War is all about numbers.

Logistics, it was commonly understood, was a significant part of any military campaign. Fail to consider them and you were doomed before you even reached the battlefield: ammunition levels, resupply distances, fuel quotas, attrition levels, purity margins – they all mattered as much as your skill with a bolt or a blade.

The individual on the battlefield was the only non-standard metric – depending on the individual of course. A single Astartes was a force multiplier that cared nothing for odds and calculations. Once delivered they could re-write the equations.

Perhaps that’s why the Ultramarines were such a force, mused LaHain. Under their Primarch the Ultramarines were a perfect blend of mathematical certainty and unpredictable violence. Theoretical. Practical. They even talked in the language of calculations.   

But none of that compared one iota to a void fight.

He strapped himself into his void cradle and began punching buttons. Behind him the great plasma engines of his Fury interceptor whined into life.

Out here in the cold unforgiving dark of the deep void the litany of numbers had total control. A void fighter such as his moved at incredible speeds and projected death even faster. There was none of this brutish ducking and weaving the atmospheric pilots liked to boast about. A single round from his nose cannons could cross five thousand kilometres in a millisecond. In such hyper-accelerated combat you could be dead before your eye even registered the enemy was on your scope.

No, it was all about the numbers and working them to your advantage. Who could calculate the right vectors of attack to attain the first, and often final, shot?

Beneath his feet, under the pilot’s balcony he could see Osgar strapping into the gunnery seat. Behind him, Tetra was already in position at her board. Good, they were nearly ready. The combat stimms pumping through him were already eroding his patience.

He flicked his vox open. “Six, are you aboard yet?”

There was a brief hiss of static and then the raspy voice of their tech-savant answered.

“Negative. Final exterior checks underway. Completion in three point two.”

A pause.

“Checks completed. Validity assured. You may launch commander.”

Finally, grunted LaHain and he eased the Fury off the hangar deck. His eyes flickered up and he glanced out of the armoured screen in front of him. The titanic superstructure of the Ducal’s Circlet dwarfed them and he carefully navigated his ship to the cavernous exit  of the cruiser.

This was the only time that LaHain used his natural eyes, once free of the Ducal Circlet’s berth, his enhanced optics could project images tens of thousands of kilometres away directly into his brain. But even so, he would be unlikely to use them. For the most part of this mission his attention would be fully focused on the auspex readings before him, calculating, always calculating.

Behind him, the engine lights of forty other interceptors lit and followed his Fury out of the hangar.

“By the Throne, what are we doing out here sir?”

The question was borderline seditious, but LaHain let it pass. The same thought was in his mind as well.

The enemy fleet was massed at the edge of his auspex, their size and disposition clearly laid out even at this distance. But the fuzzy green icons could do little to convey the enormity of the threat burning towards him.

He, like the other pilots, could not stop themselves from looking up and gazing at the terrifying splendour arrayed against them.

Six cruisers, each a dark silhouette of promised pain and death, were line abreast with the bright light of Gilead’s sun, Convenire, behind them. His enhanced optics were at maximum magnification, but ident markers were already labelling each of the dread ships. The Eternity of Pain, Slaughterqueen, The Ucephalot.

Each one was a dark legend to itself. Two of these ships, the Liber Colchis and the Annunciation, had fought at the Battle of Calth ten thousand years ago, when the back of the Ultramarines was broken across the knee of the Wordbearers. On the far flank was the Dirge Eternal, reputedly commanded by Iskan the Hated, an Astartes so fallen and so foul that even the mighty Blood Angels were said to tread warily around him.

At that their centre, squatting like a black cancer that blotted out the sun, was the dark unholy shape of a battleship that dwarfed all those around it.

The Brother’s Ruin, flagship of the Dark Apostle Maloquence.

Each one of these vessels was more than a match for what could laughable be called their fleet: a single aging Grand Cruiser, her handful of escorts and his squadron of forty insignificant void fighters streaking ahead towards the enemy.

No matter which way you worked this the numbers could only add up to one equation. But his orders were clear.

LaHain swallowed, easing the dryness of his throat. He could not let the squadron hear anything but confidence in his voice.

“Ignite engines,” he ordered. “Full burn ahead.”

“Helltalons inbound!” screamed Tetra. “Firing!”

Warning red icons flashed into being on the auspex. LaHain was committed to the fight now. He blocked out the images of the terrifying cruisers for now. Let Varonius worry about those behemoths. The capital ships were too far away to be a concern. His mind was completely engaged on dealing with their fighter screen that filled his auspex screen like a whirring swarm.

He held the ship firm. Experience taught him evasive actions were useless. Deadly tracer fire was already flying towards at him at sublight speeds, moving across the void just exposed him to more of the lethal shards.

There was the briefest flash of light to his left as a Fury erupted in a spinning ball of torn metal. By the time his mind had even registered what his eye had seen they were a thousand kilometres past its ruin.

LaHain picked his target from out of the melee of icons. His wing cannons spat a burst of accelerated las beams as he was already planning his shot on the next target.

++Fire++

Now that combat was active verbal communication was useless, too slow. Each of the Fury’s crew was mentally linked to the other by the ship’s mind impulse unit, thoughts being shared as one. Missiles screamed away as Osgar released a volley in perfect synchronisation with his commander.

 ++Bat 7. Twenty V’s. Arcing++

Tetra has spotted a threat. An enemy ship, at the edge of the threat envelope was moving into an attack run. LaHain pulsed an acknowledgement, span the Fury about and fired. A flash of las fire seared into the void, lost amongst the storm of stars.

++Bat eliminated++

Target, sweep, fire. The void battle became a blur of instantaneous reactions.

++Squadron at 63%++

++Bats 4 and 12. Threat.++

++Firing++

++Engines overheat. Speed limited++

++Bat 12 down. Fury 2 assist.++

++Squadron at 42%++

++Speed restored.++

++Firing++

++Bats incoming.++

++Fury 2 down.++

++Firing++

++Squadron at 24%++

They were getting torn apart by the Helltalons. They’d all be dead in the next few seconds.

Where in the damn hell were the Aeldari?