"All ships, prepare to repel boarders. Prospector Fleet, fall back."
Cawl's voice rang out over the communications channel once more.
The command throne he occupied was wrapped in streams of data, while hundreds of scarlet markers poured from the enemy ships' bellies across the holographic star map.
They were boarding torpedoes loaded with Chaos Space Marines and all manner of blasphemous creations, each warhead fitted with a screaming living ram.
The Imperial fleet immediately shifted formation, and the warships still pouring out firepower promptly sped away in the opposite direction.
The Dawn naturally chose to withdraw with them.
Yet unexpectedly, a considerable number of the torpedoes locked onto that otherwise unremarkable vessel.
The boarding torpedoes drilling out from the bellies of the Chaos battleships ignored the Inquisition warships close at hand. The screaming heads embedded in their living rams abruptly turned as one and charged toward the Dawn as if summoned.
"Strike Group One, maintain radio silence. Activate Strike Group Two for interception."
Escort fighters launched from the hangars cut into the torpedo swarm in suicidal formations, while the plasma blasts of point-defense guns bloomed like burning sparks in the void.
The ignited Chaos craft revealed their twisted internal structures amid the explosions.
One unintercepted torpedo struck the ship's flank. Strange smoke rose where its corrosive slime met the Adamantium armor, burning countless holes through it.
As the holographic star map's red warning lights splashed across Cawl's metal face, the Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus fed entirely new encrypted orders into the fleet array, then integrated the data from the shattered torpedoes' contents.
He studied the results and let out a breath of relief.
Cawl had always guarded against Chaos's all-pervasive covetousness, but for a mere few dozen Chaos Space Marines and some cultists to think they could threaten the