A Lunar-class cruiser or smaller escort ship could be built within ten years even by savages on a feral world. (A temple floated in the background, natives offered minerals in worship, while the governor and workers built ships in an orbital dockyard. The natives mined ore for eleven years, and the ship was complete.)
But an Emperor-class battleship bearing countless honors was not so easily produced. Even the most powerful forge worlds required several centuries before they could send one of these magnificent, mighty battleships into the endless void.
It could be said that dispatching an Emperor-class battleship against these xenos was already giving them far too much face.
The Emperor-class battleship known as the Slayer was equipped with ancient weaponry. Its vessel design had been discovered by Sage Kaos during the M36 era.
At the time, the Slayer had been piled amid a space hulk, and the Adeptus Mechanicus had spent a long time extracting the battleship from it.
Many of its systems had remained operational when the ship was dismantled. Its weapons were said to date back to the Great Crusade ten thousand years ago.
The ship's lance array had become a matter of history and secrecy. Perhaps only Sage Kaos still possessed its design schematics.
Yet no one dared ask him. Everyone knew Sage Kaos was temperamental and unpredictable.
Seated upon the luxurious bridge, Captain Eliosicht von Raedel delivered a declaration of destruction to the T'au Empire fleet.
The broadside storm of macro shells smashed apart the shields and hulls of the Protector-class Battleships, turning them into metal fragments drifting through the void.
"Commander! Our forces cannot hold out much longer! Please withdraw at once!"
Shadowsun watched as the captain of a Protector-class Battleship opened a communications channel, only for his image to vanish amid a burst