping the raptor talons at bay.
Vrosh’s autofilters on his helmet automatically dealing with the bright flashes of the nukes “...so backwards as to use such weapons?” Vrosh’s head turns back to the commander “my lord...should i begin?” the warpsmith’s mechadendrites had begun to score and mark something into the floor “yes we can and this fool can play a part as well” he turns, walking towards the warpsmith who began chanting out in high gothic, the very air thickening with the power of chaos, the warpsmith’s chanting distorts as the binding ritual begins, one of the mechadendrites of the ‘smith whipping out and snatching the commander from Vrosh’s grip.
Dragging the Aschen commander into the centre of the ritual circle, already the ship began to shift and reality warp, corridors changing, altering to the daemons whims, flesh bursting from walls and even eyes form, a tendril bursts from one of the consoles and strikes out at Costas grabbing the man and dragging him towards a forming mouth. The same happening throughout the ship, the crew assaulted and feasted on by their own ship.

The Daemon now inhabiting the ship would reverse the process undertook to protect the AI and the data centres cut off the self destruct neutralising anything the security teams were attempting inside its new physical form.

The warpsmith reached out once the failsafes had been reversed and proceeded to raid the remains of the AI’s mind once more and the rest of the data. The Daemon gave the information but took from the warpsmith, ripping away pieces of the warpsmith’s mechanical limbs.

The Bloody Reaper activates its teleportarium and brings the boarding party back aboard the chaos grand cruiser, the daemon ship floating in space, the ritual coming to an end as the daemon fully manifested within the ship.