If one were to ask who was most excited upon learning that the Orks’ home base was being raided, it would undoubtedly be the Pilgrims who were still locked in a death match with the greenskin fleet in space.
When the Seeker, shields blazing, rammed its way into the outer orbit, aggressively barging into their hopeless struggle, the massive size of the space station seemed to have a built-in taunt effect on the Orks.
It drew the vast majority of the enemy’s fire to itself, allowing many Imperial vessels a brief moment to catch their breath.
The Pilgrims, having just caught their breath, were astonished to find that this seemingly clumsy, massive fortress actually possessed greater maneuverability than many medium cruisers.
The Seeker danced nimbly through the hail of gunfire, constantly calculating and adjusting its orientation to minimize damage as it crossed the line of fire.
It pressed closer and closer to the Battle Moon, momentarily establishing a dominant, suppressive stance.
Was there anything more exhilarating than this?
Yes, there was.
The Pilgrims’ soaring spirits reached a peak when the Seeker space station finally arrived directly above the Battle Moon despite the heavy bombardment.
They watched as Ork fire poured down like a waterfall onto the Seeker’s battle-scarred hull, exploding in a colorful and magnificent display of space pyrotechnics.
Yet, the Seeker remained unmoved.
Only giant, violently beautiful constructs were methodically deployed from its midsection hangars and drop-shipped to the moon’s surface.
God-Machines!
Though it was strange that these God-Machines bore absolutely no Imperial insignia, they were, in the end, God-Machines on their side.
The arrival of the Titan units completely ignited the fighting spirit of the remaining human fleet.
Singing hymns of praise to the Emperor, they charged with even greater, fearless courage toward the Ork vessels, which had fallen into brief disarray due to their home base being raided.
With tears in their eyes, the fanatical, almost manic faith of so many humans even caused the Orks’ powerful Waaagh! field to waver significantly.
Meanwhile, there was a group of people even more manic than them.
The Martyrs Legion fleet, situated at the edge of the battlefield, had now fully set sail.
Disregarding hull stress, they forced their engines to the absolute limit to reach maximum speed in the shortest time possible, impatiently sweeping past Faya and rushing toward the outer orbit battlefield where the Second Moon was located. This story is hosted at g.com.
What was both surprising and yet somehow logical was that the vessel leading the Martyrs Legion fleet was none other than that highly conspicuous Adeptus Mechanicus research vessel.
This mobile laboratory, completely unsuited for war, was currently speeding faster than even the specialized high-speed Strike Cruisers used by Space Marines.
One could almost hear the crackling sound of its overloaded engines even in the vacuum of space.
Its machine spirit was roaring so fiercely that it made one worry if the ship would simply explode mid-transit from how hard they were pushing it.
“Uh… are they really in that much of a hurry?” The speed at which these ships’ signals were moving completely shocked Grey Wind.
Although Grey Wind had learned from Russell that the Adeptus Mechanicus’s veneration of technology and knowledge had formed a full-fledged religion, she clearly did not quite understand what her recent actions meant to these knowledge-worshipping cogboys.
The Cybrex Warforms were manufactured from the legacy of precursor machines in the cosmos.
Whether in their design philosophy, core structural engineering, or the various weapons mounted upon them, they were completely different from Imperial patterns.
While these technologies might share the same fundamental laws of physics, they were on entirely incomparable levels in terms of application.
To the cogboys, these novel and stable technologies were nothing short of rare treasures—no, they *were* rare treasures.
The Tech-Priests of the Martyrs Legion were currently like a group of antique or art enthusiasts watching a reckless novice take a priceless, ancient Terran court sword to engage in a brutal bayonet fight.
Every spark-flying clash tore at their very souls.
And that reckless novice was Grey Wind.
“This is… This is… How utterly magnificent!” The Tech-Sage of Muspel paced back and forth, hands tightly clenched before the cogitator arrays of the *Unfathomable Enigma*.
He was so deeply anguished, yet so incredibly thrilled, that he almost ground his molars to dust—if he still had molars, that is.
Upon noticing that the recovering greenskin fleet was preparing to return to defend the Battle Moon, the Tech-Sage urgently ordered all ships to ignore their safety thresholds and fire at maximum capacity.
Even if they had to suffer devastating damage, they had to prevent the Orks from returning and launching an orbital bombardment on the moon’s surface.
“Fire at full power! Open up all long-range weapons! Do not spare ammunition, kill them all! Filthy Orks… filthy Orks! Dirty, savage beasts… We absolutely must not let these beasts destroy such beautiful creations…”
With the Martyrs Legion fleet entering the fray, the shifting tide of battle finally allowed the Pilgrim Fleet and the Seeker, who had been locked in a bitter struggle in the airspace of the Second Moon, a moment of respite.
While accelerating repairs to her shield systems, Grey Wind gathered the scattered ships of the Pilgrim Fleet to regroup around her.
She requested that severely damaged vessels dock at the fleet anchorage at the bottom of the space station as soon as possible for emergency repairs, where Faya’s Tech-Priests and technicians stood ready to assist.
As the signal went out, the fleet heading toward the Seeker left a thick, sprawling wake that stretched for dozens of kilometers.
Even after such a brutal war of attrition, the scale of the Pilgrim Fleet remained vastly superior to that of the Martyrs Legion.
The metal wreckage floating in the airspace of the Second Moon had become so dense that the circular shadow cast onto Faya’s planetary surface was no longer uniform.
Most of these sunken ships belonged to humans, though many were Orkish.
The resilient Orks did not seem fragile even when exposed to the vacuum of space.
No one knew how many small Ork vessels were still hiding within this vast belt of space debris, or when they might suddenly cobble together a warship from the junk to launch another reckless, screaming Waaagh! directly at them.
Fighting the Orks was a matter of such utter despair.
“Have the humans of this universe always been fighting such freaky creatures?”
In the command room, Grey Wind—who had grown slightly shorter once again—released her grip and flopped onto her back on the console, her short legs kicking listlessly.
“There’s just no hope at all… those guys are cheating…”
On the whole, Grey Wind held a pessimistic outlook on this war.
With the Seeker’s successful flanking raid and the entry of the Martyrs Legion fleet, the battlefront was quickly compressed to the vicinity of the Battle Moon.
Although this hunk of iron was called a moon, it was far from just a simple celestial body.
Aside from being an industrial manufactorum capable of endlessly churning out Ork junk ships, the Battle Moon was itself a colossal, celestial-class weapon.
Yet, since its appearance, this weapon had hovered silently above the Second Moon without budging.
Aside from the continuous launch of Ork warships from its surface to join the fray, it had provided absolutely no fire support whatsoever, acting like a mere ornament.
This left Grey Wind wondering: what on earth was actually happening on that Battle Moon?