Recounting the battle at the Svard Promethium Refinery.

Report By: Lieutenant Josette Nichols
Date of Report: 110.826.M41
Classification : cc1d7569-b4ad-4560-8c38-841f85b0e4e4

Battle

At long last, we were face-to-face with the Xenos abomination that had been dogging our steps in the Svard system, and the scope of the beast threatened to freeze us to our consoles. Larger than any Battlecruiser I’d been briefed on, it was as if a miniature black sun encased by huge, impossible shards of orbiting crystal had emerged out of the Warp near the Svard Promethium Refineries and was bearing down on us. Calm and composed as ever, Captain Hos ordered battlestations, and relayed instructions to both Commander Keel aboard the Battlefleet vessel Hand of Redemption, and Captain Cassis aboard the Svard Defense Frigate that escorted us. Manning the Augurs, I was stunned to realise that this massive vessel was escorted by four of the smaller Void Wasps previously fought in the Hollow Worlds. Their size was insignificant compared to the thing we now faced, but nonetheless a threat that had to be dealt with.

No doubt having been briefed on the situation by Captain Garret, Captain Cassis expertly maneuvered his Frigate and in one decisive volley of fire destroyed one of the lightly constructed Void Wasps. Commander Keel swung his Cruiser around, and prepared to unleash a devastating plasma barrage on the Xenos craft, while the In Purgatio Lumen brought its might lance to bear against the creature. As ever, the pious Navigator Maturinus assisted Arch-Militant Caine on the Lance, while Explorator Felicis and I focused the ship’s systems and augurs to paint as clear a target as possible. Astropath Eckhart retreated to his private sanctum to prepare to bring his awesome Psychic force in defense of this ship, and we loosed a tremendous volley of fire against the approaching vessel. Our laser batteries seemed to barely bring down its massive, overlapping void shields but the Lance as ever struck true, shattering dozens of the bizarre crystals in orbit around the creature.

The return volley from these xenos was swift and overwhelming though. The Void Wasps moved in, and though their armaments were light and unable to inflict serious damage on the Hull, they did manage to strike one lucky volley against our vessel, setting our lance on fire. The Hand of Redemption however bore the worst of the assault, being attacked by the larger vessel which destroyed its torpedo banks and damaged the augur array in a single volley, and consigned tens of thousands of loyal Imperial citizens in an instant. We did not survive this assault unscathed, as several of the Xenos batteries found our hull as well, but compared to the Battlefleet Cruiser we escaped relatively lightly. Rallying ourselves for the next assault, Captain Cassis again managed to destroy one of the Void Wasps, and Commander Keel brought his ship around to bear its mighty broadside against the target. Unfortuantely with the Augur non-functional, the powerful Battlefleet weapons were ineffective against the creature, many of its shots going wide.

We taught the Xenos a lesson for ignoring us in this battle however. Bringing our ship between the larger construct and the smaller Void Wasps, Captain Hos diligently organised the Fire suppression teams to counteract the fire in our lance bay, and as previously we unleashed another devastating salvo on the enemy. Our port guns focused on one of the Void Wasps, damaging though not destroying it and our Starboard and Lance weapons were brought to bear on the construct. At point blank, as near as we can tell our weapons inflicted devastating damage to the vessel, sending yet more of it spinning into the void before vanishing to whatever Hell it came from. For reasons still unknown to me, during the fight it opened up on one of its own Wasps, though it inflicted minimal damage.

We were not to be ignored any longer however, as the thing’s attention stirred from the Battlefleet to us. The two surviving Wasps strafed our vessel, inflicting minor damage to our Hull but the lance and battery weapons from the larger ship inflicted severe hull integrity damage that could be felt anywhere on the ship. Thousands were killed in a pair of brutal lance strikes that seemed on the verge of tearing this ship apart, and both our crew population and our morale was on the breaking point. Despite bearing the brunt of the attack, several volleys of fire were saved for the Hand of Redemption whose engines lit of like a dying star and seemed to lose much of their capability as a result. Fortunately, we were not without allies in this fight. as Captain Cassis destroyed the Void Wasp we had already damaged, and Commander Keel rallied his men and completed repairs on the Augur in time to take down the last Wasp, as well as deliver a broadside of his own to the creature now facing us. Our return salvo was not as effective this time, as the ship was in near-chaos from the death and destruction visited upon it. Explorator Felicis left his post in the Engineerium to attend to the casualties, and his diligent work at triage no doubt saved countless lives during the fight. Unfortunately the lack of oversight on our turbobatteries left them scattering wide in the void, and most of our lance fire was dissipated by the creature’s shields.

Its escorts were now destroeyd, but we had no way of knowing what sort of damage – if indeed any – the ship we faced had suffered, or even if it could be destroyed. Bracing ourselves for what may well have been the final volley of fire, I was baffled to detect that the creature’s shots were not coming close to hitting us. It was as if some unseen bafflement had been applied over our ship, and though a lance strike got through it was far weaker than I had feared, and thankfully inflicted minimum damage to our ship. The Hand of Redemption seemed unprotected by such an assault, and it was with a heavy heart that I reported its systems were finally crippled under a volley of fire, and would be unable to render further assistance in this fight. The thing must have been damaged after all though, as it made a clear course to try to escape this combat, and flee the system.

Captain Hos was not to allow such a cowardly action however, and ordered a full pursuit. Captain Cassis got off one volley of fire before his slower vessel was outpaced by the creature, but seemed unable to bypass its defenses. We readied ourselves for what we hoped would be the last shot, but tragically as the lance soared towards it I detected on my augur the same bizarre flucuation as I had earlier sensed in the Void Wasps, and it seemed to temporarily leave realspace altogether and fade into the Warp. It had not physically moved however, and shortly thereafter returned to unleash another devastating salvo of fire that once again miraculously failed to find its mark. The cat and mouse game repeated for another round, and finally just as it seemed like our confounding of its targeting had failed, and that we would surely be destroyed in the next strike, our Lance found its mark on the creature and tore it asunder. The baleful light it emitted seemed to recede and finally vanish, and the transport-sized crystals orbitting it shattered upon themselves, reducing themselves to nothing.

After-Action

Casualty reports are still coming in from our vessel, but despite the sterling efforts of Explorator Felicis, I expect more than 20,000 loyal crew members have lost their lives in this fight. The Lumen is still holding together, though we are in dire need of repairs after this action. Commander Keel and his Cruiser are in worse shape than we, but it is estimated that their vessel will be salvageable. Captain Cassis was largely untargetted by these creatures, and should be able to restore his duties. I can only hope that this puts an end to the crisis in the Svard system, as if we can get the mining operation up and running again we will be able to repair both ours and the Battlefleet’s vessel in short order.