Warplanes Deploy

"All hands, battle stations! Take your positions!" Ship Captain Lotara's voice rang through every communications circuit aboard the Conqueror, clear, cold, and utterly decisive.

The order spread like an electric current through the steel Behemoth, more than twenty kilometres long.

From the magnificent Bridge to the roaring Engine Room deep within, from weapons decks covered in glowing control arrays to crowded pilot ready rooms, millions of souls instantly snapped to attention.

Officers barked orders, Tech-Priests chanted in binary, Power Armour servos hummed to life, and Macro-cannon shells slammed into place with heavy metallic clangs...

Countless sounds converged into a solemn, savage prelude to war.

Like precisely machined gears wound tight, everyone held their breath at their stations, eyes fixed on data screens or the Communications Channel as they awaited their Ship Captain's next command.

At that moment, their fate was bound to this ship and the decisions of the woman standing at the summit of its Bridge.

Ship Captain Lotara stood in the centre of the Bridge, her gaze blazing as she watched the panoramic viewport and the tactical Holographic Projection surrounding her.

Enemy ship icons glimmered like malevolent fireflies around the Emperor-class Battleship struggling to hold out.

Rather than adopt a conventional, cautious approach, she chose the method that best embodied the War Hounds' style—and would most thoroughly disrupt the enemy's rhythm.

"All hands, attention! Increase engine output to maximum combat speed! Target the core of the enemy Fleet! Drive straight into them!" Her orders left no room for doubt.

The Conqueror's immense hull shuddered violently, its main stern thrusters spewing torrents of plasma as brilliant as a supernova.

Abandoning every elaborate flanking manoeuvre, the Conqueror became a gigantic warhammer bearing the will to destroy. With astonishing acceleration that belied its immense size, it charged straight into the centre