The order went out, and the main force of the Necron fleet reacted immediately.
Thousands of warships turned at once, and hundreds upon hundreds of Gauss Cannon batteries began charging.
But Ghazghk was no fool.
"Ladz! Duck! Activate the shields!"
Layer upon layer of multicolored energy shields suddenly lit up across the surfaces of the hundred and twenty fortress platforms.
The shields were a hodgepodge, too. There were Necron Quantum Shields, T'au Deflector Shields, Imperial Void Shields, and even Ork "I reckon it'll hold" force fields.
Under normal physical laws, stacking these shields together should have caused interference, reducing their defensive efficiency.
But under the Gretchin's logic of "Ork know-wotz," the shields not only failed to weaken one another, but instead produced some bizarre "stacking effect."
In the Necrons' first volley, hundreds of Gauss Beams struck the fortresses, only to be stopped cold by those multicolored shields!
"They held! They held!" the Gretchin squealed excitedly. "Long live Boss Ghazghk!"
"Hehehe!" Ghazghk waved his wrench triumphantly. "Told ya it'd work! Now, fire back! Fill those big ships full of holes!"
The fortress platforms opened fire again. This time, instead of shooting wildly, they began concentrating their fire on specific targets under Ghazghk's command.
Ten fortresses locked onto a single Scythe-class Cruiser simultaneously, pouring dozens of streams of mixed firepower onto it. No matter how strong the Necron shields were, they could not withstand concentrated fire on that scale. The shields overloaded and collapsed, and then the hull was torn apart.
"Target thirty-seven destroyed!"
"Target thirty-eight's shields overloaded!"
"Target thirty-nine's engines damaged! It's going down!"
The orbital battlefield descended into utter chaos.
In the Throne Room aboard the Song of Oblivion, Szarekh quietly watched the live battlefield feed, his face expressionless.
"Foolish." That was all he said.
The Voice of the Triarch