After weighing the pros and cons in an instant, Grey Wind pivoted her gun turrets, concentrating the vast majority of her firepower to strike the Ork raiders rapidly closing in on the space station.
The cost of doing so was that the Seeker was unable to counter the salvos from the distant enemy warships.
Torrential streams of energy slammed brutally against the void shield covering the space station’s surface, sending wave after wave of ripples across its surface.
The benefit, however, was that not a single Ork raider from the first wave attempting a boarding action survived the concentrated fire of the Seeker.
By weathering a fierce barrage of naval gunfire at the cost of her void shields, Grey Wind eliminated the possibility of being boarded.
She had the confidence to do this because the Seeker possessed more than one layer of shields.
In addition to the large void shield covering the entire space station, every ship module installed on the Seeker’s frame had its own independent, smaller void shield.
Even if the primary shield eventually overloaded and failed under the onslaught, the space station still had a second layer of defense to withstand the fire.
“The Grand Marshal’s order is to board the Battle Moon before the swarm arrives…”
Grey Wind took a deep breath, her silvery-white hair falling past her cheeks onto the table.
“I need to hurry.”
Braving the intense bombardment, the Seeker continued at full speed through the brutal outer orbit battlefield.
The Imperium’s pilgrims were still trading their lives in death-defying boarding actions amidst the boundless green tide, risking everything in open space against the Orks while wearing virtually non-existent, primitive protection.
Boarding actions, in the general sense, originated on humanity’s homeworld, Holy Terra.
In an era more ancient than antiquity—the Age of Sail—pirates would use ropes and grappling hooks to latch onto passing merchant ships.
They would then crawl along the ropes or swing over from the masts, leaping directly onto the enemy deck with firearms and cutlasses to carry out armed plundering.
This method of assault was known as boarding.
During the highly technologically advanced Golden Age of Technology, when humanity charted the stars and colonized the galaxy, this barbaric tactic of boarding was shelved.
But after surviving the Cybernetic Revolt and the outbreak of the Men of Iron crisis, human technology and civilization suffered a massive regression.
No longer trusting any form of artificial intelligence, humanity actually picked up this ancient boarding tactic once again.
The only difference was that the sea had become the boundless starry void, the wooden ships had become starships, and the cutlass-wielding pirates had become two-hearted, three-lunged Adeptus Astartes.
But when all is said and done, boarding an enemy ship for face-to-face melee combat remained exceptionally dangerous even for Space Marines armored like walking tin cans, let alone ordinary soldiers without power armor.
Those with good luck might wipe out all the Orks on a ship before being annihilated themselves.
The ship’s Waaagh!
field would then dissipate, turning it into space debris, allowing the surviving human soldiers to find their final, honorable resting place in the void.
Those with bad luck would encounter a fully armed Ork Boss on the ship.
Facing overwhelming firepower, they would throw away the lives of their entire squad pointlessly, dying in humiliation without contributing anything to the God-Emperor.
In short, regardless of luck, for an ordinary human soldier, boarding was synonymous with death.
Grey Wind could not quite comprehend this behavior.
It violated the cardinal rule of intelligent life: survival as the absolute priority.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the well-equipped Martyrs Fleet lay anchored in force in the orbit of Faya, coldly watching the pilgrims risk their lives without the slightest intention of rendering assistance.
Only when a few lucky Ork gunboats managed to breach the defensive net and attempt to land on Faya would they open fire to destroy them.
Other than that, they did nothing.
Alongside a vast number of naval attack craft, numerous strike cruisers of various designs were anchored near the broadside of the battleship Fire of Penance.
These were specialized combat vessels for the Space Marines, belonging to different Chapters; in addition to the Imperial Aquila and skulls, their hulls bore their respective Chapter banners.
For the Space Marines standing ready aboard these vessels, idling outside the fray and ignoring the Imperial soldiers fighting tooth and nail against the Orks with their lives…
what a profound disgrace.
But they had a reason they had to do so.
Aboard the Fire of Penance, Milach, the temporary commander of the Martyrs Legion, turned away from the psychic divination array.
Seated sparsely around the circular table in the center of the room were several figures: a red-robed Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a fully armored Sister-Superior of the Sisters of Silence, a graying Imperial Navy Admiral, and an Ecclesiarchy Bishop adorned in gold, silver, and precious gems…
…and the ship’s chief Navigator: Alexei.
Alexei was a very beautiful woman.
Her powerful psychic abilities and vast experience made her deep eyes as intoxicating as still lake waters, even though those eyes were blind—as all Navigators were.
As a natural psyker, Alexei had been plagued by Warp nightmares during her childhood.
However, blessed by the light of the Emperor, her devout faith in the Master of Mankind allowed her to maintain her sanity amidst the whispers of the Warp, keeping her from falling to corruption.
The light of the Golden Throne had blinded her eyes, yet it also granted her psychic sight the ability to pierce the turbulent tides of the Warp, catching faint, blurry glimpses of the future.
This psychic ability to peer into the future through dreams was proclaimed by the Ecclesiarchy as a gift from the Emperor.
Having foreseen alien invasions and Chaos incursions multiple times through her prophetic dreams, thereby securing many precious opportunities for the Imperium, Alexei had been hailed as the “Prophet of Ersbaines” and a “Living Saint.”
About thirty years ago, the prophetess once again foresaw the rise of the Greenskins in a remote star system within her dreams.
These filthy Orks had somehow acquired a miraculous artifact.
Imbued with immense life force, this artifact transformed dead worlds and radioactive wastes—places where life could never take root—into fertile ground for Ork propagation.
Their rise was so rapid that by the time the Ersbaines Sector organized a crusade fleet to purge the Greenskins, the Orks were already munching on limbs, singing songs, and building Gargants on green worlds, preparing to launch a massive Waaagh!.
Although the crusade fleet, warned by the Prophetess Alexei, managed to enact Exterminatus on several planets thoroughly infested with Ork spores before the green tide could take to the stars, it was already too late.
They had destroyed nothing more than a few insignificant fringe worlds of the nascent Greenskin empire.
In more neglected, barren systems, deeper within the green-tainted void, a Battle Moon had already been assembled.
It was precisely at this moment that the prophetess had her second prophetic dream.
In the dream, she heard the voice of the Master of Mankind.
The God-Emperor required her to travel to the eastern fringes of the Ultima Segmentum, a barren territory located within the Halo Zone.
There, she would obtain something of vital importance to the future destiny of the Imperium.