"Entire Fleet, advance! Target the enemy ship!"
"Battle Barges, close to point-blank range and clear a path for the Drop Pods!"
"Boarding parties, stand ready!"
Saladin calmly issued one order after another.
The Flagship beneath his feet led the charge, driving the Fleet forward like a colossal battering ram. Ignoring the scattered fire around it, it bore straight down on the Rangdan capital ship, which was still being harried by attack craft, its shields flickering unstably under the sustained assault.
Several squat, heavily armoured Battle Barges of the Second Legion rapidly closed in.
Like mastiffs, they guarded the Flagship's flanks, accelerating ahead to be the first to reach dangerously close range.
Then the dense broadside Macro-cannon arrays of the Battle Barges spat destructive tongues of flame at point-blank range. Heavy armour-piercing shells hammered the same section of the Rangdan behemoth's already wavering, ghostly green shields.
The flashes of the explosions merged, finally tearing a breach in that Endurance energy membrane that lasted several seconds!
"Now! Launch the Drop Pods!"
"For Saladin! For the Emperor!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Dozens of squat Drop Pods clad in thick ablative armour shot from the bellies of the Battle Barges like deadly spores. Trailing scorching wakes, they exploited the brief opening in the shields and slammed into the Rangdan behemoth's armoured hull at near-suicidal speeds!
Even the vacuum could not wholly silence those violent impacts; they reverberated dully through the ship's structure into its interior.
Boom! Crack!
The first Drop Pod's melta charges tore through the buckled xenos alloy, and its hatch blasted outward under immense hydraulic force.
Amid thick smoke and sparks, towering figures in black and gold leapt out first.
"For the Emperor! For Saladin! Purge the xenos!"
The man roaring was Muras, Company Captain of the Third Chapter's Eighth Company.